But is it Art?
Fine art. Discuss. It seems to be a tagline I'm hearing more and more these days. Find a minimal subject - if it's surrounded by water that’s good. Pick your darkest filter. Add your second darkest filter on top of that for luck. Take an ultra long exposure to smooth everything out, edit it in black and white and call it fine art. Obviously if you're doing it properly you blur out the horizon and make your subject stand in a vacuum. “You can’t see the join!” said Eric. As one YouTube presenter announced before demonstrating his own work flow, “I'm going to Gary Gough it.” I do like Gary. I like his fine art images very much - oops I said it. And he always seems to be having enormous fun. I like it when these people look as though they're enjoying what they do. His recent adventures on a stormy Norfolk coast were an unspoken example of everything I love about this hobby. If you don’t go home feeling as if you’ve been in a pitched battle with Neptune’s army, then did you really have a great shoot by the sea? The best days are usually the ones when I return home covered in sand, with the taste of salt in my month and at least one sodden sock squelching away inside my boots.
And although none of us used the phrase “fine art,” it was the general consensus that Perch Rock Lighthouse was the ideal subject for sticking an almost black lump of glass on the front of the lens and standing about watching the seconds counting away. After two days of fearful weather, conditions had settled at last. A shame then that we were about to head for home after a week of exploring the Peak District and now Merseyside. But before we set off, there was just enough time for one last stop on the coast at New Brighton. We'd been here the night before, meeting Rebecca and the famous H, shooting into the wind and darkness as the tide rolled in and pushed us back towards the austere walls of the fort. By then, after almost a week of non stop activity we were feeding all togged out and ready to go home. I went through the motions, but wasn't sure that I was adding anything of note to the gallery in the depths of the blue hour.
Now we were here again, via a pit stop at West Kirby, sixteen stops at the ready, grabbing early lunch from Morrisons and pulling up in the car park next to where the Mersey rolls into the Irish Sea. That journey all the way home to Cornwall lay in wait. It was Friday morning and the last day before the half term holiday. The roads had been bad enough on the way up here. It was only going to be worse going home. But before all that there was the final appointment with the cameras, and conditions were ideal. A high tide, no wind, and soft spring light. If we were going to Gary Gough it, then this was our moment.
It's not because I was attempting to explore the world of fine art, but most of this Merseyside series has been presented in black and white. Almost. The coastal attractions here lend themselves to this kind of photography. OK a tiny hint of colour from West Kirby in the previous episode, but the world was mostly grey in these few days around the Wirral and surrounding area. I'm not sure it's what anyone would really call fine art, but I did enjoy making this group of images very much indeed, and the tough conditions we faced made them even more satisfying, stolen as they were from high winds and pouring rain. Even if I haven't Gary Goughed it and attempted to remove horizons. I’d like to say this is for reasons of misplaced integrity, but the truth is I haven’t summoned up the cojones to try it yet. But much like Gary, I was having enormous fun, even if I wasn't always completely aware of that at the time. Art or not, it's funny how the most memorable episodes so often emerge from adverse conditions. They so often deliver the images that take me right back to the moment I hit the shutter. And these Baltic days on the beaches of Merseyside and North Wales are certainly ones I’m not going to forget anytime soon.
But is it Art?
Fine art. Discuss. It seems to be a tagline I'm hearing more and more these days. Find a minimal subject - if it's surrounded by water that’s good. Pick your darkest filter. Add your second darkest filter on top of that for luck. Take an ultra long exposure to smooth everything out, edit it in black and white and call it fine art. Obviously if you're doing it properly you blur out the horizon and make your subject stand in a vacuum. “You can’t see the join!” said Eric. As one YouTube presenter announced before demonstrating his own work flow, “I'm going to Gary Gough it.” I do like Gary. I like his fine art images very much - oops I said it. And he always seems to be having enormous fun. I like it when these people look as though they're enjoying what they do. His recent adventures on a stormy Norfolk coast were an unspoken example of everything I love about this hobby. If you don’t go home feeling as if you’ve been in a pitched battle with Neptune’s army, then did you really have a great shoot by the sea? The best days are usually the ones when I return home covered in sand, with the taste of salt in my month and at least one sodden sock squelching away inside my boots.
And although none of us used the phrase “fine art,” it was the general consensus that Perch Rock Lighthouse was the ideal subject for sticking an almost black lump of glass on the front of the lens and standing about watching the seconds counting away. After two days of fearful weather, conditions had settled at last. A shame then that we were about to head for home after a week of exploring the Peak District and now Merseyside. But before we set off, there was just enough time for one last stop on the coast at New Brighton. We'd been here the night before, meeting Rebecca and the famous H, shooting into the wind and darkness as the tide rolled in and pushed us back towards the austere walls of the fort. By then, after almost a week of non stop activity we were feeding all togged out and ready to go home. I went through the motions, but wasn't sure that I was adding anything of note to the gallery in the depths of the blue hour.
Now we were here again, via a pit stop at West Kirby, sixteen stops at the ready, grabbing early lunch from Morrisons and pulling up in the car park next to where the Mersey rolls into the Irish Sea. That journey all the way home to Cornwall lay in wait. It was Friday morning and the last day before the half term holiday. The roads had been bad enough on the way up here. It was only going to be worse going home. But before all that there was the final appointment with the cameras, and conditions were ideal. A high tide, no wind, and soft spring light. If we were going to Gary Gough it, then this was our moment.
It's not because I was attempting to explore the world of fine art, but most of this Merseyside series has been presented in black and white. Almost. The coastal attractions here lend themselves to this kind of photography. OK a tiny hint of colour from West Kirby in the previous episode, but the world was mostly grey in these few days around the Wirral and surrounding area. I'm not sure it's what anyone would really call fine art, but I did enjoy making this group of images very much indeed, and the tough conditions we faced made them even more satisfying, stolen as they were from high winds and pouring rain. Even if I haven't Gary Goughed it and attempted to remove horizons. I’d like to say this is for reasons of misplaced integrity, but the truth is I haven’t summoned up the cojones to try it yet. But much like Gary, I was having enormous fun, even if I wasn't always completely aware of that at the time. Art or not, it's funny how the most memorable episodes so often emerge from adverse conditions. They so often deliver the images that take me right back to the moment I hit the shutter. And these Baltic days on the beaches of Merseyside and North Wales are certainly ones I’m not going to forget anytime soon.