alan frost

The Hooksway Round

The weather so far this year has been quite poor and as a consequence Spring has been delayed. It’s also quite often the case that when a Bank Holiday appears on the calendar, the forecast is for wet and windy weather, just when most people are looking forward to a long weekend or extended break. Fortunately this was not the case at the beginning of May. The skies cleared, the sun shone and the temperature rose. An ideal time to explore the beautiful countryside near where we live.

So I headed out with my camera and trusty walking stick which is made from twisted hazel with an antler handle, sourced from Islay in Scotland.

My trusty stick and the path ahead

I decided to follow a walk I had done many times in the past but for one reason or another had not undertaken recently. The walk starts in Hooksway just north of Chilgrove and after about a 3/4 mile joins the South Downs Way. As I walked along the Way I could clearly see Buriton Farm to the left with Pen Hill in the distance.

Buriton Farm with Pen Hill on the horizon

The approach to Pen Hill

The Way leads to the top of Pen Hill and I was instantly drawn to the three trees which are on the path, with chalk and flint fields on either side.

Pen Hill and three trees

After about two miles into the walk, I left the Way and took the bridleway through a delightful avenue lined with beech trees before returning to Hooksway.

Beech lined avenue near Telegraph House

Four and a quarter miles in total and a really lovely way to combine two of my pleasures in life – walking in glorious countryside with a stick in one hand and a camera in the other….. for my photography of course!

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Now for sale on Getty Images

Just over a week ago I received a very unexpected email. It was from Getty Images via Flickr and it simply said that they had identified twenty of my images which they would like to licence for sale through their Getty Images site.

My initial reaction was one of surprise, then I felt flattered after which I started to think about the implications. I had obviously heard of Getty Images, it’s world famous, but the number of images for sale must run into millions, so the chances of one of my images being selected by a buyer or publisher must be very slim.

Then the questions started. Did I want to enter into a legal agreement with Getty? What would be the benefit? How much might I earn from a single sale? Would it be worth all the bother for little or more likely, no return? Were there better photo stock libraries I should consider using before making a commitment? Would I need a model release for any of the images which included people?

I talked to a few people I knew and read the pros and cons on one or two forums on the internet. In the end I decided that I had nothing to lose and that I would register as a Getty Contributor and in effect ‘go for it!’ After all, photography is not my profession, I am simply a very enthusiastic amateur and if I receive any royalties, at least it would help fund what is turning into a rather expensive hobby. Given how much commission they pay the photographer, it will definitely not make rich.

I also established that if I wanted to publish a book of my own work in the future, that providing the numbers sold didn’t exceed 500, then I could include images which were licensed to Getty. Chance would be a fine thing I thought! I could also enter a ‘Getty image’ into a competition, – LPOTY for example – without it contravening the agreement.

So today I started the process of uploading the first few images of the twenty they had selected. This proved to be a quite straight forward process and now the first of my images is for sale on their site……and just to prove it, here is a screen grab of a Gardener at West Dean Gardens which I shot lost year.

I shall continue uploading some more images, and keep my eyes open for the first sale…….I will not be holding my breath though, nor giving up the day job!

I have of course been wondering how they came to notice my Photostream on Flickr. Well it has to be the ‘Lone Sheep’ image on the Flickr Blog which appeared a week of so ago and I wrote about in my last blog entry.

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Flickr stats on the rise…..

I have to admit that I do look at the statistics produced by Flickr for my photostream rather more often than I should, but as I have said before on this blog, there is something strangely addictive about the number of views or favourites you get on the latest upload.

Since I started to use Flickr on a regular basis I have been fortunate enough to have four properties selected for ‘Explore’ to date. I recognise that this is a tiny number compared to other photographers who have many more followers than I do and have been subscribers for several years.

I am all too aware that being on ‘Explore’ has a significant effect on the number of people who click through to view the photo. I have found that in the first 24 hours after the photo has been uploaded, one in ten views will lead to the image being marked as a favourite or a comment is made. As a consequence of this increase in traffic, the graph will peak at a much higher level than is usual on a typical day. On a typical day a total of between 100 to 150 ‘view counts’ would be average, so when I checked the stats early one morning this week, I was rather shocked to find they were over the 500 mark and rapidly rising. I had not uploaded anything the night before which could have been selected for Explore. In fact the image which was attracting all the interest was ‘Lone Sheep’, which I uploaded back in February. How strange I thought. What could explain all the interest in this one photo?

By the end of the day the total view count was well over 2,500 and the same thing repeated itself the next day. I soon found out that there was a very simple reason for the huge increase in the volume of traffic to my photostream. “Lone Sheep’ had been selected by Flickr to feature in their own Flickr Blog on a feature called Monochromatic Landscapes. There is only one blog entry each day and this particular entry only featured five photographs. Given the number of black and white landscapes on Flickr; there must be millions and millions; to have an image of mine selected rather felt like winning the lottery, sadly without the prize money of course! Still all publicity is good publicity, so I am definitely not complaining.

Click here for the link to the Flicker Blog Entry – Monochromatic Landscapes – which was published on the 23rd April 2013.

Below is the rather dramatic effect it had to my stats over a two day period .

2,783 per day and rising……

….and finally the image which has caused all the fuss.

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A walk from East Lavant to The Trundle

It was such a beautiful morning on Sunday that I decided to take a circular walk from the West Sussex village of East Lavant to the Trundle at Goodwood and then return to the village via Chalk Pit Lane. Whilst I did not go out specifically for photography, I fully expected to stop and take one or two images in the lovely downland countryside to the north of Chichester.

I wanted to ‘travel light’ so I simply took the Olympus EM5 and two Panasonic zoom lenses – the 12-35mm and the 35-100mm, both of which have a constant f2.8 aperture. Packed away in my Billingham Hadley bag with a bottle of water and an OS Map (just in case), I had everything I would need to enjoy the walk.

The only other essential was my iPhone; not so that I could make or receive calls or emails but to use an App called Walkmeter. This great exercise App would plot my route on a map, tell me how far I had walked, my pace and also ascent and decent distances. Yes, I admit to liking gadgets but this particular App is going to be an important tool in the weeks and months ahead, as I have decided to walk the length of the South Downs Way later in the year. The Way is approximately 100 miles long, and walking West to East, it starts in Winchester and finishes in Eastbourne. Whilst I enjoy walking I don’t consider myself to be that fit, so expect some more blog entries in the future about walking in the South Downs National Park coupled with photographs of my travels. It should be fun!

Looking west from Hayes Down

An old post alongside the footpath which runs across Hayes Down
between the River Lavant to The Trundle

A chalk path leading to The Trundle from East Lavant – aptly named Chalk Pit Lane

A view over fields from Chalk Pit Lane

The Church of St Mary in East Lavant, close to the start of the walk.

For the record this circular walk is 4.75 miles long and in actual walking time it took about one hour and thirty five minutes. In reality it took quite a bit longer as I did stop from time to time to take some photographs!

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Jazz in the Church

The local village church which I attend is trying to raise sufficient funds to build a new hall on land immediately joining the church. There have been many events to date in aid of The St Peter Project and yesterday we staged a jazz concert in the church itself. Somewhat unusual for a very traditional Anglican Church but it was a great event, good fun with really enjoyable music. It was played by three excellent musicians, using a variety of instruments all accompanied by a solo singer providing the vocals – or as they are called the Kenton Budd Jazz Quartet.

It was a good opportunity to take some shots in available light as I didn’t want to use flash. I asked permission of the band first, which I am sure is only courteous, as it could be off putting to the performers to have someone moving around with a lens pointing in their direction. I used the Panasonic f2.8 35 to 100mm lens at f2.8 on the Olympus OMD EM5. I pushed the ISO to 3200 and converted the images to black and white; so whilst they have some grain, this quite suits the style of photography. I manually focused in aperture priority which meant that the camera would select the shutter speed. In most cases this turned out between 1/25 and 1/30 of a second. Just fast enough to capture the image without too much blur.

The images are shown below and I hope they capture something of the atmosphere of the event given the venue.

The Saxophonist

The Keyboard Player

Kenton Budd provided the vocals to some true jazz classics

The Drummer

The Saxophonist, although I doubt he was playing a tune which would have suited Psalm 46!

A deft touch on the ‘old’ ivories

The Saxophonist turned electric guitarist

Do I detect a little emotion in the eyes whilst singing this particular song?

Still blowing…….

…..and with music, a glass of wine. The pew shelf is not just for the hymn book.

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