Lofoten Islands, Norway

I'm just starting to work through my backlog of images from my last two (recent) safaris to the Lofoten Islands this February and March.

I loved the simplicity of these little ferns in the bay of Ytterpollen. It's normally full of reflections of the background mountains, but when we got here in February, the entire bay was frozen over. While the group were eating their packed lunch out of the boot of the car, I made this shot at the roadside on my Hasselblad.

I love shooting shallow depth of field at the moment. Being able to see through the lens is a luxury for me, after spending so many years working with a rangefinder (which i still love very much).

Anyway, I'm looking forward to going back to Lofoten in 2013. I published dates for two consecutive safaris in February this morning, and all the spaces were sold out within four hours.

I'll be back with more images from my trips, as the days progress. But right now, I'm off to watch some telly and enjoy some time at home. Enjoy your weekend!

The art of expensive toys?

For those of you who’ve been reading my blog for a while now, you’ll know I spent a bit of time last year getting a good colour managed system in my studio. Last year I bought an Epson 4880 printer and Colourbursts RIP driver. I also bought a viewing booth, which is vital in allowing me to assess and review my prints under daylight balanced light.

So my colour management was going really nicely, until my screen calibration tool broke. My trusty old Gretag Macbeth Eye One (now Xrite) started to produce wildly varying profiles, and after evaluating it on a friends system, I quickly came to the conclusion that it was broken, which probably explains why it went into the bin last year.

It’s an admission I’m not comfortable making, but I feel I must. Since last October, I’ve not been able to calibrate my screen. This might sound like terrible news.... how can Bruce work on his images if his screen is way out? Well, the simple answer is that I was able to confirm that my screen wasn’t ‘way out’. In fact, it turns out that my screen, when set to default settings was pretty much ‘way in’. Let me explain.

I’ve got an Eizo CG241W display at home. It comes from the factory calibrated. I hadn’t realised just how well calibrated it is in 'factory-mode' until I evaluated it whilst using a calibration test target. The test target comes in two parts - the first part is a TIFF file you open up in Photoshop, while the other part is a printed file, that when put under the viewing booth I own. If the TIFF file is opened up and the correct proofing setting enabled, both the printed file and the electronic one *should* look very similar. Well, it turns out that my test target looks pretty damn close when my Eizo is set to default settings. So this is how I was able to work for the past six months without a display calibrator.

To be fair, evaluating a printed target against one loaded up in Photoshop with proofing enabled is really the only way to ensure your calibration is true or 'close'.

But I have to confess that good is never good enough. I’m a perfectionist, and if there’s any chance of error in what I’m seeing on my display, it does make me feel a little uneasy. So I’d had my eyes on a new screen calibration tool for some time.

Enter the BasICColour Discus. I’d read so many review of it, seen it calibrate screens much tighter than anything else on the market - I knew I had to have one. But it’s not cheap, coming in at around £850. Yep, that’s around four times the price of an Xrite i1 Pro, which has similar features.

I felt that since I was getting ready to prepare my Iceland images for my 2nd book, I should really invest in a decent screen calibrator, and well, I must confess - I was sold on the Discus. Sometimes, I’m attracted to something because there’s an element of gear-lust involved (as much as I hate to admit that I'm susceptible, just like anyone else is to being attracted to some piece of gear), and in the case of the Discus, it’s a beautifully crafted piece of engineering. It reeks quality. But is it any good?

Well, I’m not really going to give you any deep technical reviews of the Discus, but suffice to say that although the calibrations are very accurate, they’re not as tight as the reviews I read before purchase. Do I feel deflated? A little, yes. But I think overall I’m happy, because the Discus is a quality piece of solid engineering. I'm just curious as to whether it was worth the 4 times the price tag of an Xrite i1 pro though.

So is there a message in this post for you all? Perhaps. I guess it's very easy to be swayed over by 'expensive = better', when in fact, we all know, as I have always done, that so long as the tools do the job, the rest is really up to us.

Ultimately, I can now get on with the main task at hand, that being preparing my Iceland images for print in my second book.

Tools are jumping boards to help us convey what our vision is, they are a means to an end. Do I wish I'd bought an Xrite i1 pro? Maybe.... but I think when it comes to making sure that colour is accurate, I would have preferred the option to test both items to see how far different the profiles are, before sinking the money. That said, now that I've done the deed, the profiles out of the Discus are very good indeed, so I'm not that interested in wasting my valuable time by splitting hairs between calibration devices.  That is a job for someone with some free time on their hands.

Reinefjord, Lofoten Safari, Norway

I'm in Norway this week, doing a photo-safari with a small group, and Ashley Childs, one of my participants shared this image with me today.

If you click on it, you'll see a larger version of the image. In the far left side, you can see someone in a blue jacket - well, that's me. I'm on a little jetty in Reinefjorden, Reine, Lofoten. We had terrific weather this morning, beautiful light, and I felt that Ashley's image was a nice 'documentary' shot of me, and is really good at conveying the scale and context of the landscape I'm in.

Paul Buchanan

Well, this is not really a photography related, posting, but something I feel, I must share.... I *was* a massive Blue Nile fan. I thought their first two albums were incredibly beautiful, and the last two less so. But I've just learned that Paul Buchanan (writer and singer) is to release a solo album of piano backed songs this May. The album is titled 'mid-air' and if you're an avid Blue Nile fan, then you'll no doubt be very excited.

This is one of Paul's new songs from his forthcoming album. I wish Paul every success with this album.

I got a lot of inspiration from the Blue Nile, whilst growing up. The music was highly emotive, atmospheric, and being a budding musician at the time, I felt it led the way for my own creativity. I've said it before on my blog, but Music has given me a lot of inspiration over the years, and this particular band had quite an impact on me.

Are you an English to Icelandic Translator?

Work on my 2nd book is progressing, and my special guest who is writing the preface for me has told me today that he should be finished writing his piece by next week. I'm looking forward to that. Putting the book together has been a very enjoyable creative process for me so far. I've really enjoyed choosing the images, the order in which they appear, and also the writing of the content for the book. I love how an idea can grow, and this has led me on to think about how I would like the text to appear in the book.

I feel the book would benefit very much from having the stories and content displayed in both English and Icelandic. So I'm looking for someone who can do a really good job translating English into Icelandic.

If you know of anyone, please do drop me a line at bruce @ bruce percy dot com.

Iceland Video Snippets

Tonight I've just downloaded some short videos I made on my phone whilst in Iceland last summer and this winter.  I thought I would share them with you, because they give a real insight to some of the places I get to see on my travels. Yes, I think photography should be able to convey that, but video has a certain 'being there' presence that allows us to see what others saw.

Dynjandi Waterfall, West Fjords, Iceland from Bruce Percy on Vimeo.

The first video, is of Dynjandi waterfall, which is situated in the west fjords of the country. It's quite a trek to get there, and I must tell you that when I did finally arrive - on a Wednesday afternoon, my bus driver politely told me he'd be back on Saturday to pick me up - as there is only 2 busses a week here. So began my first venture into hitching a lift anywhere - with soul destroying results. After 2 days camped at the falls, I decided that I needed to get to Eastfjorder. Anyway, I've decided to show you a photo that I made of the falls during the late evening, on one of my many walks up to the base of it. I use the photo to give contrast / context to the actual video. In the video you can see my Mamiya 7 on my Gitzo tripod. The light wasn't particularly great, so I was just happy to make some little video diaries of the falls.

And here are some images I shot whilst there:

And lastly, here's a little video showing the wintry conditions we experienced in January, whilst shooting the south coast of Iceland. I only wish I'd been able to capture the bleakness of the conditions I saw on our way from Reykjavik towards the south coast. It was quite fascinating watching the snow burl across the road the way it did - it was quite mesmerising!

Winter conditions, south Iceland, January from Bruce Percy on Vimeo.

Last week's Skye Workshop

Last week I was on the isle of Skye, at my usual fantastic haunt - the Glenview hotel. The group I had were excellent, despite the really rough weather we had.

I thought I'd share a photo of everyone, including Kirsty and Simon (and their children) who own the hotel. Simon is by far the best cook I've experienced on any trip, and it's always a delight for me to see participants get very enthusiastic about the food.

Anyway, I had a slight mishap at the hotel last week, which involved the near-use of the fire-extinguisher you see Simon holding in the photo. Needless to say, I'm the one holding the rubber chicken (don't ask - but Gerallt - my first Welsh participant deemed that I should hold his rubber chicken).

Here is a contact sheet of the groups efforts. We had some pretty terrible weather, but I'm always surprised that we end up getting something over the week. I've never had a trip happen where we couldn't produce some excellent work.

I've just published dates for the 2013 workshop on Skye. This year's trip proved to be very popular, despite several cancellations, the trip filled up very quickly, so I'm expecting a similar demand for next year's trip.

Isle of Harris Workshop

I have two spaces free for the Isle of Harris workshop, due to two last minute cancellations. So if you've been wanting to come to Harris this May, and spend time on one of the most beautiful islands in the outer hebrides, then please do drop me a line, or book online.

This is a very special workshop, because we spend our entire time outside of the UK mainland, on a very special island. Harris has a lot of very stunning beaches, and it has a timeless quality to it. We will be heading onto Lewis as part of the trip to photograph the Calanish standing stones too.

A journal of Nocturnes

Nocturnes - a composition, or piece of music that is inspired by, or evocative of the night.

My 2nd book project has been evolving over the past two months.

Initially, I just knew I wanted to do a second book, and had slated some time in for a trip to Iceland this December / January with the hope that something might come out of it. I had no idea at the time if the 2nd book would be about Iceland, but I did hope that it might be.

I've learned, that things don't always pan out the way you intended them, and to have a fixed idea of what it is you want to do - is too rigid. Certainly, having something to focus towards is a great motivator, but I also need to leave some room for change, and be able to consider that what I'm working on might not be the right fit, and something else might be better.

My 2nd book is taking shape quite strongly now. I originally had the idea of putting a book together about the south coast of Iceland and my ventures there to photograph the black sand and ice bergs. This brought me on to think about how to merge two different shoots - one from last Summer when I created a lot of very dark, monochromatic images of the black sand and ice bergs, and the more recent shoot this December/January, where the images are much more optimistic, light in tone and as a result - have a very different feel. This created a bit of a problem for me, and I felt the book was not gelling as well as I'd liked.

I felt that I wanted to add in some stories too, and give the viewer of the images some context, an idea of what I was feeling at the time. So over the past few months stories - some almost like poetry have been creeping into the book. It started to feel like it was coming together, gelling in the way I'd hoped. So until maybe a few weeks ago, I felt the book was on the right track and that it was mostly done, just the finer points like spelling, grammar, layout to be worked on and finalised. But the peace didn't last long. I was aware over the weeks that I felt a little like something was missing from the book, and I didn't feel it was complete. I can only get to this point if I give my work some time to sit, let it be absorbed and get comfortable with what it truly is, as opposed to what I think it is. In other words - a sense of distance is required, and so I'm always happy to give things some time, to see if they are indeed ready or maybe need some work.

Someone asked me if I were going to put some of my older images from Iceland into the book. I'd be hesitating about doing it, because I feel they represent who I was in 2004, and don't really have much correlation to how my photography style has moved on. But I reconsidered, decided to have a go at putting them into the book, and found that I was wrong - they worked. So much so, that the book is a sandwich of three parts - the first section starts of with coastal shots that were shot during the night, while the middle section deals with inland areas of iceland shot during the summer months and much warmer light. The last section goes back towards the coast and deals with a more lighter ending feel to the days work. It was conceptual and I didn't even know it until I'd put the thing together and a friend commented on how it seemed to work more as a piece now.

So the book has been retitled too. I had never really been happy with the title, but since I now have a collection of images, all mostly shot during the nocturnal hours of the day (I'm a low light shooter mostly), and since all were created during pre-dawn, post-dusk, even sometimes around 3am for instance, I feel the images have an otherwordly feel to them. The stories that I've written have been put together from the journal that I sometimes write in. So all this kind of wraps up to give me the title of 'a journal of nocturnes'. Nocturnes is defined as 'a composition, or piece of music that is inspired by, or evocative of the night'. I feel my images are compositions that are evocative or inspired by the night, so I feel it's a perfect fit.

I feel the book is much stronger now. So all that needs to be done now, is get the preface written - as I type this, my special guest whom I've asked if he will write something as a way of an introduction to Iceland has responded and said yes. So I'm delighted by the news.

I'll be traveling down to Nottingham this April to put the book together with my friend Darren, and expect to have something finished and ready for release later on in the year.

I hope my posting today has given you some food for thought regarding the creative process. It is always flowing, changing. It is never static and when someone says the work is done, what they really mean is that it has reached a conclusion for the moment.

Iceland Photo Safari - Sold Out

Just  a quick post today to let you all know that the Iceland Photo Safari announced through my monthly newsletter, published last friday, is now sold out. Many thanks for everyone's enthusiasm and interest in this trip!