Cultured Photography Landscapes

Leeds - updated blog at 'The Cultured Blog'

Leeds is a City that's changing but wherever you are there are still strong links back to it's industrial heritage. It's a place that is moving with the times but is proud of it's Yorkshire heritage and involves this in new developments. 

To see the full set of these images, click the link to The Cultured Blog at my website. Hope to see you there! Cultured Photography

County Durham Heritage Coastline

County Durham's past of mining for coal and tin, amongst other natural resources, spawned lots of small communities to house the miners and their families. Over the years the closure of these mines left many of the villages in the County sparsely populated as people moved to the bigger towns nearby. In turn, these villages became neglected as unemployment rates increased and the desire for new people to move to these areas was low. Gradually, these areas are being invested in as the appreciation for the beauty of the area is being realised. Old pit sites are beingconverted into country parks and a popular new housing build on the old Vane Tempest coal mine site has brought a lot of new people to the area and with it, opportunities for local businesses and an increased interest in the nearby coastline. Seaham is part of the Durham Heritage Coastline which runs from the North of the County to Hartlepool in the South. One of the lesser-known beaches is situated at Blackhall Rocks, about 10 minutes drive south of Seaham. This is a rugged, pebbled beach with lots to explore and some days you have it all to yourself. The images below are all from Blackhall Rocks beach.

Glasgow Necropolis

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Things that matter

In the age of social media, stresses of work, hectic appointments, gym visits and the post-gym drinks at the pub it seems we may be interacting more than we ever have. Social media plays a large part in day to day life but have you thought about the value of those interactions and what they may mean for relationships. I mean, liking the picture of someone's cat perched on a windowsill wearing a knitted hat may seem to be being involved in your social circles, but is this a replacement for those moments where true feelings and emotions are shared? Something a presenter said at a conference last week resonated with me. 'If you haven't shared something today you haven't done a days' work'. He wasn't referring to sharing the latest viral video, he was referring to those times where we confide in people, open up our true feelings and ask others how they are feeling. If you break things down to the lowest level you learn what is important to you. In my own head, I think 'If there was a zombie apocalypse, who would I really care about and who would really care about me'. I don't know about you but I'm down to a hand full of people. It is those people who really matter in life - not your job, not money, nor items or consumables. If you have people that matter to you that much, tell them. Pick up the phone, send them a direct message or whatever, just make sure they know you care and make time just to spend with them. Often it's not until things start slipping away that we realise what is being lost. Sometimes it's already too late. I just hope I haven't left things too late but I guess I'm the only one who can change things for me..... It was my anniversary today and I didn't forget but I have to ask myself why I haven't made the time and had the conversations I used to with my loved one. 

Monochromatic City

Monochromatic City

 

This series of images looks at the way that a city deals with the conflict between aesthetic and functional design. In most large cities across the UK it is apparent that as both population and tastes have changed, so too has the design, materials and vision. Many of the unusual pathways, roads and public areas are a result of architects and town planners never-ending battle to make sure that these cities work for the people that live in them. In older cities we can see stairways that don't go anywhere, remains of ancient walls nestled below glass-fronted shopping centres and public areas with greenery that is only there by design. New buildings use the latest technologies to increase energy efficiency, maximise the use of space and drive down costs. The phrase 'they don't make them like they used to' certainly does apply to buildings but is this because historically, there was no other way? Would the great engineers have built things differently? and do modern designers and builders have the same passion for craftsmanship that seems to be synonymous with those from the turn of the century? all opinions to be discussed and reviewed again in another 100 years... 

     

Fine Art Still Life

It's been such a long time since I studied fine art from a drawing and painting perspective but recently I've found myself being more interested in using the same techniques in my photography. There are many key elements within this genre and they are all as important as each other. They are; the objects themselves, the arrangement or composition of those objects and the lighting. You may get a pleasing image by achieving 2 out of the 3 main elements but you should always strive to get as near to perfect as you can. After all, that's what fine art is about. The inclusion or exclusion of the background is another consideration. As an example of background inclusion, you may notice that in the background of an image, there is a tiny pair of mittens on a window sill and this may seem like the artist forgot to move them. The likelihood is that they are being used as a metaphor for something such as, a small child who is important to them and will probably add more context to the main painting or image.

 

For this image, the main objective was to create a memory of someone very close to me, who recently passed away. There are lots of meanings for objects within still life and if you know a little about the context in which an image was created, it can open up a whole world of understanding and gain an insight into the story. Each of the objects in the image portray their own meaning and I'll describe that shortly. Firstly, let's look at the image itself.

 

To analyse the meaning I'll run through each of the objects and their traditional metaphors and then explain how putting these together in this way tells an even more detailed story:

 

The Lilies: A symbol of femininity and purity

The Watch: Symbolises the passage of time

The Candle: Candles symbolise life when lit, this one is extinguished.

The colour Red: Symbolises passion

The Flute Glass: Fragility

Water: Purity, Life

 

Let's look a little closer:

 

The Lilies symbolise a delicate, female form. The extinguished candle indicates death, the smoke shows us that this has been a recent event. The fact that it is red shows us that life was full of passion and love. The fragile glass containing only half a glass of water denotes the fragility and preciousness of life but also reminds us it may be short-lived. Finally, the watch again indicates that time is always ticking but in this case the time has stopped at 10:12 14 which is the date my gran passed away.

 

As for the composition, the lilies create a frame and some background to the other objects. I have placed the wine glass on the right of the image using the rule of thirds to give some stability to the lilies on the left. The red candle is small but because it is vibrant it jumps out, so I placed this in the foreground to give the image some depth. The watch is placed near the centre as a resting spot for the eye. I added some texture and some balance of warm colour with the fabric to finish the framing.

 

Lighting-wise, I used a speedlight on a light stand and shot through a brolly at about 45 degrees to camera-left. I added a large, silver reflector to camera-right to bring up the shadows and also light around the back of the objects a little to give them more depth. Sounds quite simple but can take many shots and fine adjustments to get the right look.

 

Editing was done mainly in Lightroom, just brought up the whites and darkened the blacks to get the right levels of contrast I was after. I removed some dust specs from the base using Photoshop and increased the highlights on the smoke by using the dodge tool to give it more definition.

 

And that's about it! Hopefully you found it interesting and it may give you more to think about the next time you're at an art gallery.