Produce at least 2 photographs, one should convey rhythm, the other pattern. Remember that that in rhythm there needs to be a sequence in the picture so that the eye will follow a direction and experience an optical beat. For the pattern photograph, be careful with the framing […] so that the eye can imagine it continuing well beyond it. – AoP Coursebook
A subject which is itself triangular
There are loads of triangle in the left half of this – shot upstairs in the Pier Arts Centre in Stromness, but the best two are the one made by the vertical line of the wall and the slope of the roof and the the one made outside the banister. Continue reading
There’s nothing to add to what I’ve seen in other people’s logs about the two pictures (the bullfighter and the circling horses) at the start of the exercise (Part 1), so straight on to three examples of my own (Part 2):
new building, near work
For this exercise, look for and take four photographs using curves to emphasise movement and direction.
– AoP Coursebook
To add to your set of examples of horizontal and vertical lines, now take four photographs which use diagonals strongly.
– AoP Coursebook
inukshuk – yesnaby, orkney
Produce 4 examples of horizontal and 4 of vertical lines. Avoid repeating the way in which a line appears. The most successful will be those in which the line is the first thing a viewer would notice.
– AoP Coursebook
REPORT ON MANTLEPIECES
As a first test of your powers of observation, try the following:-
Write down in order from left to right, all the objects on your mantlepiece, mentioning what is in the middle.
Then make lists for mantlepieces in other people’s houses, giving in each case a few details about the people concerned, whether they are old, middle-aged or young, whether they are well off or otherwise, What class (roughly) they belong to. Send these lists in.
If possible, also take photographs of mantlepieces.
Directive to New Observers – Mass Observation c.1937
Reading Picturing Ourselves (p 93, Wells), I remembered the note I made of the Directive to New Observers at the Mass Observation exhibition at the Photographers’ Gallery (Aug-Sep, 2013) at much the same time as I found myself identifying with Humphrey Spender’s description of himself on page 94, as an outsider exploiting others while picturing them. This exercise – create a still life and at the same time create a network of points – seemed a good way to combine that identification with an attempt to start characterising who the me who takes photographs is. Also, the amount of stuff from holidays, work trips etc etc that had silted up on the mantlepiece needed dusting and thinning out. I decided to clear everything off and start again, building up a still life from some of the things that were there as I went.
For the first I’m taking the sheep’s face; the second is the ship; the third is the crumpled union-jack bunting… Continue reading
Lines. And points!
Right. Back from holiday in Orkney, with lots of photos taken. Lots of reading done too, and a couple of exhibitions under my belt. Raring to go again in fact. Continue reading
Simon Chirgwin's Learning Log 