Cathedral Rocks

June 12, 2019 in Monochrome, Seascapes

“A true artist is not one who is inspired, but one who inspires others.”

~ Salvador Dali

Cathedral Rocks, Kiama Downs. Not from this morning as we were down there in that photograph working away in the most beautiful sunrise I have seen in a while. I am in Kiama with my Masterclass for a few days. We will be doing some monochrome learning today and some portraits tomorrow. The town is lovely and quiet today, not so good for my stall at the Collective. But a beautiful sunny day with no wind. Perfect for a winter retreat to the beach. Photograph and text copyright © Len Metcalf 2019

Now I simplify

April 19, 2019 in Seascapes, Monochrome

“My whole life I got caught up in complications. Now I simplify.”

Renoir

from Gilles Bourdos‘s film Renoir

Stay loose

March 17, 2019 in Colour, Seascapes, Abstracts

“Many painters work so attentively and carefully with the grounding and the completion of a painting—in order that it last an eternity—and they lose their fire,. Then it turns out that the picture has become so boring and bad that it disappears into the junk room.”

-Edward Munch

For a moment I was going to call this post ‘Don’t over work your images’. But positive psychology got the better of me. Did you know we don’t see the ‘donts’. So if I had called it that we would read and remember ‘work your iages’. We drop the negative qualifier. It’s always better to reframe your little affirmations to be short and positive.

So stay loose is where I ended up. Not sure that it totally encompasses what Munch is taking about. Many talk about the dangers of perfection because it ruins many great ideas.

In painting there is always this discussion about when to stop. The more experienced you are the more likely you are to stop quicker.

I read this week that I mustn’t be any good as a photographer because I only use Lightroom and that without heavy post processing I am not getting the most out of my work.

The crap you read.

I probably write some too. There is no need to believe any of us writers. Best is to experiment yourself and reach your own conclusions.

So go play with this as an idea and see if it resonates with you. Try processing less. Working quicker. Leave more to intuition than over worked logic.

No wonder my weekly exercises are going so well. They are about exploring and experimenting to figure out ideas.

https://www.lensschool.com/photography-exercises

South West Rocks. From the Abstract Workshop which only has a handful of spots left on it. https://www.lensschool.com/workshops-tours/abstract-photography-workshop-2019

Shoot from within

March 03, 2019 in Monochrome, Seascapes, Monumental Monoliths

“Photography isn’t about capturing what’s in front of us. It’s more about capturing what is within us.“

- Bruce Perry

I think this is one of the hardest concepts to grasp in our journey to becoming an artist. Often as photographers we get really excited about capturing what’s infront of us that we loose touch with our ability to interpret it and bring what’s within us out.

I left the notion of trying to capture what’s infront of me behind many years ago once I really started to grasp the essence of the medium.

A photograph is a two dimensional object or rendering, usually on paper (my preference with its existence bound in reality) or shown momentarily on a screen. It usually has four sides and is rectangular (or square, again my personal preference). It has a limited contrast ratio, it is fixed in time. It is not reality nor some purveyor of truth.

Being a representative of truth has become the mediums downfall in recent years. Even photojournalists and picture editors put thier own personal bent on anything that is published. The words added change the meaning and hence the messages are manipulated.

Now with photoshopping so prevalent, and computational photography on the rise, truth in the art falls even further away with the medium.

Actually, our prepencety for quick entertainment fixes through social media has also changed the medium. We now consume photographs at an alarming rate, flicking through photo streams, and when something does grab our attention it is only for us to linger a moment longer.

But, I am wandering way too much from the original thought that my mate Bruce is saying. If you are not familiar with his work I recommend taking a moment to look him up. Based in the UK his colour work is stimulating and his writing interesting.

Photography is a medium of personal expression. One that can easily be shared with others. One that is full of limitations that can be manipulated and played with. It’s recent entrance to the masses, which Kodak started many years ago, that phones now do with ease. For me it’s popularity and ease of access is something to be celebrated in the medium, and not to be lamented as some do with the changing medium.

It is definitely not a static medium. It’s full of life and growth.

The challenge will always be, to use it as a means of expression. Self expression. A tool of communication. I am excited about photography’s future.

The Collective Beat

February 09, 2019 in Monochrome, Seascapes

“I am an artist, would have been a painter, but the camera was invented”.

Matt Smith as Robert Mapplethorpe in the film “Mapplethorpe”

I cant wait to see that film, later this year. Another hero of mine, played by a different intergalactic hero. Oh my..

I wanted to be a painter, a drawer an artist. It’s with light now days, but still with paper. One of the beautiful things about photography is it’s speed. A painting can take hours, weeks and years. A photograph can be caught in 1/8000 of a second, and less.

It is such a direct medium.

A few seconds adjustment and it’s done.

How beautiful is that.

There is an opening of the refurbished shop today at the Collective Beat in Kiama. Yesterday I did some more work on my little gallery and added scarves. It is really coming together. Tash has done a fantastic job of designing the interior of my space. It’s amazing what an expert in a field can do for those of us whom try to do everything them selves. An interior designer and a merchandising specialist.

Still lots more to do. But each visit brings it closer. Now to add more unframed prints and lots more hand printed work of mine, a few more limited editions and the show stopper of a huge print.

Bombo Quary

February 05, 2019 in Monochrome, Seascapes

“I am not interested in anything that doesn't have a genuine heart to it. You've got to have soul in the hole. If that isn't there, I don't see the point.”

Nick Cave

After opening in Kiama yesterday (see yesterdays post for the shop details), I am now looking through my local work. This is one way I revisit my work, is by returning to it years later to see what gems are hidden in there. You know I always find something that surprises me. That is such a beautiful thing about this medium, perhaps more so than painting. where is much harder to forget creating a painting.

With the thousands of photographs in my archive it is so easy to find work that I have forgotten creating. Work that now doesn’t have the stigma of when I took it as not being good enough, or not quite what I was trying to achieve.

So I return to this body of work, taken three years ago, and this jumps out at me. What do you think? Worth a print? I definitely think so. And now I have a reason to print and print and print. For my goal is that when you visit my little gallery space you have so many photographs to choose from. Remember how lovely it was to browse music in a record shop. Well, you can look forward to that experience.

The Collective Beat

It’s open every day 9.30 am - 5 pm and 10 am to 4 pm on Sundays.

100 Teralong Street Kiama

In the main drag opposite the park.

Bombo Quary is a wealth of beautiful visual opportunities when you go. But be careful of the waves.

Stack Island

February 04, 2019 in Seascapes, Monochrome

“To some extent I happily don't know what I'm doing. I feel that it's an artist's responsibility to trust that.”

- David Byrn

Did you know ‘Talking Heads’ was a band that started in an art school. I love how he thinks. His blog is well worth a read and is full of creative treasures. I will revisit some of his music today on my drive home.

I am in Kiama and last night I set up my shop in the Collective Beat. To be honest I still have a lot more work to do on it to get it up to speed. To turn it into something very beautiful. Well, by my standards. And to fill it with an amazing collection of photographic prints and merchandise.

Tash, the business manager there says it is already looking amazing and is really proud to have me there. She is fantastic, and I owe this enterprise to her enthusiasm for my work.

As a little side project it is so exciting to be doing. So different. The management of the Collective is amazing, as are all the other shops and shop keepers. Technically, we all have stalls, but I like to think of it as my own little gallery. The whole place is the perfect treasure trove full of discoveries to find.

It’s open every day 9.30 am - 5 pm and 10 am to 4 pm on Sundays.

100 Teralong Street Kiama

In the main drag opposite the park.

February 01, 2019 in Monochrome, Seascapes

“Beyond the edge of the world there’s a space where emptiness and substance neatly overlap, where past and future form a continuous, endless loop. And, hovering about, there are signs no one has ever read, chords no one has ever heard.”

Haruki Murakami,

My heart goes out to the trees and forests in Tasmania lost in current fires. Knowing they are gone forever in an ecosystem that isn’t able to cope with fire.

Oceans

January 26, 2019 in Colour, Abstracts, Seascapes

“You can’t look at abstract art without thinking.”

– Patricia Cole-Ferullo

Sunrise

December 29, 2018 in Seascapes, Monochrome

“No matter how sophisticated the camera, the photographer is still the one that makes it.”

– Doug Bartlow

It is not a sport

December 14, 2018 in Monochrome, Seascapes

“Photography has no rules, it is not a sport. It is the result which counts, no matter how it is achieved.”

– Bill Brandt

Just a reminder about the exhibition in Leura at Light and Shadow Gallery. I will be there this Sunday from 11 am through to 4 pm. Come and say hello if you are around.

This photograph was taken last night. It was lovely being out watching the storm clouds. Stunning. So lucky to be there.

One less bird

November 15, 2018 in Seascapes, Birds, Monochrome, Animals, Abstracts

“In a good composition, one has the distinct impression that nothing could be added to or subtracted from the picture. This sense of completeness–of balance–is the key.“

- Art Wolfe

I occasionally get it in my head that if I remove some of the distractions in an image I will make it better. Yet, often when I do this I find that I ruin the balance within the image and start to make if look plastic. A look I am sure is a bit of a current popular phase, rather than an enduring look.

Perfection in a landscape looks false to me. Plastic. I stop believing it’s reality. I know that the era of believing a photograph as truth is sadly fading. If it isn’t fading, it is seriously being questioned.

I look at my sea gulls on the beach in the above photograph and momentarily I wonder if there are too many birds. Yet, I think if I remove one or ten, I loose something important in the photograph.

I know that when I compose, and when I choose my work to show others, I am assessing that sense of balance that a photograph has. When it’s right it’s fantastic, when it’s not the artwork fails.

Oceans

November 11, 2018 in Abstracts, Colour, Monochrome, Painterly, Seascapes

“One should photograph objects, not only for what they are but for what else they are. “

- Minor White

Vincent

November 06, 2018 in Colour, Abstracts, Seascapes

Vincent (Starry, Starry Night)

Josh Groban

Starry, starry night
Paint your palette blue and grey
Look out on a summer's day
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul
Shadows on the hills
Sketch the trees and daffodils
Catch the breeze and the winter chills
In colours on the snowy linen l and

Now I understand
What you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free
They would not listen
They did not know how
Perhaps they'll listen now

Starry, starry night
Flaming flowers that brightly blaze
Swirling clouds and violet haze
Reflect in Vincent's eyes of china blue
Colours changing hue
Morning fields of amber grain
Weathered faces lined in pain
Are soothed beneath the artists' loving hand

Now I understand
What you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free
They would not listen
They did not know how
Perhaps they'll listen now

For they could not love you
But still your love was true
And when no hope was left inside
On that starry, starry night
You took your life as lovers often do
But I could have told you Vincent
This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you

Like the strangers that you've met
The ragged men in ragged clothes
The silver thorn of bloody rose
Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow

Now I think I know
What you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free
They would not listen
They're not listening still
Perhaps they never will

Songwriters: Don McLean

Vincent

I have included a link to the video with the soundtrack illustrated with Vincent’s paintings. https://youtu.be/oxHnRfhDmrk

Well worth a listen.

The coast at Myall Lakes

November 03, 2018 in Seascapes, Minimalism, Monochrome

“To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.”

- Elbert Hubbard

Bombo

September 19, 2018 in Monochrome, Seascapes

"To be master of photography means to be master of light."

~ Joseph von Sternberg

Wild minds

September 01, 2018 in Monochrome, Minimalism, Seascapes

“Creativity is a wild mind and a disciplined eye.”

~ Dorothy Parker

Play hard

August 27, 2018 in Abstracts, Colour, Seascapes

“And when they played they really played. And when they worked they really worked.”

~ Dr. Seuss

Authenticity

August 17, 2018 in Seascapes, Film, Monochrome, Large Format

“The more of me I be, The clearer I can see.”

~ R. Archelaus

We used to climb there, scary steep rock climbing, on loose soft Sydney sea cliff sandstone with the ocean pounding beneath your feet. Perpendicular is an apt name for this wild place.

You are beautiful

August 16, 2018 in Abstracts, Seascapes, Colour

“You are imperfect, permanently and inevitably flawed. And you are beautiful.”

― Amy Bloom