Beyond the obvious

Spring is in full bloom here in Yorkshire. Rows of trees with their delicate blooms line the park as you enter Harrogate. This close up shows some of the opulent display. It's been awhile since my last blog. Just incredibly busy. At the moment a lot of my time is spent on sorting out our computers but I hope to be back in action and writing something that will get the creative juices going again soon. In the meantime I hope you enjoy the image above. Cheers for now, Paul

Shell fish on Cornish rocks wait for the incoming tide to return. The premise for this article is that there are three basic elements which affect our perception and therefore appreciation of a photograph. I arrived at this conclusion during a typically philosophical breakfast conversation with my dear wife, Magda. Never mind breakfast, I hear you say, what are these three elements. Well the first is obviously the image itself. Secondly we have the viewer’s personal life experience which filters the image and influences the way they perceive it. The third ingredient is for me the eureka one, and a rather slippery customer to pin down. I’ll call it visual fashion or probably more accurately ‘learnt perception.’ Number one, the image itself is self explanatory really. Here I mean the subject matter but also the visual presentation (colour, black and white) as well as objective technical aspects, including saturation, sharpness, composition etc but excluding any interpretation or jud...

There's a eerie feeling around the Wheal Coates cliff-top mine buildings. A sense of history hits you in a place like this where few miners were fit to work past the age of 40 and many died young. Woman and children younger than 12 years old worked above ground. Despite the crowds of tourists wandering around I wanted to capture something of the atmosphere of the place. It was a bright sunny day with a haze hanging over the horizon. I saw Magda walking off toward the next building, her dark clothes contrasting with her sunlit hair. She seemed in that moment almost like a spirit of the past. The new piece of wall brings the image up-to-date and besides creating an interesting piece of contrast prevents the image from being contrived. I used the walls to create a sense of depth, hopefully pulling the whole composition together in spite of how small the focal point, Magda, is in the frame. Ultimately I hope the image show something of the scale of the place and conveys its atmosphere...

Amitabh Bachchan - Bollywood Superstar. See my black and white portraits portfolio . Just back from a trip to Cornwall in England, hence the quiet period on my blog. Got loads of shots, so there's a lot to process. I've updated my portfolios on www.indigo2photography.co.uk , using a nifty piece of software which integrates with Picasa (Google's free picture management program). It all works a treat. The portfolios contain new and older work, a selection of my best images. Hopefully I'll be adding a new portfolio with my Cornwall images soon. Your comments in our guest book are very welcome. See you soon, Cheers, Paul

Magda Indigo in a Flanders field during a visit to the area where she grew up Magda has launched her own blog to share her wisdom, which is considerable with her many years experience as a professional photographer, her informative viewpoints and her philosophy. She is a great story teller and her images and words combine to convey her irrepressible sense of life with all its poignancy and humour. Click here to visit Magda's blog and don't be shy about leaving a comment. Cheers, Paul