SHOOTING IN SERIES

shooting in series has for a long time been a useful device for drawing people into your work.

It transforms the everyday and the unnoticed into a space where they are central and as much revered by the viewer as by the photographer who drew attention to them in the first place.

notables among series shooters are the greats like Bernd and Hilla Becher,karl blossfeldt,August Sanders ,and indeed of late my good friend Michael Durand.

the key features of all of these artists work is that they will photograph the same type of things over and over again in roughly the same perspective, in the same light,on the same medium,

and with the same format.click on the names above to see their work The bechers shot industrial facades,mineheads and blast furnaces in huge numbers.Sanders shot types of people,usually by profession or by community standing. Blossfeldt shot plants to educate students of sculpture about natural design elements.And Durand made a glorious series of several dublin parking meters,months before they where all decommissioned.

So,To follow this illustrious band of dedicated photographers I too have made my first serious effort of shooting an interesting series.I ts called TREES.It contains 11 images of the trunks of trees shot in beautiful winter light.As with all photographic series its beauty is seen when viewed together and the viewer can delight in comparing shape,form,texture,composition,light and tone.It is my intention to publish these as a series in a limited addition portfolio,perhaps in an addition of ten.I wish to make fine archival prints on fibre based paper,with a pigment inkset.

The first step to achieving this goal is to remove one of these images from the set.

So i would be obliged if you were to counsel me on which image to remove from the 11 to make the perfect group of ten.

This morning I ordered the paper and was torn between Hahnemuhle fineart baryta, or Harman Fibre baryta.the decission has yet to be made at the moment I am leaning towards the harman paper but lets see what happens!!

the work was shot on a hasselblad hd50 dslr and processed in light room with silver efex pro used to do the conversion to monochrome.

I f any of you feel you might be interested in acquiring one of these fine folios please let me know by mail at dmon@mac.com.

as always comments are greatly appreciated!!

CLICK ON THE TITLE FOR THE FULL GALLERY!!

PROJECT NUMBER ONE

In an earlier posting I promised to share with you my work in progress,my projects,so to speak

and so far I have shown the polaroid work that i have going on.

But that project is set to run for a long time Here is one project that i hope to conclude by early summer.Althoug barely started 3 years ago I now have the focus and drive to push this one forward to conclusion.Its a little project about the place I live, my block of a street called fontenoy street in dublin 7.

I feel it is a good representational cross section of irish society and

my wish is to root myself in its history ,at this time.

Then,present this place to the world on 10x8 transparency,and leave it behind me as hard evidence of what it was like to live within this frames gaze at this particular time.

there are 14 houses on the block so that leaves 11 left to go to.

Once i have completed the portraits i will then make a digital panoramic print of the block

hopefully without too many cars present.

print the print on beautiful archival fibre paper and there you go!!

wish me luck!!

Again comments are appreciated as they help to shape future posts.

If anybody has any questions relating to photographic practise

just hit the email the author tab on the feed page @ feed://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/qDTf

FROM CHILDREN WE CAN LEARN SO MUCH!!

Most important of which is don't be afraid of the unknown!!

computers can go wrong!

Take care!!

Tread softly!!

back it up!!

twice!!

A recent computer fault sent me off down a road and it took me a week to get back!

Thankfully I had the time to give to it.

Coming out the far end I have to say that it is really important to have good technical support.

Michael Maher of I.S.S. a Dublin based tech company was on hand to advise and hand hold through this curious time.

This is what I get for talking about film!!

to Ilustrate this point i have included a picture shot some years ago on a MAMIYA RZ67

and fuji neopan 400 film!!

Again comments will be helpful(share the pain of your computer nightmares), and I hope the image brings back good memories for my good friend Eileen!!

FILM JOY!!

a lot of my ramblings to date have been concerned with things Digital. But hey!! there is a far more sinister side to photography once controlled by people who conveniently located themselves in dark basements, and huddled over huge deep tanks of Dev and fixer etc. Oh yes the world of film.

I have avoided talking about this until I had a few credible articles under my belt as I did not want to be misunderstood. you see, I like both film and digital.

They are both very credible media but digital being now the more accessible, complete with instant feedback, has become the medium of the dabbler. Artists, architects, designers, and other creative professionals also use digital photography to document their work whilst the use of film and paper seems to be becoming a minority sport

it is my opinion,( being someone working in both mediums)in some ways that there is less to film photography than digital.

you get what you shoot,right there, shure you got to get it right first time,but that comes with practise,you can get use to that after a few years!!

anyhow! On with the show! Film! I love it.

so I have included in this gallery images shot and Polaroid type 55 film.

( my favourite black-and-white film of all time) it is my intention to continue this work into the future and may invite other practitioners of this medium to join me in an exhibition of type 55

images later in the year.

click the title above for the gallery of 5 images

for info on type 55 film click here

or see the previous article "photographing your breakfast is not a sign of mental illness"

thanks to those who have commented on previous posts please continue this practise

as it is a great help to me!!

IN THE CITY LATE AT NIGHT

last week I met a young lady who was in ireland for 2 weeks to be a guest at a family wedding.

It had been a long time since we had met at another happy occasion also a wedding.

although born in ireland Ciara has spent most of her life in australia and is in possession of the best traits

both countries have to offer,in short she is a fantastic person!

Anyhow I thought that we could perhaps make a portrait in dublin city centre that celebrated her irish roots

and her australian sense of fun and adventure.When i asked if she was interested in this she almost jumped ,and said YES!!

so I set about planning,found a location,some help,some lighting,and away we went.

we did the shot around midnight,on custom house key,under a bridge over the river liffey.

Artur Sikora,and Brian Daly, helped out While photographer ,Donal Sheehan documented the proceedings and plied a frozen Ciara with hot choclate!

there is a little bit of symbolism involved in the shot . Ciara is sitting on 4 bales of turf a symbol of her irish home.The modern dress represents her confidence. Whilst her bare feet represent the dispossessed who first settled in australia over 220 years ago.

The shots used a snooted bowens esperit head with a travel pak battery. I was so impressed with this that I bought one the next day click here for the irish suppliers details.and yes i will be using it again soon, so watch this space for more location portraits!!

both shots where exposed @f8 for 3 seconds with a snooted esperit 500 at full power

All my thanks to Ciara for being a great person to work with!!.

click the title above for the full set of pictures plus documentation shots

the first two shots in the gallery are the two final shots from this project

Again please comment on this post as it will help to shape future entries

a walk in the park

For the last two years or so I have tried to get out and walk locally.

during the summer months nothing pleases me more then waking early and setting off for a

stroll in through local streets and parks in the morning.

An hour spent in this way is a great boost to the day,and and fills me with the stuff which helps me cope with anything that the day can throw at me!

I always take my camera, standard lens,and a wide angle, with me on such walks.

I enjoy keeping my eye out for little things, In fact it would seem that most of my photographic endeavors are in or around little things.Not huge sweeping landscapes but trees,seats,leaves,bottles,keyholes,small artworks,etc.

early this year like many other european cities(and countries) we had a big fall of snow and I went out for 3 walks during this time.

click on the title above for a small gallery of pictures from these walks

the work was shot on a hasselblad h3d5o camera and the converts where done using nik softwares silver efex pro software for more on this see the previous entry on converting digital colour to monochrome

photographing your breakfast is not a sign of mental illness

So here we go into 2010 and enthusiasm is high"It's going to be a great year for me and nothing will stop that"

Is this the normal aspirational response to the start of the next chapter,after the contemplative christmas break and a pretty bad business year?

Perhaps!

But hey!lets make this one a year of action,with projects taken off the high shelf, restarted,and completed.

In fact I have 3 such projects to revive.when I took the books down from that high shelve I was suprised to see that i started one as far back as 2006(also in january)

All of these projects are film based

The first project is portraits of people who live in my block of houses.

Its on 10x8 inch fuji provia.

it has mutated from an aspiration to photograph the entire population of my street in their respective houses(the block is more achievable number(12houses,36 people)).

The second is a project which will run for a long time and i have added to this last summer.

Its a hommage to polaroids type 55 film so far i have made 6 or 7 frames all good.

When polaroid announced they were ceasing production a lot of ebay activity got me 200 sheets at over inflated prices and i also aquired a flextight scanner specifically for this reason.

The third project I started in june 2008 shooting a shot a day,from normal life, on an old graflex 4x5 reflex camera gifted to me by photographer Brendan Doyle .I stopped after21 days.there was a combination some personal stuff ,and the realisation the the graflex could not do everything i wanted it to do (due to max app of f5.6 and limited shutter speeds.)

just before i stopped i noted that future shots should be made on the graflex only when it could cope with the conditions.

so i will endeavor to restart this one, perhaps in a few weeks time and shoot it on the graflex super d or a linhof technika

So this year i must keep my word and make more personal photographs, both film and digital.

And as I do so I must share them here especially the 3 projects mentioned above (for starters)

As photographers we must work,work,work, to capture all the vitality of life no matter how mundane it might seem. Once captured on your hard disc or film the passage of time adds greatly to the potency and importance of all your photographic endeavors!

So when you rise tomorrow morning please remember it is not a sign of a mental problem if you photograph your breakfast!

The more things you photograph the more you will learn about yourself, your subjects, your equiptment,your LIFE!!!!!