Hi All

Welcome to my newsletter which is going to take a look back over the month of May and a look forward to the rest of June.

Thank you for taking an interest in my photography. If you’re a registered subscriber who’s receiving this by email, as a thank you I’d like to send you one of my first printed large (A5) postcards of this image below, of reflections on the river Thames looking towards the City of London. ‘Calm London Reflection’. Just reply to the email with your address and I’ll send it to you by post. Remember not to ‘Reply All’! I always like to have images pinned by my desk, in the kitchen, hallway or by my bed and it’s the perfect size for that. This view is local to me and is very special because the Thames is rarely calm enough for clear reflections such as these. This was taken during lockdown when an exceptionally calm night coincided with a complete absence of boat traffic on the river to ruffle the water.

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I spent quite a bit of May working on these postcards and now that I’ve found a format and printer I like, it’s something I can repeat regularly. I also worked on my website, ahead of the distribution of the postcards, to reformat all of my Portfolio galleries into a grid format with the option for a full sized slideshow. I really hope that this increases the enjoyment visitors to my site will get from viewing the photos and early feedback is positive so I feel it’s been worthwhile.

My best news in May was probably the sale of a large print of the Lotus Floating Restaurant in Millwall Dock, London. I didn’t know at the time but I later found out that it sold to a friend I know who also loves this area. This is a screenshot I took when I was notified and below that is the full sized image.

I’ve still been carrying on with my Isle of Dogs project during May and I’ve since completed another section in early June. This is where I am now in terms of coverage (the pink highlighted areas are the ones I’ve covered). I still have a long way to go! This is the first time I’ve taken on a project of this size and I’ve come to realise it’s not to be rushed because just walking to cover distance and walking while looking all around and taking photos are two very different things. I’m really enjoying it so I’ll just carry on fitting it in between other things I take on until I’ve finished it.

I posted a few blogs during May on various topics. I’ve listed these here and linked to them so that you can catch up with them.

PRINT SALE AND DAY 17 OF MY ISLE OF DOGS PROJECT

FIRST PHOTOGRAPHY SHOOT AT AN EVENT AFTER LOCKDOWN IN LONDON

LIGHT TRAILS AND STARBURST PHOTOGRAPHY - TWO OF MY FAVOURITE THINGS

THEATRES RE-OPEN - NOSTALGIC REVISIT OF MY LONDON THEATRE IMAGES

EARLY RISING AT 3.30AM TO CAPTURE FULL MOON PHOTOS

In terms of what I’m doing for my inspiration and appreciating art, during May I booked tickets for Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience. September tickets were the earliest I could find but I’m happy with that and I’m looking forward to it already. I’ve had two memorable experiences of Van Gogh paintings previously. The first was in the Musee D’Orsay in Paris, seeing his self portrait. I found that unexpectedly emotional and it brought tears to my eyes. The second memorable occasion was in Tokyo seeing Sunflowers. It was certainly memorable because we went to the art museum specifically to see that one painting. Outside was a replica which you could have your photo taken beside (see below). The actual painting though was a bit underwhelming. Nevertheless, I thought it must be one of the most famous paintings in the world so out of curiosity I googled to see if that was the case. The first list was by Time Out and van Gogh’s The Starry Night was at number 4 but Sunflowers didn’t feature at all. On a second list by CNN, The Starry Night came in at number 3 but again no Sunflowers. The third list I checked was on a blog by Artst.org and this time Sunflowers came in at number 6.

While I was doing this little bit of research, I discovered that van Gogh actually painted 12 Sunflower paintings. When he was living in the south of France he received a note from Gaugin to say that he was coming to visit. Van Gogh began to work energetically on a whole series of sunflower paintings to cover the walls of his studio. He painted 7 in total during this period. These were added to 5 he had previously painted in Paris. There are 5 remaining paintings today and they’re scattered around the world in various locations, Tokyo being one of them.

The underwhelming nature of the painting could be due to the pigment used by van Gogh and other artists at that time, which was Chrome Yellow. In 1888, when most of these works were painted, sadly no one could have known that in the long term, these pigments tend to darken and the beautiful bright yellow goes brown as it ages.

You might wonder what van Gogh’s masterpieces have to do with my images of London cityscapes and the like. In trying to improve my photography I always look at it from two angles. Technical and artistic. To improve technically I’m always studying new techniques and the controls on my camera. To improve artistically, I’m constantly looking at photos and art. And if you’re going to learn from anyone, let it be the best you can find. I think the artistic journey will be the far longer one but I’m going to enjoy it on the way.

To finish, I’ve added my favourite new photo from May which is this one of the moon over Greenland Pier. This is my latest image to be added as a print. I won’t cover the story of this one again here because I wrote about it in a blog at the time and if you want to know what went into this one, you can click here to read and see more images. EARLY RISING AT 3.30AM TO CAPTURE FULL MOON PHOTOS

I’ve been writing this with the door open and warm air circulating. The sky is blue with barely a cloud. Wherever you are, I hope you also have some nice weather, if not today then sometime soon.

Loren x