Welcome to my new website and my blog.
In this post, I will give you a little more background on me, especially my photography as well as my use of AI, my plans for this website and a brief description of the content system I used.
Summary
- Read more about David: past, present & future. I discuss my gear too, from early film to modern day, with some film cameras creeping back into my bag!
- Read about my photography styles. My Street, Urban and Abstract Photography. My exclusive use of black and white in my work.
- I write about AI and how I use it in my images, writing and more generally. I also discuss not declaring the image’s source and copyrighting.
- There is a shallow dive into how my website was built and some of the tools I used. Nothing too technically challenging.
- “Coming Soon” gives some planned work to follow on this newly released website.
- Finally, there are sections on Commissions, Collaborations and Getting in Touch.
I hope you enjoy the read…
More about David
My About page gives details of my history, my photography and my aspirations.
Photography was part of my life while growing up from my earliest folding film camera to SLR when I became loyal to Nikon (funny how branding works, even in photography).
The Past
Because it wasn’t possible to carry a full-sized camera around in my flying case when I joined British Midland I became an early adopter of a digital compact. I cannot remember the manufacturer but I seem to recall it was an impressive 2 megapixels!
I briefly flirted with early Nikon DSLRs like the D70 or 100. But portability was still an issue, especially as I started to fly further afield.
Then in 2007 I acquainted myself with 2MP and purchased an iPhone 1. I am still loyal to Apple today having owned most of the interactions between 1 and 15. I am not sure the early version did much for adding to (or improving) my photo library, and yes I too posed for selfies on too many occasions, usually in nightclubs.
The present
I retired early from BA in 2018, largely to reconnect with my love of photography, and with a DSLR!
When I am not tapping away on my keyboard building this site I usually go out and about with a camera. I am fortunate to live in Brighton so I am never far away from a good photo opportunity.
I have work that has been in recent exhibitions like “Hope Actually” and “Bring Your Own Brain” (a collaboration between The British Neuroscience Association, Sussex Neuroscience Research Program (University of Sussex). I also exhibited work like “South By West” in local galleries.
The Future
More of the same. My photography skills continue to improve which only goes to prove the adage about old dogs and new tricks is not correct. The majority of my waking time has some connection to images, or digital, creation.
Apart from making pictures, I am pursuing my interest in website concepts and construction, artificial intelligence and other interests.
As a photographer I am keen to continue with my passion, developing my style but also to collaborate with others, either in joint projects or in photographer/subject relationships.
The gear
So I have already mentioned Nikon. I remember owning an FE something and an F501 or 801. When DSLRs became popular I think I owned a D100, then a 700 and retirement saw a D750 followed by several versions of the Z mirrorless range.
I also acquainted myself with film again and I now own a Nikon FE2, Canon 7, Bronica 645 and an ensign folding medium format camera. I also self-develop my film.
The Canon has turned out to be an expensive purchase, not because of the actual camera, it’s been faultless, no because it made me realise that what I had been striving to find in a system was compactness, easy interaction and a rangefinder. I will write more about that German brand in the future.
My photography styles
Labels and pigeonholing are common these days (I blame Instagram #) and photography is no different. “What type of photography are you?” I’m often asked. My inner voice says ‘the hold the camera to my eye type’ though I am usually less sarcastic and say a “street photographer”.
You may think that my People, Place, Perception portfolio images overlap and how do I differentiate between what is a street photo and what is urban? It may just be a question of [my] semantics.
I will try and explain what is the difference between urban and street photography.
Street photography
For me Street is both a genre and a style. I would describe that style as of or about people and the subjects of my street photography as my People portfolio hopefully shows.
I like taking candid pictures of strangers going about their daily lives. I prefer not to engage with people I am photographing, rather I want to avoid a pose or change of behaviour.
Indeed, I am not particularly extroverted so it is easier to ‘snap’ individuals without raising attention, whether that’s through the viewfinder or from the hip.
Urban Photography
I describe my Urban Photography as a Place. That may be better described as the environment (but that does fit with my 3 P’s slogan!). A person or many may still be seen but it is more about context, scale or perspective.
Abstract Photography
My abstract photography is usually formed on the street or in the urban environment. It often features people or architecture but will come with much distortion. In my mind, my abstraction, my Perception.
You will see I like blurring my subjects either with long exposures, intentional camera movement, or both. But my subjects are varied and I often like to distort the view by not revealing the whole, an unusual point of view or by processing techniques.
Black & white photography
Why do we like black-and-white photos?
For a large part of my photography interest, I used colour film and resolved digital images in the same way. My early photos were mainly captured travel and family moments and while I easily comprehended the exposure triangle my pictures lacked any artistic flair.
As I became more interested in the art of photography and both studied academically and historically I quickly realised how much black-and-white excited, captivated and entertained my view far more than colour ever did.
It is about contrast, textures and shapes that our brain sees in the analysis of the data from our eyes long before it is passed on to a different area to add colour.
For me, those ‘prime components’ bring a far more pleasing effect without the later edition of red, green and blue.
Use of Artificial Intelligence
All my images start in a camera, whether by chemical reactions with film or electronic reactions with a sensor. I do not dismiss AI use and recent improvements have proved its ability.
I also do not decry anyone using it and there is a skill required to create the prompts, just be honest and do not try to pass it off as a photograph or artwork.
Day to Day
I use ChatGPT4 daily. I find it a very useful tool to do research and pose difficult questions. I have used it on this site to test and create code (I am just an amateur when it comes to CSS, Javascript and the like!).
I will use it to research for my blog, help with search engine optimisation, and even write some outlines but I will always write the copy.
It’s not perfect, it hallucinates but it is coming, fast, and will only get better. Better to embrace it than deny it.
Creating images
I have already said that I do not use artificial intelligence to create my work but AI tools are becoming more widespread. I use Adobe’s Creative Cloud apps like Lightroom and Photoshop. ‘Filters’ have been around in other manipulation software for some time but Adobe has been slow to adopt it.
Photoshop has had regenerative systems in the beta versions for a while. I use them to save time but my own rule is do not do anything that I couldn’t once do manually.
Photographers have been manipulating images for almost as long as there have been cameras. Ancil Adams was a master of darkroom art when he exposed the shadows and developed for the highlights. He was an exceptional photographer and chemist but it is still manipulation.
Film and sensors manipulate light under their chemical composition or capacitor array respectively, there’s an Adams in us all.
Copywriting
At this website’s launch all but one image is mine, the owner of the other is declared, though I do star in the picture. The uploaded photos are low resolution and small in size. They are fine for the internet but not to be taken by download or screen grab, I am sure you would never steal them Dear Reader but to anyone else considering it, DON’T.
You will find my terms of use here.
About this website’s construction
I know this is a site about my photography but if you get this far down the page and are interested in the road to this point and some brief details of the tools I used then please read on.
History
I had a 3.0 WordPress website for my DJ years ago. I think that experience of that particular content management system put me off WP for many years.
When I decided to build a site to show my art I decided on Squarespace. I liked its clean lines and thought it suited photography perfectly, and it claimed to be quick and easy. It was to a degree.
But I quickly got tired of it. The basic structure was fine, though the block system was temperamental the last time I tried it, but if you want to be a little more creative with the design you had to resort to code. It is not cheap either and I am developing several sites.
WordPress
By chance, I got involved with my camera club’s legacy WordPress website as it was experiencing a slow death due to lack of maintenance, and Elementor! So I learnt on the job (and was supported by a dear friend who is a coding genius) and I started to realise the WP might be for my digital plans
Bricks et al
First decision; block/full site editor or page builder. Elementor was not on the list. So this novice builder decided to use Bricks theme and builder, arguably the most comprehensive, and complicated tool available.
It took quite a while to master it but it was well worth the effort. The code is semantically correct and highly optimised for accessibility. It is also built exclusively on a class-based system using a framework so maintenance and design change is swift.
All of which might be a foreign language to some but there may be those who are interested. I will launch a new site about this novice’s experiences soon. I’ll let you know if you are interested. Send me a message via the contact page if you want to learn more.
Coming soon
I am calling this iteration of my website “Version1”. It took some time to build due to my inexperience with WordPress, Bricks and the Class-based philosophy and as a confessed perfectionist (and procrastinator) I had to draw a line, even if it was not perfect.
Images
Content; I have several images waiting in the digital darkroom for processing and adding to the portfolios. I am mildly dyslexic so words are not necessarily my best friend so I am sure the website’s copy will be refined in time.
Blog
Then there are many blogs to write so I can engage with my readers pass my thoughts and experiences along and put my good work forward for Google analysis.
Website
I also want to refine and add some design elements, like the animations, portfolio presentations and subtle colour gradients. And much more…
Commissions & Collaborations
I am available for commissions and have some experience with environmental portraiture. That work is kept private. I am a vocational professional which means it is more about what you can afford so I do free work too.
If you have any interesting ideas for joint projects then please send me a message with your suggestions.
Get in touch
Please sign up for my newsletter, I promise not to spam you or share your details. The newsletter will be snippets about new content and other insights. I also will not be sending out inane posts just for marketing purposes. You can unsubscribe at any time and request that your data is removed.
I am keen to protect us both from spam so when you sign up you will get a confirmation email which you must reply to to ensure you receive my ‘pearls of wisdom’. Finally, a confirmation will follow then it will be news only. You will be able to reply so I would be interested in your thoughts.
If you just want to send me a message then please use the form on my contact page.
Thank you,
David
