Lomography

The amount I bang on about taking good pictures on a funsnap you would think I would be shaking with glee and trawling the web for anything with the word lomo on it.

Instead, I really hate the name LOOOMMMMOOOOGRAPPHY! I dont even know why it bugs me so much.

I like the concept of taking good pictures on old camera's. Even good pictures with rubbish toy camera's. But what I dont like is people taking crap pictures with crap camera's. If you look at a lot of so called Lomo photography its all just a pile of cack! Its almost like if it looks crap then its lomo!!!! What a pile of old tosh!! Part of the theory behind lomo is not to think but just to shoot without taking time to compose the image. Balls!!!!! So when Tracey and Stacey go out on the piss with their little camera's they will come back with the best drunken Lomo Photography ever! After all they wont be composing anything, will they!

I had a camera once that was cheap and took a number of images in a sequence. It was plastic, the lense was cack but it was loads of fun to use.

This very camera is considered to be a lomo camera now! I think I just hate the thought of people thinking they are artistic because they just snap something they see and it will look cool because it looks so cack! I read one Lomo photographers philosophy that he doesnt compose his photo's but lets them compose themselves. It makes me want to weep when I hear crap like this.

So you Lomo ITES, call it what you want, but its still just a pile of horse nuts!!!!

And believe you me, any so called Lomo photo's you see that are good were composed just like us proper photographers do!

To sum up!!! I hate the name!!! I hate the philosophy!!! I hate people who think they are great photographers when they are not!!! HOWEVER........ I do love crappy cameras with a bit of character, wood, plastic, metal, I love them all when they are used well!

Back soon

Just taking a couple of days off, after a busy time to recouperate!
Keep an eye out and I shall be back by Wednesday!!!!

Colour Photjournalism

A misconception when a lot of people think of photojournalism is that it must be in gritty black and white for it to work. This just isnt true and sometimes the colour adds to the story rather than detracting from it. Although I work mainly in black and white, sometimes in certain lighting with certain colours present, it would be awful to rob that colour away.

Its in those situations that I do actually work in colour for a change!

For life not just for Christmas

It was quite a few years ago I decided I would like a tattoo. Rather than going to MIKES TATTOO's in Carlisle I figured I would go down to London and have an original design. My friend Mr Doyle told me he knew a guy very skilled in this art. Off I went to meet my good friend and he took me to quite a small flat where I was greeted by a Romanian girl and her boyfriend. I walked into the small room and was shown my design.The guy who looked like someone from limp bisquit then sat me down in an old chair and begun piercing my pink flesh as marcus received a massage from the romanian.I somehow appreciated how seedy all this seemed! Like I wasn't just getting a tattoo but I'd nearly died doing it. I asked obvious questions like how did you learn how to do tattoo's. He told me he started early practicing on pigs feet! I wondered secretly if the romanian girl had also practiced her massages on the same pigs feet. I also wondered if these were live pigs that he had tattooed and that on some farm the coolest tattooed pigs would compare their designs. After a few hours I was ready to sport my new body art! After posing for a photo with the now naked romanian I left! I think Mr Doyle was quite heavily into his nude work at the time and I asked no questions. So did I regret this experience and did I regret getting my tattoo? Well I returned a year later to get the other arm done, if that answers your question!

The Look of Love

I must mention one of my favourite films of all time is "Somewhere in Time". As above Christopher Reeves Character falls in love with a picture of Jane Seymours character. To his horror after becoming obsessed with her, he finds out she is already dead!!! DUM DUM DUMMMMM!

Cutting to the chase, he finds a way to go back in time and later on in the film you see the very photo that he fell in love with being taken. It is just as Christopher Reeve walks in the room just behind the camera that she looks in love at him and the photo is snapped.

I think thats a really nice touch! That moment of love on her face was captured on a photograph and was on a wall 60 or 70 years later only for someone to become obsessed with it.

This is one of my aims as a photographer! Not for someone to feel the need to go back in time because they get obsessed with some bird I took a photo of! But to capture a moment that can never be repeated. A moment that can cause happiness to remember or like in Christopher Reeves case break your heart to look at.

Marcus Doyle Favourites

My Top Marcus Doyle Images (AT THE MOMENT)! Its probably no conincidence that most of these are in desert areas! I just love stuff like this!

Every one of these shots, I just want to be there. Odd really as they are all pretty barren! I want to be sitting in that chair on the bottom photo!!! I want that car to be my car and I've just travelled on that road only to run out of Gas! I want to be sitting in that Diner Contemplating life! I want to be a prisoner who has been transported in that plane who accidently killed a man. I want to be Placing one of those Flags on the fake Mars Surface only to be chased by the Government because I know too much!

I could go on! My interpretation of these photo's I'm sure will be different from everyone elses. You could have completely different stories than I have! But those are my stories, even the Artist Marcus will have his own for each shot! Beautiful work!

A Slow Recovery

I must be getting old! I'm still recovering from my Cowboy weekend away. I was told as soon as I went in my tent around 3.30am I started to snore like a pig. I was then up again at 7.30.

I remember when I was younger I could handle lack of sleep much better than I do now.

Never mind. Apologies for lack of much blog today. I will try and post more today.