Monday 5 May 2014

Straight Out Of Camera Week 17 "Books"

Yup, I've done it again. I chose this weeks theme whilst sat daydreaming in my office and then proceeded not to have a slightest clue what to produce for it. After scouring my bookshelves from something of interest, and not finding very much, and then getting distracted by one of the books which needed a good reading I still had nothing. It was then that I came across the first photography book I ever had. It was given to me as a gift, and it was quite a long time ago as it's full of useful information about film! Push processing, mixing ratios for chemicals, timing for different film and so on.

I remember looking through it and being baffled to start with, and looking in awe at some of the example images within its pages and wondering if I'd ever be able to produce images that good. Now, many a few years later I'm confident that I can not only achieve the same standard of images but blow many of them out of the water. I know that sounds really big headed but that's why we use reference and teaching books. To achieve and eventually surpass the contents and lessons within the pages. So this is a fairly simple shot, that includes the technique that is on the pages in the image, and one of the most, if not THE most important tools for creating interesting images, Depth Of Field




These days books like this are much less common,as the wealth of information on-line, be it through Ebooks or websites far outnumbers and out quantifies any physical library on the earth. My learning resources are no longer books, but websites like Strobist.com and Phlearn.com who's work has set a new level to aim for. It will be a long time, if ever that what I produce surpasses what these guys do, week in week out. 

We've unfortunately lost Bruce from the project, and a couple of the other guys are busy but are posting as and when they can. Eje and Chris are up to date because they don't have anything better to do ;-) Check out their shizzle peeps ! 

4 comments:

  1. Great image and a very good write up, shizzle now that is a new term for me so not sure I should be offended or not, but being that it comes from you I probably should be ;)

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  2. Thanks for the comment mate, and being offended by anything I write should pretty much be your default setting ;-)

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  3. Nicely played Mr. Glogiewicz, though I think I'm going to have to move the nickname "The Heed" from David to you with that comment about being so great and wonderful. Seriously though, you look at some of those old picture books and wonder how they chose THAT crap photographer to write a book. All in who you know I suppose. But you did nicely here. Did you have your tripod over your shoulder here?

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    1. I had the tripod between me and the table so the camera was pretty much where my head should have been. I know what you're saying about the Ego trip, but as you say I really don't know who picked the images for the illustrations and demo shots, but I'm fairly sure I can produce better without really thinking about it.

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