Some good news for me last week - I've been successful in obtaining an Associateship of the Royal Photographic Society here in the UK. I had submitted a panel of 15 photographic prints for assessment in Visual Art. The theme of the panel was urban decay/renergation. I'm really am delighted! I'll be putting the photos onto my website shortly - here is a link
www.rogertowell.com
- in the meantime you may like to see my LRPS panel which is already there.
Thursday, 25 March 2010
Wednesday, 24 February 2010
Blue Rope
Funny things happen in Flickr, View wise. Nobody looks at this photo for months. Then there is a dozen or so views in the last few days. Well then, can't complain - and I'm not - as long as people are looking. Similar comment with another photo of mine in Flickr called "Goods Inwards" - although with different viewing figures.
Sunday, 21 February 2010
Chinese New Year
Into central London for the Chinese New Year (year of the Tiger) festivities in Trafalgar Square and around Chinatown. Lousy day weather wise, but at least the heavy rain on the way in stopped mostly, but the dark and gloomy clouds hardly cleared, so the light from a photographic point of view wasn't great - very poor actually.
Concentrated on some details, the lanterns etc for once rather than the people. The area and streets around Lisle Street and Gerrard Street isnt that big, became very crowded, and I got fed up with the people milling around. Can't understand why some idiots were trying to get through with bikes.
Incidently these guys - see the photo below - were in Trafalgar Square before the festivities started .
Thought the one on the right looked a little out of place .....
Saturday, 20 February 2010
Competition Win
Some good news for me during the week - one of my photos won a competition at my local Photographic Society. The competition is the George Bunzl Cup which is for colour pictorial prints, one of a series of Open Challenge Cups within the Society. Here it is, at least in digital form -
The photo was taken during the Night Carnival, at last year's Thames Festival in central London. The Festival was held in mid September, and you can see some more of my (less successful) photos of the event in previous posts from around then. The bluring effect of the people was obtained by using a combination of a slow shutter speed and an off-camera flash (ie not the built in rubbish flash), the print was an A3+ size on Somerset Enhanced satin paper (wonderful paper !), in a 40cm x 50cm Antique White window mount.
The photo was taken during the Night Carnival, at last year's Thames Festival in central London. The Festival was held in mid September, and you can see some more of my (less successful) photos of the event in previous posts from around then. The bluring effect of the people was obtained by using a combination of a slow shutter speed and an off-camera flash (ie not the built in rubbish flash), the print was an A3+ size on Somerset Enhanced satin paper (wonderful paper !), in a 40cm x 50cm Antique White window mount.
Friday, 19 February 2010
Portraits - Irving Penn Exhibition
Back to the National Portrait Gallery in central London on Wednesday last to see the Irving Penn exhibition. My last visit to the Gallery was to see the Beatles to Bowie exhibition a few weeks back. This exhibition overlaps the that time scale to a certain extent - the sixties - but covers 7 decades in all.
The prints are presented chronologically (as was the Beatles to Bowie exhibition) and as this exhibition features only one photographer you can see a developing style over the years. For example there is a change from the 1940's whole figure shots (with minimal props), then the closely cropped head and shoulders shots from the 1950's onwards, and laterly emphasis on the face and eyes (eg Al Pacino), and sometimes with the part of the face in deep shadow (eg the portraits of Pablo Picasso and Issey Miyake). I also liked the portrait of Lisa Fonassagrives-Penn in the Harlequin dress, possibly because being more high-key was a little different to the rest ?
There are 120 prints in this exhibition, all monochrome and taken on film. Yes, no digital. I wonder if digital has caught up yet tp film technically - in monochrome - to the sheer quality of what was on show.
The exhibition continues until June 6th, 2010. Its worth the £10 entrance fee.
Wednesday, 20 January 2010
Swinging Sixties
Visited the Beatles to Bowie photographic exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in central London last weekend. The exhibition covers the music scene in London during the years 1960 to 1969 aka the "Swinging Sixties" . Given the years covered by the pictures, I was a little surprised to find a mixed audience attending - at least mixed age wise - I was expecting to see mostly people who have some claim to have been around at the time, and not so many younger people who obviously weren't.
The term "Swinging Sixties" and photography brings to mind Bailey, Donovan and Duffy, and it was good to see all these 3 photographers represented - although I could only find 1 from Mr. Duffy (see previous post wrt TV Documentary) which was of the Shadows with fashion model Ros Watkins.You've probably seen many of Bailey's and Donovan's work over the years - I have - especially of young looking Beatles and Rolling Stones as they were starting out. One photo I hadn't seen before - but liked very much - was a black and white low key portrait (taken in a studio?) of the Moody Blues.
The exhibition also contained much memorabilia for the period eg LP and EP covers, sheet music and also some of the music press of the time. Interesting to see the exhibition photograph and then how it was used on an album cover or in the press, eg the 1961 McBean colour photo of the Shadows. Speaking of album covers, many of the albums (LP's ?) from the earlier years of that decade were in mono (it was stated clearly on the cover), stereo only became standard later. Also whilst colour photography was available throughout the decade - as just mentioned - the photos from the earlier years were in black and white, with colour dominating the later years.
I wonder what the younger people who visited this exhibition would have thought about things then - music on vinyl records (in mono) - not downloadable MP3 .... no video's ......
Also managed to catch the Turner and the Masters exhibition at the Tate Britain. No prizes for guessing which exhibition I preferred.
The term "Swinging Sixties" and photography brings to mind Bailey, Donovan and Duffy, and it was good to see all these 3 photographers represented - although I could only find 1 from Mr. Duffy (see previous post wrt TV Documentary) which was of the Shadows with fashion model Ros Watkins.You've probably seen many of Bailey's and Donovan's work over the years - I have - especially of young looking Beatles and Rolling Stones as they were starting out. One photo I hadn't seen before - but liked very much - was a black and white low key portrait (taken in a studio?) of the Moody Blues.
The exhibition also contained much memorabilia for the period eg LP and EP covers, sheet music and also some of the music press of the time. Interesting to see the exhibition photograph and then how it was used on an album cover or in the press, eg the 1961 McBean colour photo of the Shadows. Speaking of album covers, many of the albums (LP's ?) from the earlier years of that decade were in mono (it was stated clearly on the cover), stereo only became standard later. Also whilst colour photography was available throughout the decade - as just mentioned - the photos from the earlier years were in black and white, with colour dominating the later years.
I wonder what the younger people who visited this exhibition would have thought about things then - music on vinyl records (in mono) - not downloadable MP3 .... no video's ......
Also managed to catch the Turner and the Masters exhibition at the Tate Britain. No prizes for guessing which exhibition I preferred.
Thursday, 14 January 2010
TV Documentary
Interesting documentary on BBC4 last night - "The Man Who Shot the 60s" - about Brian Duffy. Duffy was one of several photographers who captured swinging sixties London on film, before quitting photography in the late 1970s. Probably for this reason I'd not heard the name before now, but have seen his work without realising who took the pictures, eg the cover for the Bowie album "Aladdin Sane". Some of the photographs shown are iconic for the period and place. Shame that he burnt many of his originals - what where shown (on TV) look great. There was an exhibition of the work in London last year - pity I only heard about it last night, so I've missed seeing it. Hopefully another gallery will pick it up so I can get to it.
Looking at the TV schedules over this week, the documentary is being repeated several times on BBC4 over the next few days. Perhaps tou can catch it then.
Looking at the TV schedules over this week, the documentary is being repeated several times on BBC4 over the next few days. Perhaps tou can catch it then.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)