 How's it? How's it guys? Light is at the cornerstone of photography. It's literally in the name itself. And how would you use light to make fantastic photographs? Well, today we're going to see some examples of photographers who have used light absolutely beautifully, sometimes very obviously, and sometimes very subtly to make gorgeous photographs. And I know that you are going to love and get so much inspiration from from your own images. To find these photographers, we are turning once again to Frames Magazine. And the first guy we have is Tatsu Suzuki. And he's got these very interesting black and white images from Tokyo around sort of the 2020s. And we know what was going on. Then I don't need to mention it because we've had some run ins with YouTube and their odd ways of age restricting content recently. So we'll leave that we'll push that to one side. Right. But first off the bat, we've got this very interesting photograph here, which at the face of it, it's not much. It's some people walking across the sidewalk. And then as your eye kind of goes around, you realize there's somebody looking back at you. But it's not one of the people outside. It's like a person who's behind you. This reflection. And they're saying here portraits through the telephone box that is coming out. See, I love this kind of thing. When you are presenting an image that's a fairly standard scene, but then there's something otherworldly in that I'll use the word otherworldly that is about reflections about the distortion of light. Think about how you can employ these things in your own photography to play with the viewer's perception. And you see a similar sort of thing here that in this image, it says lady waiting for the train to pass a railroad crossing that there seems to be some water either on the lens or a window that he's photographing through. And and once again it's light playing through the water drops and stuff that takes the image and just makes it something a little bit more. It's by no means the world's most amazing photograph, but it's an example of how you can play with light and and the things that are around you that often we kind of just sort of dismiss. And then in a complete change of pace, it's got this portrait, which is, you know, somebody with it looks like a tumbler or glass, you know, over their face. And it reminds me a lot actually, strange enough of the kind of the work of, you know, so stikin' and then sort of the hurl, for some weird reason, I don't know why George Hurl is this kind of thing. But it's all again about these kind of shadows and how they're distorted when you put light through things. I would really encourage you, this is this is a simple setup that anybody can try and can play with. I come a bit closer to home now. We've got Rita Long and she has these collections of flowers that she has, I think, sort of pressed and put them into, you know, booklets or tissue paper or something that she's photographed them with the light coming from behind in certain cases, all this front. And they end up these kind of very interesting minimalist sort of shots that have a very fragile quality to them, probably maybe because it's, you know, the image itself or what have, you know, the subject. But I look through this and I think about the way that it would be quite easy just to, I think, you know, photograph these with more of a traditional lighting setup, you know, here's the lighting that falls on us. But when you start creating this called vaguely unnatural looking images or unnatural lighting looking images, you can start, again, taking something that most of us just discard and forget about all the time and start seeing it in a completely different way. I mean, you know, these are not particularly the sort of thing that I am drawn towards in photography. But I think if you were looking to, you know, to have prints that you could sell of your work of things that, you know, people would want to put up on the wall. This is 100%. The sort of work, I think that, you know, a lot of people would be drawn towards and be quite happy to put up on the wall. Nobody's going to buy a portrait of somebody they don't know. Very few people are going to buy a street scene, right? But a load of people would buy this. And that is not saying it's commercial and it's like that. It is, it's beautiful work. It's not, as I said, it's not quite my taste. But I could see this up on my wall right there. I think my wife would love to have someone like this. So Rita, if you're listening, let's just see what, see what comes of that. As I was flicking through this book, I was struck by this image here. This is called Tattoo by a photographer called Ian Howarth. And the colors on this and the setup and so are just absolutely beautiful. I love this picture. Now this is the kind of thing that I would put on the wall, right? It is a simple setup. It's dark. It's primary colors. It's interesting because it is the sort of thing that hundreds of people would have walked past that very day and totally and utterly ignored. That's beautiful. I love that. That is so wonderful. And as you continue looking through Ian's photography, there's a real mix, you know, the next picture we have, I think, called Suspended Play, which reminds me a little bit more of kind of Steven Shaw and the lighting. So it's sort of, it's way over to the other side. You know, that lighting has gone from being very punchy, very contrasty to this kind of washed out sort of feel, which is fine because that suits the mood of this picture. And that's an important aspect with light. When you think about it is how it feels and fits with the mood of the place. Sometimes it can be totally at odds with the mood of the place. Imagine this picture with, you know, lightning and thunder and stuff like that, you know, dark rain clouds, it would be a very different image. But, you know, it's so often, I think, dismiss or not pay enough attention to certainly what are sometimes challenging light conditions. There's a photograph here called Chair Men, which I think is gorgeous. Now, there's a couple of reasons why I think it's gorgeous. Firstly, it's a very quiet photograph. It's very still. It also reminds me of the youth centre where my granddad back in the 70s used to go and help out and stuff like that. So it makes me feel slightly nostalgic. And there's so many actions at play with this that I just, I love. And I also think it's great that rather than, you know, thinking, oh, I can't get all the folks, you know, the exposure to be even across the board, which is often, you know, what we get told these days, he's chosen to expose this beam of light, which makes the image, I think, far more... That's what's really making this image. There's an interview here with a photographer called Robert Clark. And again, as I was flicking through, I saw a couple of images. There's this very famous church in Iceland, I believe. Yes, the White Church in Vic Iceland. And S, if you've seen this church in your travels to Iceland, let me know in the comments below. Anyway, so he's talking about, you know, light. There's that theme coming through in this magazine of light. And his inspiration or his mentor originally taught him how to see light by breaking down scenes, by breaking down images and going, look, what's going on with this and what's going on with that, and meeting different scenes and what have you, and getting an idea for how light is interacting with everything around. And those basics, I think, you know, are what separate really competent photographers from the ones who kind of, I think, you know, spend their entire careers overly reliant on equipment to make decisions for them. Now, that feels like it may be a bit controversial by saying that that's what separates competent photographers from incompetent things. Of course, that's not the case at all. This is me making a snap judgment on the things. And, you know, everybody approaches photography in their own way. I like to be in control of the things that I'm doing. And some people are more interested in just the act of taking a photograph. And, you know, when I, when I read something like this, where, you know, where a photographer is sharing a common idea that I kind of resonate with, that's when I go, do you know, yes, yes, yes, yes, man, why is this not, everybody should know this. And everybody should, but not everybody's going to. So, you know, so when we look at that, you know, when you look through these photographs against some of them, they're not like, wow, photographs, but they all do have, I think, a mastery of the light, the light itself, it is treated right, it's treated sympathetically and used to its advantage. And I would highly recommend that when you go through and you look at photographs, that you learn to dissect them, that you learn to think, why did this work? Why did this photograph land where maybe one that you took recently didn't? It's such an important skill to be able to pick up a magazine, to, you know, go through photographs and often, you know, there could be something as simple as this one we looked at earlier and go, okay, well, this is how they've done this in the lights from here in X, Y and Z things. And having that ability, you know, again, once with the keepsakes to say, okay, well, she's, she's squashed them down, she's lit them from behind, she does all these things. The more that you know about how other people create the images that you enjoy seeing, then the more visually literate you become in your own endeavors, that it opens doors and keys for you to create images. And that's why I want you to, you know, to take the moments to, you know, Frames has a website that you can go and visit, I think they have like an online digital membership as well. And just enjoy looking at these beautiful photographs that people are submitting that they are sharing with the world. And, you know, work towards maybe putting together a sample of images, submitting them to a magazine to say, look, you know, would you be interested in showing my work or even just at a gallery? I've been super remiss how bad I mean, Naughty Alex, because right at the back here in the magazine, there is hiding a photographer called Roger Guetta, who I get the impression from reading through his, his piece here that the majority of the work here is, you know, physical manipulation. And he says not so much Photoshop, but in his words here, editing exclusively utilizing a garden of applications created for the iPhone and the iPad. I love that garden of applications. Well, whatever he does, these photographs, these images, I think are gorgeous. They're an example, certainly some of them, of how you can use manipulation, how you can use editing tools or processing tools, image tools to create work that doesn't feel like it's digital editing. I think we're still in this world where some digital editing is, I think to be charitable, hamfisted, and it looks cuck, right? But then there's other work that is using the same techniques using all this sort of things, but it's done with a level of competency that sort of makes it look really, really great. And this particular image here, reverse psychology, it's, you know, it's not post the childhood digital imaging at all, but I love it. It's so, it reminds me of Bill Brandt's image of Francis Bacon. I think it is for some reason. Again, it might be that strong line down the middle, but it's just something beautiful. He calls himself an interpretographer. Get close to it. Get intimate with physical photography and see how different it feels to being just in front of a screen the whole time. Now, early at the beginning of the video, I mentioned Steve McCurry, right? He's a great photographer. This is the video here. Go check it out. Wallo in the color that he has there and just simply enjoy. Thank you ever so much for watching and I will see you again soon.