Planet Yawn

One of my students sent me this an email this is part of it.

“went up to Grays of Westminster today and drooled all over their Nikon equipment!!”

Below is my response to the comment.

That disease is NAS, it is what it is called (Nikon Acquisition Syndrome) can be very expensive to cure. Canon users get CAS ( Canon Acquisition Syndrome) instead it can also be as expensive to cure. A photographer under the influence of one of these afflictions is often advised to keep away from the internet as it only makes it worse, especially the review and rumour sites, as these will only aggravate the condition.

My advice is to decide on what you want to photograph. buy that one lens that will allow you  to make images that you want then stop looking as it will be the only thing that will cure the Syndrome. It does however mean that you need to find your subject and not want to shoot a wide range of subjects. This can be difficult as their is so much to photograph in life.

Have a look at this video on you tube Henry Wessel have photographed a huge range of things but he mostly as far as I can tell uses one lens a 28mm canon lens on a Leica film camera. kqed Spark Interview of Henry Wessel

Thereby eliminating the constant need to keep changing cameras and adding lens to one’s camera bag. I have for years suffered this complaint, except as I have for the past three years as a Sony camera user, have been recovering suffer of SAS (Sony Acquisition Syndrome). I nearly started a new affliction recently, to add to my others as a photographer,  ALAS (Also Leica Acquisition Syndrome), it is worse when a photographer has two afflictions at the same time. The cost and pain of curing the syndrome, can become even more. Any of the Syndromes that reside in the family, that should really be called GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome), are made worse when they get the letter A put in front of them as it means that they are really suffering from a problem of direction and indescision about their careers and direction of photography.

My only suggestion is to find the subject you want to photograph and/or the approach to your own photography that you want to use and stick with it till it produces a decent body of work that you are proud of and happy with. Then the Syndrome will cure itself.

Hi all I just want to wish you all a Happy New Year. I just wrote a rather long blog post and lost it as I was trying to upload it and in that post I wrote about what I wanted to do this year as a new years resolution and about the things that I had experienced in the past two years. Now I can’t rewrite it as I was in the flow and I can’t write the same words again. that is the same of writing often the words come out right the first time and when one has to rewrite something it does not flow the same way.

So Happy New Year to all. I hope you get what you want for the year.

I personally am going to be redoing my website this year with new work that I intend to create over the next few months. I am going to be developing my portrait photography towards a new aesthetic that does not include a lot of retouching. I am convinced that we now regularly retouch with photoshop our portrait images just a bit to much. I think that to be different and to sand out in a crowded marketplace one needs to do ones own thing.  I have now come to the conclusion, that I want to use my skills as a photography developed over twenty years to make a different kind of image. I will use studio lights in the studio to make images that use light to make images that do not need the level of retouching that we have become used to, that are regularly retouched with photoshop.

This work will then get a new website and I will use all the tools of marketing that I have discussed with my class and researched over the past few years to relaunch my practice to a wider audience than this blog.

Michael

I just want to wish everyone a Happy New Year. I hope you all get to make the images that you want to this year. I have spent the last week and a half having a holiday at home. relaxing and thinking it has been wonderful. I spend most of my time in the past year and a half teaching and not enough time given to my own photography. I have been able to spend the time since term broke up thinking and writing on what I want to achieve over the next few years.

I have an exciting new project that I am working towards and 2012 will finally allow me to start on this major project. I will give you all more details as things get confirmed and put into place over the next year.

I have learnt a lot in the past two years teaching photography to a wonderful group of people, I now feel more confident with a lot of material that I have prepared for the teaching of photography, enabling me to talk about how to develop as a photographer and artist in a way that will enable a practice that is doable for each of the students that we have at our college. I teach at Idea Store Learning in Tower Hamlets, as an adult education college we have a wide range of students who often have not been in education since they left school. These students have ideas of what they want to achieve with photography mostly it is how to make money at photography and also to make images that are relevant for their world vision. This is challenging as photography has more and more people wanting to become photographers and yet I think this is not really the problem it is how to use ones own photography as a language to speak about other interests. If we think like this then it becomes easier to find a way though the maze of possibilities of how to make money with their practice. With this in mind as a project I am going to also do what I preach as a teacher and relaunch my own practice this year to achieve a income from my own photography.

I will concentrate on making portraits using my Sony cameras and lenses with studio lights to achieve a particular kind of light and feel to my images. Images that are not heavily retouched as I would have do in the past. Photoshop has been a wonderful tool and I have come to the conclusion, that we over retouch images these days because we can.

This is my new years resolution to develop my practice and have a new website of these images within 6 months.

So Happy New Year and may you all spend it with the ones you love.

Michael

This reading list is for those who want to explore all aspects of photography some of the titles are purely technical and some of them do not even have an image within them yet are probably the most interesting. A photographer needs to read to know what is good and to look at good photographs both will help with your development as a photographer. Buying and really reading a few very good books on photography will help your photogrpahy skills far more than a new lens or yet another camera accessory.

So consider this list, it is not complete and yet it has some of the best books that I know of on photography and becoming a good photographer.

Reading List.

Abel, S. (2008) The Life of a Photograph. Washington: National Geographic Society.

Barthes, R. (1993) Camera Lucida. London: Vintage.

Berger, J. (1972) Ways Of Seeing. London: Penguin.

Belt, A. F. (2008) The Elements of Photography; Understanding and Creating Sophisticated Images. Oxford: Focal Press.Get the second edition it is even better

Brackman, H. (1984) The Perfect Portfolio. New York: Amphoto.

Child, J. (2008 4^th Ed) Studio Photography. Oxford: Focal Press

Child, J. & Galer, M. (2008 4^th Ed) Photographic Lighting. Oxford: Focal Press.

Cotton, C. (2009) The Photograph as Contemporary Art. London: Thames & Hudson.

Edwards, S. (2006) Photography: A very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Elkins, J. (2007) Photography Theory. New York: Routledge.

Evening, M. (2010) Adobe Photoshop CS5 for Photographers. Oxford: Focal Press.

Evening, M. & Schewe, J. (2011) Adobe Photoshop CS5 for Photographers; The Ultimate Workshop. Oxford: Focal Press.

Freeman, M. (2007) The Photographer’s Eye; Composition and Design for Better Digital Photos. Lewes: Ilex.

Freeman, M. (2009) Perfect Exposure; The Professional Guide to Capturing Perfect Digital Photographs. Lewes: Ilex.

Freeman, M. (2010) The Photographer’s Mind; Creative thinking for better digital photos. Lewes: Ilex.

Freeman, M. (2011) The Photographer’s Exposure Field Guide. Lewes: Ilex.

Hurn, D.& Jay, B. (2007) On Being a Photographer. Anacortes: Lenswork Publishing.

Hurn, D.& Jay, B. (2000) On Looking at Photographs. Anacortes: Lenswork Publishing.

Karr, A. & Wood, M. (2011) The Practice of Contemplative Photography; Seeing the World with Fresh Eyes. Boston: Shambhala Publishing.

Langford, M.J., Fox, A. & Sawdon Smith, R. (2010) Langford’s Basic Photography: The Guide for Serious Photographers. Oxford: Focal Press.

Langford, M.J. & Bilissi, E. (2007, 7^th Ed) Advanced Photography. Oxford: Focal Press.

Newhall, B. (1982) The History of Photography. New York: Museum of Modern Art

Peterson, B. (2003) Learning to See Creatively. New York: Amphoto Books.

Ritchin, F. (2009) After Photography. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Russotti, P. & Anderson, R. (2010) Digital Photography Best Practices and Workflow Handbook. Oxford: Focal Press.

Shore, S. (2007) The Nature of Photographs. London: Phaidon Press.

Sontag, S. (1979) On Photography. London: Penguin.

Szarkowski, J. (2007) The Photographer’s Eye. New York: The Museum of Modern Art.

Volk, L. & Currier, D. (2010) No Plastic Sleeves; The Complete Portfolio Guide for Photographers and Designers. Burlington: Focal Press.

Wells, L.  (2009, 4^th Ed) Photography: A Critical Introduction. London: Routledge.

Zakia, R. D. & Page, D. A. (2011) Photographic Composition; A Visual Guide. Burlington: Focal Press.

Jaeger, A-C. (2010) Image Makers Image Takers. London: Thames & Hudson.

This book list currently consists of 32 titles, it is not recommended that you buy each book on this list, though some of them you may want to refer to regularly. However, you should be able to access some of them though your local library. This list covers an extensive range of books on photographic theory and practice.

Last Friday we had the talk at Rich Mix, who where wonderful at organising their venue and they made us feel really welcome.

The talk was well attended for a Friday night, we had a good turnout and some interesting comments from the audience. I would particularly like to hear form the Ex graduate of LCC’s MA course in Photography. We had someone who was rather annoyed with certain aspects of the photography industry, I felt that he raised a few good points about how art photographers tends to copy other successful art photographers art practices.

A big thank you to Hajia and Vernal for their comments on what we have attempted to do for them as students at Idea Store Learning. Peter came up to me after and said that he liked how we where running a program that was delivering a more holistic photographic education program than City and Guilds requires for their assessments. This is what our students value.

PHOTOGRAPHY AS LANGUAGE
Friday 18 November 7pm
presented by Michael Wayne Plant, Lead Photography Lecturer, Idea Store Learning.
The evening will begin with a talk about photographic education and what it can deliver. This will be followed by a discussion on Photography’s role within the history of the East End with reference to photography as language and how it can be used to speak about place. There will also be a screening of Idea Store Learning students work. Admission Free.
Rich Mix 020 7613 7498/9 34-47 Bethnal Green Road, Shoreditch E1 6LA
Shoreditch High Street Stn/Liverpool Street tube. www.richmix.org.uk <http://www.richmix.org.uk/>

Join us for an evening of talks and discussion about photography as language.

This is good about passion and inspiration and could be for anyone not just us photographers.

The first 9min 30 sec are great, about the thing that we all need “INSPIRATION”

Followed by some great images by Corey Rich.

This is a great video juxtaposing the words of American politicans and the actions of their own police forces.

Thanks to Colin Pantall for the heads up on this video.

INVITATION
to the preview party of the

photomonth
photolounge

Tuesday 11 October 2011
6pm-9pm
at
Old Truman Brewery
4 Wilkes Street E1 6QF
Liverpool Street tube

Anne Clements   Daniilas Galickis
Chris Mammone   Steve Schofield
Gisela Torres
and the
IDEAS TAP Photographic Award 2011
in association with Magnum Photos
11 ˆ 16 October 2011
Tues-Sun 11am-6pm Thurs till 9pm

RSVP info@alternativearts.co.uk
Alternative Arts 020 7375 0441

www.photomonth.org