Lightroom 5 Demonstration

I recently attended a meeting of the RPS DiG Southern Region group when they were hosting a Lightroom 5 session with Adobe software engineer David Mellows.  It was a packed session with approximately 100 people attending to learn the latest techniques from this image database.  Fortunately, there was enough light to make notes by.  I had been to one of David’s demonstration sessions with the South Western DiG and the hall was almost completely dark, totally unsuitable for making notes.

David was very quick in his demonstrations on using the Library area to import images, make smart collections and filter out unusable images.  He went on to show how to add keywords and copyright to images, adjusting RAW and JPG images and saving them in various collections.  He went through the different headings including preparing slideshows and adding music and creating photo books which are fairly easy to create using this software.

David was asked to demonstrate things a bit more slowly as many of the audience had never attended a Lightroom demonstration before.  Fortunately I had and had also looked up some aspects on YouTube and Adobe TV which was where David learnt all the new tricks of the trade when a new version was released.

David is a also well-known photographer who attends high profile events including red carpet occasions and had quite a few tips to get the best exposed images ready for immediate use on TV and in the newspapers.

I do find his attitude towards women and less experienced photographers to be rather patronizing and don’t think I would like to work with him.  On the plus side his knowledge of Lightroom and Photoshop is phenomenal and I have to respect that.

Review of the talk in Bath by Martin Parr, documentary photographer

15/01/15: Martin Parr talks about his work in the Andrew Brownsword Gallery at the Holburne Museum Bath.

Martin Parr in profile is waiting to deliver his talk.  I am sure that there is an ironic link between his satire and the portraits by Gainsborough, Reynolds & Stubbs looking down on us, but it escapes me, I think.

Martin Parr, Regency photographer.

Who would have guessed that Parr got hooked on photography because his father was a twitcher? I was intrigued to hear that he has published over 80 books of photographs: a prodigious outpouring of images – not all his own.  

My research before the event threw up an interesting (for me) find:  in his book “Bending the frame”, Fred Ritchin quotes Martin Parr: ”I’m not going out doing campaigning photojournalism because nobody wants that anymore,   …  There is the old approach whereby you try to change the world.  Nobody is going to obliterate war, famine, AIDS, and all the other things that are the usual subject matter that more campaigning photojournalists would be attracted to.   I shoot interesting subject matter but disguise it as entertainment.  That’s what people want in magazines.” (p 22).

In her introduction to the talk, the museum director, Jennifer Scott, presented Parr as the Rowlandson of our times.  The museum had extended its exhibition of the satirical cartoons by Thomas Rowlandson (1756 – 1827) because of public demand and, I suspect, to coincide with the talk by a 21^st Century satirist.   The cartoons satirise the society of Rowlandson’s time much as William Hogarth (1697 – 1764) did before him.  The main difference is that Rowlandson’s artwork focuses on sexual proclivities of the society of his time whereas Hogarth & Parr have a more varied range of topics.  Throughout the talk, MP stressed that he makes fiction of reality: don’t all artists do that?  I think I missed what he was trying to say there.  Whereas the art buyers/viewers in Rowlandson & Hogarth’s times could distance themselves from the satire because the artist could use artistic license in their paintings, Parr’s viewers, in seeing themselves in photographs, find themselves linked to the images much more directly than their counterparts did in the artistic cartoons of the 17^th, 18^th & 19^th Centuries.

Before the talk, there was a slide on the screen of the front cover of Phaidon’s book  “Martin Parr”  on which there is the statement: “Martin Parr’s photos can make us feel very uncomfortable.  He has made a comedy about the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the places we go; he scrutinises the very way we live our lives.  Some might say that Martin Parr has exploited our lack of taste and good judgement by picturing it all latterly in the brightest of colours, exposing our petty vanities to the world. “   I wonder how many people in the audience in Bath felt uncomfortable?  The talk was sold out.  Did the paying public think that they were above being used for entertainment?  Ironically, in one of the images shown on the screen about a meeting in Bath, one of those present (in the ‘reserved’ front row) knew the people in the image.  Was she embarrassed?  MP was, because he giggled self-consciously and said: ”They might sue me!”  Could he extend his range of subjects to cover courtroom scenes?

I wonder if, when we buy magazines we do so because we want to laugh at ourselves?  I asked MP if he had to explain his images (which mock UK society) when he presents his work abroad.  He replied that the French love his work in this regard and laugh heartily because that is how they see the English too.     In answering another question, MP stated that when he presents his work in the UK the media ignore him.  Might there be a link between these two answers?

What I also learned from his talk was that MP likes to produce open-ended, ambiguous photographs which he feels leave the viewers free to make of them what they will.    What is the object of satire? The online Oxford Dictionary defines it as: “The use of humour, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.”  Martin Parr’s work adds ‘taste’ and ‘good judgement’ to the list.  Does that mean that he is the arbiter of such things?  William Hogarth revealed “a desire to go beyond the negative premises of satire … and to provide instead exempla of human conduct, to make his art ‘useful’ in a way that it had never been before.’ (P167).  Parr claims he wants ‘to entertain’ because ‘that’s what people want …’ (see above) & I suppose that could be termed ‘useful’.

Finally, Parr showed us a range of photographs taken of him by various photographers around the world in which I felt he was mocking them while we ostensibly laughed at what he looked like and at the foreign photographer.   We were certainly entertained by being brought face-to-face with the bad taste shown by the British public over the decades and by the photographs of Parr himself.   Far from being a Regency photographer, Parr is very much in tune with our times.  This guarantees that he will never run out of subject matter for his satirical portraits of individuals or social groups because, as is the case with ‘war, famine & AIDS’, nobody is going to obliterate stupidity, politics, vices or bad taste which are present in all of us without exception.

References:

Bindman, D.: Hogarth. Thames & Hudson.1981

Parr,M & Williams, V.: Martin Parr.  Phaidon. 2014

Ritchin,F.: Bending the frame. Aperture. 2010

OCA Study Day: Science Museum 'Drawn by Light' Exhibition

OCA Study Day – Drawn by Light, Science Museum, 6^th December 2014

What an interesting session at the Science Museum recently with tutor Wendy McMurdo, her interpretations of some of the image groupings were very astute. It was a shame that the group was too big and that might well have put new study day students off. Normally a study group is only half the size and it's much more informal. Still, I really enjoyed it.

The images themselves, supplied from the collection of Royal Photographic Society (RPS) range from the real beginnings of image creation in the 1830s when metal plates were used with bitumen washed with acid to leave an negative image to Fox Talbot’s print from a paper negative.  Also included were examples of daguerreotype images which were produced around the 1840s which were simple images unable to be reproduced.

Here's Wendy below, with second tutor Rob Bloomfield on right hand side, talking about a couple of images in the second gallery. (I took this picture before we were told 'no photography please' ). Wendy has written up on the WeAreOCA website about the visit and you can read her thoughts on the visit here.

The RPS was founded in 1853 when like-minded photographers such as Roger Fenton got together to create the Photographic Society which later became the Royal Photographic Society.  In the second gallery there is an exhibition of pictures like they would have been seen in the early exhibitions of the Society.  This wall of 40 pictures was hung haphazardly just as it would have been in the 1850s.  It was overwhelming to see so many pictures crammed together and difficult to take in all at once.  It would take the most part of a whole morning to give them the respect they deserved.

The curator of the exhibition had put together unusual groupings of pictures and, for example, I was unaware that Don McCullin created still life pictures as well as being a war reporter.  His style of dark, brooding images carried over into the still life picture hung beside one of his better-known pictures of refuges and war situations.

I had seen a few of the images on display before but it was fascinating to hear Wendy discuss the various aspects of each picture/grouping/background.  It was also good to meet other students who were travelling on the same long road to a degree in photography or creative arts.  One or two I had met before and one woman I had often read on the OCA forum but never contacted.  I suddenly realised who she was and we were able to connect in person rather than over the impersonal Internet.

I also went round the ‘Make Life Worth Living’ exhibition, by Nick Hedges for Shelter taken in the 1960s.  He photographed slum housing in major cities such as Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Bradford and London, documenting the

distressing conditions faced by more than three million people.

I also took the opportunity to use my camera on the walk back along Exhibition Road to the South Kensington underground station.  The winter wonderland skate park, at that Natural History Museum, was in full swing and I found lots of opportunities to complete the Exercise 1.7: Getting the Parr ‘feel’.  Great fun!


Comments from other study day participants on Facebook were:

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  Fazel Ali My first study visit, and I did enjoy it. I really wanted to go back in again and study the pictures again but had other duties that day! Should've looked through the booklet whilst inside as it gave some explanation about reasons for groupings etc. Perhaps food for thought for next time.

  7 December at 21:22 · Like
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  Chris Lee I very much agree that it was a new insight into photographers, the history and their work. I was very disappointed that we weren't split into two more manageable groups, considering the OCA had put on two tutors. I found I couldn't contribute to the sit down afterwards as there were too many students.

  8 December at 08:14 · Like
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  Sarah-Jane Field This was an excellent study visit. I really enjoyed it and the tutors were great.

  8 December at 08:36 · Like
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  Catherine Banks Looks like a missed a good one, although I did go to the talk by Johanna Ward which was so illuminating. Good as well to know there was a large group (in one way) as it means there was lots of interest in what was on offer. Have you sent comment direct to OCA? The idea of two groups is a good one.

  22 hrs · Like
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  Claire Borlase I did enjoy it very much. What was the name of the male tutor?

  22 hrs · Like
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  Gareth Dent It was Rob Bloomfield http://www.oca.ac.uk/profile/robert-bloomfield
  

  
  

  
  

  

  
  

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Book: Martin Parr - Over 55s; published by Phaidon; 2013

Martin Parr's work is never anything but impressive and as quoted on the first page of this pocket sized book he is 'one of photography's great social observers'.

Martin catches those moments in life that many photographers aspire to catch and fail by pressing the shutter button just too late.

Exhibition - Science Museum - Drawn by Light

December 3rd
I've managed to secure a place on the OCA study day at the Science Museum on Saturday, December 6th, for the much talked about exhibition 'Drawn by Light'.  It's been featured on the BBC Breakfast programme and The Guardian is running a series of articles daily about featured work here.  The WeAreOCA link about the show is here .  

To quote from the OCA blurb 'From serene landscapes to exquisite nudes, this new exhibition brings together over 200 extraordinary highlights from the collection of the world’s oldest surviving photographic society, by some of the greatest names in photography.

Visitors can see some of the earliest known photographic images dating back to the 1820s, by pioneers of photography such as Roger Fenton, William Henry Fox Talbot and Julia Margaret Cameron, alongside contemporary works by some of modern photography’s most influential figures, such as Don McCullin, Terry O’Neill and Martin Parr'.

Whilst the journey up to London is long (3 hours at best) I can't wait to join the other students to view such a wide variety of images from the beginning of photography.

V&A Museum - Disobedient objects

I'm up early this morning as I'm catching the 7.30 am train from Axminster to Waterloo (a journey of approximately 3 hours) to join an OCA study at the V&A museum in London to look at the "Disobedient Objects exhibition with tutor Christian. Any spelling mistakes are due to the early hour I need to get up.  More later.


23rd November 2014

I travelled up to London by train on Friday 21st and found the train became very crowded the nearer we got to London.  In the end people were having to stand as it was so full.

The group was met by the tutor Christian Lloyd who introduced himself and the group to each other.  There were seven or eight of us from a wide range of places, from Cornwall to north London to Austria, but all women which I have never had before.

We agreed to spend approximately an hour in what was quite a small exhibition near the front door of the museum and then repair to the cafe to eat, drink and discuss how we felt about the exhibition as a whole and what had impacted on us as individuals.

The entrance to the exhibition was lined with copies of books which had featured conflict and prejudice such as 'To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee and The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde and other such stories.  (See image below).

The whole point of the exhibition was to highlight conflicts that had taken place both in the pas and at the present time.  The exhibits showed ways that people had done their best to thwart authority and cause disruption and political change.  These ways ranged from simple embroidered panels with hidden messages, plastic bottle masks to avoid the worst of tear gas grenades, to a death mask of a political prisoner made immediately after he had been put to death then paraded around towns under political tyranny including, would you believe, Manchester.

The death mask can be seen above the windscreen

One of the things that stayed in my mind was that of an Edwardian tea cup and saucer used to show how the emancipation of women was involved them from the lowliest up to high society families.  I know the cup and saucer is only small in this picture but it came to mean so much to so many of the population.  Even today women and girls are still fighting prejudice in all walks of life.

One of the funniest things was to see our tutor, Christian, learning to crochet balaclavas to use as a disguise when part of a demonstration.  Even he admitted it was bizarre.

Christian learning to crochet, image courtesy of Mirjam Bollag Dondi

I have been retired since 2009 but during my working life I have met prejudice especially as I have worked in mainly man orientated environments.  You are always between 'a rock and a hard place' as if you protest at the way women are treated in the work place, you're a trouble maker and if you let misogynist attitudes prevail then you are making life harder for both yourself and those women who follow on behind you.  Personally, I have never been a woman who can let prejudice go and will take any miscreant to task to make it a better more equal place for everyone.

Prior to my retirement I worked in further education for 10 years teaching IT and Communications.  I was very saddened to hear the attitudes of some of the girls in my classes (aged mainly between 16-25) and how they said they couldn't be bothered to vote.  I can only hope, even when I explained about the hard fought battle by our ancestors to get us the vote, that later in life they will exercise  their democratic right and use their vote whatever their persuasion. 

it was a very thought provoking exhibition, one that still lingers with me.  In the foyer of the exhibition was a map showing where there is still conflict around the world and it was quite an eye opener to see that there were so many areas still unable to resolve conflict in their countries. 

Martin Parr talk, Bath, 15 January 2015

I'm really interested in going to this talk as Martin is one of the professional photographers that my tutor Katrina, suggests I follow.  One of the OCA SouthWesterners managed to buy 7 tickets instead of one and is offering them to our South West OCA group members.

I've managed to snag one but it will mean a stay overnight in Bath as the train gets back so late into Axminster.  But who can object as Bath has so many interesting sights to visit and photograph.