Inside San Maggiore Giorgio

Venice hey, been a long time since I posted a picture from there. Well my Venice photos have been getting a lot of attention from myself recently. Probably because in the 2 years since it's been that I was there, I look back quite objectively at the pictures and think 'hmmmm, I would do this now', and then I realise that RAW files are not cast in stone and I can tweak them as needs be. I have even been making some slight adjustments to my Burano picture, one of my best known pictures (without trying to sound too disgustingly modest).

So why am I doing all this? Well 2 reasons actually. Firstly, because I bought a book recently on Amazon for a penny. Yes, you read that right, 1p (the delivery charge cost 240% more than the book). Why people try to sell books for penny I have no idea, but at least it means you can get hold of books, that would have been incredibly difficult to find elsewhere. The book I bought was called Charlie Waite's Venice. A book of photographs by one of my favourite photographers, taken in Venice. You probably had guessed that from the title though. The book was first published in 1989 and though there are many great and inspiring pictures in there, what surprised me was the amount of noise (film grain) present in many of the photos. This was obviously more acceptable then, as ISO was controlled by the type of film you selected, not in-camera like on modern DSLR's. It made me realise that most people are nuts if they don't believe that digital photography is an advancement over film. That much noise would just not be acceptable in today's photographs, I believe. Don't get me wrong, I do think film grain adds a fantastic quality to to some pictures, but the amount of noise present in other photographs, takes away from the overall quality.

I am digressing slightly, but the book did inspire to go back to my own pictures of Venice taken in April 2011. The second reason I have been going back to my Venice photos is because I am going to bring out an Ebook (though you can get in standard book form as well!) of Venice. It's the type of photographer's photography book I like; not too much on words and lots of great images (I hope you think anyway). The type of photography book Scott Kelby creates when he returns from certain destinations. I have always wanted to create these types of books as well. You may remember that I released a book (small though it is) last year entitled 'West Berkshire in HDR', so the Venice one will be my second published book.

Today's picture is one I think I originally posted on Flickr a couple of years ago, but I reprocessed it last year. This is the time I have posted the reprocessed version.

Travel Photographer: The Ultimate Dream?

There are many different genres and subjects of photography but it is travel photography that often gets mentioned as the dream job. I think this is because for a lot of people like myself, it is what got them started in photography in the first place. Paris is the city that sparked my interest in photography, and the lack of any kind of camera apart from my phone was very frustrating, something I immediately sort to rectify when I got home.

Since then, photography has taken over my life and like so many of us photography bloggers out there, would love to make a living from photography. I was never that much interested in travel throughout my 20's and it was only once I got into the photography that I also acquired the ambition to travel to many places and picture them. It has taken me to a few places I would not have imagined visiting before, such as Venice (as today's pictures show) but I am still yet to go back to Paris. The nature of travel photography does seem a gold mine for photographers. If you travel enough, your portfolio will offer endless variety whatever subject you choose to picture. And of course everybody loves seeing pictures of foreign lands, perhaps being inspired themselves to visit places they see in a photograph.

There must be a downside to it though and the obvious one has to be the time spent away capturing those pictures. I watched a video on YouTube yesterday about a travel photographer (and regrettably I have forgotten his name) who spent 6 months travelling the world taking pictures for his new book. Now I applaud the dedication to his craft but surely that is a lot to take on a family should you have one back home? If you are a single person then I guess it isn't a problem, but even I who is getting married very shortly would not want to spend that much time away from home, there are more important things in life.

I guess the key as always is balance. Professional photography normally relies on more than 1 revenue stream and to be working locally as a full time photographer, whilst going away to foreign land for a few days to capture some pictures every now and then, seems like a great way to earn a living. Travel photography is often the dream for many aspiring photographers and like the artists of many years ago, will probably inspire people for hundreds of years to come yet.

Washing lines in Venice

Statue of Baldassre Galuppi in Burano, Venice

Into the Venetian Unknown

It's got to be a very brief blog I'm afraid today. Just one of those busy moments that I can't do a lot about but can hopefully make up for at the end of the week. Without trying to put today's blog down though, this is of course unmistakably Venice. It was one of the hundreds of pictures I took of gondolas in action while I was out there (well what else sums up Venice so perfectly?) and this one is about to go under the spectacular Rialto Bridge. I processed this picture entirely in Lightroom 4. A quick thought I will share on non-HDR processing; I love HDR and am of course one of the people striving to make a name for it in the UK but I always remember basic fundamental photographic principles (if there are any?) as well. For instance, HDR would never work with this photo because the mystery is in the shadow detail to the right. Although of course you can still use shadow detail in HDR pictures, it is more sensible to process pictures like this as single images, rather than reveal too much shadow detail which may spoil the picture.

Burano

As I said on Thursday, today I have chosen to post another of my 'classics'. I know it is perhaps a bit self-indulgent to call them that but I only refer that to some of my pictures which I feel have done particularly well, either on the internet or with the wider public at exhibitions. I don't deny that I do want to get more of my pictures from last year on this website, as people may find it harder to find them elsewhere or may have not seen them before at all. So whereas I'm primarily fully committed to posting new pictures on this blog site, I will continue to post an oldie now and then.

Of all my pictures, I know this picture from the island of Burano in Venice, divides opinion the most. It really is a case of people either love it or hate it. Many younger people and none photographers will often tell me that this is their favourite out of all my pictures, whereas people with artistic or photographic experience tend to be unsure, even sceptical about it. If you have been to Burano, you will know that the houses are genuinely all different colours but people sometimes people suspect I have changed them on this picture, something I would never wish to do. It remains one of my favourite pictures though and of course I am delighted that so many people do enjoy this one.

Madonna Dell'Orto

I've decided to post an 'oldie' (it's not really that old) today due to being pretty swamped with none-photographic issues recently. I'm in the process of buying a property at the moment and will hopefully be moving in very soon. It's taking up a lot of my time anyway and rather than rush a picture together, I decided to post a favourite of mine from last year. I have posted this one on Flickr before but never as a blog.

This is inside the magnificent Madonna Dell'Orto church in Venice, not too far from the Rialto bridge. I took this picture using a gorilla-pod, whilst sitting on the very back bench of the church. It was one of the first pictures I processed on my return from Venice and though I did not choose to use it in my exhibition in October last year, it still remains one of my personal favourites. The paintings on the far wall behind the alter are truly spectacular and I think one of the reasons I like this particular photograph.