alan frost

Bracken – when an overriding instinct prevails

As hard as I try I can’t break out of my comfort zone. Whenever I find myself in a beautiful location which is full of colour, my instinctive monochromatic mind gets the better of me. As I explore the autumnal woodland of Arne Nature Reserve, near Wareham in Dorset I have a perfectly acceptable colour subject in front of me but in visualising and later processing the image I soon strip away all the colour, and work on a black and white conversion, and here is the result. A shot of ‘Bracken’ in amongst conifers.

I am not colour blind but I do seem to see the world in black and white and of course all the shades of grey in between. I am drawn to a pleasing composition, shapes and lines, strong textures and different tones. I believe my creativity improves once the distraction of colour is removed from the frame. I start to see things more clearly and whilst you cannot tell by looking at an image on a screen, a well printed black and white image on a suitable photographic paper is hard to beat.

Do click on the image to view a larger version and truly appreciate the level of detail in this shot.

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Dorset – A new Gallery Page

Clavell Tower, Kimmeridge

Yesterday I posted a few of my most recent images of Dorset. You can see this post here. I soon realised that I had not created a ‘Gallery Page’ for Dorset, so this morning I have done exactly that – click here to visit this new gallery.

As a taster here are a selection of images, some of which were taken a few years ago.

I have enjoyed revisiting them and I hope you enjoy them too.

Fields of Barley

Evening Light at Purbeck

St Oswalds Bay

Three very different views of the Jurassic Coast

Charmouth – Reflections of Light

Apart from my home county of West Sussex there are two other places I most like to visit. Top of the list is Scotland. Unfortunately it’s the best part of 400 miles just to cross the border, let alone reach the Highlands; not to mention the journey time by car of at least 6 hours and that doesn’t include hold ups or any stops. It’s therefore not very practical to go there on a regular basis.

Much closer to home is the county of Dorset and my wife and I are regular visitors. It offers a wonderful combination of varied countryside and a truly majestic coastline – or in other words The Jurassic Coast, which has been a World Heritage Site since 2001.

Photographic opportunities are in abundance. Here are just three images from our most recent visit to the area.

Charmouth – Towards Golden Cap

Jurassic Clifftops from White Nothe

Spectacular scenery and in many ways a more than adequate substitute for Scotland……and I can get there and back in one day, very comfortably!

Here are links to a few other posts which feature Dorset.

Portland Bill Lighthouse with the Leica M9-P

Colour of light on The Jurassic Coast

Alone on The Cobb

How to measure your success as a photographer

I have been giving this topic quite a lot of thought of late and I think now have the answer. If you don’t want to read the whole post then just skip to the end to find out. Read more

A bespoke portfolio for ‘Still by the Water’

The Image Circle inaugural exhibition is just four weeks away and my preparations are well in hand; well they were until I decided to have a bespoke portfolio made. Let me explain. Some time ago I knew that the photographs I would be displaying at the exhibition would be a selection of images from a body of work on Chichester Harbour now titled ‘Still by the Water’. This has been an ongoing project of mine for the past 18 months or so. In that period I have taken many hundreds of frames and of these I am very happy with about 50 images. Consequently they formed the short list for exhibition. I selected 24 photographs to frame and hang at The Oxmarket in Chichester, but then I asked myself the question -‘What happens to those pictures that didn’t make the final cut?’