Art and Practice
Photo challenge number 13 would have to be one of those ones that is loved by nearly all photographers. Who doesn’t love piers? I know I will drive a long way to be able to get photos of them if they are beautiful, falling apart, or just because they are there.
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Looking at artists/photographers and how they work is an important move for anyone wanting to learn. You should study what they do, take away what you like and disregard what you don’t. We have looked at Michael Kenna before, but it was a while a go and that post no longer exists, so it seemed like a good time to be revisiting the work of Michael Kenna. Today we are going to be doing another Influencing Me post.
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This morning I had a lovely morning out with a new friend, David and his daughter. We went down to Frankston with the hope of doing some long exposures. Unfortunately there were no clouds and it was a little bit boring. We then headed to Mordialloc. The company was good, the sky was too clear.
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As many of you know, when I was in Tasmania recently, I spent quite a bit of time taking photos with my newly converted infrared camera. It was a great way to test it out and see what would work with it and what wouldn’t. It does give images a surreal look and I really like it.
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Most of you know that by now I have had one of my old cameras converted to be an infrared camera. It wasn’t a new idea, I had considered it once before when I first got my D800. At the time I had two D300s bodies, and I didn’t need two so I thought why not. When I looked into how much it was going to cost I realised it was too much money at the time.
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Yesterday morning I had to meet a friend in the city so we could do our subscription for Melbourne Theatre Company next year, and I figured, if I’m going in I may as well take the infrared camera with me to try out.
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While visiting Port Arthur in Tasmania we decided to do quite a few tours, and one of the ones we chose was the Isle of the Dead Cemetery. From the name you can see that is was on a separate island and we had to catch a boat to go there. The only way you can visit it is by boat and by taking the tour. So you don’t get a lot of time there.
Here is the island as we approached it.
All people who died, I think, at Port Arthur were taken to this island for burial. On the high part are the “free” people and the lower parts the convicts. The land, if I remember correctly, was not consecrated so anyone could be buried anywhere. Unlike most graveyards, it was divided into different denominations.
The free people had head stones, but very few of the convicts did. To get a headstone a letter would be sent home to the family saying that their relative had died, and if they wanted a marker they would need to send money back. This could take up to 18 months. So once the headstone was paid for it may not even be where the convict was buried. Since many of the convicts that came to Australia came because they were poor and living in appalling conditions, most families were unable to send money back, hence many unmarked graves.
Over 1100 people were buried on this small isle. Someone asked our tour guide if we were walking on buried people and she merely nodded her head. Is was such a small island that it must have been fun of graves, to fit that many.
I’m not going to say anymore now, here are some photos of the graves there. A quiet place, quiet contemplation for those that lived and served their time there. A hard place and something we need to remember.
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Since this is a new beginning for this blog and you are all here I would like to do some new things. One thing that I would like to go back to doing is looking at an image and seeing how I processed it. More a discussion on it rather than a tutorial, but perhaps over time I might start doing some of those as well. So this is the first of my posts on the Evolution of an Image, and we start with one I call Going Through.
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One of the things that I have really been enjoying has been looking at photos that were done a while ago. Being fairly new to Instagram, or should I say being more serious about it has meant that I am always looking for images, and going through old ones has been great. I get to revisit and show them again.
This last week I’ve been looking at some of my long exposures.
The Pinnacles on Phillip Island
This image I took over a year ago, but have only just got around to processing this one. I did it in monochrome as I thought it would work better. I think it was a good choice.
Pier at Davey’s Bay down near Frankston
This is one that I did and I’ve just re shown it. I was okay with the way I processed it the first time.
Pier at Davey’s Bay down near Frankston
This is one I showed previously, but I reworked it. I wanted to do more to the sky.
Thanks to Instagram I am getting to see lots of photos again. If you want to follow my Instagram account, click here.
As I usually do with long exposures images I started by making the image of the Eureka Tower monochrome, then I wondered what it would be like with a touch of colour. The gold windows at the top of the tower make it such a distinctive building and every time you see them you know which building you are looking at.
As I said, it was a long exposure. Taken with the Formatt Hitech Firecrest 16 Nd Filter. It was a six minute exposure that I did last weekend.
Here is the monochrome version.
I don’t think there is necessarily anything wrong with this image, but it does tend to look like a lot of other images done the same way.
In the end I decided that while I didn’t mind the majority of the image being monochrome, I did want the top bit to show the gold and the little strip of red. I like the touch of colour and think it makes the image more interesting.
On another note, but along the same lines, I wanted to let you know that I am now a featured artist on the Formatt Hitech website. It has been such an honour to be featured and I feel in very good company when I see the work of others there. You can check out my page here, Leanne Cole.
I do love their filters and I never have a problem promoting them. I keep hearing from others how much they love them too. I find I am using them more and more as well, and now I’m starting to get asked to teach people as well, that’s nice.
Long exposure photography seems to be becoming something I am doing a lot. I know it is important for my art work and you will be seeing a lot more of it in the future.
