I’m back at it again. Skulking round the wee dark alleys and passages of Belfast, waiting for an unsuspecting suspect to make a silhouette.
This was November 1st, a cold wet day in the city, and this passageway leads up to a carefully tended and maintained courtyard at the front of a restaurant and bar.
Silhouette- Church Lane, Belfast.
Fujifilm X-T30 F=18mm, f/2.8 @ 1/125th sec on ISO800. Shot using Acros Film Simulation
A series of short articles practical exercises and notes for new and improving digital photographers.
A friend posted a nice image in Facebook and remarked that it looked better when cropped. (That’s often the case!) It prompted me to ask the question, why? Why was the cropped image more attractive than the original photograph. And that in turn prompted me to think and talk about photographic composition; about the elements of design and the way that our minds perceive visual imagery.
So, in a series of these very short videos and lessons, we’ll go right back to basics, and find out how to compose images that will excite the imagination. Remember, rarely are good images made by accident, they are planned, well thought through, conceived and constructed in the mind even before the shutter is activated.
This series of talks and notes will be an Introduction to Artistic Perception in Photography. How to SEE creatively.
-oOOo-
Part One: Zoom with Your FEET! Continue reading Artistic Perception in Photography #1
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If you are fortunate enough to ever visit Belfast, Northern Ireland, you can get around the city easily and quickly on a ‘Belfast Bike.’ Download an app, pay a small fee, and borrow a bike! Take it from one side of the city to the other, and park it at the nearest bike-park! Easy!
A rack of public-access bicycles at Botanic Gardens, Belfast.
Our special HOBBIES Mini-Photoshoots – Fund-Raising for Cardiac Risk in the Young and The Lullaby Trust. For both ADULTS AND CHILDREN
This is part of life in any city.
I captured this scene in a reasonably affluent part of Belfast, an area full of life and vibrancy where students from across the world mix with young professionals in coffee shops and bars. Where the streets are teeming with people enjoying friendship and a casual happy lifestyle. Where the side streets are student flats, posh detached homes and family terraces. And where a man lives on a pavement in a grubby sleeping bag.
If any picture can speak a thousand words, surely this one does. What does it tell you about the man on the ground? Why has he positioned himself there? What conversation is taking place between the man and the woman at the bank machine? She doesn’t look threatened – in fact they seem to be having a pleasant enough conversation. He’s sitting beside a ‘meal deal’ sign – would anyone go into the shop and spend some money on a ‘meal deal’ for him? Is that why he’s there?
I love photographs like this, not only documenting real life on the streets as it happens, but exciting the mind – raising questions; seemingly incongruous juxtapositions of objects and subjects, apparent conflicts of themes and interpretations.
Fujifilm X-T30, F=55mm, f/5 @ 1/125th sec on ISO400, shot in ACROS film simulation mode.
In June 2018 I made some photographs of the derelict exterior of the old Moneyreagh Gospel Hall. The building had been unused for some years and was up for sale. Here’s one of the images from that day…
The hall has, presumably, been sold, and the roof has been removed, and the walls stripped back to the brick, – so it’s probably going to be converted to a dwelling. I stopped at the site a few days ago to make some more photographs, and to see what the inside of the building is like now. Continue reading Moneyreagh Gospel Hall – Update
I found this scene when wandering around the Botanic area of Belfast on Saturday morning. Someone has chained a bike to a pole, and an advertising sign above the bike reads, “Take me home!” What a challenge for a would-be bike thief!
Fujifilm X-T30. F=181mm, f/9 @ 1/60th sec on ISO400. Shot in Acros Film Simulation mode.
‘The Smoker’s Rest.’
A grubby chair at the back door of a Belfast restaurant, in a make-shift shelter and beside the ashtray. Fujufilm X-T30 F=18mm f/4.5 @ 1/60th sec on ISO400
I found these two memorials in Ballintoy.
A very traditional way to mark a life…
And a more humorous take on memory and commemoration…
Which would YOU prefer?
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