An evening walk

With spare time to enjoy before lessons today, I took a stroll with the camera around Lightwoods. The mist was hovering thickly just above the ground, and the moon brightened as the sky darkened - just an atmospheric British late autumn walk. Reminded me of why I love this time of year!

Please click the photos to view on black.

Russian Fine Art Photography

A few weeks ago we discovered the work of some very wonderful Russian fine - art photographers, who shoot in a very natural yet somehow quite formal style that is rarely seen in "western" photographers in our experience. In particular we were drawn to the child photography we saw. It encompassed the innocence of childhood but without straying into all-to-easy saccharine portrayals - often the Russian photographers used very earthy, warm tones rather than the overly-bright, even garish, colours found in some similar work from the UK and America. There is something about many of the work of these photographers which seems to offer more than "just a pretty face" - the children's sense of individuality is portrayed very well; they are shown to have a much wider range of feelings than we normally see.

  

Ellie remembered a set of photos she had taken some time ago with a girl named Sascha and was inspired to revisit the work in light of what we'd found; here is the finished piece. I think it's wonderful and I'm very proud that it's a new piece in our fine art portfolio! We'll definitely be paying more attention to this very meaningful avenue of our field in the future.

Beach

This shoot has a lot of lovely memories for me. Ellie and I had a really clear idea of a shot on a beach with the model walking away from the camera and a beautiful calm sea and sun. Ellie had a lovely white lacy dress that seemed perfect, so we went off to a beach I know to be extremely photogenic to put our vision into action.

The day was spent rather blissfully in Barmouth, north Wales, playing on the beach. Towards the end of the day when the sun was going down, we began to take some shots, and as we did the scene just kept getting more peaceful; the sea-birds were calling in their high voices and the sun began to rake across the sea and beach. Warm colours in the sky and a breeze.

We soon got this shot, and though we kept experimenting I think we both knew which one we wanted. I love it because it expresses something about Ellie that I love; her inquisitiveness, sense of freedom and her amazing openness. I think it also expresses that feeling of limitless potential so readily found on a fine day with sea and mountains... we’re both really proud of it.

David

Horse

Ever since I was a small boy I’ve been fascinated by the mysterious quality of fog and mist. The hill that overlooked my house and my school, Turner’s Hill, the beneficent grassy mound rising above Rowley Regis and Dudley, is much higher than the ground which surrounds it, and so each time mist came, its top would disappear in an auspicious cloud.  In fact, the higher part of the hill was named “Cloud Land” on old maps, which shows how regular these events are.

On the hill were two trees, until around six years ago: old and gnarled, from the distance of my nan’s back garden some mile and a half away they looked like a giant grey-black horse bending her head to eat. When I would walk up there with my mom, nan or uncle, we would say hello to the real horses that graze on the grass. So I’ve always associated the hill with horses, and when I saw a particularly lovely thick mist descend, I grabbed the camera and went. 

I was moved by the aura of gentle power that emanated from the horses, somehow intensified by the dimness of the air, the failing light, and the stillness of the trees that day. 

David 

The First Post

Hello, and welcome. Since this is the first post, I feel inclined to say a few words about the genesis of this online journal. As you will know from the brief 'about' blurb to the right of the page as you read this, David and I are not only partners in art, but also in love and life. My own artistic background is in photography, and David's in music - he is a wonderful piano and drum player, who also happens to be rather good photographer, with a full and considered appreciation for visual art. It is only natural that conversation between two artistic souls with such an intimate connection will eventually lead to the too-ing and fro-ing of creative ideas, and such was the case for us. One idea led to the next, each adding suggestions for the creation of some exciting conceptual photographic projects; and it was here that Gwynne-Gibbons was born: artistic collaborators creating imagery that expresses a joint vision. Whilst we use photographic processes to produce our work, we aim for our fine art collection to be more than simply a set of photographs, blurring the metaphoric lines between photographic and painterly techniques, and expressing a concept or story within each image. As I write these words, some of our ideas have been realised, but many remain as thoughts in our minds, with the promise of wonderful art to be realised in future projects. 

As a passionate photographer, I have been asked many times over the years to photograph couples' weddings; I have always felt it to be a wonderful thing to be trusted enough to capture such an important day, and so have spent a long while honing my skill and passion for the art of wedding photography. A while back, David and I made the decision to start photographing weddings together and when the Gwynne-Gibbons fine art blog started to come to life, we thought it only natural to combine both our conceptual and wedding work together. This blog will document, through words and images, our development as photographic artists in both fields of work.

Today, I have our first fine art image to present to you. We purposely didn't develop a story behind the image, instead, choosing simply to bring together several elements that appeal to our sense of beauty: the female form, nature, and books; the results having the feel of a classic painting... the story is left to your imagination. We believe that beautiful images can be created with only the simplest of elements, and for our initial projects, we have tried to use resources that we have available to us. To create an image that features a person, one needs a model; something that we didn't have immediately to hand - in the strictest sense - and so it was decided that I would take on this role, despite normally being the one behind the camera! This worked well for us for this shoot as we could work together - David shooting and me posing - until we achieved the image that we had in mind. We created this image in the woods near our home in West Birmingham on a cold autumn afternoon, where I struggled not to look as cold as I felt....!

We are currently working on a new 'Gwynne-Gibbons' website which we plan to release in the next couple of weeks, so keep a look out :)

Until next time.

Ellie 

Behind the scenes:

During the shoot, we attracted the attention of a few dog-walkers as they passed by, and I was joined at one point by a very friendly black and white dog who came tearing towards me enthusiastically to get in on the shot!