To end the week

This week Bob, braved the cold and the spindrift to top off Pen-Y-Ghent  (all 2277 feet of it).  He came back with a lovely set of pictures taken with his Canon Powershot S100.

If you would like to see one of your pictures featured in our To End the Week Spot then drop them in our Flickr group and if you are chosen we'll be in touch!

Have a good weekend!!!  See you Monday!

To end the week.

I thought this might become a regular feature.  This week Liam has provided us with a picture.  If you would like to see your picture here then just drop some pictures in to our flickr pool or email us and you could be our picture of the week.

Have a good weekend!!!  See you Monday!

Breaking Records

Last week we reported that we had reached a landmark 5000 views of our website.  Yesterday we broke another record; yesterday saw the Pixel website have more views in one day than any other day since we started.  To top it off it was just a few more views either in fact we broke our previous record by about 300%.  If you took time to stop off and have a read then thank you.  We hope you enjoyed it and will continue to visit us on a regular basis.

Have a nice day!

To end the week

To end the week I thought I would post my photograph of the week.  This may just become a regular feature.  So if you would like to see your photograph here then please post images in to the flickr group

Have a good weekend!!!  See you Monday!

Lancoast - The Way Forward

Pixel editor, Lee Johnson, has posted thoughts on his latest essay, Lancoast on his blog.  Lee has been battling with his original idea of shooting the entire essay on film before salt printing the neagtives or the option of using digital.

Lee said 'My internal editing on the fly machine began to work and a way forward found its way.

As much as I love film and wanted to do this in film it is impracticable.  The cost and time in getting each image in 4”x5” format would out way the advantages and look.  If I were to use 35mm although it would work I would still scan the negatives, carry out some Photoshop work (levels, scratches, dust etc.) and print the large scale negatives.

Digital has become the answer that I didn't really want it to be.  Cut out the middle section of developing film, shooting with different film and/or cameras and I still end up with the outcome I want.'

The full story can be read on Lee's Lancoast Blog here.

The River - Lee Johnson

'Oh my God!' A damp feeling ran down the shin and calf of my right leg. The cold shooting through my body was intense like being wrapped in a blanket of ice. It could not have been worse than if I had been slapped in the face with a wet trout.

A welly filling with ice cold river water in the middle of December is probably not anybody's idea of fun. Well, perhaps only fishermen and photographers. It's funny, now that I sit here at my desk I remember just how cold it was. At the time getting home, the comfort of central heating and a few hot chocolates quickly dissipated the memory.

It was on a whim that I visited the waterfalls of Earby. I didn't have any particular shot in mind. The only thing that I had actually thought about was that I wanted to make exposure time quite long. By making long exposures the water becomes blurred and often gives an impression of movement throughout the picture.

When making landscape photographs I tend to start with a very wide view taking in as much of the scene as possible. After a while I begin to settle in to what I am doing and see the micro landscapes and abstracts that I actually find infinitely more interesting than that of the whole. I guess I like details.

A few hours sat at my PC and the cold amnesia had firmly set in. The collection of images I had made were good. In fact it is fair to say that an abstract from the set is one of my favourite photographs I have ever made. I should really find a way of making a nice print of it.

The thing is shooting something like this is a really bad idea for me. I don't really tend to work in single images. I actually prefer to make essays. That is a collection of photographs that tell a story. So when I see something that is beginning to work it tends to start the steam engine to whir the cogs of my brain and the Christmas holidays gave me plenty of time to think.

Taking these shots also coincided with me reading Ted Hughes book of poetry on the River Dart in Devon. Each poem is accompanied by a photograph by Peter Keen. So it was no surprise that my brain went into overdrive. However, there was no chance I was going to attempt to write poems to go with my images. It's one thing writing an article for my blog or a magazine but a completely another world writing poetry and I don't think my command of the English language extends that far.

The festive season came and went and the idea of The River had firmly set in. As with all my ideas for essays the initial idea behind the project had started off too big. Originally the subject of The River was going to be the River Ribble but with a timescale of nine months this was not going to be possible and so I had a re-think. The answer to the brainstorming session was to document a river that was and continues to be much closer to my heart; one that I could visit easily when I had a spare hour or so; the answer was Colne Water.

Colne Water is a river that stretches around five miles from the hamlet of Laneshawbridge, through the town of Colne and ends in the village of Barrowford. Unlike the Ribble it has a very definite start and finish. Very much like the Ribble it has a variety of landscape characteristics from rural through urban fringe, industrial and back to urban fringe.

It turned out to be a good time to document this river. Major changes to it were about to happen. Some of the wiers were removed to allow breeding salmon upstream. No bad thing at least not in my book. Also permission has just been sought to generate electricity from another part of the river. Again, in my opinion no bad thing. And then there was also the demolition of the mill at Waterside.

I tend to take some test shots before I settle in to producing an essay properly. It quickly became apparent that I had found a look to the images that I was happy with. This wasn't going to be about big beautiful landscapes taken during the time of days referred to as the ‘golden hours’ (that is sunrise and sunset). It wasn't going to be about the wildlife of the water course and although there would be some small space for it within the essay the final piece would be more abstract than that.



Beth Derbyshire & The Ark

I began shooting the images that would be included in the final piece without an idea what the final presentation of the piece would be. In general when I start out shooting an essay, I only have a vague idea of what the finished piece will be like. This usually evolves and clears as the process of making photograph continues along. In terms of The River the final piece would become an audiovisual presentation.



Model of The Ark

Some time ago I got involved with Beth Derbyshire’s Ark. This was a converted canal barge that travelled up and down the Leeds Liverpool Canal showing a multi-screen video installation and this proved to be an influence on my final piece. Not having access to multiple screens or projectors I decided that I would create slides with a series of interchanging images from up and down the river. The soundtrack to the imagery would be a soundscape created by recording my walk along the river bank. This hopefully meant that the viewer would be immersed in sights and sounds that I was seeing and hearing.

The River is made up of around 70 images most of which are quite abstract or show some small detail often missed by someone walking along the course of Colne Water. There are some images of the landscape that it sits in; there are some photographs that document some of the wildlife; some are quite pretty; others are quite hard to look at.

The River was never going to be a beautiful celebration of a prized landscape feature. It was always intended to show the viewer how nature and man affect the landscape in a warts and all manner. I think it achieves this.

Pixel In-Profile: Features Editor, Liam Loughlin

Getting Wet at Niagra

In the normal flow of things, next up in our ‘In Profile’ section would be Bob Singleton. But as Bob is away in Nepal at present, trekking around Mount Everest, you have the new kid on Pixel’s block.

           

I’ve always had a keen interest in photography, which probably grew from my Dad’s interest in the subject. My sister and I used to watch images my Dad had taken from around the world, on the slide projector which I’m pretty sure he still owns. I can still remember as a child, trying to work out how my Dad got to the moon to take photos of the earth and Neil Armstrong. Not realising, as a very young age, that you could buy slides of major events.

Setting Sun in Memphis

My first venture into taking photos, was during my time in secondary school while studying for a GCSE in Photography. Our photography teacher, Mr Fleming, was a really good photographer and regularly had work published in cycling magazines. The school had its own fully working dark room, where we were taught how to develop our own shots. The smell of photographic chemicals always takes me back to my school days.  

After leaving school, academic studies took over my spare time, along with regular trips to Old Trafford to watch United. Photography drifted away and wasn’t

Race Concentration

really in my thoughts for a number of years. At the age of 21 I purchased my first ever camera, a Canon T50, which was very quickly upgraded to a Nikon F50 with two lenses. I struggled with film photography for a while and was always disappointed with the results. But I did what most people have done, read lots of books and learned a bit more about what I was doing. Before long my images started to improve and I also started to try different aspects of photography.

Tommy Hill at Oulton Park

In 2006 I made my first steps into proper digital photography, with the purchase of my Nikon D50. The freedom to see what you had taken straight away was great, and let me experiment with my photography on a new level. This year I purchased a second hand Nikon D300, and the two bodies now travel with me most of the time. Recently, they have been Memphis, Nashville & Niagara Falls and both have done a great job. My kit bag usual consists of the D50 & D300, along with 50mm prime lens, 18-70mm zoom and a 70-300mm zoom. Along with the lenses and bodies, I have various filters and a flash gun.

shooting in

The Lowry Outlet Mall

My photography, like Lee’s, can’t be pigeon holed into a certain genre as I take shots of everything and anything. I’ve tried to include some different types of shots in this article, so you can get a feel of the sort of shots I do. I enjoy viewing shots you don’t always see, and have been inspired by people like Chris McVeigh and Carl Warner.  I do have a big love of motorsport and enjoy trying to photograph fast things as they whizz pass me. A lot of people think it’s just a case of pressing the shutter and hoping you get one shot out of a sequence, but it does take some effort and practice to get it right. There are plans for another trip to Silverstone next year for our 3rd MotoGP trip, as I need to get some shots of Valentino Rossi back on his Yamaha.

South Stacks Lighthouse

Inspired by Lee, I have been looking into projects and have made a start on a project about roads which will start to appear over the next few months.

We are constantly looking to highlight the work of Pennine Lancashire Photographers.  If you would like your work featured on our website and in our magazine why not drop us an email and someone will get back to you.