Girlosophy Feature

Featured on Girlosophy this week. July 23rd 2012.

https://www.girlosophy.com/look/peace-love-and-brown-rice

 

Festival Workshops this Summer with Sophie

I am putting together a workshop programme to run over Summer. The theme, a favourite of mine is festivals. At this stage I imagine the workshops just running in Sydney, Australia but if there is interest I will look at other states.. and countries. If you are interested please email me at sophie@sophiehowarthphotography.com I’m planning on having the programme details confirmed by October 2012. Sophie X

‘Once you miss it, it is gone forever..’ Cartier-Bresson 1957

“There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative,” he said. “Oop! The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever.” Cartier-Bresson, the Washington Post, 1957.

‘A Portrait is………truth’ Richard Avedon

“A portrait is not a likeness. The moment an emotion or fact is transformed into a photograph it is no longer a fact but an opinion. There is no such thing as inaccuracy in a photograph. All photographs are accuract. None of them is truth.” – Richard Avedon

me & Tony

someone said

Find a photographer you like and copy them. I almost got it, though I think my hand needs to be under my chin a bit more.

Workshop with Mary Ellen Mark

I recently took a workshop with Mary Ellen Mark in Oaxaca, Mexico. This Blurb book was put together with the photographs taken over the 10 days immersion. That place does it to me. Wakes me up. Pre Mexico and post Mexico..more than a little different.

 

Mary Ellen Mark´s Oaxaca Workshop Summer 2011 | Make Your Own Book

Sydney Melbourne Adelaide & Slideshow

Here is a run down of the rest of the shots I took on BDO 2011. Slideshow at the end.

Sydney

Oooolala Sydney was a warm Australia Day…!

the Hare Krishna’s from Iskcon Sydney kicked off the day on the Lilyworld stage and then roamed the crowd

Melbourne

Some nice things happen on the road. Last year I had a show with Tony Mott of our BDO photos at the Mart Gallery. I printed photographs that I felt showed reverie.

This year I gave one of the shots that I exhibited to Warren Ellis from the Dirty Three who is part of Griderman. This it the shot:Warren rang, this doesn’t happen everyday, to tell me how much the photo meant to him. It was taken at the Big Day Out in Sydney at the old showground in Moore Park. Must have been 1996. In an email exchange that followed as I emailed more on from the same day, Warren wrote:

‘thanks Sophie they’re really wonderful, as I said to you on the phone, really moving,’

Then I started to investigate my archive of Dirty Three shots..that’s for another post. You can find their music and other things here http://www.anchorandhope.com/

Adelaide

check this one out on the BDO site http://www.bigdayout.com/community/ontheroadsnaps.php

Matt and Kim got a 2nd look in on Sophie Howarth Photography blog because the camera loves them..I love this shot

Warren Ellis

And here is a wrap up slideshow…enjoy

Zzz

available light

On Monday night I was invited to talk and give some practical guidance to the Blue Mountains Photography Group in Springbrook. I really like being asked to talk or teach as it is something I don’t always do and in preparing for it some great insights come. Focusing on ambient light was the topic. I really love to shoot in low light situations without flash. To capture a form in the smallest amount of light. This has been what I like about digital photography as there are a few more stops available to use in low light. However I didn’t get to do all my talk because the class was keen to get shooting as the light was heading out. So I thought my 2nd blog post I’d pop some of that up here before I get onto putting the rest of my BDO blog up.

‘How to capture the form in low light is one of my greatest joys! I find that light that hovers not dark but near dark so intriging and can be very difficult to capture. Digital Cameras have made this more accessible. In the past I was forever pushing film 3 stops and more and the lab telling me you couldn’t do that. Well you can.

There something magic to be captured in low light situations I believe.

So much so I want to read you the first 2 lines of a poem by Rumi whose words for me capture that same magic that can be captured in low light situations. Its called:

At The Time Of the Night Prayer by Rumi,

from The Rumi Collection, translated by Robert Bly, edited by Kabir Helminski

At the time of the night prayer,as the sun slides down, the route the senses walk on closes,the route to the invisible opens.

For me Rumi’s words are so alive. It is the same with a photograph the moment it is taken if the photographer is present to the situation then the photograph can live again when it is viewed after the fact. This requires looking and seeing on the surface and beyond the surface and having use of technical knowledge or throwing it away.