alan frost photography

Exhibition – my parameters

By alan frost on January 18, 2017

Although The Image Circle exhibition does not take place until November, preparing a portfolio of images ready for curation at a later date has to begin now. In fact it started some weeks ago when I decided my theme would concentrate on the landscape and environment of Chichester Harbour. Now, whenever I am out walking in the area, my camera is with me. I am very fortunate, as this is an almost daily occurrence, otherwise our dog complains!

Whilst I have never exhibited my work before, I felt it was important to establish some parameters at an early stage, in order to focus my intentions and concentrate the mind. Over the last week or two these guidelines have become well established and are as follows –

• All photographs will be taken in the clearly defined area of Chichester Harbour.
• All the images will be taken using just one camera with one prime lens – the Leica M Monochrom and 50mm f1.4 Summilux lens.
• I envisage the vast majority will be hand held, as this is my preferred way of working, although I will not rule out using a tripod in certain situations.
• I doubt that I will be using filters, although shooting wide open in bright conditions, it is obligatory to use a 3 stop neutral density filter to manage the light reaching the sensor and exposing correctly.
• All the images made will be cropped to square format and be in black white. (I have no choice, it’s a black and white only camera!). I have already established a workflow for processing as I need to present a coherent set of printed images.
• I have yet to make a final decision but they will almost certainly be toned in Lightroom.
• The photographs will be printed on Canson Platine Fibre Rag. A 310 GSM archival paper. Without question it’s my favourite paper for this type of work.
• The size of print, mounting and framing considerations are still in the melting pot but I will write about this in a later post, once my thoughts have come together.

So what are my intentions? Chichester Harbour is a beautiful and intriguing place, with a great deal of variety for image making. By walking the many footpaths that cover the area, a more intimate knowledge of the landscape becomes possible. I see the same locations at different times of the day; the weather and the light is constantly changing and in the months ahead Winter will turn to Spring, followed by Summer and Autumn, all of which will give me plenty of opportunity to capture the area as I see it. It will be my personal view of Chichester Harbour; an intimate portrait of a place I know well but will get to know even better as I explore locations which are less familiar.

The images which form part of this post were all taken very recently in and around one specific location – a small pond on the western side of Fishbourne Creek. One or more may or may not be included in the exhibition, but these and the many others I have made in recent weeks will start to make up a body of work from which a final selection can be made. Curation is a topic in its own right and I will doubtless be writing about this in the future.

 

To see the work of my fellow exhibitors, do visit and follow our website – 

www.theimagecircle.com