thoughts | alan frost photography

Posts from the ‘thoughts’ category

Shutter, window and steps – a simple picture?

Shutter, window and steps

There is something about this image which appeals to me. It’s a fairly straightforward and simple composition, made up of three principal components. There is light coming through the window on the left, balanced by the dark shadow area on the right. The contrast of light and shade is separated by the window shutter which is worn with peeling paintwork needing attention. The wooden steps have a lovely grain to them but it is unclear from the photograph where they lead. Up to another floor possibly or just a high level cupboard? To climb the steps you would need to close the shutter, cutting out the light – why was it designed this way? Through the window the out of focus detail hints at a garden beyond with a line of trees on the horizon. Bright spots on the glass suggest it might be raining. A simple image perhaps, but on closer observation plenty to hold the viewers attention, at least that’s what I believe.

It reminds me of the saying by Ansel Adams – ‘There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer’. If both are happy then I guess that’s what makes a successful photograph.

This photograph was taken with a Leica M Monochrom and 50mm F1.4 Summilux lens – @f2.4 1/2000th sec ISO 3200

Do click on the image for a larger view.

What’s in store for 2015?

Old drawers

I came across this wonderful chest of old drawers recently and I started to wonder what each drawer had contained over the years? What secrets and surprises had this piece of furniture been hiding? Once opened of course the ‘magic’ would be gone, although the very act of opening a drawer might be followed by delight or disappointment. A bit like life I guess. None of us know what’s round the corner but there is a sense of anticipation and excitement particularly at this time of year. As we look back on the past 12 months, we reflect on the contents of the ‘drawers’ that have been opened and consider those that are still closed, but may open up and shape our lives in the forthcoming year.

From a purely photographic perspective what happened for me in 2014? Did I fulfil my objectives that I set out for myself a year ago?……and what are my hopes and plans for 2015?

Towards Gunwharf

This is the first in a short series describing my first ever commission. I will illustrate these entries with some of the photographs chosen by the client, as well as a selection which didn’t make their final short list but I thought were worth including.

This all started back in December, but I only successfully completed the commission a couple of months ago. Now the project is well and truly complete, I feel comfortable sharing the experience.

It was just before Christmas when I displayed some of my photographs on a stand at a local Christmas Fayre in aid of The St Peter Project. I was very pleased to sell a couple of my framed prints and quite a number of people said how much they enjoyed looking at my work. As I was about to pack everything away, one particular person approached me and he told me that earlier last year his firm had moved offices but the walls were looking rather blank. His name was Ian Froome and he asked me if I would be willing to take some photographs, mount and frame them ready for hanging in their hall and meeting room. I was rather taken aback and explained that whilst I had sold a few of my photographs I had never undertaken any sort of commission work. Of course I was interested and we agreed to meet in the New Year to discuss a possible brief and to establish some sort of budget.

Sunsail 4010

We got together in January and he showed me a plan of their offices and a few internal photographs so that I could get an idea of what might be required. The offices were typically modern and large (A2 size) monochrome photographs would look excellent. We both thought that eight framed images would be sufficient but what subjects did they want and how much should I charge?

Fortunately Ian already had a clear idea of what he and his staff thought they might like and he had agreed a budget with his Finance Partner. I made it clear that I did not wish to make a profit so providing they covered my expenses for materials etc, the difference could be paid to The St Peter Project by way of a donation. He was very happy with this arrangement and we went on to discuss in more detail the type of images he felt would suit the offices.

1000 Lakeside

Perhaps at this stage I should say that the company concerned is Vail Williams a firm of commercial property agents and their offices are at Lakeside, North Harbour in Portsmouth. The town of Portsmouth has a variety of architecture as well as two attractive harbours, one at Port Solent the other at Gunwharf Quays. In addition to capturing something of the area, he was also keen we had some images of the offices where they are based. Some abstract work would also be considered. We looked at examples of my work on my iPad and he pointed out ones that he liked and ones he didn’t. This helped to give me an idea of might appeal but perhaps more importantly what wouldn’t!

Lakeside Rooflight

Given we were in the middle of winter coupled with the fact that I do not take photographs professionally, I was keen to agree a generous time scale. I said that I would hope to have a selection of images for him to look at in 6 to 8 weeks, or in other words by the early part of March.

Last but not least, and never having been asked to do this type of work before, I made it quite clear that should his team of staff not like any of the photographs, he should not feel compelled to have them and obviously I would not make any charge. I explained that I love being out and about taking photographs anyway, so I would still enjoy the taking if not the making.

In my next entry I will write about the photographs themselves. The link for this entry is here.

Barn on a Hill – Colour or Mono?

Sometimes, just sometimes, I take a photograph which I think works well in black and white as well as in colour. It doesn’t happen very often as the vast majority of the time I look to take an image which I can convert into monochrome, but inevitably there are going to be occassions when stripping the colour away is almost sacrilege given the subject matter of the image.

When down in Dorset the other week I took one such photograph which I have called ‘Barn on a hill’. My default is always to convert to mono and the finished result is shown below.

‘Barn on a hill’ in mono.

Restoring all the colour and processing the image in an alternative way gives me a completely different picture.

‘Barn on a hill’ in colour

Personally I think both have their merits. In fact I decided to upload the mono version to 500px. Up until now I have always used Flickr for my online presence, so this was the first of my photographs to appear on 500px. Within the space of an hour or two it rose from ‘Fresh’ to ‘Upcoming’ before being graded as ‘Popular’, which I assume is similar to ‘Explore’ on Flickr. It’s pulse (a measure of how popular an image is on 500px) rose to 97.9 out of 100 and to date has 132 ‘likes’ and 60 ‘favs’. I quite like the way 500px measures the activity and popularity of a photograph; it’s certainly a different approach to how Flickr operates.

Anyway enough of stats and back to photography and I ask myself one simple question. Should I process and keep more colour images and not always be looking at the world in black and white? In this case the appeal of colour is too great to ignore, but of the two I still prefer the mono version, so I guess that’s the answer to my question!

Looking through the archives – Dunes Fence

Dunes Fence

There are occasions when I will look through my back catalogue and come across an image which I have not processed before. It can be fun, a voyage of discovery as I search through various folders hidden away in Lightroom, my default workflow program which I have used since 2009.

The above image of a fence on the dunes at East Head in West Wittering was taken in October 2012. When I first opened the shot, I thought it had promise and I immediately applied a square crop to the portrait 3×2 aspect ratio, as there was too much foreground and too much sky above the clouds. I also decided that I would process the image in a different way to my usual approach. After a quick black and white conversion in Lightroom, I exported the file into Photoshop, created a duplicate layer and smart object so that I could continue working on the image in Silver Efex Pro2.

After a few minutes of processing in Silver Efex, which included adding a ‘coffee’ tone, I returned to Photoshop for some fine tuning and the finished result heads this entry. Total processing time about 15 minutes.

For me I enjoyed returning to a set of photographs taken about 18 months ago. Reliving the memories of a wonderful afternoon on the sands and the lovely cloud formations which are of course a key feature of this particular shot. I very rarely delete any photographs from my catalogue, unless they are obvious duds from the outset, and this is the reason why. Going back in time can reveal some new images which have some merit and are worth looking at in a fresh light, using perhaps some newly acquired processing skills to create an image which can be classified a ‘keeper’.