#295 ASSIGNMENT: GILES PENFOUND #1
It’s assignment day and our special guest, Giles Penfound sets a photography challenge for the seven days from when you listen to this edition. It’s a challenge for everybody, whatever interests you have, whatever camera you hold, film, larger format, DSLR, mirrorless, compact or smartphone – it’s all about the picture you see. Listen to the show to hear the assignment and find pictures that match the challenge below.
I would love to share the pictures you make for this challenge here, so please send them in to studio@photographydaily.show - 2000 pixels wide, any orientation you prefer; square, portrait or landscape.
My thanks to our wonderful patrons and MPB.com who sponsor this show; the number one company in the UK, the US and Europe when it comes to buying, selling and trading used camera kit online – it’s a safe place to do business, with guarantees upon what you buy.
BY GILES PENFOUND
I thought I'd send in an image of mine to demonstrate the notion of really getting to know the scene and what it means. This was made in Block 11 Auschwitz Camp 1. I spent about an hour on these steps getting an idea of what I wanted to say about the past and present footsteps that are waring away the granite of this horrific place.
BY OWEN VACHELL
At the bottom of my garden is a shed that I’ve converted into my ‘man cave’, for want of a better description. It’s a creative space where I play music, think about photography (including listening to your podcast) and write.
But it’s also an office where I spend many an hour at the desk and chair in this image studying for my part-time geography degree with the Open University. This past academic year has been particularly challenging with various family issues to deal with while simultaneously tackling my own mental health issues and a visit to the surgeons operating theatre (thankfully it turned out to not be life-threatening, but a worry nonetheless). It all got a bit much at times so I thought about quitting my degree on several occasions.
The day I made this image was the day I submitted my end-of-year assignment. As I sat back in the armchair in the opposite shed corner I felt the weight of the year drain out of me. I stared at this space while contemplating all the hours I have sat here taking each day of my studies one day at a time. It was mid-afternoon when the sun comes pouring in through the shed door, creating the sharp contrast that helped me to isolate my subject and let the background distractions fall into darkness. Much like I’ve had to do myself throughout my studies.
BY KAMIL (PHOTOGRAPHS ABOVE AND BELOW)
This assignment is kinda what I always do. I can walk for hours in my local woodland (doing that for several years, multiple days in the week) without taking any pictures. And then I see something, like a sprouting acorn, a couple of insects etc and I'm of the world, in my head for a long time. Shooting a zillion frames. But at the end of the day that isn't "mindful photographing." That's why I bought the Zeiss ikon Ikonta 6x6, about 80 years old, in mint condition. No mirror, no batteries, no live view , no vibration reduction. 12 frames in complete manual. WYSIWYG... what you shoot is what you get. Mindfully compose, get all the settings right, double-check, meter the light and don't forget to lock the shutter. Did I advance the film?
From the first film, I got 4 frames out of the 12. (Advance, lock.) The second film 12/12.
I even manage to get a selfie. Yep, there is a timer on the 80-year-old.
I developed the film myself, guided by Sean Tucker on YT:-) Gotta put some more effort into the scanning tho; cleaning everything. The feeling of accomplishment after the first developed film was surprising. Waaaay more than the digital feeling, although there is still lots to learn.
But I will learn frame by frame... mindfully about the photos I take. Included; the selfie and a castle shot.
BY COLIN MAYER
Out on a photowalk in the Blue Mountains. Stopped for a drink and resisted the urge to shoot. Instead, I waited and immersed myself in the surroundings. What do I like? What do I smell? What do I see? How do I feel? I was really enjoying the good condition of the footpath as other sections were muddy, almost river-like, but here cut sandstone slabs like keys on a piano made the walking enjoyable and easy. I can smell a mixture of musty and Eucalyptus oil. I see the fog/cloud rolling in and out of the scene between the trees and the mountainside. I feel calm and content and after about 15 minutes, take a single shot.
BY JOHN MILLAR
Here's a submission for the latest assignment set By Giles. It's of groynes at New Brighton, Wirral from my most recent visit. I get to visit there quite a lot, (an image of the lighthouse featured on day 188 of the community 365). On the day this shot was captured, it was overcast and incredibly windy. I'd gone to shoot what I consider to be a bit of a muse for me, New Brighton Lighthouse. I always try to take my time and look at trying to find new compositions when I'm at this location. On this day though, the wind was incredibly strong.
Even with my trusty 3 Legged Thing tripod weighted down and spikes on in the sand, there was a little bit of camera movement noticeable when reviewing the shots. I moved away from the beach, back up near Perch Rock Fort, and looked out to sea, just taking in the whole scene before me. Waves were crashing hard on the side of the lighthouse to the right of the sea groynes. The left side though, relatively smooth and calm. I had my wellies in the car, so put them on and headed into the sea as far as I dare go, a 10 stop ND filter was used to help extend the shutter speed to 20 seconds. I exposed to the right as I wanted the highlights pushed to clipping point to get an almost white sky and sea. This contrasted nicely with the dark concrete groynes. It was good to come away with something different after taking time to stand back and take in the bigger picture so to speak.
BY ANDY FISHER
The portrait is of a mate of mine - Dan Edwardes who is the CEO of Parkour Generations. He agreed to sit for 15 minutes and watch the world go by outside his window in Wimbledon Village and I had my GFX 50S on a tripod with an 80mm 1.7 prime. The backdrop is a handprinted canvas that I coated in blackboard paint and sanded for texture.
Both of us have a mindfulness practice, following more than 30 years as martial arts practitioners, so it was comfortable dropping into silence for that time. I had a trigger in hand and set a timer on my watch so that when I took the shot, it didn’t disturb the moment - this is the result.
BY ANDREW HARDACRE
I went for a walk today. Made 3 longish stops and at one site I made a picture that I would not normally contemplate. In fact, I made 2. This is the slightly tighter version. I was using a 100-500mm lens because I was geared up for dragonflies. After a while I noticed the water running off the rocks and into the pool and I started to think about what I wanted to show. It was bright sun so I ended up at 1/30s, ISO100 and f16 at 200mm handheld. I used the tripod collar foot to brace the lens on a railing. The water made me think about the flow of life - never-ending until eventually, it runs dry. I chose this angle so the water stands out against the hole behind.
BY SUE SAYER
This is a place I visit frequently. It's a small park overlooking Weston Bay and this poor old dilapidated pier. It's supposed to be being bought and renovated but feet are being dragged. Anyway, as I waited for the sky last evening to 'Do something', the colours started to kick off and my Assignment picture was bagged. I had been here waiting as I often do, many times disappointed, but not last evening. The colours were very dramatic and it's a rare sight indeed to see the sea looking anything other than brown!
BY MATT OGIER-RUSSELL
Listening to this assignment set by Giles Penfound, it really resonated with my relationship with photography over the last 30 or so years. Back in the mid 80s I saved my money (weekend job at a local high street photo lab in St Albans) and bought my first Camera, the rather wonderful Pentax ME Super. Working at the Photo Lab at the time meant I didn't really "need" to get involved in the developing side of things and I could get film at cost from work. I took hundreds of photos of the local area, friends, as well as creative (for me) "abstract" photographs: light, shadow and reflection being my "go-to" that caught my eye.
I'm not sure what happened to that ME Super but I think I traded it in for a compact 35mm camera that was more practical for my interests in the 90s of skiing, climbing and hiking - an SLR and several lenses by then being what they are. For Xmas 2000 I was given my 1st digital camera - a Kodak DC4800 compact camera - that was perfect for family photography and was used to take many pictures of my daughter, Natasha, who was born in September 2001.
20 years or so later I have moved "up" from the Kodak through several Fuji Bridge cameras and finally a dx Nikon dSLR with a selection of lenses and have a hard drive where 10's of thousands of photos now reside, including more of the abstract light, shadow and reflection that caught my eye in the early days.
My, now, 18 year old daughter asked if she could have an "analogue" camera for Christmas (2019) and I thought it would be great to get her a Pentax ME Super, as I had had at her age - I found one on eBay at the right price from a dealer so was confident that despite being, like me, almost an antique it would, like me, still be in reasonable working order. Needless to say, she was thrilled with the camera and I was thrilled that it worked and we spent the next couple of months, whilst she was preparing for her A levels, getting to know the camera and how to use it. The excitement of finishing a roll of film and sending it off, the anticipation of its return and the joy and disappointment of looking at and recalling the experience of taking the photos.
Then of course, in March 2020, the world changed somewhat... Natasha did not have A levels and I was furloughed... for many it was a very difficult time, I was fortunate that I had my family, a garden and my health.
During the early part of furlough as well as spending many hours in the veg patch in the wonderful weather we were having there was also an opportunity to "sort out" all the boxes of "stuff" I had been carting about from house to home - included were most, if not all, the photos and negatives from my early photographic years. Flicking through the albums brought back many memories of people and places long forgotten and I realised that I had not really LOOKED at the digital photos that I had taken over the last 20 years.
Looking at the many 10s of thousand of photos I had taken digitally I realised the disparity between the sheer quantity compared to the few hundred analogue photos that I had taken "back in the day". Most striking of this experience was the relative number of "hits" was far far higher than with the analogue pictures. It was then that I realised that the way I took digital photos had completely changed from the way I had taken the analogue photos. Having spent time with Natasha getting to know the ME Super again I decided that it was time to get myself one too and so I did ... another Pentax ME Super.
I have fallen back in love with photography once more…
Having just 36 exposures, compared to 6 thousand, really focuses the mind about the subject, the photograph and the story (and the cost!) I now have a couple of 35 mm cameras AND I do my own developing of both B&W and Colour ... I currently scan the negatives and have to wait till the next kid moves out before I get the space to set up a full darkroom for printing too.
Natasha is at Uni in Rotterdam and using her camera, we really look forward to the times when she manages to get home bringing her film with her for us to develop together, we also enjoy venturing out on our own photocycles and photowalks spending time looking for the right inspiration or a different angle. Although I still very much use the dSLR and my phone camera I really enjoy the special time I get with my 35mm camera and the anticipation of the images when developed.
This is my photo taken on the ME Super with 35mm lens on home developed Formapan 400 - I had to wait for the sun to come out and be at the right angle for this photo and took nearly the whole day, on and off, to catch!
Keep up the good work ... love the assignments and enjoy the photowalks whilst on my own walks!
Matt… and Natasha
BY CHRIS CANHAM
Well it’s been ‘noseywheel back to the grindystone’ for me this week (who was the gentleman, back in the days of British black and white T.V., who used those phrases? You’ll know the answer Neale. Or was it just something my old Dad used to make up?) so photographic opportunities are diminished somewhat and, AND, there’s the dictum in the Monday Assignment podcast adding further pressure ‘You’ve got seven days, starting from now!’ Well, I thought, absorbed in a world of my own, earbuds in, sipping my coffee in the staff room, I’ve got the coming weekend but that’s six days away and they’ll be chores to do. Then during that moment of quiet reflection it dawned on me, ‘consider the lilies’ (Monty Python, sorry it’s my brain giving some filling between the dots,) well they’re Tulips actually, that is, there was a bunch of Tulips in a vase on the edge of the table being lit by a shaft of sunlight in front of me. So after some consideration during the time it took to drink my coffee and dissolve a couple of lemon puff biscuits on the palate (none of those Garibaldi, akin to livestock biscuits, here) as to whether something different could be made from the scene of brightly coloured Tulips in the sunshine - et Voila! (see’s picture and exhales despairingly.)
(From Neale: Hmmm. Noseywheel and grindystones. I’m a little unsure. But was it the late incredibly talented in a truly beautifully odd way, Stanley Unwin?)
BY MIKE MILLER (PHOTOGRAPHS ABOVE AND BELOW)
Please find attached two images I made for Giles' Assignment. I walked around for 25 minutes before pulling my camera out of my backpack. These are from the historic downtown part of Milton, Ontario.
BY COLIN CUNNINGHAM
From a walk around the local harbour.
BY KELLY MITCHELL
Attached is an image I created yesterday prior to heading to a meetup with some local photographers; coffee, sunshine and a good chat, it was great.
I love reflections, reflections of the day, reflections of life, reflections of time… not sure which one I would use but with trees, they have seen many many things - good and bad but they keep on going through it all. I looked at this scene for about 10 minutes, it is along a busy roadway here in Calgary so really not quiet at all but I found that this scene created its own quiet feel which helped me transition into “photography mode”, okay, not the best way of pulling that but helped me look for the little things.
BY ROBERT WEIGEL
Was out for a walk and came across this composition. I don't know why it resonated with me but it did. I like the rocks and the old piece of pipe.
