Tag Archives: photography

The Walled City… Revisited

Last Sunday afternoon i had a bit of fun. I had a brief stroll around York’s city walls to avoid the bands battling it out in the city centre. Drummers seemed to be everywhere. While on the wall i started taking a few photos and an idea started to come together.

Now those of you who have followed my photo adventures for a while may remember that i did a photo project about York’s Medieval walls called Walled City. Walled City was an important project. It was the first photography book i completed (for the sadly defunct Solo Photo Book Month Project) and I gained a lot of knowledge about the book making process. That first small project led me onto discovering Blurb and world of self publishing.

After my walk around on the walls, I realised that It was four years, to the month, since I’d shot those images and created that book. How time flies. It then dawned on me that a rather fun idea would be to do it again… BUT shoot using an iPhone, with the images, this time instantly uploaded and added to Instagram or WordPress. A live photo feed over two or three hours.

I did think about doing it later this year but then decided that it would be better to leave it until June 2014. It could, in its own little way, mark the fifth anniversary of the Walled City project. A little homage to a small but important project. It may, if the 2014 project images are strong enough, eventually become a book itself.

Pressed Pictures

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There are plenty of photography apps out there but the Pressgram iPhone app is one that i’m really looking forward to seeing. Quite simply the app works like Instagram but posts the images directly to a WordPress.com or .org site. So i could connect the app to this website and post directly here. I really like the sound of that.

The launch date is currently August 2013 which means that it would be ready, fingers crossed, for my next trip up to Scotland. If it is ready, then i do intend using it to document my travels. Will it stop me using Instagram? No, i don’t think so, but it is very easy to see why some people would love to have this app as an alternative.

The Pressgram blog can be found at
http://blog.pressgr.am/

Another Photography Book

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I’m currently in the early stages of making my second book that i plan to release later this year. It’s an ambitious book idea and there’s lots of work still to be done but I’m having fun and learning a lot.

The book will bring together a collection of images that i shot over a ten year period in the English county of Norfolk. A book seems the perfect format to show the work. The images below come from one of my favourite locations in Norfolk called Little Walsingham.

A place of pilgrimage, Little Walsingham has a remarkable blend of new and old world. It’s one of the most peaceful places i know. The perfect place to unwind.

More details about the book project can be found HERE

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Two Priests walk through Little Walsingham, a village in Norfolk that has been a focus for religious pilgrimage for centuries

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Three Crosses in a church garden – Little Walsingham

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Lit Prayer Candles - Little Walsingham

A Year on Instagram

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Twelve months ago today i posted on this very website about Instagram and how I’d started using the photography network. A year later I’m still using that little app and yet the way I’m using the service has changed quite markedly since that first walk with the photo app.

Filters are often mentioned when criticising Instagram. Strangely I’ve found that I very rarely use the filters built into the app. I use other photography apps to take, alter the image and only then do i use the Instagram app to upload to the stream. In many cases two or three iPhone photography apps can be involved in the process of taking and getting the image to Instagram. Within about three months of using the popular photography app, I’d come across a separate process I preferred for creating images away from the usual app filter results of the big I. I used my customised system during my time in Scotland in September of last year and still use variations of the same system now.

So why don’t i touch the Instagram filters? To some extent it appears to stem from my documentary photography background and controlling what i produce. I really don’t like to manipulate images too heavily. If i can’t do it in a darkroom then I’m probably not interested. Even with PhotoShop i tend to think of the software as a digital darkroom rather than the all powerful image alteration tool. This appears to have extended itself into my mobile photography although i must admit I’m not too keen on the visual styles filters on offer in Instagram. The traditional areas of contrast and saturation, dodging and burning are my main aesthetic vices rather than a look or style from a particular camera, lens or film.

So really the main role of Instagram over the last nine months has been that of a distribution engine. It’s quick, simple and ridiculously easy to use. Following other photographers on Instagram is a breeze and there are some really talented people using the service. I just hope that their are no more foul ups like the terms and conditions issue that eroded huge amounts of trust and led many photographers to delete their accounts and leave Instagram.

Finally i need to mention a similar service called EyeEm that i heard about during the terms and condition’s fiasco. Similar in many ways to the Instagram system, one of EyeEm’s winning features is allowing full frame uploads of phone images. While i love Instagram’s square format, it can be rather restricting so its nice to have an alternative place to show full size images. EyeEm could do with a few more active users but it does work exceptionally well and offers something subtly different to Instagram’s service.

Lighten Up

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The DS blog has had a bit of a makeover to refresh the layout and feel of the website. I was getting a bit fed up of the dark theme and thought it was time to lighten up. Brighten up.

Another bonus to the new theme was a widening of the sidebar which has also been tweaked to include the new widgets for Twitter and Instagram photos.

I have tried to add my feed from App.net but so far no luck. Looks like it will remain a work in progress. For some reason the widget doesn’t recognise the RSS feed.

So there we have it. I rather like the lighter look and the sidebar is much, much better.

Blue Graffiti

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Glencaple Trawler Bow II

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So here is the final image of the Glencaple Trawler. I thought i’d add a third photograph to make a nice trio This final shot looks up the River Nith towards Dumfries.

All of the photos were taken on the morning i was heading for home. After a rainy day or two the clouds finally parted, blue sky was revealed and the sun made a welcome appearance – just as i was heading back home. Typical eh. So I took my shots in the rather warm light of the mid morning, got back in the car and headed for home.

As for the trawler seen in the photographs, i’m not exactly sure if it was in the early stages of restoration, used as somewhere to stay or just waiting for the scrap man to arrive. From certain things i saw it could be the second of those options.

There is something compelling though about boats and ships that are at the end of their working lives. Something rather sad. We attach a lot of emotion to boats and ships, maybe more than we do any other method of transport.

A new Scotland gallery has been started on the main website and features a rather good panoramic photograph of the River Nith. The gallery, which is a work in progress with new images to be added regularly, can be found at:-

http://www.richardflintphoto.com/portfolio/scotland/