Hello! and welcome to my gallery. It is still a work in progress but there are now over 100 of my photographs to see. I hope that you will take time to have a look at them and that they will give you as much pleasure in the viewing as they gave me in the making! I would welcome any feedback you may have - please write to me through the "contact" page
If you really like the pictures, I have finally got my act together and if you have a Paypal account you can now buy any of them them as Giclee prints on fine art paper - just follow the links below the thumbnails. If you intend to order then please read the final paragraph, below, first. If you are interested, there is also more information about equipment and the processes that I follow, below.
History
I have been taking pictures in Kent for over thirty years, ever since I was given my first camera - a lovely old Zenit B, 35mm, (which I subsequently lost on the Eiger in Switzerland.) I have always loved the county's landscapes, especially the chalk downland of the east, where most of my shots have been taken. Even though it seems that there is a new construction site starting every day and the lanes are all choked by 4x4s, it is still beautiful. There are sinuous lines and rhythms that I see in the landscape and I try to bring those out in my pictures. I suppose this is why I prefer to take pictures in winter when there is less vegetation to mask it all.
I think that lansdcapes can be big or small scale and whilst it is is hardly worthwhile trying to categorise, I have done so to make navigation easier. The smaller, more detailed views are called "landscapes within landscapes" - for want of a better title. I have also recently started taking pictures of flowers and there is a dedicated galley for those pictures, as well.
Going Digital.......
My love of taking pictures was always matched by my dislike for darkroom work. I did not have a dedicated darkroom and all the aggro involved setting one up, when i needed it meant that I never achieved the results that I wanted. I was overly cavalier and slapdash in my approach - but is only now when I try to digitize my old film shots now that I see what an appalling state they are in and how much restoration they need before being fit to print (digitalisation certainly throws a merciless light on to carelessness worker!)
My photography ran in parallel with my full time job, but I have now retired to take up picture taking full time. This has also enabled me to take that big step so many photographers seem to have struggled with - the move to digital. This has been a huge revelation for me and has helped me to progress way beyond what I could do with film, not least because I do not have to go into a darkroom!
I use Photoshop CS3 now and like so many others probably, exploit about three percent of its capabilities. These revolve mainly around using the "levels", "curves" and "healing brush" tools for the photos that I have scanned and "B&W conversion" and "blending layers" for digital shots. The trouble with using layers though, is that it is very easy to get carried away and many of my pictures now take up 2 - 300mb and I have to keep buying new hard disks to keep up!
Whilst I love black and white shots I have been experimenting with multi-toning and selective colouring to bring out those elements of the composition that I am interested in. Photoshop is truly excellent for this this and I can now achieve effects that I would never have achieved in my "dark and wet days". I am also experimenting with Painter Essentials 4 which is a lovely program that produces painterly effects on my images with great ease. The possibilities and permutations of effects seem to be limitless and I find that I can achieve some very interesting textures and tones when I combine "straight" and painted images using combinations of blending layers and overlays. There are a couple of examples in the London commuting - Battersea Galley that I have just added.
Equipment
I use a Canon EOS 5D, which I love as it produces beautiful files with very low noise. I have three lenses - a 50mmII standard, a 24-105L and a 75-300 DO IS telephoto. Another essential piece of kit is my trusted old Benbo tripod - 20 years old and as strong as ever. For digitising my old film negatives I use an Epson 4870 with transparency adapter.
Printing
I recently bought an Epson 3800 printer using the K3 pigment inkset. Whilst this was expensive (so expensive!) it has been so worthwhile as it produces superb prints up to 25" x 18". It also swaps from matte printing to gloss without all that irritating rigmarole of cartridge changing that I had with my previous R2400 which I found to be quite prohibitively expensive to feed!
Buy some prints!
I usually print out in A3+ for exhibitions and have been experimenting with a number of the very fine papers that are around now. I currently use Permajet paper - Oyster for gloss and Delta for matte, although I am going to look at the new Ilford paper very soon.
The prints that I am making available on this site can be ordered on either A3 or A4 paper. The image size of each picture will obviously vary because of different cropping - but it will be maximised to fit the paper available, with a 2.5cms white border (any less than this and any framer you may use will have difficulty mounting it.
It will be sent to you in a card-backed envelope to preserve its flatness - I have found that heavy paper like this does not respond well to being rolled up in a tube.
I hope that you enjoy this site and look forward to hearing from you!
Guy Gardener.