What's in a Photo Part 1
It's been a very long time since I last blogged about anything, so I thought it was about time I started again!
What's changed since I last put my thoughts into type? Well, the family is growing up fast and there's a distinct increase in grey hairs on my head, my photography has changed a lot too. Photography in the naughties has altered an awful lot since I decided that I should pursue photography professionally, the advent of sophisticated camera phones means that professionals really have to prove their worth to gain work, an average image just won't hack it in today's competitive market. I'm unashamedly self-taught as a photographer, although it's not something I would advise doing, in hindsight going to college or university would have been a far more straightforward path in the photographic industry. The advantage of being in an environment where you are supported through your photographic journey would have made learning photography a little less complicated I feel. Add in family life and the bills I have to pay and it becomes far more complicated, but as I finally sense I'm reaching the end of my learning journey, I am far more comfortable sharing my thoughts and my work with the wider world.
I have been spending some time going through my Lightroom catalogue, looking at what's worked, cleaning out unnecessary images and generally updating it to make it far more user-friendly. Although many of my fellow Photographers hate the Adobe business model of licensing products (and to be fair I can see their point to a certain extent), for me I find the products to be excellent quality and do exactly as I expect them to, I additionally get free website hosting, extras like the very useful Adobe Spark and web hosting, I find it to be a good business investment. I did get extremely excited the other day when I discovered that Lightroom could do amazing things with keywording, the geek inside me went a little bit crazy when I found out that I could add Keywords within Keywords which has saved me a huge amount of time! My partner Kerry did give me the look when I told her how excited I was (the look that says, "yes I know you're excited Paul but I really don't know what you're talking about it!") It's one of those photographer things I guess.
I thought it would be an excellent idea to go through my Lightroom catalogue and share some of my thoughts on the images I have taken, what's behind the image, because every image tells a story.
These particular images are available through Photo4me
19 Minutes Past
The clock at St Pancras Station in London is the first picture I uploaded to Photo4me back uploaded 2705 days ago back in 2011. I actually took this picture back in 2008, it's a style of mine to explore areas that are often unnoticed, I love the ornate clock face and the ironwork behind. These days I would have done more with post-production, boosting the colours slightly and generally adding more depth, but I do genuinely like my composition and the feel as I captured it over 10 years ago, so it stays on my portfolio. I have not been to London on too many occasions when it hasn't rained, this picture was taken in the middle of winter and the weather outside was a little gloomy, in all probability I wouldn't have ventured into the station if the weather had been crisp outside, I'm doubtful I would get away with taking too many pictures in St Pancras station these days with security being so high.
Burnham on Sea Lighthouse
Now for a very recent image. The Lighthouse at Burnham on Sea has been on my radar for a while, the structure is extremely popular amongst photographers, the evening I ventured to the Somerset coast there were two fellow photographers alongside me taking photographs, I did have an excellent chat to Neil and Petra from Bristol. I do occasional work for Uber eats through Kodak and a job came up in Taunton at the beautiful Yarani restaurant, often when these jobs come up far away I try to tie in some landscape work as well for my image stock libraries and through my artwork sales sits, Burnham on Sae being only 30 minutes away from Taunton seemed ideal. When I turned up I had a "mooch" along the beachfront, I wasn't sure if the sky was going to give any texture, (photographers generally dislike flat skies, even one cloud can do wonders in terms of depth) as sunset approached a cloud eclipsed the sun and gave the sky a pastel effect. The sky could have been more dramatic and if the tide was in the images would have a drama but I was very pleased with my first visit to Burnham, the shoot landscape lasted over an hour and I do have a fondness for the pastel skies, I feel they give the images a Monet look.
I will be adding my images to more image sales sites soon!
Until next time, Paul
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