Photography
A spider sewed at night
25/10/08 10:46 Filed in: Photography | Poetry
It's a cold wet misty morning here in Southern Brittany. Spiders have been working hard. There are icy glowing white cobwebs glistening with raindrops in all the trees.
A Noiseless Patient Spider by Walt Whitman
A noiseless patient spider,
I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.
And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to
connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.
A spider sewed at night by Emily Dickinson
A spider sewed at night
Without a light
Upon an arc of white.
If ruff it was of dame
Or shroud of gnome,
Himself, himself inform.
Of immortality
His strategy
Was physiognomy.
A Noiseless Patient Spider by Walt Whitman
A noiseless patient spider,
I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.
And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to
connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.
A spider sewed at night by Emily Dickinson
A spider sewed at night
Without a light
Upon an arc of white.
If ruff it was of dame
Or shroud of gnome,
Himself, himself inform.
Of immortality
His strategy
Was physiognomy.
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Down by the sea
12/10/08 20:11 Filed in: Photography
Today, I went walking down by the sea near where I live in France. The conditions for photography in text book terms were poor. Bright sunlight direct at the lens. I always enjoyed breaking photographic rules. For the photographically minded, I imagined taking this shot that I liked with an old grainy black and white film. I was half pleased with the result. Here it is:
Almost what I wanted, strong silhouettes into the sunlight, great shadows too! That's a dog bobbing in the sea. Sometimes, the sea looked like molten lead and the colours of the rocks were vivid shades of brown:
Here the sea looks more natural:
I love the sea! These images are taken in the Gulf of Morbihan, near where I live in Southern Brittany, France. I enjoyed it so much here I visited two weekends running:
I keep adding pictures here. I can't resist. This next picture was taken last night at sunset (25th October) down by the sea in Pornic which is five minutes down the road from where I live.
Almost what I wanted, strong silhouettes into the sunlight, great shadows too! That's a dog bobbing in the sea. Sometimes, the sea looked like molten lead and the colours of the rocks were vivid shades of brown:
Here the sea looks more natural:
I love the sea! These images are taken in the Gulf of Morbihan, near where I live in Southern Brittany, France. I enjoyed it so much here I visited two weekends running:
I keep adding pictures here. I can't resist. This next picture was taken last night at sunset (25th October) down by the sea in Pornic which is five minutes down the road from where I live.
Developing digital technology - a lament for the passing of film photography
07/05/08 07:19 Filed in: Photography
I am an exponent and great fan of technology progress. The pursuit of technological development is what preoccupies me in most of my working life. But every so often the development of so-called new technologies seems to take a backward step and offer worse performance than the technology it succeeded. Most of this is obvious: I have an iPod that I love! It keeps me company on the many boat and plane journeys I undertake. iTunes makes free downloads that help me in learning French. For a small portable device the sound quality is pretty good! But to compare it with my ‘Cambridge Audio’ hi-fi system would be a nonsense. The quality of my hi-fi system really is like having an orchestra or a band playing in the front room. The iPod acoustic experience comes nowhere close. It’s with real sadness that I read that new CD recordings by famous artists have bombed because of the download market.
But that was not my main purpose in writing. Another casualty of the digital age has been photographic film. One can still buy film, of course. But companies who were once big names, like Kodak, Canon and Nikon, have already made their exodus from film photography. There is a big part of me that feels that a lot of photography skill died with the demise of film. Who needs to understand photographic principles when one can hold one’s mobile phone in the air, point and click! It makes me smile when I read of Nokia telephones sporting Carl Zeiss lenses like Hasselblad cameras. I suspect it matters little to the Nokia user who probably doesn’t know the difference between an f-stop and a bus stop!
I’m not sure if I’m being an elitist or a Luddite but I do mourn that passing of film photography. The modern high-convenience, low-cost digital camera requires little by way of skill to take photographs. I’m not sure what or how much the modern digital camera user would understand about aperture, depth of field, speeds, light, and colour. It’s almost as if the art and science of photography have been forgotten in an age of digital convenience that is often as appealing as fast food. I have stood in queues in English chemist shops behind people who have frequently collected their party pictures of beheaded bodies and limbless beings. I’m joking although I do wonder if photography as a skill or an art form is going the same way as painting that preceded it. People still visit art galleries in thousands to see the work of the masters, I doubt if master photographers will have the same appeal in time.
Some photographers still take wonderful photographs. One can see them in magazines and newspapers daily. But the digital revolution has brought about a vast polarisation not only in skill but also in the economic accessibility and affordability of top-class digital equipment. I once owned a Mamiya medium-format camera. As I thought about writing this piece I thought I’d check out the price of its modern digital equivalent. It was £13,500! (USD $26,000, Euros 16,875) I could never entertain spending that sort of money on a camera.
If you would like to see photography at its best, take a look at www.magnumphotos.com, an organisation that comprises some of the world’s best photographers as its members. I’ll finish with some fine examples of film photography; first, the work of landscape photographer – Ansel Adams then the work of the wonderful French photographer, Henri Cartier Bresson. Cartier Bresson says more about human behaviour in his images than one could say in ten thousand words, and he does so with enormous wit, humour and charm.
Ansel Adams
All images Copyright © Ansel Adams. Publishing Rights Trust/CORBIS
Henri Cartier-Bresson
All images Copyright © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
And here’s some of my own stuff, all taken on film - No digital manipulation, photoshop or retouching here!
But that was not my main purpose in writing. Another casualty of the digital age has been photographic film. One can still buy film, of course. But companies who were once big names, like Kodak, Canon and Nikon, have already made their exodus from film photography. There is a big part of me that feels that a lot of photography skill died with the demise of film. Who needs to understand photographic principles when one can hold one’s mobile phone in the air, point and click! It makes me smile when I read of Nokia telephones sporting Carl Zeiss lenses like Hasselblad cameras. I suspect it matters little to the Nokia user who probably doesn’t know the difference between an f-stop and a bus stop!
I’m not sure if I’m being an elitist or a Luddite but I do mourn that passing of film photography. The modern high-convenience, low-cost digital camera requires little by way of skill to take photographs. I’m not sure what or how much the modern digital camera user would understand about aperture, depth of field, speeds, light, and colour. It’s almost as if the art and science of photography have been forgotten in an age of digital convenience that is often as appealing as fast food. I have stood in queues in English chemist shops behind people who have frequently collected their party pictures of beheaded bodies and limbless beings. I’m joking although I do wonder if photography as a skill or an art form is going the same way as painting that preceded it. People still visit art galleries in thousands to see the work of the masters, I doubt if master photographers will have the same appeal in time.
Some photographers still take wonderful photographs. One can see them in magazines and newspapers daily. But the digital revolution has brought about a vast polarisation not only in skill but also in the economic accessibility and affordability of top-class digital equipment. I once owned a Mamiya medium-format camera. As I thought about writing this piece I thought I’d check out the price of its modern digital equivalent. It was £13,500! (USD $26,000, Euros 16,875) I could never entertain spending that sort of money on a camera.
If you would like to see photography at its best, take a look at www.magnumphotos.com, an organisation that comprises some of the world’s best photographers as its members. I’ll finish with some fine examples of film photography; first, the work of landscape photographer – Ansel Adams then the work of the wonderful French photographer, Henri Cartier Bresson. Cartier Bresson says more about human behaviour in his images than one could say in ten thousand words, and he does so with enormous wit, humour and charm.
Ansel Adams
All images Copyright © Ansel Adams. Publishing Rights Trust/CORBIS
Henri Cartier-Bresson
All images Copyright © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
And here’s some of my own stuff, all taken on film - No digital manipulation, photoshop or retouching here!