Blackpool Zoo

These are some images I have selected from a trip to Blackpool Zoo. I have applied some photoshop techniques to these.

The idea behind these, was to break off from Morton but still have a more artistic look to my photographs.

I was fortunate to be really inspired by this project. I really enjoyed researching Morton and was amazed at the colours I was able to capture on my trip.

Photoshop: step by step,oil painting

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1. open the image in photoshop.
2. Make a background layer copy.
3. Use curves to adjust and make another layer.
4. Open filter gallery, select oil painting, adjust and apply.
5. Merge down the layers.
6. save it, asa a copy and .jpg format.

Photoshop: step by step, Angled strokes

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1. Open the image in Photoshop and make a background layer copy.
2. Use curves to make adjustments and create another layer.
3. Open filter gallery, select angled strokes, adjust and apply to the image.
4. Merge down the layers and save, as a copy and .jpg format.

Photoshop: step by step Gaussian blur

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1. Open the image in Photoshop.
2. Make a background layer copy.
3. Use curves to make adjustments.
4. Make a copy of that layer.
5. Go into filter, blur, gaussian blur.
6. Applu and adjust.
7. Merge down the layers.
8. Save it, as a copy and .jpg format.

Photoshop: step by step, Crosshatch

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1. Open the image in Photoshop.
2. Make a background copy.
3. Use curves to adjust the brightness and contrast.
4. Make a copy of this layer.
5. Open filter gallery.
6. Select crosshatch and adjust.
7. Apply filter to image.
8. Merge down the layers.
9. Save as a copy and .jpg format.

Clitheore Castle History

• It has been suggested that Clitheroe Castle may have been first built before 1086 as there is reference to the "castellatu Rogerii pictaviensis" in the Domesday Book. However, it is likely the passage refers to another castle. One alternative is that it was built around 1186 by Robert de Lacy as an administrative centre for his estates in the area but later passed by inheritance to the Crown. It consists of one of the smallest keeps in the country and at one time it was surrounded by a curtain wall. It was anciently the seat of the Lords of Bowland.

• A document from 1304 mentions ditches and moats surrounding the castle, however these have since been filled in.
• There is a legend that the Devil threw a boulder from Pendle Hill and hit the castle creating the hole visible in its side today, but this hole was made in 1649 as ordered by the government. It was to be put in "such condition that in might neither be a charge to the Commonwealth to keep it, nor a danger to have it kept against them".

• One of the smallest castle keeps in the country stands atop a rocky outcrop at Clithroe. The origins of the castle seem uncertain, but one possibility is that it was erected by Roger de Lacy around 1186, possibly on the site of an early Norman fortification built shortly after the Conquest and mentioned in the Domesday Book.

• The keep is only 20 feet square, with walls 10 feet thick. The stone keep is enclosed within a curtain wall, but only part of this wall now remains. To the south of the keep is a bailey, where domestic buildings serving the keep would have stood.

• The castle stands almost three storeys high, but is now roofless to the sky. The main entrance was originally by stairs to a doorway on the second floor, but now is through a ground level doorway.

• At the foot of the castle grounds is a modern museum which helps explain the site and its long history, and exhibits finds discovered on the site during excavations. The castle was for many years the seat of the Lords of Bowland, an ancient title dating back to 1092. It was for many years owned by the Lascy (Lacy) family of Pontefract, Yorkshire, but in 1311 the title passed to the House of Lancaster, and eventually, in 1399, to the crown.

• The castle is open to the public without charge, but there is a small admission fee for the museum, which was awarded 'Best Small Visitor Attraction of the Year' Award 20010/11 by the Lancashire and Blackpool Tourist Board. Clitheroe Castle Museum is run by the Lancashire County Council for the Ribble Valley Borough Council. The castle is set within 18 acres of formal gardens featuring gardens, recreational areas (playground, skatepark, bowling green), and a bandstand.

Trip to Clitheroe Castle

I took this on my way up to Clitheore Castle. I thought it was a really interesting image and i liked the rustic look of the buildings.
Also, I am using this image as a base for my experimentations. For the photoshop techniques I will be applying.

Some of John Thompson's Work

Photographer Research: John Thompson

John Thomson was born on 14 June 1837 in Edinburgh, Scotland to William Thomson, a successful tobacco spinner and retail trader, and Isabella Newlands.He was the eighth of nine children, although only he and his two brothers, William (b. 1835) and Thomas (b. 1844), survived to adulthood. John's early years were spent in the family home, first in Portland Place and by 1841 in a larger flat on Brighton Street in the Old Town of Edinburgh. After some degree of primary education in Edinburgh (most likely at the Bathgate academy), Thomson was apprenticed to an optician and scientific instrument maker (probably James Mackay Bryson) in 1851. Thomson finished his apprenticeship in 1857 or 1858 after having attended two years of evening classes at the Watt Institution and School of Arts (formerly the Edinburgh School of Arts) from 1856 to 1858. He attained the "Attestation of Proficiency" in Natural Philosophy in 1857 and in Junior Mathematics and Chemistry in 1858.
On 29 April 1862, Thomson set out for Singapore where his older brother William was a watchmaker and photographer. Arriving no later than 12 June, he and William began jointly operating a business making chronometers and optical and nautical instruments. With his studio in Singapore as his base of operations (excluding a period when Penang, an island some 360 miles from Singapore, served as his base), Thomson embarked on extensive travels throughout the mainland territories of Malaya and Sumatra, as well as a brief visit to Malacca. It was during this period that Thomson began to explore rural villages and city streets, taking a keen interest in recording people in their daily activities. From October to November of 1864, he traveled to Ceylon and India, photographing the destruction wrought by a recent cyclone.
In the following year, Thomson decided to sell his studio and move to Siam. Traveling aboard the steamer Chow Phya, he arrived in Bangkok on 28 September 1865, where he lived for six months, photographing the King of Siam and a ceremony with the King's eldest son. From Siam, Thomson departed on a dangerous trip overland on 27 January 1866 to Laos and Cambodia with student interpreter H. G. Kennedy of the British Embassy at Bangkok, during which time Kennedy saved Thomson's life when the latter contracted jungle fever. After photographing the King of Cambodia and visiting Saigon, Thomson returned to Siam; he left for England (with a brief visit to Singapore) in May or June.
While in Edinburgh, Thomson joined the Royal Ethnological Society of London (1866), was elected to the Royal Geographical Society (1866), gave lectures before the British Association, published his first book, The Antiquities of Cambodia, in early 1867, and met his future wife, Isabel Petrie, a devout Methodist.
In July 1867, Thomson again returned to Singapore, then traveled to Saigon (where he stayed for three months), and finally settled in Hong Kong in 1868; here he began his project of photographing the people of China. After a series of ventures with various magazines, Thomson set up his own makeshift studio in the Commercial Bank building in Hong Kong. Soon after, Isabel Petrie arrived, and on 19 November 1868, the two were married. In the following year, Thomson made an important photography trip to Canton with his wife, had his first child (William Petrie), published some of his photographs, and assumed responsibility for the debts of his brother William.
On 23 June 1870 Isabel Thomson, pregnant with her second son, left for England, picking up Thomson's brother William from Singapore en route.
In the course of that same year, Thomson traveled up the North Pearl River, published an illustrated book, and put his studio up for sale in preparation for extended travel in China. He traveled extensively in the Foochow region from late-1870 to early 1871: up the River Min by boat with the American Protestant missionary Reverend Justus Doolittle and then to Amoy and Swatow. Thomson traveled to Formosa with Dr. James Laidlaw Maxwell. They first landed in Takao in early April 1871 and then departed for Taiwanfu, the capital, aboard a steamer. He and Dr. Maxwell then departed from Taiwanfu on 11 April to visit the plains aborigines villages on the west plain of Taiwan, where he shot a number of photographs.
After leaving Taiwan, Thomson returned to Hong Kong; visited Shanghai in August and Peking in September; traveled up the Yangtze River for three months, reaching Hupeh and Szechuan; revisited Ningpo and Snowy Valley in April; returned briefly to Hong Kong, and then left for England.
Thomson settled into Brixton, a suburb of London, living with his family, publishing the results of his travels and giving papers. While in London, he continued to photograph, collaborating from 1876 to 1877 with Adolphe Smith in producing the monthly Street Life in London (February 1877 - January 1878). Thomson and Isabel's last child was born in 1878. They had a total of three daughters and three sons.
Beyond an excursion to the new British colony of Cyprus in 1878 and occasional trips to France (in at least 1875 and 1889), Thomson remained in England for the rest of his days. He set up a portrait studio at 78 Buckingham Palace Road (in 1881, but later moved to 70A Grosvenor Street), and was appointed a photographer to the British Royal Family by Queen Victoria on 11 May 1881. Thomson initially worked alone at the portrait studio but was later joined in the enterprise by two sons and a daughter. In January 1886, Thomson began instructing explorers at the Royal Geographical Society after convincing the Society that the camera was a critical tool in documenting their journeys "in a trustworthy manner." After retiring from his commercial studio in 1910, John and Isabel spent most of their time in Edinburgh until he died of a heart attack on 7 October 1921 at the age of 84.

Some of Jacob Riis' Work

Photographer Research: Jacob Riis

Jacob Riis, the third of fifteen children, was born in Ribe, Denmark, on 3rd May, 1849. He worked as a carpenter in Copenhagen before emigrating to the United States in 1870. Unable to find work, he was often forced to spend the night in police station lodging houses.
Riis did a variety of menial jobs before finding work with a news bureau in New York City in 1873. The following year he was recruited by the South Brooklyn News. In 1877 Riis became a police reporter for the New York Tribune. Aware of what it was like to live in poverty, Riis was determined to use this opportunity to employ his journalistic skills to communicate this to the public. He constantly argued that the "poor were the victims rather than the makers of their fate".
In 1888 Riis was employed as a photo-journalist by the New York Evening Sun. Riis was among the first photographers to use flash powder, which enabled him to photograph interiors and exteriors of the slums at night. He also became associated with what later became known as muckraking journalism.
In December, 1889, an account of city life, illustrated by photographs, appeared in
Scribner's Magazine. This created a great deal of interest and the following year, a full-length version, How The Other Half Lives, was published. The book was seen by Theodore Roosevelt, the New York Police Commissioner, and he had the city police lodging houses that were featured in the book closed down.

Lewis Hine

These are some of Lewis Hine's photographs of child labour in America.

Photographer Research: Lewis Hine

Lewis Wickes Hine was born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin on 26th September, 1874. He studied sociology in Chicago and New York (1900-07) before finding work at the Ethical Culture School. Hine, who had purchased his first camera in 1903, employed his photographs in his teaching and established what became known as documentary photography.
Hine also used his camera to capture the poverty he witnessed in New York. This included a photographic study of Ellis Island immigrants. In 1908 Hine published charities and the commons, a collection of photographs of tenements and sweatshops. Hine hoped he could use these photographs to help bring about social reform. He told one meeting that he believed his photographs would encourage people to "exert the force to right wrongs".
As a school teacher, Hine was especially critical of the country's child labour laws. Although some states had enacted legislation designed to protect young workers, there were no national laws dealing with this problem. In 1908 the National Child Labour Comiitee employed Hine as their staff investigator and photographer. This resulted in two books on the subject, Child Labour in the Carolinas (1909) and Day Laborers Before Their Time (1909).
Hine travelled the country taking pictures of children working in factories. In one 12 month period he covered over 12,000 miles. Unlike the photographers who worked for Thomas Barnardo, Hine made no attempt to exaggerate the poverty of these young people. Hine's critics claimed that his pictures were not "shocking enough". However, Hine argued that people were more likely to join the campaign against child labour if they felt the photographs accurately captured the reality of the situation.
Factory owners often refused Hine permission to take photographs and accused him of muckraking. To gain access Hine sometimes hid his camera and posed as a fire inspector. Hine worked for the National Child Labour Committee for eight years. Hine told one audience: "Perhaps you are weary of child labour pictures. Well, so are the rest of us, but we propose to make you and the whole country so sick and tired of the whole business that when the time for action comes, child labour pictures will be records of the past."

Sunnyhurst Cottages

Morton, amongst other artists, was fascinated by Sunnyhurst woods. Amongst his research was an oil painting of the original cottages that were built in Sunnyhurst woods. unfortunately they were demolished in 1911 to make way for the kiosk.