Church on Sunday

I went to a talk by Rikki O'neill today at Houghton near Carlisle.  The extra shows him outside the hall in the lunch break.  He creates fantastical images in Photoshop using distortion, composites, textures and other creative devices.  The resultant images are often surreal and never dull.  All his images are photography-based, in that they start with a photograph or photographs.  He is of the opinion that, just as people manipulated images in the darkroom when using film cameras, so now people manipulate images using software.  The difference is one of degree, not of principle, and the resultant image is what matters, not the means by which it was obtained.  Some disagree, and hold that what he produces are not photographs, based on whatever measure they use to judge what is or is not a photograph.  The way he sees it is that "the buttons are there to press, so press them".  There is plenty of his work on the web, so if you want to have a look, have a look.

During the lunch break I went along to Houghton church, with a view to taking some photos of the church.  When I stepped into the churchyard I quickly changed my mind - it's possibly the most photogenic churchyard I have ever found.  I spent half an hour taking lots of photos, and would have happily stayed longer if time permitted.  Who knows, I might incorporate some of them into surreal images in the future.