Take a look at the work of Martin Munkacsi - go to http://www.all-art.org/20ct_photo/Munkacsi1.htm for this and the work of other photographers.
Simply amazing that such work could be carried out in the early 20th century, capturing life with art in a manner which few could achieve today, with the most rudimentary of equipment. Just proves that equipment doesn't make the photograph, in fact with so many of these images, its the very softness of the images, sometimes blurred, which gives them their atmosphere - I feel that so many of todays' digital images are just too good, too sharp and sterile. At the Gloucestershire gallery 'wildlife in art', they have a mural sized painting of a tiger, precise in an amazing level of detail, equal or better than any digital camera could achieve today. Its stunning, and I guess its art by virtue of it being painted and its sheer size. But is it artistic? Same goes for photography.
Its a bit like my image recently shown in Warwickshire life (http://warwickshire.greatbritishlife.co.uk/article/picture-this--james-crockford-photography-competition--shortlist-40502/), to me the attraction of my image is that it looks like a painting rather than a photograph.... biased of course!
Monday 7 May 2012
Monday 23 April 2012
Warwckshire Scouts and Beavers St Georges Day parade
The day after the Shakespeare birthday parade, we had the annual St Georges day Scout parade in nearby Warwick. St George is the patron saint of the scouting movement and hence the enphasis on celebrating this each year. This also coincides with the birthday of our local village scout and beaver troop. With my son in the parade, it was a good opportunity to go along to shoot the occasion.
Coming the day after the Shakespeare parade, it was a good opportunity to learn the lessons and modify my technique accordingly. The close up shots clearly worked the best, although it would be better not to rely on a telephoto lens (70-200 on a DX SLR). It was also clear that the .jpg files from my Stratford shots were often overexposed, even when shot on manual, and that they were quite intolerant of highlight overexposure. So for the Warwick event, I shot in RAW, aimed to underexpose and use a combination of the telephoto and an 18-70 zoom.
This event only ran over a couple of hours and so I didn't get the chance to get so many shots. I still took over 200 though....!
Here comes the band
Practising the Beaver salute.
Be prepared for the speech.
The music starts.
And we're off...
Past the dignitaries
To end with the pride of having taken part.
...and the relaxing after.
Coming the day after the Shakespeare parade, it was a good opportunity to learn the lessons and modify my technique accordingly. The close up shots clearly worked the best, although it would be better not to rely on a telephoto lens (70-200 on a DX SLR). It was also clear that the .jpg files from my Stratford shots were often overexposed, even when shot on manual, and that they were quite intolerant of highlight overexposure. So for the Warwick event, I shot in RAW, aimed to underexpose and use a combination of the telephoto and an 18-70 zoom.
This event only ran over a couple of hours and so I didn't get the chance to get so many shots. I still took over 200 though....!
Shakespeare birthday celebrations 2012 #2
Continuing from the previous post...
But in the end, the English weather took over and everyone went for cover....
...and the nobles went home.
All that was left was for the barriers to come down, and the cars to reassert their control....
Only the banner indicates what came before.... until next year.
Shakespeare's birthday celebrations 2012
In support of my OCA course, I negotiated a day off from family to do some street shooting in nearby Stratford, to coincide with the birthday celebrations of Mr William Shakespeare.
The images try to tell the story from the start of the day, through the celebrations and onto the big clearup at the end. The weather was great, (nearly) everyone was in a fun mood and it turned out to be a good day.
So here goes....
....there's a party being planned.
Falstaff is plotting something.
The streets are being prepared.
The boys from the Shakespeare's school (King Edward VI) are gathering with flowers to join the parade.
The crowds are gathering in expectation.
And everyone was getting a view....
But some were not amused!
Now for the party
Happy Birthday Will.
We even had the Chinese join in...
But I didn't know wheelchairs wer around in the 15th Century....
The queen was looking happier...
... as was the Lord and his Lady.
... appropriate for the students of King Edward VI'th.
The afternoon was taken with a variety of relaxing activities, including recitement of some of the Sonnets from on board the chain ferry across the Avon. It all seemed entirely appropriate for the occasion.....
More to follow in next blog (Google upload times getting excessive)
The images try to tell the story from the start of the day, through the celebrations and onto the big clearup at the end. The weather was great, (nearly) everyone was in a fun mood and it turned out to be a good day.
So here goes....
The streets are being prepared.
We even had the Chinese join in...
More to follow in next blog (Google upload times getting excessive)
Warwickshire life shortlist!
Just a quick blog to say I've been shortlisted for a competition in Warwickshire life magazine. Still waiting on who the winner is.... wait and see!
Take a look...
http://warwickshire.greatbritishlife.co.uk/article/picture-this--james-crockford-photography-competition--shortlist-40502/
Take a look...
http://warwickshire.greatbritishlife.co.uk/article/picture-this--james-crockford-photography-competition--shortlist-40502/
Tuesday 17 April 2012
Checking out the work of others
Whilst I haven't referenced the work of others a great deal in my blogs, I do take a great interest in the work of other photographers whom I admire. These generally tend to have a travel photography bias, something I also enjoy.
Here's two which I have a particular interest in.
Steve McCurry is a long time photographer, most famous for some of his images taken in Afghanistan and elsewhere. I attended one of his exhibitions in Birmingham and was struck by the familiarity of the images shown - they're like household names, a testament to the wide use his images have been used for over the years. I also love the combination of colour and composition which he manages to exhibit, in equal measure, in his images. Lastly, I enjoy reading the his blog, and the various quotes which he picks out - its therapy during a busy day in the office to realise there is another world out there.
http://stevemccurry.com/blog
Timothy Allen is featured in this months' Professional Photographer', again a travel photographer and one who is generous in sharing tips and ideas.
http://humanplanet.com/timothyallen/
Hope you enjoy them as much as I do.
Here's two which I have a particular interest in.
Steve McCurry is a long time photographer, most famous for some of his images taken in Afghanistan and elsewhere. I attended one of his exhibitions in Birmingham and was struck by the familiarity of the images shown - they're like household names, a testament to the wide use his images have been used for over the years. I also love the combination of colour and composition which he manages to exhibit, in equal measure, in his images. Lastly, I enjoy reading the his blog, and the various quotes which he picks out - its therapy during a busy day in the office to realise there is another world out there.
http://stevemccurry.com/blog
Timothy Allen is featured in this months' Professional Photographer', again a travel photographer and one who is generous in sharing tips and ideas.
http://humanplanet.com/timothyallen/
Hope you enjoy them as much as I do.
Fossil Hunting - Assignment 5 draft
This isn't mean't to be my final assignment, more a dry run, taking advantage of our recent holiday to Lyme Regis and the 'jurassic coast', home of a multitude of fossils.
The idea of the post is to tell the story of fossil hunting, the anticipation leading through to the search and hopeful sucess, before reviewing the end result. As always, I was shooting with the family in tow, so the opportunity to concentrate on the artistic merits of the photography was limited. As I say though, this is something of a dry run.
All along the route from the campsite, clues about the sea were in evidence. Here there is the directionality from left to right (towards the sea), indicated by the yellow lines.
But more specifically, some of the housenames give further clues as to what we might find on the beach....
And so to the beach. The fossils are embedded in the cliffs and get revealed at high tide when the waves erode the cliffs. The scale of the cliffs are significant (some of the highest along the south coast) and completely dwarf the hunters. And yes, practically all these people are on the hunt for fossils.... I particularly like the woman in white walking across the foot of the image, somewhat akin to the mane in Cartier-Bresson's image of a man walking through the scene (http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=cartier+bresson&view=detail&id=6059C76A38DF9D87ACD8C5E3746560753E208BDB&first=31&FORM=IDFRIR)
Of course there are a lot of stones to choose from....
... when this is all we expect to find. This is an amonite, probably more than 80 million years old is less than one inch across and hard to spot!
One thing I didn't realise is that fossil hunting is not without risk. The base of the cliffs are a mixture of mud and shale which is unstable. Despite the warnings, these people were hunting close to the base of the cliffs which can, and do, collapse without warning. The appeal is that they might find fresh fossils undisturbed, but in practice these fossils are often not fully formed, still being semi-formed impressions in the mud.
So after a long day on the beach, we made our way back to the campsite to study what we'd found, and start the long process of preparing the specimens to reveal their full beauty....
....if only they were all this obvious on the beach!
The idea of the post is to tell the story of fossil hunting, the anticipation leading through to the search and hopeful sucess, before reviewing the end result. As always, I was shooting with the family in tow, so the opportunity to concentrate on the artistic merits of the photography was limited. As I say though, this is something of a dry run.
All along the route from the campsite, clues about the sea were in evidence. Here there is the directionality from left to right (towards the sea), indicated by the yellow lines.
And so to the beach. The fossils are embedded in the cliffs and get revealed at high tide when the waves erode the cliffs. The scale of the cliffs are significant (some of the highest along the south coast) and completely dwarf the hunters. And yes, practically all these people are on the hunt for fossils.... I particularly like the woman in white walking across the foot of the image, somewhat akin to the mane in Cartier-Bresson's image of a man walking through the scene (http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=cartier+bresson&view=detail&id=6059C76A38DF9D87ACD8C5E3746560753E208BDB&first=31&FORM=IDFRIR)
One thing I didn't realise is that fossil hunting is not without risk. The base of the cliffs are a mixture of mud and shale which is unstable. Despite the warnings, these people were hunting close to the base of the cliffs which can, and do, collapse without warning. The appeal is that they might find fresh fossils undisturbed, but in practice these fossils are often not fully formed, still being semi-formed impressions in the mud.
So after a long day on the beach, we made our way back to the campsite to study what we'd found, and start the long process of preparing the specimens to reveal their full beauty....
....if only they were all this obvious on the beach!
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