This weekend the Royal Photography Society Benelux chapter had a creative weekend workshop in Zierikzee. I attended and it was very very interesting.
The workshop was given by Martin Addison (FRPS). A very accomplished photographer. See
http://www.martinanddoreen.co.uk/M&D...Galleries.html
It was really very impressive to see how he could turn even the most mundane object into an unique image.
We had four theoretical sessions, each with an hour and a half practice in and around the little town of Zierikzee. I still need to edit quite a few of my images. These are the ones, that required little to no work and have all come out of the camera like this. All I do is a bit of tweaking and sometimes cropping in Lightroom.
Martin talked and showed us some truly interesting images on using negative space, abstracts (he makes abstracts out of just about anything). Various camera movements techniques (panning horizontal/vertical , zoom, spiral. We also spend quite a bit of time on in camera multi exposures and using it to create an overlay in camera. Or to use it to mirror. Lastly we did some work on shallow depth of field and out of focus images.
So here goes:
Negative space:
Zooming. Hold the camera by the zoom ring, use a shutter time of 1/8 and rotate the camera whilst pressing the shutter.
Vertical panning. I tried all sorts of different images, results vary.
Combination of panning and a descent shutter time
Zoom twist technique as above
Vertical panning with shutter speed about 1/8
You need to rotate your camera quite fast though a vertical arc, whilst using the shutter at the right moment. These were a couple of fences in front of houses. Remarkable effect
Fairly straight forward horizontal panning, but with slow shutter speed
Vertical panning as above, slow shutter speed.
Multiple (2x) exposure in camera, mirroring. You can make these really weird images, that make no sense, but are still interesting to look at and figure out what is going on?
Similar mirroring technique, a bit more obvious what it is
Overlay: I shot an image of brick wall, and used that image, in camera as an overlay for this (wooden) bridge.
Multiple technique. The plant I shot in multiple exposure (3x with very minimal re-orientation) then used an image of wooden wall of a shed as an overlay to create some interesting texture.
Intentionally Out of focus
Some high lights
I realise these sort of images are not everybody’s cup of tea. But it is very inspiring to see how Martin uses these techniques to create gorgeous and absolute unique images. He showed us a video; 500 absolute unique images of one and the same feather (less that 5cm length!). Mind blowing!
I always like to explore new topics/new techniques. All of these you need to practice a lot. Practice makes perfect. A lot is about developing a 5th sense what sort of subjects work best with what kind of technique.
Anyway, I had a great time and learned a lot of new stuff.
I will be doing some more editing on some more of the abstract stuff. Also, most of it is done in camera, but a little heavier on the editing than these.
Jeroen