The Image Maker. Part Two - Ghostly Apparitions

Please buy a copy of this month's Black and White Photography magazine (issue 155, October) and see my second lesson in basic photo-manipulation.

This month it's all about adding lighter elements to a photograph and I demonstrate how to make ghostly apparitions and genies.

All the components for each photograph were produced with the Leica M Monochrom and I am using Photoshop Elements 11 in order to show that these techniques are achievable on modest budgets.

First steps in writing - The Image Maker

I'm not sure I could have predicted where I would be in five years time, five years ago. After a lovely meeting with the team over at Black and White Photography Magazine I now find myself to be a writer (or trying to be a writer - I'm slowly getting the hang of it).

I have embarked on a ten issue series to help present some very simple, yet effective, photo manipulation and photo creation techniques. These are designed to be an introduction (there are so many ways to do something in Photoshop) and it is my hope that some of the readers may be encouraged to discover more. Many of my own attempts have only come about through trial and error, gradually learning and building a recipe book of what can be done to a photograph once it has been transferred to the computer.

To prove that expensive equipment is not essential all the work has been carried out using Photoshop Elements 11. (The instructions are the same for full versions of Photoshop).

The first issue is out now and demonstrates a method for adding dark subjects to a photograph. The following image of the pirate boat was completed using this technique to add the sky, birds and border.

All the elements, apart from the border, were taken with the Leica M Monochrom.

Black and White Photography Magazine Interview - August 2013 Edition

It's been a few months since I was awarded the Leica M Monochrom and Black and White Photography Magazine have kindly printed a five page interview in the August 2013 issue to see how I'm getting on since winning and to find out a little bit about me. It is such a positive experience to have such a big write up about my work. Copies are available to buy now from all good newsagents.

Competition Update. Black and White Photographer of the Year 2012

I WON !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am the winner of Black and White Photography Magazine's, Black and White Photographer of the Year 2012 Award.

Have I come back down to earth? Have I heck.

The Leica M Monochrom was presented to me at the Leica Store, Mayfair, London, and I have barely let go of it since. I had to dash from the ceremony earlier than I would have liked to get the last boat home, but I got a chance to speak with Elizabeth Roberts and some of her fantastic staff and colleagues. My nerves were off the scale, but it was a brilliant evening and all the work in the room was of such a high standard I feel honoured and humbled to have been a part of it.

I've been entering competitions for some years (I think this was my fourth or fifth time with this particular one) and although I've had positive feedback I've never won and I guess you get used to not winning. I had no idea this would be 'The One' and it's knocked me for six. It's a shame my Dad isn't here anymore, I would have loved to have told him in person, but some strange things have been happening since he died and I'm pretty sure he knows. I think he would have loved all the attention.

Competition Time - Black and White Photographer of the Year 2012

It's that time of year again - Black and White Photography Magazine's Photographer of the Year 2012 Competition.

I struggled this time - due to all sorts of emotional complications that 2012 will forever be remembered for - and only just managed to create a set of images and submit them in time for the final deadline. I wasn't sure what to create and for at least two days nothing seemed to work. Then these just happened. I don't know quite where they came from, but I like them. I think I just needed to switch off and let whatever it is that helps you out in these moments (creativity? inspiration?) take over.

I've managed to get through to the next round and the prints should be with them by now. Fingers crossed.

I'm on a bit of a mission to win a major competition within my lifetime.

The first three photograms (hand, crickets and damselfly were entered into the Black and White Photographer of the Year category). The final picture of the tomato plant was entered into the Living World category.

www.thegmcgroup.com

Competitions

I like to enter photographic competitions from time to time - I haven't won any yet, but that doesn't stop me trying. I think it's good to have a go, put your work out there in front of other people in the industry. It often provides a chance to try things out and who knows, one day I might win. It is due, in part, to an earlier competition with the magazine below that I took a leap of faith, quit the day job and started to be a photographer full time. So they can even change your life!


I recently entered into the Black and White Photographer of the Year 2011 competition run through Black and White Photography Magazine and was notified that I had been shortlisted and put through to the next round. I didn't manage to win (this time), but they very kindly put a selection of shortlisted entries into their December 2011 issue and each of the selected images has been given a whole page to itself!  I just can't get over how cool that is.

I wanted to try something different with my photograms. I created new images by joining several together. They are abstract in nature due to the random gathering of found objects, but I wanted to keep the aesthetic quality and suggest that these items could have existed together and worked together. There are all sorts of ingredients in these: dead insects found on windowsills, a plastic bracelet lying in a gutter, an old bottle discovered in the verge on a dog walk, broken rulers...

I've been watcing the films and stop motion animation of The Brothers Quay (pronounced Kway) recently and their work simply blows you away, it is incredibly poetic and visually amazing. (I recommend Street of Crocodiles and Institute Benjamenta as starting points).They appear to live and work in a world where everything that can be overlooked and ignored becomes important and is given life: dust, grime, seeds, screws, the broken and discarded...