January 15, 2012

The Stone Hole

The Stone Hole, Woodhouse Eves, Leicstershire

 Over the Christmas break I visited my family in Leicestershire, where I spent the first 20+ years of my life. I love the countryside there. Charnwood Forest is an area where granite sits proudly in outcrops on the surface and there are always plenty of native deciduous trees. There’s also lots of hiking opportunities and this snap* was from one of those on Boxing Day.
This cave is a place I know from my childhood. And it’s a place my dad knew well as his school and the church where he was a choir boy was minutes away from it. What kind of influence might a place like this have had on my young mind? Looking at it now I was surprised to see such familiar colours from the slate greys to the orange tinge from iron deposits. The shape was also very familiar and this is probably because ‘The Stone Hole’ was once a mine, and is very similar to ones I have explored at Combe Martin at home in North Devon.

This early 1900’s image was found whilst I was trying to find the name of this cave. I was stuck by the fact that it was a commercially available postcard and that there is a group of well dressed people in it. I sometimes feel I was born 100 years too late! I’ve seen similar Victorian pictures of landscape where people are picnicking, studying, rockpooling and enjoying for it’s wildness whereas now those same places are our toilets and rubbish tips.

*for my fine-art images I would take considerable time, use a tripod, shoot sometimes over 100 photographs,  spend hours (possibly days) processing the frames and constructing the image to my memory of the place. This really was a snap-shot with compromises on camera support, iso, aperture etc.

December 22, 2011

Merry Christmas

O Little Town of Bideford ? Dave Green 2011

I usually try something out of my comfort zone, challenging or off-the-wall as a Christmas Image. This year I got playing with an iPhone app called CamWow. My iPhone3 doesn?t give me anything like professional photos and this app downgrades the image size to 320 x 427 pixels, which is about the size of the screen on the phone. The effects aren?t new, there?s nothing that you couldn?t do in Photoshop; however with CamWow you can see the image manipulation in real time as you use the camera. The line drawing effect I used for my ?card? worked particularly well in the dark where it changes night to day and the world through the camera-phone?s ?viewfinder? is cartoon like. The software also has a remarkable way of getting a sharp picture under very low light; it seems like it waits until the camera is still to make the exposure.
The small images were butted up to each other in Photoshop layers afterwards and colour was added sparingly.
Have a wonderful, safe, merry Christmas and do something creative in 2012.
December 12, 2011

AONB SDF

North devon with the AONB area highlighted                                               

I?ve just been awarded a grant towards my Graveyard of the Atlantic exhibition at the North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island, April?June 2012 and somewhere in North Devon in 2012. The grant was applied for from the North Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) Sustainable Development Fund. The photographs in the exhibition are all from within the AONB and will do well to promote the North Devon Coast and AONB in Bideford?s twin town in North Carolina, USA. The exhibition will be supported with explanatory text and maps and illustrated talks and workshops.

I was invited to show some of my photographic work to the director of the North Carolina Aquarium during an arts networking trip in 2010, and from this meeting was invited to exhibit there in 2012. Graveyard of the Atlantic is a phrase used to describe both our rocky shore and the 200 mile long sand dune barrier island coast of North Carolina for the vast number of ship wrecks each have sustained since the Middle Ages. North Devon?s relationship with North Carolina stretches back to the first ?lost? colony planted on Roanoke Island by Bideford?s Lord of the Manor Sir Richard Grenville in 1585. In recent years there has been a surge of interest in this relationship with the twinning of Bideford with Manteo and in North Devon as the source of America?s first English Colony. The display of constructed photographs and text of North Devon?s coast, emphasising its harsh rugged beauty in stark contrast to the sunny, sandy beach associated with North Carolina; will be the first time many locals and visitors have seen the North Devon coast or in fact a rocky shore.

After June it is planned to move the NC exhibition to the Elizabethan Gardens on Roanoke Island. If you would like to host this exhibition in North Carolina, Devon or further afield please email me here: info@davegreenphoto.co.uk

Keyhole Cave, Hartland
 

November 21, 2011

Winter Workshops

Photographic Workshops in Devon, Winter 2012

Painting with Light on Westward Ho! Beach

Email info@davegreenphoto.co.uk to reserve a place on a workshop

Introduction to digital photography 10am – 5pm – ?50
A practical days workshop learning to gain control over your camera, shutter speeds, aperture, ISO, flash etc, setting it up for optimum quality under any given lighting, and making better pictures through composition. Numbers limited to a hand-full.
Saturday 7th January in Bideford
Tuesday 24th January in Bideford
Saturday 28th January in Barnstaple

Half Day Intro to digital photography 2.30pm – 5pm – ?25
A ‘sit around the table’ workshop to get to know your camera better. You’ll learn about shutter speeds, aperture, ISO, flash and setting your camera up for optimum quality.
Wednesday 11th January in Bideford
Monday 16th January in Barnstaple
Saturday 21st January in Bideford

Painting with Light 6pm – 9.00pm – ?25
An evening workshop celebrating the dark nights of the Winter. You’ll learn how to make ‘long exposure’ photographs using coloured lights, flames, sparklers and hand-held flash.
Sunday 8th January – Northam Burrows
Sunday 12th February – Northam Burrows

Photographing your own Artwork 10am – 5pm – ?50
I have a wealth of knowledge and experience of photographing 2D artwork, jewellery and ceramics and I’m willing to pass this on to artists eager to improve their own image making camera skills. Although this workshop is for a small group (max 5) I also offer it on a 1:1 basis for ? a day for the same price.
Wednesday 18th January in Bideford

Introduction to Photoshop 10am ? 5pm – ?50
Participants will need to be computer literate i.e. use a computer on regular basis and understand the basic controls. Small group (max 4).
Saturday 14th January in Bideford

Workshop gift vouchers are always available for that special present for those people with new cameras so that they’ll get to know them better!

More workshops will be added later, please let me know by email if there’s a photographic workshop you would like that I don’t offer at the moment and if there’s a location that I don’t offer.

Some recent comments about my workshops:

“I’ve had a quick look at the feedback forms from Saturday – all of which were excellent – so it sounds like it was a very successful day – WELL DONE!!”
Tilly Clark, Burton Art Gallery and Museum

“Thank you very much for an enjoyable day, I feel I learnt a lot in a short time and spent most of the evening and next day taking pictures!”
Dion Mantell  

“Thanks for a really enjoyable day ? do you have any other courses planned? All the best”
Alan Mead

“Great to see the pictures – surprisingly good viewing them now!!! Really enjoyed the day, thank you”
Gill George

“I just wanted to say thanks for a great day yesterday we learnt heaps. I am sure when we take photos in the future they will be much better.”
Jenny Smy

“Just to say many thanks for last Friday it was really helpful and enlightening.”
Wendy Allan

November 15, 2011

Coastwise

The audience for Coastwise talk

Last Thursday I talked to Coastwise, a local collective of like-minded people brought together by North Devon’s coast. My talk was about getting the best out of a digital camera for the naturalist. I was a little apprehensive as I don’t have the best gear or patience for ‘wildlife’ photography but I shouldn’t have been. They were thrilled to see my own work about the wild coast and seemed to get a lot from my talk about digital cameras. They had lots of questions which I managed to answer. What a lovely bunch of people who meet in the spring and autumn at Barnstaple library 9.45am – 11.45am on Thursdays.