The Richard Flint Photography Blog

Black Film

2009-11-07T18:50:00.010Z

Vanishing Point II, 2009

At first glance, this photograph would seem to date from around the 1940's period but it was, in fact, taken this year as part of a excellent project called Noir.

Noir was the idea of Brittany Jones and Mitchell Rouse who have taken the stylish and atmospheric cinematic style Film Noir and shot a series of images along a similar theme. The resulting photographs are fantastic. A website gallery of the photos can be found HERE.

Selected images from the Noir Series work are on exhibition at the 400 South Main Gallery in Los Angeles and will be open for the Downtown Art Walk on November 12th.

Noir was found via a post on the excellent photoblog Lenscratch. If you like keeping up to date with exciting new photography, then i'd recommend taking a look at the blog.

High Standard

2009-11-04T08:35:00.006Z

The 50mm standard lens - loved and loathed in equal measure

The poor old 50mm standard lens. It's never really got the sort of praise that it deserves. For many photographers, it's just the lens that comes with the camera, although these days it's more likely that a camera will ship with a zoom. That's a shame because i think the 50mm lens is one of the best lenses that a photographer can own. I'd even go as far as saying that it's an essential piece of kit. The first lens i purchased ,when changing from the Pentax to Nikon camera system ten years ago, was the Nikon 50mm. The superb Pentax 50mm lenses i used throughout my college/university years were invaluable on a number of occasions when the light was low.

Last week, as you may know, i was in Whitby shooting some promo photos for a film. As the film is a vampire movie, it couldn't be shot in daylight for obvious reasons. Daylight and vampires are a bit of a no-no. Street lighting and some rather well placed statue illumination lights were all we could work with, but the shutter speeds naturally came crashing down. Early on i realised that my zooms weren't going to be fast enough aperture wise to let enough light in. Even at f2.8, the shutter speeds still remained too low. In the end, i delved deep into the bag and came out with my trusty 50mm. It was the perfect choice for getting the shots; fast, light and sharp.

Ah Richard, you may be saying, surely with significant improvements to modern digital sensor technology, a fast 50mm is no longer needed. Well, true, but I'd still want to use the fastest lens i had to get the shot. If you can go from 1/25th to 1/50th just by using a one f/stop faster lens, you'd use it ...wouldn't you? Plus, the standard lens, regardless of make, is one of the cheapest to buy. The Nikon f1.4D can be found for an affordable price and that's what I'm after next to go alongside the f1.8D. Zooms are great, i love em, but sometimes you need that extra bit of help when the light starts to get low... a small, compact and fast 50mm type of help.

Vampire Night

2009-10-31T21:32:00.003Z

Photographing a Vampire in Whitby

I love a challenge and you can't get any more challenging than a night photo shoot. Not that being a film maker is an easy life. The most obvious fact that you can't fail to miss when involved in a movie as closely i have been this week, is that the project development work for a film is far more complicated than in the photography business. So many external factors can come into play to make movie making a rough experience. It's amazing that so many films get made at all.

The light was virtually non existent for this shot. All we had to work with were street lights and illumination lights around a statue. We used the latter to shoot the photograph above. I lay down on the ground while Heather knelt with her face near the light. The shutter speed was a surprising 1/50th sec enabling me to shoot a fast sequence capturing Heather's vampire movements.

There is still a whole lot of work to do on 'Christian'. Financing, casting and promotion are just some of the issues that will need to be dealt with in the coming months. The filming is due to commence in Whitby in the spring of 2010. For more news and to see a rather good promo video of the film go over to http://www.christianmovie.co.uk/

Wonderful Whitby

2009-10-24T15:46:00.004+01:00

Boy fishing at Whitby, Yorkshire, UK - 1992

It's been one of those weeks. Still there is plenty to look forward to in the coming weeks starting with a rather interesting project in Whitby. I'll be working as the photographer on a film set. It's just the early stages of production with the film not due for release until the summer 2010, but it's still very exciting to be part of it nonetheless.

Whitby is probably the most photogenic town in Britain. The place has an amazing atmosphere helped by it's fascinating whaling and fishing history combined with links to Bram Stoker's Dracula story. It's no coincidence then that the film I'll be shooting photographs for is a vampire movie.

Whitby has become a very popular tourist destination due to it's charm, however, it does have a distinct Gothic darkness to it added by the windswept churchyard and ruined abbey; something that no doubt inspired Bram Stoker when he visited Whitby in 1890.

I'll be posting my thoughts, and a few Whitby photographs, on twitter starting on Monday.

Taking a View

2009-10-20T14:28:00.000+01:00

Sunrise over the Old Man of Storr, Isle of Skye, Scotland - Photograph by Emmanuel Coupe

Landscape photography is a popular subject matter for photographers, but taking a truly beautiful photograph of a landscape is a specialist art that only a few truly possess. It takes time, patience and a lot of endurance to find the right photographs, in the right location, at the right time.

The beautiful photograph above by Emmanuel Coupe won the 2009 Take a view, the Landscape Photographer of the Year Award, a competition started by Charlie Waite, one of today’s most respected landscape photographers. It has to be said that the quality of the photographic entries for this year really is superb.

A collection of the 2009 competition photographs can be found HERE

Shadow People

2009-10-17T13:28:00.004+01:00

The stunning photograph above is by Finnish photographer Juha Arvid Helminen, just one of a number of photographs along a similar theme. The style and visual construction of these photographs is just superb. There is something that makes the photographs deeply uncomfortable to view, and not just in a claustrophobic way because the models are completely covered.

The great thing about Juha's photographs is we can't be quite sure what's going on. Is it an execution or just a goodbye before heading off to war? Quite possibly it could be either, it's down to the viewer to interpret what they will from the photographs. A selection of Juha's wonderful photographs can be viewed HERE.

Private Investigations

2009-10-12T13:41:00.000+01:00

Fish and chips dinner in Norwich - late June 2009

While walking through Norwich market this summer, i spotted this gentleman tucking into his fish and chips dinner. What struck me first were his clothes. Take away the walking stick and shopping bag, he could easily be a undercover detective out on a case. He definitely has a rather stylish Mickey Spillane detective look about him. I wonder if he was 'packing heat'. I imagine the only heat he'd be packing would be a nice hot flask of tea.

Scotswood Road

2009-10-10T21:54:00.003+01:00

Pine Street 1960 - Photograph by Jimmy Forsyth

During the 1950's and 1960's, amateur photographer Jimmy Forsyth captured on film the working class community located in the Scotswood Road area of Newcastle Upon Tyne. In all, over 3000 negatives exist within the archive for the Scotswood Road area, taken in the years prior to a major change in UK housing policy that would go on to destroy much of the long established community life throughout Britain's towns and cities.

Injured in an wartime industrial accident, Jimmy took up photography to record the changes taking place in that community. After 1945, post war housing in the UK was finally recognised as being in a poor state, and vast areas of housing throughout the country were designated for demolition. New modern housing estates would be designed and implemented by town planners to create a modern living environment fit for 20th century living. Later Jimmy Forsyth would recall the grand housing plans:-

"The planners actually believed that they could build communities, but instead the community was scattered to the four winds, people were sent to far-flung estates, and a community was lost forever."

Jimmy continued to photograph the people of the Scotswood Road until his house was demolished during the late 1950's. During the 1970's, Jimmy Forsyth's work became a focus of interest and in 1979 a major exhibition of his work was shown at the Side Gallery in Newcastle. Jimmy continued to take his photographs, including one of my sister who lived near him for a number of years, until poor health forced him to stop. He died in July 2009 at the age of 95 leaving behind a visual legacy of around 40,000 images.

A fabulous collection of Jimmy Forsyth photos can be found HERE

Mad Mutterings

2009-10-05T08:49:00.007+01:00

A feather amongst the barley - July 2009

Coughs, sneezes and muttering fill the air around me at the moment. I've caught a bad dose of flu which has put an end to a few ideas this weekend. Whoever 'infected' me will definitely be off my Christmas card list this year! I shouldn't complain really as i don't often suffer from colds, flu etc, and it does give me a break from running for a week or so. Even so....

The photograph featured above was taken while waiting for a Tiger Moth plane to turn up. I'm still waiting for the plane to arrive, but the barley field and the golden light were just magical that evening so not all was lost. I've always had the philosophical attitude that images that are created successfully were meant to be, those photographs that don't make it.... were not. Accidents, incidents and mistakes are part of the learning process, so you must take from them what you can, rather than becoming too angry and regretful about images that will never be.

The most memorable mistake i ever made was adding too much washing up liquid while washing some newly developed film, way back in the late 1980's when i was rookie film processor. Washing up liquid works well as a washing agent, which helps remove the risk of water drying marks as the film dries. You only need one drop in 600ml of water to do the business - i added a great splodge and saw my lovely new pristine b&w negatives start to crazy pave in front of my eyes. Within seconds they were all cracked up and unusable. I muttered like a mad Muttley for about an hour or so, and then chalked it down to experience.

Faded Photo

2009-10-01T09:21:00.001+01:00

Soldiers from Hull on parade, taken just before the First World War

Of all the jobs i have to do as a pro photographer, the one that continues to fascinate me are the old photograph collections that I'm often given to repair or copy. Over the last few years, more and more people have started to look into their family tree, no doubt encouraged by easy access to records on the Internet and popular TV programmes like the BBC's 'Who do you think you are'.

Last week, an especially lovely collection of old Victorian and Edwardian photographs, including the photograph above, came in from a client searching his family tree. The image quality of these old photographs was remarkable. Many were nearing or over 100 years old, and yet the faces still looked fresh and full of character. Several of the photographs were designed to be sent as postcards. A final message home before they encountered the horrors of the trenches.

One of the saddest photographs i dealt with featured a nervous looking young sailor, obviously not keen on having his photograph taken in the studio, who lasted just a matter of weeks at the front before being killed. Written on the postcard back was a message to his sister saying that he was fine and everything was OK. Handling a photograph like that is a privilege. It's great to think that with a little work in Photoshop, photographs, like that of the doomed sailor, will survive well into the 21st century.

LIFE Online

2009-09-24T08:35:00.007+01:00

LIFE magazine has always had a special place in the history of photojournalism. During it's long history, the magazine employed some of the best photographers in the world, and as such, the photography was always one of the magazine's big strengths. Until now, finding issues of this classic magazine was difficult, but fortunately Google have recently scanned over 1800 issues of the magazine, dating from 1936 to 1972, and placed them all online to view.

Even seventy three years on from the very first issues, LIFE offers a superb reading experience. I have to admit that the 1930's and 1940's are my favourite eras of history, so that's where i started my viewing. The magazines from this period manage to pack in a good mix of human interest stories, fashion, world news, movie news and celebrity gossip. The adverts are also hugely entertaining. Keep an eye out for the surprisingly suggestive Chesterfield cigarette ads that feature regularly during the World War II years.

Google have done a great job here. The quality of the scans are excellent, capturing all the page detail of the originals. Flicking through the pages really does feel like travelling back in time, so much so that you can get quite caught up in the period. The superb LIFE magazine archive is well worth a visit if you're a photographer, budding historian or just crazy about old magazines.

The website can be found HERE

Autumn Light

2009-09-20T07:52:00.001+01:00

Burnham Overy Staithe, Norfolk, UK - Summer 2008

The nights are getting much cooler and the large tree opposite my house has started to change colour, fiery reds and golden browns taking over from the luscious greens. The summer is coming to an end: Autumn is well on it's way.

The summer has been a bit of a washout for me. The seemingly constant overcast often stopped the wonderful rich golden summer light from shining through. This, combined with a few other factors, has resulted in a rather low level of personal project work this summer. Plans to shoot projects, add podcasting, add AudioBoo, etc, etc have all run into delays or problems.

I am, however, hoping to redeem myself with a few good projects over the final months of 2009. I've also got some exciting plans for 2010, but that's looking rather too far ahead. One project will involve doing a series of winter black and white landscapes - something I've never really tried doing before. I'm also have a winter seaside resort project idea. Both will be released as a free downloadable PDF book, the first of which will be near Christmas.

The Great North Road

2009-09-16T19:34:00.002+01:00

Ferrybridge Power Station, North Yorkshire, UK - Photograph by Phil Coomes

Nearly thirty years, photographer Paul Graham set out on a two year project to document the effects of the recession hitting early eighties Britain. Graham travelled along the A1 North Road, from London to Edinburgh, photographing the people and places along the way. His images created a lasting visual record of the economic and social state of Britain in the early 1980's.

Over the last few days, the BBC's Phil Coomes, who runs the beeb's Viewfinder photoblog, has been following a similar route to that taken by Paul Graham. The idea is to see how this current financial crisis is affecting people throughout the country. The photographs and stories that have been posted so far give a fascinating insight into how the credit crunch is hitting the average Brit.

The Viewfinder blog, complete with photographs and stories from the A1 - The Great North road trip, can be found HERE.

Paul Graham's original 1981-82 A1, the Great North Road project can be found HERE

Lottery Leica

2009-09-11T15:09:00.000+01:00

The Leica M9 Rangefinder Camera

The launch of the rather gorgeous Leica M9 this week has reminded me that i seriously need to start the process of purchasing a new digital camera within the next 18 months. With so much on offer, I'm definitely going to take my time picking and choosing. One thing i do know is that it won't be a Leica M9 which at a wallet shredding £4850, is a touch expensive unless i win the lottery at some point over the coming days and weeks.

I have a pretty good idea about the make and model that I'd like. Nikon, of course, but then things start to get rather more complicated. I have the choice of few cameras from the Nikon D3 through to a D300S, with a number of potential contenders in between. The bookies favourite is the D700 which has much of the functionality of the higher priced models at a cheaper price. I'd love to buy a Nikon D3 and D3X but the £8000+ price tag for both is making me quite dizzy just thinking about it. Yep, the D700 is definitely the front runner, but that isn't exactly cheap either.

I'll have to have a good think over the coming months and make a decision in 2010. By the time i make a decision, I'll probably be able to buy a Nikon D800X.

The Regulars

2009-09-09T07:59:00.003+01:00

Portrait of Robert Fleeger by Sarah Stolfa

This image is part of a series of photographs taken of regulars at McGlinchey's bar in Philadelphia. It's an inspired piece of work. I just love the simplicity of the setup that Sarah has utilized for shooting the photographs. The lighting (probably just a flashgun) is simple and straightforward, but most important of all, the portraits don't seem set up, contrived or false. What you see is what you get.

To see more of Sarah Stolfa's brilliant portraiture work click HERE

Found via Lenscratch

Tilt Shift

2009-09-06T08:10:00.004+01:00

Traffic outside York Railway Station - May 2009

A few months ago, i heard of a website that helped you create the distinctive tilt shift miniature effect on ordinary images. Tilt shift can be achieved using lenses or large format cameras like monorail 5x4, and is often used in architectural photography for correcting perspectives. The lenses/large format technique can also have a lot of creative photography uses too.

The website is easy to use and lots of fun. Just make sure the photographs you upload aren't too big - image sizes of around 1024 x 768 are a good size to start with. A bit of time experimenting is often required and, as the tilt shift maker website comments, the choice of image needs to be right to get the best results:-

As you move to the top of the photo, the distance of objects in the photo should gradually become further away. For this reason, photos taken looking down at an angle to a scene often make good tilt-shift miniatures, because they have a good mix of objects at different distances. We want to give the illusion of focusing the camera at a very specific distance, so having good depth in the photo is important.

The Tilt Shift Maker website can be found at:- http://tiltshiftmaker.com/

Website Gremlins

2009-09-05T14:03:00.000+01:00

Running your own website is full of great moments. There are also some terrifying moments when you realise that all the hard work you've put in over several months has been lost. I nearly had one of those moments on Thursday afternoon.

It started well enough. A number of small website changes had been done and i was trying to output the webpages so they could be uploaded to the server. A problem suddenly appeared. The pages weren't displaying properly because, according to the software, the style sheet file that controlled the websites text and layout was missing. After a good few hours messing tweaking here there and everywhere, i finally managed to solve the problem. Phew!

A ticked box. Just the simple ticking of a box in the software, which i thought would benefit my webpages, had caused ALL my problems. Like many problems in life, I thought my technical gremlins were far more complicated than they actually were.

WW - Stone Wall Sunset

2009-08-31T15:08:00.001+01:00

Welsh stone wall at sunset - Summer 2003

We finish the Wales Week series of posts with the stonewall. Here is one of the colour shots taken of the stone wall featured at the start of August.The textures and colours, i think you will agree, really are wonderful and rich. Anyway I hope that you enjoyed the selection of photographs posted over the last few days. The blog will now return to it's usual posting pace... phew!

WW - Beaumaris Fishing Trip

2009-08-30T15:22:00.001+01:00

Preparing to leave on a sea fishing trip

Another Kodachrome 25 transparency image. This merry band of men were off on a fishing trip going out to sea from Beaumaris on Anglesey. I've always found photographing people interesting. I think it's something to do with the expressive nature of body language and how groups of people physically interact towards one another.

Beaumaris is located on a beautiful part of the Anglesey coast. From there you can see the Snowdonia mountains and along the Menai Straits. Sadly, a thick sea haze, low cloud or rain can often hide this wonderful vista from view. The town also features the splendid, if not rather creepy, Beaumaris Gaol - a Victorian prison opened in 1826. Well worth a visit.

This should be, in theory, the last in the Wales week set of posts, however because it has been such fun to do, there will be one more photograph posted as a bonus tomorrow.

WW - White Water

2009-08-29T18:51:00.000+01:00

Water flowing through rocks on the River Llugwy at Betws-y-Coed

I used to shoot a lot of 35mm transparency film many years ago. Although i never owned a slide projector, i found that the colour, sharpness and contrast inherent in transparency film always appealed to me much more than prints. The downside to shooting slides, especially in tricky lighting conditions, was always exposure - you had to be spot on with very little room for error.

The first roll of slide film i ever used was East German. Orwo film was cheap (in 1991 around £3.50 a roll - process paid) and came with it's own processing bag that you sent off. I only ever used the film once, in North Wales as it happens, but I've always retained a soft spot for it. The results were pretty good -not exactly Kodachrome 25 quality like the photograph above - but adequate for a young nineteen year old photographer just starting out. Fun times.

darker-skies.com

2009-08-29T13:01:00.002+01:00

A couple of days ago, the main domain name for the new Darker Skies photoblog was altered to darker-skies.com. If you subscribed to the original wordpress feed, i would recommend changing to the new feedburner feed that can be found at:-

http://feeds.feedburner.com/DarkerSkies

If you haven't subscribed to the Darker Skies Blog yet, then feel free to check out the website. The style of photography may be darker, but the tone and outlook certainly isn't. Moody, stylish photography is what the site is all about. Pop by and let me know what you think.

WW - Sailing Away

2009-08-28T15:21:00.003+01:00

Yachts anchored off Llandudno, North Wales

Freedom. That's what's this photograph represents to me. Just being able to sail off into the sunset has always been appealing, especially as the pace of life seems to get faster and faster. Imagine getting your own boat and sailing it anywhere you wanted to. My reasons for wanting the Lady Catherine are probably becoming much clearer now.

Sailing around the UK would make a brilliant photographic project. Documenting the voyage, the places, the people you meet, would be fascinating. If i ever win the lottery I'll probably do that, but I'd need some crew. Applications on a postcard can be sent to....

WW - Menai Straits

2009-08-27T19:37:00.000+01:00

The Menai Suspension Bridge

Getting onto the island of Anglesey is a doddle. Just drive over the Menai Straits using the Menai Suspension Bridge designed by Thomas Telford. Prior to the completition of the bridge in 1826 there was no fixed connection to the mainland.

Nearby is Bangor, one of the smallest cities in Britain. It was there, at a yacht brokers called Dickies, that i spotted my perfect yacht - the Lady Catherine. I liked the boat and i liked the name, but sadly the rather large asking price for the Lady C was slightly out of my range. Never mind eh!

WW - Betws-y-Coed

2009-08-26T18:58:00.001+01:00

The Pont-y-Pair Bridge and River Llugwy at Betws-y-Coed, North Wales

If there is one place in North Wales to visit it's Betws-y-Coed pronounced Bets e coed. The name mean Prayer house in the wood, which describes the village's location to poetic perfection.

Betws-y-Coed features an assortment of shops, including several well equipped outdoor sports stores that any certified mountain biking, fell running, canoe paddling, rock climbing nut would adore. I've actually seen people dive of this bridge into the pools of water below as part of outdoor pursuits courses. Not something i'd recommend.

WW - Welsh Hills

2009-08-25T07:21:00.001+01:00

Welsh Hills near Bangor, North Wales

Remember the photographs of the stone wall that i posted at the start of this month? Well this was the scenery on the other side of that wall. The diversity of the U.K landscape is something that tends to be ignored by Brits. You can go from completely flat to mountainous in the space of a few hours drive.

The reason why Wales seems to be such a popular tourist destination for many people is due to the diversity of the landscape. You can leave the sea and sandy beaches behind you, drive for twenty minutes and then be alone in a mountainous landscape. Absolute bliss!