731 Images and counting …
Published by Ken Scott on 1 Jan 2010, 21:57: Tag News
Staring at a blank canvas
Well year two of my ongoing 365 project has come and passed, and I sense this thing becoming a lifelong habit. Not as a project in itself any longer, but a daily discipline, rather like meditation or yoga or training for sport: essential practice.
Athletes and performers and musicians practise every day; why not photographers …
I feel that my photography in 2009 was of higher quality overall than in 2008, which I now see was a recovery year. I also reacquainted with the mountains, and my down spells were fewer in 2009 than 2008, though they were perhaps longer and deeper. However I have come to realise that the images made in down spells are not neccessarily worse than at any other time.
We should not confuse how we were feeling when we made an image with the image itself.
So onwards with year 3 and beyond.
Photographing Changing Light – *Fantastic New Low Price*
Published by Ken Scott on 2 Sep 2009, 13:03: Tag News
Photographing Changing Light
We are now able to offer signed copies of the book direct at the fantastic new price of £9.99 (with free UK P&P).
We have loads in stock. You can Buy Now using Paypal, or for more details about the book, check out our product pages at www.touchingthelight.co.uk/products/books.html
2011-12 Lecture Tour
Published by Ken Scott on 20 May 2009, 15:16: Tag Expeditions, Lectures, Mountaineering, News, Photography
Saturday 28th February 2009. I’m chatting with Dawn Griesbach at Ivy Knoll. Dawn is a friend I had ‘met’ 18 months earlier on the photography network site, Flickr. This is the first time we have met in person, but it feels as if we have known each other for years.
The conversation is about how long it has been since I was last in Scotland and why I have not added to my Munro count in ages. My reasons include aborted trips (foot and mouth disease, weather) or trips to places with no Munros (Arran, Assynt). Talking of weather I elaborate on our decisions to head south instead of north in recent years to guarantee days on the hill. I end up with an account of our epic in the Sierra Nevada in 2006.
Dawn asks what ambitions we have for expeditions in the future.
I am suddenly very aware again of the adventure on Mulhacen. When I returned then, I felt very aware of my mortality and I knew I needed to live more in the moment.
Illness does that. Illness also can make you cautious. How many times …
Megapixel Madness – Size is all that Matters to Photo Libraries?
Published by Ken Scott on 9 Apr 2009, 15:29: Tag PhotographyI’m sure all of you who have dabbled with photo libraries have read their Submission Guidelines. I wonder, then, if you have had the same sense of bewilderment that I often have. The submission guideline, in principle, goes something like this:
“Images must be originated as RAW and saved once only as a JPEG, maximum 12 quality, at 300 dpi in RGB mode. Optimum image dimensions should be 5100 x 3300 pixels, which opens to a 48mb TIFF.”
Now it doesn’t need a maths degree to work out that a 16.8 megapixel camera is required to provide such an image without resampling. What proportion of the camera wielding population have such a beast, I ask; a smaller proportion than used to shoot with medium or large-format film cameras?
Many libraries used to stipulate that medium format was their preferred stock. So little has changed, it would seem.
What, then is the point of raising this?
Well on browsing several libraries recently I have found all of the following on the front page of gallery images:
poor composition
dull or uninteresting lighting
blown highlights
sloping horizons
repetition of virtually the same image in various formats
images representing but not depicting a place – i.e. which may indeed have been taken there but …
Knoydart Ferry Website
Published by Ken Scott on 31 Mar 2009, 10:41: Tag News
TTL’s images feature on a new website for Bruce Watt’s ferry service from Mallaig to Inverie and Knoydart.
This area of the highlands has long been a favourite, and we’ve used the MV Western Isles on a number of occasions to take us across Loch Nevis at the start of a wilderness trek.
The website can be found at www.knoydart-ferry.co.uk/ Please do pay it a visit.
Suspicious Minds
Published by Ken Scott on 25 Nov 2008, 20:49: Tag News, PhotographyWhatever is going on with people being so suspicious of photography at the moment?
I don’t mean photography of the digital compact or mobile phone variety; I mean people with SLRs.
Today I lined up a shot though some coloured glass in a seafront bar in Hastings, but rejected it and walked on. As I did so I heard a voice saying “Excuse me!”
“Any reason you are taking photographs of the building?” he asked.
“It looks good and it’s a nice day” I replied, anticipating the ensuing conversation. “Any problem?”
“I’m the owner” he said, “and I wondered if you might be selling pictures to the press.”
This was all very well, but it did run through my mind as to why he was interested. Was it because he thought his bar was going to feature in some review or editorial? Was he being protective? Up to no good even, and fearing he had been rumbled for something? Was I being unreasonably suspicious of his motives? I guess I have encountered it too many times to let it pass … I thought about asking him whether he would have asked me the same question if I had snapped his building on my phone, but I …
SPF Judging Seminar
Published by Ken Scott on 23 Nov 2008, 14:23: Tag Judging, NewsAt the SPF Judging seminar on 2nd November I presented a short piece, which I called “Photographic Appraisal – A Person-centred Approach”. It is at the core of what is developing in my mind a s a blueprint for how judging can (and maybe should) be performed when we visit camera clubs to comment on photographers’ work. This work is “in progress” but supports my other pieces written recently in this blog.
The presentation is attached as a PDF (1.26Mb). Please feel free to download it, refer to the content, and to cite it with normal credits. If you wish to use the content in any other presentations, please contact me first.
A Person-centred Approach to Photographic Appraisal
366 Exhibition Opens
Published by Ken Scott on 21 Nov 2008, 16:03: Tag Exhibitions, Photography
My version of project 366 for 2008 opened in exhibition form in the gallery at Horsham Museum on 20th November and will run until mid-January 2009. As I write there are 315 images on display, but the project will not be complete, of course, until 31st December.
At this point, I’d like to thank some people. Firstly Jason Semmens and the staff at the museum for recognising the potential in showing the project, not just for my gratification, but also to inspire others to embark on a similar journey and to further encourage this wonderful new growth in photography. Secondly to my band of friends on flickr, sarahb365, Dave Wilcox and Jeff Oliver, whose invitation got this off the ground for me, fellow 366ers Rugby Mad Girl and Erasmus T, and friends, ivyknoll, Stimpy Rah, lemonyellowsky13, The Neepster, bcgart, …
Getting Moving
Published by Ken Scott on 29 Oct 2008, 13:11: Tag Exhibitions, NewsGee it has been so long since I have posted anything meaningful here. I do apologise.
What has been going on?
Well firstly my eldest son Craig has disappeared down under for a winter’s cricket and gap-year work in Sydney, Australia, and there has been much preparation, not so much of the physical kind but more on an emotional level. Craig travelled on 27th October and you can find his blog here.
I’ve also been heavily involved in the 366 2008 Project, which I referred to when it started. The whole thing can be found on my flickr site at flickr.com/photos/touchingthelight/sets/72157603602816871/ I will be writing more on this a some point soon, but I can safely say that it has transformed my work this year. I have found a way to return to some of the ideas that I had when I first became fascinated by photography, and the expansion in my repertoire beyond mountain landscapes has been freeing and exciting.
Most of all it has led me to examine afresh what “Touching the Light” means to me, and whether it is a term transferable to new ideas and works. As I say, I …
Zen and the Art of Photographic Appreciation
Published by Ken Scott on 26 Mar 2008, 19:03: Tag Judging, Philosophy, Photography, Psychology
In my deeply philosophical state of mind in recent times, I’ve been reflecting on what photography is really all about. And one question in particular has been on my mind:
What is the difference between a marvellous photograph, and an ordinary photograph of something marvellous?
When people comment on photographs, for example on Flickr, to what does the comment refer? Often it will be a comment in one-word hyperbole like “awesome” or “marvellous”. Are they commenting on the subject matter or the image?
Marvellous photographs, or photographs of marvellous things?
A good example of photographs of marvellous things would be the countless images I’ve seen of places like the Himalaya. One could argue that it is difficult to make unimpressive pictures in the Himalaya, because the place is impressive. Yet some photographers definitely create images, marvellous images, that have more soul than others. I think the Himalaya are marvellous mountains, but what is special to me is ordinary to others, and the scale of variance is infinite.
Subject novelty or familiarity can lead to confused distinctions between marvellous photos and marvellous things. I’ve seen critics rave about an image of …
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