This is the Abington pub in Northampton. Eight exposures here. 
The Bandstand in Abington Park, Northampton. 30 images.
As above, from the inside 34 images.
Bits and pieces.
At the start I was totally at a loss as to what pictures I was going to show. Luckily I had taken most of the images that I used in the end early on. I got it into my head that I needed to do something new, and I spent a couple of weeks banging my head against the brick wall of my own ego! I posted one of the doll images on the facebook page and Julies comment was “random”. I thought “yep, you’re right!” I was ok after that, but I’d wasted a lot of time.
I love this, it’s in Madrid August 2012, I came across this scene in a park. There was a film crew to the right and you can just see a microphone lower left. Using my Canon G10 I took a series of pictures with the idea of doing something like this one day. I manually focused the camera because it was too slow in autofocus. These two images must be about a second apart. This is the final thrust of the performance! It was something I came upon by accident…. I merged them together in pshop. Because I was on the ground the images were very nearly aligned correctly, I lowered the opacity on the top layer and totaed and nudged it a bit to align it exactly to the lower one. Using the lighten blend mode, the eraser, tool and the clone stamp I came up with this. It came into my head because I was looking at all those multiple image shots.
Here are all the exhibition images. click and click again for full size. 
The exhibition.
The whole group has communicated on Facebook throughout the course. Moodle has been almost totally ignored apart from getting info on the course and uploading essays etc. It just isn’t so instantly available as Facebook. If anyone had a problem or an idea to put to the group they could get an answer in minutes if not right away. Facebook works!
You can’t do this in Moodle. A tutor could look through these pages and instantly see what was going on, how things were progressing, and assess whether anyone needed assistance.
That’s my rant over. The group had discussions in college amongst ourselves and with tutors as how to proceed with finding a venue, setting a date, getting funding, naming our exhibition, etc, etc. We decided on the Guildhall in Leicester because it had a lot of visitors, was near the city centre, close to Cathedral and the Richard III visitor centre. I measured the Library in the Guildhall so we had an idea of what we could fit into it.
We also had to find a name for our Exhibition, Minus 6 was chosen simply because 6 students had dropped out of the class for different reasons and it sounds good too! Next was a logo….
Pete came up with this, what can you say, it looks really good.
Funding. We decided to use crowd funding to finance our exhibition. I put my hand up to set this up. I must admit, I knew very little about crowd funding but I rooted about a bit, looked at a few sites and Indiegogo seemed to be as good as any.
This is the final total, which is a lot more than I thought we would get. As you can see, as an incentive to donate you can give perks, and we decided to give an A4 print for a £10 donation, an A3 for £15 and 2 A3s for £20.
Indiegogo Takes its cut of the total amount.
So we raised £501 in total The money went into paypal and my bank account without any problems, it took about 10 days for it to arrive. I just held my breath and paid for the hall and the drinks before it came through. It did say on the site that this how long it would take, so no complaints there. We should break even with all the costs added up (room hire, perks, food, diy costs, and drink)
Many thanks to Pete for the promotional video, and getting the campaign started on Indiegogo. I set up the account ok, but I’m sure Pete tweaked something to make it work!
Everyone shared this on Facebook to publicise it and get it out there to as many people as possible.
Of course as this is being done, we had to decide how to display our images. You can’t mount pictures on the walls in the Guildhall, It’s an historical building. We had to mount on display boards which the college would provide. All we had to do was clean these up and paint them.
Picture By Todd pinched from facebook used without permission. Pete, Me and Julie sanding.
Obviously costs incurred here for paint sandpaper etc. Everyone played a part in the sanding and painting. I’m not used to being a team player, but I really felt that everyone played their part in all of this, and we all worked as a team to get the exhibition staged.
Setting it up on the day.
This one from Steph. Showing the drinks/ food tables being prepared.
Food (mainly Samosas), Cakes and drink, had to be provided and I’m sorry I’ve forgotten who did what, but everything turned up on time and everything got eaten!
Whilst all this was going on we had to get our work printed! I took some of my images to one printer to get an Idea of how things looked like at A4, and what the cost would be for the whole lot. The prints were almost identical to the ones I’d made at the college. I did decide on another printing place in the end which was cheaper.
Pete was tireless in his pursuit of advertising the exhibition, He got us a spread in The Leicester Mercury about us and with an image each for all of us. The Mercury did an article about the opening night of the exhibition with a group picture of us all (except me, because I was late.) I did get some business cards printed for my table and I left a portfolio of my work for people to browse if they wanted to see other work that I had done.
How I came to decide on my pictures for the exhibition.
If I have the choice of how to sink or swim, I’d rather fail by my own means than succeed with someone elses advice. I had created a oddball character called spannerman.
https://spannermanrevisited.wordpress.com
There he is asleep in his shed. He has a very abnormal view of the way the world works to say the least.
I then had the idea that I showed at the beginning of this blog of layering images together. This one of is the Guildhall in Northampton. These can be decorative and interesting to look at, attracting the the eye with angles and shapes.
I had ideas of making a series of doll images.
and trying to be humorous…
I couldn’t seem to get what I was after with these images They weren’t strange enough. Spannerman is me without the filter, and is probably a lifetime project! Can’t relate to these two in the same way. I could make set of images called “how to murder your lover”. I knew what my fellow students were planning on showing, I wanted to do something no one else was doing and I liked these abstract images I was making. I also didn’t want to make images that had, “a message” or expressed “an opinion”. It is all just vanity after all, and no ones view is particularly better than anyone elses. So I decided to go with the decorative images for the exhibition, quite a few people had said they like them. This is the set up, three boards each with a different theme but using similar techniques to make the images. Click on the main image, then click again to get the big view to see more clearly. The three panels are each themed. Outdoors, Indoors, and Work. I know all of these places very well. I have visited the Town Hall Square Fountain since I was a child. Indoors is my partners flat in Northampton. Work is the toolroom where I work. I’ve tried to evoke in each image, a sense of what it’s like to be in that place. I think I need to do more work on the printing of these images. Some do look a bit flat. With Northampton one above you can see that the choice of location for the series of shots is very important. I thought as I chose where to stand as I began shooting that this location might give me a good final image and it did.
I’ll start with the one of the fountain, eight images taken at 45 degree increments around the fountain. The focus point was the top of the railing. All these images except the large factory one was taken with an 18-35 lens at 18mm. People do like this one. I think the sky is a bit too bright. I think I’d have to go back to the photoshop psd of this and edit each layer individually to try and retain some of the colour in the sky. The flags could be defined better too. The other two on this board look a little dark.
The middle board contains images of my partners flat, these have printed the best, My partner loves looking at these closely and finding where all her bits and pieces have ended up in the picture. The bottom right one could do with a bit more contrast and a touch of saturation.
The large image on the work board is taken with my Canon power shot G16. Even though I’ve turned round 360 degrees, everything is still on the same plane because I’ve kept the camera at the same angle to the floor all the way round. So perspective is correct. I do like the colour here and the detail. The bottom left is too dark and a bit muddy in places. I like the feeling of space in it. In the final image the individual pictures have been moved around and spread out. I like the colours and the different depths of sections of it.
Looking at what others have done in a similar vein….
This from Daniella Zalcman combining an image of London and New York
http://www.citylab.com/design/2013/05/photographic-love-letters-new-york-and-london/5653/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/midnightquill/sets/72157632187909790/with/8643268502/
A different sort of thing to mine. But I do find these interesting
I do like the way these two images have been combined. The plane of the road in the London Image matches the New York image till you get to the centre of the picture. If you try to imagine what the NY picture is…. you might be on a balcony in a huge public building. (ok read the blurb! the NY image is of the Grand Central Terminal and the London shot is where Zalcman Lives in Pimlico). I did like it when I saw it on the images bit of google without knowing where it was anyway? The figures look Lowrie ish. Geometry lines and angles aplenty.
Ha! I must be getting good at this, I found this image on google and thought it must be by Zalcman.
If go to pinterest then go ” visit site” you find that it is Zalcman. This is so well constructed. The curve leads you round and back into the image.
This by Idris Khan
Oddly, or maybe not so oddly, this image was pinned by the same person who pinned the previous image by Zalcman. Khan has gone round it taking lots of images and sticking them all together in Photoshop.. It looks as though it might take of!
But go here to experience the exquisite blurb that goes with it. It’s to die for isn’t it? (Linked from pinterest).
http://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/artpages/idris_khan_becher_prison.htm
This is similar to my fountain image in that I have gone round the fountain taking shots all round it too. Not sure if Khans image is of more than one similar gasholders put together or not.
This, another take on it, from here… By Alessio Trerotoli
Urban Melodies: Multiple-Exposure Street Scenes Remix Cities
and here
http://www.alessiotrerotoli.it/galleriaURBANMELODIES.html
You can see the bar sign at least four times here… ah, it’s reversed…. a reflection in a window? This photographer takes 4 or 5 different images of the same location and adds them together. The camera has looked up and down in this image, sideways too by the look of it.
and
All food for thought…. I took some images of a restaurant we go to in Northampton The Karmana. I’ve got to know the owner and I was trying to do some images of his restaurant for him.
I’ve remembered these, as I’ve been researching the ones above.
The first two are multiple exposures done in the camera, just experiments really to see what might be done.
This one, two shots taken from different angles, is a different approach. This is a work in progress. I have to do more orthodox images first and show him one like this to see what his reaction is.
I think that the Zalcman images are stunning, the composition is spot on as is the colouring and contrast in the images. I will do something like hers in the near future.
There’s all sorts of images to be taken isn’t there?
A selfie!
A building project in my imagination!
Street
Street at 300mm
A studio shot taken almost by accident
An irritated guitarist I was practising on.
Granddaughter shot
Nadia and Helen
Elliot and Lucy
????
Grafitti
Watching the time pass by
Music
Sunrise
Industry
Lions head.
Jack asleep.
Abington Park morning.
Actor headshot.
Wedding.
View of Gibraltar from Algeciras.
flamenco.
I like taking pictures. I made all these for the enjoyment of doing them. That’s not what this course is all about is it?
I went looking for inspiration.
I like angles, it must be the engineer in me. It’s like a strange holiday camp, but everyone’s still in bed. It’s a secret place on the top of a building, you have to knock the door with a special knock to get in. It’s the Holiday Inn car park in Leicester lightroomed to death. It has a slightly claustrophobic feel to it which I like. I don’t know where this came from, I worked on it till it looked like I wanted it to.
Who am I to tell the viewer what to think this means?. It might be a reflection of what I think/thought the world is/was at the time I took/edited the picture. You might think this world is a brutal sinister place.
I went out on a sunday morning with nothing in my head except to go to this place and take some shots with lines and angles.
This one is the only one I took that day which I could say has a meaning which hasn’t been created by heavy editing. There’s an arrow pointing forward and the shoes I’m wearing pointing in the same direction as the arrow. I was inspired by the arrow, it doesn’t matter where it’s pointing, you can only go forward.
Following on from the last post…
I was talking about the american who did the pics through the window of his car, and how I’d seen his pictures in London….. My dear partner Helen has a memory for such things, and an iphone with lots of pictures on it.
That’s picture No1 from the exhibition and the photographer is Karl Baden
Picture No 2
It’s me! god knows how long ago in London (35-40 years ago), taken by a guy who came up to me and my brother and said “give me some money,I’ll take your picture and post it to you.” I did, and he did as you can see. It’s a bit of history isn’t it? That sort of thing couldn’t happen any more, we’d take a selfie or get a stranger to take it for us for nothing.
Back to Karl, I googled his name and came up with a few more of his images which I do quite like.
Brighton Ma 2012 Showing what the car he’s driving will look like when he’s worn it out.
Interstate 84 East CT
2011 A bit of wheel envy going on here!
Brighton Ma 2009 A wheel can even make you feel hungry.
Oh, these are my own captions.
I think these are all well framed,brightly coloured and humorous.
Looking at Badens work again I might put that sort of shot in my mind as something to look out for.
He’s done this video. He’s taken a picture of himself every day for 27years (on film) and made time lapse movie.
I would never have the sheer persistence do do that, mind you I haven’t got 27years left to do it in.
So my vague recollection of Karl Badens work led me to produce my own image. My image has a more mundane theme, which I would have to say is a bit groundhog day (Don’t tell me you’ve not seen the film) ish… The same thing happening everyday. I see the moral of the film as, you do get it right in the end, but you have to keep plugging away at it! So if I had the urge to do it I might take a shot a day from the same place and bore somebody to tears telling them all about how boring it is to go to the same place every day aaaaagh!
inspiration and stuff again.
I was sitting in the car waiting for Dave to arrive and let me in the factory, I remembered some similar pictures I saw at an exhibition in London. They where taken by an American bloke in La or somewhere exotic like that. I thought I’d have a go at this sort of shot myself. I framed it so that the eye would be pushed into the distance, I call this”Marta waiting” because there she is sat waiting on the steps. My inspiration for this shot is my vague recollection of the american photographers images.
I got a bit stuck doing my college work and my brain fried for a while!
These dolls look quite happy watching a Taylor Swift youtube video on their Ipad, They’re not creepy at all. Well they’re not really real are they? Does anyone find this image creepy? and why?
Moving on, things were getting a bit dark.
The previous picture was personal to me. I explained a little of it’s content. I’d like to photograph the interior of a hoarders house where each object is steeped in a memory that the hoarder can not let go of. My picture was my set of objects steeped in memories too. Each viewer has their own interpretation of it. My image might make me cry if I looked at it long enough. Lets lighten up a bit.
The room looks like this now.
My cameras light meter would have me lower the shutter speed by about 3 stops. But then it wouldn’t look like this would it? It’s 9 o’clock, I’m waiting for it to get dark. The dolls have come back. I have, in the back of my mind memories of very strange images containing dolls. But I’d like to get some dolls and make us see the brighter side of their lives. While I’m waiting have look at this.
This is done in a similar way to the other images of where I work with each layer being lightened and manipulated in lightroom. There is a floor and a roof.Everything is there, but in a different order. It is almost like seeing the whole 360 degrees of the space at once. I have always been interested in geometry, planes and space. I like a mass of detail too.
This is from a book called The British Isles, by Colour Library Books Ltd. I think it’s a book club book or something. There are no photographer credits and no information about where 90% of the pictures are taken.
I love the feeling of space in this and the almost overpowering amount of detail. I would love to go and take this picture, if I knew where it was…. My daughter just told me it’s Notre Dame in Paris.
Back to the room, it must be pretty dark in there by now!
Yep, it’s dark! 11.00pm. Lets arrange the lighting.
That led torch is far too bright, lets get another angle on this too.
You can see what this is now, a girls night in for dolls. Glass of wine, a few nibbles, good film, and no blokes! I think the last image is getting closer to what I had in mind. The inspiration for this is the Gogglebox TV show. Helen and I love it! This show is part of my cultural heritage. Viewers are filmed whilst they watch TV.
This is the first lighting setup. An Led torch with an aluminium reflector to replicate the light coming from a TV.
I found this to be too harsh and cold a light source so I removed the reflector.
Which softened the light and the shadows, also it warmed the light by reflecting of the red off the plastic TV. Lets take a look at the last image.
Hand held at 1/10th of a second! Not bad for an old guy eh! The composition isn’t right, the doll that’s laying down on the right should be upright. I could take this into lightroom and sort it out.
This is the effect I have in mind. I like the different colours reflecting of the TV screen. It’s not all in focus though. I’ve used a graduated filter to to brighten up the dolls face on the left, and another to bring out the face of the doll at the back. The crop just tightens the image up a bit. Maybe rotate the TV to the left slightly.
I’ve tried a bit of rudimentary light painting here, using the implements you see in image 24. (click on the image to enlarge it)
One of the masters of this technique is Harold Ross… https://haroldrossfineart.wordpress.com/
Light painted photogaph of the Biltmore House
To put it very crudely he waves torches and hand held lights around his objects doing bits at a time, then adding the different layers together in photoshop creates this type of strangely beautiful image. To be honest, I find his work sterile, devoid of life. Technically stupendous though! You can’t find out that much about how he does it. He earns his keep with his workshops.
So to my meagre attempts…. These done with the large LED light in (second contact sheet no24) I wafted the light all over the dolls, not much shadow behind the dolls. This is a bit flat.
You can see the brush strokes here. This with the large maglite. I like the colour here and composition.
This with the very small LED light for 30 secs.
To continue….
Micks photography blog 