John Lester Griffiths Photographer & John Lester Photos: Blog

The Perfect Photo.

Tue, 27 Jun 2017 14:02:43 GMT

Just a small moviette by the very talented Tom Gardner on my loves and passions of photography from conception until today. Tom takes us from the first time I held my first SLR camera through the learning curve until today's gratuitous trips around the world purely collecting memories. Take a few moments to share my journey.

John L Griffiths

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJ_-YBe-Axc

Rantings from the woods 3 wow pensioners are up £20, so none news.

Fri, 17 Feb 2017 11:29:05 GMT

Rantings from the woods 3...

Enough with fake news, are we considering none news? Earlier this week the BBC revelation that people of pensionable age were £20 better off a month than the average family! Why is that a surprise or wrong? How useless and unquantifiable is this statement? Just consider for a moment the range of this equation, from newly weds with there first real taste of living the dream to octogenarians receiving a pension and spending their savings living in a house that was paid for 30 years since. It beggars belief this constitutes news and hangs in the ether only a day before disappearing to whence it came. The usefulness of this information is zero the implied message is again how the poor youth of the day have it so tough and every retired person is on the golf course. Well unfortunately how conveniently and quickly we forget how the dear old pensioner paid for this dubious pleasure of an extra £4.65 a week. Firstly, didn't we used to save for things, didn't we have 2 or 3 jobs to make ends meet, was it not us paying 12-16% mortgage interest and just managing to live "within" our means, against the modern credit age, remind me, was it not the greedy 110% mortgage house buyers of recent years that caused the prime mortgage banking crisis and financial crash which ripple effects filtered through having consequences on investments and pensions, once more here the savers of our society, pensioners and the man in the street footing the bill. It would be good to see a spreadsheet of all the times parents and grandparents have paid for schooling, bought the first and second cars for their kids and supplied funds for the first house deposit whilst along the way sorting out the occasional mobile phone bill and credit card debt. Anyone who reaches pensionable age is incredibly lucky to have £20 at all after a lifetime of being rogered by the government and depended on by the family, not that I have a spare 20 so don't ask. john Lester Griffiths.

Rantings from the woods 2 Nutterphobia.

Thu, 02 Feb 2017 18:52:25 GMT

Rantings from the wood 2.

I am not an Islamophobe or indeed a racist, however I do have a rational fear of people who’s own reasoning model allows them to follow an invisible diety that would encourage harm to anybody that does not agree with their blind faith, whatever cult. The thought that anybody; imam, bishop or pope has any knowledge denied me about the existence of a god figure and they know its mind is preposterous*.
And on immigration or choosing to live in a non muslim state, is it really to difficult to choose a country that follows the same archaic sharia, why choose to live in a country that is polar opposite to what you imagine to be correct? We all on numerous occasions have to fill in forms stating our ethnicity and religion, would it really be to much of a stretch to add a caveat for anything other than than Christianity in the UK to say “Visas are granted on the understanding you abide by the laws and constitution (albeit unwritten) of the UK and her Majesties Govt.?” No religious/cultural rights will be allowed outside the same human rights of any UK citizen. (if you don’t like our laws hop on the next flight/boat out)
   No sane person has a fear of any book of fiction or ideology whatever age, however revered whether it be Jainism or Hinduism although Harry Potter is a handful. We must all be mindful of irrational concepts in historical or should that read hysterical scriptural writings that would like to challenge our status quo. If your chosen read states (quran 8.12) Therefore strike off their heads and every fingertip of them… I am guessing the top man is not that peaceful or sympathetic and if you choose to follow the letter of his holy book neither are you! To worry about these writings is surly not a phobia against Islam purely against a terrible book followed by a small percentage of the sadly misinformed by any standards.
   When you think of living in today's world following an idea of an unalterable book written over a thousand years ago it is like, your doctor telling you you have cancer and giving you two options. 1. You can visit a consultant in Harley Street London for a course of treatment. 2. I can refer you to a witch doctor who has a collection of 1400 year old recipes and potions.   Which way would your average punter go.
   This all does seem terribly obvious to an anti theist as myself, and the visa thing blindingly simple, however common sense does not seem to be all that common and while we try and please all the people all the time we are doomed to fail. Until all religious people keep their ideas and faiths personal and behind those big wooden closed doors it’ll stay the mess it is. And it will, in some shape or form of a religion. Tell me I am wrong or some other type of phobist.

                        *“And do you think that unto such as you
     A maggot-minded, starved, fanatic crew
God gave a secret, and denied it me?
         Well, well, what matters it? Believe that, too!”
―, Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

Omar Khayyám was a 12th century Persian polymath, mathematician, philosopher, astronomer, physician, and poet.

Rantings from the woods.

Wed, 01 Feb 2017 22:28:10 GMT

Jets overhead, the faint rumble of the M25 joined with the horn blowing goods train that trundles through Brentwood station now all just a minor irritation in the distance under the immediate musical morning song that surrounds Abi and I as we walk in the trees through the drizzle and damp of the first day of February. There was a particular romantic feeling in the woods today, the wind seemed gentle and fresh without the cold nip, the branches swayed peacefully discarding their drops of cool water on ones face and neck exaggerating the pleasure of a simple walk in the park. Whilst Brexit and Trump rhetoric fills our heads with doom and gloom and worries of what if; the world seems at the moment to be being run and held to ransom by whining also rans, what the devil... Now in our world of the continuation of deliberate proliferation of conflict for profit a hopelessness seems to have crept in, you cannot even win an election or referendum without sour backlash, cries of foul play from every loser demanding their own type of democracy... If Armageddon was around the corner, if the annihilation of man and creatures were to come to pass, who would loose,, just man, the world would go on for another 4.3 billion years, beings would evolve again this time probably with radio active immunity and probably again work over the years to please themselves at the expense of others, ha ha utter nonsense. John Griffiths thoughts in the woods...

First Beta eBook by John Lester Griffiths

Sun, 13 Nov 2016 18:16:39 GMT

Well, I thought it would be a good idea, rather than direct everybody to just an online unruly folder full of, for want of a better word travel snaps, I would lay a select few out in the form of a book adding comments and stories of explanation along the way. Simples, so here is the first précised beta edition of my attempt to simplify viewing my snaps. This first iBook is like a first of anything, a bit sad, I will do better and with useful feedback from you guys I hope make the exercise simple and enjoyable. What's the point I hear from the back of the class well, when I do get my fabric together I hope to charge a small fee for the download towards my African Charity. Until that time all downloads are F O C and your comments are payment enough. The online files will remain available to enable you to continue purchasing exhibition prints .

the Title is found on Apple iBooks and is called "Worldwide Passport Photos". snappy erh, it can only get better. or find it on the link is below.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/worldwide-passport-photos/id1174797622?ls=1&mt=11

Thank you everyone.

John

John L Griffiths MD LPoC GC
www.tpweddingphotographers.co.uk
www.JLG1.com

Is now the death of the Photographer and Photography?

Fri, 19 Aug 2016 16:38:50 GMT

Is now the death of the photographer and photography?

How quickly we browse thousands of uploaded photos, how much do we consider these miniature masterpieces, the snappers best shot… well speaking personally, a second is a long time. Clicking endlessly until, phew, this is a little different, 3 seconds, save it, it has done well. Millions of shots, nay billions of stored plagiarism all over the world; to what end. Not a lot really! Unless you are being paid.

Does anybody care about your one in a million snap, that perfectly framed and exposed snap with 30 minutes of post processing? it gets 7 likes while a picture of a baby with a feather on its nose taken on a ten year old nokia gets 3 million.

How much are we kidding ourselves that we need yet another exotic lens, the one that will make all the difference, its becoming silly. Norman Parkinson arguably one of the finest portrait photographers to ever own a camera basically had two lenses for his Hasselblad and asked for them from his assistant as “the short one or the long one” it was never about stuff, just communication with the subject composition and getting the exposure close. Admittedly he shot a lot of film, however nowhere near what we spray our victims with. Is it time to slow down and re- think it a little more?

Are we obsessed tech’, with sharpness, as a wedding photographer of many years and since digital I soften 90% of all my work. Saturation, the art of making a photo look unlike a photo, it is subjective but it does make ones eyes sore, wind it in. More often now I find myself going back to the bookshelf and enjoying the simplicity of artistic skill and experience and the less is more critique. It is a refreshing realisation that you do not need £thousands of kit to make a memorable photo. Think of the large percentage of older photographers post war, a rangefinder, a 35mm summicron and a pocket full of HP5, the legacy they left is truly awesome and inspiring, I suggest any flagging snapper to visit these worthwhile archives. If you need names to research I will gladly supply them.

Now I find I need to strip away what I have used and been taught over many years and really except my own thinking on what is my “good” and to stop expecting any company and unnecessary notoriety or unqualified praise. Now, from choice I am alone and alone in my photography, working into my own unknown, no-one to satisfy but me. Who better? At the end of a professional era, now just me, future memories.

Now I am looking for more behind the photo, the author, their state of mind, inspiration and where they get the concepts behind their captures, I find myself wanting to converse and share ideas and stories, are they any different, how do they do things, think, there are of course many sides to our passion so it is your duty to look for them if you want to evolve.

The finest books available to any aspiring thoughtful photographer are
Henri Cartier Bresson’s “the Decisive Moment” Robert Doisneau’s “Portraits of the Artists” and anything by Jeanloup Sieff.

The point in HCB’s book the “decisive moment” as the name suggests is now null and void, almost a forgone conclusion as we, the modern shooter spray our subjects at 10 frames a second multiplying any correction that should have been made, a time and place I hear you say and you are right, and wrong. Auto focus, auto exposure, auto iso, moveable focus points, auto white balance, jpegs, post process auto correction, how good are we really or need to be, do we just turn up to press the button, how many people know the difference between depth of field and depth of focus anymore? not that you need to of course. Is our new expertise just learning the menus and complexity of our new toys and little to do with photography. What of aprenticees? Now is a good time to engage brain, learn some basics, ignore them and shoot some original captures to become one of the 3 second; save it brigade.

If you buy a Nikon it does not make you a photographer just a Nikon owner, modify your craft.

jlg1.com john lester griffiths ancient snapper nikon, leica and fuji owner.

Giving it a go. From Practika to Fuji.

Mon, 08 Aug 2016 16:33:23 GMT

48 years after uncle Normal gave me my first SLR Practika and 50mm lens camera and said “give it a go” see how you get on with that, and although cameras and technology have changed, I am still learning and doing as he said. And oh how the apparatus has improved, modern film cameras with their super light meters, then auto focus and then the biggy, digital. While it took some time to be accepted the moment it did, well, what a revelation. I was awestruck as I learnt to use photoshop and for the first time in my life I saw the shot that was in my minds eye as I pressed the shutter. Years later, after so many technological advances and using and loving Leica and Nikon I now swap stories with my nephew regarding the amazing advances made by the Fuji X series. Not wanting to mention it myself although I had thought it many times, James had said to me and I quote "I find it difficult to match fuji's Jpegs straight out of the camera" yep, that's the level of today's wonderful cameras. Now, rather than moaning about what they can't do we are blown away at the effortless ease in which they do everything. It's been a while, however I am still loving it and "giving it a go"

John Lester Griffiths fine art photographer
www.jlg1.com project52melbourne click2viewphotography

John Lester Griffiths Fine Art Photography and Weddings

Fri, 05 Aug 2016 12:51:40 GMT

As John Lester Griffiths the fine art, travel and wedding photographer from the company "the Photographers" I have made a recent decision to concentrate more on travel photography and mentoring. This year alone I have working trips to Croatia, Delhi, Jaipur, Melbourne, Philippines, Burma and Thailand. Whilst the larger part of any pleasing photograph lies in an innate ability to spot and compose a shot, technicality, handling and processing can still be learnt and to this end I offer my 40 years of experience. I can be contacted via the website or the e mail herewith.

Happy Snapping.

John Lester Griffiths [email protected]

John Lester Griffiths Africa revisited 2015 Fine Art Photos Kenya

Tue, 12 Jan 2016 19:19:04 GMT

Hello Again,
Revisiting photographic foreign collections is a never ending source of delight for me as every photo is a memory and part of my personal history that I have dedicated to capturing these moments. Most of these children however hard as their life maybe laugh to see a pudding role as they say and will respond to most requests. In this collection to get the children to smile I just asked them what made them smile and the thought had the desired effect, funnily the children with the closed eyes I asked, "what do you dream of" whatever seems to go on in their little heads they are willing to share. As we go through our life here in the west these snapshots of Kenyan life also ramble on in tandem, straw rooves, mud paths, open fires, malaria, poverty but also an honesty of life that leaves you breathless when experienced. Take a while to look at the lives behind the pictures and see if you can imagine what they dream of.

The real beauty is the ability of these wonderful people to invite you into there camp, befriend you, feed you and ask you to return if you can. I may have eaten goats eyes, intestine, snake, weird and wonderful carnivorous delicacies partnered with some of the bitterest green veg known to man however when served with the grace and generosity of the Kenyan people it is hard to refuse and easy to enjoy.

If you are yet to experience Kenya, don't leave it to late.

John Lester Griffiths

Photographer for John Lester Art

Fine Art in the form of Photography.

Jax and John Griffiths off to Mombasa at the end of November.

Wed, 04 Nov 2015 08:18:04 GMT

On the 19th of November we are off to the voyager beach hotel in Mombasa Kenya. Our 6th trip here to visit friends and enjoy the African hospitality. Pina coladas in the sunset bar, pancakes for breakfast and swimming in the Indian Ocean every morning, it's tough very tough but hey...... Collecting more photos to produce and entertain myself my manager in Nyali is preparing trips to the country as we speak. The fruits of my labour will be of course on view on my John Lester Art site at www.jlg1.com if you ever fancy a safari go to Bruno Safaris in Google he will sort you out a great deal.

Regards. John Lester Griffiths

www.jlg1.com

Bobbies 70th birthday photography by John Griffiths Photographer.

Tue, 13 Oct 2015 05:59:48 GMT

Bobbie Hall and 70 of her closest friends met to celebrate her 70th birthday at ASHWELLS country club in Brentwood on Sunday 11th October. The sun shone, the wine flowed and the club put on a fine spread for lunch. Congratulations Bobbie you can see the photos at www.jlg1.com. under the Bobbie Hall file in all photographs.

Varanasi India June 2015

Mon, 06 Jul 2015 09:30:00 GMT

What a surprise, where were those ceremonies and pilgrim filled ghats? well it looks like there is a direct correlation between religiousness and a tourist based audience. I saw first hand the reality of a Ganges that was half full suffering the inability of processing all the filth, waste and pyre remains demanded of it on a none stop daily basis. Having traveled a fair amount over the last few years I was disappointed and amazed with the amount of blatant commercialism surrounding the worn unmaintained holy buildings of the area. Every known tourist squeeze was used in the Ghat district making even a basic evening walk a trial of patience, hang a camera around your neck and you might as well have a target painted on your shirt. Unless walking with your eyes glued to the next step to avoid animal waste or observing floating dead bodies in the river this is not a good place to be. In defense of this less than positive review I deliberately traveled during the low/hot season to avoid a grockle (tourist) based infestation however the reality of visiting this area for anything other than an education is unlikely. Moving around Varanasi itself is as busy as any country I have visited however it works in a haphazard no rules beyond dangerous way, prepare to be scared shitless if you choose to ride a motorised taxi, the way if you have time is by spending a few rupees on the person powered rickshaws giving time to view anything of interest and take a snap or two. Honestly unless you are truly interested in offering holy Ganges water, marigold garlands and snacks to the deities of the crumbling temples and as the local cuisine is limited to be far I think this area can only be beneficial to staunchest of sixties hippie. Varanasi on my scale, sorry 0/10. However you do always chance to meet a couple of decent fellows per trip and this was no exception. The hotel manager Mr U Po Kyin as I renamed him was as depicted in Orwell's Burmese Days and you would have to meet him to truly appreciate the resemblance, uncanny. Pablo the hotel chef, odd job and generally nice guy was a joy and nothing was to much trouble, a little treat with my dinner every night, the highlight of an otherwise disastrous trip sadly. And then there was Sanjay Singh my pains making guide who took obsequious to a whole new level, also whether it was buying sweets for the children in the villages, lunch or having an occasional beer on the way home to hotel and trying to slip a packet of cigarettes on the bill when I was in the toilet was just plain hard work. You need a reason to visit this area of India, I am suggesting it will not be relaxation. This is my 4th trip to India and the only one I could possibly talk of with a negative head. Sorry, there it is; in my opinion of course. Baz

John Lester Griffiths

John Lester Griffiths climbing Ben Nevis

Thu, 04 Jun 2015 11:49:24 GMT

Well time has come to pack my bag jump on an easy plane with the merry band that is the Rizla's and via Inverness climb this bad boy. To celebrate a fellow rizla's birthday the plan is to march up 1400metres of rocky hillside ice picks and waterproofs in hand. There will of course be the usual selection of happy snaps to view should we all make it safely down and back to our computers. So bye for now and Jacqui is still in the office should you need any wedding, photo information.

Regards John.

www.tpweddingphotographers.co.uk

www.jlg1.com

Climbing Ben Nevis with John Griffiths

Wed, 13 May 2015 11:17:48 GMT

Well here we go again, off to Scotland on the 9th June to scale Ben Nevis with a bunch of aging buddies called the Rizlas, in fact I am only an honorary member, far to young to blend seamlessly in their midst. But allow me they do to tag along with my 120 box brownie, I try to blend, to enjoy some name calling and another round of annual jokes. Unfortunately I missed a scheduled trip with the Rayleigh Bike Chapter who are off biking around Ireland, I hope I can catch up with them next year.

Take care all. John.

Baz is off to Varanesi India.

Mon, 11 May 2015 15:53:04 GMT

From the 15th of June 2015 I will be heading for the Ganges in Varanesi India to photograph the locals and their rituals around the famous river. I am very excited as I have wanted to shoot the activity around the Ghats for a number of years. It's going to be hot so I ask your understanding of the moisture running down my lens filters for that authentic soft focus effect. I will of course be collecting and sending e mails from the luxury of my air conditioned room; so stay in touch. John.

Hi.

Fri, 31 Aug 2012 06:56:45 GMT

As you can see we are populating the photographic file area with existing travel files from yesteryear, I hope you will feel comfortable leaving feedback and comments after any viewing. If you have any special requests or suggestions (printable) please feel very free to do so we welcome your input. John from JLG1.com and the Photographers.