Matt Peers
OK, it wasn't an exclusive 'hang out with Matt Stuart day' but the next best thing - a Street Photography workshop in conjunction with the Photographers Gallery in London. As postgraduate fees have gone through the roof, I've decided,for now at least, to keep my continual professional development to attending workshops and buying books. And what a valuable day of learning it was!
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To paraphrase the great David Bailey, we all have a truly great image in us, but the difference with him is he will have many, many more. It is rare to get as many great images in one life time as Bailey, but we can aim for more than just the one.
Read MoreThis is André and Suzanne and they are engaged to be married. I only know this as I was standing by them on the top of the Rockefeller Centre in New York as he popped the question. Unbeknownst to them I started to photograph the special moment ( it seemed clear that she was overwhelmed with joy rather than an awkward, "I’ll think about it") and allowed the story to unfold. Carefully picking my moment I handed them my card, and since then we’ve been in touch and they are delighted with their candid proposal images. Here’s wishing you a long and happy life together.
Till soon…
Matt Peers
Watching Germany’s triumphant path to World Cup glory the past month led me to reminiscing about my 1995 inter -railing trip to Berlin and beyond ( do people still do inter-railing anymore? Even writing the words Inter- railing feels as modern as frey bentos meat pies and shopping for music at Our Price…). Completely by chance I arrived at the time the Reichstag was wrapped, top to tail in fabric by the artist Christo. If you’ve never seen his work, his schtick is to wrap buildings, tropical islands and cover strips of desert in fabric. It is as odd as it sounds, but in the flesh the scale of the building and fabric is a stunning combination.
So, it was either a sheer coincidence or I was mentally prepared to look at things, that I drove past the old Works building on Icknield St. and saw it draped in shimmering aqua netting, ready for refurbishment.
Birmingham has rightly championed the exploring of some of its hidden spaces to the public, however; here’s one that’s neither hidden nor an art installation, but just as beautiful. Maybe it could be done for other buildings, such as the old Central Library before that sadly goes…?
Till next time...
Matt Peers
Probably more often than some photographers would admit, the image you want to take doesn’t happen. Technical failure or good old fashioned human error, it doesn’t matter; it’s way off what you intended. Once you’ve noticed an error, it is very tempting to quickly delete it and move on. Indeed, you may be short of memory... but before you do, hold off and try and see what it looks like on a proper screen.
The small proportions and lower resolution of an in-camera screen is not as honest a reflection of the image as you may think, so you could well be throwing some pictural babies out with your digital bath water. Out of focus blurring, for example, can add rather than detract from the impact of the image. Would Robert Capa’s D Day landing image have the same impact if it was pin sharp?
Of course many mistakes aren't worth recovering, but once you rescue a beauty, what then? Have a look at the image meta data - i.e. what was the aperture, exposure time, lens focal length? By understanding that and what went wrong you could now have a technique to add to your repertoire that you can explore again and again. However, If you can't for the life of you fathom how it was done ...well, just put it down to kismet and enjoy the results.
Till next time...
Matt Peers
