Week 10 of FMP: A good week (24th - 30th Sept., 2018)

A very active week.

Jesse Alexander and Colin Pantall during Colin’s web presentation

The week began with a one day darkroom course at Photofusion. Went well. The last time I’d operated creating B+W prints in a darkroom was in the 70’s. Was amazed to find my ancient skills at dodging and burning hadn’t left me, I even knew automatically which way the negatives should go in the enlarger’s holder.

Began with a presentation by Colin Pantall on the Falmouth web forum. A bit disappointing in some ways. A lot about what he’s got in a book he’s published, but far too little about what was involved in putting the book together. Ah well, can’t win them all.

I had booked a half-day session in a studio in Streatham. Went reasonably well, the subject was me. Some decent images. The time went surprisingly quickly. Explored getting really close-up, main difficulty is getting the focus right. I was using my 7” remote monitor tied uo to the camera, helped a lot. More difficult when further away. That evening I showed some of the results at a group critique with Krishna.

She’d been the person to suggest getting into environmental photography so I think she was quite surprised by what i’ve been getting up to for my FMP. She certainly sounded it. Very positive feedback again though.

Two days later went for a second shoot I’d booked at a different studio, one a but further away in Bermondsey, the other one wasn’t free that day-time. Was a bit more relaxed this time, similar work to th previous occasion, tried this time to work more with my expressions, starting to get a little troubling what I’m finding about myself. I don’t think I’m that happy.

The day finished with a very interesting opening by some folk I know at the Magic Gallery in central London, eay to get to from Bermondsey though. Followedby a talk on ‘The Female Gaze’. This was a bit dissapointing. A panel of quite young ladies, they didn’t seem to relate well to older members of their sex in the audience. Tricky, did seem somewhat superficial and chatty, Not the best PhotoLondon sponsored talk I’ve been to.,