Book Announcement & Launch info

This posting has two purposes - to let you know that we are now taking advanced orders of my 2nd book, but also, if you keep on reading, to let you know there will be a book launch held in Edinburgh on the 1st of November! So please keep on reading :-) I'm pleased to announce that we are now taking advanced orders for my 2nd book:

If you wish to secure a limited edition version of the book - there are three versions that come with a print.

We're also offering free postage (for a limited time) on the first book.

If you'd like to see some previews of the book, please go here.

For buying, please go to the halflightpress.com website's store to view the book options (there are quite a few and one of them in particular is very limited!).

The above image shows the book with the cloth slipcase. I've had 300 copies of the book printed with the slipcase, and a few of these editions are tied up with the limited edition print run, so we only have 135 slipcase editions to sell on their own without prints.

Above you can see my intro page to the entire book. The book has a very strong theme about shooting during the nocturnal hours, and is less a tutorial and more a monograph with beautifully printed plates as you can see on this image below:

The book has been an evolutionary project. I first thought I'd completed the layout and content for the book in January of this year. But I think most creative things have their own lifespan, and a knack of growing into something else over time. That was certainly the case with this book.

I remember getting a very touching email from Ragnar Axelsson. He's quite a bit of a special soul I feel, and the content of his email became the introduction to the book. He set the tone and I found myself re-writing and drafting new texts which were more in line with his train of thought. The book took on  more dreamlike quality, being filled with reflective essays on my experiences of photographing in Iceland. It's a very absorbing landscape to spend time in.

There will be a book launch on the 1st of November here in Edinburgh. I do hope you can make it. We will have wine and some snacks for everyone, and there will be a small half hour slide presentation by myself about the making of some of the images with stories behind them.

Canvas

I've maybe mentioned this one a while ago. It's such a compelling video set to some beautiful music by the talented Imogen Heap. I think I'm being influenced by thoughts of a closing in winter, that seems to be rapidly approaching here in Scotland. Summer is but a distant memory now, and the nights are dark by 9pm these days.... 

New Website Portfolio's

I've been away all week on the isle of Eigg with a terrific group, running a workshop. I've not got much time today, but felt I should let you all know that all the new images I've been producing for the past year - are now up on my site.

I decided to separate them into a 'new' section, away from my older work, as I feel there's a refinement in my style over the past few years. So if you'd like to browse the work, which includes Iceland, Norway, Patagonia and my recent trip to Bolivia, please click on the 'new' section to the navigation menu at the top of the blog.

I hope you enjoy the newer images presented in portfolios, even if you feel you know most of the work by visiting my blog.

Space in the landscape and time to reflect

I often think that it's a very tempting thing, to include the entirety of the subject you're shooting, into the main body of the frame. But some subjects are so large, that it's impossible to get them into the frame in a pleasing way, without them engulfing the entire photo. The Perito Moreno glacier in Argentina is like that.

In this photo, you can see the tongue of the glacier poking into the left hand side. If I were to let you know that the face of the glacier is around 80 metres high and that the entire tongue is around four miles wide, then I'd hope that this would convey just how large it is. It's imply too wide to fit into the frame.

I shot the same glacier a long time ago, and I managed to 'stitch a 180º composite together (see last image in this post). It's perhaps more of a 'traditional' view of the glacier. We're presented with the entire thing and I think this is an obvious thing to want to do. I was curious as to how I would shoot the glacier on my return this summer, knowing that I wasn't going to stitch any panorama's together, and also knowing I would be composing in square.

I think a few things have changed in me since I made the panorama in 2003;

1) I'm much more interested in the atmospheric elements of the weather. I love it when the cloud comes down and things in the distance become veiled. Fog or inclement weather in general can really change the mood of a scene. And I think it's important to be aware of this. So often I feel, we are influenced by how we feel - if it's a cold wet day, we can feel miserable and not inclined to make images. But we have to take a step back, think about the scene as a final image. We have to detach ourselves in a way that we can simply see the tones, and the mystery rather than think the day is a right-off.

I don't think I would have made my recent image (the first one in this post) if I hadn't learned that. I think I would have just packed up my camera and thought nothing was happening.

But I'm now of the opinion that all days are beautiful. It's just up to us to recognise this and work with what we're given. I don't feel miserable in low-cloud inclement days now. I actually feel the beauty of it.

2) I'm also much more interested in playing with what's not there. Our eye has a tendency to fill in the gaps for us. I deliberately decided to include just a tiny part of the Perito, because I felt the space around it - all that expanse of empty sky had a lot of beauty in it. I was particularly drawn to the headland (the dark) land that fills the centre of the frame - see how it tapers off towards the far right? That was an intentional composition device. The top of the headland is missing because the cloud in the sky is reaching down towards the sea. In some respects, this is really an image about 'context'. I've given you the glacier, and we know it's a shot about that, but I've mostly decided to show you the environment it sits in. In this case, I'm trying to convey the atmospheric / weather conditions of the day and how the glacier sits within that space. We don't actually see much of the Perito Moreno glacier and I think our mind is filling in for what is not there.

Admittedly, these two images are of very different kinds of days. I was lucky that the weather had closed in the day we visited this summer. The landscape was less visible, more hidden, and I think that allowed me to reduce, and abstract, to make the photograph more a 'graphic' than a recording of a piece of scenery. For me photography has never been about the verbatim, but more about suggestion.

I'd like to finish up by saying that in this post, I've also discussed how I've changed. I think it's very important to be able to look back at your own work and your current work, and consider the direction that you're heading in. I think it's healthy to stop and reflect, to recognise the changes that are happening inside of you and to know what it is that you're seeking in your current 'story making'. I use that phrase deliberately, because I feel that all photographers are simply telling stories with their images.

Final Selection

I've more or less completed the scanning and image selection from my trips to Bolivia and patagonia this June. I have to say that the number of images I'm left with is very small. But there is a reason for this: I felt that there were two particularly strong shoots for me during the time away where the images feel very 'cohesive'. I really prefer to choose images that behave as if they belong to a set, and in the final selection here, I think you can see that.

The two shoots in particular that really worked for me were of Laguna Colorada on the Bolivian Altiplano, and that of the Perito Moreno glacier in Argentine Patagonia. I certainly have other images that were successful, but they don't fit this particular 'theme' or 'style'. And I think this narrowed down selection indicates perhaps where my style is strongest at the moment.

I think that's a very key thing to understand about your own photography: what it is you're currently trying to achieve and being successful at. I see these images as a reflection, an indicator of what it is I'm striving for. I think they're very simplistic and mostly are involved in conveying colour as mood. There is almost nothing inside the frames as such, but I think the mood of the places is very strong in them.

I shot a hell of a lot more images, but I've had some technical problems with those. I made them on Kodak's Portra 160 (the new stock) but I'm having trouble scanning them. I've determined it's not my scanner that is at fault, but I've got coloured streaks going through the images in very bright clear areas, and I'm not sure if this is a product of the development, or if it's an issue with the batch of films I've bought. I'm seriously not happy about this and it's a lesson to myself to never go away again on a shoot with untested equipment or materials.

Image associations?

Ok, this posting is perhaps a 'little out there'. So be warned :-) I was sent through one of those e-mail circulars a few days ago, and in it, there was this graphic/photo of a big fish with a set of little red houses on top of it.

As soon as I saw the image, It reminded me immediately of my friend Lilian's house in the beautiful town of Reine, Lofoten. It was almost an immediate association I made with her home and with the Lofoten islands in general.

I sent the image to Lilian and asked her 'did you know you live on top of a big fish'?

I think the reason why I made the immediate association is because of a few things: Lofoten is surrounded in fish. It is in their culture, their history and there are fish drying racks everywhere you go. So the theme of fish is quite prominent. But what really made me think about Lofoten was the little red houses on top of the fish in the image. They are exactly like the red-painted fisherman Rorbu huts you see dotted all about Lofoten.

Ok, I'm sure some of you may be thinking that I've left the planet here a bit, but not so. If you consider how I've made those associations, you'll see that it's all about symbols. I saw this image and thought 'fish' and 'red houses' and my mind made a very quick association to the Lofoten Islands. It was also an immediate response too, which I think is worth considering.

I often find while I'm in the landscape making images, that there are 'symbols' everywhere. Things that remind us of other places, of events perhaps. Sometimes I'm not sure why I've been drawn to a particular spot and I'm sure it's all subconscious.

But I think it's worth thinking about how us Photographers are first and foremost visual people. We interpret our surroundings by what we see. But we also interpret our surroundings by responding to the symbolic nature of objects we find within our field of view. And often times, these trigger emotions within us.

As soon as I saw this image, I had very warm thoughts of my friend Lilian, living her happy life on the little peninsula, in perhaps one of the most beautiful towns I've ever spent time in.

I think that's just magic that our visual senses can take to us to another place.

If you'd like to read more about one of my 'associations', I wrote about photographing a piece of ice earlier this year in Iceland. The piece of ice reminded me of an animal. You can read that post here.

A matter of 'flow'

One of the things I love about square aspect-ratio right now, is it's ability to help project the 'graphic' elements within the frame.

I found these dark sand lines - from a river outflow on Lagg bay on the Isle of Eigg during last April's workshop there. I was showing others how they act as a beautiful lead in, so long as we could distill it down to the most elegant sections of the 'fingers' - i.e, not have too much of them in. I felt I wanted to get closer, but as you'll see if you look at the final image in this post - that didn't quite happen when I tried the same shot with the Hasselblad 40 mm lens. So I think this 50mm version works the best.

But this image is really about reading from right to left I feel. Let's now look at an image shot from up on Pescado island, on the Bolivian Altiplano Salar de Uyuni....

My eye walks into the frame from the bottom left and then up to the mid far right. Your eye may walk the scene differently, as I've discovered during my workshops that everyone has a different way of interpreting images.

While we were on Pescado island, I was really drawn to the colour of the sky, and it's so hard to get a nice shot of the cactus, when Jezz, on the trip pointed to what was happening behind us, I could sense that I should use the curve in the foreground to lead up into the frame. It was also a great opportunity to show the cactus on Pescado island too (so that made me very happy).

And returning back to Eigg, I loved the arc in the sky - that red cloud banding across the landscape like a vignette, it helps keep my eye inside the frame. I feel a flow between the cloud and the dark sand bars in the foreground, each guiding my eye back towards the horizon, while the isle of Rum sits nestled in between the space between cloud and sand pattern.

I often see my compositions like that. There has to be a sense of flow to the objects and the tonal relationships as they work together, hopefully to produce a nice image or two.

Bolivia, Colour & Form

I think square aspect ratio really works for these images. I love putting collections of images together. In this case, I sometimes feel I'm looking at a colour chart from my local DIY (hardware) store. But Bolivia is like that. The colours and tones that are present on the landscape throughout the early mornings and evenings is something I've not witnessed anywhere else on my travels. I believe it must be due to the high altitude - 3,600 metres to 4,500 at its highest elevation.

I've really enjoyed this week at home. The blinds in my studio have been shut, the ambient music is up loud, and the only light I have around me is the stuff pouring out of my light table and daylight viewing booths. It's a very closed-in, intimate setting in which to lose myself, and get fully absorbed in the editing process.

There have been moments when I thought I was right back there in Bolivia. There have been some revelations too; I feel my photography took on a new direction about 4 years ago when I first visited Bolivia. The empty spaces there called for a more simplified approach to compositions, and I think this was a catalyst for the simplified compositions I've been working on these past few years. Returning back there this June to run the photo-tours, I wasn't sure if I would do anything new, with the same locations. But I think, if anything, I've learned a lot about the direction I'm heading in. I do see a change; I seem to respond more to colour and tone now and in some ways, the compositional elements are less important. I feel using the square aspect ratio helps get the feeling of 'the graphic' over as well. It's been a nice little journey of self-discovery this week, and I find working on the images very therapeutic too.

Skye Photography workshop review

Last March I spent an enjoyable week with a small group on the isle of Skye doing a photography workshop, and Duncan Fawkes, one of the participants has written a review of the week.

I'm pleased that Duncan has given himself a bit of distance between the actual workshop and the writing of his review. As he points out, he has found that it's taken him a while for things to simmer, bubble away in his subconscious.....

His review, I feel - is a good guide to what you should be looking for in a workshop.... for instance, I would agree that you shouldn't go to a workshop looking to come home with killer images (although it's a nice bonus if you do).

I'm pleased to say that most of the things that Duncan says he got out of the workshop, are really what I strive for, and he covers most of them in his review. Thanks Duncan for letting me know about this. I'm also glad you didn't mention too much about the rubber chicken and the gloves ;-P

A study in Red, and a study in Blue

As many of you know, I've been struggling with the Hassle-Blad (hyphen intended) for the past year, because of all the technical issues with the stupid thing (you can tell I really love it). To be fair, the system is extremely old, and I doubt it's ever been serviced properly, if at all. So If you can recommend someone who knows what they're doing (Hassleblad UK seem to want to charge me £400 alone to just service two film backs - I don't think so), please do get in touch.

I seem to be attached to the system right now though. I love composing in square, although I know it does not work for everything. If I look at my 'style' of work, I often shoot portrait orientation and I believe this is because it allows me to use a lot of foreground as well as sky in my shots. Square does not allow for this, unless you get further back, or let a lot more 'stuff' come in the sides of the frame.

In the above set of four images, I made a beautiful study of Laguna Colorada on the Bolivian altiplano. At 4,500 metres, the air is extremely thin here, and we were all struggling for breath. But the light! Those intense red evenings seem to be something that happens a lot there. My guide did say though, that we had an exceptionally beautiful evening there. Still, the subject is rather minimalist, and when you consider making four images - to work as a set, rather than individual scenes, a story forms - and for some reason, the entire set becomes stronger than the sum of its parts.

While I was running the Patagonia trip in the southern hemisphere winter, I made these studies of the Perito Moreno glacier. We had a very wet journey out there and everything was looking very gloomy. There was most definitely a low mood to everything and the cloud had come down to obstruct the backdrop view. Years ago, I would have been disappointed, packed up my camera and headed for the cafe, but I feel I know my subjects and light better. I loved the tones that the cloud were producing. Everything was glowing - the glacier had taken on an eerie luminance in the soft morning twilight.

Seeing these images only confirms to me that I need to continue with square - it is something I am growing into.

I still love 4x5 very much (which is what the Mamiya 7 is - the negative has the same aspect ratio as 4x5, despite being labeled a 6x7 camera). So I'm fully aware that I will continue to shoot 4x5 aspect ratio as well as square. So often we think of replacing one thing with another (I'm thinking of that phrase - 'have you gone digital yet?' ).

It's been about a year now of getting used to the Hasselblad and the square format. When introducing something new into my workflow - I feel I need to give myself time to grow into it, in order to find out if it's for me. I can't tell straight away if it's not.

I think that we need to give ourselves more than a few months, perhaps even years to discover if we have the aptitude, or leanings towards a certain format - patience,  and allowing ourselves the time to get fully into something,  can only help reap artistic dividends, I feel.