Saturday, July 31

Tuesday, July 27

Photography Class Homework Feedback: Week Two - Walthamstow, Week Three - Transport

The criticism received for the last two weeks concerning my homework projects for photography class have been quite negative.

I will take each piece in turn and summarize the criticism for each below the submitted photo:

Walthamstow-

DSC02334.jpg.scaled1000.jpg

This is the Walthamstow homework, a photo take from Lloyd Park, a Walthamstow landmark, of a row of houses that I feel are distinct in that they are of their era, they are quite handsome and they are identifiably English and to someone in the know they look like Walthamstow houses.

The criticism levied at this photo was that it looked like I had taken a shot and then settled for the first one I had, I'm not really sure how a photo can give that impression but apparently this one does. The criticism came with the advice that I should move around a bit more and try and find the best angles to capture the photos I want. The irony is that I climbed a small wall and balanced on it to find this shot, then moved around the garden to take several others of the same subject, the row houses.

Transport -

4805486091_6a104e13c2.jpg

This is the photo I entered on the subject of Transport. I chose this for several reasons, it wasn't the most traditional of my photos, it didn't show movement, but I didn't think it needed to, it didn't show transport for London (a train, a bus etc) but I was purposefully eschewing this interpretation. My thesis was to show the uses of transport, and apart from travel, tourism and commuting, transport is often a tool for work. Four of the photos from my transport portfolio demonstrated that to varying degrees of success, but the photo above is the one I was most pleased with.

The picture was given the same criticism, that I had not moved around the subject to find the best angle, that I had just 'snapped' a shot without considering the other possibilities. Again, how a single image could communicate the possible photos I considered or did not consider, took or did not take is beyond my ken. However my critic was confident that if I had stepped to the right a bit (into a table if I remember correctly) and I had taken the photo from another vantage, so the wing mirror was in the shot and reflecting the scene behind me then this would have been a better photo... what my submission represented was a missed opportunity.

I feel that the only opportunity missed was to take a 'safe' and tried and tested photo, I've seen photos of scenes reflected in wing mirrors before, in fact a quick search of flickr shows that I actually avoided a cliché. If mindfully avoiding what I consider to be trite is not worthy of praise then I guess I will have to settle for the satisfaction of capturing the images I want and steadily expanding my skill and personal style, approval may never come, I can deal with that.

By no means am I saying that either photo is perfect, as much as I enjoy a photo which is layered and busy, my Walthamstow photo is crying out for a point of focus. I should have waited for someone to pass through the shot and caught them in one of the sections created by the wooden structure, or found something to break up the over blanket of green that takes up over half of the bottom half of the picture. With the transport photo, I love that it has a sense of place but would love it if the figures in the background were more dynamic, if they were carrying things, or tidying things, if it was more obvious that they were at work I would fat happier with the photo.

Of course, it's all subjective and all that and all criticism is worth considering, it's how we grow. Next week we have been asked to consider how we would improve other people's photos if we would have taken them ourselves. So we will all be the critics next week, on the quiet at least.

Posted via email from stephen walrond

Friday, July 23

この部分には午後に撮った美しい写真をあつめていいます。A View From An Afternoon

Join A View From An Afternoon

46315447@N00.jpg" alt="A View From An Afternoon - View this group's most interesting photos on Flickriver" />

 

A place to share your photo's of those wonderful views taken on magical afternoons.

この部分には午後に撮った美しい写真をあつめていいます。

 

Don't be shy. Whatever you think is beatiful, please share it here.

蓮化し柄内で下さい、あなたの好きな写真をのせて下さい。

 

These are photo's taken between 11:30am and 5:30pm, or however you define the part between morning and evening.

写真は、午前11:30から午後5:30までに撮ってあつめて下さい、またはあなたが午後に考える時間に撮ってあつめて下さい。

 

Note: Yes the title is from an Arctic Monkey track.

Posted via email from stephen walrond

Wednesday, July 21

Transport Homework: Redux - No Bikes

Tfl and Barclay's has this new rent a bike service. No bikes yet but the electronic locks are in place. If I was able to hand in my WDPS homework now then this is what I would what I would send in and I would call it No Bikes.

Sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from stephen walrond

IMAX iPhone

Sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from stephen walrond

Monday, July 19

Photography Class Homework: Transport

Tomorrow (Monday 19th July 2010) I'm submitting a photo on the subject of transport. 

Previously at the photography society I submitted a photo on the subject 'Transport for London' and won a bottle wine for my effort.

4414035735_2cb7f5f593.jpg

However, this time around I was not restricted to Transport For London, so I stepped away from the trains, cabs and busses and thought I would see what else was out there.

Posted via email from stephen walrond

Friday, July 16

Greenwich Market - A Couple of Photos

I went to Greenwich yesterday to see some comedy, Andrew Lawrence is recording a show for Radio 4 and I had tickets. I knew that I would arrive earlier than the friend I was meeting there so I decided to take some photos for this week's homework project on transportation whilst waiting. I will post the transportation related photos later, this blog entry is just about a couple of photos I took yesterday that I wanted to share.

In the second WDPS Summer School class Mick, that week's tutor, talked briefly about the "lazy S", which is typified by the curve of a woman's hip, waist and side or the undulating curve of the wall of china as it bends and curls into the distance. I guess that it is a shape that catches our eye because it is one we see often in nature (example in sand, example in wildlife), it's familiar and attractive to us.

I found those curves in a less natural way, but an amusing way in the two photos here. 

Posted via email from stephen walrond

Drunk iPhone Photography

Maybe not drunk but certainly tipsy. And, as always, armed with the
feeling that I must shoot something and an iPhone.

Fortunately I was also in central London, a place full of such visual
majesty that it's difficult to not get a decent photo... difficult but
evidently, not impossible.

Posted via email from stephen walrond

Tuesday, July 13

Photography Class Homework Feedback: Week One - Nature

Week one's homework was assessed last night at the club, and thankfully it wasn't too brutal an affair. In fact for me it was overwhelmingly positive, my photo was very well received.

This is the photo I submitted btw:

IMG_0059.jpg.scaled.1000.jpg

Amongst the other photos submitted I would say that mine looked the most 'amateur', it hasn't got the sheen of other photos, there is noise in the photo and everything is very soft  or out of focus. Of course, I knew that this would be the case when I opted to take the photo with my iPhone instead of my camera. The decision benefited me by allowing me to frame my composition within the large and bright screen of the phone instead of my real camera's tiny viewfinder.

The feedback I received from Mick, a long term member of WDPS, a competition judge as well as a great photographer who specializes in abstracts, was all positive, save a comment about the light tone in the bottom left corner by the edge. He believed that the photo met the requirement of showing nature and was pleased that I had done something a bit different.

For me there were two stand out contributions, one I will link to below and the other I will briefly describe and try to link to at some point in the near future. The photo I currently have no link to was a really well captured shot of a canal boat being steered by it's driver under a brilliantly blue sky, seen through gorgeous pink flowers... hm, words don't seem to do it justice.

Here is the second picture I was wowed by - Link.

Posted via email from stephen walrond

Monday, July 12

Photography Class Homework: Walthamstow


This week's homework project was "Walthamstow" which at first felt like it was too loose and too vague a subject matter to guide me in a particular direction, apart from east that is.

A suggestion came from another photographer friend of mine that I may want to take a picture of a Staffordshire Terrier in front of an E17 road sign to evoke memories of 90's pop band East 17. I would have loved to do this, and may still try in the future, my mum has a staff called Flick which never leaves her side for longer than a few hours so I may get Flick to model for me.

Another idea I had was to take photos of residential areas in Walthamstow that contrast the idyllic and charming houses of Walthamstow Village and shopping area against the more urban, utilitarian but uninspiring sights of the newer Walthamstow town. I may still do this, and I may even expand the project to show other parts of Walthamstow that are equally schizophrenic, Lloyd Park and it's surrounding area is an example of this.


The photos below are from the Lloyd Park walk and I will be submitting one of them as my homework project, probably the first picture with the girders and the row of houses. It shows Walthamstow as it is now and almost as it was 100 years ago, a place of considerable beauty.

I will be revisiting Walthamstow as a subject again. There is a wealth of picture making opportunities to be had here.





Posted via email from stephen walrond

Label Cloud

London (66) Just Plain Silly (46) Yak (43) Photos (40) Photography (39) Rant (35) Photo (34) Video (33) people (24) photoshop (22) Poetry (20) Portrait (20) Review (16) film (16) England (15) Travel (15) Music (11) Photowalk (10) 5adaychallenge (6) Bestival (6) Festival (6) art (6) movies (6) 43Things.com (5) Japanese (5) Night (5) School (5) Street (5) UK (5) trailer (5) Black andamp; White (4) Cathedral (4) Costume (4) Greenwich (4) Love (4) Norfolk (4) Tattoo Convention (4) WDPS (4) Winter (4) Woman (4) America (3) Animals (3) Autumn (3) Bow Creek (3) Canterbury (3) Charlie Clempson (3) Hipstamatic (3) Performance (3) Photographic Assignments (3) Snow (3) Summer (3) flowers (3) iphone (3) religion (3) whitstable (3) Abstract (2) Beach (2) Bird (2) Carnival (2) Cats (2) Comics (2) Dancing (2) Fireworks (2) Flickr (2) Ganes (2) Hats (2) Leytonstone (2) Mirror (2) Monochrome (2) New Year (2) Notting Hill (2) Sculptures (2) Sky (2) Soho (2) South Bank (2) Tattoos (2) Toy (2) Trinity Buoy Wharf (2) Westminster (2) Wildlife (2) blog (2) camera (2) cars (2) forwards (2) nature (2) party (2) postcards (2) seaside (2) sport (2) spring (2) 620 Film (1) 90's (1) A-Team (1) Acrobatics (1) Aerosol (1) Airport (1) Alcohol (1) Anne Rice (1) Antique (1) Batman (1) Bicycles (1) Bokeh (1) Book Cover (1) Box (1) Boy George (1) Bridge (1) Bristol (1) Brixton (1) Brownie (1) Bull (1) Cake (1) Calm (1) Camden (1) Challenge (1) Chinese (1) Christmas (1) Church (1) City (1) Colour (1) Covent Garden (1) Crowds (1) DLR (1) Daruma (1) David Twohy (1) Diptych (1) Dog (1) Dulwich (1) Epic Fail (1) Eric Radomski (1) Erotic Book Store (1) Exotic (1) Fatboy Slim (1) Fire (1) Fire Eater (1) Flame (1) Foreign Policy (1) Fox (1) Fruit (1) GRass (1) Gallery (1) Gayla Partridge (1) Glasses (1) Goat (1) Gosh (1) Graffiti (1) Gull (1) HMS (1) Hands (1) Hawk-Eye (1) Hearts (1) Heron Quay (1) Heygate (1) Horse (1) Hot Chip (1) ICA (1) James Bond (1) John McTiernan (1) Kanye West (1) Katherine Green (1) Landscape (1) Leaves (1) Links (1) Lomo (1) Mac (1) Markets (1) Meetups (1) Michael Hoffman (1) Mobile Phone (1) Monkey (1) Niels Arden Oplev (1) Nuts (1) Orange (1) PC (1) PS3 (1) Panoramic (1) Patrick Cox (1) Pepsi (1) Rain (1) Reflections (1) Ropes (1) Science Museum (1) Security (1) Self-Pity (1) Sex (1) Shine (1) Spotify (1) Squirrels (1) Stain Glass (1) Stations (1) Steve Gordon (1) Steven Spielberg (1) Street Fighter (1) Summer Sonic (1) Sunset (1) Sunshine (1) Swords (1) TV (1) Taiko (1) Technology (1) Thames (1) The Last Shadow Puppets (1) The O2 (1) The Wachowski Brothers (1) Top 5 (1) Towers (1) Toys (1) Umbrella (1) Union Jack (1) Wellies (1) White (1) Window (1) Winner (1) Words (1) Youtube (1) anime (1) atheism (1) bikes (1) cartoon (1) cheese (1) cityPGame (1) comedy (1) dance (1) desk (1) doctor who (1) dreadlocks (1) email (1) fredericfontenoy.com (1) hair (1) hip-hop (1) huts (1) kites (1) lecture (1) memorial (1) nudes (1) parrot (1) piece (1) portraits (1) royal (1) running (1) sakura (1) shoes (1) square (1) symbols (1) symetry (1) tezuka osamu (1) the future (1) thoughts (1) transsexual (1) vide (1) wedding (1)

Archive