After the Peoples Photography I found myself sliding into the blues as I reviewed my last year. Not because I felt I'd done badly, more that mentally I'd reset the clock and was starting out on another year of photography. The slate was clean so to speak. Mentally I'd decided that I was going to move on from last years pictures and treat this year as a brand new year, with brand new challenges. Essentially filing last years pictures in the done box.

I'd heard a photographer in England once describe how he destroyed all his photographs every year and how cathartic and refreshing he found the experience.

...

Well, bugger that.

After a week in the dumps, I remembered that they're my photographs and I can do what I want with them. So I looked through them again. It was a hell of a fun year for me to even get to the distance I managed.

Onwards and upwards I say. But now by building on the last year of photo!

...

Anyway, I took this at the weekend. It's had the saturation dropped a little to make it a bit more low key and moody.

I think it's a good example of how things have changed in a year for me. this old swing has been in this field for eons. I walked past it with the camera a few times last year and never saw the picture until the weekend. I'm not sure I did it justice, but it's a decent example of how my approach to a shot has evolved in a year.

(f/2.5, 1/1600sec, 50mm, ISO-200, 07/09/08)

"On top of the world"

I spent yesterday in Dublin taking part in the Peoples Photography 2008 exhibition in St. Stephens Green.

My aim for the day was simply to hang up some of my favourite pictures from the last year and be a man about the comments I would receive. I don't know what I was expecting, probably lots of sniggering and people saying "you suck" or something. What I didn't expect was the great reception both the pictures and myself got, the fantastic comments and the praise.

Probably the most stressful part of the entire day was setting up my display. It ended up looking something like this.

I was lucky enough to have grabbed a space as part of the Kirribilli empire and was soon adopted into the Greene family. As well as their enthusiasm and chocolate muffins, their company for the day meant there was always someone to talk to and joke with, as well as someone to watch kit when I went for a wander.

Once set up, there was little to do, but sit back and chat with Dermot's family and people on neighbouring displays.

The feedback I got was excellent. Quite a number of people said hello and commented on the pictures. From amateurs to professionals, it was great to hear every opinion. And what was better, people were so complimentary about pictures. So much so, I was routinely left speechless and looking like a gaping idiot

So, if you spoke to me and I didn't say it, thank you.

In all seriousness, if you're into photography and can make the event, it's a great way to spend some time.

All in all a good day.

Thanks have to be said to Eoin and Este for the tea, steak, movies and bed, and to the Greene family for the companionship on the day!

Oh yeah, I sold a couple as well.

OK, so technically it's the same old boat from Cruit Island as before, but I was playing and thought I'd share.

This has fallen foul of my current fascination. Graduated filters in Lightroom 2. Well worth investing in or using the demo if you can get it.

The following thumbnail gives you an idea of the picture before the filters were applied. (Sorry, didn't bother uploading the full size version of it).

Now, as you can probably tell, the original image suffered from the usual problems encountered (by me anyway) on a bright day in that it was left very washed out and feeling flat.

Adding a filter to the top right, running down to the middle of the picture in a diagonal has allowed the sky to come back into its own. A few other tweaks to curves and general contrast and exposure and hopefully things look a little better.

Now, lets be honest. It was never a great picture to start with, but I made all these changes in about 10 minutes. (Less time than it took to knock together this post).

The simplicity of Lightroom 2 is just fantastic.

As well as various exploits with Photoshop, Lightroom, GIMP, Picasa and lord knows what else over the last year, I've tried to experiment or experience the different styles of photography that are out there. To date I've tried a few different things, landscapes, portraits, macro and so on.

However, there has been one style that has caused more lunch time debates with Andrew than any other and that's "Street Photography."

In case you're not aware of the term, wikipedia (via google define) says "Street Photography" is:

Street photography is a type of documentary photography that features subjects in candid situations within public places such as streets, parks ...

I think it's fair to say Andrew is a huge fan of it, and I can see the attraction it holds for him. He's also shown me work by other photographers both as YouTube videos and from books and portfolio web sites.

He's also helped me rationalise my opinions on it.

Initially my reaction to it was horror. The thought of taking a candid photo of someone as they minded their own business, of sticking my camera in front of someone in an attempt to grab some sort of social commentary left me cold. What's more, thinking about it from the subjects point of view left me feeling a little violated.

I asked a few people what they thought, and to almost a man they all said they'd hate someone doing it to them. Different responses were suggested and I'm not entirely sure how a camera would react to a digestive system... Especially when approached from THAT angle.

People have the right to privacy, right?

Then I started picking up on the photographers rights stuff I've mentioned in the past and noticed the similarity in issues around that. Preventing someone from taking a photo because they don't have a licence or to "protect" someone or something publicly visible seems a little extreme in the other way. After all, CCTV takes our photo constantly when we're out and about and it's never clear what nefarious purposes it's used for.

So, can you really expect privacy in a public place?

Probably not.

If you can't expect privacy, then I think you can expect people to respect your personal space and to respect your right to not be misrepresented.

If I accept those premises. And to be honest they seem pretty fair to me. Then, I have to accept that sometimes people may take my photograph without my explicit permission. I guess that's OK providing it's not going to impact me negatively or make them a lot of money without me getting a cut.

So, where does that leave me?

To be honest I'm not sure.

I went out doing street photography with Andrew a few weeks back (I'm not sure what terminology you'd use, where we "street shooting" or "streeting", what do the cool kids call it these days anyway?).

My initial impressions that it was invasive and unfair on the subjects did waver in the face of people smiling at him, (though there were scowls too). I also tried taking pictures of people and finding my own social statement. I don't think I enjoyed it.

I guess that's where it leaves me after all. I can understand it's appeal, but it's not a style of photography I'm passionate about or really interested in. My days of saying I'd never do it have passed (and indeed one of the founding statements of this blog has bitten the dust as a result).

Maybe it's something I'll do in the future. I'll probably keep it to times and places when people have a reasonable expectation that there will be cameras though. In fairness, that's probably more because it's easier to make a social statement at a parade or in a tourist spot than when someone is coming out of a shop.

Of course, not being passionate about it might not stop me posting pictures in that style from time to time.

If you're interested in Street Photography and you haven't done it already. You really should check out Andrews blog. He does have some excellent examples of how it can work well.

I fought with this picture for an hour after making it HDR. I'm still not happy with the colours, but I thought I'd share and see if some kind soul (soul, church - geddit?) would help me out and suggest where it all went wrong.

I've been busy the last week selecting and printing photos for the Peoples Photography thing in Dublin at the end of the month. It's been an interesting challenge, not because I have so many great photos (I wish), but because sometimes what's important to me isn't what you would call "good". In the end I decided to use people's advice to a point and then to supplement with some photos which might not otherwise have seen the light of a printer. Once the dust settles, I'll list the photos I used here.

In the meantime, here's a shot that did make the selection even though I'd never shown it to anyone. I really liked this red door and the flowers. I took it while visiting Errigal in Donegal a few weeks back. It was the classic "Look at the view" moment, except I was pointing the other way taking photos of a door...

Still, I like the colours.

(f/11, 1/80sec, 33mm, ISO-200, 02/08/08)

I don't know if you've ever been to Donegal or the west coast of Ireland, but in my experience the kitchen is always the centre of the house. You're a visitor and a guest when you're taken into the living room and you'll be treated with courtesy and warmth, but you're a true friend when you're taken into the kitchen and handed a mug of tea.

This is the third shot from the old house in Donegal. It only exists because of the magic of Lightroom.

I only had about 30 minutes to explore the house and I'd got distracted by the amount of things to photograph. As a result I didn't pay as much attention to the camera settings as I should have and it cost me badly.

I did consider what I wanted and decided to try and keep everything in focus. I also decided I wanted long exposures to make sure all the ambient light would work and the colours would filter through (the living room picture for example).

What I didn't consider was the impact of trying to use f/22 in such a dark environment on a camera with an automatic shutter speed of 30 seconds. Being too wrapped up in seeing what I could see, I didn't actually consider what the camera was seeing and only later did I discover that a lot of pictures were simply too dark.

I always said this blog was about me learning to take pictures. This was a lesson I could have done without...

I'm hoping to make a final selection of the photos I'm going to use for the Peoples Photography exhibition this weekend. (I'm going to choose the photos this weekend, the exhibition is a few weeks away). As a result, I've been going through a lot of my photographs again trying to decide which were important for me over the last year.

It's an interesting thing to do. Whilst many would doubt it, I can see definite changes in the pictures I've taken and the way I approach things. I've a huge distance to go before I'd call myself competent, but at least now I have a better idea of where I'm going.

Anyway, whilst trawling through some of my pictures from Germany, my eye caught this one and I thought "Oh, what a lovely bunch of...."

(f/6.3, 1/60sec, 50mm, ISO-200, +4 close up filter used)