A library of dust

Every now and then, I come across a book, or a set of photographs that surprise me. In the case of David Maisel's book 'A library of Dust', I'm reminded that subject matter can be found anywhere, and even the most unlikely of places can yield images that are fascinating. I'd highly recommend looking at David's site for more of his projects. There are a lot of thought-provoking themes in his work, and I've just bought two of his books because of what I've seen there.

In 'A Library of Dust', David has found over 3,000 metal canisters of cremated remains, tucked away at the back of a disused asylum. Personally, I'm not interested in the morbid aspects to these images, nor the fact that the cremated remains were that of people who were mentally unwell. That, I feel, is like looking for an angle of torment to a story. It simply does not appeal. But what does appeal, is the colours that these canisters present. As he describes them:

"The etching of the copper, and the intensely hued colors of the blooming minerals combine to individuate the canisters. These deformations sometimes evoke the celestial - the northern lights, the moons of some alien planet, or constellations in the night sky".

There's a sense of beauty to these objects.

A book like 'A library of Dust' provides beautiful images of copper canisters. They themselves are landscapes in miniature and David has wrapped them up with an interesting theme.

I'm reminded also, that photography can cover subjects much more wider ranging than just landscape or portraiture. I like to cover books like this one on my blog, to remind us, that there's a whole world of photography out there that most of us have never engaged in nor considered as part of the medium.

On that note, I'd like to say that what I do with my own photography, in the scheme of things, is rather narrow. In fact, I believe that most people who have an interest in photography often don't get further than landscapes, and within that narrow realm, some can't go beyond what they saw. I've often said that photography is not 'real'. We do not see in 2D, we do not see with wide angle lenses, and we do not have the dynamic range of a digital sensor. As human beings, we interpret, engage and respond to our surrounding environment in many ways, and for that matter, a book like 'A library of dust' is a reminder that we can go beyond the normal confines of our own aesthetics, be inspired, and perhaps find something new and  and interesting to photograph.

A Library of Dust is available from Beyond Words.

Patagonia Safari, one space now available

Unfortunately, due to ill health, one of the participants for my Patagonia safari next year, will not be able to make it.

So I now have one freed up space for this Safari, and it's first come first served, so if you see this, and had been hoping to come along - now's the time to jump straight in and book it here.

Music and Images

Once upon a time, I lived and breathed writing music and, I always felt that if I were forced to define myself, I'd have said I was a musician.

Please click on the image to play the podcast

Things change, and over the past decade, I've had to accept that a life in music is not for me. It seems that Photography was always there, sitting in the side lines, waiting for me to sit up and listen. So these days, I now fully accept that photography chose me, and not me it.

But I'm still deeply passionate about music, and I listen to it all the time, whether it's with my Sennheizer HD-25 DJ headphones, or through some of my home hi-fi. Music is the background to my life. So I've been thinking for a while, that i'd love to do a project that could incorporate my first love in a more prominent way.

As some of you know, I have a podcast available on iTunes, and this has been a great outlet for me to use my musical abilities, to set a backdrop for my own music. It's been a lot of fun to do.

But i've been thinking of something a little grander in scale. I would, for instance, love to pay music back. Whereas music has been the backdrop to my life, then would it be so strange to think of putting together an event where my images of Scotland become the backdrop to some of the music that I love?

It's very early days.... and I may be speaking out of turn here. But for the past few months I've been thinking of putting on a show where I invite some of the most contemporary Scots musicians to play their music with my own photography as a backdrop. I'd seriously love to do it, and I've begun talks with a particular outfit that I'm very keen on. It may not happen, but I've discovered over the past few years that an idea can become something real. My book, for instance, was once just an abstract thought. A dream. But with a bit of focus and attention, dreams can become real.

I just mention this all to you, because, despite the reality that if anything comes of this, it will take a year or two at the very least to get funding and organise it properly, the main message is that you should follow what inspires you. For me, inspiration for my creativity (I make no distinction towards photography, as I feel that as a creative person, the medium can change over time), can come from anywhere. I deeply love music, and there are some very contemporary musicians in the Scottish Folk scene that I'm particularly drawn to. They summarise for me, the moods and the feelings I have for my own back yard.

Maybe it's time to put those feelings to good use.

New eBook - The art of self awareness

I'm pleased to let you know about a new eBook I've just released. Ever since I started to conduct photographic workshops, I've learned an awful lot about myself as a photographer. I'm sure for many of you, that might be a surprise, as you probably thought that workshops are all about the participants and how to improve their photography (they are). But in the process of working with others, I've often had to think about why I do certain things when I'm making images.

I'm not talking about technical aspects, such as what shutter speed or which aperture I chose for a particular image, but more about how I responded to a landscape the way I did, why I chose one composition over another, and perhaps more importantly, my general approach to all things creative.

We are creative people, and creative types tend to work based on feelings and intuitions they have about the work they're creating. I tend to have a lot of philosophical ideas about why I create my own work the way I do. And how I tend to respond to failure for instance. I'm highly objective about what I do, but I also allow myself to open up to what is presented to me.

So in this new eBook, I continue the themes set about in the 'Taj Mahal - a photographer's approach', and 'Lofoten - a photographer's approach', ebooks. Both of these eBooks discussed lots of ideas about how I tackle a project and how receptive I am to new ideas. In short - how I find images and how I work with the landscape.

The Art of Self awareness, a rather grand title, really tries to distill the idea that good photography lies in your own hands, and by having a clearer picture of who you are, and how you respond to your environment (or not, as the case may be), your photographic efforts may succeed or fail.

Here is a breakdown of the chapters contained within:

Contents

Bruce Percy 3 About the author

The Art of Self-Awareness 4 A better photographic approach

Iceland 6 A learning experience

Self Awareness 7 The art of looking inside in order to see outside

Re-evaluation 8 Do you take time to look back at your progress?

Failure as a gift 9 How do you react to your failures?

Organised Process 10 Do you dither and fuss?

Temperament 11 Are you impatient?

Conversation 12 Do you have a dialogue with the landscape?

Submission 13 Do you submit to the landscape?

Response 14 How do you feel when making images?

Narrow field of vision 15 Do you narrow your view to one thing?

Tuning in 16 Do you have a good sense of anticipation?

The devil is in the detail 17 Do you notice subtle changes in light, shade and tone?

Energy levels 18 How do you react when you’re tired?

Objectivity 19 Are you realistic?

Over-analysis 20 Do you over analyse?

Control freak 21 Do you fear your own creativity?

Never happy 22 Do you seek perfection or excellence?

Awareness studies 23

Well, that's quite a bit of thought provoking material there! Yes, it's taken me a while to work on this one, and I'm sure it's only really the beginning. But I grew tired of 'technical' websites years ago, and I never read any books about cameras or lenses these days. I'm much more interested in how we tick, what makes us the way we are.

My new ebook is available now, from my store.

Separation

One of the main aspects of composition, that I like to cover on my workshops, is that of separation. Separation? What exactly does Bruce mean? I hear you say.

Take the image above. One of the most common compositional mistakes made by photographers is that of overlapping objects so they become indistinguishable from each other. I can think of many images I've seen of Uncle Norman with a tree sticking out of his head, because the photographer, didn't appreciate that when the tree behind his uncle, and his uncle, once flattened down to a 2D image, would become one object - that of Uncle Norman with a tree growing out of his head.

Separation is the act of identifying objects in the frame and giving them enough body space, so that they don't encroach on other object, or cause tonal conflict.

As photographers, we have to think in 2D. Thinking in 3D means that it's all too easy to see two objects and distinguish  between them. Once flattened down into 2D, if they have the same tonal range to them, they can very easily become one confused mass. Consider two stones of the same texture and shade, and if one is right behind the other, then once flattened down, they become one big confused lump of similar texture and tone.

When I made the picture of the tree at the edge of Loch Lurgainn, I noticed that the reflection of the mountain had the same shape as the outline of the tree. A decade ago, I'm sure I wouldn't have recognised the relationship, and I wouldn't have been considered about where to place the reflection and the tree in the frame. Well, it's certainly something I'm very aware of these days - and if I see any 'echo' like this in the landscape, I try to utilise it. In the case of this image, I spent quite some time moving my tripod around on a steep embankment, so that I could have the outline of the tree fit snugly into the crest of the mountains reflection.

In terms of separation, I made sure they did not overlap, because they would have created a form of tension that would have rendered the image a failure. The degree of separation between tree and mountain is very small though - because I felt they fitted together like a jigsaw, and should be photographed to illustrate this tight relationship.

Well, this past weekend, while I was in Torridon, conducting a workshop, one of the participants - Steve Ellis, really took to the idea of separation that I'd covered during my Friday evening talk and made this image:

We arrived at the edge of Loch Maree in what I can only describe as 'gloom'. We'd suffered with a lot of rain for the entire day and things didn't look promising for a decent evening shoot. But if you don't go, you don't get, and in this case, what Steve found was that the backdrop of misty rain on the loch. Yes, the sky you see in this photo isn't sky - it's the loch.

I've been to this location on countless times now, as I take most of my participants on the Torridon weekend workshop here, but I've never seen a photo like this until this weekend. I believe it happened mainly because of the atmospheric conditions. If we'd had more visibility, the loch would have been less diffused, and as a result, would have been more attention seeking.

But Steve had also taken what I'd been explaining about separation to heart and deliberately placed the smaller tree under the arm of the larger tree. I remember him scanning through his 5DM2 on location and showing me other examples. It's always a great feeling to know that someone has not only picked up what I've been trying to teach, but has discovered material out in the landscape with which to apply it to.

I'll discuss more about this image in a few days.

Book Launch & Signing

Dear All, In conjunction with Beyond Words Photographic Book shop, I'm pleased to let you all know, that there will be a Book launch, held at the Mcdonald Library (Mcdonald Road, just off Leith Walk, Edinburgh) on Monday the 28th of November from 6:30 to 8pm.

There will be a talk, given by myself, about some of the images from the book from 7pm to 7:30pm.

From 7:30pm to 8pm, there will be a chance to buy a copy of the book, and have it signed by myself. There are no credit card facilities, so if you fancy a copy of the book, please bring cash or cheque book. Cost of the basic edition is £40.

If you would like to attend, then I'm pleased to let you know that attendance is free.

Please circulate this to anyone you think may be interested. The hall has enough space for up to 80 people.

@ the Matterhorn

The past few weeks have been really hectic for me. I'm the kind of person that needs a lot of space around me, in all shapes and forms. That means that not only do I need a lot of solitude, I also need to have a schedule which allows me time on my own.

So I have to say, that the past few years have been a real challenge to me. As my workshop participant and friend Sam Blair said to me after a workshop on the isle of Eigg 'don't forget to take some time to recharge your own batteries. Put the camera down for 30-60 days, ride a bike across Scotland, train for a 10K, volunteer, prepare an outline for your book, whatever the hell it might be. We all need to recharge, particularly creative people'

I admit to that. I'm a social person (so the workshops are great fun), but I also need time to recharge, time to get enthusiastic about the future, time to get enthused about something.

So this week I'm home, and I haven't been anywhere near my office, because, quite frankly, I can't face it. I've not had a day or so to just be on my own, with time to absorb what I've witnessed over the past few weeks, and that has been quite remarkable.

Last week I was in Switzerland, and while I was there, I spent two mornings at viewpoints looking towards the Matterhorn.

The Matterhorn, has for me, always been a symbol of what an iconic mountain should look like. Paramount Pictures based their icon, i'm convinced, on the Matterhorn*. Maybe you can correct me, but I think the Paramount Pictures image is of no particular mountain, but what they consider an 'iconic mountain shape'.

Anyway, my good friend Sonja sent me this photo today of me sitting on a ledge, looking out towards the Matterhorn. I must say I was surprised at how small the mountain seemed. Scale, size, are all banished when looking at an object of massive proportions from a distance. It was hard to get a grasp on how big the mountain is. Maybe this is a symbolic reference, and something I should take heed of.

Sometimes, the things we do, the chance encounter, the people we meet, the passing conversation, or the images we capture, all have a meaning, much more powerful than we can grasp at the time of the exchange. We often don't have a sense of scale, of importance to current events, until we're at a distance, so that we can apply some form of enlightenment, otherwise known as hindsight.

* Wikipedia (a very reliable source, not), has this to say about the Paramount Pictures Mountain "According to some sources, the Paramount Pictures logo, known as Majestic Mountain, was modeled after Mount Ben Lomond. It is said that William W. Hodkinson, the founder of Paramount and a native of the Ogden area, initially drew the image on a napkin during a meeting in 1914".

Personally, I do find it interesting, the idea of an icon, and of objects, people, ideas, becoming more than what they are. Paramount pictures mountain, for me, has always symbolised what the perfect mountain should be. I believe, with all my heart, that the Matterhorn is as close to that ideology as anything could be.

Book - local availability

For those of you who live locally - Edinburgh, and wish to come and pick up a copy of the book once it has been released (11th of November), you can now place an order for it on the Half-Light Press web store - choose Uk and 'pickup'. You will not be charged postage.

The book will be available for pick up at my office in town during normal working hours.

I may not be around, as I'm often away doing workshops, or working on personal photographic projects, but if I am there - I would be only too happy to talk about the book and sign it for you.

Books will be kept in the office for you to pick up during working hours of 9am to 5:30am, Monday to Friday.

My office address is:

Bruce Percy 33 Sandport Street Edinburgh Eh6 6EP

Please bear in mind that the book is not available until the 11th of November, but you can place and advanced order for it and come and pick it up after the release date. Limited edition copies with prints are selling out faster than I anticipated.

Appenzell, Switzerland

This article was written at the beginning of this week, but due to the release of my book, I shelved it until just now. We're just finishing up in Zermatt today and I'm flying home to the UK. ---

I'm in Switzerland this week. Right now, I'm sitting in a chalet below the Matterhorn, while we wait for some good weather. We will be heading up to some view points tomorrow evening to shoot sunset and then sunrise towards the mountain.

But I'm really here, because of connections I've made through my workshops. In 2009, I met my friend Peter, a Swiss, through the Eigg workshop I held in Scotland. He came back a month or two later to join me on my Harris workshop, and it was there, that he showed me some photos of the area of Switzerland that he lives in - Appenzell. My friend Sonja, came to my Torridon workshop in December 2009. Then there is Jurg and Dorin, who came on later trips. It seems the Swiss really love Scotland. So I am here with four friends and they have been showing me around Switzerland this past few days.

The images contained within this post are of Appenzell. I first found out about it when Peter showed me some photos on his iPhone while we were on the Harris workshop. I was immediately taken by the appearance of a simplistic landscape and, dare I say it, a 'toy town' look that I've never seen anywhere else.

For me, I have to feel a real connection with a place, before I go and shoot it. In fact, I have to be drawn to it. And I feel that Appenzell has some strange, overly 'unreal' feel to it, which makes it very attractive to me.

Due to the bad weather predicted for the north west of the country, we had to abort our plan to shoot around Appenzell. I was sad about this because I'm really drawn to the minimalist landscape that lies there. Peter did show me around the area for a few hours and I made some very quick 'sketches' with my little Lumix GF1. I'm now hoping to return in 2012 (time permitting) to make a more detailed study of the area, and to shoot it in much more ideal light. But I think you will see, that there is something very unusual and 'minimalist' about this landscape.

Book Update

Many thanks to the large number of you, who have made an advanced order for the book, and for the high turn out of special editions that have been sold.

I'm hoping to set up a book signing event for sometime, hopefully before the year is out. More soon on this.

If you'd like to make an advanced order for the book (release date 11th November), please go to the Half-Light press web site for more details.