RPS Creative Eye Magazine 93

EDITOR

WELCOME to the Creative Eye Magazine, January 2024 Issue No. 94. We hope you enjoy the wide range of articles in this edition.

Creative and experimental photographer, John Humphrey, demonstrates beauty in his images created from the simplest of studies to experimenting and exploring ideas.

Retired professional photographer, Gerry Coe takes us on his photo journey and his decision to stop using his ‘big camera’ and instead, use an iPhone for all his photography.

Working together, Julie Holbeche-Maund and Phil Mallin realise their passion producing stunning Fine Art glamour and portraiture photography.

College student, Lara Hoffman-Leatherdale describes her inspiration leading to thought-provoking photography.

The monochrome images produced by Steve Geer celebrate a commission to produce a series of photographs to be displayed in The Metropolitan Tower in Chicago.

Alongside her love of photography, Linda Chapman had always been fascinated by abstract and surreal art. You will see samples of her Alternative Views as she takes us through her story.

The tranquillity of Rob Kershaw’s Swiss landscapes is superbly captured, providing calmness and serenity to the viewer.

COMMITTEE

Chair

Clive Watkins LRPS creativecomms@rps.org

Secretary Graham Lingley LRPS cegsecretary@gmail.com

Treasurer Nigel Rea ARPS creative.treasurer@rps.org

Digital Exhibition Coordinator

David Rutter FRPS creativeimage@rps.org

Membership & Communications Coordinator

Clive Watkins LRPS creative.comms@rps.org

Webmaster

Steve Varman LRPS creative.publications@rps.org

Editor (co-opted) Moira Ellice ARPS moiraellice1@gmail.com

CREDITS

Steven Whittaker tells us about The Art of Keek and small things that bring one to bigger things, evoking feelings and memories and thoughts from deeper within. © 2024 All rights reserved. Apart from storage and viewing in its entirety for personal reference, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form without prior permission of the copyright holder. The Royal Photographic Society, The Creative Eye Group and the Editor accept no liability for the misuse of any content or for any breach of copyright by a contributor. The views expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect the policies of The Royal Photographic Society or The Creative Eye Group. Unless otherwise indicated, all images are copyright of the photographers. The Royal Photographic Society, RPS House, 337 Paintworks, Arnos Vale, Bristol BS4 3AR, UK +44 (0)117 3164450 www.rps.org VAT Registration No. GB 753 305741 Registered Charity No. 1107831

Cover Winter by Julie Holbeche-Maund ARPS

Design Steve Varman LRPS

Editorial Assistant Dr Patricia Tutt ARPS

Printed by PFP Print Elder House, The Street, Chattisham Ipswich, Suffolk IP8 3QE

FROM THE CHAIR

Happy New Year to all our Creative Eye members! I hope you all had a joyous and very merry festive period and were able to spend some precious time with family and friends.

I can hardly believe we are in 2024 already; where does the time go? I’d like to start the New Year by thanking each and everyone of you for being a member of the Creative Eye Group. I know that when times are tough it can sometimes be difficult to justify additional spend on our hobby, so please be assured that I truly value and appreciate the fact that you continue to renew your membership.

We start this year by building on our achievements of 2023 with yet another superb magazine. Moira Ellice is on the lookout for articles and features which will inspire and motivate you in equal measure to explore your own unique creative eye. Moira draws content from our group members, the RPS fraternity and indeed the wider world of photography to put together a varied and entertaining publication. I hope you agree with me that this edition of the magazine is yet another cracker.

As well as the magazine, your committee is working hard to bring you some great talks this year, beginning with Simon Street FRPS in February.

David Rutter FRPS will once again be running our hugely successful Digital Exhibition competition, so please make sure you give him your full support when the time comes to enter your images.

Throughout the year I will keep you up to date with all of the Group’s activities, so please do remember to read your RPS emails when they come in.

Lastly, our AGM will be held online in March, and I warmly invite you to come along (virtually). This is your chance to get involved and help steer the direction of the Group. I am also very pleased to announce that we will have Joe Houghton presenting his new talk “Photography in an AI World” immediately following the conclusion of the official AGM business. It is bound to be a good one, so please don’t miss out!

Until next time, enjoy the light!

CREATIVE AND EXPERIMENTAL PHOTOGRAPHY

JOHN HUMPHREY FRPS

Many studies have shown that creativity is within the grasp of everyone. However, it seems that creativity is not something to learn as though it was a new skill, but that it is something to retrieve from earlier years. The researcher Dr George Land gave the NASA creativity test to five-year-old children and found that they delivered an average creativity score of 98%. By the age of ten this had dropped to 30%, and by the age of 15 to 12%. By adulthood, the average score was 2%. People had unlearned creativity.

During development, humans acquire language, systems, and rules. These deliver coping skills, but at the expense of creativity. Children are reckless explorers, uninhibited and unaware of danger. With experience they become conscious of risk and find patterns of behaviour that work in a challenging world. These become rooted in habits and tend to reject deviations into creativity. My approach is to keep experimenting with photography subjects and techniques, returning to childlike behaviour, and to see what pictures emerge. I try to look out of the box and resist the inner voices saying this is not the way to do things.

As we push in new directions it is common to encounter negativity, often expressed with the declaration ‘it’s not photography.’ This might come from outside, perhaps a camera club diehard, or a voice inside the head trying to talk us back into familiar territory. Ignore this, it doesn’t matter. This is the comfort zone in action, using a semantic argument to stifle experiment. We can let others worry about the definition of photography and focus on producing pictures.

London Rain

For me, a starting point is often to photograph ‘ordinary’ things. The aim is to find structure, pattern and beauty in everyday bits and pieces that would otherwise be overlooked. One of the great privileges of photography is the opportunity to closely observe, and then record, the visual world that surrounds us. The plug underneath my desk has, I think, a graphic elegance worth isolating. Many of my pictures are close ups of scraps of paper. I photographed the junction between the wall and ceiling of my room, duplicated and inverted the image in Photoshop and, with the multiply blend mode found some intriguing abstracts. Many pictures which perhaps don’t quite make it on their own can look good as a collection, so I assembled my wall and ceiling set as a 3x4 grid.

You have to let yourself go to be creative. Children possess this quality but then seem to lose it as they are told, “it’s not the done thing.”

Ricky Gervais

Flowers are the most photographed of all subjects. This is not surprising since they are inherently beautiful and offer endless variety of shape and colour. However, it can be difficult to find ways to portray flowers that are different from countless existing images. The perfect opportunity to experiment! My own journey into creative flower photography was through pressed flowers, especially when I discovered that the process can be greatly accelerated by putting the press in the microwave oven for a few seconds. Other interesting treatments are to photograph flowers embedded in ice, and flowers that have been allowed to dry. Tulips are great candidates for drying and can take up completely new colours, shapes, and textures. Finally, especially when a flower is past its best, it can be worth slicing it open and photographing the layered structure inside.

Tulip Section

Alstroemeria Blend

Lisianthus in Ice

Trafalgar Square

I’ve often been told that we should aim to get our photographs right at the taking stage. I rarely achieve that, so a dive into software can not only rescue photographic failures but lead to completely new and original images. For me, immersion in the Photoshop world is an absorbing experience in its own right. One of my favourite tools is displacement mapping in which the starting picture is distorted with the texture from another image. Together with adjustments to contrast and saturation, this results in intriguing abstract and semi abstract pictures.

Many other Photoshop techniques are ripe for experiment. These include ‘mirroring’ a picture, for example to produce artificial reflections or to create a symmetrical kaleidoscope pattern abstract.

Directional image blurring has long been popular, originally using in-camera movement. Photoshop’s motion blur gives similar results with the added benefit of being able to paint sharpness back in to selected parts of the picture. Blurring which follows curved lines, such as the curves in flower petals is a little more difficult, but Photoshop’s path blur enables the blur to follow complicated twists and curves. Another treatment which mimics an in-camera technique is to build up images in Photoshop layers and to adjust layer opacity to replicate the camera effect of multiple exposure. I’m all too aware that in these notes and in my own work I have barely scratched the surface of digital creativity. The experiment continues!

Other experimental techniques are described in my book Creative and Experimental Photography published by Crowood Press.

johnhumphrey.co.uk

Wall and Ceiling

Paper Curl

MY PHOTO JOURNEY

GERRY COE FRPS

Having been a photographer since the age of 12 and a professional from 16, I could never see me doing anything else. I have always been attracted to the Arts, so photography suited me. As I say, "I can't paint, I can't draw, I can't sing, I can't dance, so I became a photographer.”

To me, photography is not just a job, it is a passion. I enjoy all aspects of photography and, as a professional, I have covered almost all of them. After being someone who hand-printed all my own work in darkrooms, I quickly embraced the digital age. It is much nicer sitting at my computer in the light rather than a smelly chemical darkroom. I still print all my own work at home on my A2 Epson printer and I don't get sore

Cinemar

Kite Surfers

legs standing all day in the darkroom. Nowadays I love using my iPhone to produce photographs and, by using apps, I can ‘paint and draw,’ although there are no apps that will help me to ‘dance and sing.’ What I love most is seeing so many wonderful photographs that are produced these days by some very talented people on a mobile device.

What started me on Mobile

Photography? Well, I had just bought myself an iPhone 4 and I was using it to make phone calls but, as a ‘big camera’ photographer, I could not see any potential for taking decent photographs. However, a good friend of mine in the States, Dan Burkholder, had been producing wonderful images with lots of textures and colour with a mobile phone. This intrigued the inner artist in me. I asked Dan what he was doing with all these images. He replied “Selling them, Gerry.” So, I thought maybe there is something in this mobile lark after all. I started experimenting.

Sheep

Marrakesh

At first, I was hedging my bets and was taking photographs on my big camera and backing up scenes using my iPhone. Very soon that was reversed and I started leaving my big camera in the hotel safe and just used my iPhone. Eventually I sold all my camera gear and just started to use my iPhone, from the iPhone 4 to 5, 6, 8, 10, 12 Pro Max, and I have just updated to the 15 Pro Max. I have enjoyed showing people what can be done with a mobile phone and that you don’t necessarily need a big camera to produce award winning images. I generally process all my images on my phone and by using apps like Snapseed, Lightroom Mobile, Retouch, Image Blender, iColorama and many others, I can do everything I need. I import the images to my computer before printing, as I will resize and check sharpening etc. in Photoshop before sending them to the printer.

When taking photographs, I generally use the standard iPhone camera but I also use other camera apps for specific looks and styles. Halide and Camera+ are two favourites but also Hipstamatic, Slow shutter, Reflex, ReHeld for long hand-held exposures, AvgCamPro for multiple exposures and many more.

From my earliest days I have always been involved in the Amateur Camera Clubs, and even while working as a professional I have been a member of various amateur clubs. I am at present Chairman (for the second time) of my

Rainy Day in Belfast

ICM Seascape

local club Bangor & North Down CC, in Northern Ireland.

Over the years I have been lucky enough to win many awards and distinctions, both for my professional photography and my mobile photography. I have distinctions from the various photographic organisations, FRPS, HonFBIPP, FBIPPx3 (two of which were for mobile photography panels) FMPA, FSWPP.

I have been a photographer for over 60 years and I can’t and won’t stop taking photographs and experimenting with new ideas. So, here’s to the next 60!

iphone-art.uk

bangor-camera-club.co.uk

Berlin Portrait Amsterdam

Donegal

HEADING IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION

JULIE HOLBECHE-MAUND ARPS

My name is Julie Holbeche-Maund and I am a photographic artist from Warwickshire. I first picked up a camera in my teens using my mum’s box Brownie camera. Then life just got in the way, as they say, with career and relationships.

Twenty years ago, or so, whilst still in a demanding nine-to-five job, I picked up a camera again and loved being creative, taking images mainly of landscapes, friends and family. At this point I was still using roll film on a Canon camera, waiting with anticipation for the results from the developers.

I eventually left my day job as a Business Analyst ten years ago, and by this time I had found my best friend and companion Phil. He too became interested in photography and both our interests sparked off one another.

Summer

Feathers

White Feather

Warrior Wood Nymph

As we had always used a Canon camera, we stayed with the brand and my first digital camera was a Canon 20D. Now we both use Canon 5D MK4’s. Over the past 5 years Phil and I have moved into studio work and our equipment has changed considerably. We use a Pentax 645Z for our model shoots, together with the Canon 5D MK4 and a Fujifilm GFX50 S MK2. We both think that the medium format cameras have the edge on the DSLR’s.

It soon became apparent that once you have taken several models in different poses and with their different clothing, it all becomes very much the same. We knew we had to do something different; something that would give a different look.

At around this time we both joined the Royal Photographic Society and started thinking about Distinctions. We have both been successful in achieving LRPS and I went on to achieve ARPS.

Our next model project needed to be different and that is when we thought about stylised themes. Firstly, we thought about the seasons - Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring - with the main subject for these shoots being headdresses. I created a simple headpiece using artificial flowers set in foam on a wire frame and we enhanced the studio layout by using real flowers and foliage as a background. We bought the flowers and foraged ferns etc., from the roadside. For this first shoot, we booked a studio and a very talented model and we were pleased with the outcome. It was different and creative.

So began our headdress project. I trawled through various YouTube videos on how to create basic headdresses. Then I had to find the items to go onto the headdress. These two steps were the easy part. The next thing was the construction of the headdress, which was not easy at all, especially as I am not that artistic. Phil is better at these things than I am. My school days of covering a balloon with papiermâché triggered a thought, so polystyrene heads were bought and covered in papiermâché. At this point, we realised that a lot of pre-planning using mood boards was needed before we created Autumn (which used a lot of real leaves etc.), Winter and Spring.

Colour was our next project. Headdresses were made in Red, Blue, Yellow and then White and Black.

Employing the services of a number of models and our own studio lighting and equipment, we began to develop a look and feel that was different and interesting. It soon became apparent that we needed full outfits to go with the headdresses. So again, more trawling through E-Bay and local markets for items of clothing and props that could be

Spring Autumn

adapted to the theme. I also spent a lot of time with needle and thread and we even made the odd spear or two.

Following the colour project, the creative spark took hold and we felt a need to move outdoors. Our Woodland Warrior and Wood Nymph headdresses and outfits, shot on location in local woodland, were the result. We have created additional headdresses since, with a particular favourite being developed during the pandemic lockdownFeathers.

At the moment we have a number of headdresses that we are trying to find the right models for. It is getting increasingly difficult and expensive to find suitable models, bearing in mind that these are personal creative projects and are really not considered commercial.

Being able to create and plan a shoot, from initial ideas and concepts, through to design and build, finding the right model and location, and then organising the final shoot, is so much more fulfilling than just conventional model portraiture. Despite the difficulties, we hope to continue with developing new and different ways to showcase portraiture and model photography in the future.

sandalwoodpictures.co.uk

Miss Yellow

Miss Red

SURREALISM

RE-IMAGINED THROUGH THE ‘LENS’ OF THE BEHOLDER

LARA HOFFMAN-LEATHERDALE

Ever since I was old enough to remember, ok let’s say pre decade number two! - my attention has steered to the unusual. I’ve always been fascinated, curious even by the various alternative imagery associated with art (produced in which ever format) against the ideas adapted against the different scenes of the day to day - the cultures, colours, feelings, the history and the pure beauty one can create when you unlock the unconscious mind - which I have learnt so many are resistant to do!

“Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever… It remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.”

Aaron Siskind

So, when I think about the enviable, when it comes to the multitude of talent out there it stumps me on what is it someone would like to see, how can my shots override someone else’s or make someone else’s work look? - truth be known I’m a ‘newbie’ to the world of photography having only studied (and still studying) it for a couple of years now. My engrained rule stays the same though - camera in tow for the present and the predate when reversing my decade tape!! - just in case I might ‘take’ that magical image! I always think what is it that makes images stand out against the others, how have the ‘famous’ photographers become who they are. Photography is extraordinarily expressive and what one person sees and loves the other really might not, it’s so personal - much like any art exhibition - how many have we walked amongst unsure literally about the genre nor actual imagery!

“The camera makes you forget you’re there. It’s not like you are hiding but you forget, you are just looking so much.”

Annie Leibovitz

So back to the subject matter – ‘Surrealism’ there are so many variations by so many famous artists; Dali, Picasso, Frida and René Magritte which from first glance can be worryingly strange, uncomfortably bizarre and yet when you take the time to disregard the immediate visual discomfort

- you switch to the reimagine …. in a ‘dream-like/ scape’ inspired reality, an absorbed manner of interpreted communication (non-verbal) from a spontaneous application that equates to ART!

The 5 images you see are depicting a silence covering potentially, countless words. What is it the tri-faced girl is trying to say, what is she thinking - is it a ‘break through’ of character(s) seeking so desperately to be that someone more than they are or is it a simple revelation of how much more there is to this person we see. If you study closely, you will notice the ‘fade’ between the face - it actually highlights the middle image and fades out. Is this a mind trick or clever imagery?

The solo image - how come so sullen whilst at the same time housing the aura of a historic tribe or camouflage through the fields and props of say a paint balling game? What is it that signifies the vibrant colours with the half face against the darkest shadows? What the intention here is to highlight contours against the endless darkness.

My image ‘the reach’ of hands. At first glance do you see the girl is easing her arms up or can you see someone else’s hands approaching her neck but if you avert your eyes quickly, you’ll see the ‘race up’ of potentially a call to arms to help or is it you see the hands ‘drawing’ down the girl - finding it hard to decide?

And finally, I wouldn’t be surprised if when reviewing the ‘shattering’ black and white images - they make you feel uncomfortable. I know it made me stop and look at the evenly configured, diamond or even mirrored effect of the bizarre multi faces which again begs the question, is this a ‘scream’ for help against shattered dreams or for ‘acceptance’ in whatever path has been chosen against (we hope but shall never win against) an unbiased world or is it simply ‘euphoria’ of the here and now?

The psychological tension of all photographic considerations could be very real by unlocking your mind! The words ‘judgement’, ‘exhilaration’, ‘confusion’ springs to the top of my head too! What word would you use?

So how did I manage to create this imageit’s a photo within a photo taken multiple times and cut to shape. And without saying which movie sequel is being released later this year - I proudly stumbled on a similar imagery poster (after my completed images!) which made me so excited to know, I think I might be on the right track when it comes to a few ideas adding to my little world of surrealism. This is what fascinates me about the subject matter - so much interpretation against one visual imagery supported by colours of bold or dark, black and white – creating the option of those multiple interpretations - happy, sad, scared, troubled - it’s your visual interpretation really - down to your eye - the lens of the beholder.

THE METROPOLITAN TOWER PROJECT

STEVE GEER FRPS

Towards the end of 2022 I was asked to produce fifty-two 22” x 14” black and white Chicago-based photographs for permanent display in the elevator lobbies of the Metropolitan Tower, an iconic residential building in the heart of the city. I had plenty of photographs to chose from, taken over the previous seventeen years. However, Chicago is one of the most photographed cities in North America, and the challenge was to select a set of photographs that worked well together (three per elevator lobby) and that were recognizably Chicago and yet,

for an audience living in the city and immersed in the plethora of local imagery, distinctive enough to be appreciated. With today’s technology it is easy to produce, in a short period of time, more images than we can show in a lifetime. Selecting a few images from the many is therefore a necessity for those of us that exhibit and/ or publish our photographs. For the Metropolitan Tower Collection , the building organization hired a curator to help with the selection. I made the first cut, selecting a group of images for each floor with some alternatives. The curator, Samantha Reynolds, helped with the fine tuning and wrote some nice introductory text for the catalogue produced for the collection. This was the first time I had worked this way with a curator and it was a good experience.

Over the years, my Chicago photography has been inspired by the work of Algimantas Kezys, who captured the city in the 1980’s with a refreshingly new perspective, and the work of Andreas Feininger whose images from the 1940’s show a city of steam and smoke, a city with the character of its time. The Chicago of those past times is long gone but the spirit of the city, a place of constant evolution, lives on. My hope was to produce a collection of photographs that captured the nature of today’s Chicago.

In Samantha’s words:

Geer’s subjects are the architectural details that make up the backbone of all great cities – their buildings, bridges, parks, and natural resources. Although typically void of the city’s inhabitants, Geer’s photographs tell a story of a city constantly moving forward through time - ice breaking, fog lifting, skyscrapers rising, bridges lowering. Throughout the series, viewers will see both the familiar like the Chicago River, the Marina Towers, and the Wrigley building, as well as the unfamiliar through Geer’s choice of perspective.

The photographs in the collection began life as coloured digital images. They were converted to black and white in the digital darkroom. In the conversion I have finetuned the mapping from color to black-and-white to express a desired mood and to emphasize the shapes and textures that impressed me when composing the photograph. I think that Feininger and Kezys would have been envious of our presentday freedom to do this. In Feininger’s book of Chicago photographs, he remarks that to make effective black-andwhite photographs it is necessary ‘… to be able to see in terms of light and shadow, black and white, contrast, color, perspective and scale … to watch out for and avoid unsuitable backgrounds … to consider the quality and direction of the incident light.’

For the digital photographer, we can add to this list the necessity of tuning the mapping of colour to black-andwhite tones to achieve a desired result which, for the Metropolitan Tower Collection, was to express the nature of today’s Chicago.

The images shown here are just a small sample from the collection. More can be seen on my website. The catalog for the full collection is available via Blurb.

stevegeer.com

blurb.com/ books/11528995-chicago

artic.edu/artists/35250/ algimantas-kezys

atlasgallery.com/artists/ andreas-feininger

WALTERNATIVE VIEWS

LINDA CHAPMAN

ay back in the mists of time, a young child spent endless amounts of time creating a world of fantasy, believing that anything was possible. If it was in your head, it could be created. If it wasn’t exciting enough, then there was a way to make it more exciting.

It has taken me a long time but this current work has come from that journey from there to here, with many of those elements. I had my first camera when I was about eight, and I wanted to explore the world with it. My first ‘proper’ camera, an SLR, came as a young teenager and I couldn’t wait to get out on the streets with it, seeing as my hero was Cartier-Bresson. There, I felt I could capture all of life and make it anything I wanted to with that camera.

By about 14, I had joined the camera club at school and had my first experiences of creating more magic in the darkroom. No surprise to say that I went on to work as a photographer, again photographing people, mainly in the world of music and theatre - more fantasy.

Alongside my love of photography, I had always been fascinated by abstract and surreal art and really felt the need now to bring this together with my photography. However, as a firm believer in traditional photography, but no longer with the space for a traditional darkroom, I was unsure about how to go about achieving this with a digital camera.

The only thing I could think of was to go out on the streets again and let my eye take over. Too many people rush past everything, just on a boring journey from A to B. I always stop and look longer and find my magical realism, blurring the line between fantasy and reality. I love walking around a city looking at the designs, the colours, and shapes of things, particularly architecture. As I stopped and pondered this for a few minutes, I realised that the sunlight through a window near me on a shop looked amazing. I am easily distracted. I feel this is a creative tool!

From there I spent many months photographing the city and especially the glass buildings. Morning sun, afternoon sun, spring sun, winter sun etc. until finally I had an image that I could say was just what I was looking for. That image is ‘Outside In.’ It spoke of what was going on inside that building and reflected back

Jako

Fade Away

all that was happening around me, telling a fascinating abstract story.

I followed this path and soon my eye was picking up all the right images. I use a Nikon D800 E with a Nikkor 24-120 lens most of the time as it is sometimes difficult to reach the parts I can see my image in. Sometimes it is a case of taking the shot then cropping it later, to get the precise section I saw. I only take these when there is plenty of sunlight and, sometimes, I can be standing there for some time, waiting for the light to get into the right place. I’ll often get strange looks from people, especially security guards at large

Window Garden

The Room

buildings where I often have to explain what I am doing. I try not to include people in my images, so sometimes the wait is for someone to move on.

Apart from occasionally cropping images, there is no manipulation. I don’t use Photoshop, preferring Adobe Lightroom. I rely on the natural light, the reflection, some refraction and my eye. Coming from a background of loving black and white, I often didn’t see much need for big colours but my followers, arty friends, etc., keep telling me how much people love them, so now I add a little contrast to just ‘pull’ the details out of the layers of reflection.

My images are often misunderstood and thought to be anything but a photograph because a realistic setting has been invaded by something strange, a crossroads of interpretation has occurred. I love this part.

lindachapmanart.co.uk

Strati

TRANQUIL MOMENTS

ROB KERSHAW ARPS

I’ve lived in Switzerland for some time now and I am always looking for different viewpoints from which to present this beautiful country and enjoy the tranquillity of the moment. Switzerland welcomes millions of visitors from around the world each year, but the images presented here are perhaps not necessarily on the main tourist track.

Winter at Schwarzsee (Black Lake) with its new feature, the wooden walkway in the foreground, is a location I visit quite often. What attracted me to this scene was the mist over the mountains in late November. Very popular with locals, this beautiful lake situated at 1046 m in the Prealps of Canton Fribourg is perhaps less well known to tourists.

The Fork is a well-known landmark in Vevey, which is situated in the lake opposite the Alimentarium food museum. It was put in place in 1995 as a temporary structure but has stayed by popular demand. This shot was taken early one evening as the sun was going down creating the light on the fork and beautiful reflections of the clouds over Lac Leman. Beyond are the mountains of Canton Valais.

The Ice Crystal Rainbow over the Silberhorn (3695 m) in the Bernese Alps is created when ice crystals act as a prism and by the refraction of the sunlight create a coloured circumhorizontal arc. They form high in the atmosphere and are relatively rare, so I was pleased to capture this phenomenon.

Tranquillity was taken at Allaman Plage on the shores of Lac Leman and on this particular day there was a very interesting and unusual cloud formation, which produced beautiful reflections on the calm surface of the lake. Lac Leman, also known as Lake Geneva, is fed by the Rhone, and lies between France and Switzerland. It is 73 km long and, at its widest, is 14 km.

Winter at Schwarzsee

The Fork

Ice Crystal Rainbow

Lac de Gruyère is a favourite location about twenty minutes from home and this particular shot was taken on a beautiful day when there was a lone yacht on the lake with a backdrop of autumn colours and reflections. The lake in Canton Fribourg is a man-made reservoir created in 1948 to supply both drinking water and hydroelectricity.

The area between Vevey and Lausanne is part of the UNESCO World Heritage site. The Lavaux Vineyard Terraces, as the name suggests, are full of vineyards stretching along the shores and slopes above Lac Leman. The present terraces date back to the 11th century. The photo Vineyards, Lake and Mountains was taken in the autumn as the leaves from the vines started to turn to yellow, whilst in the distance early snow can be seen on the mountains.

Sailing on Lac de Gruyere

Vineyards, Lake and Mountains

Sun & Snow - driving around the countryside close to home I spotted this wonderful winter tree with the sun shining through a gap between the trunks as it rose above the distant hillside. Just had to stop!

Some images can work better in black and white and Winter Tree was taken in the Emmental region of Canton Bern. I was taken by the stark lone tree set against the snow and dramatic sky which produced an interesting shadow.

Looking out from Moléson, a mountain of 2002 m close to the medieval town of Gruyères in Canton Fribourg, the dramatic light picked out the bowl below the adjacent mountain ridge.

Alpine Hillside is another shot from the Emmental. I particularly liked the way lines of the trees and the undulating hillside produced an interesting composition guiding one through the scene from top to bottom of the landscape.

All the photographs were shot on Pentax cameras in RAW mode which allowed me to make appropriate alterations to the original DNG files.

robckershawphotography.com

Looking out from Moleson

Winter Tree

Alpine Hillside

Sun & Snow

THE ART OF KEEK

STEVEN WHITTAKER ARPS

It’s a shamelessly stolen title, from a much better researched and presented pair of concepts (the Art of Hygge, and the Art of Coorie), but I would like to tell you about the Art of Keek.

In Scotland a keek is a glimpse, a peek round a corner. We play keekaboo, not peekaboo. It can imply simple fun, or slightly naughty voyeurism, or secrecy and stolen glances.

In my, admittedly sometimes odd, World, that got expanded to be a sensory event that opens up a whole myriad of thoughts and emotions, way beyond the scope of the initial event. An early example is

Opium perfume, my Mum’s favourite. She died when I was fairly young, thirty-one years ago, and yet the smell of that still transports me back to all the good days when she was getting ready to go out, or family weddings and parties. So, a keek…a small thing that brings you to bigger things, evokes feelings and memories and thoughts from deeper within.

I guess I’ve always practiced ‘the keek,’ from way before I was even interested in photography, and certain books, and pieces of music, certain food, and as mentioned earlier some smells have that effect on me too, but over the past few years I’ve been applying it more and

Metal & Leaves

more to my photography. The good thing about keeking is that there is always something to photograph, and it has nothing to do with the size (or lack thereof) of your equipment; nothing to do with exotic locations; and nothing to do with in-depth Photoshop knowledge or technique. It’s all about you, and your connection with your emotions. That simplicity is also what makes it difficult, because it requires honesty and openness, and your ability to then communicate those feelings. It takes practice. It takes vision. It takes time. This movement has also corresponded to a period of my photography where I have embraced simplicity, and I guess, that Hygge concept. I sold all my fancy camera bodies, several shelves of high-end lenses, drawers and drawers of flashguns, accessories, reflectors, bags, tripods, monopods, clamps, and I now walk around with one body, one prime lens, and I keek. It helps if you’re a nosey sort of person, although maybe an interested sort of person is a kinder way to say it, and I do believe that interesting people take interesting photographs. The art is to look at the small details, the little curves that

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nature or built objects provide, the way light dapples against a surface, the way shadows open and close. And not just glance at these details, but really look… think, feel, experience each little aspect, and if you do that enough times and with enough honesty then you will start to see those emotional nuances emerge in your photographs, and other people will see and feel them too.

The subject matter is endless, and it can be stonework, trees, grasses, bodies, clouds, vehicles, just anything that you can sit and inspect, and inhale, and appreciate. The images can be close up/macro types, or wider viewpoints. I have a bit of a thing about triptychs, and I feel that they lend themselves very well to keeking, because you can run the three images together with each having a different focus or emotional content, to give a bigger still experience.

I’m not the first photographer to develop their sense of keek. I look at titles on my bookshelf and I see Adams, Egglestone, Hido, Abbot, Irwin, and I can see their respective senses of keek coming through. Even CartierBresson’s Decisive Moments have strong elements of keek. I often hear photographers say they like to try and capture different views, see things differently, think about things differently, and I agree that individualism and uniqueness are valuable traits, but for me the Art of Keek is about taking our everyday surroundings and trying instead to capture them in a way that doesn’t seek to be visually different, but instead to be almost mundane and simple, and yet still with enough depth to evoke those deeper emotions, an image that shows what we all see but also fills the viewer with a sense of something more.

I appreciate that keek imagery may be best enjoyed by other keekers, but that’s where the real challenge lies, to produce keeked images that reach beyond other keekers, and make ordinary passers-by stop and think and feel. Keek heaven!

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DIARY

(Even) Better Monochrome -

A Presentation with Simon Street FRPS

Simon will take you through on a ‘How To’ tour of how he creates and processes people, travel, landscape, abstract and macro images in monochrome.

When: Monday 18 February 2024

Time: 19:00 to 21:00 (GMT)

Cost: From free

Booking: www.rps.org/groups/creative-eye

Where: Online

RPS Creative Eye Group AGM 2024

The AGM will be followed by a talk Photography in an AI World with Joe Houghton

When: Sunday 24 March 2024

Time: 10:30 (GMT)

Cost: Free

Booking: www.rps.org/groups/creative-eye

Where: Online

Photography in an AI World with Joe Houghton

A Zoom discussion of the advances in artificial intelligence as it affects photography and post-processing.

When: Sunday 24 March 2024

Time: 11:30 (GMT)

Cost: From free

Booking: www.rps.org/groups/creative-eye

Where: Online

Exhibition: David Townshend FRPS

An exhibition of new work by David, exploring impressionist coastal landscapes through multiple exposure photography.

When: April-May 2024

Time: Tuesdays to Saturdays 10:30 to 16:00

Where: Gallery 6, Newark on Trent, Nottinghamshire NG24 1AN www.gallery6newark.co.uk

Keep an eye out for more details on the Creative Eye website