All Eyes On Me At The Private View

It was great to get a chance to talk and answer questions about my work, at the Private View for my exhibition at the Guildford Institute last week. 

I spend a lot of time on my own creating the photographs with certain ideas in mind, so being able to explain the thought process and the actions I had to take as a result of changes to the subject, as well as reliving how I felt at the time of capturing the atmosphere, felt quite liberating.

I was asked how many photos I take to achieve the final image, and the answer was not many. I grew up shooting film, and commercially would often take Polaroids before committing to exposing the film so that I could ensure that there was nothing that needed addressing. 

Then the process was set up, determine the exposure, shoot a Polaroid, and if all was okay, load the film and take the final picture. Today I follow a similar process, but instead of Polaroid, I will shoot test images on the digital camera before committing to the final image. If the light is changing rapidly, then I will probably start shooting a little earlier and keep taking photos for longer just to ensure I haven’t missed anything, but it will all happen in a short period of time.

With this photo of the Archway to the Woodlands, I set up much earlier than the final picture was taken, and in fact even left the scene to go somewhere else as it was clear that the light was not going to be in the right place for some time, before returning and actually recomposing as a result of the change in the lighting.

I wanted to catch the sun coming through the beautiful golden-brown canopy of leaves, giving that fabulous autumnal glow to the whole scene. The shadows on the carpet of fallen leaves help give that sense that autumn was here and in full flow.

During the evening there was also a question about print sizes, which I will address in another post in the near future, including how to choose the best size print for your environment. So, please stay in touch to catch all the updates.

The exhibition is still on and will run until March 14th at the Guildford Institute in Surrey, so if you are nearby, then please pop in and take a look. There’s a café there so you can grab a drink whilst looking at the work.

:DK