Spring 2015
The River Editor Lee Johnson shares his latest essay on Colne Water
Ian Sharpe Ian shares his experience and some of his photographs with us.
WPPD Some inspiration as the team get ready for World Pinhole Photography Day
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About Pixel
Contact Us
Pixel is an e-magazine that aims to promote photography and art in the Pennine Lancashire area. The magazine is staffed and published completely by volunteers and volunteer contributors.
Editorial Staff
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Editor: Lee Johnson Sub-Editor: Bob Singleton Sub-Editor: Liam Loughlin
Visit our webpage www.pixelmag.co.uk
The magazine is offered for free reading via the third party website, Issuu. Pixel Magazine will remain a non-profit making venture. Currently, there are no charges for advertising Pennine Lancashire photography or art related businesses. There will never be a charge for photography or art related organisations that have a social enterprise business model or are run by volunteers. Pixel Magazine does not endorse any products that are shown in our magazine or our website. We do not offer or take payment for any contributions to Pixel.
Email Us: Editor: editor@pixelmag.co.uk Picture Desk: picturedesk@pixelmag.co.uk
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Contents Spring 2015 7 Editors Note 8 The River 22 In-Profile - Ian Sharpe 35 Through the Pinhole 40 Pixel Directory
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Editors Note Meet the Team
Pixel Staff Lee Johnson Bob Singleton Liam Loughlin Contributors Ian Sharpe
feature with Ian Sharpe. I’ve been following Ian for a while on Flickr and have become a fan of his abstract photography. Finally, to celebrate the up-coming World Pinhole Photography Day we have a little feature on lensless photography and how you can get involved. There are loads of exciting things going on in Pennine Lancashire at the moment. The Blackburn arts scene has seen a major boost with the Blackburn is Open Project and April will see the first Lancashire Photography Open Exhibition in Accrington Library and of course Burnley, Rossendale and Ribble Valley continue to contribute heavily to the cultural aspects of our vibrant area. We just need to make sure that people get involved!!!
Well, this issue has been a while in the making but we’re here now!
At this point I will sign off and let you get on with reading what we have to offer in this issue. Remember, keep visiting the website for news and features Monday - Friday. Bye for now!
Pixel is back. We have taken a slightly different approach but we’re still here and we’re still looking to promote what’s good and new in the Pennine Lancashire Photographic and Arts scene. So what have we been up to since the last issue? Quite a bit actually. The three of us have been working hard on our own bodies of work. Those of you that follow us on Flickr have no doubt seen what we’ve been up to as well as trying to fit in work, family life, holidays and a bout of prolonged illness. In this issue we have my essay on Colne Water which was inspired by Ted Hughes poems. We also have an In-Profile Page 7
The River Story & Photography by Lee Johnson 'Oh my God!' A damp feeling ran down the shin and calf of my right leg. The cold shooting through my body was intense like being wrapped in a blanket of ice. It could not have been worse than if I had been slapped in the face with a wet trout. A welly filling with ice cold river water in the middle of December is probably not anybody's idea of fun. Well, perhaps only fishermen and photographers. It's funny, now that I sit here at my desk I remember just how cold it was. At the time getting home, the comfort of central heating and a few hot chocolates quickly dissipated the memory. It was on a whim that I visited the waterfalls of Earby. I didn't have any particular shot in mind. The only thing that I had actually thought about was that I wanted to make exposure time quite long. By making long exposure the water becomes blurred and often gives a sense of movement throughout a picture. When making landscape photographs I tend to start with a very wide view taking in as much of the scene as possible. After a while I begin to settle in to what I am doing and see the micro landscapes and abstracts that I actually find infinitely more interesting than that of the whole. I guess I like details. A few hours sat at my PC and the cold amnesia had firmly set in. The collection of images I had made were good. In fact it is fair to say that an abstract from the set is one of my favourite photographs I have ever made. I should really find a way of making a nice print of it. The thing is shooting something like this is a really bad idea for me. I don't really tend to work in single images. I actually prefer to make essays. That is a collection of
photographs that tell a story. So when I see something that is beginning to work it tends to start the steam engine to whir the cogs of my brain and the Christmas holidays gave me plenty of time to think. Taking these shots also coincided with me reading Ted Hughes book of poetry on the River Dart in Devon. Each poem is accompanied by a photograph by Peter Keen. So it was no surprise that my brain went into overdrive. However, there was no chance I was going to attempt to write poems to go with my images. It's one thing writing an article for my blog or a magazine but completely another world writing poetry and I don't think my command of the English language extends that far. The festive season came and went and the idea of The River had firmly set in. As with all my ideas for essays the initial idea behind the project had started off too big. Originally the subject of The River was going to be the River Ribble but with a timescale of nine months this was not going to be possible and so I had a re-think. The answer to the brainstorming session was to document a river that was and continues to be much closer to my heart; one that I could visit easily when I had a spare hour or so; the answer was Colne Water. Colne Water is a river that stretches around five miles from the hamlet of Page 8
The River Laneshawbridge, through the town of Clone and ends in the village of Barrowford. Unlike the Ribble it has a very definite start and finish. Very much like the Ribble it has a variety of landscape characteristics from rural through urban fringe, industrial and back to urban fringe. It turned out to be a good time to document this river. Major changes to it were about to happen. Some of the wiers were removed to allow breeding salmon upstream. No bad thing at least not in my book. Also permission has just been sought to generate electricity from another part of the river. Again, in my opinion no bad thing. And then there was also the demolition of the mill at Waterside. I tend to take some test shots before I settle in to producing an essay properly. It quickly became apparent that I had found a look to the images that I was happy with. This wasn't going to be about big beautiful landscapes taken during the time of days referred to as the ‘golden hours’ (that is sunrise and sunset). It wasn't going to be about the wildlife of the water course and although there would be some small space for it within the essay the final piece would be more abstract than that. I began shooting the images that would be included in the final piece without an idea what the final presentation of the piece would be. In general when I start out shooting an essay, I only have a vague idea of what the finished piece will be like. This usually evolves and clears as the process of making photograph continues along. In terms of The River the final piece would become an audio visual presentation. Some time ago I got involved with Beth Derbyshire’s Ark. This was a converted canal barge that travelled up and down the Leeds Liverpool Canal showing a multi-screen video installation and this proved to be an influence on my final piece. Not having access to multiple screens or projectors I decided that I would create slides with a series of interchanging images from up and down the river. The soundtrack to the imagery would be a soundscape created by recording my walk along the river bank. This hopefully meant that the viewer would be immersed in sights and sounds that I was seeing and hearing. The River is made up of around 70 images most of which are quite abstract or show some small detail often missed by someone walking along the course of Colne Water. There are some images of the landscape that it sits in; there are some photographs that document some of the wildlife; some are quite pretty; others are quite hard to look at. The River was never going to be a beautiful celebration of a prized landscape feature. It was always intended to show the viewer how nature and man affect the landscape in a warts and all manner. I think it achieves this. Visit https://youtu.be/lrQiHLmNEsA to see the AV presentation.
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The River
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The River
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The River
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The River
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The River
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The River
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The River
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The River
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The River
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The River
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The River
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Studio Hire
Large Curve
Small Curve
Use of kitchen area with free tea & coffee
Lounge area
Toilet with baby changing facilities
Changing screen and full mirror
White Door Photography Old School House, 3 Canterbury Street, Blackburn, Lancashire. BB2 2HP (above Photo-Mechanical)
Email us at: whitedoorphotography@gmail.com. Phone us: 07971 173216.
www.WHITEDOORPHOTOGRAPHY.co.uk Page 21
In-Profile
Ian Sharpe I first began to take photographs when I was 10 years old using a point and shoot 35mm film camera. At this stage I was less concerned with photography and more concerned with recording my other interest, railways. Photography at this point could be described as point and shoot and I was not really interested in shutter speeds and apertures. In 2007 I bought my first digital camera a Nikon D70 DSLR. At this stage I was still producing photographs purely as a record of my interest in railways. At this point I began to develop an interest in photography through a desire to fully understand the settings on the camera, experimenting more with the camera during the course of producing photographs in connection with my interest in railways. On a visit to a railway workshop in Germany in 2008 I took the photograph that really made me stop and consider that I could push my photography and experiment more. The photograph in question was of a railway worker hosing down the inside of a workshop. To this day it is still one of my favourite images. From this point on I began to start to experiment more with my railway photography, paying more attention to how the photographs were lit and composed.
Another key moment for me was taking the decision to enrol on a night class at my local college, in order to further develop my photographic knowledge and skills. After completing this night class in photography, I went on to complete a second night class and on completion of this I became aware that I had developed a deep interest in photography and made the decision to apply for a place on a university course to study photography. I am now in my second year of a three year photography degree. My current photography is a combination of abstract photography and urban based documentary photography. Influences and inspiration for my photographs come from a range of photographic sources and nonphotographic sources such as paintings, and those everyday chance moments where you see something which inspires your thoughts. Also, especially in the case of the abstract photographs, what I photograph is very much a case of curiosity getting the better of me I will produce a photograph through sheer wonder as to how it would turn out. To see more of Ian’s work visit his Flickr page at www.flickr.com/ photos/90061200@N08
The next key moment for me was joining a local photographic club. This gave me exposure to a good variety of different types of photographing. Although my railway photographs got a good reception at the club, I found that I was being typecast as a railway photographer and therefore began to experiment with taking pictures other than railways.
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In Profile
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In Profile
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In Profile
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In Profile
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Through the Pinhole Sunday 26th April will see the 15th World Pinhole Photography Day (WPPD). On this day everyone pinhole photographers from around the world accept the challenge of producing one photograph using a lens-less camera (in other words a pinhole device). Knowing that our creative readers relish a challenge we thought we would also celebrate WPPD by inspiring you to take part. The rules are really simple (click hyperlink for full details). You can basically take an image with any lens-less camera. It can be homemade or commercially produced; traditional (i.e. chemical image capture) or digital; colour or monochrome. It doesn’t matter so long as the image was taken on WPPD (26th April), scanned and uploaded to the WPPD gallery by 31st May 2015. To give you some ideas here’s what you can do.
Make a film pinhole camera.
Yes, film is cool again and has never been cheaper! Why not make a 4” x 5” pinhole camera. It’s quick, easy and cheap. If you don’t know how to develop your own film, why not speak to your local camera shop? They may be able to develop the film (Hayhursts in Nelson will develop sheet film!). Don’t forget. DO NOT open the camera until you are developing. Make sure you are in a darkroom.
Buy a pinhole ‘lens’ for your DSLR. Pinhole lenses are readily available for most common DSLRs. A Holga pinhole ‘lens’ can be purchased from Amazon (other retailers are available) for around £15. You can also buy expensive (and of course better quality) pinhole ‘lenses’ should you get addicted (and it is addictive). Make a pinhole ‘lens’ for your (D)SLR. Got a spare lens cap? Why not drill a hole in it and fit a pinhole shim made from an aluminium drinks can? It’s cheap, easy and really effective! It works for both film and digital SLRs.
Pendle Hill from Pleckgate. Taken with Holga Pinhole ‘lens’ on Pentax Kx
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WPPD
Adapted Micropress 4” x 5” Film Camera
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WPPD
MTL3 with Lens Cap Pinhole Lens
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WPPD
Roe Lee Pavilion. MTL3 Pinhole Camera
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WPPD
Pinhole Photography Resources World Pinhole Photography Day Website. Mr. Pinhole - Camera Design Calculator. Alternative Pringles Camera Kodak Pinhole Camera Pinhole Photography Wikipedia Page Some Inspiration Nice little book from Alternative Photography
Film Stockists Silverprint Firstcall Photographic
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Canberra Club, Salmesbury Aerodrome, Myserscough Road, Balderstone, BB2 7LF.
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