Sunday 28 June 2009

Warhol helter skelter

Learning how to do this was great fun - quite quick and easy to get a visually strong result. Thought the helter skelter was a good subject with its strong shapes and decorative patterns.

Reflections


A mirrored sculpture by Amish Kapoor on the South Downs during the 2009 Brighton Festival created lots of creative opportunities.

Funfair


OK, so quite a lot of additional saturation here, but I like to think it adds to the sense of intensity felt while flying through the air.

Rainbow sails


Having straightened the horizon using the Straighten tool in Elements the pier looks more wonky than normal. But I'm not sure I trust my eyes now!

Surfers

In an ideal world the waves would have been bigger closer to the shore, but as it was the surfers at the end of the day add a human touch and point of interest.

Fairtrade


This was part of an exercise in telling a story, around the same time as exploring the Solarise filter - this is clearly a combination of the two. I just liked the strong solid colours and shapes.

Hove houses


All flats now probably but the curves here are great, and I was pleased to be able to get a shot without cars or people in the way, helping the sense of timelessness.
I've signed up for the Open College of the Arts "The Art of Photgraphy course", having just done a short ten-week Open University course which was great for the basics. I got so addicted to posting and commenting on other photos as well as learning new techniques that I couldn't bear to leave it at that. So, hopefully the materials will come in the next few days and I can see what's in store.

Windmill Jack


I'd wanted huge distorted daisies and a tiny windmill, but my limited equipment doesn't enable me to do that even though I was lying on the wet grass trying to get an angle that would let me... and I'm not wild about the composition of this but there is something quite satisfying - perhaps it's the somewhat blurriness of the digital Orton?

Before the crowds

This was part of a series of pics where the task was to create a link between them all... that sea green colour which is all over Brighton was a clear choice, and here shown off in the best position on the deckchairs, early in the morning.

"I"

I took this pic as part of an exercise in looking for letters of the alphabet - not on signs etc but as part of the world in which we live. I'd had my eye on this mirrored light of mine for a while, as a potential prop, and this seemed the ideal moment to bring it out. Then, finding myself at the centre of the pic I was handily able to pretend all along that this was an intentional self-portrait - "I"!

Fields of Orton

Maybe just some summer fields of barley but also some really interesting shapes and colours. By making it a digital "Orton" image the "reality" of the photo disappears and you focus more on its constituents. Or at least, that was the idea.

Deterrents!

I loved the juxtaposition of the razor wire and rose thorns, and really wanted that to be the main story so made it black and white, then colourised.

Brighton Pavilion Silhouette


All the construction and repair paraphernalia rather got in the way but with a bit of cropping and adjusting the light levels the image took on a different appearance.

Carousel

More Brighton... this time I was trying to get some movement into the image which I managed to do but some of the pics I took at the same time were a bit disastrous because leaving the shutter open too long meant more light getting in, and a completely bleached out pic.

Murmuration


Every winter the starlings settle in Brighton's old West Pier, but it takes a while for them to bed down for the night. I did slightly change the hue of the sky, but it's not far from what it was.

Deckchairs on Brighton pier at sunset

I just really liked the shadows and colours made with the sun behind them.

A Study in Lines and Shapes

I took this pic as part of the OU introductory course but then ended up not using it for my final assignment. Am still quite fond of it though as it's changed the way I look at the fan system on the back of Hove town hall!