These are a couple of shots I took at Cannock Chase on Monday 26th September, the sun was very bright so it wasn’t really ideal for what I wanted to achieve but I still got some interesting images. I think I’m more drawn towards the images that are not necessarily landscape ones, such as the close up of the grass.

I was using the IR filter again on my fixed 24mm Nikon lens. I haven’t really spent a lot of time at this part of the chase, I call it the heather fields (no idea what it’s real name is) and as such I was just wondering around up here for 2 hours.

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There’s nothing really amazing about these photos but I’m just playing and getting use to using my camera again. Using the blog as a sketchbook as such.

I’m just including the before and after shot of what it’s like when the IR photo comes into photoshop. It’s a mass of red that needs to be converted to black and white. As you can see in this photo it’s quite underexposed but a bit of playing with levels and curves and it can turn out ok. If I could master the exposure of the IR pictures it would be alot easier but most of the time I’m guessing at exposures of 1 minute or longer trying to see what comes out ok on the camera by checking the histogram.

So I got talking to a chap, John Simpson, whom I work with who is an artist and he has suggested we put on an exhibition together as I was inquiring about a gallery in Lemington. I was a little hesitant at first but I think I’m going to do it. I haven’t really made much new work in quite a while and it would be a kick up the backside to get me making something.

For the past few weeks I’ve been trying to think what would make a good exhibition and not really came up with many ideas but after playing around with my infra red filter again I think something sparked off in my head.

© Gareth Partington

It would be a quite a somber mood to my theme if I decide to do a new body of work something to do with the fragility of time.

I think it started with a picture I took when on holiday of three little girls stood on a rock as the tide came in down on White Sands Beach in South Wales. They appeared like ghosts and due to the long exposure of the picture the sea became a blur of movement. It was a moment in time captured and showed that nothing was permeant and or forever.

© Gareth Partington

I have this picture now on my wall in my bedroom and looking at it as I was pondering for ideas it’s the only picture that got me inspired again, well the only picture I had made that inspired me a little.

So far I have a couple of little ideas for directions I could move in for some new images, so I just need to make them. I am going to get myself a 10 stop ND filter so I could experiment with very long exposures in colour and see how they come out. Thing is these filters are very expensive, I’m just waiting to see if a seller on ebay in Japan will accept my silly low price I offered for one. If not then I’m going to have to take the plunge and spend the £120 or so pounds on one

It’s typical I wanted to go out and try some ideas today but it’s turned into a beautiful sunny blue skied day, not suitable for my moody somber pictures.

If any one does read these things keep your eyes peeled for new work. It may happen one day from the lazy pretend artist Gareth Partington

I’ve finally made a new picture for the first time in ages, a dark horrible picture the thing I tend to get told I’m ok at doing. This is a self portrait I had the idea for a while ago, its not the greatest picture I’ve ever made and I think it could be a lot better but my ideas are bit a grand for what I can actually do I think, but aim high and one day I’ll pull them off.

There’s lots of metaphors for things that have gone on in my life recently so you can read lots into if you like or you can just think errrr what the f*** is that? I have included a little video at the bottom showing some of the stages in Photoshop. There’s lots of photo editing but also quite a bit of digital painting trying to blend all the bits together.

© Gareth Partington

It all looks so easy in the video just stick a few pipes on and your done, but I had to photograph the pipe which was in fact the hose off the shower, cut it out, work out how to position it, blend it, add all the other stuff, convert it to black and white,  make sure the background was perfectly black ect I almost gave up on it as it wasn’t going as I hoped  but thought I’d persevere as I’d not made anything in ages.

I’ve just had my second front cover published for Morpheus Tales, it’s been a while since I looked at this image but quite happy looking back at it.

© Gareth Partington

I had the email from the editor around October asking if I would be interested and naturally I jumped at the chance. I had so many ideas but I was very lazy at actually producing the work.The deadline was 1st January and I think I was working on this on December 30th till about 1am. All illustrators and photographers take note this is not a good way to work!

The final cover ended up starring my friend Jon Randle as some mad, crazy serial killer. The editing of the photo was quite easy but I was left with a blank background. I spent ages trying different ideas out till I decided to make it look as though you were looking through a spy hole in a front door. Just behind the rather handsome chap you can see the house across the road. If you look carefully the window is covered in blood and a trail of blood has followed our nutter towards the door of the next hapless victim.

Check out Morpheus Tales on the below links. I’ve got another illustration and the Christmas Special front cover coming up too for them.

Morpheus Tales Website

Morpheus Tales Magazine Purchase

My freind Catherine Makin is a fashion student at Coventry University and said she had to create an advert for an anti fur campaign and needed to do a photo shoot. Seems as I haven’t done any photos in a very long time I asked if I could help out.

The shoot turned out to be good fun, I forgot a lot of stuff when setting up the studio and was working with two brollies and my own little flash guns. We weren’t allowed to have too much equipment as we were not photography students which was fair enough but I really need to polish up on my studio skills again.

These are the final pictures I edited for no other reason then I wanted to have a play around in Photoshop. I got a bit too in to this and spent probably about 4-5 hours editing these. Nothing too fancy or dark but I quite like them. Shame no one is marking my work I think I should get an A star for effort.

I was trying to think of something to add to the images in terms of the label and ended up creating a logo and slogan based on the fair trade company. The black and white picture is my favorite as well as the blooded legs, nothing to do with fur that one but I just like it.