Getting things in order…

Posted on October 5, 2018 by Guthlac

It is a really tedious trying to get one’s life or order.  As I wade through the many many thousands of images that make up my archive it does feel that I am sifting through my life or at least the last 18 or so year of it.   One of the few upsides of this exercise is that I find little gems that I had forgotten about.

As I believe I have mentioned before I have also started  watching vloggers bagging on about this or that development in camera technology.  They have been besides themselves with joy over the past few weeks as there has been an outpouring of new tech with image size this and stabilization that.   Whilst this is all very well it does rather miss the point of the whole exercise – to make images that you are proud of – if anyone else likes them I feel it is a bonus.  The camera is really secondary to the process, that isn’t strictly true of course but please allow me this conceit.  The image is all that matters.   So in an attempt to prove my point the images above were made with cameras and lenses which by today’s standards are little more than dinosaurs – not a mirrorless camera or IBIS close to them.  Yet I would suggest that they’re not a bad group of images I have found whilst wading through the archive.

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So much for great plans…

Posted on September 27, 2018 by Guthlac

 

The golden hour, oh how we photographers bang on about it.  The golden hour – the time around dawn and dusk when the light is at its best!   That is of course when the weather forecast is correct.   A couple of days ago in Bradgate park the forecast was spot on – today at Calke not so much.   Calke is around 20 kilometres to the west of Bradgate Park and that distance was important today.   As I walked out into the dawn light I looked to my east in the direction of Bradgate Park and saw that the clouds had broken on the horizon  – beautiful crisp light – just what I was looking for.   However, at Staunton Harold reservoir the clouds weren’t so forthcoming and so we had a flat grey light, interesting in itself but not what I was looking for.

I guess in warmer climbs they don’t suffer from such problems as flat light at dawn but this is England and what do you expect?

What I wasn’t expecting this morning was to find the reservoir at such a low level.  I am old enough to remember when the reservoir was being constructed and filling up.  Features that have not been visible since that time are now visible.  Walking the shoreline it suggests that the reservoir might have been deliberately drained in two major phases:  The first phase probably took place during the early summer as it was covered in vegetation.  However this vegetation had grown up through banks of freshwater mussels   that died when the first phase of draining took place; This was repeated a second time, later than the first as the banks of fresh water mussels weren’t covered in vegetation.   As to why Severn Trent did this I couldn’t say but it is clear that the drought is still with us.   We need a wet winter – not the words of someone who spends a lot of time making photograph outside usually wishes for.

Thank goodness man assisted global warming is all left wing fake news.  Make Reservoirs Full Again as some might not say.

 

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A good dollop of RAM…

Posted on September 26, 2018 by Guthlac

 

Autumn being the season of mellow fruitfulness I thought it would be a good time to splash out and give my aging iMac some more RAM and you know what it seems to have worked a treat.  Yum Yum.

On a different subject I have just revamped my website.  The main idea behind the revamp is that it is much easier for me to maintain the site.  Lets hope this is the case but only time will tell.

Anyway, if you fancy look then click here.  If that fails then the address/URL is:

https://www.simonmarchini.com/

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What happened in 2004?

Posted on September 23, 2018 by Guthlac

 

For some reason photographically 2004 didn’t exist for me – just a blank.   I have been continuing my long overdue archive of my images and today I discovered that I don’t have any images from 2004.   Actually that might not be strictly true as some might have been filed in different years.   What is true is that I don’t have a folder for 2004 in my archive of Photographs!   Now I know I wasn’t a well man at this time and this might explain some of this but only some.   For me 2004 didn’t exist and as I write this I am trying to think what I did in 2004 and you know what I can’t really recall – perhaps I was worse than I thought at the time?!

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Just a little bit….

Posted on September 22, 2018 by Guthlac

I have been threatening, mostly myself, for sometime to put together a series of images I have made with my iPhones over the years.   Well the best opportunity to do this is coming up because, drum rolls please, it soon will be 10 years since I first started making these images with the aforementioned brand of camera.   You know what I might just do it this time…I really just might!

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Completing the theme….

Posted on September 16, 2018 by Guthlac

I think I’ve taken this as far as I can.   However if you compare this to the last image I think it is far to say it has come along a long way.

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Continuing a theme…

Posted on September 15, 2018 by Guthlac

Perhaps if I had visited the Rembrandt exhibition as I planned I might be able to say this is influenced by him.   Actually I can say that because, well, who isn’t influenced by one of the greats?   Still a long way to go finish this particular painting but so far so good.

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The winner is…

Posted on September 14, 2018 by Guthlac

Two versions made under two different circumstances…interesting

 

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Edinburgh

Posted on September 13, 2018 by Guthlac

So here we go again…being bathed in a whole new swath of photographic tech from major companies such as Canon and Apple.   We are told that this is the greatest yet or whatever hyperbole that Apple came up with last night to try and hide the fact that there wasn’t anything really new and cutting edge (please don’t mention the Bokeh) in the  latest iPhone range.   It is the same with the so called mirrorless wars raging at the moment amongst the major camera manufacturers.   Missing in all this nonsense, and Apple does get a bit of pass here as their camera is also attached to a phone, is the fact that these are just tools – nothing more.  They are a means to an end rather than an end in themselves.   Yes I’m sure it is very reassuring to have  two SD Card slots (this is an internet thing at the moment and I can see some of the advantages but really?) or IBIS or or or.   This is not what photography is all about.   It is about creating images that mean something to you and possibly other people.   Tech can help at times but mostly it doesn’t really as much as the camera companies would like you to think.   In fact it can just get in the way (Again I’m trying not to think about the Apple Bokeh experience) of making an image.

Of course one of the reasons I’m in this comugenly mood about the latest developments is because I have started to watch the video output on YouTube of vloggers taking about photography.   They need to have something to say and spend an awful lot of time doing so.   As with everything there is a range of good, many bad and indifferent vlogs (Yes I do understand the irony that I am moaning about a blog in a blog).   They can be entertaining if you don’t take them too seriously and certainly don’t start to read the comments below – there really is the road to damnation.   But the one thing that does drive them all forward is the need to have and keep an audience – hence the need to talk about the latest piece of kit.   Some of them are so important to a companies marketing strategy that they are flown thousands of miles to try the companies new products.   Very nice but again misses the point.   They are looking at the latest shovel rather than the ditch it helped dig…very interesting but.

So there we have it – a bit of a rant from me about the obsession of the new tech in photography (his is hardly new I know and in the past I have suffered from this condition).   It is very nice and enjoyable at the time but if you don’t have the eye then it is next to useless.   Now I have no idea whether I have the eye but I do make photographic images that I find pleasing and this was made using tech that was so last year – in fact the main camera I took with me to Edinburgh was so 2012!   How did I survive?

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You gotta do what you should…

Posted on September 11, 2018 by Guthlac

 

If ever there were two images that show all the things that are wrong with modern art these are they.   This has nothing to do with the with the paintings them self as they some of the most powerful and beautiful works of art that have been produced by one of the greats of modern British art Jenny Saville.   No instead it is to do with the way that how art is now exploited by the mega galleries.  I have nothing wrong with talented people making a lot of money but there reaches a point where a limited edition digital print of the art works is being sold for £999.00 a pop.   Now I really admire Saville’s work but I really don’t think her signature is really worth that price.   Both of these images were made for far less and have as much artristic value as the digital prints of Saville’s work.   But then again I’m not represented by one of the largest galleries in the world.

Here ends the moan.

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