The Ritual and Performance of a Project.

This year I am setting myself the task of finishing NOT one but two projects, AND starting a new one. The new project is going to be a delve into surrealism, running with a new found creative freedom afforded to me by the font of Ai. [ worry not, I certainly won’t be using Ai, more on this later ] The projects I intend to finish are the Quotidian Body and the Beyond Gender project.

The Beyond Gender project is a portrait project celebrating the LGBTQIA+ community in Brighton. It is a project that has already taught me a lot. I have welcomed members of the community into my studio and in return I have been educated, humbled, amazed and amused by these wonderful people. Throughout I confess to feel like a fraud, certainly a tourist as I can only consider myself a friend to the community rather than being any part of it. I have often asked myself if I even have a right to tell these stories.

“Tobias! Your work is so beautiful! Thank you for sharing these with me
It brings me such joy seeing these photos and reading their experiences with you. I certainly wish I was closer so I could make the time to take part in this project; What an honor. But to see such beauty in diversity is something which reminds me of a time when I was in a bookstore many years ago in downtown Portland. I saw a photo journal of trans elders which changed my life. Recognizing the joy they felt and comfort in their demeanor, I knew that I shared something special with them, and cried reading about their challenges and lives.

Your photos gave me that same feeling. I realize that if my younger self had seen these photos—it would have inspired me to be free, to be authentically me …just like that photo journal, and that is such a special and beautiful connection and feeling. Thank you again for sharing this with me.

These portraits are amazing.”

As I said I am often humbled, and after a response like the above, feel vindicated to press on!

My Ritual of Photography

Photography is a subject that lends itself to a lot of thought, much like any creative endeavour. My intent here, on substack, is to explore photography with a tool other than the camera [ or the editing suit ], the written word. This is something I have been doing on and off since picking up a camera. It used to be sketchbooks, and I used to derive a lot of pleasure from drawing, BUT this act seems superfluous over recent years. My sketching never really seemed to have a direct engagement with my photography. The written word however did and does. A note stuffed in a book that has sparked an idea, notebooks filled with reminders from my various classes of student requests and requirements. [ my memory is certainly no longer the sharpest tool in my toolbox! ], sketchbooks filled with doodles and project ideas and of course there are all the pitches I create to get people to visit my humble studio to enable me to make photos.

So I wanted to use this space to occasionally lift the curtain on what I get up to as a photographer rather than an educator. There will be plenty of that!

Recently, my questioning of my own photography has become acute, and for a while it was quite paralysising. The rise of Ai has led me to question what on earth I am doing as a photographer, as a maker of images. And this is what I do, make images, I am not a photojournalist, I don’t have a story to sell. My process was all about the final image. The crafted, polished, monumental image that demanded attention due to its concept and virtuosity of execution. Now Ai can replicate the images I create with a few keystrokes. Believe me, I have done it.

So where does this leave me as a photographer if my end product is now redundant?

[I suspect many photographers in the industries of advertising, fashion, and editorial are wondering just that.]

This question left me paralyzed for a while. I just could not see the point of picking up the camera, of having an idea and interpreting it in the studio, if Ai could already do it.

Firstly, and thankfully, I am not in any of the above industries. I have no clients and provide no service [ other than educational ones ]. I make images because I feel compelled to, I went into education so I would be free to make images for myself rather than some higher ups. In the face of Ai this is an enviable position and I am thankful for it.

Secondly, and this is the important bit, by discussing these fears with my students, who make photos and join my courses because of a love of photography as a verb rather than a noun, that I came to realise that it is about the process. The compulsion to make images is what needs to be given more focus and thought. It is the process that Ai cannot replicate, all those things that happen on the journey to making the final image, the experience, the sensory feedback loop between photographer and camera, the journey. If I chose to look at this as the “main event” and the final image as just a by-product of this, everything seemed to make sense.

“Stop thinking about artworks as objects and start thinking about them as triggers for experience.”- Brian Eno1

I never understood what he was getting at, until now. I feel that in a weird way Ai has given me a new lease of life as a photographer and image maker. I can forgo some of the polish, free up some time from the editing suite to play in the studio, searching for results rather than predicting results and slavishly pursuing them.

I have begun to think of my practice in terms of ritual, rather than the pursuit of an image. I have found myself revisiting the writers that consumed me years ago.

Perhaps I already knew about the importance of ritual but had lost this sacred knowledge due to my own excesses? Colin Wilson, Alan Moore, John Dee, William Blake [ I recommend John Higgs’ wonderful bio, William Blake versus the World] William Burroughs and of course JG Ballard.

“At the age of 16 I discovered Freud and the surrealists, and a stick bomb fell out of the front of me and destroyed all the bridges I was hesitating to cross” -JG Ballard

All outsiders, free thinkers, all deeply involved with the process and in many cases the ritual and magik of creativity.

So what is my own personal ritual?

For me I suppose it starts with the climbing of the step ladder to roll down the paper background in the studio. The thoughts of the rest of the day fade as I become absorbed with what is about to happen. I become focused, my mind filled only with questions about light, modifiers, composition, approach, optics, the thrill of making an image of a stranger, trying to connect with them through photography, I become alive… other!

The Conjuring

A lot happens to lead to this point. Posts on social media detailing the project I am working on and calling for collaborators to come forward. Somehow conjuring images from my archive that give a feel of what I want to do, where the words fail. Something to bait the hook.

[ I have never been one for moodboards, showing the work of other photographers to illustrate your own vision seems a little of an oxymoron, and at least if I am showing my own images they know what they are getting.]

And then there is the reeling in. The exchange of messages, weblinks, discussions between myself and potential collaborators, all to garner trust.

My collaborators come from all walks of life. Some are seasoned life models, others are brave pioneers in their life story wanting to mark a stage in this journey. Others want to take part in the creative process and see their bodies or portraits reflected through the camera’s eye, never having set foot in a photography studio before. Some are seeking to forge a new relationship with their bodies through photography, to see themselves anew.

The whole process is one of transformation.

The Arrival.

Tea. It always starts with tea. And of course a chat.

This is a very important time, maybe lasting no more than 15 minutes, but a lot of ground has to be covered. Backgrounds offered, stories exchanged, ideas clarified and trust cemented. My partner, always welcoming and enthusiastic, is a salve for any nerves or reservations.

And finally the ceremony..

It is a ritual that requires a cabal to summon these images, a collaboration between me, my model, and my assistant. A quiet dance as we feel our way to something unexpected. Something authentic2. There is something alchemical that happens when you photograph another person. A dynamic that cannot be captured with still life or a landscape photo. I am not saying these genres of photography cannot be transformative BUT I feel it is always in the hands of the photographer. To allow yourself to be open to the transformative effects of a landscape takes a meditative quiet, an internal space, that I just do not possess.

At least not often.

But the rapid vibration of a connection to another person, the changing pace of the shoot, the ebb and flow of energy as we find images and then hit brick walls.

Pauses taken as I rethink the lighting, or reach for a different lens, [ in only have two ] or if all else fails, put the kettle on. It is this energy that I find myself most drawn to.

There is also the privilege of bearing witness to the transformations undergone by my models, my collaborators. I watch as they shift from person to form, to shape, and back again. Sculptures of flesh controlled and designed by themselves. They give of themselves either physically or emotionally, poses volunteered, or suggested, and then developed to make the most of lighting and focal lengths. [ it is at this time that I am often visited by other photographers, as a little bit of Bill Brandt creeps into the work, or a nod to Jack Davison]

And regardless of the end results, it is this process, this ritual, this performance of the magic of photography that I find most rewarding.

“My intention is to stress the idea of TRANSFORMATION and substance. This is precisely what the shaman does to bring about change and development. His nature is therapeutic.” - Joseph Beuys 1974

I must stress that I do not use Ai in any capacity. I avoid it as best I can when editing and certainly do not use it to write these articles. With the bad grammer and smattering of typos, you can probably, hopefully, tell!

Once a month in Brighton, I invite photographers to join me in this ritual. See behind the curtain and learn from my 30 years of studio experience. Hosted by myself and my partner, multi award winning photographer, Justyna Neryng, these workshops are a unique photography experience. I have an unexpected place become free on the previously sold out, HOLLYWOOD. Click the link for all the details.

As photographers, what are your rituals?

On my photography courses I set weekly assignments to get photographers responding to the concepts we have discussed in a particular lesson, or respond to a certain photographer we have been discussing and discovering what we can learn from their approach to photography. These assignments are designed to increase creativity and to get people looking at the world around them in a different way. Most of the assignments are broken down into steps to follow. A lot of these assignments could be described as prescribed rituals.

The above image by Lianne is from an assignments about the surface of things, including the photograph itself. It could be argued the surface of the photograph is under threat, as most photos do not have a surface, residing as they do on our computer screens. This assignment was designed to make students more aware of the “surface” looking at the wonderful layering techniques of Alex Webb and the way “jazz” approach to composition of Lee Friedlander. [ Any assignment I can squeeze Lee Friedlander into is a good one! ] The image by Lianne exists in the surface, the surface of the photograph seemingly fractured into different images, we are not sure what is in front or what is behind. The image raised questions, which is always a good thing in a photograph.

I really like the Orwellian over tones too.

The above images, by Martin T are a good example of another photography ritual at play. I have been encouraging my students to employ their phone cameras more on my courses. Something I have frowned upon in past years. But taking a cue from David Bailey’s position that the best camera to have is the one you have on you, I have been asking students to set aside 10 to 15 minutes a day to put their “photographer’s hats on” and to use their phones to record, “what ever gives them pause”. The idea is to train observational skills and get students to take more of a visual interest in their everyday worlds. These images by Martin were made on his daily walk, were he was taken by the changes in this humble wall over a few days.

The main reason students used to leave my courses was that they felt they had learnt all about the camera that they needed to. They were ready to explore photography on their own terms. However many students return to my courses because the camera has sat dormant since the previous course. My assignments are a way of giving photographers purpose to go out and make images. Even if they are not images they would normally want to take. If you have been absent from my courses, are a photographer seeking new challenges or are simply curious about my courses. I am running a free online taster session on the 7th July. Click HERE for details.

Until next time..

But First…

A big welcome to any new subscribers. This newsletter is where I share some of the events and courses I run from my little photography base in Brighton. I am opening with this student image by Helen W. I found myself going through my archive of student images and this leapt out at me as an overlooked gem! The composition is strong, the colour palette is wonderful and these seems to be an intent, a vision to what Helen wanted to communicate. It is an image that beckons you in as a viewer. I always take great pride in my student’s victories and this is certainly one of them.

If you want to join me on one of my online photography courses in the autumn, BUT are unsure of the online learning experience, I am running a taster session. This will take place on the 28th May and the full details can be found HERE>

And now for something completely different..

The New Beauty Paradigm

With the rise of Ai and the beauty aesthetic and trends of all human history being sucked into an algorithm to be repackaged and sold back to us, how does our perception of beauty survive?

Well let’s be a little more specific, it is beauty that is represented by photography that is being usurped by the “machine!” We are not being sold “new” Caravaggio’s or Picasso’s instead its portraits of a beautiful woman in the style of Peter Lindbergh. [ as just one example ] So how do we as photographers engage with ideas around beauty. How do we take agency over Ai and continue in the pursuit of beauty?

So let us start with an “origins” story, how did the representation of beauty develop? The pursuit of beauty has always been in search of a feminine paradigm, even contemporary notions around male beauty are built same guiding principles as set in stone for women. And perhaps the greatest example of this can be found in antiquity, and Homer’s story of Helen of Troy, the earthly embodiment of the pinnacle of human beauty.

An Origins Story: Helen of Troy

Painting Helen of Troy is attempting to realize the impossible. As the paragon of female beauty in the Western tradition, Helen of Troy was an ethereal demi-goddess. She was celebrated for her femininity as much as she was criticized—demonized, even—for her threatening, seductive powers. After all, she launched the Trojan War through her elopement with Paris—or abduction, depending on the mythological account.

Unsurprisingly, the infamous, adulterous femme fatale is an aspirant subject for history painters. Helen of Troy’s portrayal and representation across art forms provokes passionate debate, regardless of the century. Artists and audiences alike have a history of publicly and privately criticizing any mortal summoned to embody this mythical woman. [ just look at the current row over the casting of Helen in Christopher Nolan’s latest adaptation ]

Cicero tells us of Zeuxis, the 5th-century BCE Greek realist painter. The artist took on the task of painting Helen of Troy but quickly became disenchanted with the model’s imperfections. So, Zeuxis created a composite subject, pulling together individual limbs and body parts from a handful of women to create one ideal form.

Amputating female models to build his own Helen empowered the artist to “rise above the copying of Nature’s imperfections.” Zeuxis’ painting does not survive. Yet, his scrupulous creative process has been reimagined by various history painters, both male and female, in subsequent centuries.

It is paradoxical to note that this “amputation” of the “best of” female forms is now precisely what Ai does. By regurgitating thousands of freely available images of beautiful women, found in decades worth of fashion, advertising, and commercial images, Ai is able to composite a facsimile of what is universally agreed upon to be beautiful.

Where this leaves beauty in a broader cultural context is unclear. If seemingly unattainable beauty standards where an issue before then the bar has just been raised again.

So where does that leave beauty and photography?

Are we reduced to merely creating original material that the algorithm can update itself with? [ I am not going to go into the ethical, cultural and legal ramifications of Ai companies wantonly training their engines on the images made by photographers without the photographers permission, recompense or adherence to copyright. That is a rant for another time, and I am sincerely hoping the Ai bubble will have burst by then. Or at the very least, human labour and creativity will prove to be cheaper! ]

Or do we just have to redefine “beauty” to gain our agency back?

Which brings me to a quote by Bill.

“I am at war with obviousness” - William Eggleston.

Eggleston wanted to expand the vocabulary of photography to include the wonder of the everyday, the beauty of the mundane, to include in a visual language everything that had been previously overlooked. Now we are able to capture such things within an instant with these fabulous machines called cameras. So nothing deserves to be overlooked. Photograph anything that gives you pause. And even if that is a beautiful person, or object or act, at least it will be an authentic, genuine and in the real world!

[ Perhaps Ai is good in one sense. We can leave it to generate beautiful sunsets, leaving you to enjoy the genuine article in the moment, without a camera and worrying about settings, and free me from having to look at student folios full of sunsets!]

I am guilty of spending a lot of time exploring the low hanging fruit of the nude in photography and indeed the portrait. Both subjects that play into the hands of the beauty paradigm. I have not, however, found any great artistic solace in obvious beauty. I have little truck with the philosophy of Zeuxis, or his approach and I would probably find more artistic mileage rummaging in his bins and making something wonderful from his discards. My Quotidian Bodies series sought to democratise beauty and celebrate all sorts of bodies, and my Closer to God series explored how the plasticity of the digital image could be used to explore new kinds of beauty.

It is perhaps my Closer to God series, which stood on a foundation of digital manipulation, that seems a little uncomfortable now in the face of Ai. The Quotidian bodies series seemingly a little more genuine and authentic in the light of our new contemporary viewpoint. [ who hasn’t looked at a photo of late and dismissed it as “probably being Ai”?]

So to return to Zeuxis and the “rise above the copying of Nature’s imperfections.” Perhaps it is exactly these imperfections we should be celebrating, trying to find a beauty in authenticity. In my case to celebrate the body as individual rather than universal. Or as one of my sitters put it,

“For the first time in my life I am seeing my body in a different light. With all the imperfections that make it perfect. I am in love!” -S

So where does this search for authenticity leave the rest of you in the face of Ai’s usurping of beauty? At the very least it should be raising a new question about not only how you consume photographs but also how you take and edit them.

Is it authentic? NOT is it beautiful?

Should we remove that telegraph pole from our landscape picture, should we “in-paint” out the litter and the parked cars? I am not sure of the answers. Whether we chose to sanitise our pictures to make them live up to the pre Ai paradigm of beauty or seek to try and find a post Ai paradigm of beauty is entirely subjective and up to you. Maybe we should rely more heavily on the craft of composition? Photographers of the 20th Century did not possess half the editing tools we do now, the technologies were much simpler and yet the images are fantastic. So perhaps the post Ai beauty paradigm is the same as the pre digital beauty paradigm. We could certainly remind ourselves of a lot of lessons from the previous century. And this is not to say we need to rush back to analogue photography as so many have, in search of authenticity. But rather just learn from the masters of the previous age, and remind ourselves to be in the moment and to trust in the process of the now rather than later!

“Beauty is about the improbable coming true suddenly” - Charles Simic

Photography and Surrealism

This week I have been preparing several lessons on photography and surrealism. A great opportunity to get students to explore more creative avenues of photography and to learn how to draw associations between objects, locations and camera techniques that they had not considered before. Researching my courses is a rewarding aspect of the teaching process. You design these courses and lessons and then release them upon your students with little control over how they might interpret the ideas and threshold concepts one presents. That’s the thrill of teaching! To release an idea into the world and see how other people give it life. It mimics the creative process as an artist rather well. Anyway, I wanted to bring your attention to a couple of exhibitions on in London at the moment. Both rather challenging, but undeniably wantonly creative. For a dose of contemporary surrealism visit the Flowers Gallery for Lisa Jahovic’ “Soft Interruptions.”

For some photo poetry visit the Grimm Gallery which is currently showing the work of Dirk Braeckman. These large scale monochrome prints suggest and reveal rather than explain. Giving the viewer plenty of psychological space to enter the works and ponder their meaning. Braeckman is a wildly creative photographer, working more like a painter than a documenter of the world. He often leaves film unprocessed for years, and only develops and prints when he has no real memory or connection to the events resulting in the images. He often re photographs his prints and uses this process to add further layers of intrigue to the images.

And Finally..

My program of studio workshops is proving very popular. I only have few few places on various Brighton workshops until September. They are creative and fun days with the focus on learning lighting techniques in a professional photo studio and collaborating with models, creatives, dancers, musicians and performers to make wonderful photographs. Open to confident camera users, from the absolute studio newbie to the semi professional. Join myself and the multi-award winning photographer Justyna Neryng for a unique photographic experience.

JOIN US>

A camera is a device for making life more interesting.

In my last newsletter I shared how my students had been tasked with becoming visual poets. Of not only making photographs that talk to us but also of making photographs that talk to each other. As photographers we are surrounded by a seemingly unending visual world of photographs, this world is perhaps becoming as ubiquitous and the “real” world we pass through everyday. So why not engage with it as a photographer. Can we make images in response to another persons image and what happens when we do? Can this “photo conversation” teach us anything?

The process is a simple one, but can teach us a lot as photographers. First we must hone our observational skills and brush up on the language of photography. When looking at the above image, on the left by Helen S, was have to ask ourselves what the photographer wants us to look at. What is the “meaning” of the photograph. The photographers job is to make this clear, [either through composition, or camera technique]. Helen’s image is about LIGHT. The fall of those shafts of light and the way the corresponding shadows carve up the picture plane in a really pleasing way. Helen has opted to shoot this in black and white so no colour distracts us from the interaction of light and shade and the vertical lines of the pews.

Taking in these observations Tony O has gone out with the intent of making a response to Helen’s image. Seeking out the core elements of the Helen’s picture and making a photo that does NOT have anything to do with pews, or even benches, BUT has everything to do with the fall of light and shadow. Put them side by side and the photos star to talk to each other, we enjoy the similarities AND the differences. The inclusion of a figure in Tony’s image seems to jump out even more when viewed alongside Helen’s image.

Can we talk to photographs from the past?

“My approach is very simple—there is no artistry, I just shoot freely... My photos are often out of focus, rough, streaky, warped etc. But if you think about it, a normal human being will in one day receive an infinite number of images, and some are focused upon, other are barely seen out of the corners of one’s eye.”

-Daido Moriyama

Photographer Steve M has chosen to enter into a photo-conversation with an image from the past. Proving that photos not only talk to each other but also time travel. Who’d of thought? The image in question being made by the wonderful “punk” photographer Daido Moriyama. A giant of Japanese photography whose gritty grainy and often out of focus aesthetic led to the photographer making images that feel as if they contain energy, Moriyama’s photographs pop and crackle under our very gaze. The Japanese have a word for this, or specifically three words; Are, Bure and Boke[h].

1. ‘Are’ (Grainy)

This term refers to the presence of visible grain or ‘noise’ in photographs. Instead of striving for the pristine clarity and fine grain of film often associated with traditional photography, Moriyama embraces the texture and imperfections created by grain. Grain is the visible texture created through the random arrangement of silver halide crystals on photographic film which can be fine or coarse.

2. ‘Bure’ (Blurry)

Embracing blur as an artistic choice, Moriyama’s work often features subjects that are intentionally out of focus. This blurriness adds a dreamlike quality to his images, encouraging viewers to engage more with the emotions and atmosphere of a scene rather than just its details. Blur in photography can occur for different reasons, for example moving the camera when making an exposure or photographing something fast moving at a slower shutter speed.

3. ‘Boke’ (Out of focus)

‘Boke’ takes the intentional blurriness a step further. [ we are perhaps used to the use of the word Bokeh to describe the blur of shallow depth of field. ]This technique can create a sense of mystery and intrigue, inviting viewers to interpret the image in their own unique ways. To photograph something out of focus, a photographer can be selective with what is in focus by changing the ‘depth of field’ or they can shoot entirely out of focus by choosing no focal point at all. [ thank you the Photographer’s Gallery from where these definitions are source. ]

Moriyama is a great photographer to introduce my students to, especially those that seem to be burdened by the “rules and techniques” of photography. I am always trying to find ways to prevent the camera getting in the way of making photographs. For student to be using the camera to engage with their internal world or the world around them, RATHER that a box covered in indecipherable buttons that need to be “mastered!” Thank you to Steve for taking the Moriyama aesthetic and running with it, I look forward to sharing more with you all. And do checkout the terrific work of this master of photography. Daido Moriyama

Gazing at the Stars Part 2

In my last newsletter I talked about ideas around photography’s relationship to the index, the work of the Boyle family [ how a sculpture can be a photograph!] and of course shared some wonderful work by my students from the Gutter Project. I just had to share this update from photographer Andy T. I am seriously thinking of putting together some sort of collaborative zine of this project as it is resulting in so any strong images. If you missed last months newsletter you might be asking WHY?

Firstly the project gets you looking for pictorial opportunities somewhere that you are not used to. Unfamiliar territory for most. It makes you observe a tiny corner of our world that is almost always overlooked. Asking photographers to engage with the world a new!

Secondly, by limiting what you can take a photo of, the compositional options and technical options become limited. This “hurdle” forces photographers to really concentrate on their composition. Andy has nicely balanced the bottle cap with the tuft of grass, the strong diagonal adds some dynamism as does the saturated colour of the bottle cap against the nearly monochrome background. Oh and don’t get me started in the addition of a little typography!

Think its easy, give it a go!!

And I will leave you with the fabulous image from photographer Gemma B who usually makes much more esoteric photos than this crowd pleaser. But I include it by way of assurance that some of my photographers do make “normal” photos! This is a celebration of colour and of my hometown of Brighton, welcoming the finer weather of spring and all its photographic possibilities.

Until next time, enjoy the bank holiday weekend!

Please do visit the website to see the courses currently running and workshop events planned over the summer!

website

Before we start looking at the stars, a word about collaboration and the idea of photo conversations.

“The job of a poet, a job that cannot be taught, involves placing objects from the visible world, rendered invisible by the eraser of habit, in an untoward position that strikes the soul and imbues it with tragedy. One therefore needs to compromise reality, to catch it out, to flood it unexpectedly with light and to make it reveal what it is hiding.”

— Jean Cocteau

Perhaps also the job of a photographer? The photographer as poet as Cocteau would have it? To notice “the visible world rendered invisible by the eraser of habit”? It is an intriguing question, one that I have been wrestling with, with some of my students over the last term. Photography is undoubtably well placed to do this above all other art forms because it is perhaps the MOST democratic of the art forms. Anybody can do it! As long as you know how to use a camera. And with the ubiquitous presence of mobile phones, by and large EVEYONE has a camera and uses it to photograph anything and everything! From living our best lives, to a wonderful meal we have been presented, to [ and this is a favourite of mine, a student made a wonderful folio of this] things they have seen that have annoyed them on their way to work!

Over the last few weeks I have tasked my students with becoming visual poets, to notice the lyrical in the everyday, whether they be odd juxtapositions, a particularly pleasing array of colours or the fall of light over a wall, to the contents of our gutters. More on this later.

Once a pool of images had been created by my students I asked them to pay close attention to the work of their peers. It is something we are used to on my courses, enjoying and supportively critiquing each others work. BUT on this occasion I tasked them with writing prompt points for themselves as I wanted them to go a make responses to the images already made. Just pick an image that appeals and make a response to it, start an image conversation so to speak. I didn’t want students to approach this like a catalogue, “I have seen a picture of a post box so I will go make another picture of a post box.” Insted I wanted students to pay attention to how the image was structured, what colours were at play, how was the light falling etc. And make a response based on these elements.

Suzy has made a series of diptychs that explore the idea of photo poetry, engaging in making conversations with images from her own archive with new works. She has shown a keen eye in the tonal compositions of her images, [very Ansel Adams] finding common ground between light and shade, without blindly replicating the images. She has sought the space between the images and utilised this to make some beautiful visual pairings. A solid start indeed to the coming summer photo conversations.

“We are all lying in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars!”

-Oscar Wilde.

Another project was to get students to look at gutters. Jon Nichols has got a lot to answer for! But there is method in this madness and a visual vocabulary that dates back to the 1960s and the work of the Boyle family. This project gave me a wonderful opportunity to open up the subject of photography’s relationship to the indexical!

Just what exactly is photography’s relationship to the index?

This is some serious art school theory simplified [ but I hope not misunderstood ]. The idea is that every art form has a unique relationship with its subject, this is what we call the index. So if an apple is our index, the painters relationship to the apple is very different to a photographers. A photographer cannot take a picture of an apple IF there is no apple. Whereas a painter can indeed, paint from life, and will also need an apple, but they can also sketch the apple to make a painting later, they could paint the apple from their imagination, relying on a shared awareness of what an apple looks like, they could even paint an apple from a description by someone else and they themselves may never have seen an apple. [ there is some room for error if this route is taken as we can see from Durer’s drawing of a rhinoceros that was described to him!]

As photographers, the relationship with the index is a strong one. We need the light photons bouncing of the actual object to be captured by the camera to render the image. This is what is often called reality or photographic truth. [ it is no such thing but that’s for a later edition ] We are tethered to “the real” in a way that painters are not AND this can be seen as a unique characteristic of photography. Another is, as mentioned earlier, its speed and simplicity in execution. A photographer can grace anything with the attention of the camera with little cost to themselves, a painter has a large investment of time and materials to privilege anything to be painted. This is why there are few paintings of meals, but Instagram was once full of photos of them!

This freedom from the responsibility to represent reality is what freed painters up to explore their craft/vision in the way they have, giving us impressionism, dadaism, surrealism and a lot of other “isms”. So it is rather unusual for a family of painters and sculptors to fully embrace photography’s relationship to the index and indeed mimic it to the best of their ability. The Boyle family would pin point parts of London streets by throwing darts into a map. They would then visit the randomly selected location and make a 2 meter square cast of the site. Back in the studio they would use the cast to render a positive which they would painstakingly paint to look like the original site. These “gutters” were then hung on the wall as 3d paintings. These could not exist without the original streets from which they were made.

A rather interesting, though time consuming process that aped photography’s indexical relationship but failed to replicate photography’s immediacy.

These accompanying images by Gail show how a folio of images can be made in a backbreaking afternoon [ spent doubled over and examining the ground at her feet!] exploring the pictures making potential of the gutter without the needless faffing around of the Boyle family. A little bit of photography’s immediacy, and a keen eye for juxtaposition, colour and light and shade have made for some very interesting pictures of something oft overlooked and mundane.

Thank you to Gail and Suzy for grasping the nettle of my sometimes “out there” assignments and revealing ..“the visible world rendered invisible by the eraser of habit!”

If you are interested in joining one of my courses I will have a new program of online courses that will start in April. For those of you might be unsure of the online learning experience, I am hosting two FREE taster sessions on the 10th and 14th of April. Please join me to see what we get up to and then I hope to see you on a future course.

Click the image below to find out more or drop me a line!

And finally, please do subscribe to future posts if you have found any of this interesting. I am not only interested in expanding on the photo community I am building in Sussex, UK but am very interested to hear from and collaborate with photographers from further a field that are perhaps looking for something BEYOND THE CAMERA CLUB!

What is a correct photograph?

As a teacher of photography in the adult education sector, my classes often have members of various camera clubs in them. They come with some good technical skills but are always very concerned with the idea of the “well crafted” or correct photograph. One that reflects on how expertly they have used their cameras and how they have dutifully applied some understanding of the rules of composition. Now there is a place for this, of course, and certainly we want to be able to understand our tools and get the most out our often expensive cameras and “glass”. BUT this is not the only sort of photography there is, and it is certainly no more worthy than any other form of the medium. The important idea is that the camera is a conduit to persons creativity, that the photographer and the camera are in the sort of relationship where, as Dorothea Lange would have it, the camera teaches the photographer to see. And of course there are over 150 years worth of photographers queueing up to teach the modern photographer exactly how “to do it!”

And it is this pool of photographers, the history of the medium, the very language of photography [ as created by Paul Strand? ] that I encourage my students to dive into. My classes are built on the backs of the photographers from the 20th century, partly because their achievements are not obfuscated by digital manipulation and editing, [ the achievements of the 20th century photographer can by and large be recreated in a modern camera, technically! ] but also they illustrate how the visual language of photography developed overtime with cross cultural influences as well as important contributions from the high brow conceptual photography of the fine art world, [ such as Jeff Wall ] to the photojournalists [ such as Don McCullin ] and social documentary photographers [ such as Larry Fink ] to the importance of vernacular photography championed by William Eggleston!

Photography is a very broad church and should be celebrated as such. I think the key to great photography is intent, to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve in your image or at the very least a clear idea of the question to be asked, even if it is only, “what happens if I do this?” Below is an image that does exactly this. Does a photograph have to be in focus? Although the question posed by photographer Suzy was actually, “what happens if I lock the focus on my Olympus lens at distance “x”. The answer turns out to be a rather evocative image that allows “us” the viewer to do some of the heavy lifting and read into the image, the photograph gives us just enough to go on to imagine the rest.

My opening image by Chris S and the below by Michael H could bookend each other rather well. Both made by students on completely different courses. And result from students being sent out to hunt for hard light and ask the question “ what happens if I deliberately underexpose my images”. Moody frames of dark tones and texture, punctuated by shafts of light glistening off reflective surfaces, make for a couple of very effective photographs. Often photography is not about the subject contained within the frame, its not about the act of pointing at something as if to say, hey look at that! It can be about what is NOT in the frame, what is alluded to or imagined in the mind of the viewer. I have to say I really enjoy running my courses when my photographers start making work like this, I look forward to each session keen to see what students have come up with, what possibilities have been explored, what questions have been asked.

If you are interested in joining one of my courses I will have a new program of online courses that will start in April. If you are unsure about the online learning experience, I am running two free taster sessions on the 27th of March and the 1st of April. Join me to find out more!

Some thoughts on portraiture.

With the sun coming out in the UK and spring prep for the studio to bring it [and me] out of winter hibernation, I have been turning my thoughts to my own photography. Specifically my portrait photography. I have had to sit down and reintroduce myself to the work I have already made on my Beyond Gender project. Trying to remember the intent, and indeed the methods I used in the studio when I made portraits like those shown above. Just how did I light these? [ does any other photographer have to revisit work and notes to ask themselves just exactly how they do what they do? ]How am I going to build on this aesthetic over the next few months to bring the project to a conclusion? What on earth am I going to do with it when I have finished? I hope to be sharing the answers with you this year. But in the meantime, I have taken the time to visit London to see two portrait shows that should be caught by anyone with an interest in portrait photography. First was Richard Avedon’s Facing West at the Gagosian. The show is a series of large scale portraits taken with a plate camera. These bigger than life size images dominate the space they occupy, often staring down groups of visitors, holding them transfixed with their presence. The other show is at the Cob gallery and features the work of contemporary photographer Jack Davison. These are almost the opposite of the Avedon portraits. Small photo gravures show portraits as fragile, intimate, inviting the viewer to lean into each image to be able to see. Each image is definitely a one viewer experience, making visitors wait for people to move on before seeing the next portrait, a personality revealed.

Upcoming Workshops in BRIGHTON UK

Please click on the above banner for my current program of creative portrait studio workshops taking place in Brighton UK!

And finally, please do subscribe to future posts if you have found any of this interesting. I am not only interested in expanding on the photo community I am building in Sussex, UK but am very interested to hear from and collaborate with photographers from further a field that are perhaps looking for something BEYOND THE CAMERA CLUB!

How do we work in a soft diffused light as a photographer? Or how do we create interesting images in the persistently dull and wet light as an English photographer?

A question posed to my students on a recent photography course. I find myself blithering on about the beauty of the mundane to my students all the time. Telling my students they should be able to see the potential photograph in any subject. That photography, as a creative medium, is uniquely placed to explore the visual pleasure of the world around us due to its immediacy and relative simplicity to do [ perhaps not to master BUT anyone can take a photo ] . With the ubiquitous ownership of phones with cameras built in, never before has Dorothea Lange’s quote, “ A camera teaches you how to see without a camera.” seemed so prescient. With the rise of Ai it is more important than ever that we can see, no longer just the predilection of photographers but a necessity for us all. Cameras can expose the world for what it is and it is one of the obligations of the photography community to to seek out exactly just what this is. Ai can deliver wonderfully window dressed images, but it cannot “see” and that is still one of the reasons photography will serve us well as a tool to understand the world around us, the people around us.

Those un-expected moments, or observed [or indeed unintentionally captured details] that carry some sort of emotional charge for the viewer, are what Roland Barthes called the “punctum”. [ this word is of course totally made up and Barthes, a philosopher and critic was no photographer ]. Click HERE for a fantastic article that explains some of the cores concepts of photography theory without the need for you to read a single text book! I wholly recommend you subscribe to Flax Photo while you are at it!

So as photographers we should be embracing the unexpected details, the rubbish on the landscape, [ dog fruit in a tree] the chip on a tea cup, the scar or wonky nose on someone sitting for a portrait. We should lean into what we are being given by life rather than having some sort of vision in the mind which we bully life to adhere to. Ai will provide all the sanitised, airbrushed predetermined slop we will be able to handle, as photographers we are now free of such obligations!

This idea of “leaning in to what we are given” brings me to the subject of light. As an English photographer, teaching in England I have to find the potential of flat diffused overcast light, more often than not. And also get my students excited about the creative potential of such light!

So what can we do on days that are overcast or even wet?

Well my go to answer is to make images in colour! With dull diffused light we often lack contrast in our images and separation. Black and white images exist in the middle of the tonal range which can make for very dull images. [ more on this later ] So colour will add some separation to our images, the subtle changes of colour will lend interest to an area which would be rendered as one tone of grey in black and white.

The above image by Kevin illustrates this, the mossy greens and the wood reds of the branch would have far less separation in b/w, in colour they “pop!” the strategy of shooting after the rain helps enormously too, the water droplets giving little pops of contrast throughout the frame.

If you look at the work of master colourists like Jem Southam, you will see how he celebrates colour in this light. The other aspect of flat dull diffused light that Southam [ and many other British photographers ] utilise is how this light can add continuity to a series of images. This dull light does not give away the time of day the image was made by showing us obvious shadows, or indeed what direction the picture was taken. We can go out in the light at at anytime of day between sunrise and sunset and the resulting images in terms of light will be uniform. This is something that many photographers lean into, allowing them to make collections of photographs that have a similar look, even though the subject matter may be wildly different.

So pay attention to your colours, when shooting. Remember that what ever you are photographing the principle thing we will see is the COLOUR, this is your subject. So read up on a little colour theory, learn which colours to include, learn how to use composition to limit the colour palette, there may be “rubbish in the landscape” but make sure it is sympathetic to the colour of the landscape! Or it may clash with the landscape BUT make this clash the SUBJECT of the photo rather than the impressive view disturbed by unwanted rubbish.

BUT I don’t want to learn colour theory and believe black and white to be the true language of photography. What do I do?

Well aside from the fact you’d be right [ tongue in cheek ] a soft diffused light does give us some problems in black and white, as outlined above. So how do we get round them. With no hard light giving us wonderful graphic shadows, and the contrast black and white photography loves, we need to use colour to find this contrast! So look for things that are black or white or at least very dark or light in colour to help add some contrast to your images. In the above image by Bernard, he has used dark metal of the taps of set against the white of the “cold” tap to give this image some “pop”. But there is not a single shadow to be seen in the image. A great example of what Ansel Adams meant by composing with tone!

In the below image by Jackie, part of a wonderful 6 image series on being housebound, this view is a great example of the dull overcast light I have been talking about. Jackie has cleverly used the reflections in the water to give the image the contrast it needs. This is a technique that is often used by the photographer Paul Hart who is an exception black and white dull light landscape photographer. Note also how Jackie is using the sky as negative space against which the drama of the lower half of the image plays out. On dull days our exposure is much easier to manage, the sky and and “subject” making much more comfortable bed-fellows. Use this to your advantage. In my opening image by Martin, the quiet suburban scene plays out beautifully against the sky with no concerns about “blown” highlights. Shooting after rain can also help to add a little contrast to our images, as wet streets take on a sheen that an added dynamic to a dull image.

My final image in answer to the question, how do we shoot in soft, dull overcast light? is by Suzy. I have mentioned using the sky as negative space, and here Suzy does this beautifully, the grey sky providing a seamless backdrop to this moody woodland scene. The whole scene is deliberately underexposed so the trees take on a graphic form against the sky. A fine example of how photography teaches us to see the world and from the wide selection of works here, we can see how creative photography can be made in the dullest of lights. All it takes is an understanding of the different approaches to your subject you can make given the available light, and perhaps some knowledge of the way notable photographers before have done things.

Upcoming Workshops in BRIGHTON UK

Please click on the above banner for my current program of creative portrait studio workshops taking place in Brighton UK!

Student Images from the Online Course New Adventures in Photography

If you are interested in joining one of my courses I will have a new program of online courses that will start in April. I also have limited spaces on my face to face courses that run at various locations across Sussex.

Want to add some creative adventure to your photography? Then drop me a line.

If you are concerned about the online learning experience I am running two completely free taster sessions for potential students to “try before they buy!”

Please Click HERE and enrol on Eventbrite!

And finally, please do subscribe to future posts if you have found any of this interesting. I am not only interested in expanding on the photo community I am building in Sussex, UK but am very interested to hear from and collaborate with photographers from further a field that are perhaps looking for something BEYOND THE CAMERA CLUB!

What we do in the shadows. How camera technology has opened the doors to a twilight world!

As the days are getting longer I thought I would share and discuss the work of various students over the winter season. In England, winter can be a hard time for photographers, [ indeed its always the season of lowest production among my students ] , as the uninspiring insipid grey weather puts so many of my students off getting out with their camera. With the seasons beginning to change and with them the light, I wanted to remind my readers of what they will miss once winter has passed and what opportunities are afforded them with new advances in cameras. As photographers we must learn to lean into what ever the lighting/weather conditions are. There are magnificent shots to be found whatever the light, it is just a case of choosing the correct approach!

In this newsletter I want to talk a bout the drama of twilight! Now obviously this happens all year round BUT in the winter months it can be experienced in the late afternoon which is much more conducive to motivating students as well as being a safer time of day to be out with expensive cameras. Modern mirrorless cameras now have two major low light advantages over their traditional dslr counterparts. ISO sensitivity continues to increase with better resolutions at higher ISOs. Image stabilization has become so much better, with the combination of these two advances a twilight world has opened up to many photographers. Just look at the marked increase in night street photography you’ll have no doubt seen across your social media feeds.

Before, the twilight world was explored by photographers like Todd Hido who committed with a medium format analogue camera, longer exposures and the use of a tripod. Disciplined, time consuming photographs appeared as a result. Quiet meditations on suburban America. Now we have the ability to take the “snap shot” into the night. No tripod required and working at reasonable shutter speeds.

In my opening image above, Kevin H chose to explore the bright city lights of London. Big cities are an obvious draw to photographers, with the night time palette of man made lights in an array of different colours and colour temperatures. [ Night photography is a time where white balance can be a terrific creative tool for a photographer ] Kevin opted for the traditional approach of tripod and long exposure to blur our the Thames and we can see the discipline in the composition that tripod use often instils.

[ top tip; if you want to tighten up your composition, spend a week only making pictures on a tripod! ]

Below is a wonderful image showing how the shroud of night gives even the most utilitarian industrial landscapes comes alive under the glow of halogen lights. We can see a little noise creeping into the shot, a result of the image being made hand held BUT there is a quality about the noise that rather adds to the image. Search around your local towns for these quiet industrial estates at night. No need for a trip to the metropolis to enjoy ..

How do we find inspiration on our doorstep?

Twilight photography affords us the use of some creative camera techniques that again will slowly disappear as the light gets brighter and our shutter speeds inevitably speed up. [ Ok, a work around is the use of neutral density filters but this is another example of the gear getting in the way of making images, perhaps? ] So we can explore ideas around our own light interventions into the night. Inspired by Botany for Beginners, a series of images by New Zealand photographer Patrick Reynolds, Gemma B took to the back garden to isolate these botanical forms against the night sky using only the on camera flash. By ensuring the foreground was close enough to camera to be illuminated by the flash AND the background was sufficiently far away not to be lit by the fall off of the flash, Gemma was able to make these spot-lit forms without leaving the garden.

The above image by Sarah L is taking Bresson into the night. Full of mystery and suspense, the image is an example of how the snap shot aesthetic, can be applied to low light photography as never before. High ISOs and image stabilization allowing us to shoot with far more freedom than our predecessors. The image is far more than a mere snap shot of course, and the capture of the figure who seems to be being spied on from an above window, adds a sense of narrative to this quiet scene.

The above image by Robin J shows creative use of ICM [ Intentional camera movement, a process of making a long exposure and moving the camera as we do. ], another intriguing use of long exposure that is afforded to us photographers in the low light of this time of year. I like the the subtle interplay of the yellows and blues in this image and the way Robin has reduced the image to talking about colour, line shape and form rather than what the picture is actually of. Reality being a spring board to alternative interpretations!

Finding inspiration in the work of others

The above student really took to the work of Dan Sully, and his Night Bus series. Sully documenting the lonely homeward bound journeys of people using London’s public transport on rainy evenings. Their tired, distracted or sleeping faces obscured by the condensation of the bus window giving the images a painterly feel. Not blessed on this occasion with rain, Martin has however rather cleverly seen the opportunity of the portrait and its juxtaposition with the advertising text on the side of the bus.

And finally a return to the work of Robin J and Sarah L who were both inspired by the dreamlike work of Dolores Marat. Marat transforms the world with her camera by using short exposures to add a little bit of blur, a little bit of mystery to the images. By slowing down her shutter and shooting on instinct, Marat allows a seductive serendipity into her work. The above shot is taken at night from inside a car going through a car wash. Who would have thought this would make for such an arresting image?

And a similar dream like spell is cast over the below image, without the subtle motion blur and ambiguity of twilight it would just be a yellow bucket. But this visual treatment after Marat somehow adds some lyricism to the otherwise mundane!

If you are interested in joining one of my courses, I have a new program of online courses that will start in April. Please visit my website for more details and I will be adding some daytime courses soon too! Click HERE for details.

Want to add some creative adventure to your photography?

Then join us in April 2026!

Courses

And Finally: Upcoming Workshops in BRIGHTON UK

Workshops

This year I am pleased to be teaming up with my partner, multi award winning photographer Justyna Neryng, to run a series of monthly studio workshops in Brighton. [we are hoping to take these workshops on tour across the country, but more on that in a future newsletter!] Building on the success of last year, we want to offer a variety of themes to these workshops other than just the portrait. From Hollywood three point lighting, fitness and fashion to the nude as well as some deep dives into creative techniques such as light painting after Paolo Roversi and the use of flags after Albert Watson. Please click on the banner above to find out more and I would love any suggestions for studio workshop themes you might have.

And finally, please do subscribe to future posts if you have found any of this interesting. I am not only interested in expanding on the photo community I am building in Sussex, UK but am very interested to hear from and collaborate with photographers from further a field that are perhaps looking for something BEYOND THE CAMERA CLUB!

Some notes on portraiture and the never ending scaling of photography in the face of the ubiquitous presence of Ai

I am spending a lot of time wrestling with my photography process and indeed output in the long shadow of Ai. What is the point of making images that can be facsimiled by a few keystrokes into a computer? [ I am heartened to see an increasing back-lash against the use of Ai for such frippery as art, photography, poetry, writing and music, all not deemed to be worth the environmental and cultural cost ]

However Ai has raised some very important questions about the purpose of “photography” reserved usually for the tedious semiotic and philosophical texts endured by Masters students. [ I know, I was there!] Specific to photography is the question of the mediums relationship to truth.

I have recently noticed an upsurge in photographers either taking up, or returning to analogue photography. Chasing some sense of the real and genuine. This is not without its pitfalls, learning forgotten techniques with film can be a very expensive way to develop your photography!

I am planning a course specifically for those taking up film, teaching how you can learn photography digitally and then apply these techniques to film to help newbie film photographers develop your picture making before you break the bank!

However I do not feel the need to return to analogue photography myself, just yet. But I must confess I do miss the magic of the wet darkroom with all its alchemical possibilities. The smell of the chemistry and watching the image literally develop before your eyes, the process revealed! There is a perceived authenticity that comes with analogue photography. Its “truth” is perhaps embedded in the process.

Perhaps…

As a photographer who started their career in the 20th Century, I am well aware that the photographic truth was a load of baloney even when we only had the smoke and mirrors of light and..well, smoke and mirrors! Photography’s ability to tell fictions has been well documented even from its earliest practitioners. Hippolyte Bayard’s self portrait as a drowned man in 1840 is but one example, tellingly made at the very inception of photography as an invention. Man on the one hand creating a scientific tool for recording the truth while immediately undermining this, on the other hand, to create fictions from the imagination. So the genuine article is not embedded in analogue photography any more than it is in digital.

The above image is a detail taken from one of my Closer to God pieces I made during my masters degree at Brighton. Wrestling with this very idea of the photographs authentic relationship with truth and sitting in a culture that deifies the beautiful. It was an attempt to question both beauty standards and photographic truth. The portrait was made by starting with a “blank” portrait and then making many more portraits with the model wearing rubber bands. These were then taken out in post leaving behind the distortions. These large scale prints ended up in the permanent collection of the Modern Art Museum in Novi Sad as well as being widely published.

So what can we do to lend authenticity to our own photography?

My own thinking of late, is that we must lean into the process and allow the end images reflect that process in some way. I take great pride and joy in working with the people that I do as sitters and models for my photographs. It is an honor to welcome strangers into my studio and spend a few hours in this ritual created to chase images, expose emotion, unravel a story and maybe reveal some truths. We tell each other stories, engage in a little trust. The studio space, if handled with care and respect, can transform into something of a confessional space. The process of lighting, setting the camera, placing the sitter in front of the camera’s confessional stare, setting nerves at ease, and collaborating to make something that could only occur at that moment.

This PROCESS is not something that can be created with Ai. It can be faked BUT it cannot be created and I think those of us who enjoy photography can tell the difference. But on a more personal level, Ai cannot replace photography as my personal way of interacting with people, and for many of you that enjoy making photographs, Ai will never be able to replace the way you interact with the world, internal or external, with these fabulous machines we call cameras!

Below are a couple of images of students learning studio skills in one of my workshops. They are engaged with the process in a similar way. The subject of photography itself being the common denominator, making the images and immediately sharing the images, sitter and photographer collaborating to hone and refine the images. A human connection that results in some images that reflect on this process, and process that cannot be replicated by a few key stokes into an Ai engine. It doesn’t matter that the photographer in question may be inexperienced, it doesn’t matter that the Ai image may look more polished and professional, what matters is the human presence in the process of creating the photograph!

Upcoming Workshops in BRIGHTON UK

Please click on the above banner for my current program of creative portrait studio workshops tasking place in Brighton UK!

Student Images from the Online Course New Adventures in Photography

In this issue I want to share a couple of images with you by photographers on different courses. They certainly show the variety of images made on my courses but this is not why I wanted to share. Both images, for me, represent lightbulb moments for these particular photographers. That moment or image where they find their voice, either by design or by accident. Where things just fall in to place and I find myself gleefully declaring, “yes this is great, do more more!”

The above image by Gemma was a last minute dash to create an image she was happy with for the assignment. The weather of late has been typically British, grey wet, overcast and unwelcoming. So many of my students have been defeated by the weather, but Gemma found a gap in the rain and sallied forth to make this enchanting self portrait. Gemma has always been interested in how we can tell stories with photography, how a narrative can unfold across a series of images or inside the frame of a single photo. What I admire about the image is that it plays perfectly into what I know Gemma has been trying to achieve and marks a definite raising of the bar on her photography journey.

What can the rest of use take from this enchanting image?

Trust the process! What I encourage among my photographers, is to let photography be a way to give yourselves permission to play. Play is such an important part of the process, such an important part of creativity because it allows us to be open to things happening that we could not possibly foresee. Gemma in the pursuit of play has set personal misgivings aside about how she might look setting a camera up on a tripod and photographing herself hugging a tree in a public park. By giving herself over to the idea and the process she has created an opportunity for something to happen. And indeed, the squirrel is an unforeseen gift!

The above image is by Gail, as a response to an assignment called Two Walks. She was tasked with making two walks around the same location. Once without a camera making notes of what might be of interest if she had a camera. The idea being to think about picture making without the technical issues of a camera getting in the way. On walk two, she took a camera and responded to her notes. Another student braving the wet English winter, but the resulting set of images is well worth the discomfort. Composing for the first time using a square aspect ratio, Gail was drawn to the wet colours, how subtle and muted the hues were, focusing on making images of a woodland that almost fill the frame, and revel in a limited colour palette. Again by imposing a process on how the images were to be discovered, Gail has tried techniques new to her, and created photographs that have pushed her photography in a new direction.

If you are interested in joining one of my courses I will have a new program of online courses that will start in April. I also have limited spaces on my face to face courses that run at various locations across Sussex. Want to add some creative adventure to your photography? Then drop me a line.

And finally, please do subscribe to future posts if you have found any of this interesting. I am not only interested in expanding on the photo community I am building in Sussex, UK but am very interested to hear from and collaborate with photographers from further a field that are perhaps looking for something BEYOND THE CAMERA CLUB!

I have been meaning to engage with this platform for a year now. I have subscribed to some wonderful writers on photography and found much to inspire not only my teaching on photography but my own practice as well.

So what has driven me to actually start writing here? Well my usual newsletter provider has decided to start charging me for sending to my small cohort of subscribers. This was the final push to get me engaging with Substack.

Lets see if it works?

What will you find here? Mainly some of my thoughts about photography as well as sharing some of the work of my students on my currently running photography courses. There will be some announcements about my upcoming photography events, as well as some bear faced advertising of my courses and workshops. You have to feed the wolf after all!

I will also be sharing some of my own work, and discussing my process. Now I know not many of you are ardent studio photographers, so I will steer away from lighting techniques, BUT I am often asked about my process in terms of making projects, keeping inspired and motivated, how to maintain a sense of wonder at the world and how we might express this through the cameras lens. All this and more I will discussing, as well as sharing the work of photographers whose practise and process I hope will inspire! My aim here is to create an Online Photography Club that extends beyond my courses and cohort of students.

Student Images from the Online Course New Adventures in Photography

Kevin has been a keen student on my courses for a few years now. A very active and key member of his local camera club, Kevin has joined my courses to expand his creativity and visual language. It is often the case with camera clubs that the photography becomes camera orientated and technique driven. Whether it is making the most of an exceptional lens, testing the cameras HDR capabilities or exploring camera techniques such as shallow depth of field, the images made in these clubs are often very camera centric. Hence the name I suppose.

My photography courses are more about becoming a photographer, obviously cameras are used but seen as merely a tool to explore a wider subject. They are “Photography Clubs” perhaps?

These two images are made in response to exploring ideas around the uncanny. Cropping was banned for this exercise causing the students to really focus on what they were looking at, how they were framing, rather than fiddling around with the camera. The camera shouldn’t get in the way of the joy of making images. I really enjoy how Kevin has honed in on emotive themes of neglect, isolation and decay. The abandoned shopping trolley forlornly causing a blight on a Sussex beach, and the empty shop with its limited colour palette and nod to William Eggleston. The dusty cob web and the quotidian detritus add a sense of sadness, but still invite us to look at the details, to peer through the window Kevin had drawn our attention too!

Photo Courses

Upcoming Workshops in BRIGHTON UK

I have two workshops coming up in February in Brighton in association with Tichborne Studios. These day long workshops will teach you the principles of strobe lighting and how to apply them to make creative portraits. My partner, the wonderful photographer Justyna Neryng will also be present to assist and give valuable guidance to anyone who attends. We will be joined by three sitters from various creative industries around Brighton, which is also a great networking opportunity and a terrific way to get some variety into your portrait portfolios. These are small group workshops with a max of 4 photographers per session, plenty of time for 121 tuition and with our models too.

Click below to find out more!

Portrait Workshops

And finally, please do subscribe to future posts if you have found any of this interesting. I am not only interested in expanding on the photo community I am building in Sussex, UK but am very interested to hear from and collaborate with photographers from further a field that are perhaps looking for something BEYOND THE CAMERA CLUB!