Las Negras

Las Negras

There is a beautiful, peaceful yet lively little sea-side village towards the eastern end of the Parque Natural de Cabo de Gata called Las Negras.

Las Negras has some rather odd buildings that are very 70s in appearance, they almost look future-retro if you know-what-I-mean, like the backdrop of an art-house 70s sci-fi movie such as Fahrenheit 451… am I getting too abstract now?? Ah, good because that’s how the photographs ended up, it’s not my fault, it’s the fault of the ambience of the buildings, THEY made me do it!!!

I just love to study shapes, colours, light, shade and sometimes it’s enough that these elements ARE the composition – FREE YOUR MIND Joking apart, it’s nice to sometimes look at everyday objects in a different way, in fact I’d go as far as to say it is essential for a photographer to do this!

Las Negras is actually a lovely place and the ambience is fantastic, it is a haven for live music with a wide variety of bands and street musicians playing there on a regular basis. I have played there a few times myself and it’s always a great night out. There are some lovely bars and eateries that being off the main tourist trail, are very reasonable in price, the food is delicious and mostly home-made (casera) and everyone is very friendly.

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Personal Landscapes

I once read a really good article on intimate landscapes – put simply, the concept is that you isolate a part of the landscape and make a series of photographic studies of it, I guess in a similar way that Monet painted seemingly endless pictures of haystacks.

Since then, I have become fascinated by the idea of creating your own personal landscapes whereby using the above techniques, you are interacting with a very small abstract part of the environment. The resulting photographs have as much to do with the relationship between you and the subject as any aesthetic. Looking at this a little more esoterically, surely there are positive health benefits as during this interaction with the landscape, you are becoming at one and therefore must gain a sense of peace and well-being from this exercise, well at least I felt like I did. If I had the time (and money) I would like to explore this potential more and possibly write a thesis but life always gets in the way of such ambitions!

Whilst studying photography, I discovered two artists who’s styles I’d say have greatly influenced my outlook, Ralph Gibson and André Kertesz, Ralph Gibson in particular appealed to me. He works mostly with his Leica and a fixed focal length lens which I believe is 50mm, the equivalent of what the naked eye sees. My tutor would tell me stories about how he would manipulate himself into positions and vantage points to overcome the limitations of using the one lens, in fact for Ralph Gibson using the one lens wasn’t a limitation at all – it allowed him to get close to his subject and study details in a way he may not have been able to otherwise. By-the-way, I’ve never actually read anything to substantiate this, I have only been told this by my tutor so I hope he’s right!

Going back now to the idea of the personal landscapes and combining it with the methodology used by Ralph Gibson, I set off with my camera and a single 35mm lens (the equivalent of a 50mm lens in old-school photographic terms) to make studies of an aspect of the landscape that always moves me, the sea.

Though it’s debatable whether the resulting photographs have any major visual appeal, that’s not actually important – what IS important is that to me these photographs have a personal meaning and if anyone else is able to understand this, then so-much-the-better. having said all that, I’m going to show them off anyway

San José

San José

San José

San José

San José

San José

San José

San José

San José

San José

Black and White

Often in the past and mostly when I was studying photography, I’d proudly show off my black and white prints, still smelling of fixative and be met with such comments,
“Can’t you afford colour then?” or “Ooh, they’re black and white”. I would then try to explain sometimes to no avail, the whole point of the black and white photographs.

Rotterdam Library, Holland

The absence of colour forces me to focus (excuse the pun) on other elements of the photograph; the shadows, the light, the sense of space and drama, amongst other things. Sometimes when we view colour photographs, we overlook such aspects whilst perhaps admiring a pretty red hat that someone is wearing. Of course some photographs do not work in black and white and colour actually accentuates the sense of scale, for example the work of Eliot Porter would not be the same in monochrome conversely, the few colour photographs that Ansel Adams produced have nowhere near the dramatic effect of his black and white studies.

From time to time, I like to use black and white photography to convey a mood or an emotion rather than to show a tangible subject, especially when looking at landscape abstracts.

As to whether black and white or colour photography is best – this is a discussion that could go on forever; there is some merit in both styles of photography and each suits a different subject and audience. I show some of my black and white photographs and some people prefer the colour versions, the reverse also happens so to coin a cliche, at-the-end-of-the-day, it’s all subjective, as most things are I guess

La Graciosa, Lanzarote

View black & white set on Flickr

Contact details:

Martyn Thompson – Landscape Photography
http://martynthompson.net
http://martynthompsonphotography.wordpress.com
martyn@martynthompson.net
Facebook / Twitter / Etsy / Flickr

Luz y sombre a San José

So a nice warmish afternoon, bright sunshine – time to go exploring relationships between light & shade. Well, it keeps me off the streets, no wait… LOL!

I have always been fascinated by shadows as I’ve already said in a previous post (read it to see why ) but the light at this time of the year in Parque Natural de Cabo de Gata is outstanding and unequaled. There are many good reasons why many-a blockbuster film is made here and the light is certainly one of the more predominant reasons.

During a little walk around town, I made some studies of light, shade, reflections, bold colours – all the things that are there to see but that people may overlook. I love to view these details in isolation to their surroundings and watch how (to me at least) they take on a new perspective; it’s enough for me that these elements ARE the composition.

Anyway, enough rambling on – here are some of the photographs of the day…

   
   

Click here to view full set on Flickr

Black & White

Black & White, a set on Flickr.

I’m ramping up my Flickr profile so here are some of my (recent) favourite black & white photographs from all over the place.

A good walk spoiled?

It is claimed Mark Twain commented that golf is a good walk spoiled but what of photography?

Everyone has their own ideas on how to approach a photography session but for me, I like to walk the environment and get to know the subject – sometimes not even taking my camera! You shouldn’t underestimate how important it is to just look around you and see the beauty of the things. Go walking at different times of the day to see how the light changes, even at different times of the year. Make mental notes of what you see, make real notes if you want to; is the shadow of a tree you particularly like better in the morning or in the evening when the sun is lower – or does the tree look better in the mist? Look at your subject and say to yourself,
“I want to show this to the world in a way that perhaps it hasn’t been looked at before” even if there are 1,000 other similar photos of the same subject.

Though it is true to say some really good pictures have been taken on the fly, generally speaking the best landscape photographs are planned and sometimes come from a series of studies – often being in the right place at the right time is not an accident. So get to know your area, walk around and look at what is about you but most of all, enjoy your walk!

San José – Shadows

San José

Like many other people, I think I have always been fascinated by shadows; how they change shape at different times of the day, how they can add emphasis to any given situation, the sense of drama they can convey – there’s just so much in the concept of light & shade. I guess much of this comes from my love of the film noir and all the classic films like Nosferatu and Metropolis. The darkness at the top of the stairs for me has infinitely more power than any amount of gore or visual plot devices.

I took my camera for a walk yesterday during the middle of the afternoon to some of the more “shady” areas of San José to see what I could find. The light filtering through the trees, sun-shelters and playground equipment was striking, a perfect opportunity of shooting some abstract photos!

See full set of photos