About Me

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Leeds, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom
I am a father of two, who has been a paramedic for 15 years and a professional photographer for around 5. That is until recently, from the 1st of May 2017 I will no longer work on the frontline full time. Instead I have made the transition from specialist paramedic to advanced practitioner and will be working full time in primary care. This blog will chart the development of myself from my current role of specialist paramedic to an advanced practitioner. In the last year I was diagnosed with Ankylosing spondylitis. Which is a degenerative condition which affects the spine. While this diagnosis saddened me obviously. It also came as a relief as I had struggled for over a year and had no idea what was wrong with me. So the diagnosis also came with some relief as I finally had a name to put to my condition. It did help me to look forward and consider a new career pathway. I am the first paramedic to work in primary care in my practice area. This is quite an accolade.

Friday 23 October 2009

Selective view


Selective view


I choose to look at the selective in context with the human form. I liked the way images can sometimes reveal a small detail that leaves the viewer wanting to know more about the subject.


This is something that I myself had previously explored on occasion, but I wanted to examine the human form in even greater detail than before. See below :















This time I wanted to be even more suggestive and leave more to the viewer to decide what was happening in the image.






For my research into selective view I went to the library and borrowed two books and a magazine (aperture).the image that inspired me the most was from a book called : Icons of the 20th century photography by Whoever.




In the book I found the following image by Ralph Gibson.
I loved the detail and contrast between light and dark in this image and it inspired me to look into the photographers work further which I did at the following website ; http://www.ralphgibson.com/


At the website I found a collection of work that particularly interested medated between 1961 – 2005 called Infanta. It was this collection and in particular the following image that inspired me the most.









Once there I found a whole host of other images that further inspired me.I really liked the use of light and shade in this image, but felt it was not as selective as the brief required.

 








I also found the following image very interesting, as it focused only on a very small feature of the face. Once again leaving the viewer to decide what the rest of the story was, how old, what sex, etc....












 

This was another image that I found interesting from the same collection. Again it was a selective view but this time shot from a more interesting viewpoint.


 After getting some intial inspiration I tried Flickr, which I personally find a very inspiring website full of images. 








It seemed apparent looking at this photograph that this photographer was some influenced either direct or indirectly, by photographers like Ralph Gibson. See image below :







































Another image that inspired me was again from Flickr from a portugese photographer called Lidia Ramalhos. I particularly liked the shape at the point where the two heads joined together and the contrasting eye colours of each subject :http://www.flickr.com/photos/11055123@N07/1925990472/









One night while I was in bed I looked at the curve of my wifes arm and felt that it would be a great staring point for my shoot. I asked her if I could take a photo of the curve of her armpit and she agreed. Her are the results :









Thursday 22 October 2009

Form and selective view

We were asked to shoot images six images that demonstrate the use of two of the following :
  1. Beauty
  2. Form
  3. Shape and Detail
  4. Mood of isolation
  5. Selective view
 I looke dat form first and 



http://www.betterphoto.com/gallery/dynoGall2.asp?catID=362

I then looked at Selective view. I went to the library and borrowed a book called icons of the 20th century edited by Peter Stepan.

Ralph Gibson : In Situ and Infanta

Babies




http://www.ralphgibson.com/archive/popup.php?id=506&album=2

Thursday 15 October 2009

The influence of Modernist art movements on photography

Reflective cycle for research into modern art

Description

We were asked by our tutor to do some research into modern art covering the following subjects : futurism and Avante Garde, Cubism and Abstraction, Dada movement, Surrealist movement, and Bauhaus design.

Feelings

I looked forward to doing the research into modern art.  Although I feel I have a good basic understanding in modern art I was looking forward to learning some more about the subject. Our group covered the Bauhaus design movement. 

Evaluation

Good points : We had a small group of two people so we were able to focus on the task at hand. Using new technology and applications on the mac was interesting as I am not as familiar with the Mac, it is always good to learn new applications and programmes.

Bad points : We did not have a very long time to do the research, so we felt that time was against us. I also felt we struggled using some of the Mac technology as I am more familiar with Pc than the mac.

Analysis

With hindsight it may have been easier to use word than the pages application which was new to me as we would have been more familiar with that application. It may also have been better if we had included larger images in our presentation, but we struggled to find good quality larger images on the internet.


Conclusion

I found the research interesting and felt that the group as a whole uncovered some interesting point and that the end results showed a lot of hard work from the group.

Below are some of the links that we used for our research :









Bauhaus.JPG.jpg