Where do we go from here?

Recently, I've been giving a lot of thought to how much my photography has changed over the years. I feel that it is only in the last two or three years that there has been a distillation, a fine-tuning of ideas and style into where I am now. It's as if everything came into sharp focus for me around three years ago and everything before then was a slow gradual journey, one where I felt things were changing but I didn't know where they were going.

It's only now that I feel I've reached a point where things have become easier for me. I now have better confidence in myself and trust myself more in how I am developing as an artist.

Trees in a snow storm, Hokkaido, January 2017
Image © Bruce Percy 2017

A creative life has these moments, or plateaus perhaps, of feeling that you've arrived at some level playing field where you can bask in some form of creative comfort for a while before the next (sometimes difficult, other times just natural) adaption occurs. Because growing requires change, and although I know and believe that change is good, it can also be a time of great uncertainty.

If I look back at Ansel Adam's work over his lifetime, it is clear that he, like many other artists, he had a very creative period and then things started to tail off. By the end of his life, he was perhaps more a curator of his legacy. His skills had developed so much that he was able to go back to his iconic work and produce bolder, deeper prints than when he first started out.

My 3rd book is about to be published soon, and it has given me pause for thought. Is this the final mark of a period of great growth and creativity for me? Will I look back on this book in years to come and say 'that was my most creative time?' 

I am aware that I have done so much and witnessed so many wonderful things over the past eight or nine years since I went full time, that I feel it may be unlikely I can perhaps top that for a further similar duration. I am older, I feel different (i.e not the same way as I felt when I started out eight years ago), so things have changed, and indeed, are always changing.

I believe that each artist or creative person reaches a point in their own development where they are at the summit of what they can do. It's an inevitable point to reach in one's own creativity but we must continue to move forward with an open mind to see if there is still mileage in the road ahead.

Indeed, there have been many moments where I felt I could go no further, only to find that the period of contemplation was either brief or lasted for many months or years. I've had periods in my creativity where I have felt I had nowhere else to go, yet looking back I see now that I had only just started.

Contemplative moments are good for us. Thinking about where you've been and where you think you may be going are healthy thoughts to have. You just need to believe in yourself that things are going to change and understand that progress is not linear. There will be times and even long spells of inactivity, times when you feel you have nothing left to say, only to find that you are now entering a period of great productivity. Being open to whatever may come, and accepting that you are on a journey that has no fixed course is the only way to be.

Learn to live in the present and understand that everything you are doing or experiencing is transient: it will not last. That goes for periods of little or no productivity, and for times when we reach new summits in what we do. Regardless, thinking about where you are and understanding yourself at this present moment is good for a healthy creative life.

So today  I'm left wondering 'where do I go from here?' And I can't wait to see what's up the road ahead.

The Validity of a deliberate construction

What is the purpose of landscape  photography? Is it the act of capturing the natural world? Or is it the act of creating art? Is it perhaps both?

I think that many of us come to landscape photography through an appreciation for the outdoors and the quality of the light we enjoy. Photography seems to be a natural progression to want to be able to capture what we saw and felt.

Some of us, like myself,  come to photography through art. As a young kid, I was always drawing and painting, and when I was around eight years old, I was dabbling with charcoal pencils and paper and oil paints that my aunt Helen would send me (she married a famous painter). So for me, the art world had been part of my creative outlet from an early age and when I came to photography, it was through a love of the beautiful art that Ansel Adams created.  In his pictures I saw the same application to composition as I had studied while drawing still life's and painting pictures. Photography was a new way of painting pictures. I was drawn to the interpretive side of it from the beginning.

(Close) Christmas tree, Biei, Hokkaido, January 2017
Image © Bruce Percy 2017

Even though many of us come to landscape photography through an appreciation for nature, I believe there is still space in our lives for the manufactured landscape.

Although I do love nature, and think that there is so much beauty in nature's 'randomness', I do however think that manufactured landscapes can also possess beauty. even though they are deliberate (read contrived) constructions.

In the case of my two photographs shown in today's post, there is very little about this scene that is natural.  The tree has been carefully planted in a farmers field. It has been manicured to be a precise shape. I think why this location works is because of its contrived-ness rather than in spite of it.  There is symmetry present, and I would go as far as to suggest that somehow, we all picture Christmas tree's as having perfectly symmetrical shapes. I think we would also like to believe that out there somewhere is the perfect Christmas tree, sitting in its own space. Well, now you know it exists: this place is indeed called the Christmas tree of Biei, Hokkaido.

But there is still one more aspect to this scene which makes it appealing. Despite it being a manufactured landscape, there is still a degree of nature at play here: the properties of light are at play here and the atmosphere of the location is wonderful as a result. It was an overcast morning with very very soft light. While I was there, I could not discern any difference between the ground and the sky as both were full of snow. With such soft wonderful light, the tree cast a diffused shadow on the ground. It was as if I was being shown the basic properties of shadow and light.

And so, I can't help but think that the reason why I love images like these, is because they are an interesting mix of the manufactured and the natural. They blur boundaries and make me look again. To the viewer who knows nothing about this location, it could simply be a rare occasion where nature has produced something so aesthetically pleasing, and I think the uncertainty of how natural a scene this is, intrigues us.

Isn't there space in our lives for images where the landscape has been constructed?

I think so.

 In fact, I think that if an image is compelling in some way, perhaps because it is at odds with nature, then that can be a good thing.

( Distant ) Christmas tree, Biei, Hokkaido, January 2017
Image © Bruce Percy 2017

Looking for nuggets

I'm just home from a month away in Norway and just before I left, I had editing my recent Hokkaido work. I only had two days to do the edits before I left for Norway and I knew I had only picked off the obvious contenders for a portfolio before I left.

Now tha I'm back, I have some free time for a few weeks, to review the edits I made, and also to see what I left behind in the pile of over 50 rolls of film I shot whilst in Hokkaido.

It's always interesting revisiting my edits after some time away, and I've noticed some slight luminosity issues in the final work which I have now corrected (but can *you* spot them? Perhaps not, as I think this is the kind of issue that is only apparent to the owner of the work, as perhaps we are often more critical of our work than others would be). 

Lake Kussharo

Looking at some of the remaining transparencies today, it's stuck me that I left a lot of nice images unedited.

Indeed, I often feel that the edit stage should be in iterative process. Just because I have gone through the films a few times during the few days that I concentrated my time on the edit, leaving the work for a further week or so and then coming back to the original images and looking again can yield more images that are worthy of inclusion in my portfolio.

A recently found nugget in my pile of 50 rolls of Velvia.

I can be too close to the work. Leaving it for a spell allows me to see things in it that I was perhaps blind to at the time of the edit. But it is also worth going back again and again in the coming months and even years to see if there are images that I've missed. What I find uninteresting one day may be interesting to me on another day which can tell me a lot about how my eye is changing and that my skill and perhaps tastes for certain compositions is evolving.

I increasingly feel that photography is a game of awareness. Learning to see what's there that may be hidden in plain sight. It is a constant game of review and reconsideration. Always trying to keep an open mind, always wishing to notice something that I was blind to only a few days ago. Photography is a way of challenging ourselves to opening our eyes, and the more I continue, the more I know that I am only ever seeing a tiny part of what's in front of me.

The three ingredients to composition

Composition is often thought about in terms of where to place the subject within the frame. But what if I throw the subject out of the frame, or at the most, give you a very limited set of subjects to work with? How would you compose your shots, and would you consider how each of them would fit together in a portfolio? What would be the unifying theme if you had to relate them in some way? Is it the subject, the location, or would it perhaps be the colour palette that would be a more useful way of uniting a set of images together?

Subjects are only one aspect of composition. Colour palettes and colour relationships are another, and lastly, there are also tonal responses. My own compositions are often sparse in terms of subject matter, so I think what unifies my work is either the colour palettes I play with, or the tonal responses.

In my latest Hokkaido work, I've deliberately gone for an almost black and 'light blue' tonal response to the work. The absolute blacks of the Crane birds match and unify with the dark tones of the trees of the Hokkaido landscape: this is one part of a two part ingredient list for making this portfolio work. The second part is the colour palette. Despite actually shooting a lot of 'pink sunrise' during my time on the island, I felt they were at odds with some of the stronger 'colder' colour palette images that I found lurking in my processed films. 

I've realised over the past few years just how important tonal responses within a collection of images is to unifying the set. Images are really made up of three dimensions: subject, colour and tone. For me, to think of composition as being about subject only, is to ignore colour and tone at your peril.

This is why I think my work in the Digital Darkroom is a vital ingredient to what I do. Clicking the shutter is only one small part of the image creation process. Identifying themes and relationships in my work is an important part of this process and is crucial in  bringing these themes tighter together.

The lens points both ways

A good friend of mine just recently said to me 'the lens points both ways' when talking about her work. She was referring to the belief (which I also believe) that photographs tell a lot about the photographer behind their creation.

Indeed, sometimes I meet very talented people who have a good work discipline: they begin things and often keep going to see the work through to completion. I have also met people are are extremely talented, who never finish anything.

And also, I have met people who may not be as talented as the two types of people I refer to above, but they have a strong sense of 'following through' with anything they start. 

This has led me to believe one thing: that being talented isn't enough. There has to be a strong work ethic to pull through and complete what you do and to keep moving forward. Good photography is a combination of ability as well as effort. 

But there also has to be a sense of balance. Working too much and too hard will only cause burn out. Procrastination may be our enemy 'most' of the time, but it is not our enemy 'all' of the time. We do need to have an understanding of when it is time to not do anything, just as much as it is important to know when the time is right to work. Like a music composer who understands which notes to play next, and when to leave a pause in the music, rest as important as the work itself.

As a photographer, do you feel you have a good balance between putting the work in to create your imagery? Do you also feel you know when it is time to rest and go do something else instead? Do you never complete work? Or do you feel you have a strong sense of rhythm to your creative life and feel you know yourself well?

These are important questions, because our creative output (or lack of), often says a lot more about us than we think.

The space between us

My father has often pointed out to me, that many of my pursuits or hobbies have been solitary ones. When I was a small kid, I spent a lot of time painting and drawing and much preferred to spend a lot of time on my own. I am to my own admission, a covert introvert. Over my life, I've learned social skills to help me hide the fact that I spend a lot of time looking within, and find the time on my own with my own thoughts something that I really need, and also enjoy.

When I made this photograph of this small volcanic cone in Argentina, I'm sure I tapped into my ability to remain within the scene while at the same time be outside of it. My camera is a great way of giving space between myself and my subjects.

Now before you start to think that I'm someone who's not sociable or able to have a conversation with, those that know me probably find me very chatty and outgoing. The reason why I bring this up, apart from to convince you that I am a normally functioning human being, is that I think one of the true skills of a photographer is to be able to be part of something while at the same time remain outside it. Let me explain further.

In order to really see something for what it may present in picture terms, there needs to be a degree of separating ourselves from what it is we are photographing. We need to be able to look at something differently from those around us. Rather than thinking of our potential subject as something of purpose, we are instead looking at it from an aesthetic point of view. There has to be space between us and our subjects for this to happen. But there also has to be a sense of connectedness to our subjects as well.

I think I have, through my own genetic introversion, gained skills at a young age to be part of what was going on around me, while at the same time remain within myself. This skill has allowed me to be able to exist in the external world while also hold onto my own rich inner-life.

I think this is one of the components of most if not all photographers: we have the ability to be part of our surroundings while at the same time, be separate from them. There is no better tool that I can think of other than the camera which allows us to exist in the world, while also at the same time be outside of it. When we pick up a camera, we create space between ourselves and our subjects. We are no longer part of the scene but instead we are outside of it looking in. And I think this is a situation that many of us find comfortable to be in.

Before you assume that my point of view is that all photographers are introverts (this could be true, it may also be false), the point I am really trying to make today, is that making photographs requires an interesting mix of being able to be part of something while at the same time be outside of it.

If you are someone who has a rich inner-life, then you may find that photography has come naturally to you because it allows you to be outside of the situation, while at the same time part of it. But if you are not an introvert, then maybe this experience of being outside of the scene is still an interesting one for you because it is something you don't normally encounter. It's a real luxury to be able to enjoy something in a way that isn't often encountered in our day to day activities.

Either way, the point I am making today, is that for photography to work, we have to have an interesting mix of being able to be part of the scene we are photographing, while at the same time remain outside of it. Cameras allow us to do that, and I think that's one of the reasons why I was drawn to photography in the first place; It satisfies my need to be part of the world, while at the same time remain outside of it all, looking in.

A crisis of abundance

When I started out making pictures a few decades ago, there was little thought on my part about how I would live with the work as time went on. I think that for many of us, the pursuit of the image is what consumes most of our time when we first start out.

It is only now several decades later, that I am aware of the mass of work I have created over many years. Not all of it is consistent and I've come to realise that although there are images which have stayed strong for me, some of it I am now embarrassed by. It seems that the passing of time invites objectivity.

There is clearly a skill to be mastered as one learns to live with their older work.

As part of my preparation for an exhibition I am doing this summer, I've been revisiting some of my older work and also reconsidering many of my more resent images. I've been thinking about how I should approach looking back at what I've done while also remaining in the present moment. I've also been asking myself the question 'how should I look towards the future without being tied down by what has gone before?' Because I do think that any body of work that has been amassed over time can become a weight, a burden to shoulder.

Learning to let go of who we were, of what we were trying to do, and what the work represented, is I feel,  the best way to go about moving forward. If I am able to also accept that the work itself is more a document of a moment, and does not strictly represent who I may be right now, then that allows me the freedom to grow.

It also allows me to view the work as open to re-interpretation. Why should work be cast in stone, to be one way just because that is how I felt at the time I first created it?

The nub of living a creative life, as I see it, is to recognise that the only thing that is constant in our lives is impermanence. The way we see the world now, and the way the world is, is always changing and just because we said or felt or believed something one day, does not imply that it is still true another day. We are entitled to change and in fact we are always changing.

By accepting that things come and they go, gives me great comfort to understand that what I do, is just a transient expression of who I was at a moment in time. Sometimes these expressions (images) become part of me - works that I am immensely proud of, and sometimes they are works that lose appeal over time. I do not judge myself harshly for what I have done, because that would lead to trying to obtain unreachable goals. By accepting that I am changing and that my work may vary in quality and quantity over time, allows me freedom to continue. The way I see it, it's the only way to prevent my older work (my history) from having more prominence than it should.

Seeking Balance

We are always striving for balance in our photography. We look for it when we are working with tones, when we are composing and also, in how much time we spend on our craft. I know only too well that sometimes spending too much time on what I do can create an imbalance.

As photographers we are drawn to our passion because deep down we are seeking to find a balance between light and shade. Light and share are our Yin and Yang.

Ataranga Hanga Piko Riata, Easter Island
Image © Bruce Percy 2016

The process of seeking balance is important even though I believe the goal of reaching it is not. It is important because it is the mechanism that allows us to create new work. Without this 'seeking' we would become static and nothing would be produced by us. It is also an impossible thing to achieve because life is fluid and when things are always in a state of change, balance is difficult to keep.

Instead, I see 'seeking balance'  as a journey that allows me to explore and create work along the way. It is in moving and changing between states where our creativity flourishes.

Volcanic fault line, Tongariki, Easter Island
Image © Bruce Percy 2016

So I think it's healthy to find there is an ebb and flow in one's work. I have moments when I produce very little and then times when I am very creative.

In considering how seeking balance affects my work, I'm aware that recently I've been moving towards a more monochromatic, less saturated look. But sometimes the work does not suit it and I return once more back to more vivid colours. One could argue that this is me seeking balance in the colour aspects of my work.

I've also become aware that sometimes my images are heading towards brighter tonal ranges and then back towards darker tonal ranges. One could also argue that this is me seeking balance in the tonal aspects of my work.

I've come to realise that this moving and shifting is as if I'm flexing some tonal muscle, getting used to a new range of tones that I've not worked with before.

Image © Bruce Percy 2016

I believe that we are always hunting, searching, looking for balance in what we do. Yet seeking balance is not about attaining it, It is really more about the movement from one state to another and how new work comes into being through the changes in us.

Just as Yin cannot exist without Yang, and darkness cannot exist without light, creativity cannot happen without a need to seek balance. Once we understand that the act of seeking balance in our work is really a journey, and not a struggle to overcome our limitations, then we become free as creative people to see where it may lead us.

the recounting of an experience

For a long while earlier this year I felt as though winter would never end.

Now it feels like a distant memory.

I've just been browsing through my images from the island of Senja. It's the first time I've done this since I finished work on the edits back in March this year. You see, I don't often look at my own work once it's done.

But today I received a print order for one of my Senja images, and one thing has led to another and I've just spent the past twenty minutes browsing through the images I created back in February of this year.

When I look back at the images from a shoot, I often find my mind is filled with the same sensory feelings I had at the time I was there. It's like I've just been transported back to the shoot and I'm reliving everything I felt whilst there, and who I was at that moment in time.

I can recall the quality of the light throughout the day while I was on the island of Senja, and how it never really ever got very bright for most of the week. While I was there I was living in a perpetual semi-winter-darkness of muted tones and almost no colour. My energy levels were sluggish as I was still feeling the effects of the short days and lack of sunlight that winter often provides.

I think that's one thing that is very powerful about our own imagery. Because the images are ours, we have the ability through them, to be transported back to a place and time as if it was just a recent event in our lives. This is a highly personal experience as our images don't have the same effect on others. The impressions they give us are ours and ours alone.

I find any personal feelings tend to diminish the more frequently I visit my images. If I look at them too much, the impression of the shoot and my time whilst there gets lost in the new imprinting of current experience,  of where I am now, and of who I am at the moment of the current viewing. And the more I do this, the more the images become so familiar that they trigger almost no memory of past events at all. I  become numb to them.

Like a piece of music from our past that is played on the radio, the music has power to take us back to another time. I think with images we've made, the same is true. I just don't wish to view them too often, otherwise I worry that any emotions and memories associated with them will soon become blurred at best, or at worst, lost to me forever.

Do you desaturate outside of your comfort zone?

We also have our comfort zones when it comes to colour and contrasts. As a beginner I was always reaching for the high-contrast option, the deep blacks and bolder colours that I could get from my Velvia films and from the available light in the landscape.

But our world does not just have one face. It has many faces and many colours, tones, contrasts, and all of it is worthy of being utilised in our photography. I think moving into new regions, using softer tones and more subtle colour palettes takes time though. Again, like a child building a vocabulary of words, we too have to build up a vocabulary of light qualities and colour responses that we know will work in our imagery.

Desaturated (compare to the originals below).

Our comfort zones often mean we have a tendency to push for the dramatic and bold. Not just in our photography, but in most things in life:

Q1. Does the bass and treble on the hi-fi system have to always be boosted?

Q2. Does the food always need to have salt and sugar added to it?

Q3. Do we always have to search out dramatic sunsets?

Q4. Do the Photoshop / Lightroom sliders always have to go up rather than down?

Can't there be enjoyment in the subtle as well as the dramatic? Do you even allow it in your work? Or are you always striving to make things shout out more to the viewer?

Going the other way leads you into new territory where there is another beauty, another enjoyment.

A1. Turning the Bass down on your hi-fi allows the mid-range to have more clarity.

A2. Cutting back on the sugar and salt in your food allows the natural flavours to surface.

A3. Shooting in more muted light brings you to new colour palettes, softer tones and new moods in your work.

A4. Moving the Photoshop / Lightroom Sliders to reduce things rather than boost them bring you to new colour palettes, softer tones and new moods in your work.

We often hang on to stronger tones and colour more through habit than an appreciation for them.

The originals before I desaturated them. We often hang on to stronger tones and colour. It's a habit, more than an appreciation for stronger colours and harder contrasts.

Where do your comfort zones currently sit? Are you often trying to push the dramatic aspect of your work or do you also play with the more subtle, softer aspects of our world? I ask this in all seriousness because photographs aren't just about great placement of objects to make good compositions. Good compositions aren't just about objects, but often about the interplay between colour, contrast and luminance.

We have so many comfort zones in what we do, and knowing where you are with that, indeed who you are, is key to growing as a photographer.