Live, Love, Party

It is that time of the year again, you know the one where you say you’re not going to drink everyday but then parties happen. Yup, it’s Christmas! Things always seem to get crazy busy in December and this year was no exception, but having a good ten days to see friends and family has been a real treat. Of course, this is another opportunity for me to make some photographic work but the proper personal stuff that I love to make when I get chance.

So this year, Leica UK very kindly sent me over the latest black and white only digital camera - The Leica M11 Monochrome. As I knew I would be documenting Christmas and sticking to black and white, this was a very exciting prospect of using this beautiful bit of kit.

As I’ve already been asked a bunch of times, '“why wouldn’t I just use a colour camera and convert to black and white?” I thought I’d just preempt that here for those that might not know or haven’t yet googled it. Basically the Monochrome cameras produce a much cleaner image and give a greater tonal range, as well as having the ability to shoot in extremely low light with little compromise. The results are images that have a stunning rendition with noise that looks incredibly grain like, meaning organic looking black and white images. To my eye this camera paired with my vintage 35 Summicron lens produces photos that go beyond simply documenting my family and friends and start giving the captured moments a timeless soul.

That all being said, my plan was to simply shoot my experience and just let the camera do its job, so I could be a part of the festivities and simply react with a quick shot when the moment took me.

So grab a brew, as there’s a lot of imagers here (if you care to look through all of them) and enjoy my Christmas photo essay.

Well, that was fun, and we ended it all on my birthday.

Rain, canals & the seven bridges

Rain in Amsterdam can be both enchanting and unpredictable. Well, apart from this week where the forecast said back to back showers, and it wasn’t wrong.

When raindrops cascade over Amsterdam's charming canals, they bring a tranquil ambiance to the city. While the occasional drizzle might dampen plans, the rain in Amsterdam adds a unique charm to the city, reminding me that even in showers, beauty can be found around every corner.

I arrived in the city with an open mind to what scenes I might be drawn towards this time and how I might approach capturing this place once again. This is often the way i approach my personal work, allowing influence and feeling to navigate my creative output. Except this time I found I had an uncontrolled hurdle direct how I would work. The first day, the first frame taken, and my camera decided to throw me a curve ball and failed. Luckily it retained the ability to shoot manual but without the light meter and also requiring around a 3 second pause between shots. otherwise it would completely freeze up. Obviously this was not ideal but if life gives you lemons, then make lemonade.

A slower way of working, no light meter - hang on, isn’t this like shooting film on a fully manual camera? It absolutely is, so sometimes things happen that are out of your control and all you can do is ride that wave and make the most out of it. My limitations were now in place, all I had to do is get creative, trust my eye and know that I can read the light. If this wasn’t screaming for black and white photography, I don’t know what is.

As frustrating as this situation was, it had a fun and liberating lesson wrapped up within it. Allowing me to be in the moment, watch the scenes and read the light. Now I don’t want you to read this and think that I can just eye ball any situation and know the exposure, of course I also got loads wrong, missed shots and had the camera freeze up at perfect moments. But knowing that this was all for fun and something of a unique experience to shoot with these limitations, I did come away with a fresh mind and experience. It was definitely a holiday for my photography and creative output.

Oh yes, and one last thing - Yes I did get shouted at for shooting around the red light distract at night. In my defence I was photographing it a pub scene (Ive included these photos). The guy who came across didn’t seem to understand that I was more interested in photographing the people rather than the girls in the windows. Also to my defence, there were no girls in the windows at the time. He did soon back down when he realised shouting at me really wasn’t causing any panic. But lesson learnt, maybe not the wisest to photography around this area at night.

London Streets

Its rare that I get the opportunity to shoot a few frames on the streets of london. I also don’t tend to share too much of anything shot away from the coast, So this time, Ive decided to share a few frames I made on the city streets.

More of a photo essay / afternoon spotting a few things than anything else.

anway, hope you enjoy them :)

I accidentally shot a wedding

A few weeks back I accidentally shot a wedding! One of Gem’s friends got married and was asked to come along to the evening do. So I brought my camera, as I do! And we thought it would be a nice token gesture to give the newlyweds some photos to remember their special evening by!

So I took along my camera and also snuck in some rum (haha not like me at all!) and then I got to drunkenly snapping some photos. A few hours later I had shot a series of images, completely accidentally.

Here are a few of the images from the evening, enjoy! :)

The week in-between

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You know the week, the one in-between Christmas and new year. The only acceptable time other than being on holiday where you can drink all week and apparently that’s fine.. ‘cos there's nothing else to do’. Well, I don’t need any encouraging now do I!

So, yeah some sore heads in the monrings but good evenings with family and friends.

And then we end it all with the final party on new years day for my birthday. What a great way to wrap up Christmas 2022.

A week in the woods

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Time for a something a little different…

A week in sherwood forrest. Some time to chill and a much different view to the coastline. Obviously I took my camera (or two) along to capture a few frames when I had chance. This wasn’t really a trip for me to maximise photography but it was nice to have a walk around and take a few frames. more of a mindful wander about, enjoying the environment and taking some time to chill with the family.

A very merry Covid

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Merry Covid Christmas

It has been another strange one and yes we can’t mention Christmas 2021 without covid. It’s just a way of life at the moment but we made the most of it - I’m hoping you did too!

So I have been mixing it up as of late, and i’m sure some of you have noticed a few black and white images making their way into the work that I’m putting out into the world. I made a decision a few months back that I wanted to dive back into the monochrome world and this Christmas was going to be solely documented in black and white. Back to basics you could say - just snaps of little moments that happened.

Heres’s my photo essay of Christmas 2021.

Enjoy

- Fin -

Getting stuck

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Just a bit of a catch up on my thoughts..

Recently I’ve felt a little lost with where I am with my work. Yes, we all go through peaks and troughs of the creative cycle and I guess I’m just at the lower end of one at the moment. For no other reason than I’m looking for a new creative direction to go in and something to fire up my excitement. This doesn’t mean that I’m sat around not making any new work, in fact on the contrary. I know that my way through this little rut is to explore and see where I end up. I’m doing just that but there lays another issue; I feed my creativity with new material (mostly photographic books) and I get inspired by the works of others. This in turn then makes me want to go out and work like that individual. The frustration comes when I see myself doing this and I have to back track with the work I’m making. Why go backwards, well, I have to be careful that I don’t fall into the trap of simply copying these individuals. I have ventured out with my camera and produced images that aren’t really mine, obviously at best only copying others styles. I think any trained eye would spot this insincerity in my photography voice but worse, I know I’m not producing work that’s honest to me.

What am I thinking at the moment – I know I will find a new direction or excitement wrapped up in there somewhere and I just have to work through it to figure it out. Chances are its not going to be a game changer but rather something that compliments the gradual progression that everyone’s work goes through.

For now I am still working my way through my recent images from my trip to the Cornish coast. But as always, I keep an eye on the direction I’m heading in with the things I am shooting today. I’m sure that something will immerge soon and look like a nice continuation – but we know otherwise!.. all the work that goes on in the background is real

What’s your thoughts, and how do you get around those creative ruts? Always great hearing from you guys who take the time to read this, so I’d love to hear from you if you have time. I’m sure you know where to find me on Instagram.

keep creative and have fun (I’m also taking heed of this)

Dan

Risk and no reward

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Risk and no reward, a few thoughts on Instagram.

 

I find it interesting at times using Instagram as a means of getting my work out into the world. Other than posting work to my website (something I tend to do when it’s a little bit more polished and I have found a thread of something interesting to explore), I post images that I’m happy to share with the world onto Instagram. This is definitely the best way to get the work out there and in front of the eyes of the many - Well that’s the idea anyway. These aren’t always the images that are going to be going to be used within a body of work, but they are nice to share and give a flavour of direction I’m interested in.

This is where it starts to get interesting; If I post tried and tested types of images I will get a positive response. Instagram generally rewards images like this by showing them to more people once it gets initial interest. If however, I post images that are more experimental and perhaps explore a different avenue that I’m interested in, then I don’t always get that initial interest and we know how that plays out.     

 

Now the problem that we face is this – Do we just post images that have a higher chance of success or do we experiment?

But there’s a catch! (there always is). If we declare we are artists and we will follow the direction life takes us with our work. The work generated has great potential and could tread new ground but chances are we aren’t going to get any momentum. And no momentum equals that very few people are going to see it. Perhaps that’s not important and we make the work and its just for us –  and that’s fine.

Now if we post images that follow a pattern of greater success, yes there is a lot better chance the images will be seen and possibly well received, giving us access to a larger audience and in return opportunities to do things with our images. but that will be at the cost of no longer being free to produce the work you truly want to, you become trapped by your own success and end up following a narrow path.

What if there was a third option?

There are anyway more options - you just have to draw your own little option box and put a tick in it. I didn’t even bother to label it, just ticked it and that was enough. I guess if you did want to pencil in a label, it would probably say ‘Dan’.

So off I walk into the sunset doing my own thing (well twilight more often than not in my case) I produce work that comes from only pleasing my eye. I think I have travelled down a path that I see things in a certain way and can’t help but produce the images that fit me. I’m hoping this makes sense, I guess its like talking in your natural accent, you cant help but speak in that way. The important thing for me is not being afraid to just be me and continue to explore the possibilities. 

I do like to try a number of things out and constantly experiment with new ideas. They often fail but every soe often it leads me to a new place and thought process. I dare say this is why I photography the little fair ground on the beach so much. It teaches me that there’s has to be new ways of looking and working. 

 

I think I’ve been waffling on there. Back to the thoughts on Instagram; I think you have to be honest to yourself. What do you want from your work and the places you share it. If you want to feel success, then work at it – there are no short cuts. (I just want to say ‘success’ has many forms. My success is the enjoyment of what I do). I think its important to do what you love, especially if it’s a personal pursuit.  I am also pleasantly surprised form time to time with responses to my more experimental work. I think its important to try and stay fresh and keep your work moving. I try to find the edges of what my work can be, before it just becomes a mess of colour. Sometimes those experimental images set a bit of an unexpected spark.

For the love of photography

There is a common misconception that certain people can just go and make amazing work all the time. It simply doesn’t work like that but it’s easy to understand why people come to believe this of others. The social media age that we live in only shows the best of what we have, so reading this as an accurate representation really is a bad idea. This is just the best bits of what people want you to see. Yes, sometimes there are more vulnerable moments that people share but that only comes along every so often. So, what was the world like before this? Well, we had books – remember those? They only showed the best bits of a photographer’s work, a polished project that has taken years to complete, but we all understood that and accepted it. (Sticking with the idea of books, if you want to lift the vail and have a look what’s going on in the inner works, then I’d highly suggest you get yourself a copy of the Magnum contacts sheet book. This shows the best bits but also the work / photos that have led up to that great and often iconic photo).

We aren’t intimidated by books as they have a quieter and gentle appeal that sooths the creative soul. Maybe something to do with the timeless nature that is less daunting. Whereas the hammering of the content online that demands to be consumed and shows you everyone else doing something right now while you sit there, is overwhelming. Should I be out there now making the best images of my life? – it certainly feels that way. But what happens when we let go of that? Stop being bombarded and just breath. Some people decide to eject themselves from social media to have a break, for me it’s an understanding that ‘what I’m doing right now is right for me’ and its ok that other are on exciting parts of their journey, in fact let’s celebrate that, they have worked hard so they can be rewarded (as long as they aren’t show boating about it constantly, yes lets celebrate but I’m not getting any pedestals out haha!).

This all leads me to the thought process of less pressure and as the title suggest – the love of photography (and creativity for that matter). I’d like to share with you this very process that I went through this weekend when I was producing some new work. I took a trip over to Lincoln, a place that I often struggle to make images around. I have accepted this, and I don’t put any pressure on myself to make work. What I did instead was just enjoyed the process. I walked, I looked and when something started to make sense to my eye, I raised the camera and tried to figure out a frame. I was drawn to the colour down a particular street and noticed that it had potential for me. On this occasion, all the elements didn’t line up and I wasn’t able to make a frame that I was happy with. I still very much enjoyed the creative challenge and that process of taking the frames. I have decided to share the image below so you can see what I was going for. Some of the elements were there for me but this frame isn’t quite right for me eye.. and that’s ok. I will try again another day – my next image is out there, and I will sniff it out.

Take the pressure off and enjoy your process.

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Moving photography forward

Photography by its very nature is always looking in the past. We are constantly reflecting and hopefully capturing those moments with all their essence, but how are we moving photography forward?

As much as I love to look at images from great photographers of the past - and I’m no Stanger to dipping into the Magnum archives for inspection. All the past images hold a certain golden age about them and encapsulate that time period. Those days have gone and we live in the today which at times can feel worlds apart from some of those beautiful black and white images of simpler times.

So I come back to my question, how do we move it forward? - well I think we have to look to the future and live in the moments of today. Yes, it is completely different from the past and what we make pictures of is a complete contrast but that’s ok. (I will reference the fact that I’m talking more along the line of documentary photography here)

There’s no right or wrong way of doing any of this but I think what is important is to push the work forward that we make. This is also advice to myself, I know it’s so easy to repeat what has worked in the past but what is greater is to pass the work forward and keep what we are making relevant. We need to produce the work that gives a voice to the times of today but that can be done in any way that makes sense to you.

I try to make images that make sense to my eyes and that are important to me. The more of the work that I produce, the more the process of discovery unfolds and I become comfortable with walking a new line. To move it all forward, I believe it’s important to take risks and constantly try new things. Yes, there is a fair bit of failure doing this but through following that process, I stumble upon new things that I might not have even thought of doing.

A couple of years i produce something that was completely different and that was a series called ‘Sea Lights’. I was producing images through winter, a time that I struggle to make new work due to the lack of light and activity at the coast. I started playing about with some ideas that I have tried a number of times before. but with limited success and lack of consistency. I pushed myself to try something new and outside of the work I normally produce. Yes, it was a little scary to share that work but it was important for me to do that and walk that line of unknowing. I look back on that now and I’m pleased that I did push through and carry on with the project.

This process of doing something new and pushing the work forward is what is important to keep things fresh and also engaging my creativity. Without this, I would soon dull my senses and no one wants that! This is a reminder to myself to also take that less walked path and dare to go against the grain.

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Where do I need to be to take new images?

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Now the UK has started to ease on the latest lockdown, and we can start venturing out a little further, where do we go and what do we do?

I have had so many conversations with people, where they have said that they need to travel again, see new places and get some fresh air. For sure this is important, and something that I’m also very much looking forward to doing. Albeit within the UK for the foreseeable year but, it will be great to rediscover my own country. This got me thinking; what am I going to photograph when I get to these new locations?

The answer is, I really don’t know and that ok, it’s all part of the excitement for me. It’s the unknowing of what’s around the corner. I have a bag of tricks, and by that, I mean that I have been building my way of seeing locations. I have taken the time during lockdown to photograph one place constantly. That’s not without its challenges and like physical training, you become conditioned to the exercise. My exercise is to make new images from very little and try not to repeat myself. Indeed, this is hard and I’m far from perfect but that’s why we exercise. I keep working at it and finding new ways of approaching a problem. Sometimes when I’m lucky, I figure a new frame out.

My goal is to be able to take a photo anything and of anywhere but still in my own voice. What I must try and do, and this is the difficult part – finding the things that interest me. It sounds so simple but when we start traveling to new places everything becomes overwhelmingly interesting. The trick for me will be to start zeroing in on that thing that attracts me. That can be anything at all, but once I have found a little something, then I need to make a frame that speaks in my voice.  

I really don’t know what is going to happen but ill take my camera and capture what makes sense to me. Hopefully, this will lead to something creative.

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Have I got it all figured out?

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I have had a few conversations recently with different people that have mentioned that I seem to have got it all figured out with my photography and creative process.

Its interesting how people perceive my work from different perspectives, so let’s burst this bubble to get it out the way – I have very little figured out. I think Instagram has a lot to answer for on this misconception. Its easy to look at something online and draw conclusions based on your own thoughts, but this is often all they are.

Everyone’s process is different so there is no one size fits all when it comes to creativity. The only thing that seems to be a common thread when I’ve talking to other creatives, is taking your own path. This again is something different for everyone with a variety of starting points and different forks within it to navigate.

I have been taking photography somewhat serious for about 16 years now but its only in the last 4 years that I would say that I have got onto a path that I’m now enjoying. In these last few years, I have seen many people pick up a camera for the first time and get onto a path that has led to great places. But that is their journey and as tempting as it may be to try and replicate what they have done, it would not work. How do I know this, well trying to mimic would only get me so far faking it. The biggest realisation I had was that I had to produce the work that really excites me, it’s the images that I produce as a default setting. This doesn’t mean I don’t have to try, I have to put a lot of effort in, but I know I have to produce the images that satisfy my eye. This thought process was the start of the path that I’m now on – making the images that I care for and that aren’t reactions to what I think others might like.

Its seems that the genre of photography that I’m interested in has taken an exciting turn in the last few years and with that has come some approaches that I’m not a fan of. A competitive edge seems to have taken root and I see many feel the need to get onboard with that. For me, I’ve never really been that competitive, probably why I like photography. It’s a chance for me to walk out into the world and explore it with a camera. I very much enjoy the creative process and when I get into the flow of it, hours can pass by without me noticing. This is what drives and excites me, and probably the only thing that we can figure out. Once we know what we want to do, we have to put the work in to actually doing it. The more you work at it the more it pays off.

This is the lure of photography, it looks so simple, and yes, the mechanics of it are once you lean how to control your camera. The hard part is working out what to point the camera at and when to capture that moment. That has very little to do with the camera and all to do with what’s going on in your head.

So what do I know, what have I figured out?

Be honest with myself about the work I want to produce and produce it!

Take inspiration from others but don’t copy.

Be patient – 16 years and counting.

Turn my weaknesses into strengths – I don’t know what I want to photograph but I know what I don’t like, so I just please my own eye. (sometimes that leads to images that not many others like but that’s fine).

There are no short cuts so take the harder path and put the work in.

Take the rough with the smooth, there are many knock backs but learn to ride over them.

Most importantly, to enjoy what I do – otherwise why bother!

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A coffee mug

Have you ever been apart of one of those corporate team building events? I’m talking about the ones where you all must get involved even though it’s forced and awkward, and the only team building is the shared despair amongst everyone involved. (well apart from one person, there’s always one that’s overly enthusiastic and as a group you’re all hating that individual as much as the event itself).

Well as part of one of these soul-destroying sessions, I once did a ‘warm up exercise’. We took a random object, I can’t remember what it was but it’s not important – so lets say a coffee mug. We then went round the circle of people and all had to come up with different ways of using the mug. To start with all the obvious things were suggested; to drink from, hold liquid, scoop things, etc. Then we had to get creative to come up with other ideas of what a mug could be used for. You have to stop yourself from thinking of it as what convention dictates and open up your creative mind. It’s the same way that a child might make sense of an item they haven’t encountered before. So, once we stop thinking it’s a coffee mug and start thinking of it as an object, we can then start utilising it in a variety of different ways. 

How does any of this relate to photography? Its all about that creative process and seeing the world in a new way. It’s the process of dissociating the objects from what we have learnt they are. Seeing the world from the perspective of a child, or everything as if it’s a new item that you haven’t experience before. As adults, we haven’t learnt what most things around us are and how they work. We become jaded by our knowledge of the everyday, but if we think of these objects as new undiscovered items with no set purpose, then we can get extremely creative with them. 

I work in a small and limited area when I’m photographing the seafront and to make new work I run through this exercise every time I venter out with my camera. My thought process very much consists of, ‘how can I make a new image from this same location’ The answer is, continue to look at the location in new ways. Now I have a variant on my site such as weather conditions, light, time of the year, which will all change the location somewhat, but the structure will remain the same. It goes back to that coffee mug – How else can this be used in a new way? That’s the puzzle and the more I can detach the leant knowledge of what an item is, the deeper I can delve into the creative process.

Take away point – I do enjoy team building events if they are done well, I’m thinking more along the lines of paint balling followed by drinks at a bar with an open tab and the following day off work but on pay.

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I saw a ship

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I was driving the other day and thinking about photography. I was not feeling partially inspired and being honest had been feeling a little creatively lost. I’d been feeling like this for a little while, I don’t think winter and a long lockdown doesn’t help matters. Creativity comes in waves and we all go though those good times but equally the periods of drought, and this was one of those periods.

I was thinking what I should do and what to photograph when I had the chance, the more I thought, the greater my frustration grew with the lack of ideas and any motivation at all. Obviously, this was not a great time to put pressure on myself to get creative, as there was very little I could do even if I had come up with an idea. This didn’t stop the feeling of frustration and there was nothing I could do but carry on driving.

As many of you know already or from viewing my work, I live by the sea. As I continued driving I was getting closer to the docks area and as I turned a corner I could see the top of a massive ship. The sunlight was hitting it from a low angle and showing all the details of the white painted metal work along with all the antennas and everything else that is sticking out of a ship. With everything painted white it had a uniformity to all the details. All those details of the white structure were sat beautifully against a clear blue sky and as soon as seeing this, it reminded me of Edward Hoppers paintings.

That was exactly what I needed to see, it was little a nudge of inspiration. Not that I was going to photography the ship (mainly because to make the photos I would have wanted, I would need to be hovering at the side of the ship and I don’t yet have an Annie Leibovitz size budget for a shoot). But this view reminded me that I do not need to figure everything out. I will see things that resonate with me and I will react to them. The inspiration will come when I get out and see things with a creative eye.

I got lucky that day that I was falling into a rut and saw something that sparked a creative thought. I know that this is rarely the case but it did show me that I need to trust myself and get out there. I will see things that work for me and I just have to photograph them. Sometimes it will work other times it wont but the interest and excitement will come in the process.    

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I was given my dream project

I was given the dream project! It wasn’t from a magazine or gallery commissioning me to work. The project was from me to myself. I gave permission to go out and produce the photographs that I wished someone had told me to. I know it sounds so simple but I heard this advice and took some action. I believe when it comes to being creative we are sometimes hindered by the need for permission or acceptance that what are doing is acceptable. often the brave and creative step is to just go out and do the work that might fail.

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Use a graphite stick

I had an art tutor called Deb – “oh its fabulous darling”, she was a very elegant, artsy, and fabulous woman. In fact, she encouraged me to take my photography further.

She was an illustrator by trade, a fabulous illustrator. I think you may be building up a picture of Deb now. Anyway, she was well versed and experienced in the field of the arts. She would believe in her students and push them where was needed. I very much admired her and always enjoyed my lessons with her.

As an artist (and I use that term extremely liberally for myself), actually scratch that, as a student of art I was always drawing inside the lines literally and figuratively speaking. Art to me at that time was a linier process and something that I tried to understand by quantifying it. Completely the wrong approach but I hadn’t learnt that lesson back then. I tried to be very precise with the work I was producing, and I didn’t want to do anything ‘wrong’. It was almost like I was afraid of making any kind of creative mess. Only now I understand that the creative process hides in that mess.

I was very happy to draw using a HB pencil with not quite a fine pint but pretty sharp. For those of you that draw, you know the type of line that will leave on some nice cartridge paper. I was confined by the desire to draw something that was perfect but could never achieve it. I’m not saying that to be modest, my drawings were bad!

One day I was in a class where we were doing a drawing exercise and copying some illustrations. I think mine was some kind of goblin type creature. I took out my HB and started to gingerly draw this messy-looking creature on my larger drawing pad. Deb (“fabulous darling”) walked past and watched me sketching for a moment, She told me to stop and give her my pencil and eraser. She handed me back a thick, smudgy, and dull graphite stick and told me to carry on with that instead, and then walked off.

I started to draw some lines and moved my hand, smudging graphite over what was a pristine paper. As you can imagine it made a mess and internally, I started to panic. The more I drew the messier it got and then I started making mistakes, lines going wrong in thick graphite and they were extremely obvious. I panicked more, I couldn’t erase them, I had to embrace the mess and chaos on my paper and just carry-on drawing. The more I drew the messier it got but then a character started to appear. It all started to come together, even the mistakes gave the drawing personality. I even started working with the mistakes as I drew more and didn’t care for the misdrawn lines. By the end I was liberated and couldn’t believe that out of that mess arose the best drawing I have ever produced. It really was amazing; you will have to believe me on this.

“Fabulous darling, I knew you could do it”

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