©2010 Simon Crinks

I am a visual creature.

Despite my professed loathing for ‘too much Photoshop’, I think I would like to refine that statement to ‘too much bad Photoshop’.

Of course, one man’s meat is another man’s poison, so it’s all about taste in the end.

Which I have, and the other man clearly doesn’t.

Abby, Plymouth, 2010

Or something like it.

I wonder if I’ll like this tomorrow. I do get so in the zone with my Photoshoppery, it’s hard to tell.

I  like it now, however.

Laura H., Plymouth, 2010

* B L E N G  *

Abby, Plymouth, 2010

72%, with caramel.

I’m actually partial to Lindt Chilli Chocolate, but that’s for special occasions.

Abby, Plymouth, 2010

Who doesn’t like chocolate?

My personal favourite is the Lion Bar.

Ria, cropped. Plymouth, 2009

… and then crop. Lovely.

This makes me see the point in having a bazzilion megapixels… so I can zoom in, find lovely crops like this one and still be able to print them with plenty of detail.

Lara, Sidmouth, 2008

Happy New Year everyone.

I read that it is a blue moon this NYE. For some reason I think that there should be some superstition surrounding this convergence of events — particularly as this is the end of a decade as well.

I can’t find anything, but as such superstitions have no basis in fact, let’s make one up. How about… ‘a blue moon on NYE ushers in a decade of inner peace and prosperity’ ?

I’d settle for that.

Oh and perhaps something about getting rich and moving to California to live by the Pacific Ocean with a beautiful wife.

Ria, Plymouth, 2009

Do they wear things like this hat in Finland? I don’t know, but for some reason I think these shots of Ria have a very Finnish quality about them.

I don’t even know what I mean by that, haha.

Feel free to explain my mind to me.

Ria, Plymouth, 2009

Is that the question?

I really love these headshots of Ria and in their natural state they are images that I’m very proud of.

A slip of the stylus later, however, and I was plunged into this neon world — a world that I can’t escape! What’s to become of me? Will I never appreciate the simple, natural portrait again?

Am I doomed to over-photoshop my images to within an inch of their lives?

No, I’m not. But I do love these experiments from time to time.

Ereka, Cornwall, 2009

Lawrence Of Arabia is an amazing film.

Those who have seen it will know that, even at around 4 hours long, it is one of the most engrossing, beautiful and intelligent works of art ever made. If you haven’t watched it, well, then you should.

The last time I saw it, I realised that it would be the perfect film to give me an excuse to get an HD TV and some fancy blu-ray player. Y’see, (and here’s the science part) the movie was shot on 65mm film, providing much more detail and resolution than standard 35mm film.

Now, far from just being greedy and wanting more of everything, David Lean quite wonderfully used this extra resolution to be able to frame shots with much more subtlety and precision. In one scene, Lawrence returns into a treacherous patch of desert to retrieve a lost companion. He is shown riding a camel at the bottom of the frame, with the huge expanse of sky above and desert to the sides. When watching this in the cinema, all would be crystal clear. Particularly if you’re lucky enough to be seeing it in a theatre that shows it on a 70mm projection system (something I long to do).

However, when watching it on DVD and standard-definition TV, Lawrence and the camel are rendered as not much more than black blobs. Similarly for the scene where Omar Sherrif first approaches on horseback from the horizon after his well has been drank from.

All of which made me wonder about the methods of display we are now using, and how they are possibly affecting how I am composing my shots.

Despite the growing resolution of the cameras, we are still primarily looking at our work on screens; first on the back of the camera (or monitor if tethered), then when we edit them, and then we may post our images on online galleries, downsizing them in order to do so. Sure, we may create prints or have our work reproduced in magazines and the like, but our primary way of seeing our work is on screens that are incapable of displaying the full image at full resolution.

I can’t help but think this is imposing a subtle restraint on creativity. It was something I had in mind when shooting Ereka a few days ago.

She looked great, as usual, and I loved the way the wall looked gigantic behind her. But I knew as I shot these frames that she may be reduced to pixels at the bottom of the frame, once the images were reduced for viewing.

However, I remembered David Lean and Lawrence and decided to carry on. There’s more to photography than my monitor and Photoshop…

I’ll just have to get these printed up nice and large!

Ereka, Cornwall, 2009