From Genesis to Revelations

A couple of things have led to this post; firstly, as you may have noticed from the last entry, I have been going through my back catalogue to see if I've overlooked any files with potential. Secondly, I've just returned from a couple of days in London where I took in Sabastiao Salgado's 'Genesis' exhibition. For this, I have to be thankful for a day of truly miserable weather; being a family outing, there is little doubt that a nice day would have meant seeing the sights. As it was, we looked for somewhere to get shelter and the Natural History Museum was my choice and not for unselfish reasons - I have long wanted to see Salgado's work in the flesh.

The exhibition was worth every penny of the £10 admission and I would urge everyone to see it although, sadly, it is only on until 8th September. We spend so much time viewing photographs on a screen these days that it is easy to forget just how much better it is to see a really well produced, large print and these were some of the finest I have ever seen - certainly some of the most impressive black and white prints. It is certainly true that Salgado has spent time in some amazing landscapes but that isn't the only reason why the prints held me spellbound.

And so it is that I have started looking specifically for images which might make a decent black and white picture. Of course, there is a world of difference between my pictures and his but maybe I can come up with something that makes a nice print of my own. I certainly realise there is a lot more work required to make a print sing the way his did but I'm going to try. The proof will be in the print.


Prints are available from my website : www.landscapeandlight.co.uk 

Wirral Art & Photography Exhibition 2013

Good news in the post yesterday (a rare event) - I discovered that not only has my picture been accepted to the annual Wirral Art &Photography Exhibition, it has also been chosen as the prize winner in the photography category.

The print is one of the stitched panoramas I made during our trip to the Trossachs last October. This was dawn on the first morning of the holiday and, although there was plenty of cloud around, the muted colours and stillness of Loch Achray made for a beautiful and tranquil scene. This was the first panorama I had attempted with the D800 and stitching five images from 36 mp camera certainly made my computer work hard - I am sure I smelt the CPUs burning. The result was an incredibly detailed, huge file which I just had to see printed big. The trouble is, what can you do with a large print; unprotected, it would only get damaged so I decided it had to be mounted and framed. Sheila Gee at Cheshire Frames kindly did a wonderful job of framing this and another picture for me a very short notice so that I could submit them to the exhibition only for me to discover that this year there is a maximum of one entry per category. A choice had to be made and I chose this image, mainly because there was no room for it on our walls. I'm very glad I did now.

The exhibition runs from 23rd March to 5th May at the Williamson Art Gallery in Birkenhead.


Prints available from my website : www.landscapeandlight.co.uk