Here we go again....!

The Melbourne art festival theme this year was "out of the woods"

This is the first year where I have gone through a full circle of a photographic season consisting of a full  photography club  program followed by a pause over the summer months.

This is the standard calendar for the club, but before I had gone through it, I had not understood the reasoning behind it. I now see that it is to allow the organization of trips to be be undertaken while the days are long.

Unfortunately due to my work, it is rare that I can take advantage of these opportunities. Therefore during these months there is a tendency to lose touch with the majority of the club membership.

The month of September is where it all kicks off again, starting with an exhibition of members work as part of the Melbourne arts festival. This is also a great opportunity to compare and contrast your work over the summer with some of the other members.

The Club presentation. None of my photos are in this picture(they are just too good!!)

As always, I arrive with high hopes, but this lasts up to my first viewing of other work.  There are some great photos this year with more to come. I therefore get a sinking feeling when I do a comparison between my efforts and the others.

However I thought the same last last year and was proved to be wrong (some of the time anyway), so it is probably just natural pessimism. However time will tell, whether it also includes any semblence of realism.

I learned from last year was to never 2nd guess photographic judges. All you can do is your best and hope on the day of competition  that your vision matches a particular judges mindset.

Exhibitions

One thing I am always in a quandary about, is whether I should show my competition photos in these sort of shows or whether I should I keep my powder dry, so to speak.

In reality, I probably think too much about these sort of things, but part of me feels I should not forewarn the competition (as I like to call my fellow members). Part of me also feels that I should give myself a good slapping and just get on with it. Unfortunately these sort of ideas often struggle up from my primeval sub-conscience, where in reality they should be well and truly sat on.

In the end, I did not present what I considered my best photos and this back fired. For the 1st time, the club decided to have a public vote on the print images in the exhibition. This was a last minute decision, but I think that if I had known before hand I would of chosen and presented different images. In the end karma gave me a good kicking.

The Public Vote

Watching what the public like can be very instructive.

I have noticed in the past that the photos that non-photographers like, are not necessarily what do well in competitions and vice versa.

Generally the public like photographs with bright colour's, while black and white photos are considered more kindly by judges. Also the subject can be as important as the photo technique. Wildlife is always a winner and it is was of no surprise that two pictures of Puffins (by Simon Pearce and John Wesson) were doing well.

Another photo that was doing well on the day was a picture of a train. This had fared badly ( harshly in my opinion) during competition, so it just goes to show the contrast between public and judges opinions (and maybe judges don't it always get it right).

One of the things I noticed about my work when reviewing this summers photos was that I had taken an lot of black and white photos this year( partly due to my experimentation with infra read). I was tempted for a while to present all black and white photos in the exhibition, but I chickened out. In the end it was however the right decision, but for the wrong reasons.

Another thing I noticed was that club members tend to show larger prints in these occasions than the competition rules allow. This again means the photos have more impact in these sort of public exhibitions.

Due to its success I am sure that the public vote will become a integral part of exhibitions from now on, so next time I will take this into account.

Round the festival

Because the exhibition was part of a larger arts festival, it also gave me a chance to look at some other 'professional' photographers. While there were some great work out there, there were also some which I could not understand at any level.

One in particular was photos of textures such as brick walls and other such things. I like to think I have a broad view of photography, but I struggle to see such things attractions or why anyone would buy them.

Obviously they make money from such images, so it must be me. Again however it shows that photography as with any art, quality comes down as much to personal opinion as any other metric

The organizers also asked if the club would take photos of the festival (This is a bit like asking a crack addict, if they would mind getting free cocaine). I duly took the opportunity to try my hand at event photography, yet again. My initial review of results were disappointing, but now I processed them, I am happy with some of them.

I have said before that it is not an area of photography I ever feel comfortable doing, but maybe it is an area I should do more often. However it will be interesting to see what other members get.

We're forever blowing bubbles!

As in life, so in a game of hazard, skill will make something of the worst of throws

A year goes so fast! Again the nights are drawing in and we are swinging towards the days when photographers start thinking about exhibitions and competitions.

This is the first full year I have been a member of a photographic society and I am still getting used to the rhythm of months of little contact with fellow photographers, followed by a great orgy of meeting and comparisons of your years work.

Today is the start of that cycle, with the society taking part in the Melbourne Art festival and opening its doors to the huddled masses and showing the members work to all who enter.

As usual, the day came quicker than I was expecting and I ended up panicking about what of the years produce I would contribute. The choosing of those to be displayed on the projector was relatively painless since they could hide among the many others. However what to print proved more difficult.

Before I joined the society I had never thought about producing photographic prints, relying on electronic media and websites to disseminate my work. However I now realise that prints are probably the ultimate expression of the photographers craft. Not only is there a cost element, meaning that you are more careful of which are chosen, but they are displayed next to other photographers allowing direct comparison in a way electronic images cannot. They are also your direct advertising of your skill and if it is your want, your product and livelihood.

Prints also meant I had to learn the art of photo mounting. In the past I have left this to the chair of the society (with any profits going to the society ), but I felt I wanted more control over the process so I had a go myself. This may sound easy, but cutting card with the correct bevel turned out to be a hit and miss affair, even with a bevel cutter. Also there is a lot I need to learn in this process such as how the colour of card affects the viewing of the print, the optimum sizes for the mount, and the use of borders.

There is also the issue that some photos are better suited to DPI than print. Also the printing itself can change the image. I sent 5 images of to be printed (I use an external company to do the printing, because for the amount I do it is generally more cost effective) and while 4 came back OK, the 5th had a green tinge which I had not seen on the original image. The question is then, was it the image or the printing process that caused that? It is easy to blame yourself, but with any industrial process there can always be mistakes. The other possibility is that images just need to be manipulated differently for the best results in print. hopefully as I print more, I will learn these lessons.

Anyway I chose my photos, mounted them the best I could and went to help set up the exhibition. This is the first time this season that we got to compare each other work. Of course the hope is that your years work will stack up well against others. As I watched the other images being put up my usual despondency hit me as I realised that I had not moved forward as much as I had hoped.

Of course it is easy to be hypercritical of your own work compared to others, and unless you are a complete egotist, you can always see the faults that others cannot. Also of course you have to be realistic that some of the photographers have access to locations and equipment that you can only dream about. For example, one of the photographers I greatly admire in the club, Simon Pearce, had photos taken of Elephants and Zebras in Africa. In comparison photos of a Robin, however well done, are always going to suffer in comparison.

Anyway the purpose of this blog is to show that photography is not only about equipment and location, but skill and passion. Even saying that,  I have to admit a twinge of jealousy and a bit of 'if only' when I see those photos.

Much more than access to  equipment and locations, I wish I had the time to practice my art. Recently the weather has been glorious for photography, especially in the morning with low mists in the valleys around here. Also the yearly deer rut is building up in Bradgate park offering great opportunities for those willing to get up early and take advantage of the opportunities of an accessible golden hour.

So how many photos have I taken in these optimum conditions? Exactly none. While work and family commitments form part of the blame, I must admit getting up at 5 in the morning, to travel and stand around in the cold at a deer park for 3 or 4 hours, in the hope of getting a decent image, loses its appeal when wrapped up in a duvet.

I do wish however that I could spend more time getting that optimum photo, rather than snatching images when and if the opportunities allow.

Anyway if you are going to Melbourne art festival. Please pop round and have a look. Also talk to the members, they are very welcoming and passionate about their work(even the Nikon users :) )

And if you see a sad group of images in the corner, do not judge them too harshly. While they are not the best that can be achieved, they are all, like all the others, done with passion and the best of intentions.

The 4 that made it to print...

And the one that didn't due to printing issues

Is it me, or was it the printing? The print was far more yellow than this one