About Alex Cummings, his photography, graphic art and design.

This is the Information Page

On this web site you will find sections showing the work of Alex Cummings proud winner of several awards. such as an A.P.S.S.A. .in colour prints, a 2 diamond rating for prints entered in to salons, winner of the Southern Suburbs Inter Club Print Challenge for colour prints, the Silver Medal for best P.E.C.C. member's entry in a salon run by them.

There are only a few photos on this page as I am trying to give a history of my progress in photography so if you want to skip it jump to  examples but you would be missing the ones further down.

Above an image crated in 2018 using as a base an image of mine taken at Brighton Beach Port Elizabeth.

When I started in serious photography there were two schools the Print workers and the Slide workers, chose prints for two reasons. 

1..... I could  select a portion of what was in my negative for the final print
2..... I could  change the  content colour, or even what the final print contained by combining portions of more than one negative and of course have the added enjoyment of more than just taking an image but creating one. 
In the days of prints there was several factors which controlled how good your finished work could be that is other than your eye to see a good image some of them being camera equipment including a good sturdy tripod and good darkroom equipment. good choice of chemicals for processing of your negative and prints. 

Above when making an image in Black and White one could watch it develop under a red light but in colour it was in a tank or drum from start to finish therefore you did not know whether you had a winner or not now you can at the press of a button and at no cost try until you have the result you want. Change the colour or effect or even flip the image ether vertically or horizontally as I have done here, I call it my book of lighthouses. see more on the surreal page

If you are looking for a Black and white page you will not find one.  Why?

Colour versus black and white
Colour in the main part surpasses B&W in most cases, imagine sunsets or sunrises without any red!!!!! Autumn leaves without the rich "autumn tones" !!!! , I could go on To me the only time that Black and White surpasses Colour is when the colour is distracting the viewer from the message the photographer is trying to put over. Of all the photographs I have taken and kept at least 60% would have ended up in the waste bin because I considered them "Flat" and meaningless if I had taken them in B&W. It is a far harder medium to work with. for creative photography. Out of the remaining 40% perhaps 30% of them would have been "good" in my opinion so that means that out of every 100 I had kept and used only 12 would have merited my publishing. Now I was talking about images I had kept not images I had taken. How many do you keep after a shoot?

As I have said above your darkroom equipment was as important as was your camera equipment a dud lens on an inferior shaky enlarger wars as bad as a poor choice of camera.  Your demeanour when working in the darkroom was as important perhaps even more of what it was when you took the photo a good print could not be rushed especially if you were about to perform some manipulation

Most of my work even today consists of a combination of both those two as I am not a photo journalist, they have their place and I have mine, I belong to the "Creative" genre mostly pictorial but I sometime do take a nature shot. Occasionally one of my photos is better as taken that is straight out of the camera but very seldom, even newspapers and magazines edit most of there images.

My definition of "Creative Photography" is:- 
Creative Photography contains an unusual viewpoint, a bit extra or less colour than the norm, an added or removed object in the finished image, it is characterised by the ability to perceive an image in new ways, to make connections between seemingly unrelated subjects, to find hidden patterns  and to generate results, either in or out of the camera. There are many people who are unmoved by my style of photography but fortunately there are many, many more who like it and it is for both them and myself that I have cultivated it.

As I said about darkroom work applies today when using or for that matter choosing your favourite editing programme it is no good getting one you cant master just because someone at the club or elsewhere says it is the best, if it frustrates you get another..  I have kept the number of images per page to a reasonable number so that they load at a reasonable rate, more pages will be added as time goes on.  Enough said lets have a look at some of my images. 
           

There are images which are straight, slightly manipulated and ones converted into completely abstract,  also there are pages with scrolling images. and images trying to make a statement

Move the mouse over the image below for a tip:

On this and other pages Clicking on an image will display a larger version of it and also some will display a description of the image when hovering over it. In this instance it displays a tip and a description. The link to the larger image is in more examples

The link to the larger version of the above image is in more examples

The pages and photographs are in a format which is readable in all formats of screens from cell phone to desktop. All pages, HTML5 and CSS3 code is checked and verified by W3C before publishing, the images are checked for colour and luminance before publishing however I have no control over what the various browsers do to them.  I have my idea of what makes a good pictorial photo which in the main is in line with the majority of others but I can not please everyone.  If I like it I do it even if it means altering the reality This can be done in may ways including high or low key effects.

There is also a page dealing with "Minimalism" why not check it out and see my views

With a little bit of magic we can have a look at some of my work
So Click on the card below and enter my world or skip to the page directory

Photographs will normally be displayed in a size designed to fit on an page, on any size screen, as shown below but clicking on them will in most cases show a full width image.  In order to return to the page in this web site being viewed please use the return button on the enlarged view page DO NOT just close it   Please note some browsers require you to click the back button twice but do not be hasty.  I am trying to make specific pages for most of the large images as I do not like some of my images displayed with a black background as some browsers do, these will have a return link just above and below the image,. This will take some time so bear with me on this

I have tried this photo in both colour and Black and White and must admit the colour one in my opinion wins hands down

Hi it is Alex Cummings again, as there seems to be a growing interest in the practice I have performed ever since I started developing and printing my own work that is to blend more than one image together I have therefore added an extra page dealing with "Composite" images I hope you like it

This image which I have used as an introduction to composites is of a carport post with a light on it blended against another image of a sky a copy of this is then made flipped both horizontally and vertically and then worked on by myself not by a program the two are then blended together trying to make sure that no merge lines are visible and then the bird and its reflection also added.  So to see more like this visit the composite page remember that a larger version can be seen by clicking on the image and no photography site would be complete without a section on portraits  or if you want to see photographic images with a difference try here
 

Above, throughout the site you will find several examples similar to this as it falls under several categories  however there are also many where the multiple images are not noticeable nor is any other form of manipulation

The site is forever growing and the latest addition is Minimalism

 ..