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Welcome to
Bournemouth Photography, a website designed to help generate enthusiasm
in all things photographic in the Bournemouth and Poole region. This
website is an eclectic mix of business directories, photo galleries,
model portfolios, photography tips and a blog following my experiences
in learning about how to take better pictures. I hope that this website will
be of interest to both amateur and professional photographers, models and
local photography businesses.
We are so
lucky living in such a fantastic part of the country, sometimes we
just take it for granted that we are within 30 minutes drive of some of
the best landscapes in the UK. From time to time we just need to be reminded
of some of the great places there are to visit in the region.
Bournemouth Beach, Poole Quay, Poole Harbour, Corfe Castle, Sandbanks,
Studland, Old Harry Rocks, Swanage, Lulworth Cove, Purbeck & the
Jurassic Coast, Christchurch Harbour, The New Forest ... the list goes
on.
For more
information about places to visit including plenty of photos please
visit the website
www.pooleharbourguide.co.uk
Unlike
many photographers I became interested in photography quite late in life
when I was in my twenties! I was living in London at the time (1993) and
was passing the South Bank Gallery which was showing an exhibition of
Robert Doisneau's work. Of course I went in. Robert Doisneau was a
French photographer who in the 1930s walked the streets of Paris with a
Leica camera always in his hand. He was one of the pioneers of photojournalism and
captured many ordinary street scenes reflecting daily life in Paris.
Robert
Doisneau's most famous image is Le baiser de l'hôtel de ville (Kiss by
the Hôtel de Ville), a photo of a couple kissing in the busy streets of
Paris. A copy of the image appears on the cover of Jean-Claude
Gautrand's book about the photographer published by Taschen.
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Robert
Doisneau 1912-1994 [Paperback]
Author: Jean-Claude Gautrand
Publisher:
Taschen GmbH; 1st. Edition edition (28 Feb 2003)
ISBN-10: 3822816124
ISBN-13: 978-3822816127 |
What I
particularly liked about Robert Doisneau's style of photography was the
fact that the images were not staged or set-up (apart from the photo
above where he initially missed the shot and asked the couple to pose
again for him!). Probably at the time when he took the photos not many
people would have given his images a second glance. However, eighty
years later his portfolio of work is a priceless record of everyday
people doing everyday things in the Parisian suburbs.
In the
same year as the exhibition I also saw a documentary on TV about a
religious festival held high in the Andes of Peru in South America where
Quechua Indians walked from their villages for many days to worship the
rising sun atop a remote snow-capped mountain. The pilgrims believed
themselves to be the re-incarnated souls of llamas and bears and, in the
middle of the night at temperatures of -20 degrees Celsius, they cut
blocks of ice from the glacier, broke off giant icicles and descended to
the valley floor as the first rays of the sun lit up the mountain
tops. Thousands took part, many dressed in white balaclavas and wearing
animal skins they then proceeded to danceand cry out in high-pitched
voices!! Other participants were dressed as kings and others carried
huge crosses on their backs. It was rumoured that each year at least one
person would accidentally fall into one of the many deep crevasses in
the glacier. If this happened they would be left there to die as a
sacrifice to satisfy the mountain gods. I couldn't believe that
something so strange was still taking place on this planet and I was
keen to see it for myself.
I spent
the next 18 months in the second hand book shops around Leicester Square
researching festivals in the Andean regions of southern Peru and
Bolivia. Every small village in the mountains has a festival at least
once a year often lasting several days and involving traditional dances,
music and drinking. In 1996 I took a year off work and tried to visit as many
festivals in Peru & Bolivia as I could. I bought a Canon SLR
camera and packed 50 rolls of Kodachrome 64 slide film. I eventually tracked down
the Ice Festival and joined the pilgrims climbing the glacier, as well
as visiting a festival where a Condor was tied to the back of a bull in
a fight to the death. In the space of 12 months I think I visited about
20 festivals and drank far to much of the local beer made from fermented
corn. Much of the time was spent staying with local
Quechua families. I also took a compact camera which I used to take
photos of the local families. I would get the film developed and printed
in the nearest large town and return to give the prints to them. For many it was the
first photo they had ever received. It was a good year. I still have a
box of all the slides that I took stored away in a corner of my attic
gathering dust. Maybe in another 20 years time I'll get them down and
dust them off and be able to enjoy a record of daily life in the Soth
American Andes at the end of the 20th century!
After all
that adventure, returning to work in the UK as a civil engineer was a
bit of a come down. I worked hard, saved some money and used the time to
teach myself how to process and print black and white photos. I turned
the bathroom of my rented flat into a darkroom with all the equipment.
After two years work I had finally had enough with the rat-race.
Having spent the last year working as an engineer building train station
in the north east of England at night didn't help. At the age of 27 I packed
my bags and all my photography equipment and headed for Peru. I had met
my wife-to-be a couple of years earlier in Cusco, a city in the south of
Peru, and we had successfully maintained a long-distance relationship
helped with a few holidays in Peru.
I ended up
settling down in Peru where I got married, had a daughter. My original plan was
to take some black and white photos and open a gallery, selling prints
and postcards to tourists visiting Cusco. I don't know quite what
happened but I got side-tracked and ended up setting up a trekking
business that specialized in operating treks to Machu Picchu and the
southern Andean mountain range. I'm still involved in running this
family business today. In the last 10 years we have received
many awards and recognition for its good treatment of the porters and
trekking staff. The business also donates a large percentage of its
profits to community projects in the mountain villages. We helped built
schools and every year donate computers and educational equipment to
remote village schools. In 2010, after
13 years in Peru, we decided to move back to Dorset where we now live -
just a few doors down from my parents house where I was brought up!. We
are lucky that we have good staff in Peru and can still run our trekking business in Peru. I am
usually pretty busy during the winter taking bookings but after Easter
things quieten down a bit and I have more free time to get out and about
and make the most of this fabulous county of Dorset. Last year I took
sailing lessons and frequently went fishing. This year I'll be trying to
improve my photography skills.
In 2011 I
started the Poole Harbour Guide website (www.pooleharbourguide.co.uk)
which was really just an excuse for me to get out of the house and
re-visit all the places I had known as a kid. This time I could enjoy
the coastal walks and beaches with my wife and daughter. It's a
non-commercial website aimed at reminding residents that Dorset is
great place to live and there are plenty of great places to visit. Since
I've been back living in the Bournemouth area I have met so many people who have lived here all
their lives and the last time that they ever went to Lulworth Cove was
with the school and many still think Corfe Castle and the Swanage railway is
just for tourists! Nearly all the photos on the website were taken
on a compact camera - a Canon G9, which a particularly like for taking
panoramic photos that can be combined later in Photoshop Elements. I also
bought a new Canon EOS 60D in the summer of 2011 together with a
70-200mm EF f/4 L IS lens and a 17-44mm EF f/4 L lens. In December I
bought a 50mm f/1.4 prime lens which I just love. I also decided to get
together some studio lighting equipment. It's been quite an investment
but I enjoy the challenge of learning new techniques to improve and
expand my knowledge of photography.
Since I
started writing this website I have been trying to analyze my motivation
for taking photos. Some people enjoy photography and the satisfaction
they get from taking technically correct pictures. They then go out
looking to create or capture a great image and enjoy the praise they
receive when showing it to others. However I sometimes feel that I am
the opposite. I see a particular scene such as a landscape or person
just going about their life and appreciate it for it's natural beauty. I
then want to share the experience that I feel inside me with someone
else who's not there. Photography seems the obvious medium for doing
this. However capturing a visual and emotional experience in two
dimensions isn't easy and is almost guaranteed to lead to
disappointment.
... to be
continued ...
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