Rediscovering your past

Way back in the late 80's, I got my very first camera. It was an EOS 650. I'd wanted it because I thought it was a really cool looking camera and it had lots of amazing things on it, like auto-focus. I was not, at that time, so motivated by the art element of photography. I was around 20 years old, and I just really wanted a camera, because my friend Craig had shown me his Pentax ME Super and Ansel Adams work. I was really a budding musician, but a camera was a lot cheaper to buy than a Synthesizer was. This week, I've been given the gift of discovering something that I lost a while back: one of the first photo albums I ever made of images when I had decided that photography was 'it'. I was busy looking around the house for something else and came upon the 'lost' photo album, much to my surprise and also delight.

It's been really interesting for me to look at the images contained within the album for a few reasons.

1) I've been able to see that elements of my current style were evident in some of the images contained within the album. In essence, these early images showed me a glimpse of where I was to go with my own photographic style / development. In my album, I see symmetry in some of the images, and a penchant for balancing objects in the frame. I had to laugh at how transparent my style was / is / has always been

2) There is an innocence in what we first create. When we start out, we don't know what we're doing, and that 'not knowing' is a form of freedom. We are not contained by rules, if anything, we think we need to know rules, so we can improve on what we're doing. But I'm really not in agreement with this line of thinking. I see things in my earlier work that I look at with pleasure and think - wow - that's really something that I tried that, and in some instances, what I know now that 'should not work', did in some of my images. It has reminded me that I should always try to be flexible and as open minded as i can in my own picture making. If only we could recapture some of that innocence we first displayed when taking up photography!

3) The path behind us, often indicates or tells us a lot about where we are going. I've seen how much I've changed. I've also been allowed to consider that this little photo album was perhaps the germ of what was to become a career for me, and a life changing occupation. It blows my mind to think that one thing can have so much power in shaping my own future.

So I guess I would like to ask you all, if you have been shooting for a while, to go back, dig out that first photo album, your first shots, and look at them again. All those shots you were maybe embarrassed about might contain some form of beauty that you are now mature enough to see, and would wish to develop. Conversely, all those shots you thought were 'ace' at the time are maybe quite embarrassing, maybe cliche, who knows? One thing is for sure, looking back on our work, is immensely satisfying. But additionally and more importantly, we can learn a lot about ourselves and our photography in the process.

Film Streaks Mystery

For the past five years, I've occasionally notice vertical banding in some of my Velvia films.

Please click on the image for better detail.

Here is what I have tried to do to eliminate the issue:

a) I've tried different labs for processing, and still get the same results.

This has led me to believe that it is either x-ray damage, film manufacturing damage, or the camera is at fault (possible light leaks or unevenness of film in the back of the camera), or filters in front of the lens?

b) I get the streaking problem with my Mamiya 7II camera, and also my Hasselblad, so I feel that rules out the actual camera body. Which baffles me, because it appears to be on the same area of the frame!

c) My lab has looked at the films and states that it's not x-ray, because it would also be evident on the dark parts of the film and it is usually a wavy streak going across the film anyway. So that rules out x-rays. I've never had any issue with x-rays ever. I've had some film in my bags over multiple trips and multiple x-rays and never seen any fogging or streaks like this.

d) This has led me to think it might be manufacturing issues with the batch of Velvia I have. I have looked at all my images since I returned from Cappadocia, and around 10% of them are damaged. I looked at my film stock and determined that I have a small batch of film left from around 3 years ago - when Fujifilm kindly sent me a lot.

I've decided to use the newest batch of Velvia I bought just before Christmas, for the next while to see if this eliminates the issue. But in the meantime, I would like to hear from you if you have had similar results with your films, particularly with Fuji Velvia.

Cappadocia

I'm just home from Cappadocia, Turkey. It's been a few days now, and I just received my Velvia films back. As much as I love to shoot colour, I'm being swayed at the moment to go Black and White with them. There's something about the landscape there..... .... I will be back in a week or so with the finished images. I didn't shoot a lot of film. It was my first venture there, and it's a challenging place to photograph. But it's also very otherworldly too.

Airport Carry on (part 2)

Is it  'carry-on', or  a carry on?  ;-) I'm leaving for Norway in a short while, heading to Oslo, then up into the Arctic circle to start two photographic trips in the Lofoten Islands.

I was thinking a few days ago, how my ThinkTank Airport International (a superb bag) has become almost useless overnight now, because the airlines are defaulting to carry on weight restrictions of around 7kg (which is pretty useless for most things). So I packed up different alternatives and tried them out at home to see what the weight was like.

Firstly, I'm pleased to say that Norwegian Airlines have a carry on policy of 10kg, with an additional 'personal item', which really usually means a small packpack or laptop case :-) The upshot is that I've been able to pack my entire Mamiya 7II outfit (four lenses plus a spare body), and film and filters and a cuddly toy too, and keep the ThinkTank TakeOff bag I also own, to under 10KG. So it is 'all go' as far as I'm concerned. I really hate using backpacks - I get sore shoulders and when you're moving around airports, it just becomes added stress because of the reduced comfort. I much prefer to travel with a roller bag, and the ThinkTank's are extremely robust and durable. The gear can get thrown about by taxi drivers, or thrown about whilst moving around places with no impact to my gear.

But lets consider if the weight restriction was indeed 7kg......

I weighed the Mamya 7II outfit, and had to reduce it down to 1 body, and I also had to go to a backpack bag - a LowePro Vertex 200 bag. I managed to get the entire thing down to 7kg, but it meant I would have to stick the spare Mamiya 7II body into my coat pocket (it's compact enough to do that). The bag has enough space for a laptop, but this would tip the weight of the system over the 7kg limit......

In short, if you travel with a laptop, and a reasonable SLR system that includes the usual 24-70 and 70-200 f2.8 type of lenses, I'd guess that you would easily go over the 7kg limit every time.

So what to do?

Well, maybe it's time that we started looking at the specifications of the gear we use - one thing we never really consider is the weight of the camera gear itself. I've seen a lot of gear over the past few years, and some of it is like carrying a small, dense brick around with you: consider the Pro level bodies out there by Canon and Nikon. And the pro series lenses too - they're not light!

I bring this up to wonder, why do Pro systems have to be 'big' and 'heavy'? Is it to make the consumer feel he's bought something more substantial? Shouldn't pro systems be like pro racing bikes? Lighter than their consumer versions?

This might come down to an argument about durability. Some people feel more secure with all the weather-sealing and magnesium bodies out there, but I've never seen an SLR system fail on any of my workshops due to rain (and we get a lot of it here in Scotland).

I would argue that if you want to travel on planes, start considering the weight aspect of the gear you're intending on purchasing. Opt for a more consumer version of the body than those bricks that the camera manufacturers sell at their top end. Go for a body that is less durable, but lighter. The same should also apply to lenses.

Maybe this is something that can be put forward to camera manufacturers in future: we need lighter gear.

If you're thinking of flying a lot, then maybe you need to work on a 'flight-system', one that you know will not upset any air lines when you do go for a wander.

I also think it is worth considering other systems, rather than the usual stock SLR systems we've been using for some time now. I think systems like Sony's Nex 7 and the Panasonic / Olympus Micro-four-thirds (I'm a fan of this system) are terrifically light and compact. Of course this only applies to digital shooters. For the film shooters, maybe we need to go back to the drawing board and think of buying lighter medium format systems. Some of the 645 options out there are lighters (the exception being the Contax 645 - I have one, and the body and lenses are very heavy). My Mamiya 7II system is extremely light and compact for it being a 6x7 camera.

And one last word: less is more. Often I feel we take far too much gear with us. We take what we don't need, or seldom use. Free up your decision making by taking a more reduced set of lenses. We will never be able to catch everything, and taking all focal lengths 'just in case', is folly in my opinion. The more stuff you have, the more decisions you have to make, the more delay you have in capturing what you see. Learn to use two lenses instead of trying to master four.

Cappadocia, Turkey - Wish you were here!

I'm in Cappadocia, Turkey right now.

It's an amazing landscape, and one which I feel I will most definitely have to return to. I've been shooting a lot of Hasselblad square aspect ratio images all week with my friends Sonja and Ali. Ali is from Istanbul, and I was fortunate to meet him through one of my workshops last year. We got to talking and he suggested I come out to make some photos during the winter here.

The landscape is otherworldly. I hope to have some images to show you all once I'm home, and have them processed.

In the meantime, here is a photo of me with my dad (he's the handsome chap on the left). I've often taken my father with me on some of my private photographic adventures. He came with me to India and Nepal five years ago, where I made lots of portraits. He's enjoyed himself immensely, as it's been a really nice social outing, with two photographic friends.

I would like to thank Sonja and Ali for organising the trip to Cappadocia.

We've done a bit of sightseeing as well as the usual '6am early morning starts', the ones where you get to see some exceptional landscapes in some exceptional light.

Wish you were here.

Flights and carry on camera bags

Lately on my travels, I've found that my discreet ThinkTank Airport International trolley bag hasn't managed to make it as carry on, when I've been flying around. Simply because some of the airlines are now starting to weigh the carry on.

This has happened to me twice in the past month: flying to Tasmania from Brisbane, and flying to Capadocia in Turkey from Edinburgh. On both occasions the weight restriction was around 8kg, which turns out to be pretty much the weight of the ThinkTank airport international bag when it's empty. I know this, because we tried to lighten the contents of the bag while going to Tasmania, and I ended up with the bag completely empty and it still weighed around 7KG.

So I've had to do something I've always feared doing: check in my camera bag, and hope it arrives at the other side all in one piece. On both occasions so far, that's exactly what's happened - the bag has arrived intact and all my possessions inside the bag were still there too.

So is there a solution to flying with camera equipment? I don't think so. You could argue that:

a) get a bag that weighs almost zero and use that to transport your gear. It still means you'd have to be careful not to go over the 7kg limit (which I think is achievable), but the risk is that for any reason they decide to check in your gear, the bag may not be sturdy enough to protect it.

b) The robustness of the ThinkTank camera bag saved my gear. I'm sure this is true. It's a very study bag. But it comes at a risk of being checked in because it's so heavy.

c) Take all your camera gear out of the bag and put it into pockets on your jacket. I've done this before and it does work, but it's a hassle and stress worrying that you're going to lose something in transit.

d) Dump all the heavy gear: No more SLR's, no more medium format equipment. Go Micro-Four-Thirds for example. If you are a digital shooter, I think the options for lightening your load are becoming more practical as camera systems become more compact. I've been thinking for a while that SLR's are outmoded now, and results from more compact systems are just as good, or close enough to beg the question why we're carrying all this large gear around.

I did have one panic though. I checked in my camera bag with all my photographic film inside it. I managed to get them to retrieve it. But I'm rather curious if this 'urban myth' about check in baggage x-ray machines being much stronger than the carry on, is true? Consider that Fujufilm ship their products around the world: they must go via the hold of large planes, and I doubt they would be exempt from xray. So I'd really like to hear from anyone who knows the answer for sure about this one.

In the meantime, I'm much happier now just checking in my camera bag. My gear is insured, and I will take the film on the plane with me.

* Since I wrote this, I've decided that the ThinkTank Airport International is now a lost cause. It is simply too heavy to use as a carry on bag, if it gets weighed. Most airlines are limiting weight to around 9kg, and the bag alone is around 7kg. If I load it up to the capacity, the bag comes in at around 15kg. So it's a lost cause now.

Instead, I am just going to board the plane with my belt-bag. It holds three lenses, all my filters and a camera body. I will pack my film in a 'duty-free' plastica carrier - this is how I used to do it previously.

A work in progress

The creative process is a mystery to me, but one which I fully embrace each time I begin work on anything I do. Last year I spent around seven months putting together my 2nd book 'Iceland, a Journal of Nocturnes'. It's journey from inception to final version was very interesting to note, and see how it flowed and changed direction.

I feel that anything I put my mind to, requires a final point of visualisation. In other words, if I let myself dream and imagine what the final work will be like, it helps me steer my creativity towards that goal.

I knew with the Iceland book for example, that I wanted it to be something a little different from just a collection of images. The book morphed over time to become a journal of sorts; a collection of stories and thoughts and experiences of photographing the Icelandic landscape over many visits over many years. It was my good friend Mike Green who pointed out that there was a particular chronology to the way I'd laid the photos out, which suggested a photographic day, shot over many years. The book was highly thematic too, in that it is a collection of nocturnal images; images that have been shot during the small hours of the day.

The book has sold very well so far, but the next stage I have to work on is getting UK distribution for it. I would like to see it on the book shelves of major book retailers like Waterstones for example. I'd also like to see it in Reykavik Airport's book store, but this is proving to be a stumbling issue because I cannot get a distributor for it. Daniel Bergmann has kindly offered to assist in any way he can.

Still, things move on, and I can't help being drawn into 'dreaming' and 'visualising' my 3rd book (if this will come to fruition, is anybody's guess, but if it does happen, I feel it will be somewhere down in the line in 2014, not this year). The reason being is that I've found a strong subject matter, but I don't think I've explored it enough yet to provide a complete book on it.

I've already drafted up a prototype for the book cover and even a title 'Altiplano, Somewhere between here and the stars'. It's really just a working title, something to help me focus, and get inspiration from.

And what about the title? Why have I chosen this? Well, I think for me, the Bolivian Altiplano is the closest I've come to feeling that I was on another planet. Not only does the landscape feel otherworldly, but the lack of oxygen at the altitudes of 3,600 metres really does challenge you. The altiplano really is 'somewhere between here and the stars'.

So what are my plans for this? Well, right now, I don't have enough material for the book. There are locations on the Altiplano that I wish to return to, so I can make a more valid study of, during the low light hours. I'm therefore drafting up plans to go back this year, on a private tour of the Altiplano. This is some major undertaking, because it's not possible to do it yourself, safely at least. I will have to hire a group of Bolivians to help me - an experienced driver who knows the terrain, a guide to help me out with the logistics, and a landcruiser. It's an expensive operation, but one in which I feel I really have to do.

I'm sharing this early draft of my proposed book, to illustrate how the creative process can be brought on to guide you, if you have a final vision in mind for your dreams. At the same time, I will remain open and flexible to whatever comes my way, because creativity cannot be planned too rigidly. There has to be room for the chance encounter, the new direction, and a willingness to go wherever the project decides to steer you in. It's an immensely exciting journey. Maybe in 2014, I will have something worthy to show you. But that's the beauty of the creative world. We really never really know, we just have to go with our hearts.

Sighting the Tasmanian Devil

This week, we've ended up in the Tarkine region of Tasmania. We've been very fortunate to have been invited to use the land of Geoff King, who runs 'Kings Run Wildlife tours'.

Geoff is a lovely man, full of interesting stories about the land that has been in his family for generations (although the land private, it is part of the Arthur-Pieman Conservation area which is currently seeking world heritage listing), and he took us on a tour to see midden's created by ancient aboriginal people. Our little camper van is situated in a region near the coast line (which is very beautiful) and each night we've noticed that we have a Wombat as a neighbour. Each night the wombat comes out to eat his grass and just hang out. We've also seen a Tiger Snake during the day, which I've been informed is not the kind of snake you'd want to get close to. There have also been echidna's, wallabies. Quite a lot of wildlife as it has turned out.

But the highlight of the week for me has been the sighting of four Tasmanian Devils. They are nocturnal in nature, and are believed to be about 500 of them left in the wild now. Geoff runs tours, to show people them on his land. He was very generous and set up a lighting rig with some recent road kill near a vantage point for us so we might have a chance to see a Devil or two. Well, we switched on the light just after sunset (Devils are known to come out to feed just after sunset), and we came back about an hour later. While we were approaching the location we could heard the sound of bones being cracked and we knew we were in luck - there was a Devil feasting on the road kill.

We sat for maybe around 40 minutes and watched four Devils take their pecking order at feasting on the road kill. One of the Devils had white spots on its black coat while another had white stripes. They were extremely sensitive to sound and occasionally we would scare them off by our movement. Each time they retuned after maybe fifteen minutes of waiting, to continue feasting.

I'm no wildlife photographer, so what we did shoot of the Devils, isn't really up to much (why I didn't leave home without that 600mm f2.8, I'll never know ;-) but it was certainly something I'll never forget.

If you do venture to Tasmania, do consider coming up to see Geoff King's location. The landscape here is quite stunning and his tour I believe, is unique. I think he's sold out pretty much in advance.

Oh and yes, Tassie Devils do exist. Just look them up on Wikipedia. They are an endangered carnivorous marsupial, and they are rapidly dying out because of a contagious mouth cancer. There was until perhaps 60 years ago, a Tasmanian Tiger, but that was hunted to extinction. I hope that the Devil has a better future ahead of itself.

Postscript, the day after I wrote this blog posting, we sighted two Tasmanian Devil juveniles, on our way out of Geoff's land. We were told later on that it's often possible to see babies in the summer months, when they are extremely hungry. The photo that now accompanies this posting was made from our campervan, with a Galaxy SII mobile phone (I'm no wildlife photographer!), but I hope you enjoy the picture anyway and can appreciate perhaps how special the sightings were for us.

Tasmania & the Tarkine

I'm in Tasmania right now, and last night we went to see Chris Bell talk about his fabulous new book on a very special place in Tasmania - the Tarkine.

Chris is an extremely accomplished photographer ( a peer of the late Peter Dombrovskis ). Chris has published several really beautiful books on Tasmania (I own 'Primal Places', which I can highly recommend). Anyway, Chris knew I was coming to the talk and he very kindly invited us round for some tea at his home on Mount Wellington. He was so generous with his time and showed us some really nice hiking suggestions for us to do while we are here in Tasmania.

Anyway, I'd really like to talk about Chris' book about the Tarkine. The Tarkine is a pristine and rugged wilderness area in north west Tasmania. It encompasses coastline, forest, rivers and mountains with surprising diversity, not only in geology, but in photographic potential. At one stage of Chris' talk, he mentioned how he was accompanied by a Tasmanian Devil on one of his beach walks. He suggested that in the future, this kind of encounter may be a rare thing. I'm hoping to see some Tasmanian Devils myself (yes, they really do exist - but they are fighting a battle against serious loss of population due to a contagious form of mouth cancer).

There was quite a discussion about the region of Tasmania during the book launch and it was interesting for me to hear such strongly voiced opinion and objection to the amount of (over 50!) mining permits that have been applied for, by mining companies who wish to start tearing up sections of such a really special landscape. I often like to think that the careless mistakes of the past with regards to special regions of the world is now a thing of the past, but as the speaker declared last night, the Tarkine should have a preservation status, but instead, there is abundant misuse and damage to the area.

If you'd like to know more about the conservation aspirations for the Tarkine, then you can find out more here. Chris' book is a valuable record of the region and if you'd like to know more about his book, then please do follow this link.

Last order date for Christmas delivery

Dear all, I've seen a few people mention that they hope to get my Iceland book from Santa this year.

So with that in mind, I’d just like to let you all know of the last posting days here in the Uk, should you wish your family to order a copy for you, and receive it in time for christmas!

The last posting days for the UK are as follows:

• Tuesday 4 December, Asia, Australia, Far East (including Japan), New Zealand
• Thursday 6 December, Africa, Caribbean, Central America, Middle East and South America
• Friday 7 December, Canada, Eastern Europe and USA
• Tuesday 11 December, Western Europe

The limited edition variants have been selling the fastest, and there are not many of the Deluxe editions left. But there are lots of different variants of the book to suit all budgets.

If you wish to get a copy of my latest book, you can order it here.