Dave Green - Cultural Heritage Photographer, Artist and Educator

January 14, 2013

Bude’s rocky shore

Sea caves, shipwrecks and the rocky shore starting at Roses cafe, Crooklets beach, Bude. I’ve run this workshop at Sandymouth a couple of times in the past but have always started from the cafe there; this time as it’s winter I started in Bude. Roses cafe is an ideal starting place, opening at 10 AM and surving good coffee. Sue and Rob, taking part in the workshop, both had plenty of questions and open minds with very different needs. One had a DSL, the other a compact camera. Both had adventurous spirits and a love of the outdoors and of the coast.?

After what seems like a year of rain and a mild Christmas today was a gloriously bright sunny Sunday. We trecked north along the beach from Bude towards Northcott mouth. Studying the geology of the magnificent cliffs, with contorted rocks, with artists eyes. I introduced them to scenes with high contrast deep shadows and bright highlights. The human eyes and brain can see detail in all of these places but the camera has a limit to what it can record. I demonstrated this limit, but in a positive way, by allowing some shadow areas to go very dark or black lacking detail, but drawing attention to well lit areas within a composition. We continued to photograph what the sea had revealed on the beach as we walked north. Spending a little of our time photographing a small natural rock arch over rock pool. 1 mile north of Bude is what’s left of the Belem. This 2000 ton steamer was wrecked in dense fog in 1917. Various parts including the boiler and firebox are still visible.?

Meninchurch point lies just on the cliff side of this wreck and in this headland is a great cave which was our journey’s goal. We made our way through the great boulders at this cave’s entrance and scrambled up to the back rock wall.The cave looked splendid, full of wonderful forms including what are clearly the ripples of an old beach seen in the vertical rock face on one side of us. However, it did not look at its best as it was very dry inside, the tide having left three hours previously which made the interior quite dull, flat and grey. But it was a good place as a teaching exercise, shooting into the light and having to prevent flair from flattening the shadow areas of the interior. Our presence in the cave, attracted a family with young children and dog to come exploring too. I’d like to think our being there had encouraged a family to come exploring where without us they may not have had the confidence. The photograph on the left long and thin, was made using the iPhone is panoramic mode. The photograph at the top was made using the auto stitch app. After the photo shoot we went back to the cafe downloaded images and I demonstrated some enhancements in photo shop. These included processing a raw image using photoshops software, combining images together, cropping, and generally making the images look there best with very subtle alteration.

?Looking back over the day, it is often the unexpected things that participants gain the most from: Sue now has a ‘working’ tripod and Rob can confidently used his camera in the manual mode.

“Thanks for a really interesting and instructive day! Thank you again, the day has made me realise where my interest really lies and has prevented me spending money on things I can do without!” – Sue Lane

January 8, 2013

Constructed Images at Holsworthy Camera Club

Constructed iPhone example made just before I started to speak!

I started 2013 as the guest speaker at Holsworthy Camera Club. My chosen topic was the development of my photographic arts practice I call ‘Constructed Photographs’. This ‘talk’ continually develops and this evening I based my technique in the making of an image of the nearest cave to Holsworthy at Northcott Mouth, just north of Bude. It didn’t surprise me that only one person in the audience knew where the image was from as one can walk from Bude to Sandymouth at low tide without noticing the magnificent cave hidden in the base of the cliff, at Menachurch Point, behind a scree of massive menacing boulders. The other developmental addition was the inclusion of panorama and stitching technology available now even on phones. My new iPhone 4S (circa 2011) has an interesting panorama function on its camera much like an old ‘short rotation camera’ eg the 35mm Horizon camera. But my best Christmas present to myself was an iphone app called ‘AutoStitch’. Obviously it doesn’t compare favourably to a professional dslr, photo merge in Photoshop combined with the skill of an experience photographer but; it is an amazingly powerful app to have on a phone! The above image was created, in haste, as the Camera Club Chairman, Roger, introduced me at the beginning of the evening.

The first half of my presentation was a chronological look at how/why my practice had developed from 35mm triptychs to digital montages made up of over 100 images. You’ll find references to much of this history in my website. After a break I concentrated on the technique and process of making my current, huge images, looking in detail at the cave in the headland of Menachurch Point, and at Kipling?s Playground at Westward Ho! It’s always worth looking back in this blog, to older posts, as almost all of my images are constructed from more than one image, and many are detailed here.

October 10, 2012

Sandymouth

I’ve just gone through the pains of replacing my computer. My main frame was making so much hard drive noise and running so slowly that it was high time I moved forward from XP and 2gb of ram. I now have a Intel i5 processor with 8gb of ram which should suffice for a few years. Suddenly I am able to construct images that I could not have hoped for in the past and this image from the cave at Menachurch Point will be my biggest ever photograph once it is completed.

This constructed photograph is made up of 116 separate frames, many of which were triplicates of the same part where I would use my hand or dodging tool to remove flare; then skillfully merged together in Photoshop layers (minus the fingers). I will be able to get this 1.5gb file printed fine-art high-quality to at least 5 foot or 1.5 metres. An earlier ‘snapshot’ version is below.

This cave is of particular interest to me; lying at the edge of North Cornwall AONB at Hartland it is the spot where the RFA Green Ranger came to rest after it’s shipwreck at Gunpath Rock in 1962.

Green Ranger – copyright unknown

Oops! Hopefully nobody noticed, the shipwrech at Menachurch Point is actually the 1,925 ton steamship “Belem” stranded in thick fog here on 20th November 1917. I’ve included a picture of some of the remains at the bottom of this blog post. There ought to still be something left of the Green Ranger further up the coast – I shall have to explore soon!
I’ll be leading a photographic workshop ‘Sea Caves, Shipwrecks and the Rocky Shore’ here on Thursday 1st November, exploring this and many other caves and what is left of the Green Ranger (see below). You’ll get a good introduction to my own photography whilst learning how to make the best of your own including using your camera under demanding landscape and lighting. Price for the day is ?50, please email me to book a place: info@davegreenphoto.co.uk

September 26, 2012

Wren Music

I had a commision to photograph the staff at Wren Music. They asked for a gothic theme as they were working on a production that required it. The first photoshoot was at Okehampton Castle, a great gothic ruin. The sun was in more than it was out and I had to work very quickly finding the best locations, groupings, expressions etc whilst juggling with the lighting.

There was just an hour spent at the castle then it was into town, for another hour, to use an empty drama room of a local school for the next shoot. I had some lighting with me but the theatre spotlight in the room backed by the black velvet curtains gave the gothic look we were all after. A little light was reflected back into the shadows on the faces using a large sheet of white card. The picture compositions to me were all about marrying the musician with their chosen instrument and making something that filled a 3×4 frame in a balanced way. It was a challenge to make each portrait different from the last as there was no time to change the lighting. Again I had to work very quickly, concentrating on the key things like getting the all important eyes open and in focus.

September 11, 2012

Okehampton Camera Club

On Monday 10th September I had the pleasure of talking with the Okehampton Camera Club; a progressive group of about 25 creative photographers on the edge of Dartmoor.

I used the title ?Constructive Photographs? to present and discuss my work. This title can be used to sum up my working practice since the mid-1990?s. It was never a conscious decision to have such an obscure thread running through my work. But it is apparent in 35mm film triptychs, camera-less daylight processes silver images and through my 21st century digital work. The process is rarely hidden in my work and the photographically literate will make the connection of sprocket holes on the edge of a triptych or the hard, unblended, edge of a frame seen around the outside of a huge cave interior landscape.

The presentation in Okehampton was split into two parts; the first being key images in the progression of my work over the last 15 years. Then, after a tea/coffee break, the technical considerations of making these images was discussed and illustrated.

The animated gif above shows the constructing of an early image made in North Devon. This is named ?Shipload Grotto?, a cave in the difficult to get to Shipload Bay, close to Hartland Point. I should really make an up-to-date animation to illustrate the using of ?photomerge? in Photoshop; this one was made using a 2003 Sony Cyber-shot which served me well at the time but it?s lens was prone to chromatic aberration (the coloured edge seen where the contrast between very dark and very light is at the most extreme, like the entrance of a cave). The finished imaged was made from 51 separate frames.

Prior to my talk at the Club, I got a chance to witness their annual show, held this year at the Museum of Dartmoor Life, in Okehampton. This was a great way of getting to know the photographers by their photographs. I was really encouraged by the overall quality of work and the emphasis the club has for creativity and experiment; members seem to be developing their own styles which enhances the overall experience of the exhibition. The show continues until 29th September.