Working on some new images

  Just a short post today. I'm entrenched in my home studio, busy working on a massive backlog of images from the Bolivian altiplano and the Chilean Atacama desert.

I thought it would be fun to share with you an image of my beautiful Gepe light-table. I love working with transparencies, and laying them out in a collection like this.

I can 'see' the portfolio coming together a little more clearly when I do this. I'll sometimes pick out the best images from my sheets of Velvia 50 to scan, before I go back and have a bit more of a detailed review of what else is there. It really depends on how i'm feeling. Other times, I'll work systematically through each sheet of film one at a time, until I've garnered all the good stuff. On average, there tends to be around 2 images a sheet (10 shots) that I like, and want to scan.

I  love how transparencies have the colours already 'programmed' into them. Velvia is a highly saturated film, so I tend to work the opposite way to most Raw shooters - rather than adding in the colour, I tend to scan and then decide which colours (if any) require desaturating.

If you click on the image above, you'll see a higher resolution one.

For those of you who have never shot film, or transparencies, you're missing out on one of the most satisfying parts of creating images: that of laying out your transparencies on a light table. There's something about the tactile aspect that I think lends some kind of emotional investment to the work.

As for viewing the images on the light-table, the colours just glow - this alone can provide ample inspiration for the editing stage, and I'll often find myself feeling very excited as a result.

From left to right: Salar de Uyuni, Sol de mañana geyser basin, Pescado Island, Sol de mañana geyser basin, Flamingos at Laguna Colorada, Atacama Chile, Little Italy stone desert Bolivia.

Micro Four Thirds

I've been thinking about writing a post about my little Lumix Micro Four Thirds acquisition for some time, and I'm just back from the Isle of Arran where I used the camera as a teaching aid while running my workshop.

I should start off by declaring that I am no digital shooter. I have been shooting film 100% for the past 20 odd years and I don't intend to alter this in the foreseeable future. The argument is a tired one and I wish not to go there. However, I did see value in having a digital system for use on my workshops, because having one would allow me to illustrate compositional techniques and also show others what I'm seeing in the landscape.

I had a bit of a hard time choosing a digital system. I didn't want to break the bank and get something 'pro', and yet, me being me, I knew any digital system I bought would have to be good enough to do landscape images with. So many of the 'Compact' cameras were not in the running for me. And those that had good quality sensors, didn't feel like they had the lens selection that I would like to invest in.

The Micro Four Thirds format seemed to fit the bill for a few reasons. Firstly, the cost of a basic kit system with the equivalent of a 28-90 zoom lens is very inexpensive. Secondly the sensor size isn't that far away from APS quality. And to make the decision for me, the very small size of the outfit was ideal - I didn't want to lug around a second full-sized system if I am already carrying a medium format film system.

I initially bought the Lumix GF1 a few years ago, but I never really considered that it could potentially be a serious contender for digital landscape photography. It's only since I bought the Lee Seven5 filter system for my new GX1, that I've come to consider that this format is something I would choose, if I were a digital shooter. I think the selection of lenses, image quality, compactness of the format makes for a terrific way forward.

So I thought that I would post some images made from my workshop this week. They were all composed hand-held, with the Lee Seven5 series of hard-grads. There are a few things I would like to point out about the combination Lee filters and also the practicalities of using such a small format. Here they are:

1) I find in general, that the Seven5 hard-grads are too hard. I've always considered that hard-grads are more important than soft-grads, and this is because they become diffused when used with any focal length above 24mm. As you go up the focal lengths towards telephoto, the hard-grads become soft until they become non-effective. If you consider that you are 'zooming into the graduation' as you go up the focal lengths, and that the filter is before the focal plane, then it's not hard to see that hard-grads are in fact 'soft' when used on 35mm systems and upwards. For my medium format system where my wide angle lens is a 50mm, my hard-grad is very soft. I use a rangefinder system so although I can't see through the lens, filter placement has never been a major concern for me, because at focal lengths of 50mm and above, the grad is pretty soft any way. The only time I would notice the grad is when I'm using one that is too strong for the subject matter.

Let's consider what happens when we go down the focal-lengths. We are essentially 'zooming out' away from the grad, and so hard-grads become more obvious. With the Micro Four Thirds format, you are dealing with small focal lengths. A lens that gives you the same field of view as a 35mm camera is half the focal length. For instance, a 24mm lens on a 35mm system is replaced by a 12mm lens in the Micro Four Thirds format. Of course, you could argue that the small diameters of the Micro Four Thirds lenses should alleviate this, but in my experience - they don't.

In summary, I would say that the Lee Seven5 set of hard-grads are very useful on a Micro-Four-Thirds system, but sometimes you might want to use the soft grads a bit more than you normally would due to the lower focal lengths. So buy both the soft, as well as the hard grads for this system.

2) Focussing the micro-four thirds system to take advantage of the hyper-focal for Depth of Field is a pain. The lenses I have really don't like to be stopped down more than 5.6, maybe f8 at times, but even then I saw degradation in the image quality. f5.6 at 12mm is still a lot of depth of field, but I did find I often missed the mark when setting the hyper-focal. I found using the electronic viewfinder a must. It is a focussing aid that you should buy for this camera if you intend to try to keep the lenses from being stopped down more than required.

These two points aside, I would dearly love to know why there is no high-performance sensor - one that is equivalent to something like a D800 in the camera bodies of the Micro Four Thirds format. At low ISO, the sensors in these cameras are perfectly fine, but they get very noisy from ISO 800 upwards. It's not something I miss, as I'm used to working with 50 ISO with my Fuji Velvia film, but I can appreciate that for most digital shooters, having good image quality at high ISO's is something they take for granted these days. I would like to know why this kind of technology has not been put into the MFT format as yet - is it to do with size, price, or even energy requirements? Or is it because the manufacturers think this is a 'toy format'?

For me, I don't think MFT is a toy format. I think it may well be the future. I've enjoyed shooting the Lumix, and composing using the electronic view finder. I'm really pleased I bought it for use on my workshops. It's a great little system, and one that I would adopt full time, if I wasn't the avid film shooter than I am.

A Walk through Nature

As many of you know, photographic books are perhaps some of the most treasured objects I own. I really love them for many reasons, and I've always wondered why not all lovers of photography own them. They not only give us a better experience of someones work compared to viewing it on a website, but also, they allow for a more intimate setting where we can lose ourselves for half an hour or more as the photographer takes us on a journey through their own world.

One such book that I've had the delight of getting to know for this very reason, is Dav Thomas' 'With Trees'.

I've just spent the past few days returning again and again to this book, because it has a wonderful way of letting my mind reconnect with what it's like to be outside, roaming through woods and remote landscapes. It is a beautiful journey where I seem to lose myself each time I pick it up and roam through its pages.

Thomas celebrates the nature of trees as they are. He does not seek to simplify or create an illusion of what is there, but instead works very much with what the trees themselves have to offer. And what they offer is a recognition that even in the middle of one of the smallest and most densely populated countries in Europe, there is always a forest not too far away, where one can gain some space and remove themselves from the existence of every day life.

Thomas mainly focusses on the forests of the Peak and Lake district, but there are occasional entries to places such as Elgin in northern Scotland. What is interesting for me to note however, is that there is a sense of uniformity to the landscapes he has photographed. He reminds me that one doesn't have to go far to find their muse, and I suspect that these locations have not been picked purely because they are within reach of where Thomas lives, but because he has had a life long relationship with the environment he has chosen to photograph.

His book is not simply a celebration of trees, but an empathetic understanding of the undergrowth, grasses and mosses that in his own words are a 'supporting cast for the trees they surround'. I loved this sentiment particularly, because in it, Thomas is telling me he understands that each element in a scene has a relationship to one another not just photographically, but also in nature.

Although the book is a monograph, it is interspersed with Thomas' observations of how trees exist and relate to their surrounding environment. I loved the text, because for me, it echoed pretty much what I saw and felt in his work: a deep fascination for the relationship between tree, undergrowth and moss. Thomas seemed to me very much like someone who has spent time around his subjects getting to know them in all their seasons and different atmospheric environments.

In one such observation by Thomas, he notes that Oak and Limestone are often hard to separate, because they blend in a way where mosses covering the limestone take on an extended quality to the surrounding trees, and he uses this well in his compositions. He is comfortable to show you that both these compositional elements are intertwined, and can be interpreted as one, rather than discreet elements which have to stand apart. That I feel, is a difficult thing to execute well, because forests are difficult subjects at best to produce strong photographs from. And Thomas seems extremely comfortable with this task.

On a more personal note, at times I felt that I was enjoying images that would compliment the work of naturalist Eliot Porter. Whereas some photographers seek drama and mood in their work, others are more content to convey nature the way it is, and celebrate it's beauty for 'just being'. This is what I see in this book, and I think that's why I feel it should proudly sit next to my collection of Eliot Porter books: a high commendation indeed.

On the subject of the quality of the printing and presentation, the book is a beautiful hardbound A3 sized monograph, with a lovely introduction by David Ward. I had the great delight in noticing that even the cardboard box it comes in, is beautifully presented with the same themes as contained on the front cover of the book. It is one piece of cardboard I will not be throwing out, because for me - it is part of the book where packing and content are one concept. I'm a big believer in the collectibility of books, so if you do decide to buy this book, then hold onto the carton as well.

Thomas I feel, is just at the start of a great future. I think he has vision, not only in his photographic work, but also in his message. He knows his motivations well. This is a hard act to pull off for many and I feel that Thomas understands his own sense of aesthetics and along with it, his own vision and style. He has found his own path, and is on a journey, which I feel I understand well, because photography has been a journey for me also.

I hope this is the first of many books by Thomas. It was been executed well, which considering this is his first book, illustrates that Thomas knows his message and  has a strong sense of how to convey it.

For me, It will sit proudly alongside my Eliot Porter collection. As I said earlier; a high commendation indeed.

'With Trees' is available from Beyond Words books @ £40.

And also available directly from the Triplekite publishing in different limited editions.

New e-Book - 'The Digital Darkroom'

The Digital DarkroomImage Interpretation Techniques

£9.99 

I'm very pleased to announce the release of my new e-book ' The Digital-Darkroom'. This e-book is concerned with the art of image manipulation. Please read on.

As part of my photographic workshops, I like to spend time with the participants each day, doing image reviews. My image reviews are not just about commenting on composition or exposure - as part of the afternoon critique sessions, I also show how I would approach editing the work at hand.

I'd been wanting to expand on this for some time, and had thought that running some digital-darkroom workshops later this year would be the best way forward. I was surprised to see that the demand for such a workshop was very poor. I think this is because many people hold the belief that photography is mainly about being out in the field and learning the art of capture.

A great deal of work goes into creating good images out in the field, but just a much care and attention should go into the editing stage. I find the digital-darkroom an essential component of the image making process and it's a highly creative environment to get immersed in.

Good editing is not an easy thing to do. It requires years or learning to get good results and I've been learning for over a decade, and each year I learn new things.

Anyway, as part of my preparation for my digital-darkroom workshops,  I decided to put what I know about editing images  into an e-Book format, and began working on this a year ago. Only, the way to convey what I wanted, seemed to evade me. It only became clear to me once I'd written the 'fast-track to Photoshop' e-book how best to approach this subject. I realised I need not worry about the technicalities of how to edit work, and could instead focus on the real questions - what to edit and why.

So this ebook is application neutral. In fact, I don't mention any applications at all. It's all about looking at the underlying structure of images - how they work, and how to edit them based on this knowledge. This is all done with one aim: to convey that image editing is not a case of 'twiddling the knobs until it looks good', but instead, is more a considered study of what the image has to offer.

You'll find a comprehensive list of contents to the e-book below. I do hope you enjoy this e-book, as It has been a very long labour of love for me.

£9.99 

Table of Contents _____________________________

Part 1 Image Interpretation reading the structure of an image

Photographic Interpretation the de-construction of scenery

How does your eye move around an image? your eye tends to enjoy images if it can scan diagonally

Image Flow Overview leading your eye through the image

Image Flow Interruptions reducing the effect of flow blockages - the eye is attracted to dominant bright tones

Image Flow Interruptions reducing the effect of flow blockages - the eye is attracted to dominant dark tones

Image Flow Interruptions the eye is attracted to high contrast areas of the scene

Image Flow Interruptions the eye is distracted by conflicting or overly demanding colours

Image Flow Interruptions rotating an image horizontally can often reveal compositional imbalances

Image Flow Interruptions turning an image upside down can often reveal compositional distractions

Summary feeling on edge means something is wrong

________________________________________________

Part 2 Case Studies Image Interpretations

Tonal Balance Overview balancing one part of the frame with another

Tonal Balance 1 balancing sky with ground

Tonal Balance 2 grading the foreground

Tonal Balance 3 diagonal balancing

Tonal balance 4 a tunnel of light

Tonal balance 5 tonal dominance

Tonal Balance 6 emphasising horizons

Tonal Balance 7 the inverted tonal balance

Flow & Localised Contrast creating flow through an image & somewhere for the eye to settle

Flow Introduced by Burn-In creating flow through the use of burning in

Localised Presence bringing presence to particular objects

Localised Contrast cementing tonal relationships

Localised Saturation / Desaturation desaturating areas of the frame to reduce distraction

Vignettes give them more thought than usual - they’re very creative

Creative Vignette localised presence

A Parting Thought - going full circle there should be little difference between what you do in the darkroom, and what you do out in the field

£9.99 

---

Peter Boehi Exhibition, Switzerland

Over the years I've been running workshops, I've met some really great people. One of them - Peter Boehi is having an exhibition of his work this week coming in Switzerland.

Peter's exhibition will be at the famous Aescher mountain hut (pictured above) from Friday 26th of July. He is having an open event on the Friday, so if you fancy a hike to one of the most unusual exhibition spaces in the world, and wish to spend time with one particularly enthusiastic and highly enjoyable person, then please do visit Peter's exhibition.

I'd just like to wish Peter all the very best with this. It's always a very exciting time to do your very first exhibition :-)

Winter is coming

Or it's here, depending on where you are right now, and when you are reading this post ;-) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_O-WHevzCR8&width=400

I thought I would post this, as it's perhaps the most beautiful thing I've heard in a long while. There's a bit of 'Aha' in this I think.

Again, music just takes you places in your mind and in your soul. That's what photography should do for you also, particularly when you're out there making images. Have you ever gone out to shoot whilst listening to your iPod - particularly when the music is as emotive as this?

It's worth a go, as I think this helps you remove yourself from 'being there' and into the space of 'being elsewhere'.

Isn't that what we're trying to achieve with photography after all?

Image Selection in the digital darkroom

As I'm nearing the end of writing my 'Digital Darkroom' ebook, one or two subjects have come to light which I feel I should include. So I'm back to adding these ideas into the text at the moment. One such topic I feel is needed in the book, is a discussion on the implications of choosing certain images over others to work on. What this can mean to our work in general, and the kinds of pitfalls that can come forth from a lack of consideration for the work you decide to ignore over the work you do choose to use.

So here are my tip key points I feel that should be observed during the 'selection process' if you have such a thing. Maybe you just react to particular images, and give little thought to the ones you've discarded? Let's see.....

You are a different person each day

I guess this is my no.1 mantra, when it comes to choosing images to work on. I never consider that my 'selection' is final. What I chose one day, may leave me cold the next. I am considerate to the fact that I may have got it wrong the previous day, so I'm always open to reviewing the work again, and considering different shots. Also, I think that once I've been through all the images I've shot a few times, a particular 'story' begins to form in my mind as to how the completed set of images are going to work out. I get a feel for the overall character. This is a great way to work, but it can also be limiting because once you've set things in stone, its hard to see another story in your unedited work. So I like to go back and review, and I do this over a few days, or even a week or so down the line, I will look at the negatives again and realise there are others in the work that I overlooked for one reason or another. It's iterative, and I keep cycling back over the body of work over time to see if there's something I've missed. I know that Eliot Eriwtt for instance still scours contact sheets of work he made 40 years ago and still finds new images in there.... you are a different person each day. Use this to your advantage to see something new in older work.

Consider that this is not the only time you will visit this work

By accepting this as truth, it liberates you to do what you will with what you have chosen. It's so tempting to feel that what you have chosen is all there is, and this can force you to want to 'will' your selection of images to live up to your ideals of what you wished them to be, and not what they are. By accepting you will go over your negatives many times looking for work you missed, you open up your imagination to see what is there and work with what you've been given.

Decisions create paths. Going down one route may result in undesirable work

The birth of your work is a precarious endeavour. Each time we make a decision, we affect the final outcome of our work. Creativity requires you to be fluid because creativity flows. It does not sit and wait and it does not put the brakes on work that has a need to flourish. Sometimes I'm too hasty in going down a certain route though, and the further I go, the more uncomfortable I begin to feel. I've found myself on many occasions bin a complete editing session because I was not happy with how things were going. I now listen to myself. If the work is undesirable, I ask myself - is it the works fault, or is it my handling of the work? If it's the works fault - then I discard it. It's clearly not good enough to spend any time on. It might be a case of 'close but no cigar'. If on the other hand, I realise I'm tired, my creative vibes aren't where they should be, then I discard the editing session and leave my digital-darkroom work for another day. I go do something else more enjoyable. I've often found that returning to the original negative (with previous edits discarded) is a good way forward and approach the work with enthusiasm and a revitalised creative spark later on.

Emotional Investment shouldn't overrule

Sometimes after working on an image I'm really pleased with, I may find a better negative of the same location. Maybe the composition is better, or maybe the light is more dramatic. I give myself complete permission to work on this 2nd image. I don't let the first image (despite how good it is) dictate that there can't be another one that is perhaps better. I don't let myself become too emotionally attached to the first image. This is key to all work. A good artist needs to be able to be objective about what he does. This requires a strange mix of being very dedicated about what you do, but not letting your ego take you for a ride either.

 Be open, be fluid, be inquisitive

When I work on my own images, I like to leave them for a long time between shooting and editing. This I feel, gives me a sense of distance. This is really important to me, because this distance allows me to view my own work as if someone else had created it. If it's not my own, I can be more honest about it right? Yes. And also, because I really can't remember what it was I was trying to achieve with the work in the first place, I'm allowed to interpret it in any way I feel. An artist should be inquisitive. We should find surprise in what we do and investigate it. We should be flexible in how we approach our work, allow us to see new things in what we did. We need to be open to ourselves, because it's only when we are open, that creativity can flow.

-8 EV Exposure Meter

I've been thinking of doing some night photography in Venice later this year. From what I hear from a few clients of mine who have either lived there or know the place well - it's almost impossible to shoot Venice during the day because of all the tourists. Night time is best. My trusty Sekonic 758DR light meter is hopeless at metering in the later stages of twilight.

So this week I managed to find a Profisix SBC exposure meter on eBay. I've been looking for one (very casually) for a few years. I first saw one on my very first workshop in Scotland. A Danish client showed me it take a meter reading towards the edge of twilight and night. I was impressed to see his meter tell him an exposure reading of 15minutes. Reading up on the light meter, I found out that it reads down to -8 EV. That's quite an achievement considering that my Sekonic light meter only reads down to about -1 EV - if that. I often find my Sekonic fails to read anything at all once we get in to the later stages of twilight, when most digital cameras seem to be able to read into what feels like absolute darkness.

Of course, moving to a digital system for this kind of thing would be highly advantageous. If the exposure is wrong, we just check the histogram and apply exposure compensation in degrees of 1 stop increments. Think of it this way - adding some arbitrary number of seconds (say 10) onto a 60 second exposure makes very little difference (it's only a 1/6th increment). So it's best to apply method to your madness, and increase the exposure by a stop at a time (double the exposure time) until the histogram is showing you a better distribution of tones.

But I've been using film for around 25 years now. I don't intend to stop, because I love the look of the medium. I also love the surprise element of what I'm getting. There's a mystery to what is being captured on my film: with no preview screen, I have to 'preview' in my minds-eye. I've said for a very long time that I find this a very satisfying way to work: my imagination is given a bit of  a work out, and I feel this really has, over the years, helped me keep a strong sense of visualisation.

Now, I just need to go and book those flights to Venice.

Discreet Music

For a few weeks, while I was away in Bolivia and Patagonia, I had a little portable pair of stereo speakers for my iPod. I've had trouble sleeping of late, partly due to the change in time zones, climate, different beds each couple of days, and so on. I found Brian Eno's album 'Discreet Music' was ideal for listening to while I tried to sleep. I found it extremely soothing and it often fitted the background very well.

I read this about the album today on Wikipedia:

"The inspiration for this album began when Eno was left bed-ridden in a hospital by an automobile accident and was given an album of eighteenth-century harp music.^[2] After struggling to put the record on the turntable and returning to bed, he realized that the volume was turned down (toward the threshold of inaudibility) but he lacked the strength to get up from the bed again and turn it up. Eno said this experience taught him a new way to perceive music:

"This presented what was for me a new way of hearing music—as part of the ambience of the environment just as the color of the light and the sound of the rain were parts of that ambience."

I found this extremely interesting. Eno was forced to re-interpret the harp music in an unintended way. I often find many things are more interesting when used in an unintended way, and I think as a creative person, we should not just assume, but instead, we should enquire. This is what Eno did with his harp music, and I feel this is very much the main task of a creative person. We are enquirers. We engage with our subjects and we should question what is there, because without questioning, we may never see a new side, a new angle, or come across a discovery in our own art.

That alone is worth discussing. But let's move on to the main point for me - he decided to put an album together that was basically 'furniture music', music that was intended to fit as ambience more than anything. I often find other music like Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians is also perfect background ambience. But I think what got me in the last sentence in Wikipedia was Eno comparing the harp music as just another facet of his environment: it was no different from  the colour of the light or the sound of the rain.

In a way, shouldn't there be little or no separation between what we create and our environment? It is our environment that is our influence. We are a product of our environment, so why should be compartmentalise our creative time from the rest of our lives?

I know for instance, that many workshop participants tell me it takes them a few days to get their visual muscle working well while out making images. Perhaps I've had too much exercise in that department, but I see no reason why I can't always be thinking visually while I am not making images. Why should I compartmentalise this to something I do when I make images, and something I don't do, while I am watching TV, or driving?

I prefer not to compartmentalise. For instance, when I make images out in the field, I see no separation from the shoot, and the edit. In fact, I often feel as though I am iteratively going back and forth from editing and creating while I am on location, and I often re-compose the image through cropping once back at home. Putting a logical division in there, only gets in the way of what it is that I am doing - it is one never ending journey.

Currently, I have around 68 rolls of film from my recent trip to Patagonia and Bolivia away for development, but I don't consider the creative process stalled or stopped at the moment; they feel as if they are simply fermenting in my mind, waiting for the continuation of their birth to happen once they arrive back on my desk at home.

I certainly found listening to Discreet Music at a low volume was important. Too loud, and it dominated, but at the right volume, it integrated with my environment, and worked at a subliminal level. I was aware that something was being played, but my thought patterns weren't distracted by it.

I feel I have the same attitude whilst working on my images. And when I mean working on them, I mean the entire process - from out in the field, to back at the ranch in my digital darkroom: the process is one and the same thing for me. The process shouldn't be overly demanding. I shouldn't be overwhelmed at any stage, because this induces a form of stress. Stress is a form of blockage. Blockages have nothing to do with being creative, but more to do with writers block. To create, things must flow.

Creative people know that work has a way of surfacing. It may feel as if there was no intervention at times, because I think we tap into our subliminal states whilst we are in the creative mode.

Listening to music such as Eno's Discreet Music teaches me something. It taught me that my own mind is always working on things, even when I am not aware of it, and that when I think I haven't started on some work, that maybe the work is already underway in the back of my mind. I never really know how new work comes about, how it is created or where the source of it lies. All I know is that by being receptive to my subconscious, and by not putting boundaries or divisions up in my creative process (field work vs digital darkroom work for instance, or by thinking there are times for being creative, and times for when I shouldn't be), the work has a chance to flow.

Image interpretation techniques

It's been a long time in the works, but I'm almost nearing completion of an ebook about image interpretation (what most people call post-processing - except I detest that phrase).

I'm in Patagonia right now, at the end of a great trip we had to Torres del Paine national park. The weather was spectacular, and plenty of new material from it, i'm sure.

While i've been in south america, I've been working on this e-book in my downtime. I had great difficulty with this one, as I think I needed to get the Fast-Track-to-Photoshop ebook out of the way first. And I've felt that since that was done, this ebook has come really quickly to me. I expect it to be a few weeks or maybe a month or so, before it is out.

Heading home tomorrow to my own bed, Scottish tea bags, and my beloved hi-fi !

Adios amigos, Bruce