Sumi-e

By chance, the Sumi-e painterly effect in my software caught my eye.

Remembering Italy

Memories of Italy in the soft November rain of 2009...

Gradually gathering photos together and presenting them
on Tumblr.

Many photographers and artists hang out there.

Worth a visit...

Street Portraits

I'm really proud of this photo.
The subject seemed so comfortable when the camera appeared and it enlivened a dull moment walking along a rainy street in Leeds.

It was my first visit to the city and there were many other new visitors about, commenting and trying to interpret what we saw. The street traders are very much in evidence and I missed a shot of a pleasant man selling the "Big Issue" purely because I was trying to manoeuvre the doors into the Victoria Arcade.

I expect that most of the traders are locals and there is a discussion about this in the Title Bar.

In the Wild Garden

Painterly Photos

Having discovered Pixo, which allows the bored photographer to paint quickly on the dullest image, I can see a summer of great contentment ahead.



Normally, digital filters give a painterly effect.

Sympathic Images

Thanks to a contact with photographers who use narrative in curating their work, I have set out to make little stories with images gathered over time.

This does not come easily, as it calls for a thread that is visible, not just a mental construct imposed by the will.

The Fiveprime system is useful for placing work on a black background and making a screenshot that can be presented as a single image.

Having allowed Fiveprime access to one's Flickr account, just tag photos with a word that is particular to the theme chosen. Here, in order to bring six garden photos together, each was tagged with "analogue" and "moderntwist2".

The odd men out, the footballers, were not included in the final screenshot.

Aesthetics...

... or
"whatever you like yourself, Missus."

Objectivity shot out the window somewhere during my student years. I had been almost bound in a double Nelson of prescriptions in relation to the Arts in childhood, but with the halcyon days of the 'Sixties came aniline dyes, cheekiness and a delight in subjectivity. What is most heartening about my memories of those times is that the fine underpinning of centuries of design expertise had not been abandoned and people actually spent ages deciding on where exactly to make a hemline or how wide or narrow a belt should be in relation to the overall effect in a dress or suit. As a result, many photos from that time, especially street shots, are actually beautiful as they show a sense of proportion in the subjects captured.

Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but it can be useful to think about why some photos are better than others, or why there can be a consensus on such matters. There is almost a cult of ugliness in the visual arts at the moment (I found the 1970's quite painful to look at)... though many will rush to point out that it is my perception that an image or object is "ugly" is the cause of such a statement.

I don't know if the philosophers can help out here...