New work: “River Panorama – Hampton Court”

Hi everyone,

Thought I’d do another panoramic work for a change. Near the lock on the River Thames at Hampton Court.

As always, I’ve linked to a bigger image on my Flickr page.

Best wishes,

All packed up and ready to rumble! :)

January 27, 2019 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in Leigh Kemp, photography, Photography equipment, Travel | Leave a comment

Hi everyone,

Finalised my gear for my next trip.

Added a quick release type sternum strap to my National Geographic backpack along with the Op/Tech reporter camera straps. In fairness the backpack does have a sternum strap but it’s not quick release and is pretty fiddly. The quick release strap also has a couple of D-rings, one can’t have too many D-rings. 🙂 .

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To prevent the strap from slipping down the shoulder straps I used a couple of heavy-duty cable ties and threaded them vertically through the sternum strap and loops in the material on the shoulder straps where the existing sternum straps attach. Also attached extra Uni-loops to the D-Rings.

Side pockets for my Nat. Geo. backpack rain cover and Manfrotto Pixie tripod. Not shown in the photo below but I have a couple of neoprene drawstring lens pouches with clips to attach to D-Rings which fit nicely in the pockets and the rain cover and tripod go inside these as the teeth on the zips are quite sharp and might possibly rip the rain cover. Also, if the rain cover is wet then it’s nice to stuff it in the neoprene pouch.

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ThinkTANK emergency camera rain cover (small size) in laptop compartment.

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Camera compartment: OM-D E-M5 Mk II + M.Zuiko 12-40mm, Canon G10 (lurking in the shadows 🙂 ), M.Zuiko 9-18 mm and Lumix 12-32 mm plus spare camera batteries and Op/Tech neoprene case, wrist strap and Uni loop connectors.

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My BUBM organiser (medium size) fits beautifully inside the backpack as if it was made for it and for fashionistas out there it’s pretty well colour-coordinated. 🙂

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My Anker five port USB charging hub, Astro powerbank, USB camera battery chargers and cables etc.. Give me one mains socket and I’ll charge 5 things simultaneously. 🙂

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Kind regards

leigh sig 2

PS. I’ve added a few links as it might be of interest. I have no affiliation with any of the manufacturers in this post.

Remember

January 27, 2019 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in Leigh Kemp, photography, Travel | Leave a comment

Hi everyone,

To mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day a photo that I first published on Flickr back in 2013. :

AUSCHWITZ III MEMORIAL – PERE LACHAISE CEMETARY, PARIS

Originally photographed in November 2002 as part of a commission.

I think the sculpture is fantastically poignant the way that the tattered strips of concentration camp clothing hang from the emaciated, shuffling bodies. Sometimes I’m torn between colour and black and white but I think the choice for this photo was much clearer and that B/W adds to the sombre mood of this photo and concentrates the eye on the subject matter. The photograph was also taken in November with little foliage on the trees which adds to the bleak, stark nature of the scene.

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More of my shots from this trip in my Album – https://www.flickr.com/photos/leighkemp/albums/72157644409227536

Kind regards

leigh sig 2

As I sit here looking at my modern digital cameras I’m reminded of my first camera and, in particular, the first photograph that I ever took. Nowadays we take cameras and camera technology pretty much for granted but when I was a child I can’t remember many photographs. The only time our camera saw the light of day, and it had to be the light of day, as there wasn’t a flash, was on a few family occasions, the usual thing, school sports days, birthdays, etc.. My interest in photography didn’t start until my grandfather “loaned” me his camera to take with me on a week-long school trip, sleeping under canvas, in Snowdonia, North Wales. It was a somewhat battered old twin-lens reflex camera in which one looked downwards in to the viewfinder when taking a photograph.

I remember being very excited at being entrusted with the family camera, film wasn’t cheap and I had very little to no idea how to use it. The experience must have made some kind of impression on me as, after all these years, I still remember taking my first photograph. The coach stopped en-route at Blenheim Palace, the ancestral home of Sir Winston Churchill and it became the subject of my first photograph. Although, sadly, like my other photographs from the trip, it has long since disappeared, however, I really don’t need the photograph to remind me as the experience is indelibly etched on my mind. I wonder if this is perhaps where my interest in landscape photography stems from but that’s probably too much of an assumption. As far as I remember I was the only kid on the trip to have a camera, that’s how different things were, nowadays, just about everyone has a camera of some sort built in to their mobile phones. It also taught me to be disciplined to the point of being frugal when taking photographs as the trip was for one week and I only had a 12 exposure black and white film in the camera.

Some years later I really got the photography bug and bought my first camera, an Olympus OM-1 35 mm film camera and I went on to own their OM-2 and OM-4ti cameras and a range of lenses. Film was still pretty expensive considering I earned about £20 a week in my first job so I got in to developing and printing my own black and white and, later, colour films to help keep the costs down and make things more affordable. Not only did this experience teach me an awful lot about image-making start to finish, many of the techniques and skills that I learned in my makeshift darkroom, a small room adorned with genuine World War 2 blackout curtains fitted to keep out the light, another hand-me-down from my grandfather, these skills would re-surface and be invaluable some years later when I started working on processing my digital images.

I put myself through University as a mature student and I badly needed the money so I had to very reluctantly part with all my photographic equipment, but needs must. After I graduated I bought my first digital camera, a small fixed lens Kodak compact camera, reduced in a sale. It had, by today’s standards, a laughably small maximum image resolution of 640×480 pixels or, to put it another way, a stunning 0.4 Megapixels!. For all of this and further equipped with screw on wide angle and telephoto lens attachments, it proved to be a fabulous little camera which I took all over the place with me. Put simply, digital photography was a revelation, to me, no requirement for film, no real running costs and a lot of image capacity on a small memory card which I found absolutely liberating.

A few years before that I had discovered some free graphics editing software on the cover disk of a computer magazine and that started off my real passion for working with graphics and, ultimately, photo processing. So I then had all the tools I required to develop, pun intended and further, my interest in digital photography. Processing is where the magic starts for me, I am totally absorbed in and fascinated by the range of options that digital processing affords me. It encourages me, if, that is, I ever need encouragement, to constantly experiment with new styles, new techniques and is such an important part of my enjoyment and interest in photography.

I went on to own several DSLRs but, as I got older I began to find that they were simply too heavy and bulky. I switched over a few years ago to Micro Four Thirds cameras and lenses. My choice of MFT system was heavily influenced by my experiences with my Olympus film cameras, maybe it was, in truth, part based on nostalgia that I decided on their OM-D system. As a landscape/travel photographer I have to carry my gear around all day and the weight and bulk saving is highly significant. I’ve been very impressed with the image quality of my Micro Four Thirds equipment, it has traveled with me extensively, never let me down and I have never had cause to question my decision to go over to that format.

So my 50 year photographic adventure has led me from twin-lens reflex and single-lens reflex film cameras to digital cameras, from stumbling around in a dimly-lit darkroom to working with my images on my computer. I’ve heard it said on occasions, including a comment I read some while back by a very famous photographer, that cameras being so much an every-day item now and available in mobile phones etc. devalues photography. I feel quite the opposite, I firmly believe that it empowers everyone with affordable technology to take photographs and enjoy photography and that, in my opinion, is fantastic. Although I’ve very much enjoyed my personal photographic journey I do confess to feeling a slight tinge of regret that the technology wasn’t available when I started out but one can’t put the clock back and I intend to keep on embracing all these great technological advancements, experimenting and enjoying my work.