It’s a bit of a sodden day at the Bournemouth Food and Drink Festival.  With an eclectic collection of restaurants, varied music, and cooking demos, its always been one of my favorites. But this was not the festival’s best year, the weather  and the economy have left it feeling shrunken and besieged.

The nicest bit was a nearby art exhibition that featured watercolours and oils by local artists.  I still aspire to creating credible pen-and-wash landscapes or charcoal life drawings, and enjoy looking at the compositional and stylistic variations. 

I recently Attended a discussion of how Photography evolves with practice.  The people who come from an artistic background tend to grow differently, and have passion for different things, than the people coming at it from a technical perspective.  Wither way, one ahs to become adept with the tool and to learn technique from mentors and structured practice and critique.  But someone studies art thinks about composition and light much differently from someone who studies technology, thinking in term of ratios and meters.

Oddly, even though I am a technologist, I come at photography from my art background.  I have taken drawing and painting classes, read widely and attended lectures, keep my Tate membership up.  I still am working through the technical course on apertures and depth of Field, so the advanced controls on my camera are till to be discovered.

But I look at a lot of pictures, thinking about why one is appealing for contrast and balance, or how another captures the energy of its subject.  And I take those ideas back out  to the field as rehearsal, and try to make better photographs myself.  So, a trip to a gallery informs how I think about taking pictures, and inspires me to try different techniques.