Where I have been since early September

[Manfred M]

I have been relatively inactive at CiC since early September, as I decided to go back to school full time.

I've been in the diploma program at the School of Photographic Arts - Ottawa (SPAO) all year and tomorrow is the last of the full-time classes. It's actually a two year program, but I was given advanced standing as I have a lot of traditional darkroom work under my belt (both B&W and colour print making), so I was able to jump straight into 2nd year.

The next four weeks will be dedicated to finishing off one more class (History of Photography) as well as getting my final projects (9 16" x 20" prints, a fine art book with 18 images, plus a children's book based on the fine art book) ready for the opening of an exhibition that runs in the gallery for about 4 weeks, starting on April 19.

It was expensive (I could have bought a medium format digital camera plus a couple of lenses for the cost of the course and materials) but I have been able to immerse myself deeply into all aspects of photographic production. I feel that I have improved my photography by an order of magnitude - concept, execution, retouching and presentation. I have posted the works that will be going on display here over the past few months.

Here is the graduation class photo (one person is missing). I am the second oldest person in the class...

[Rita]

That is wonderful Manfred. Any learning is a bonus for us. I thought of doing the same thing when I retired this Jan but not totally sure at this point if I can do it or not. Congrats to you!

[lunaticitizen]

Congrats!

Btw, what was the motivation to go to school again?

Hunger for more knowledge? Or anything else?

Couldn't you have learned what you have learned, by yourself?

[Manfred M]

Congrats!

Btw, what was the motivation to go to school again?

Hunger for more knowledge? Or anything else?

Couldn't you have learned what you have learned, by yourself?

It isn't so much about my photographic skills, which were already quite good, but more about trying to figure out where to go to both enhance those skills and put them to use in a different, creative way.

I think one way to look at this is when you look at how youngsters who enter a new sport are taught versus how elite athletes are coached. In the first case, the skills have to be taught and practised. In the second, these people have the skills, but may need to fine tune them to get peak performance.

In many ways, I didn't learn a lot of new skills this year, but I did take my work in a slightly different direction, using a more integrated approach. In the genres I am working in, still life, I look at my subjects differently, look at light differently and look at post-processing differently. My work is moving in a more abstract direction. I don't look at coming back from a shoot with 100 excellent images and am happy if I get just a few great shots in a month.

Finally, I can now sit down and visualize what I want my final product to look like before I start and I know how to get there, even though that is measured over a much longer time scale.

What I need to figure out next is how to sustain that.

[escape]

Nice graduation photo, Manfred. It's Shoeless but Soulful. I like it.

[Round Tuit]

Congratulation Manfred.

I look forward to viewing the exhibition.

[mugge]

Congratulation Manfred. I too will look forward to the exhibition .
Cheers Ole


I

[billtils]

Rita - you may be interested in this from the OU: https://www.futurelearn.com/microcre...ver-your-genre. There is also this more basic one: https://rps.org/qualifications/open-...nline-courses/

Cheers


Bill

[Rita]

Thanks for the info Bill. I will take a look at it.

[pschlute]

Good for you Manfred

[Manfred M]

Good for you Manfred

Thanks Peter - it has been quite intense and right now I have three major projects that will be going into an exhibition that runs from April 17 until mid-May at the SPAO gallery in Ottawa. A 9 piece large print (3 x 3 grid of 16" x 20" prints), a fine art book with 18 prints and a children's book, based on the fine art book These things will keep my busy for the next 4 weeks...

I have been fortunate to spend the past 8 months studying under Michael Tardioli, who was Yousuf and Malek Karsh's colour print makers (Malek was Yousuf's younger brother, a well known Canadian landscape photographer). I also had the opportunity to study under four other well regarded contemporary fine art instructors as well.

I find that I have been able to really become much more creative and technically strong in my photography as well as in my post-processing and print making.

Unfortunately, all the school assignments mean I have not worked on a number of projects I want to start, so hopefully I can start working on those in another month or so.

[Manfred M]

Here are the nine images I will be showing during the exhibition. This is my initial cut at sequencing the prints, but this is likely to change, based on curatorial input.

The name of the series is Nebulous.

The prints were done on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Baryta paper. Each print will be a 16" x 20", full bleed print. Frames will be shadow boxes, rather than matted prints, using low reflectance glass. This glass costs about 2x regular glass and filters out about 70& of the UV (versus around 50% for regular glass). The prints are sealed to reduce exposure to contaminants in the air.

I did not like the look of museum glass (about 2 x the price of low reflectance glass) as it creates a bit of a colour cast (yellow). Museum glass filters out about 99.9% of UV.

[pschlute]

A lot of what you have posted over the last year now makes a lot of sense.

Very much looking forward to how this progresses.

Sadly, for a number of reasons my own photography has ground to a halt in the last 12 month. I hope to change that soon.

[The amateur]

Manfred, congratulations on the course and also for the excellent set of photographs that will be shown at the exhibition.

I am sure that you still have a career to make in the field of artistic and conceptual photography.
And this is shown by the work already done and posted here over some time.
I cannot but wish you the greatest success.

Cheers !

[mugge]

Great choice of title. I hope you do well.
Cheers Ole

[Manfred M]

One of my images is being used in the advertising poster for the exhibition.

[lunaticitizen]

Very cool! Did they also print the poster on a Hahnemühle Photo Rag Baryta paper?

[mugge]

Effective. My favorite though is the first one in the series.
Cheers Ole

[Manfred M]

The second part of my final year project at SPAO: Photographic Arts Centre is a fine art book, which is based on the children's book that Kane and I (and Tetsu and his parents) worked on over the past couple of years.

The pages are printed on Moab Estrada Natural paper, the text is translated into Japanese, based on my grandson Kane's commentary that he made while we were in India last February. The bugs were largely his ideas, that I implemented photographically.

The 18 "bug" images are "tipped", i.e. hand-glued onto the book's pages and are printed on some very thin (a square metre of the paper weighs a mere 55 grams) Awagami Factory Unryu thin washi paper.

The book was assembled and bound by Smiths Falls Bookbinding. It is a hard cover "coffee table" book that is 12" high and 11" wide.














The final part of my project is the actual children's book. It is being printed at Mixam.ca and I should have it in my hands no later than Thursday April 18, 2024. I will be posting some shots of it, once it arrives.

[Manfred M]

The start of the exhibition is getting closer. I spent most of the morning and part of the early afternoon helping to install my work.

The nine 16" / 41 cm wide x 20" / 51 cm high prints are displayed in a classic 3 x 3 grid, so the images take up a lot of wall space (67" / 170 cm high x 55" / 140 cm wide). Using a laser level means that each print is within a couple of mm of where they should be. It took over 2 hours to do the installation.

The lights have not been adjusted yet (not my job), so this shot was taken using just poor quality ambient light. There are 10 main exhibitors from the final year graduating class.

I have to attend the opening on Friday and do an Artist's talk both this coming Saturday and the following Saturday.

The only part that is still missing are the children's book that supposedly shipped today...