Leica M Monochrom - first outing in Kingley Vale

Into the woods

Ever since my photographic style turned away from colour and into black and white, I have been curious to know more about a camera which only takes monochrome images - that camera is the Leica M Monochrom and was announced in May 2012. Ever since its release I have read numerous reviews and downloaded some DNG files just to see what all the fuss was about.

As my appreciation for black and white photography has grown, together with my knowledge of this particular art form, my understanding of the Monochrom and what it might offer has also expanded. So earlier this year I went up to the Leica Akademie in Mayfair for a 'test drive' of both the M240 and the M Mononchrom. You can read about my experience and first thoughts here.


After many weeks of agonising; should I or shouldn't I?…..my mind was made up when I came across a second hand Monochrom in virtually mint condition being sold by Red Dot Cameras, a specialist Leica dealer situated in Old Street, London. It only had 1,100 actuations and the saving in cost over a new one was quite considerable. I travelled up to the City and returned later in the day with the camera and two lenses - a Leica 50mm Summilux f1.4 ASPH - M (6 bit) and a 28mm Elmarit F2.8 ASPH (6 bit). I also bought a spare battery and a second hand 'Thumbs Up' grip which already had a lovely patina.

Having read so much about the M Monochrom I am already aware that this rangefinder camera and its manual focus lenses will take time to master, but with patience and much practice, coupled with my desire to improve my photography, the learning experience should prove worthwhile. Only time will tell.

I took a few test shots in and around the house but last weekend I finally had the opportunity to go out with the camera to see how I would get on. The late afternoon light was excellent so I drove to Kingley Vale Nature Reserve which forms part of the South Downs National Park.

I decided to restrict myself to the use of just one lens - the 50mm Summilux. I did though take a 3 stop ND filter, which would allow me to shoot wide open in the bright light. I also set the exposure compensation to -2/3rds, in the hope that this would prevent any blown highlights, particularly given the lighting conditions.

Here are a selection of the images taken that afternoon. They have all been processed in Lightroom 5 and some have been further worked in Silver Efex Pro2. They may not be the best shots I have ever taken but for a first try I am delighted with the results. Already I am convinced my decision to buy the Leica M Monochrom was the right one. I just ask myself why I took so long to make up my mind?

Light on the crop

Fence post

Evening sun

Summer grasses

Trunk and ivy

Woodland path

This is definitely not a review but I will just say that the files it produces are astounding in their detail and tonality. They are very malleable in post processing and  I guess are everything I expected them to be from all the reviews I had read, only more so.

The Leica M Monochrom is a very niche and specialist camera - and my photographic journey in black and white continues!

Rich photo opportunities in London's museums and galleries

Tate Arches - Tate Britain

We are very fortunate in this country that many of the best museums and galleries in London do not charge an entry fee, although they do usually request a donation. Not only do they contain some wonderful exhibits, the buildings themselves offer some great photographic opportunities. In fact I enjoy visiting and exploring these institutions for this very reason. Some time ago I went to the Natural History Museum to see the Genesis Exhibition by Sebastiao Salgado and I wrote about the photos taken here.

More recently I have visited Tate Britain, the British Museum and the Saatchi Gallery to see what material there might be for some photography. Each building is very different, but all three had a number of architectural features which inspired me to take some images.

All of these visitor attractions allow photographs to be taken, although the use of a tripod would I think be prohibited, so all my shots were handheld.

Tate Britain

The Manton Staircase

Light on the Stairs

Spiral staircase

The Corridor

The British Museum

Great Court - a contrast of old and new

Staircase

Leading somewhere?

Ionic column

The Saatchi Gallery

Inside - Outside

Regarding the building itself, I found less to photograph here, but I was able to capture a few interesting people shots.

Just Looking

Art movement

Girl in the gallery

Rich pickings as far as I am concerned and definitely worth a return visit at some point in the future.   It also makes me wonder what opportunities might be in store at many other museums and galleries across the capital city of London.

My first commission - The finished result

This is the last entry describing my first ever photographic commission. It would have been posted much sooner, as I wanted to include some images of the framed photographs in their final resting place i.e. - hanging on the walls in the offices of Vail Williams, but lack of time and other commitments have prevented me from making a trip to North Harbour. Another day perhaps and an excuse for another blog entry. For the time being I have put together this composite of all ten photographs.

The Stern

The last stage in the process of this commission was not without its challenges. As far as I was concerned every one of the A2 size prints had to be printed perfectly. No blemishes, no banding, just perfect results. My Epson 3880 performed extremely well but on a few occasions the print quality was not to my satisfaction and when this happened, in the bin it went, and another one was printed.

Printing the images with an Epson 3880

Mounting each image proved fairly straightforward. I had recently bought a new mount cutter by Longridge which would cope more easily with the size of board and opening I would be cutting. I had already calculated the size of the finished print so that I could cut each mount board identically to fit the black frames which I had purchased beforehand. Using archival 'acid free' tape I made 'T' hinges to fix the print to the mount board. I then used 'acid free' double sided tape to fix backing board to the mount board to keep the print flat and ensure a good fit inside the frame.

The Longridge mount cutter made easy work of this stage in the process

Perhaps the hardest task was placing the mounted photograph inside the frame. This task should be the easiest of all, but there were countless times when dust or some other tiny fragment would get trapped between the clear perspex and the board or the photograph itself. I simply can't ignore it when this happens so I remove the print, clean the perspex and start again. I got there eventually but it can be most frustrating!

Commission completed - The stack of ten A2 photographs

My work finished I invited Ian Froome round to check that he was happy with the results. He was, so out came the bubble wrap and each of the ten framed photographs was packaged and stacked carefully in his car.

Inside Lakeside

A few days later Ian contacted me to let me know that the 'North Harbour handyman' had hung each picture and the commission was well and truly completed. I received payment for my expenses and as agreed at the outset Vail Williams made a generous donation towards The St Peter Project.

Spinnaker Tower

I thoroughly enjoyed my first commission, from agreeing the brief, to taking the images, making up a short list, processing them and finally making them ready for display. It did take a lot of time but I learnt a great deal in the process, and I would happily take on another commission given the opportunity.

The first entry - Agreeing the brief can be found here.

The second entry - Taking the photographs can be found here.

The third entry - Processing and selection can be found here.

My first commission - Processing and selection

This is the third entry in my series charting the progress and experiences of undertaking my first photographic commission.

In the previous entry I wrote about the photo shoot and the locations I visited. Back home, I swiftly downloaded all the shots into Lightroom and backed them up. I wanted to make sure nothing was lost before deleting the files from the SD Cards. In total I had taken 417 exposures and I needed to get this number down to about 30 or so images from which Vail Williams would hopefully choose about 8 for framing and display in their offices at Lakeside.

Old and New Portsmouth

As I had never undertaken a commission before, trying to decide which images to process and then include in the shortlist, was always going to be a problem. It's easy of course to remove those which are technically flawed, of which there were a number, although not that many. This was not so much down to me but the technical functionality of the Olympus EM1.

Lakeside, North Harbour

Other shots simply didn't work whether for compositional reasons, subject matter, wrong angle of view and so on. Others in my view really had merit and were worthy in my opinion of being included in the final selection to put forward. Inevitably I guess I was drawn to images that I liked but which also fulfilled the brief set by the client. However I was very conscious of the fact that for the first time I was creating a set of photographs not for me but for someone else; in fact a group of people who might have very different ideas as to what they would want and actually pay for!

Processing the images 

Over a period of a couple of weeks, I made my selection and processed all the images in a consistent fashion ready to show Ian Froome, who would then share them with other members of his team. I took a lot of care during the processing to make sure there were no blemishes or sensor spots. I wanted to ensure that all the images were print ready. Given that they were going to be printed on A2 paper, any marks or imperfections would be magnified and more likely to be noticed.

Sunsail 4022

For the presentation I decided to prepare them in three different ways. Firstly I produced a MP4 slideshow which is relatively easy to do in Lightroom. I put them in an order which I considered appropriate and transferred the slideshow onto a disk which I could give to Ian. Using small file sizes I also copied the individual images on to the disk as well, so they actually had thumbnails of each one if they needed to easily share these around the office. Lastly I printed a contact sheet onto the photographic paper I would be using for the finished prints, namely Ilford Galerie Gold Mono Silk. This paper in my opinion produces some great black and white results although unfortunately the factory in Switzerland producing the paper, Ilford Imaging, went into liquidation at the end of 2013 so the paper is no longer available. Fortunately I had a good stock of A2 size paper to complete the commission.

Gosport Tower

I invited Ian round to my home to see the images and take away the disk and the contact sheet. He seemed suitably impressed but I would have to wait for his confirmation that he and his team liked the photographs sufficiently to want to hang them in their offices. I took nothing for granted, as I did not want to assume they would want any of the 26 photographs in the selection I had provided.

A week or so later and great news. Ian contacted me and they had chosen not just 8 photographs but 10 images. I was delighted but it soon dawned on me that I now had to print, mount and frame all these photographs. This will be the subject of my next and final entry on this topic.

The first entry in this short series can be found here, and the second entry here.

Songs from the Musicals with Budd & Saunders

A charitable concert was staged at our local church in Fishbourne last week, featuring Budd and Saunders who are a very talented musical duet. Kenton Budd sang the vocals and Nic Saunders accompanied him on the electric piano, whilst also performing some solo keyboard works for the first time, all inspired by the Weald and Downland Museum which lies in the small village of Singleton, just north of Chichester.

They principally performed well known songs from famous stage Musicals both past and present. The acoustics in the church were superb and the late evening summer sun shone through the leaded light windows. It acted like a floodlight on Kenton as he sang with passion and feeling for the story being told by the lyrics.

I was using my trusted Olympus EM1 and 75mm f1.8 lens. Shooting mainly at f2 at ISO 2000, this gave me enough speed to freeze the action and capture some sharp images. I used Lightroom for some basic processing before converting to black and white in Silver Efx Pro2 starting with the Fine Art preset.

An excellent creative evening both musically and from my point of view, photographically speaking as well.

My first commission - Taking the photographs

This is the second entry in a short series about my first ever commission. The first entry 'Agreeing the brief', can be found here.

Having talked through the brief and worked out a time scale for the commission, the next stage was to get out with my camera and take some shots. This proved rather more difficult than I anticipated. The weather in the early part of the year can only be described as atrocious. Heavy and frequent rain, coupled with high winds are not ideal conditions for taking photographs and certainly not the ones which would conform to the brief we had agreed. Whenever I had spare time, the weather seemed to be against me, so the weeks passed by and no shots ad been taken. The time scale was looking increasingly unrealistic but finally the forecast appeared a little more promising and I set a day aside to visit Portsmouth and the various locations listed in the brief - Gunwharf Quay, Old Portsmouth, Port Solent and their offices at Lakeside at North Harbour. A lot to fit in and I knew another visit to some of these locations might be necessary.

Bow in reflection - Port Solent

First stop - Port Solent. The idea here was to capture some more abstract images of the sailing boats in the harbour together with their reflections in the water. I must have spent an hour at this location before deciding that I had enough images to work with back at home.  A short detour and I drove down to the harbour and looked across the water to Porchester. There was a good view from here and the clouds were interesting, so more shutter releases were made.

Towards Porchester

Next stop and I thought I would visit the location of Vail Williams offices at Lakeside at North Harbour. I had been told I would need permission to take any photographs, so this quick stop was to explore what opportunities there might be for another day.

Office Grater - Lakeside, North Harbour

After Lakeside I made my way to Old Portsmouth. It was late morning, the weather still good and although I had visited this part of the city before I was unsure what subjects I might want to photograph, even though I had done some research at home using Google Maps. The area proved to be quite fruitful and I was happy with some of the shots I had taken.

Old Portsmouth

A short break for lunch and instead of taking the car, out of the boot came my Brompton folding bike and I cycled round to Gunwharf Quay. Having the bike really enabled me to move around so much more quickly than I could have done on foot. I knew Gunwharf quite well and had taken photographs at this location before, so I pretty much knew what I wanted to try and achieve.

No 1, Gunwharf Quay

By now it was getting fairly late in the day but I had one more place to go to - Gosport, not that I wanted to take photographs of Gosport itself but I was very aware that the views from here across Portsmouth Harbour and towards Gunwharf itself were well worth taking. I had left this location until the end of the day, because the setting sun would be behind me and hopefully the light would be right to illuminate the buildings across the water including of course Spinnaker Tower. I was very fortunate the light could not have been better.

The sun finally set and the last images of the day had been captured. I was tired but satisfied with my days work so I headed home, keen to transfer the files from the SD card onto my iMac and get them backed up.

It had been a very fulfilling day. The research I had done beforehand had been well worthwhile and the weather on the day could not have been better. Blue skies with good clouds and plenty of light to create some contrasty black and white images.

A few days later I made arrangements to meet up with Ian Froome of Vail Williams at Lakeside. It gave me the chance to see round their offices as well as having the required permission to take internal and external shots of the office complex, which was home to many businesses large and small. There were plenty of opportunities here for some quite graphic architectural photography and I enjoyed looking for different angles and reflective surfaces.

The task of taking photographs nearly complete, the next stage would be to process a selection of images for the client to see. This will be the topic of next entry.

My first commission - Agreeing the brief

Towards Gunwharf

This is the first in a short series describing my first ever commission. I will illustrate these entries with some of the photographs chosen by the client, as well as a selection which didn't make their final short list but I thought were worth including.

This all started back in December, but I only successfully completed the commission a couple of months ago. Now the project is well and truly complete, I feel comfortable sharing the experience.

It was just before Christmas when I displayed some of my photographs on a stand at a local Christmas Fayre in aid of The St Peter Project. I was very pleased to sell a couple of my framed prints and quite a number of people said how much they enjoyed looking at my work. As I was about to pack everything away, one particular person approached me and he told me that earlier last year his firm had moved offices but the walls were looking rather blank. His name was Ian Froome and he asked me if I would be willing to take some photographs, mount and frame them ready for hanging in their hall and meeting room. I was rather taken aback and explained that whilst I had sold a few of my photographs I had never undertaken any sort of commission work. Of course I was interested and we agreed to meet in the New Year to discuss a possible brief and to establish some sort of budget.

Sunsail 4010

We got together in January and he showed me a plan of their offices and a few internal photographs so that  I could get an idea of what might be required. The offices were typically modern and large (A2 size) monochrome photographs would look excellent. We both thought that eight framed images would be sufficient but what subjects did they want and how much should I charge?

Fortunately Ian already had a clear idea of what he and his staff thought they might like and he had agreed a budget with his Finance Partner. I made it clear that I did not wish to make a profit so providing they covered my expenses for materials etc, the difference could be paid to The St Peter Project by way of a donation. He was very happy with this arrangement and we went on to discuss in more detail the type of images he felt would suit the offices.

1000 Lakeside

Perhaps at this stage I should say that the company concerned is Vail Williams a firm of commercial property agents and their offices are at Lakeside, North Harbour in Portsmouth. The town of Portsmouth has a variety of architecture as well as two attractive harbours, one at Port Solent the other at Gunwharf Quays. In addition to capturing something of the area, he was also keen we had some images of the offices where they are based. Some abstract work would also be considered. We looked at examples of my work on my iPad and he pointed out ones that he liked and ones he didn't. This helped to give me an idea of might appeal but perhaps more importantly what wouldn't!

Lakeside Rooflight

Given we were in the middle of winter coupled with the fact that I do not take photographs professionally, I was keen to agree a generous time scale. I said that I would hope to have a selection of images for him to look at in 6 to 8 weeks, or in other words by the early part of March.

Last but not least, and never having been asked to do this type of work before, I made it quite clear that should his team of staff not like any of the photographs, he should not feel compelled to have them and obviously I would not make any charge. I explained that I love being out and about taking photographs anyway, so I would still enjoy the taking if not the making.

In my next entry I will write about the photographs themselves. The link for this entry is here.