Fay Godwin

Fay Godwin, born in Berlin 1931 to an American Mother and British Father.  Moved to and settled in London in 1958.  Fay Godwin is one of our best known landscape photographers, quite an achievement for someone with no formal training.

She started out by taking photographs of her family on days out and holidays but felt she could do more and turn it into a ‘paying hobby’.   Fay didn’t set out to be a landscape photographer but after photographing Ted Hughes in 1971 for one of her earliest jobs it all went from there.  Ted invited her to co-author a book of poems and photographs and she spent the next 7 years photographing the Pennines with Ted writing the poems to accompany the photographs provided by Fay.

In 1985 the first of her ‘Land’ trilogies was published, widely regarded as the finest study of British Landscape ever published.  Again, not bad for someone with no training!

Most of Fay’s work is shot in black and white and she favoured medium format cameras.  She didn’t start using colour until she was in her late 50’s and even bought a digital compact camera and starting printed using Photoshop a while before she sadly died in 2005.

Fay’s work is all about man’s relationship with the land and she often used her photographs to draw attention to harm being done to the environment. One of her books ‘Our Forbidden Land’ won the first Green Book of the Year Award.  She described herself as a ‘documentary photographer’ saying that her work was ‘about reality’.

The two images below are good examples of the political nature of Fay's work ...... both depicting everything she hated about the 'establishment' ruining the natural world around us.

New motorway works, Dover Cliffs, 1990

Welsh Water Authority bulldozing Bronze-age tracks Snowdonia National Park, 1988

I find Fay's story and her work totally inspirational.  She found success with no formal training in what was and still is to a point, a male dominated area.  Reading some of her interviews it's clear that she was a strong, independant woman, fairly out-spoken and not afraid to stand up for what she believed in.  You cannot fail to be moved by the message that her work sends ..... what's not to like?



Charlie Waite

Charlie Waite, born in 1949, firmly established as one of the world's leading landscape photographers, left school at 17 without any qualifications and joined the theatre as an assistant stage manager.  He undertook training and after two years became an actor, but the sporadic nature of acting work led him to pursue an alternative career.  

Charlie had been introduced to photography as a child by his Father, who helped him make his first print at age 11, this had left a lasting impression on him and he started photographing his fellow actors.  He undertook a 1 year intenstive course at college and soon had a successful business, he continued to shoot actors but was continually drawn to landscape photography.

His first landscape photography commission came by chance while viewing a house for sale, the vendor turned out to be a publisher looking for a landscape photographer for a National Trust publication and within a week Charlie had his first commission.

Now, more than 30 years on, he has published numerous books, held many exhibitions throughout the world, and established his own company 'Light and Land' which aims to promote better photography by offering workshops and tutorials all over the world.

With a desire to promote and encourage UK landscape photography, Charlie set up  'Take a View Landscape Photographer of the Year' competition, the first major national competition of its kind.

Charlie is particularly known for his square format images using a 6x6 Hasselblad and this is his 'weapon' of choice although he has used digital, he is not a fan of too much post-capture manipulation believing that the image should be captured 'in-camera'.

Charlie's images offer a spiritual quality, almost ethereal, with a great sense of calm.  His use of light creates a certain drama to each image (stage lighting in his early career inspired him to focus on this).

The image below is Islay, Hebrides, Scotland - a stunning example of the serenity and calm that Charlie manages to capture which each image.

This image is also from Scotland, Balchladich Bay.  I love the drama of this image brought on by the intense colours and am left wondering if a storm is on it's way or has just passed ....

Charlie Waite is one of my favourite photographers.  I love his work of the British landscape and the spiritual quality of  his images is very inspiring, I like the fact that he prefers to manipulate his images as little as possible and will spend whatever amount of time it takes (including 5 days up a tree to wait for the right light capturing The Somme) to get the perfect image, at the perfect moment.

Ansel Adams

There is much to say about Ansel Adams, possibly the most famous and brilliant of all landscape photographers, he captured the beauty of the American landscape in black and white and has left us with an awe-inspiring legacy.

Ansel Adams, born 1902 in San Francisco to an affluent family, was raised in a conservative almost Victorian environment, struggled to fit in a school, possibly suffered with dyslexia and ended up being home-tutored by his Father resulting in a fairly ‘solitary’ childhood.

Photography overtook music as his primary vocation.  He spent much time in Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada nurturing his love of nature and using the Kodak No.1 Box Brownie that was a gift from his parents.

After meeting photographer Paul Strand in 1930 and being inspired by his images,  Ansell decided to pursue ‘straight photography’ rather than the pictorial style he had favoured.  Ansell’s work became increasingly recognised during the 30’s but this did not make him rich, he was forced to work as a commercial photographer to make ends meet.

Inspired by nature and a passionate environmentalist he fought tirelessly against anything that would damage the world around him and in particular the national park system.

Technically he was extremely talented, he worked long hours for weeks on end and rarely took any holiday or time off, except to return to his beloved Yosemite.  He developed the ‘zone system’ which was a way ‘to determine proper exposure and contrast of the final print’, he also produced 10 volumes of technical manuals   which are regarded as ‘the most influential books ever written on the subject’.

 

The image below is one of many that I find truly captivating, called 'Tetons and the Snake River' taken in 1942,  this image was taken while Ansel was employed by the US Government, charged with photographing National Parks, it was also carried on one of the Voyager Spacecraft along with another 114 photographs intended to convey 'life on earth' to an alien civilisation!   There is such depth to this image it appears never-ending, I feel that you could just fall into it.

The image below is named 'Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico' taken in 1941, this is one of, if not the most popular of Ansel's photographs. Taken on the way home after a disappointing day of photography, he 'glanced left' and spotted what you are now looking at!  What can you say?  Truly amazing, the depth of the image again makes you feel like there is no end to the scene, when you look at this it's so easy to imagine that you're there ...

 

Ansel Adams is king of the landscape photograph and you cannot be anything other than totally inspired by his work.  I find it impossible to single out one or two images as every image is genius. It's almost a case of what can you say? ..... I wonder if he ever took any 'bad images' and if he did, were they still brilliant? 

Presentation Ideas

I've started thinking about how to present my final images and knew that I wanted to incorporate black and white aswell as colour.  I had the idea to present a full size colour image with a black & white version cropped to a square alongside.  After some discussion with Marie the idea has developed further and I have starting experimenting with some ideas & images, although not all images that i'm experiementing with will be included in my final selection.

There are 4 images below showing my first idea ........

I think this works quite well and the overall result is pleasing, the last version shows the main image as black and white with the cropped images as colour, but I feel it works better with the main image in colour. 

Idea number 2 shows a black and white square overlaid on to the full size colour version, the same images repeated using this technique.

I love this effect but hard to decide whether I prefer the last inage with a colour version overlaid on to the main black and white which shows off the strong colours, or the main image in colour with a black and white overlay.  I do love the second image as I feel you could just walk into tthe picture . . . . . .

Idea number 3 uses the same idea as above but with a copy of the image inverted and placed on the bottom.

Again, I think this works really well and I like that you have to look twice to see if it's a reflection or just a bit of photoshop :o)  The last image isn't as strong as the first three, this works better with the black & white overlaid onto the main colour image rather than the other way around as shown in the last image.

The last of the current ideas is similar to the one above but showing a colour image only, with an inverted copy on the bottom creating a 'reflection' effect.



Hmm, I like the above but feel that the colour images are stronger than the last image in black and white.  Overall the second and third set of images are my favourite.  I really like the effect that overlaying the black and white image on to the colour image creates ...... I love a bit of drama! :o)  No decisions yet though, I have another couple of ideas so it could all change .........

Abstract

Our task to create 8 abstract images, 4 colour and 4 black and white.  I struggled with this task a little, not really knowing how much to manipulate the images after taking them.  Results below:

f5/6, iso 400m shutter 2.5
out of focus

f/7.1, iso 400, shutter 1/6
saturation, tint, rotate

f/5, iso 400, shutter 1/3
rotate

f/10, iso 100, shutter 1/320
rotate, saturation

f/5, iso 100, shutter 1/50
saturation, black & white

f/5.6, iso 400, shutter 1/2
black & white

f/5, iso 400, shutter 1.6
black & white

f/6.3, iso 400, shutter 1/6
black & white, rotate

I found this task quite difficult but i'm not sure why, bit of a mental block I think.  Overall i'm fairly pleased with the results above and hopefully they suitably represent the 'abstract' theme

A walk in Derbyshire .......

Today, i met with a friend for a walk in Derbyshire, I took my camera which i'd checked and prepared the night before by charging the battery in full and checking the memory card was empty.  I was hopeful that the weather might be good as every time I've been out with my camera it's been cloudy and dull, I got off to a good start but by the time i'd parked the cloud had moved in and I thought it was going to rain!  I considered re-thinking my theme and going with 'dull' rather than 'water' :oD

However, it turned out to be fab, with loads of photo opportunities and i'm very pleased with the results.  A selection below .......



f/5, iso 100, shutter 1/50



f/6.3, iso 100, shutter 1/6



f/5, iso 200, shutter 1/20



f/6.3, iso 200, shutter 1/15

f/5, iso 200. shutter 1/15

f/5, iso 200, shutter 1/15

f/5.6, iso 200, shutter 1/13

f/5.6, iso 200, shutter 1/50

f/4.5, iso 200, shutter 1/40, edited to b&w

I'm pleased with the images above and others that I have taken today, i'm confident 1 or 2 will contribute to my 'final 6'.  I love the effect of using a slow shutter speed on moving water to give a 'smokey' effect, but think I got a bit carried away wiht it and wish i'd taken some with a faster shutter speed to capture the water as it looked as well as using the slow shutter speed.

Squares

I love Charlie Waite and his 'squares' and he will be one of my research artists.  I thought i'd apply this to a few of my own images and have posted a selection below:

1. Original
F/16, iso 100, shutter 1/100

1a. cropped, straigthened, colour adjusted



2. Original
f/9, iso 100, shutter 1/80




2a. cropped, colour adjusted slightly




3. Original
f/9, iso 100, shutter 1/100




3a. cropped and b&w





4. Original
f/8, iso 100, shutter 1/10




4a. cropped



I really like the results of cropping images to a square and I think it would work in most instances.  I particularly like image 3, both the original and black & white crop. 

 

White Balance

In the last class we were introduced to ‘white balance’ and asked to experiment using the white balance setting on our camera.  I have taken a series a photographs of the same object using each setting to show the differences.

WB Setting - Auto

WB Setting - Daylight

 

WB Setting - Shade
Will warm up the shot just a touch




WB Setting - Cloudy
Will warm up the shot a little more than the shady setting



WB Setting - Tungsten
For use indoors with bulb (incandescent) lighting
Cools down colours

WB Setting - Flourescent
For use with flourescent lighting
Warms up colours

WB Setting - WB (with flash)
For use when shooting with camera flash
Will warm up the shot to compensate for the 'cool' flash light

WB Setting - Auto

 

WB Setting - Daylight




WB Setting - Shade

 

WB Setting - Cloudy

 

WB Setting - Tungsten



WB Setting - Flourescent

WB Setting - WB

This was an interesting excercise and I will look forward to putting what i've learnt into practice.