“Mono no aware ...Beauty tinged with sadness”

It's been a while, been concentrating on History of Images and trying not to have essay's full of plagiarism!! Still I tried to have a theme running through them so all my research has been on portraits/fashion and ties in with this piece of work.

Main highlights of research are Jane Bown http://observer.guardian.co.uk/JaneBown/JaneBown_gallery.swf

Since first looking at her work a few years ago I have always remembered her saying 1/60 @ f2.8 would make a good title for a book. This was the setting she more often than not worked from and it had helped me immensely when using my med format without a meter.

Sally Mann has also made an impression on me with her portraits in Immediate Family. Often highly acclaimed but sometimes criticised for using her children (and others in At Twelve) in a manner that was seen as perverse.

The last one of great interest to me is Loretta Lux http://www.lorettalux.de/

A former artist, she has progressed to photography but still incorporates her art in the images.

Her portraits of young children are vastly different to Mann's, offering the viewer a surreal, often fairytale portrayal of the youngsters.

1/60@f2.8

Spent most of the day in the darkroom working on split contrast/grading. Once you get the hang of it its actually easier than just dodging and burning at the same settings.

Worked on producing one of my prints of Edward from the bridge match last week. The lighting conditions on the day were quite extreme, Edward was sat with his back to a huge window with bright sunlight flooding his back, whilst deeper into the room it was quite shadowed.

This created highly contrasted negs and so although I had dabbled at doing split grading on the places brief, John went into it a bit more indepth.

It basically involves doing a test strip for the highlights on a low grade, and one for the shadows on a high grade. The best way to do it is also to work at the same f number but change grade and exposure.

Below are some scans of the negs from the afternoon with OAK. I shot on Med Format and DSLR hence similar images of Betty.

And the reason for the title? You can research it and let me know!

Got a few ideas for the assignment and one I would have liked to have used for this weeks brief, however didn't have time to arrange it so it will be done later. In the meantime we managed to get a flat tyre and whilst we were getting it fixed the man was good enough to let me shoot.

Also quite excited, I know it doesn't happen often! but met an artist who is going to make me some bits and bobs for use in shoots. Should be good....

Below is a scan from last Fridays shoot at Todmorden. Taken on Mamiya c330

This site will also run alongside my Flickr page at http://www.flickr.com/photos/pumpkin_photography/

Ok here it is, my attempt at a blog!!! I guess it's shameful to say but it's all alien to me hence my pic. This is instead of a journal for my People assignment at uni so theoretically it should save time, lead and money.

Today's the 7th March so Happy Birthday Mr F, getting very old now!

Yesterday I went to Todmorden Methodist Church for an activities afternoon run by OAK, an organisation for the over fifties.

Activities included painting :

This is Betty who hasn't painted in forty years. Today she used acrylics for the first time.

Betty on the laptop

Artwork

Graham Newiss who had walked over the hills from Hebden Bridge to accompany his wife for the afternoon.