End of the Year Review, 2013

Its that time of year when its customary to look back - and forwards - so here goes.

I've made a few images of which I'm quite proud this year, perhaps five or six. Some of them are included in the montage above.

I took a different approach to my flower photography, eschewing the shallow depth of field and 'environmental' backgrounds (i.e. whatever happened to be in-shot) of previous years, opting for plain white, or occasionally black. I even put my pretensions aside and produced some colour images. In the process, I think that I've moved things forwards.

On the other hand, my landscape photography almost ceased to produce anything usable, with a late revival just before Christmas at Shapwick.

I also tried, without much success, to document events in Liverpool, as we cleared my father's house of his belongings.

Regarding this blog, I wrote one or two posts that I'm pleased with - the one about SAW, the series about Sony's strategy spring to mind - and a whole lot of pointless verbiage besides.

So, what about next year - 2014, that is?

Well, for one thing, I'm going to stop writing text to post with my images just because I feel I have to - if I have an image to post and nothing to write, then I won't write anything, aside from a short description of the image itself.

I'll try to do some more landscape photography, and get my light tent out more often.

But what about the flower photography? Have I taken that as far as I can? It actually forms the majority of what I do at the moment. My instinct is that I haven't, there's more mileage in it next year, but I really don't know what form that will take. I guess that I've a couple of months to figure that one out.

PS: Coming soon - the Williams Music Awards 2013.

Praktica-L Photography Part II

One thing that I omitted to mention in my last post, is that there was a roll of film in the camera when I found it, which I extracted and took for processing. I had absolutely no memory of what might be on the film, so there was a fair degree of anticipation in waiting for the results, which came back on Thursday. So, what did I find?

Well, the film stock had aged badly with significant colour shift. Also, only twelve of the twenty-four frames had been exposed. Of those, one was an out-of-focus shot looking out of the window of my bedroom at my parent's house - the sort that you take when you're winding the film on at the start of the roll; There was an image of my parents in a formal garden somewhere; Several images of a family party, probably to celebrate the birth of one of my cousin's children; And three images of some friends at Holt's Field, one of which is presented above.

(By coincidence, Holt's Field is behind Sudley House, which I've written about in some of my previous posts.)

I've resisted the temptation to improve the image, so that you can see that my assertions regarding the poor standard of my photography at the time are true. I've managed to get the exposure right, but the focus is a bit soft, the framing is all to cock and the depth of field was probably left to chance and ended up being a bit deep for a portrait. 

Anyway, the internal evidence suggests that these images where all made around twenty-five years ago. But the scary thing is that I've still no memory of making any of them. It makes you realise how much of your life disappears, forgotten into nothingness. 

Do any of the people in the photographs remember then being taken any more than the photographer? I expect not.

This photograph also illustrates the immense subjective emotional charge of photographs. To most viewers this is just a photograph of three blokes sitting on a wall, failing to enjoy the experience of being photographed. To me, its a window into a long forgotten summer afternoon many years ago.

Anyway, enough maudlin navel gazing, normal service will be resumed with my next post.

The Ancestral Pile Revisited

Another image from our visit to Sudley House. This is of a stained glass panel which is in the entrance porch on the North side of the house. Note that there's a chip under the central figure's chin with a radial crack running down and left onto the chest, which adds a nice touch in my view.

A should say that, in addition to the temporary exhibition of Bedford Lemere's photography, there are some very nice family photographs, dating from the early twentieth century, on display in the cafe. So, its a good afternoon out for photographers and entrance to museums is still free in the People's Republic of Liverpool.

The Ancestral Pile

We were in Liverpool during the weekend, trying to finish clearing out my father's house. Despite the fact that we should have been working, I made us visit Sudley House, which is a couple of miles from my father's place.

Sudley was gifted to the City of Liverpool when the last member of the Holt family died in 1946. It's now a museum. However, there is a family story, repeated to me by my father, that we were related to the Holts and that my father, as a young boy, was taken up to Sudley to be presented to "the old man".

Except that "the old man" would have to be Joseph Holt, who died in 1896. So that doesn't work, but the story may have been about my grandfather, although that doesn't work either because he wasn't born until 1905. And my father's memory could be flaky, so he could have been mistaken. 

Whatever, the point of the story is that we were something to do with those at the big house. So I took the wife to see our family seat.

The museum isn't anything to write home about, although it does hold a couple of original works by J M W Turner. Upstairs, there is an exhibition space which is currently hosting a display of architectural photography by Bedford Lemere & Co, which is worth seeing if you can get there before the end of April.

The image above is of the small cupola over the main entrance hall. Below is an exterior shot taken from the drive and looking at the north side of the house. I had my Alpha 77 with 50mm prime fitted, so I couldn't get a shot of the whole facade. 

I've a couple more images that are worth posting, which I'll do over the next few days.