Making of 40 Photographs #21

This is #21 in my series ‘Making of 40 Photographs’. A lot of images work because there is a repeating theme within. Often I feel, composition is about breaking down a scene into the simplest components available. Like I’ve said before - it’s more often about what you omit from the scene than leave in that’s important.

Simple is good. Simple is effective.

I’d wanted to come to the Angkor Wat temple complex ever since I first saw Steve McCurry’s work here. But I just hadn’t expected the thronging crowds that gather there each morning at 5am to watch the sunrise. So powerful is the tourist brochures, that the place is swamped with over 1,000 people each morning.

So I was looking to exclude them. Would you know that this shot was actually taken in a packed place? If I’d shot 90 degrees to my left or right, you would have seen a row of wannabe National Geographic photographers - photo vests adorned, Canon L series glass at the ready for this sunrise shot.

But what I was attracted to was the crescent moon shape in the sky. If we think about this image, it’s not really about Angkor wat. It’s really about that sky, reflected in the small moat within the Angkor grounds, and that crescent moon shape - created by mirroring the top half of the frame.

Positioning myself at the very edge of the moat allowed me to extract all the other tourists out of the shot. I’m always looking at the bigger picture too so I couldn’t help but take in the expanse of the sky and the textures going on in it. Angkor was far too dark to use as a main subject so I resigned it to becoming a silhouette - breaking down the scene into a collection of simple shapes and forms is an effective approach. But don’t forget the quality of that monsoon light too. Shot in the early hours, I knew the dynamic range was narrow (once I’d accepted that the temple would be almost black), so it was now just down to figuring out how best to represent the sky, and I did that by utilising the mirror effect and that crescent moon shape too.... simple forms, simple repeating patterns and great light are often all that’s required to create a new reality that’s pretty effective.

Making of 40 Photographs #20

This is #20 in my series ‘Making of 40 Photographs’. Don’t you just love the mystery of photography?

For me, I like to conjure up a story, imagine what was really happening when I make an image. I think that’s part of the ‘dream state’ that is part of making an image. When I visualise a scene, I conjure up a feeling and sometimes a story to back it up.

So what is ‘my’ story for this image? Well to me, it’s like she’s heading off to get married, a young bride, perhaps getting married to her religion. Of course, I could be completely wrong, but that’s the attraction for me.

And then there is the interaction. It’s not often we get a chance to get involved with others that are passing by. Some people are more intriguing than others and with street photography, I get a chance to enter into their life, albeit for a brief moment.

I just love that.

I often get up really early in the morning when I’m in a foreign city. There is a calmness and a different face to a city that you don’t see later on in the day. I guess you could argue that there are similarities to shooting a city in the morning and shooting a rural landscape in the morning. The city is still waking up and I have time as well as peace in which to roam.

And that’s what I often do is just roam, and see where my wandering will take me and what images are waiting for me round the next corner.

I shot this image on a newly acquired Contax 645 camera and standard 80mm lens. I think it was shot at around f2 - it’s the ideal way to isolate the foreground and diffuse the background. There’s an overall pink tone to the image which I find rather pleasing, but I thing for me, it’s the expression on her face that works for me, as well as the timelessness quality that film presents.

Her mother was really pleased that I wanted to take her little daughters photo. I often find in developing countries that parents are very happy for their children to be photographed. There is a different culture to photo-making in each country I’ve visited. Morocco is bordering on it being a crime, until there is some history or meaning to the shot. Perhaps you buy something from a shop holder - asking for their image makes much more sense, but in general, most people don’t understand why a stranger would want to take their picture. We’re a strange breed - us westerners.

Making of 40 Photographs #19

This is #19 in my series ‘Making of 40 Photographs’. Jokulsarlon lagoon is perhaps one of the most accessible and overly photographed landscapes that Iceland has to offer once you’re left the confines of Reykjavik and its surrounds behind you.

Just a tiny part of Vatnajokul - a massive ice cap that dominates the south east side of the island, Jokulsarlon has been created in the last 100 years from glacial retreat. What used to be a glacial tongue has slowly receded to leave behind the lagoon.

I came here in 2004 for a month of concentrated photography and spent around 4 days at Jokulsarlon. It was hard not to although from most tourists perspective, visiting the lagoon is normally a couple of hours visit with a boat trip thrown in.

That’s what distinguishes us photographers from tourists. Tourists follow the verbatim. They see the landscape in midday light, stripped of all the subtlety that an early morning or late evening shoot present. They may buy the postcards of the lagoon shrouded in an endless midsummer dawn light, but they seldom experience this for themselves.

I like to factor in a lot of time to my trips for each location I visit. Having a lot of time means I have a better chance of capturing the landscape at its most engaging. Each day at the same location is different, the light is different, the weather is different and all these aspects tend to make me feel different about the place too. Photography is not just about seeing - it’s about feeling as well. Getting beneath the skin of a place and learning to understand it.

I shot many images of Jokulsarlon. The first one here was shot on my first day there. The place was shrouded in fog and I knew that as the morning continued, the bergs would become visible as the sun would burn off the fog. Studying the landscape and being aware of that gradual change is paramount.

But unless you feel something about the subject you’re shooting, you won’t get anywhere, and if you do feel something for it - then you’re in a better position to understand it and to photograph it at its most compelling. You need to have patience, to wait it out, to recognise that today is special for being today and tomorrow will present something new.

My favourite time for shooting the lagoon tended to be during the nocturnal hours. In the middle of summer there is no night - just a set of eye patches to help you sleep and an endless desire to get out there and shoot when the lagoon is still.

I shot this image under those circumstances. You can feel the stillness of the place. It’s like time has stood still for a moment and for me that’s priceless. To have that contemplation and space in my life. 

As the earth temperature drops in the evening, it releases the heat that its stored throughout the day. This affects the weather and for that reason, is why I often prefer mornings. By the small hours of the morning the earth has cooled and stabilized and the weather has calmed as a result. Stillness pervades and it’s often the most intimate time for me to be out in the landscape.

Making of 40 Photographs #18

This is #18 in my series ‘Making of 40 Photographs’. I love new adventures. Setting yourself a new project is a great way to further your photography and for me, I love nothing better than falling in love with a new region of the world, researching it, and then planning on how I will tackle it from a photography point of view.

Not all locations are created equal. Some of them need to be treated with more care than others while some I love to discover by just turning up and seeing what happens. The southern patagonia Ice Field falls into the former camp. It is a harsh, unforgiving, dangerous place which requires a lot of investment in yourself before you go there.

I trekked on the ice field for 5 days, in which time I had to carry an 80 litre back pack full of my camping gear and also a full Mamiya 7 outfit comprising the 50, 80, 150 and 210 lenses. An outdoor trainer friend of mine had told me I needed to get fit for the journey as it would make it enjoyable, rather than a painful 5 day existence. I’m so glad I listened to her about this because I did find the trip demanding.

This is the Marconi pass. The foreground is littered with erratics - boulders that have been left behind by a retreating glacier, and in the mid-ground is the Marconi glacier. We arrived here after my first day of walking for 7 hours with a fully laiden backpack. Just before we arrived at this location where we would spend the night in tents, I’d had to ascend the face of the Marconi glacier and this is where my winter-skills course in ice-axe arrest and traversing gradients with crampons on had come into good use. It’s very easy to impale yourself with the teeth of a crampon boot and so learning to walk like a crab, up hill seems to be a mandatory task.

I shot the Marconi pass in the late evening light. I was just drawn by the grooves of crevasses in the glacier’s face. Each one of them several hundred meters long and possibly just as deep.

But at 180 degrees to this shot we had a view of Fitzroy, Cerro Polone, Torre pier Giorgio and also a hint of Cerro Torre (far right white tip)..... while below you can see the valley we had just ascended.

I used a 3 stop hard grad for this shot, and metered for the granite, as I believed this to be around 18% grey.

Certainly, our first camping night gave commanding views in two directions. I think that’s the beauty of travel. It opens up new doors for you in more ways than I can think of. There is the natural escape from your little bubble that you live in back at home, and the feeling that home is but a distant memory, almost dream like. And then there is the wonder of experiencing something new each day. I often find it surprising how quickly I settle into my new surroundings and they become my norm.... It is only when I am entrenched back home in the humdrum of a normal existence that I’m capable of truly appreciating just how rare a place like the southern patagonian icecap is and I often have to pinch myself to believe I really was there.

Making of 40 Photographs #17

This is #17 in my series ‘Making of 40 Photographs’. An alternative view is often all that's required.

How often do you observe, study even, the location or the subject you want to photograph? I feel it's all about 'understanding' the subject and I find that when I'm drawn to someone or something I want to photograph - time seems to slow down, and the location empties of everything else except my subject. I feel I'm involved in a one-to-one exchange. And in order for the exchange to work well (the photograph), I've got to get to know my subject well.

I'm not talking about getting to know the monk in the picture - such as his name or anything like that, I'm talking about understanding the space he's situated in. Learning what will work from a compositional point of view.

I don't just assume that the first composition I see is the one that works. As you can see here, I've got two shots that I want to share with you. Both I feel work, but perhaps the first one is the most intimate while the second one shows a little more context - there's a monk praying in the distance which gives the shot a little more meaning. But for me I guess, it's the first shot that works the most. I love how I can see his eyes are shut and he's very concentrated on his praying. It's just him and the tree, and if I were bold, I'd say I'm involved too.

I shot these on a Contax 645 film camera using Kodak's Portra 160NC on a standard lens. I favour standard lenses because of their intimacy.... if they're too far away, it's because I'm not close enough. I do have a 140mm lens - the equivalent of a 70mm lens in 35mm terms, but I find I don't use it.

Making of 40 Photographs #16

This is #16 in my series ‘Making of 40 Photographs’. Sometimes you’re constrained and you know it.

Every scene we encounter presents something of value and often something that is of no value, and it’s up to us as photographers to extract out of it what we want. This can be easy on occasions because of the way the subject matter is laid out - and also perhaps it fits the vision we have in our head. These kinds of images come easily, but there are those images which we have to work at because we either don’t really understand what it is we’re photographing, or because there are obstacles in the scene which prevent it from being as perfect as we want it to be.

I often think that photography is not about what we want in the shot, but what we want to edit out of it. When making compositions, it’s as important to decide what to exclude as well as what to include. I just don’t think we really ever consider this.

Take this shot of Rannoch moor. I’d been studying the web cams up in Glencoe for some time during a variable February - hoping to get some real winter light, and it came for a brief day - just as I had a space in my diary to head up to the coe for an evening and one morning shooting there.

The shot has a lot going for it, but for me, what I remember the most as being problematic was the ‘weight’ of the stones in the foreground. Don’t you feel the stone on the far right is a little too close to the right hand edge of the frame? I do. I remember being aware of this, and the fact that there was too much space on the far left of the frame too.... but I was constrained by the physical limits of the edge of the lochan. Yes, the flat surface you see in the shot is actually the frozen surface of a small loch, and where I was positioned, allowed me no room to move to the left. In doing so, I would have been able to balance out the two foreground rocks with the background horizon of the hill.

It was a frustrating moment for me because I loved the quality of the light (the sun is rising right in the middle of the frame, but the cloud cover creates a very diffused light over it).

So I took it anyway. I’ve never been entirely happy with this shot because of the inbalance in the foreground composition, but I’m able to recognise that it’s still a nice shot and has something that a lot of people appreciate. But what I find surprising is that over time, I’ve found myself becoming so used to it, that it’s almost as if I can’t imagine it being shot any other way. Some images tend to grow on you and etch a place in your being and this, for me, is one of them.

On a technical note, it was shot again on my Mamiya 7. My first Mamiya 7 to be exact because I’m now onto my second one. The first one suffered a lot of use and rapidly started to fall apart. It’s not a well made camera by any means, but it makes up for this by being very light and portable for a 6x7 film camera. 

I used a 3 stop hard grad on the sky, and the rest was down to the quality of the light, which you only get like this on a fine winters morning on Rannoch moor.

Making of 40 Photographs #15

This is #15 in my series ‘Making of 40 Photographs’. I love the highlands of Scotland. I've come to think of them as some of the most dramatic landscapes in the world, even though the mountains are relatively small (the highest mountain - Ben Nevis is 1,244 metres). But the light is fascinating, often a complex melting pot of optimism and despair.

You see, being situated in the northern hemisphere, right at the edge of the gulf stream, and some of the first land mass to be met across the Atlantic ocean, we get a fair share of rain and low fronts that come swirling in, one after the other. Compounding this, Scotland is very mountainous on the west coast - similar to the south island of New Zealand, which has been christened the 'wet coast'.

Anyway, the reason why I bring all this up is because of the photo I'd like to discuss here. I shot this in Glen Coe, perhaps the most photographed region of Scotland. It was taken in the depths of winter, during a snow storm.  I'm always keen to head into the highlands during winter, because the light is at it's most dramatic - hence why most of my workshops are based at this time of year. The sun is often low in the sky, even at midday which means that shadows are long and the tones produced through the atmosphere are rather beautiful too.

I'd spent a few days up in Glen Coe and had finished for the morning by 9am when I came round this bend near the Buchalle Etive Mor. The Scottish Mountaineering Hut is in the frame here, and I saw the snow blank out the sun in the sky. All I could see was the colours of the sun behind the clouds and that was enough for me to set up my Ebony 45SU large format camera.

In an attempt to save money and allow me to use the Ebony more freely, I'd adopted using a 6x12 roll film back with it, which worked to good effect on this image. I do remember feeling I'd set the camera up a little too late for the intended 'vision' I had in my head, but took the shot all the same. Often I find that my expectations can mar the full possibility of an image and this will hinder me from actually making the shot in the first place, or rejecting it when I see it. I'm glad I gave myself a few weeks before developing the roll because I couldn't have been any happier at the result.

In terms of technical details, I can tell you it was shot on Velvia 50, with an ND Grad on the top half of the image. Everything else is a blur and I'm not one for making up aperture and shutter speeds, nor for recording them at the time.

Making of 40 Photographs #14

This is #14 in my series ‘Making of 40 Photographs’. Mount Fitzroy in the far north region of Los Glaciares national park, is a mountaineering mecca. For me, it is a place to test the soul and I've often found myself questioning 'why' I do photography when I'm here.

The weather is so unpredictable, regardless of season. Situated on the very edge of the southern Patagonian ice cap (the third largest body of ice in the world), it has its fair share of inclement weather, storms and sometimes, just sometimes, stunning light.

You may have already heard my account of making an image of Cerro Torre. This is all part of the same landscape and one which I am truly in love with, but it has cost me in frustration and poor health when I return home. You see for me, I don't know quite when to stop when I'm trying to make certain images. I'd so wanted to shoot this and get that run red glow. You see it on all the tourist brochures and it does happen here from time to time, but for me - it was elusive.

So on my fourth trip to this part of the world, I had to stick it out and wait. This view point is called 'Laguna de los Tres', and it's at the top of a strenuous 1 hour hike. I don't mind the hiking, but from previous experiences I'd known that this trip can be a little daunting in the dark, even with a head torch on. So thie time I came prepared with a pretty big head torch. The last time I'd been here, my companion who was from the US had completely freaked me out about 'mountain lions', otherwise known as 'Puma' here in Los Glaciares. They are here, but they're endangered. Even so, my last effort at climbing this hill in the dark had been troubled by thoughts of the nocturnal Puma lying in the scrub. Needless to say, my companion had put the wind up me, and I never made it through the forest at the base of the climb.

So this time I was determined that if I got a clear morning, I was going to do the climb. But when I got there, a lot of snow had been dumped a few days beforehand and many tourists had (stupidly) climbed the hill with unsuitable shoes. The path was now very slippery and even with my head torch on, I felt that it was madness to carry on.

The one thing that did help me this time was my choice of companion. Just before setting off in the morning, I heard an alarm clock going off in the adjacent tent and realised that I would not be alone on the ascent. My companion - Bartos, a much younger man than myself, an enthusiastic Pole, encouraged me to start climbing and he said he'd catch me up.Which is exactly what he did do. We both got there well before sunrise and I was never so happy to have company. Bartos brought up a flask and breakfast as well as a picnic mat.

While we were waiting for the light to hit the eastern face of Fitzroy we debated whether sunrise had passed or not. I was sure we'd missed it but he was adamant that it was still to come. I'm glad he was there to keep me straight as this shot happened almost 1 hour later than I'd anticipated.

Thank you Bartos.

Making of 40 Photographs #13

This is #13 in my series ‘Making of 40 Photographs’. Dramatic light should be on everyone's list for photo making. It's often tempting to put the camera away when it's raining or when a storm is coming. But for me, it's the exact opposite.

I spent a month in Iceland, and before I went, I had done a lot of research on the places I wanted to visit. So here I was in the highlands of Iceland at a place called Landmannalaugar. It's only reachable by a very shaky bus trip over very rough ground and crossing a few rivers too during the short summer months, or by foot on the very rewarding Landmannalaugar to Porsmork trek.

I spent a few days here scouting out the location and waiting for some good light. On my fourth night here, it started to look pretty stormy, so I headed for the top of Mt Blahnukur with my Mamiya 7 and pile of lenses. I shot this using the 150mm lens (equivalent to a 75mm lens in 35mm land). It is one of the sharpest lenses in the Mamiya 7 line up. I love the graduations of tones on the hills and the sky.

I remember spending time up on the hill, watching the storm come in and just enjoying the peace while I watched events unfold before me. Sometimes, even if I don't get a picture, just the experience of being there is enough. In this instance, I did feel I got something quite memorable, which only heightens the experience for me.

Making of 40 Photographs #12

This is #12 in my series ‘Making of 40 Photographs’. Patagonia is a region I simply can't stay away from. Stunning scenery and the climate is very similar to my home land of Scotland.

I'm not one for giving up on a shot, yet the northern region of Los Glaciares national park in Argentina had pretty much defeated me on three separate trips to Torre lagoon in order to get a sunrise shot of Cerro Torre - one of the most difficult mountains in the world to climb.

In the 1950's, an Italian mountaineer called Maestri claims to have climbed Cerro Torre with his partner Tony Eger. But there is no evidence of their full assent because Eger died on the way down and he had the camera with him. It's pretty much taken in mountaineering circles that a mountaineers word is all that's required.

Then in the early 70's a team of American's made it to the top of Cerro Torre and the found little evidence of Mastri's ascent. Even his descriptions of the mountain didn't tie in with what they found, and there was only evidence of his climb for a 1/3rd of the height of the mountain.

I find this compelling because the mountain is a bit if a mystery to me also. I've had a hell of a time trying to get a decent sunrise picture of it. Situated right on the very edge of the southern Patagonian ice field, the region is notorious for ferocious winds, inclement weather and poor visibility. I've had countless e-mails from fellow travelers who pretty much say the same thing: 'I got there, but couldn't see a thing for days'. This pretty much mirrors my attempts at getting a clear visible morning to shoot this mountain and I've often come home defeated, run down (after weeks of camping out in cold conditions waiting for the light that would never come). It was so cold in fact at one point that the shoe laces of my walking boots had frozen so hard that I could stand them upright. It was like looking at two squiggly straws.

So in 2008 I went back to this region, knowing full well that the weather is very fickle here and if I got anything at all, it would be down to luck more than anything. Things went pretty much as I expected too: I sat in a hostel at the base of Cerro Torre in the small town of El Chalten for four days in the howling wind, rain and zero visibility waiting for the weather to clear. You can forget weather forecasts here. You can often tell an outsider because they ask what the forecast is for the next few days while the locals raise their shoulders and gesture 'who knows - it's anybody's guess'.

I get pretty depressed sitting around for days upon days waiting for decent weather and on my 5th day, I decided to call it quits and head back to El Calafate. It's slightly further south and the weather is often clearer here. But I had another week to spare and decided that if I was here in Argentina, I should make the most of my time and try to go back to the base of Cerro Torre and wait it out.

I'm glad I did. I only had one clear morning in the entire time I was there and this shot was made then. I climbed down the glacial moraine from the camp site at Laguna Torre to the base of the lagoon early one morning and looked for some suitable foreground interest which I found in the shape of the ice berg you see in this shot. The berg was perhaps the size of a small car, situated not too far away from the edge of the lagoon. I placed my camera very low down on the tripod - perhaps only a few inches off the ground. It's a struggle to get down that low to check the composition, and you must always ensure you're not looking in side ways as this can affect your judgement. I remember checking the composition completely upside down because I couldn't get below the camera. This way I was able to check that the horizon was level.

And then I waited for the sun to appear and it was pretty brief. For a few minutes the glaciers on the far left were aglow and the sky brought some cloud interest into the top right of the frame and I shot a few exposures using a 3 stop hard ND grad on the camera. I was shooting a 5D and had noticed from previous trips how terrible the Canon wide angles are - they are pretty soft and require to be shot no less than f5.6 to avoid diffraction too. So this was shot at f5.6 and I also used a full ND to slow the shutter right down so I could get that glaze on the water too.

And then it was gone. I retreated back to the camp site to find everyone else still in their tents and when I asked if anyone had seen the sunrise, I was told that some of them had checked the light and felt it wasn't worth getting up for. This is perhaps rule no.1 of Photography : always go, even if the light doesn't seem good. You don't know how the light is going to change over the course of your visit, and besides, not going means you don't get. When I showed members of the camp site this shot - they were stunned at what they'd missed. Personally, It is perhaps the most satisfying image I've made. I felt that I'd worked at getting this image over the course of three or four years and the waiting was worth it.