Guest Gallery 5 - Mike Dales

[Admin]

http://www.releasephotogroup.org.uk/guest5.htm

Our newest guest gallery is now on the website.

[Saraswadi]

Golly - I had forgotten these!  Tom had asked me to provide these at the inception of this site - a long time ago now it seems! Some of them, but not all, have been used in club competitions. I would especially be interested in comments on the others.

Cheers
Mike

[Joe Tully]

Hi Mike

You do yourself a bit of a diservice calling yourself a "Jack of all Trades". Jack of all Trades you may well be but we all know the next line of that adage... the bit about being master of none, which obviously doesn't fit you if one is to judge by the quality of your gallery entries. Eight clean, crisp images in 2 or 3 different genres, all well observed and impeccably presented. Well done, there isn't even one of which it can be said that it did not engage me. I therefore deduce, by my own rules, that you are an artist and a craftsman and I can well understand how your talent has been rewarded with an ARPS.. Let's look at them one by one.........
 
"Hands"... There is a lovely simplicity and humour at work here. In all my visits to galleries, I have never seen anything quite like this. Wish I had. And oh for the gumption to lift the camera to my eye and capture it as you have done. They appear to be 2 left hands and if so one must assume that the oeners of said appendages are in pretty close proximity to one another around the corner. Just what is going on back there? Alas we will never know, which adds to the charm of the shot. Nothing much in shot to distract me from wondering about those hands too, which is a good thing. My thinking... 7 out of 10

"Bike and Horse"... Another humourous shot and again well observed and captured. Reminds me of the old football pundits crack about it being a game of 2 halves. Here we have a photo of 2 halves which is as we all know a recipe for disaster. The disaster has been skilfully avoided though by having the two halves unequal... ok so that's Oirish... but you will all know what I mean. Although there are 2 portions, there is unequal weight given to them,while at the same time they combine to tell the one story of two different modes of transport. Clever use of the photographic frame. 7.5/10

"Original Sin".... The picture my "Amen" intended to be. I really like this one with its beautiful blending and the obvious allusion to Adam and the fruit of knowledge. So what if the Bible doesn't actuall specify an apple, we all know the symbolism when we see it. Great colour harmony too. If I had to find one wee tiny fault it would be the same as applies to my "Amen" i.e. an actual human model might have served the idea better, but in the absence of such this is about as good as one could expect to get. 8.5/10

"Old pier and girl in Red"... What could have so easily been an ordinary run of the mill record shot is lifted to a different level simply by having that splash of red, and I like the curve of the blue pathway too. Nice one. 8/10

"Red Sails".... Another prime candidate for banality which has been lifted by astutre observanve and spot on timing. Take out that boat and there's pretty well nothing else left. Put it back in and voila! lovely shot. A sure sign of a photographer who knows his stuff. 7.5/10

"Mind the Gap".... Again, well seen and well grabbed. One second later and the action would have been all over. Reminds one of Cartier Bresson and his decisive moments. As much as I like it, I find it interesting that this was part of your ARPS panel. Obviously the Royal are somewhat more up to date with today's photography and its trends than they were 30 years ago when I was considering submitting a panel of my own. In the end, I never did, but they were a pretty stuffy old bunch back then. 7/10

"Follow the Green"..... For me this is probably the weakest shot in the pack and looks like a fairly standard record shot of the type one might shoot most days in Dublin's Temple Bar area..... except for the man in the background. What is he carrying, where has he some from and where is he going?
What is his name? What is his life like? He is almost anonymous in the frame but once spotted, raises all sorts of questions. 5.5/10

"The lonely Tuba"... Again, as above, my first inclination was to see this as another record type grab shot, but wait! What's going on here. Are these people listening to the music? I think not. Looks as if they may be listening to a tour guide or similar. If that be the case then it adds to the apparent "lostness" and loneliness of the man with the tuba, in which case the title might be "The Lonely Musician". Causes one to think about this poor guy and again it raises similar questions as the previous shot. 6.5/10

A fine thought provoking set. I thoroughly enjoyed them and I expect to derive even more form them as I revisit over the coming days. Thanks for sharing them.......

Joe

[Saraswadi]

Thanks Joe for your kind words and astute observations. I will comment on just two of the images for now:

HANDS - this was taken in the basement of the National Gallery in London, where the public loos are. I was with someone that day and we had both gone to use the facilities. I came out first however and was standing waiting and just visualised the shot. So, when she came out I asked her to go back in and curl her hands around the wall ... and 'SNAP!'.  I wasn't hoping for great things from it - it was just something quirky that occurred to me at the time.  The image has done reasonably well though in club competition. Oddly, I have tried to replicate it (hands around a tree, etc) but it never has quite the 'charm' of this first one. It's a picture I am rather fond of - almost a signature piece.

ORIGINAL SIN - this was one of my first serious attempts at layered images. The bust was from the British Museum, the wall behind (which is hard to see in this version) is from ancient Troy, and the apple was photographed in my back garden  The whole thing was overlaid with some wall textures, with the texture over the bust being painted out.  Of course the Bible mentions only fruit, but 'apple' is much more recognisable in the context of the title. I made the eyes of the bust dark and blank (eyes being the window of the soul and all that), and put a small splash of red in too as a symbol of violence. The reflection of the bust is important to me as it symbolises the 'shadow' we are when we are less than we can be. This too has done quite well in competitions and it prints up very well. It is also part of an ongoing collaborative project with a friend of mine (the owner of the 'Hands'!) to produce a book of images and meditations.

Once again, thanks for your constructive comments Joe
Cheers
Mike

[Saraswadi]

Some comments on 'Mind the Gap'.  This was a previsualised image.  I had noted the possibility of an image like this, but it wasn't easy to get: for a start, the train had to stop in the right place so the doors were in the correct position relative to the 'Mind the Gap' wording.  Then, I needed just one person to be alighting.  Finally, it was necessary that they alighted at an angle, so that their legs and feet didn't obscure the wording.  I think it took about two hours and eighty shots to get one that worked.  It is a good illustration that, sometimes, pictures have to be worked at.  By way of luck, there is a very slight 'gap' of about an inch between the man's shoe and the platform which, to me, adds to the meaning of the title. 

Cheers
Mike

[Joe Tully]

Hi there Mike

Thanks for that observation which serves to fill the scene in a bit further. Actually I was thinking, after my post on your Gallery, that this image reminded me somewhat of Cartier Bresson and his famous decisive moment shot of the man and the pool of water. You have caught that foot at just the right moment in time but I would never have guessed that you had put so much work into the making of the image. Fortunately we don't get too much hassle from the thought police over here, but I am surprised that you weren't arrested for taking "too many photographs" or for using your camera in a sensitive area. Seems as if photographers are all being branded as potential terrorists in some parts of the world right now. Maybe you shot this before the asylum got taken over by the inmates. Anyway thanks for the comments and well done again on a very interesting Gallery of stimulating images and now I am about to take a walk across Woodenbridge Golf Course in the beautiful Vale of Avoca. The sun is strong and just beginning to burn off the frost. Camera comes with me of course. Adios..........

Joe

[IAN]

Mike
I've been waiting for your gallery to go up and to see peoples reactions to it. I've known you for a fair while now and have got to know your work and AV productions which you are so adept at putting together.
Your photographic style is similar in some ways to other images we have seen on Release but still retain your own personality. You put a lot of thought and imagination into structure and form as we can see from Mind The Gap and Old Pier and Girl In Red for instance. I particuarly like the latter for it's simplistic arrangement of elements which have a very graphic design in many ways. Some might question having a girl walking out the picture and a mid way horizon but I still find the balance quite satisfying.
Mind The Gap is probably the most striking of your images, again because of the design and capturing that moment in time as has been alluded to. The strong diagonals make it very dynamic and are the backbone of strong compositional makeup. The colour palette is of course very harmonius, the red and yellow standing out so well.  The feet are wonderfully placed on the top right hand third..what a disaster had they been in the centre.
Red Sails is again very simple in structure and interesting that you should decide to keep in so much of the sea to the left. Perhaps that was to show how small one can be in such a large expanse of nothing and the solitude it conveys. I've tried a bit of masking on the screen and have come up with a vertical letterbox design which I find makes a strong abstract which loses all that negative space. Of course that's only a matter of choice and opinion. I shall revisit the rest at a later time.
Well done
Ian

[IAN]

I'll continue my musings with comments on a couple of more of Mike's images.
Firstly Hands which has a fairly amusing appeal depending upon what sort of mind you have and what you read into the image. The hands look as if they have been severed from a body and why are they tring to escape from a public lavatory, the entrance to which doesn't look as if it meets with Hand S requirements having a couch stuck in the way to which one could trip over in the hour of need.
Bike And Horse is one of those moment in time shots where you had the setting and just needed the right actor/actress to appear from the right direction into the gap. Oh how fortuitous things can turn out with patience. The image does have the split interest scenario but the two thirds one third ratio overcomes this, and you needed the story of old and new transport to help deliver the story. Would have liked to have seen the background blurred down a tad to give the foreground more emphasis but it's been captured at the right moment and would probably work well as a complete mono treatment.

Ian

[Saraswadi]

Thanks Ian for your comments and kind words.  You have it pretty spot on I think.

Both the Brighton images were taken on the same day and, indeed, within about 15 minutes of one another. I was with Tom (overbeyond) that day and the sea and sky really looked like that - the weather conditions were very weird.  We were photographing the old West Pier when the red-sailed boat appeared. Almost everyone who sees this picture wonders if I made the sails red - I didn't. They really were red (photographer's gift huh?).  I took a variety of shots, including this one of the boat "trapped" between the pier supports. I experimented quite a lot with how to crop it, but any vertical crop looked (to me) very cramped. I decided, in the end, to go for the negative space approach - it seemed to me that the open expanse contrasted somewhat with the way the boat seemed almost imprisoned. It's a picture, I think, that people either love or hate.

When we had finished shooting down at the water's edge, Tom and I walked up the slope to find somewhere for lunch. I turned around for a final look and saw the Girl in Red scene - I had the time to shoot just this one shot, so there was no time to get the girl in any position other than the one you see here. Yes, it breaks a few rules, but I agree that the different elements fit together pretty well.

Three of the shots on the panel are from Riga, in Latvia. The bike and horse one always bothered me .. to my mind there is too much horse, and not enough bike. This was at an outdoor photography exhibition (and some marvellous stuff there was too!). As I was with my family I only had a short time - I went back by myself the following day only to discover that the exhibition had been dismantled. Otherwise I would have almost certainly hung around to get a better variation and also to exploit the other images being displayed. I do, however, have a version which is cropped somewhat on the left, which makes it more 60:40 than 75:25.

Once again, many thanks
Mike

[Overbeyond]

Mike has presented a lovely gallery of varied images here.
Hands is as odd as two left feet and therein lies it's success. I have a real soft spot for the Tuba and his positioning is perfect and my heart just goes out to him as he is ignored by the tourists.
The composition of Old Pier ... is great with all it's various fixtures, and each one an asset.  The girl or the derelict pier can have turns at being the main subject here. I like that the girl choose the 'blue route' and not the pathway beside her. The tall lamp post, which fills the empty sky area so well, and the sliced stones play great bit parts too.
The simplicity and minimism of Red Sail works so well and the eroded textures and colours of the columns coming over a treat. The positioning in the frame of the columns and boat is the pictures main strength and leaving the water in the foreground with loads more all round has done the trick. Filling a vertical frame with the columns would have been a bit obvious, but tempting, and I'm so glad you did not do it.
Follow The Green I feel has not reached it's potential. The idea is well in place but when I do follow the green I am disappointed in where it takes me. The man delivering the water bottles is not strong enough (what would have been wrong with Guinness lorry making the delivery) and one wonders if you had the opportunity to hang around a bit longer maybe something far more interesting might have materialised.
Original Sin is inventive but I wonder would it be even more so if the reflection of the head was not in the image. Perhaps Mike has made a point of having it there? The other two images in the Gallery (Mind The Gap and Bike and Horse) are excellent and have been very skillfully captured.

[Glenn Rossiter]

Mike.
Just catching up on your wonderful gallery. Another "Quirky" photographer added to the RPG group..... love it !!. I'm again particularly impressed by the use of space in your images as evident in the "Red sails" and "hands" shots. your London underground portfolio must be a joy to look at if the shot of "Mind your step" is an indication. Well done. Your obvious experience comes through loud and clear, and I was pleased to see you were assisted by your Camera Club, always a source of inspiration.
Many Thanks ... Glenn Rossiter.

[Saraswadi]

Thanks Tom and Glenn - much appreciated.

The reflection in the Orginal Sin one was conceived as part of the image - all to do with humanity (or our own life) sometimes being only a reflection of what it could or should be.

With Follow the Green, I waited a fair old time to get that guy! It was a very quiet little side street - the occasional pedestrial and that's it. The water bottle man was likely to be as good as it gets, I'm afraid. Someone in a green sweater or coat would have been nice, but alas .... !!

Glenn thanks too - I am not sure I 'consciously' use space very often (Red Sails was probably an exception). It is something I should work on I think, as it can be very effective.

Cheers
Mike

[Martin]

Hi Mike,

Sorry to be so late coming in on your panel but life has been a bit
fraught recently with one thing and another!!

Anyway, you have had lots of comments already so some brief ones on
some of your images:
Bike and Home.  A think this is quite a bit of fun and I like the quirky relationship
between the old and the new.  I've seen this show on the South Bank and
have often thought how interesting to catch something similar.  However, you
got there first!!
Mind the Gap.  For me this is your strongest image in the panel.  I like the strong
triangular shape, the sense of movement and the graphic simplicity.  A real
example of "less is more" which is so often the case in photography.
Lonely Tuba.  Yes I get the idea but I feel the whole scene is too far away
from the viewer.  I keep on wanting to frame in closer to the edge of the
crowd and the lonely player.  I think this would have been stronger.
Hands   A good, simple, effective image with some humour.  I particularly
like the toilet door signs.

Many thanks for the panel.  It would be great, now, to hear your comments
on other panels as I always enjoy your views when I hear you judging.  We have
a new Image of the Month about to appear plus new panels coming shortly
out of the Release visit to East Anglia.

Martin the Medieval