Adrian Multon - Pictoral Musings

Not Only But Also

2011-11-21T04:20:00.000-08:00

This small selection was shot whilst out on location with someone who is keen to expand their photographic horizons. I like to give people time and space to relax and shoot when tutoring on location, and shooting some of my own images at the same time gives us comparison points to discuss when we are both exploring the same scene.

On this occasion we visited two spots in my home town of Wivenhoe. First a brief stop on some farmland to look at leading lines and horizons.

Then we spent much longer exploring the recently re-opened jetty.
As well as technique, we looked at how to get the most from a single location, by working the angles and searching for interesting details after shooting the more obvious views.

The time of year also allowed us to work with the midday sun behind, to the side, and in front, looking at the opportunities and challenges presented by each.

This set also included some reflections we spotted in a large window on a commercial property, that looked like a big dark mirror.

Flowers For Algernon

2011-10-17T08:24:00.000-07:00

These images are from one of the most enjoyable and creatively rewarding commissions I have undertaken to date.Two talented florists, Amy Curtis and Amy Ford, took part in the Fusion Flowers Designer of the Year Competition, and asked me to photograph their work. We did 8 seperate shoots over 3 hectic days, converting lounges into studios, tresspassing on fields, wading in deep estuary mud and generally doing whatever it took to get the required shots. Between them the 2 Amys scooped 5 awards, so well done to them, and here is some of their work for you to enjoy:

Reflections On Ivor Crewe

2011-09-28T02:56:00.000-07:00

A Wivenhoe Photography Group trip up the road to the University of Essex where the strict lines and repeating patterns of the 60's architecture would make an ideal subject for the theme of the shoot - black and white.
So, what did I do? A load of soft-focus hi-sat neo-fantasy acid-trip landscapes as seen in the gleaming 'dustbin' walls of the Ivor Crewe Lecture Hall.
'Show and tell' should be fun at our next meeting!

The Church

2011-04-07T11:20:00.000-07:00

This post is made up of holiday snaps.
A painting of the magnificent Ely Cathedral was given to me many years ago, and I have long intended a visit. I finally got round to it, and was rewarded by some awe inspiring Norman architecture.
Like many places of historical interest, tripods are not allowed unless you pay a fee (they'd rather you bought a postcard than took some great pics yourself) but I did the best I could in the low light handheld.
I could tell you some history, but I suggest you go and find out for yourselves - the affable fellow who conducts the guided tour up the towers may even tell you where angels really have their second set of wings...

Water Wrackets

2011-03-04T12:27:00.000-08:00

A trip to Nayland to shoot long exposures of water over rocks didn't come off quite as planned as recent rain meant the river level was too high, and the rocks were completely obscured. Still, we made lemonade...

The Blind Side

2010-11-22T02:54:00.000-08:00

Some abstracts displaying a range of takes on the same subject shot at the same time of day.

Three Colours: Blue

2010-11-02T06:19:00.000-07:00

A brief update this, featuring 3 more images from the weekend still life session at the Nottage. Nothing particularly unusual or quirky about these shots - they're just an example of how simple can be pleasing too (IMO). Shot with a macro lens and window light, late afternoon.

Life Of Brian

2010-11-01T07:34:00.000-07:00

"Blessed be the cheese graters" - that's the line isn't it?
Wivenhoe Photography Group undertook a still life session at the Nottage, using ambient light (primarily the large balcony window there), and someone brought along a cheese grater. I despise cheese, but the way the late afternoon light played over and through the grater made me thing 'abstract'. The lens was a 60mm macro left wide open to blur those dots of light, and, of course, a tripod was essential.
I boosted the colour a little with Photoshop LAB colour, but not as much as you might think.
For the black and whites I applied a lith-style curve.

Autumn Sonata

2010-10-19T09:07:00.000-07:00

Autumn is the most beautiful season, and not just because of it's rich palette. It's a time wrapped in the glamour of decay, but the air is fresher and crisper than summer, whispered warning of winter's chill. It is that poignant time when things begin to sleep, to die, to dream.

Death And The Maiden

2010-10-13T10:57:00.001-07:00

Are you one of those people who like to know someone suffered for their art? Well, someone did in this instance, though it wasn't me. The images were shot at first light on a cold October morning as we frantically tried to avoid the dog walkers of Dedham.
A more extensive set of these will appear on the website of my alter ego, James - they're a little bit too grown up for this blog.

Ebbtide

2010-08-24T09:49:00.000-07:00

A windy day in Brightlingsea. I took my backup camera since swapping lenses in such conditions can be hazzardous. Took the tripod too but forgot to take the quick release plate (which was on the main camera), so what to do but more in-camera blur.
The technique works well with seascapes, bringing out their constant movement and chaos more readily than a frozen image will. Here I used gentle lateral panning and zooming.

Pictures at an Exhibition

2010-08-09T02:24:00.000-07:00

No update to the blog this month as I'm exhibiting in the real world for a change.
The place is the Wivenhoe Gallery (Wivenhoe Business Park, Brook Street, Wivenhoe CO7 9DP), and it's the first group exhibition by the Wivenhoe Photography Group. All the images exhibited (by 8 photographers) were shot during our group ventures.
If you're interested in photography or participating in the group, pop down Tues-Sat 9-5 throughout August.

A Walk In The Clouds

2010-07-22T06:50:00.000-07:00

A bumper update featuring images from Wivenhoe Regatta 2010, divided into three groups:
1. Some straightforward photos of the regatta in colour, b&w and sepia.
2. A selection of wideangle views of Wivenhoe Quay; the camera was angled such that the dramatic sky we enjoyed that day covers most of the frame, with the water front running along the bottom of the image - a reversal of the standard rules of composition.
3. Some impressionist views of the quay, smacks and other sailing vessels.

A bumper update featuring images from Wivenhoe Regatta 2010, divided into three groups:
1. Some straightforward photos of the regatta in colour, b&w and sepia.
2. A selection of wideangle views of Wivenhoe Quay; the camera was angled such that the dramatic sky we enjoyed that day covers most of the frame, with the water front running along the bottom of the image - a reversal of the standard rules of composition.
3. Some impressionist views of the quay and assorted sailing vessels.

Angels and Insects

2010-07-14T10:07:00.000-07:00

After completing a test shoot in the studio for a potential client I had a play with the same setup and some dead insects. Pass the Chianti....

The Trip

2010-06-07T10:08:00.000-07:00

A trip to Fingringhoe where everything appeared to be against us - ok, not literally everything, but there was no skipper for the ferry, so we had to drive there, then after a glorious summer's day, the light turned flat. I therefore decided to play with some different blur techniques - panning, long exposure of moving subjects, zooming, and double exposure (1 sharp, 1 blurred - combined later in photoshop to add some vibrancy to an otherwise flat image).

The Cruel Sea

2010-06-01T11:10:00.000-07:00

A second trip to East Mersea, this time to create another aqua fantasy with Fracture.

A River Runs Through It

2010-05-25T08:58:00.000-07:00

Images shot around the river Colne (specifically near the Hythe, Colchester) one very hot Sunday. Primarily abstracts, the set it framed by landscapes revealing the contrasting nature of the area. By my own standards, relatively little has been done to these in post (the exception being the mottled path in which a happy accident produced a vaguely autumnal look).

The Beach

2010-05-07T10:28:00.000-07:00

A cold day in April, and little Kat is lost in the wilderness....

Alice

2010-04-17T09:02:00.000-07:00

Alice gazed through the looking glass and saw something real but not real. One of my passions is for imagery that exists somewhere between reality and fantasy - imagery that is both purposeful, yet not too prescriptive - imagery that leaves room for your imagination to work....

The Boat That Rocked

2010-04-02T07:14:00.000-07:00

A second set from Harwich, and a return to experiments with blur.
This time the camera was firmly held on a tripod, and the subject was moving. A narrow apperture and ND filters assisted the long-ish exposures.

Aladdin

2010-04-02T06:58:00.000-07:00

First of two mini-updates from the recent Wivenhoe Photography Group jaunt to Harwich.
A just in case anyone still thinks the camera never lies, these were all shot during the day, under a slightly overcast sky.

Educating Rita (and Sue and Bob Too)

2010-03-30T10:09:00.000-07:00

A new one-day Photoshop Fast-track for Digital Photographers workshop will be running in Wivenhoe from May 2010.

What's in it: professional image editing techniques, including curves, b&w conversion, Lab Colour, airbrushing, dodging and burning and preparing images for output
When is it: 11-4.30 (including 1 hr lunch break) on the following Saturdays: 22nd May, 19th June, 24th July
where is it: the Nottage Maritime Institute, Wivenhoe Quay

Get in touch for more details.

Under The Sand

2010-03-01T10:00:00.000-08:00

An eclectic Jaywick taster.

Over The Hill: Three Faces of.... Tim

2010-02-19T10:53:00.003-08:00

I had to (kind of) break with my usual thread naming convention for this update, as the shoot presented here is part of a project by Tim Andrews. Here's Tim in his own words:

OVER THE HILL

“Alright boys, this is it, over the hill” is the intro of the song “Bring on Lucie” by John Lennon and, although the phrase ‘over the hill’ has somewhat negative connotations, it is announced on the record in a very positive way by Lennon who goes on to sing ‘Do it, do it, do it, do it now!’ and so, for me, the title of this exhibition is optimistic despite the double meaning.

In May 2007, I answered an advertisement in Time Out from Graeme Montgomery, whom I know now to be an extremely talented professional photographer. He was compiling a book of nudes and wanted to photograph the first 100 people to answer the advert so I thought ‘why not?’ and went along and found that I was number one! Strangely enough, two other photographers advertised in the following two issues of Time Out, this time for people to pose for portraits, and they both photographed me subsequently. That was that for a while until, in February 2008, I answered an advert in our local newspaper from a student, Daisy Lang, who wanted to photograph people with illnesses for her final year’s project. Subsequently, I discovered that there were many photographers advertising on the Internet for models for particular projects. I wrote an email to the first photographer explaining that I was 57 and had Parkinson’s Disease and that ‘I wanted to continue on my path of being photographed by different people during the course of my illness’. Suddenly, as I wrote those words, I realised that I had my own project.

Since then, over seventy different photographers have photographed me and it has been incredibly interesting and exciting as I have seen the project develop day by day. I have met many wonderful, skilful people many of whom, normally, I would never have met let alone spent several hours with them.

It has been a fascinating journey. I have always loved photography but never had the patience or skill to practice it successfully. However, being a model has enabled me to collaborate with brilliant practitioners of the art and to be part of the artistic photographic process.

I had not discussed the proposed title of the exhibition with anyone until I met Roberto Foddai to talk about his ideas for our shoot. He produced two pieces of headgear he wanted me to wear and said that one of them had some wording on it which he felt was somewhat ironic. He turned it over and on the front were the words – ‘Over the Hill’.

Free the people, now.
Do it, do it, do it, do it now.

Tim Andrews

I did three short sets with Tim.

First up are images of Tim staring out at the denuded branches of trees in winter.

Next are a couple of simple portraits. I used mixed lighting for these - flash and modelling lights with an exposure of about 5 seconds.

Lastly there are 3 images inspired by the artwork for the BBC serialisation of Gormenghast. I wanted to do a fun fantasy set, and referencing Mervyn Peake seemed appropriate for reasons that will be obvious to anyone familiar with that great writer.

1984

2010-02-19T10:36:00.000-08:00

Yes, it's fast approaching!
Waddaya mean, it's been and gone - Big Brother is alive and well, thank you, and this is what he's been up to recently: BIG BRO

Not only do photographers not deserve to earn money or credit from their creations, they shouldn't really be allowed out in public at all!

If you want to do something about the Digital Economy Bill (NB not the public photography issue): PETITION

Gone In 60 Seconds

2010-02-16T11:21:00.000-08:00

A trip to a livestock auction site inspired me to try something a little more abstract than usual. The stark and unnatural metal of the pens, designed to contain creatures more accustomed to open grassland made me think about the unnatural restrictions we constantly impose on the world and ourselves, and our progressive retreat from nature, as we try to mould the world into something more uniform, certain and linear.

Lights and Shadows in a City of a Million

2010-02-03T11:05:00.000-08:00

A brief update featuring some snapshots from The Smoke.
The trip was primarily a meeting between myself, Tim Andrews, and fellow Wivenhoe photographer Lindsay Wakelin, to discuss a possible shoot as part of his ongoing project 'Over The Hill', in which he is having portraits created by 100 different photographers, most famously (thus far) Rankin. Tim was diagnosed with Parkinson's a few years ago, retired from his career as a lawyer and embarked upon this project. He also took part in Antony Gormley's Trafalgar Square plinth living art installation, where he danced to the new Madness LP for an hour:
Norton Folgate
Tim's wife is a very talented artist, and her work can be seen here:
Jane Andrews
After discussing ideas for the shoot with Tim, we took in the Photographic Portrait Competition winners at the National Portrait Gallery. It goes without saying there was some powerful work on display there, although for my money, some of the images stretched the definition of 'portraiture', including one (splendid) reportage shot and another (unspectacular) glamour shot. As always, young girls with blank expressions seemed popular with the judges.
I then detoured to the Tate Britain to catch the Turner exhibition before it closed. Wonderful to see so much work by one of my favourite artists (an influence for some of my own landscape work), but I was disappointed that the emphasis the exhibition was on Turner's competitive nature and desire to 'improve' on images by other Masters. I felt it undervalued Turner's revolutionary impact on painting.
Galleries are always a strange experience anyway. I always want the hoards of zombies with their educational headphones to vanish into thin air, leaving me the space required to truly soak in the beauty on the walls.

The White Room

2010-01-19T08:38:00.001-08:00

A brief update on the theme of abstracting the recent white out.
The only real editing these images underwent in post was a boost to contrast and a reduction of saturation.

Le Rouge et le Noir

2010-01-19T08:33:00.000-08:00

Revisiting the past with Jacquie Oh.

Three Colours - White

2010-01-19T08:24:00.000-08:00

The best thing about heavy snow is that the landscape become other than it is for a brief moment in time, including transitions into black and white.

Up The Creek

2010-01-05T08:57:00.000-08:00

A set of images shot close to Thorington Mill.
I recently purchased Photoshop CS3 - it was kinda forced as I'd previously upgraded my camera to one not fully supported by CS2 - really glad that I did.
The latest Camera Raw plugin available with CS3 (note - not the one it's packaged with) works with the Nikon D300 and is miles ahead of the CS2 Camera Raw when it comes to recovering detail in HDR situations. The last shot of this set is a kind of HDR image; it is constructed from 3 Camera Raw versions of one original file - one fine tuned for sky, one for the trees, and one for the foreground.
The first image is faux infrared, created using CS3's excellent black and white adjustment layer function (another improvement over CS2) and curve-toning.

Trees Lounge

2010-01-05T08:38:00.000-08:00

Well, what else are they supposed to do when the birds have deserted them for warmer climbs?
Some of these were oportunistic snap shots whilst I was on a job, others were shot at the most recent Wivenhoe Photography Group trip.
Trees sleep during the summer, resting from all that activity in spring. They flirt outrageously in autumn, but then in winter we witness a darker side of them, one they'd probably rather we didn't see.

Nine

2010-01-05T08:30:00.000-08:00

A mini post of two images, one old, one new. Different takes on the theme of crowds and movement. Both are long exposures.

Winter Light

2009-12-10T12:23:00.000-08:00

Back to experimenting with blur this week, as well as playing with some of the functionality Photoshop CS3 offers, after upgrading from CS2 - specifically the new black and white conversion method.
The theme of this jaunt into Colchester was supposed to be 'urban', but old habits die hard and when there's an old church to photograph, I become a moth to it's flame.
There are various themes or ideas running through this set - obviously movement, the hustle and bustle of the street, and the anonymity of crowds - but also a tilt into fantasy with 'neon' and the images of St. Botolph's. The final image of the cross, in particular, was intended to take on a cartoonish feel.

Somewhere In Time

2009-11-25T07:46:00.000-08:00

Some simple experimentations with Hollywood glamour from a bygone era. The lighting for these images primarily consisted of monoblocs with snoots, grids and barndoors attached. The last image was part of an experiment that still needs some work. I used an old slide projector to cast the shadow of the cat figurine on the grey seamless background; this wasn't ideal as the light from the projector wasn't very powerful. I tried the same with flash but it didn't produce such defined shapes, even with a snoot - probably the light bounced around to much off the shiny gobo. This meant relying on a slower shutter speed than I normally use for portrait sittings - again, not ideal since I prefer to avoid the tripod for such shoots. The lighting on the model had to be carefully arranged so as not to fall on the background or cast a sadow of the model on the background.
The model is the delightful Clara Sinclair. The background was going to be the shadow of some dried roses that I had kept intact for well over a year, but I tripped over them, and now they're potpourri. Ho hum.

Shrooms

2009-11-10T12:02:00.000-08:00

As autumn shivers towards winter, a brief jaunt to Wivenhoe Woods resulting in these shots of fungi. I'm not usually one for sentimentality, but these euagaric clusters looked quite snug and cosy nestled together around trees and stumps, so those were the elements I chose to concentrate on.

Along Came A Spider

2009-10-27T13:20:00.000-07:00

This is an opportunist set and a (welcome?) break from impressionism - although there is still a theme of 'obscuring detail' running through the images.
Returning from a business breakfast, I noticed the dew-laden webs in the lavender running down the side of my garden, so grabbed the camera and snapped on a macro lens.
Little was done to these in post, apart from desaturation and contrast adjustments.
The question is, where's the spider? It's hiding there somewhere....

N.B. Some of these are best viewed at full size - just click on the image.

On The Waterfront

2009-10-27T13:03:00.000-07:00

Here are some views of Wivenhoe that you won't see very often...
Playing with in-camera (and post-production) impressionist techniques once again, this time with a more avowedly fantastical goal.
This set could be subtitled 'pan and scan' as lateral movements and zooming were used rather than the vertical movements of the graveyard set.
Post involved some custom curves and some contrast shifts using 'apply image'. There was also some selective colouring and tinting using various layers.

Time and Tide

2009-10-16T11:35:00.000-07:00

My visit to this location was primarily a scouting trip. I was planning a shoot with a model in the near future, and wanted to double check that the features that first drew me to the spot some years ago were still there, and not washed away by the remorseless waves.
As the sun descended I stopped just snapping images for my shoot plan, grabbed the tripod and worked on some long-ish exposures. As with the graves, my thoughts were turning to impressionism, and depicting different aspects of the beach as changed from moment to moment with the encroaching tide. That said, my personal work rarely sets out to simply record a moment in time, rather each image becomes a representation of the fantasies a given scene conjures in my mind's eye.
In post, each of these images was desaturated and then toned with curves. I also spent time increasing and decreasing the contrast in different parts of the images, using curves, overlay layers and layer masking.

A River Runs Through It

2009-10-16T11:23:00.000-07:00

My second shoot with the wonderful Fracture took us to a beautiful location surprisingly close to central London. With these shots my focus in post-production was on saturation - boosting in LAB colour, and mixing partial with full desaturation. Discussions about LAB colour and the various desaturation techniques available in Photoshop can be found on my two main websites.

Graveyard Shift

2009-10-16T11:12:00.000-07:00

Over the years I've played with a number of different techniques designed to create a pictoral, impressionist effect. They include long exposures of moving subjects, vaseline smeared over a skylight filter, and various digital methods, including a digital stocking soft-focus filter. These images utilized vertical movements of the camera, as well as use of my home-grown digi stocking filter and some custom curves.