I have to leave the degree course more or less whether I like it or not - I thought I was doing well but my tutor did not agree and doubted I would pass assessments. So there you go. Sigh.

I have decided to continue with the blog as I have enjoyed doing it but now I can write it the way I want to and add in other stuff which isn't necessarily to do with photography - apologies to my sister who is a teacher and who noticed the change after a very chatty start and now I am going back to that. It'll still be mostly photography.

Today I decided I would take some photos for the Belfast Parks competition and combine it with a trip to the dentist for mother to pick up new dentures - her new teeth is what we call them. Plus get in a few charity shops to keep mother happy. So we had to go down the Ormeau Road almost as far as the bridge - firstly going to Ormeau Park and we had to rest a few times because mother's knee was sore - I have told her now we are going to have to use the wheelchair all the time outside the house unless it's a very short distance eg Mass on Sunday - I do not mind pushing it. Mother doesn't like the wheelchair - it's very light being made of aluminium whereas a Shop Mobility one weighs a ton(you pick it up in the city centre from their shop) so it's worth buying your own particularly if you're a small woman like myself. Yesterday I told her we're taking it to Blackpool on holiday - think of the length of Blackpool seafront. I'll get a grant for the holiday as I am a carer and am £30 a week better off because of that at the moment- the government has just forced  a cut of £30 through the House of Lords for one of my benefits - it might take longer reaching Northern Ireland.

So we started at Ormeau Park. Initially I thought I would get mother to stand on one of the paths with her back to me but actually realized the park gateway which is all Victorian wrought iron would make a lovely frame and the way the sun was shining would give a nice silhouette and shadow - I had to obscure it with a column otherwise it was too bright - only 2 shots were decent - the ones on the path

 were ok.

So after that we went on our way in the direction of the dentist's and discovered a new charity shop and a new cafe called Boden Park where we had a nice long rest on a sofa and mother was vastly entertained by a baby boy called Hugh who seemed to find her fascinating. Mother remembers babies better than adults eg Terry's twins. We went on up the road , bought a few things in charity shops(me having to veto a lot of stuff which was smaller than mother's size 14). Then into the dentist where mother got her new bottom teeth and they were adjusted(we may have to go back). After that we took a taxi home.

Rembrandt and the Colin Davidson exhibitions

Currently there is quite possibly Rembrandt's last ever painting on display in the Ulster Museum, Botanic Gardens, Belfast - it is on loan from the National Portrait Gallery and a worker in the museum asked me to write a nice comment in the book to show our appreciation so we would get other paintings on loan and I said I would blog about it. The Colin Davidson exhibition of portraits of people who had lost relatives during the Troubles was on also at the same time very recently – it is now in Paris (1)

The National Portrait Gallery runs a photo portrait competition every year called the Taylor Wessing Prize (2)and I have entered it several times but not with a traditional portrait but this year I have one to enter see below.

THE FELLA WITH A DRAGON TATTOO

The Rembrandt is a self-portrait of Rembrandt aged 63 (3)and he died that year. So there were two portrait exhibitions on at the same time – bliss !

I have seen another self-portrait of Rembrandt also in the Metropolitan Art Museum, New York (4)which is full of paintings donated by rich Americans – the different rooms are named after them. I would like to go back on my own sometime to spend a day there.

So a few days ago along with my mother I had the opportunity to do a Rembrandt workshop at the Ulster Museum – first of all we had a little talk from an artist John Scovell in front of the painting but demand by groups to view it is so intense he is only allowed 10 minutes. Then we had to head off to another room to do some artwork – first of all he showed us all the raw materials of the colours Rembrandt had available - most of them poisonous so we couldn't touch them. Next we had stencils to help us do our own version of the painting – adding layers of colours and texture. The artist said Rembrandt's work was very textured and this style of painting went out of fashion so he died penniless.

The interesting thing about Rembrandt's portrait to a photographer is the way he lit his pictures - the chiaro scuro effect (5). His early portraits when he was young are very bright eg in the portrait which has very recently been authenticated (6)

References

(1)http://www.culturenorthernireland.org/features/visual-arts/silence-paris?utm_source=Culture+Northern+Ireland&utm_campaign=1bd085c20f-CNI+Newsletter+-+July+23&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e5d62de437-1bd085c20f-58476521

(2)http://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/twppp-2015/entry.php

(3) public domain

(4)http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437397

(5)http://www.culturenorthernireland.org/features/visual-arts/rembrandt-drawing-club-and-me

(6)http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-news/10886646/Self-portrait-is-authentic-Rembrandt-National-Trust-confirm.html

Assignment 2 Head hunting my mother For my collection I decided to hunt heads in a humorous manner similar to that of Martin Parr. My willing victim was my elderly mother my mother who has modelled for me on many occasions - she is used to doing so and is very co-operative. Also, she is usually available as I still live at home. I made use of costumes most especially hats – in a photo from Parr's web site (1) he appears alongside a man wearing a Roman soldier costume. Martin Parr puts his own head in all sorts of peculiar places such as in the mouth of a shark or superimposed on a body buidler (1)– I have a sister who likes these sort of photos and she searches for naked pictures supposedly of George Clooney to show her flatmate who likes him (I have myself never looked at one of these!). 

 The first photo is an 'ordinary' photo of my mother just to show I am not always cruel to her. It was taken in one of our favourite eateries in Belfast– the Harlem- and was unposed. The muted light through the shutter is soft and affectionate – I was taught this technique by Louise Gallagher in a GCSE Art and Design (photography) class.

The second photo is my favourite as I love the fascinator I bought for very little money in the Heart Foundation charity shop, Castle St., Belfast, specifically for use as a prop. Mother looks elegant and haughty in this shot. I took the photos in our conservatory on a sunny day when the light was bright and harsh so I closed all the blinds and at one stage I put up extra cover behind her.

The third photo is my mother wearing a witches' hat with her right hand like a claw and a wicked look in her eye – she acted the part quite well I thought. I got the hat to be worn normally on one day a year – Halloween - this is enthusiastically celebrated in Ireland as it was invented by us Celts. I wear it when the children come to trick or treat and I give them sweets.

The fourth photo is mother wearing my Austrian skiing hat which was a Christmas present from one of my brothers – he bought it at the Belfast Christmas Markets, traders come from all over Europe June included. She looks sad in this one – she knows she has dementia.

The fifth photo is mother wearing my favourite summer hat which I have to wear because I am fair skinned. Her face is deeper in shadow than with the other hats and this increases her melancholic expression.

My final photo is the most funny of them all I think as there are not many 74 year olds who would be seen wearing pink headphones (mine) whilst carrying an ipod (mine) and she does a joyful expression really well. Also, see the poem below regarding her purple jumper and her purple American quilt.

In conclusion I enjoyed this assignment and my mother did also.These images remind me of a hilarious poem I have read and heard about a lady who decides when she is old she is going to misbehave by wearing purple (2) – this was read out to us at the Alzheimer's singing for the brain workshop where everyone has a good laugh - so growing old is not necessarily sad and I enjoy looking after my mother. 

Warning

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people's gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

By Jenny Joseph

References

1. http://www.martinparr.com/
2. http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/warning/

ZOOMING INTO DEPTHS

For this exercise I had to use different focal lengths of a zoom lens – attached to my camera ,a Pentax K-30, was a 18-135 Pentax lens. I had to zoom down a scene with depth and I managed to get permission to shoot a long corridor in the Ulster Hall, Bedford St., Belfast where I attend the Alzheimer's society's Singing for the Brain with my mother.

I was asked to decide which of the focal lengths was the closest to someone's normal field of vision and it was definitely the shortest focus(below) which was 18mm and this is why standard lenses have a short focus.

18mm

24mm

40mm

Exercise

for ths exercise I have to comment on the pixelated images of Thomas Ruff in the light of two reviews by Colberg (1) and Campany (2).

Colberg as well as writing his review has since then also had a go at pixellation himself (3). Ruff's images were created in response to 9/11 – he was actually in New York at that time but all his negatives were blank. He still felt he had to do something and so the idea of deliberately making photos pixellated occurred to him. Colberg's pixellated pictures are also in response to violence – he found that explosions from US military websites were the best subjects.

I was very glad to see pixellation as part of the course as you see I have tried it myself and I thought perhaps it wasn't a good photo but I liked it and again it was in response to 9/11. I wasn't in New York at the time but it is one of my last memories of my late father – he was lying on the sofa and I came in and put the tv on and the first tower had been hit and they came with their camera and kept it rolling and then the second tower was hit – I watched this for hours. BUT I was in New York just after the exterior of the new World Trade Centre was finished and that time it was the opening of the new Ground Zero Museum also. One of my brothers now works in New York and his apartment block is directly opposite across the Hudson in Jersey City – he has vivid memories of 9/11 too as he worked in Reuters in London at the time. So here is my pixellated photo of the new WTC shrouded in fog plus another photo of the new Manhattan skyline in which I used duotone in Picasa to give a spooky effect.

References


(1) http://jmcolberg.com/weblog/2009/04/review_jpegs_by_thomas_ruff/

(2)http://davidcampany.com/thomas-ruff-the-aesthetics-of-the-pixel/

(3)http://jmcolberg.com/american-pixels

Other work I read and viewed :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B6rg_Colberg

http://www.thefirst10000.com/joerg-colbergs-photography-after-photography-considered-or-a-response-to-a-provocation/ :

“But if we reframe photography (pun only partly intended) – what it’s for, how it works, and what it’s capable of doing – we might move closer to something that’s always changing, growing, and evolving, that is capable of being intuitive and responsive rather than limiting or dictating possibilities. In the meantime, the rest of us will fumble along as best we can, looking for and trying new ways of seeing and new ways of creating until, by sheer stubbornness and persistence, someone somewhere arrives at something truly new”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLyOSkokn_4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRRPd5NcGkc

The history of photography in Northern Ireland exhibition, Ulster Museum

I attended this exhibition whilst a sitter was looking after my mother.

The Ulster Museum has a large archive of photographs taken in Northern Ireland from the very beginning of photography in the 1850's. Recently they re-examined the archive in the light of the digital age which allows copies of very fragile and light sensitive photographs to be exhibited.

They also have a good selection of old cameras. So it turns out my 2 Olympus Trip 35 cameras are museum pieces now! I bought one in the 1980's after an uncle lent me his to take photographs of my friends during my last days at school. I took photos with it for a few years and then there was a long gap when I was very ill and by the time I woke up it was the digital age. One other type of camera they had I found interesting – the concertina type used by John Hinde for his iconic Irish postcards(some of which were on show too). I did a project on Hinde for my Btec level 3 in photography.

The  photos are exhibited chronologically. The first photo of Belfast which shows old buildings being demolished was a calotype taken in 1854 and it is a digital copy of a now very delicate image which had deteriorated a great deal - it probably had acid in the paper in my opinion. Nowadays people can spend a lot on specifically acid free paper when actually these days most paper is acid free anyway since that is the cheapest method of producing it – so save your pennies!

Next ''cartes-de-visite” were very popular from the 1860's to the 1900's – on one side of the little card was a portrait studio image and on the other side there was an ad for the photographer – these ads which were intricately designed were works of art in their own right.

Then “cabinet cards” which were bigger than cartes-de-visite became common.

After that portrait cards arrived and subjects were often soldiers who were about to go off to fight in the Great War so they posed together with their families often. The subject matter of portrait cards was also more varied – it could be eg an athlete and unposed shots were tried for the first time as more people  owned cameras.

Following this there was a selection of John Hinde and others' souvenir postcards. Hinde is well known in England for his pictures of Butlin's holiday camps. Here is one card from my own collection – the lake in Glencar (immortalized in The Stolen Child a poem by WB Yeats) - to give you an idea of his vivid colours. There was no saturation in Photoshop in those days (they were all processed in Italy – many's a blue sky in Ireland was actually Mediterranean).

 

Next the photos on show enter the modern era – there are exhibits from  the BBC  and the Radio Times for example.

I thoroughly enjoyed this exhibition and afterwards I relaxed in the very good and busy(half term) cafe downstairs which had free wifi.

References

http://nmni.com/um/Visiting-Information/Find-us

Repairing an old photo

An uncle of mine asked me yesterday to repair an old family photo of my grandparents - I am the 'go to' person in the family for photography problems. I now have a qualification in the service they require - a City&Guilds level 2 award in digital image manipulation - distinction . It was not a particularly difficult job - I only had to use one Photoshop Elements 9 tool - the  spot healing brush. Then I sent the photo to be printed by Photobox - they are the best printing service on the Internet.

Other things I have been asked to do include dealing with red eye or white eye flash problems. Again this is not difficult - you change the background to black, zoom in and use the eraser tool.

I think the biggest job I had to do was of my baby twin nephew and niece - I had two photos - one was smiling in one and the other was smiling in the other so I had to remove the head of one twin and place it on top in the other photo. I used selection tools and copy then paste.