ABSTRACT PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE RIVER FROME
BY JOHN GRINDLE
I have been taking photographs since a child, but until recently these were only family snapshots, with an odd flurry of failed landscapes. In 2011 I created a Dorset food blog, this lasted for 7 years and during this era food photography consumed me. Since then my photography has wandered from a record shot, to more abstract and I give myself a photo project each year. My 2021 project was to take abstract photographs of the things I see whilst fly fishing the River Frome, here in Dorset-land.
This idea was generated after a talk by Sam Gregory to my local Bridport Camera Club. He had just completed an abstract photo book of the Jurassic Coast and I thought there’s my 2021 project - abstract photographs of the River Frome.
On January 1st 2021 I woke to an amazing hoar frost and sunrise, I was soon snapping away. The photos I made that morning were not abstract in the Sam Gregory style, but more of an intimate landscape style. My project mission statement took a turn, into one of an intimate landscape project.
My aim was to create a book at the end of the year and I wanted the images to have the same style/feel/look, initially, they were all in black and white. This was going well until the beautiful spring colours arrived, I also revisited all my images, switching many back to colour.
My final project mission statement: “I started flyfishing in 1986 and have fished the chalk stream rivers of Dorset. Over those years I have taken many photographs, the majority are just generic images of a river. The aim of my 2021 project was to photograph the beautiful intimate landscapes that I see. Scenes most people pass by, they don’t always notice these little pockets of beauty surrounding them.
I wanted the images to have that film look to give them a timeless feel. To achieve this I used my Olympus OMD EM-5 MKII digital camera and a vintage Russian lens (Helios 44-2). All images are in the square format and processed using DXO Photolab and NIK Collection by DXO with a Film Efex Agfa Optima 400 filter.
Techniques – intentional camera movement, macro, multiple exposures and slow shutter speeds.”
The completed book is 62 pages which I think is amazing and I still can’t believe that I took them all. I have since had 50 smaller zine-style booklets printed and given them to family & friends.
My 2022 project is “benches” but I’m not feeling the same zeal for this subject!
