Hi,
Not added to my Blog in to long, going to try and put time aside to keep it updated from now on.

Anyway, just wanted to talk a little about a shot I have just finished and explain a bit of the story behind the image, what I was thinking about as I put it together.

Here's the image.


The shot is called SEALAND and it is my attempt to create a totally isolated city in the ocean, the image is built from well over 400 image(Which means it has much detail, which can't properly be defined by seeing the 750 pixel wide web image).

I kind of had the idea of creating a city from scratch for a little while, some of my shots over the last year have really been about creating whole new realities and I really wanted to keep pushing that. These 2 are the best examples for this idea, both done between September2006 and January2007

and


The place which got me started on this image is a pier near The Hague in Holland in a place called Scheveningen. (click this link to see http://www.minbuza.nl/en/welcome/pictures,gal_steden.html?page=14&photo=detail ) I really liked the 80's cluncky'ness of it design and found this a good starting point for the buildings which I would then add to it.


After using shots of the pier taken from many angles I then spent time travelling around collecting shots of buildings and industry to create the city.

This image became a real labour of love, and I'm not even so sure it is finished now. I arrived at the Pier at a really great sunset after quite a grey day walking around The Hague, but in that day I went to an excellent museum of work by MC Escher, (check this link to see it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escher_Museum ), it is such an amazing show and I think his obsessive attention to detail, no made how outlandish the finial image he is aiming for really inspired me with this shot.

Also another element of this image is the place that inspired it, a small off shore PRINCIPALITY OF SEALAND.

I could see this from the window of my mum and dads house in a place called Dovercourt in Essex. It's a really fascinating place and I'd encourage anyone to have a look on the web about it, go to this Wiki to get a summery of the place http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand , at the moment it is a data haven, and one of the ideas behind this image is to try and imagine and build what would happen if it became really successful and developed into a city. I used pictures of Sealand to create some of the legs that the city lays on, and also bits from other World War 2 gunning platforms that are not far out from the coast of East Anglia.

Anyway, just wanted to share some of the idea behind this image.

Going to be writing about a 60's vs. Modern Visuals light show that I was involved with for the Futuresonic Festival next.

Cheers

Andrew

Project Escher

Hi there,
This is a quick half idea I've been working on, it won't make it onto my site but I thought it would be worth putting on the blog as this is the start of a project I am doing where I am trying to create photorealistic versions of the woodcuts made by M.C.Escher.



Also earlier this week I did the corridor archway shot below, this was to get me started with creating shots which have the feel and warped realism of Escher’s work. It's early days with this project but I'm hoping that with time and patience I should be able to make some real stand out images...


A

Some thoughts on photography...

Hey there,
Just been asked the question about where photography is going on a forum I am a member of(Photoforum) and came up with some thoughts which I thought might be worth dropping onto my blog also.

" It seems to me that the mystery has been taken out of photography, now cameras are so clever/affordable, well-exposed sharp images are within everyone’s reach. When I first started working in a photography studio it was all 5/4 film, with an assistant to each photographer who disappeared into a darkroom now and again, if you were a client visiting the studio you'd have know idea of the process of creating professional photographs so photography at that level almost seems like a guarded profession. But over the years digital backs have become more affordable and practical, starting with big £20,000 sinar digital sensors, but slowly it has started to make as much sense to use cameras like hasselblad’s, and now DSLR’S like the D200. If a client or non professional now was to visit the very same studios they would more or less see cameras which can be brought at any high street photography suppliers, used with computers and software much like they would have in the office.

So thinking about this it seems to me that the bottom end has come out of the industry, the very basics are achievable by the non-professional. But as anyone on this forum knows, there is much more to photography than the basics, the difference between getting it right and getting a shot looking amazing (making people give up some time in there images saturated day to look at that photo)are worlds apart and what makes the difference is years of experience and dedication or in some lucky cases god given talent. So it seems to me that to succeed in photography we need to get more creative, each photographer plough there own path, make images that are so good they leave folks baffled.

Anyways, much ramberling there, that's kind of what I have been thinking about for a bit and has been driving where I have been going with my photography. I guess it's just saying a photographer really needs to push themselves, but right now with the whole world becoming photographers it seems more important than ever... "






Ground breaking stuff huh...I don't know, just thought folks might be interested.

To keep you all entertained here's a shot I put together just after christmas. It's quite a bleak one, going back to this kind of Sci-Fi end of the world photography which I put some time into a few years back.

(Link here www.andrewbrooksphotography.com/studio-gallery-salford.htm
and here http://andrewbrooksphotography.com/unreal-gallery-umistslice.htm to check a couple of these)

Quite a lot of heavy comping together of images to create the graphic fell of this one, but where as with most of the landscapes I worked on in 2006 I tryed to make them look very illastrative, this one I wanted to keep some gritty realisum in there. I saw the Alfonso Cuarón 'Children of Men' in November, and was so blown away by that movie, and I think a really important element was how real it felt, some of the scenes where the shot was minuets long in the middle of a warzone on the streets of a version of the UK which is pretty recognisable were mind blowing, anyways, this shot was kind of an attempt to get that documantary realisum but show quite a fantastical scene.

Anyway here's the shot.

Andrew

Where I shoot my shots...

Hi Again, happy new year and all that,
Just a quick bit about some of the shots on my site. I've had this idea of dropping Google earth coordinates under the shots, link these to have a look at a couple.

Cornfield

Sliced City

if you copy and paste the informaition below the picture into the 'Fly To' box on Google earth then hit enter you should go right to, or pretty close to the spot where the shots were taken.

Also if you want to see a few images I have taken, dropped onto the spot where they are taken got to

This Page

and go to the click on this icon in the middle.


I'm going to try and add more shots to this and more coordinates to my shots, as it seems to be an interesting alteranative way to browse information on the interenet, where as usually you can find content by doing text seaches, this is a way of coming across interesting things using the geography of the earth.

Here's a shot I just finished today with it's location underneath, which to be honest in this case is kind of a lie, as the floor and the window at the end of the corridor were shot in diffoent parts of manchester. but most of it was shot at 53°28'43.11"N, 2°14'35.59"W so there.




It's just occered to me it might not be to smart to go around letter folks know where my shots were taken and other photographers can go recreate them, so don't go doing that please, atchully do it if you want, be interesting to see what other photographers come up with.

Anyways, thats it for my Blog for now, the shots above from an idea which I'm kind of starting to mess around with, I've got an idea of creating photorelistic versions of the work of M.C.Escher. The shot above is all about getting the feel of his shots and also the kind of warped neat'ness that his images have. Next step is to study the way he creates and uses optical illusuilon to create his impossible scenes, then put some time into creating the photographs. I'll post my progress on this here Blog...

Cheers

Andrew

Ghost Ship...

Hi there,
Just put quite an interesting shot together, it's not really a shot I want to put on my website, but was a pretty interesting find. I was getting pretty close to finishing my boat on the rolling ocean
shot, (Go here to see the finished shot http://andrewbrooksphotography.com/OceanPhotography.htm ) I had the waves and the sky put together and looking nice,



The only thing I need was a good ramshackle boat, I had a real clear image in my head of the type of boat, kind of like the one in Jaws, a boat that’s seen some use, anyway, I decided to take a drive on a grey rainy day out to North Wales. After driving for quite a while and not getting very near the cost, I saw over some fields a rusting ferry, I quickly stopped my van and weaved my way through some fields and down by a stream and got really close to this rusted old passenger ferry, it was a very windy rainy day and I was the only person around, on a grey stone beach which headed out towards the miles of grey mud and then the sea, was this huge boat called the duke of Lancaster. I was kind of stumbling around trying to get a shot, slipping on the mud and falling on my ass, it was a really odd place to be alone, the wind was making all sorts of howling nose as it hit the boat. Anyways, here's the shot I got, think it gets across the atmosphere of the place



The Google earth coordinates of it are 53°18'21.11"N 3°14'14.42"W (Copy Paste these into the fly to box on google earth, see this page http://andrewbrooksphotography.com/GoogleEarth.htm on my site for some more details)

And hears what she used to look like in here heyday



Oh and I just read online that it used to be called The Fun Ship, which is kind'of strange, possably one of the least fun looking things I've ever seen...

A

More Stereo 3D experements...

Morning all,
I had an idea that I could take some of my 2D still photography work, and with a bit of thought and some Photoshop reediting of the image I could turn the images into stereo 3D pairs, I started with the city tower shot, but now I have done some work on a boat photography shot I completed in 2D form about a week ago. with this I tried to imagine the image taken from about 1 meter to the left of the original, and with some carefully layering and cloning, rebuilt the sky and sea which were behind the object one the original image. Think I must have used about 100 layers all offset to the left or the right, to give some kind of illusion of depth within this image

Anyways, here's that shot, it's meant to be viewed as a parallel view stereo image, which means your eyes converge beyond the screen, yet you focus on the screen, kind of hard to do, but as I just made the Magic Arm music video, as shown in the previous post, I've had tons of practice at doing this, I think when I was editing that I must have been sat slightly goofy eyed at my computer for about 20 hours, not sure how good that is for a young fella. Oh, and if your having trouble viewing it click this link for a bit of a run through on how to do it.

Let me know what you think as it is all a bit experimental at the moment...



Later’s

Andrew

3D Music Video...

Hi there,
Just completed a music video for Magic Arm, the video is shot in 3D, you can view it on your computer screen but you have to have your eyes converge beyond the screen, it looks really cool if you can do it, but it does kind of give you a head ache, I'm working on cool ways of presenting it at the moment, going to try the old red and green glasses. Anyways here's the video embedded in this here blog. if your struggling to view it do a search on the Internet about parallel 3D viewing and it should explain how it's done. Any feedback very welcome on this one as it's all a bit experimental.

Magic Arm Stereo 3D music video

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Andrew