The Evolution of My Photography
by
Peter Leech
The Evolution of My Photography
By Peter Leech
The Evolution of My Photography The collection of images in this booklet have been selected not for their quality nor their ability to win competitions. It is a very personal collection, put together to reflect the changes over time in the changes that I have made to my style of photography - or more accurately the style of my image making. As you look through the pages of this booklet you will see the gradual change from straight photography, through increasing use of Photoshop and other editing software, to the point where no camera has been used in the image at all. Where it is useful I will try to explain briefly the nature of these changes and the techniques used to create the final image. Please enjoy. (Any comments or critique will be gratefully accepted. ) Peter
The Evolution of My Photography
By Peter Leech
My photographic life started with film, usually mono film. This primitive analogue approach was accompanied by a loft darkroom and trays of chemicals and red lights. Anything more adventurous would have to wait until Truprint. The images on these two pages involved burning to get the deeper blacks and holding back to enhance the whites of the highlights- little more complicated was practical. These examples were all taken around Cardiff and illustrate different aspects of the City
The Evolution of My Photography
By Peter Leech
The Evolution of My Photography
By Peter Leech
With the addition of colour, more depth to the images was possible. Initial work using colour was all done on 35mm slides, which I processed and mounted at home. Sometimes these slides even involved the use of glass filters in front of the lens ( Cokin Filters usually ) to add graduations and even multiple images. Some of the results were more like shots from a 1970s “ Top of the Pops � programme. I have excluded these shots to save my embarrassment..
The Evolution of My Photography
By Peter Leech
The Evolution of My Photography
By Peter Leech
“Y2K” For many people the year 2000 was all about preparing for all of the chaos that was to follow when computers had to deal with the new century. For me it meant the introduction to Digital Cameras. Good bye to all of those cold nights up in the loft. Now processing was done in the daylight and the warm at a desk with a PC. What luxury ! I began with a small hand held camera but soon progressed to a Canon, as image quality improved. To begin with I simply took the same photographs, but in a different camera, but it didn’t take me long to get hold of some Computer editing software and start adding gradients to skies, making vignettes and so on.
The Evolution of My Photography
By Peter Leech
The Evolution of My Photography
By Peter Leech
I found that even straight monochrome shots could be enhanced - like this one using “ blur ” to create a more dramatic feel to the sky. This one also shows how using levels you could alter to highlights and shadows to create very contrasty images…….
The Evolution of My Photography
By Peter Leech
...whereas this shot from the national Motor Museum shows how you could desaturate images to create and olde worlde effect‌.
The Evolution of My Photography
By Peter Leech
...and even get rid of just some of the colour to “pop” a particular colour - just like the girl in the red coat in Schindlers List….
The Evolution of My Photography
By Peter Leech
...or add a new sky for dramatic effect and tint the whole thing for dramatic effect‌.
The Evolution of My Photography
By Peter Leech
Pasting a different sky in the background was one thing, but with layers you could add on top - the way a painter does with his layers of paint. This addition of a dark textured layer gives bristol cathedral a really antique feel.
The Evolution of My Photography
By Peter Leech
While this use of texture on a shot of bristol Docks railway takes the viewer right back to its Victorian origin.
The Evolution of My Photography
By Peter Leech
Masks could be added as a layer to produce more “ painterly ” borders like these of Prior Park in Bath and the workmens ’ cottages in St Fagan’s .
The Evolution of My Photography
By Peter Leech
This shot of the Hayes in Cardiff combines several of these techniques to set the tone unmistakenly vintage
The Evolution of My Photography
By Peter Leech
By this stage I had started to embrace the idea that the photograph is not merely a straight, 2 dimensional, reproduction of “reality”. I was now starting to see the photographic image as the starting point of an image rather than simply an end in itself. On these pages I have tried to include a selection of images that all began as a photograph of a block of flats in Cardiff bay, but which became four very different interpretations of that “ real ” image.
The Evolution of My Photography
By Peter Leech
The Evolution of My Photography
By Peter Leech
My work was now moving clearly in the direction of using photography as an art form and the underlying image was now definitely just a means to an end. One of my favourite artists was Mondrian. His famous style comes from his beliefs in the philosophy of Theosophy. This saw the world as being represented artistically by the two dimensions of vertical and horizontal. This photograph of woods in the Brecon Beacons was taken specifically to be altered to become an image in the Theosophist style.
The Evolution of My Photography
By Peter Leech
This image of the woods led me to create a series of images building on Mondrian ’ s style. The Series was called “Mondrian in Motion” and is intended to imagine how Mondrian would have moved had he been alive in our digital world.
The Evolution of My Photography
By Peter Leech
The Evolution of My Photography
By Peter Leech
Other styles were experimented with. These represent the “Kinda Kandinski� Project
The Evolution of My Photography
By Peter Leech
These shots based on the rear side of the Odeon Cinema in Cardiff Bay represent a move towards Cubism
The Evolution of My Photography
By Peter Leech
The Evolution of My Photography
By Peter Leech
GEOCRACY Having built up skills by developing various artists’ styles, it was time to develop series of images to create a style specific to myself. The first attempt to do this was a project that I called “ Geocracy ”. The idea was to combine a natural colour scheme to GEOlogical part of the theme. This was combined with producing regular shapes to add the GEOmetry element of the project. The next few pages show some of these images in this new style of GEOCRACY.
The Evolution of My Photography
By Peter Leech
The Evolution of My Photography
By Peter Leech
The Evolution of My Photography
By Peter Leech
The Evolution of My Photography
By Peter Leech
SELECTIONS FROM OTHER RECENT PROJECTS.
INDUSTRY
I have shown you a large selection from the Geocracy series - my first series attempt at developing a specific style. For the next few pages I will demonstrate just the odd image or two from various projects begun over the last 12 months. Each of these projects will be illustrated by two images on each page.
The Evolution of My Photography
By Peter Leech
The Evolution of My Photography
GRACE
By Peter Leech
FRACTALS FROM EXISTING IMAGES
The Evolution of My Photography
By Peter Leech
DISTORTED SHAPES LAYERED
The Evolution of My Photography
By Peter Leech
FORMULA DRIVEN FRACTALS
The Evolution of My Photography
By Peter Leech
AUTO-ABSTRACTIONS IMAGES CREATED FROM DISTORTED CAR BODY PANELS
The Evolution of My Photography
By Peter Leech
MOODS
I hope that you have found these images interesting and that my evolution from an analogue photograapher towards becoming a digital artist. Of all the styles in this booklet, I have rejected none. I still make the range of images shown. I was really trying to illustrate how my range of styles and techniques has evolved over the decades. Comments and critique is more than welcome
The Evolution of My Photography
By Peter Leech