Richard from and I have just completed our twenty-ninth collaboration. If you would like to see the results, please visit Richard’s superb blog, CK Ponderings or click on the sneak preview above.
Archives for posts with tag: Colour
Indoor Games, 2013
Who Knows Where The Time Goes, 2013
Han and Inge, 2013
I’ve always wanted to do this…to get this shot, I held up a handwritten sign with Han‘s name on it, like a driver picking someone up from an airport…
It all started with Inge (who you probably know as Olive) leaving a comment on my blog saying she was coming to London. So I suggested we meet up and I take her photograph.
After some confusion with emails (my fault – sorry, Inge, for some reason I thought Han was coming on his own. Hence the sign), we agreed to meet up in Covent Garden. These shots were taken just after we met. And then we went for lunch at Café Eterno on Neal Street (the quietest in the area). It was interesting to meet Inge and Han after having followed their blogs. And really nice to have a chat in person. Afterwards myself, Inge and Han went for a bit of a photographic safari, more of which later…
Thanks for a great afternoon, Inge and Han! Hope you like your pictures.
Inge, 2013
Han, 2013
Just before we left the café, Raymond generously agreed to me taking his portrait – what a great smile! I know it’s not strictly speaking a street portrait, but what the heck. Thanks very much, Raymond! Hope you like your picture.
Raymond, 2013
This is the eleventh collaboration between Richard from CK Ponderings and I. This time, it was down to me to set the theme, and I suggested that we base our photographs on our current favourite songs. Hope you like the results…
Richard Cooper-Knight:
Ego Music
Ego Music Pet Shop Boys
I had a real problem when it came to this collaboration. It was not the collaboration itself – I have got way more inspiration from the last twenty-odd weeks than I could ever have anticipated – but the title and restriction.
The trouble for me is that I don’t really listen to a lot of new music. I constantly have my iPod or hi-fi on – music, along with photography, is my major passion – but I’m not really into a lot of new music. So anything I have or listen to is usually six months old at the newest. It took a while to identify some tracks that I could use that were fairly recent. There were some pretty obvious shots conjured up by the titles (Nell Bryden’s Buildings and Treetops and Ultravox’s Brilliant), but, in the end, I returned to an old favourite, and the Pet Shop Boys won out.
Elysium, their tenth studio album (putting aside five greatest hits collections, five remix albums, a musical, movie soundtrack and ballet) was released earlier this month, and builds nicely on everything that has gone before. Oddly, any of the twelve tracks could have inspired a photograph (now there’s a project for the future!), but it was Ego Music that immediately leapt out at me. It’s a tongue-in-cheek view how self-obsessed musicians can become, and, for me, echoes Robbie Williams’ album track The Actor (Rudebox, 2006).
So, to the photo itself.
I wanted to try something new, and had an idea of the image I wanted to create, but which pushed my way beyond tweaking brightness and hue in Photoshop. I’m not sure that it totally works, but I’m happy with the outcome, and hope it marries photography with art. It also pushes that boundary way back for me – it’s a self-portrait!
Comments gratefully welcomed!
Richard Guest:
Love Letters, 2012
Like Richard, my biggest problem was working out what my current favourite song is, and I also don’t listen to much new music. So I plumped for old. My choice is a lot older than Richard’s. Love Letters by Ketty Lester was released in 1962. It reached number five in the Billboard Hot 100 chart. She gave up singing commercially in the late sixties and became a successful actress.
I didn’t hear Love Letters until 1986, when it featured on the soundtrack to David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, but I’ve been singing it in the shower on and off every year since. It’s a beautiful song which, in the film, has sinister overtones. At one point, the film’s pyschopathic antagonist, Frank (played with sadistic glee by Dennis Hopper) tells Jeffrey, his lover’s lover (played with delicious awkwardness by Kyle MacLachlan) that he wouldn’t like a love letter from Frank, because a love letter from Frank is a bullet from a gun.
The song plays over a shoot-out in an abandoned factory and there is a video on Youtube of the sequence if you’re interested, but I prefer this one from Shindig in 1964. Enjoy.
This is the ninth collaboration between Richard from CK Ponderings and I and for this one the theme was Aftermath. There were no other restrictions…
Richard Cooper-Knight:
Aftermath
It was Richard’s turn to set the theme this time around, and I really struggled with it! I had a handful of ideas, but couldn’t really get any of them to work. As it happens, it was an unplanned image that came through in the end.
Taken outside a local church, my eye was initially caught by the discarded lid of a box of confetti. I took a couple shots – both of which had blown beyond repair when I came to process them – and then the confetti itself caught my eye. I could say that it was the sadness of the passed moment that drew me, but, in fact, if was the colour of the pieces of paper against the grey tarmac and green weeds.
It’s interesting to think that, while the happy couple has gone on to their new life, and their families and friends have gone on to the reception, these shreds of paper are what is left behind.
Richard Guest:
Aftermath, 2012
This time around, I struggled most with setting the brief. The word aftermath kept popping into my head, so in the end I went with that. I knew I wanted to deal with the aftermath of a small event, and desperately needed a haircut. So I combined want and need and headed off to the barbers. I’d spotted a sign for a new place locally, so I thought I’d give them a spin and try to explain the project at the same time. They were really very nice about it and allowed me to take quite a few shots. I’m quite pleased with this one (and with the cut too!)
Sign ‘O’ The Times (II), 2012
Sign ‘O’ The Times (III), 2012
Sign ‘O’ The Times (IV), 2012
Sign ‘O’ The Times (V), 2012
Sign ‘O’ The Times (VI), 2012
OK, so I think II and III were taken on Drury Lane, IV in Trafalgar Square, V looking down from the back of Somerset House, and VI at the South Bank Centre, London, UK.
This is the final day of my Prince related posts. Thanks to John Pindar for setting me on this course, and to Deanne for egging me on and cracking great jokes (see what I did there?). Next week’s posts and photographs will take their titles from David Bowie songs (thank you Cardinal Guzman and Seascapesaus). Future weeks will feature Zappa/ Mothers and The Smiths (thanks Stevie). I’m still open to suggestions for other recording artists to rip off, so please make some…
Untitled digital photograph, 2012
Untitled digital photograph, 2012
Untitled digital photograph, 2012
Untitled digital photograph, 2012
Untitled digital photograph, 2012
Photograph four was taken just in front of the National Gallery, Trafalgar Square. One and two were taken on the South Bank. Number three – I know the street but not by name and number five is anyone’s guess – the losing myself trick is working!
Untitled digital photograph, 2012
Untitled digital photograph, 2012
Untitled digital photograph, 2012
Untitled digital photograph, 2012
Untitled digital photograph, 2012
These were all taken in different parts of London, UK. Images two and four were taken on the South Bank. I think the barbers’ shop was taken on Holborn. I was lost when I took three, and I’m not going to tell you where one is.
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Also: As you can see, I’m experimenting with slightly bigger images which, when they are clicked on open the file, so that you can see an even larger version. Please let me know if this causes problems/ is an eyesore.
And: Leanne Cole has come up with a brilliant new award and I’m one of the recipients, for which I’m very grateful. You can read more about it here.
Untitled digital photograph, 2012
Untitled digital photograph, 2012
Untitled digital photograph, 2012
Untitled digital photograph, 2012
Untitled digital photograph, 2012
These were all taken in Central London, UK apart from the fourth, which was taken at London Bridge Station. I took loads of shots of the two people in number four. They kind-of didn’t interact in such an interesting way. Anyway, Spring is in the air.
