Matting & Signing

I've been busy printing a few images as special orders. You might have guessed I've been busy of late with the printing side of things due to the subject matter of my recent posts !

Tonight I thought I would share some of them with you. Each of these images is around 7" inches wide by 7" inches high. Printing, matting, the whole presentation side of things is really a very personal decision, I feel. It should be taken into account as part of the photographers 'signature'.

To my mind, printing is a further extension of the photographers 'voice'. As I said a few days ago - the print is the ultimate calling card, it goes out there into the world, as a representative of who you are as an artist.

So treat your prints well. Give them a lot of care and special love.

Do your utmost best.

Black & White Printing with Piezography inks?

I'm in the process of thinking of setting up a second printer to specialise in black and white printing. I've known about the Piezography black ink set for a while. This is a custom system whereby each cartridge slot in your colour printer is replaced with a separate black tone ink. The printer becomes a dedicated monochromatic printer.

In my mind, I am reasoning that having a dedicated printer set up with different tones of black inks will produce a much better black and white inkjet print, than if I were to use the standard Epson colour inks.

I would really love to hear from you if you have experience of this system, or if you know of any other specialist black and white inkjet system. Specifically, any issues you had, how you feel about the final results compared to doing black and white prints using the normal Epson inks.

Your thoughts are appreciated, and if you feel going 'public' on my blog is too much for you - as was the case a few years ago when I asked for input about colour printing - you can e-mail me directly instead.

The Art of Printing

If we were to gather some stats about photographers, we would discover that few actually print their images, or ever get them printed. The truth is, most images, if they get any further than the hard-drive of a computer,  get as far as a website.

Which I think is a real shame, because I think there's something very beautiful about the print. It is for me, what I always thought was the ultimate aim with photography.

Way back in the 80's when I was a teenager, I remember looking at some Ansel Adams book's that my friend Craig brought round for me to look at. At the age of 19, I was more interested in music and writing songs. But when my friend showed me these beautifully printed books of Ansel's work, I was really taken in. I still look back at this moment and realise that for me, I've always thought that the final result for any photographer is the print.

I understand that things have changed. We live in a more electronic world these days, and one where everything lives on-line. We enjoy music streamed down from the internet, and we often do the same with photographic images. But I've always been at a loss as to why we're satisfied with this? It's different for music, because the quality of the audio is pretty good. Whereas the quality of a photographer's work can't be enjoyed to the same degree as it would when viewing a well produced print of their work.

When I released my first book, I had so many emails from buyers who told me that it was so nice to discover there was so much more detail present in the prints, that they hadn't been able to enjoy on my website. It was a very heartening thing to know that others were keen to get closer to my work - because that's what prints do - they allow us to have a more intimate audience with someone's work. I think this is because of two main reasons: the first is that the image is brought into the real world. It exists as a piece of paper and we can touch it and enjoy the quality of the paper it's printed on. Secondly, it's much easier on the eyes to look at work that is printed, rather than being transmitted at so many hertz from an illuminated panel. We tend to interpret work differently when it is presented on different mediums. The way we look at a print, is very different from the way we look at a computer screen.

I would love to see more photographers printing. Because printing is an art-form. It takes a long time to master printing, and it is one half of the photography story. As photographers, we should feel a need to strive for excellence in how our work is presented. And printing our work well is a craft.

In the screen shots you see above, you can see some of my prints. But what you can't see is how much work has gone into them. It's not simply a case of sending a file to my inkjet printer. It's only part of the story to get the entire thing colour managed. It's mostly about being able to convey your vision on a paper medium, and that takes a lot of interpretation skills. Just like deciding on how much editing to do on an image for the web, I have to decide on what kinds of things I need to do to convey my work well on paper. I will often use contrast-masks to achieve this, I will also use creative sharpening applied where needed.

Printing is not only an art form, it is also an immensely satisfying thing to do. To see your images finally come to life, as real objects - ones that you can hold and touch, takes our photography to another level. Our work becomes more defined, because we are no long working in a virtual world. Our work becomes committed, because unlike the electronic world of pixels and websites, the print is an immutable object. It is a fixed constant, a statement of your intent. Above all, it is the ultimate calling card of who you are as a photographer.

How would you cope, if you lost your sight?

I really liked this movie. It made me think about how precious my vision is to me, as i'm sure it is, to all of us. Beautiful work, inspiring video, captivating ambient music. It's great to see that he found photography as a way of dealing with the outcome of some permanent physical damage. This man speaks much wisdom. He is a poet.

[embed width=400] http://vimeo.com/79138449 [/embed]

Osmosis

Osmosis - A gradual, often unconscious process of assimilation or absorption.

Some landscapes come to us when we are ready to receive them. Not the other way around.

Lumix GX1, 12-23 lens, Lee 0.9 hard grad. This image was taken quickly to illustrate compositional and tonal relationships during my weekend workshop.

Last weekend I was running my umpteenth workshop in Torridon - a very special mountainous place here in the Scottish highlands.

Although I've always had a love for the place, I've often found it extremely difficult to make images here, until recently. I think I've learned to understand this landscape more through the act of being a workshop teacher. Consider this statement by Brian Eno:

"You don't really understand your own ideas, until you try to articulate them to somebody else. Also, in the process of articulating, you find yourself saying things you didn't know you knew" - Brian Eno

This has often been a case for me whilst running my workshops. I discover that I knew something I didn't know I knew. And also, that through the process of having to explain something to someone else, my own understanding of a place, or a photographic concept becomes clearer.

I've found teaching workshops in Torridon immensely rewarding in this respect. The landscape is fractured and complex. It is not a simple landscape to make good images from, and it requires you to see that many of the stones, trees and bracken all have similar tonal relationships. When these tones are compressed down into a 2D image, they often merge, and become very confused and jumbled as a result. 'Separation' between objects within the frame becomes key. Through this awareness, my eye has become more finely-tuned.

The image you see at the top of this post was made last weekend while we were busy trying to work with competing elements. It has taken me around 13 years to get to a point where I can look at a scene and know how best to deconstruct it down to a few elements that will work as a photograph. Through this time, I have often asked myself questions about my work, and I've often had to explain it to others.

As creative people, we have to listen to ourselves and become more aware of our own thoughts. It is only through a sense of internal-dialogue, and a sense of inquisitiveness about how we choose to approach landscape photography, that we are able to progress as artists.

In the video above, you'll see Brian Eno and Ben Frost discuss the creative process. I found it fascinating to hear Ben mention that he finds his work seems to be a kind of diary. I think this is true of my own photography: my images are a sounding board that show where I was, creatively speaking. They are a record of my photographic development.

Ben is in-tune with his creativity - he understands where he has been and where he is now. This is perhaps a fundamental skill that all creative people should possess, or at the very least, be learning to tune into.

Photo Transit App

As some of you may know, I'm a big supporter of 'The Photographer's Ephemeris' application - which I will refer to as TPE from now on. It's a really useful application for planning a shoot. I use it all the time on my workshops for figuring out sunrise and sunset times as well as twilight times etc. It has quite a lot of useful features.

Stephen Trainor, the developer of TPE, has been working on a new application called 'Photo Transit' for the past six to nine months. Similarly to TPE, I've been a beta tester for the application, and have contributed feedback and feature requirements from the onset.

If you liked TPE, then you may like Photo Transit.

Whereas TPE is useful for calculating the angle of the sun / moon, and figuring out sunrise and sunset times, in an easy to use graphical manner, Photo Transit allows you to plan a shoot by figuring out the kinds of lenses you may need. You set up your 'camera kit' - the focal length's of lenses you have in your bag, and it shows you what each lens would see over a specified area of terrain.

[embed width="400" ]  https://vimeo.com/73595182 [/embed]

So Iconic, when we look, we don't 'see' them any more

A few days ago, a friend of mine emailed me about Mike Stimpson's lego images of iconic photographs. I thought they were terrific, and wanted to share them with you all.

Some of these should be very familiar to you as they are interpretations of well known global images. Images so powerful that we all know them, and yet, we rarely know the photographer behind them.

Such images have a potency - they are instantly recognisable, even when made from lego. Others, are perhaps less well known, unless you have an avid interest in historic photography, such as these:

On a creative level, these have been really wonderful to discover. My friend emailed me with the title 'best photography ever', and I think in some ways, he's right. I found them very clever and immensely enjoyable to view. What Mike Stimpson has done, is demonstrate that with a bit of inventiveness, we can create something fresh.

Similarly to the post earlier this week about Vivaldi's Four Seasons, I feel, what Mike Stimpson has done for me, is reignite my interest and love for images that have become so well known to me, that I don't really 'see' them anymore.

  Through his love for lego and photography, he has create a visual dialogue - one in which we are asked to revisit the original work with a new found sense of  enquiry and inquisitiveness.

Reclaiming the landscape as my own

Whilst attending the Airwaves music festival in Iceland this October, I got to see Max Richter perform his recomposition of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.

Although Richter calls his work a ‘recomposition’, to you and I, he has reconstructed a piece of music that many of us know so well, into a new work. What I loved about his piece was that the work has elements of the original surfacing sometimes rather obliquely, and other times very transparently.

I love it when someone turns something that I know so well upside down on its head, because it forces me to look at it again as if for the very first time.

As he says himself in an interview with the Guardian newspaper a while ago:

"It's just everywhere. In a way, we stop being able to hear it. So this project is about reclaiming this music for me personally, by getting inside it and rediscovering it for myself – and taking a new path through a well-known landscape."

I think his choice of words is illuminating. Particularly 'taking a new path through a well-known landscape'.

Additionally, this ‘reclaiming’ he speaks of, is something that I identify with very much. In the case of our own memories and experiences of a landscape, they should be based upon our own encounters, but often, before we have even visited a place, we have been overwhelmed with images that others have made. Our own thoughts and impressions of a place have been coloured and influenced (read hi-jacked), before we've even had a chance to go there. Often times, we're just not aware that we don't own the original memory of a place. Our own experiences have been built on top of someone else's imagery.

This is hardly unforgivable. Some images of a place are so powerful that once we’ve seen them, it’s hard for us to look at the place in a new way. I’ve often heard photographers say ‘did you get the shot?’. Sometimes it seems that a particular angle or composition of a famous location can’t be bettered. My own feelings are that this simply isn’t true, and it’s wonderful when I do see a successful shot of a well trodden place that is a beautiful image in its own right, because it offers us a fresh way of experiencing something we know so well.

I think this only happens when we are able to break away from any pre-conceptions we have of a place. In order to do this, we have to be aware of how our own perception of a place has been coloured and shaped by the act of looking at other people's work of the same location.

We have to make a conscious effort to leave the well-trodden path and engage in a process of enquiry whilst on location. We have to be independent enough to see what we see, not what others saw.

I'm glad I came across Max Richter's interpretation of Vivaldi's Four Seasons, because it has ignited in me a sense of wonder for a piece of work that had become mostly invisible through over-familiarity. For me, he has brought the Four Seasons sharply back into focus.

He has reminded me of my need to enquire and investigate the landscapes that I visit, because it is through this sense of enquiry that my own thoughts and emotions are translated into my own personal vision of a location. It is only then, that I'm able to do what Max Richter has done - to reclaim the landscape as my own.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEgOEZm9CNw&width=400

We are masters of self-deception

For a long while now, I've been saying that I feel there is little difference in approach between post-editing (I dislike this term), and the initial image creation. Well, there is a difference - the difference is that we treat them differently. The difference is in our attitudes to how we consider and reflect during these two states of being.

When I'm working behind my computer monitor in my studio, I am looking at a photograph. When I am out in the field making images and looking through my viewfinder, I am also aware that I am looking at a photograph - only, I have to go through some kind of abstraction to do this. I've been doing this for a while now, that I see no difference between the making of an image, and the editing of one. They both require the same skills: ultimately it boils down to noticing shapes and tones and elements within the frame. Whether they are 3D real objects in the real world, or a collection of shapes and tones on a screen is irrelevant. Or so it should be.

But consider the image in this post. I've got two versions of it. The original, and an edited version. The difference between the two is that in the edited version, I've removed the break in the cloud in the top left-hand corner of the frame as well as its corresponding reflection in the salt flat.

It's all very easy to see how this image could be improved by removing this 'blot' in the image, and so often I find that books or articles on websites show us this technique, but none discuss how we should train ourselves to notice these distractions or 'flaws' at the point of making the exposure. Which is to say, most articles discuss how to 'fix' an image, but few discuss how to avoid this error in the first place. Because by avoiding it, it means we have a better awareness of what is going on, and thus, have a keener eye for making better images.

Back to my original point: I see no distinction between editing back in my studio, and the creation of the image whilst out in the field. I've discovered that all the time I've invested in working on images and editing them at home has improved my eye to notice distractions like the break in the cloud at the point of exposure. In general, when I am out in the field, I am thinking not about clouds and sun breaking through, but more about tonal relationships and relationships between shapes in the landscape. If my eye is well practiced in this pursuit, I would notice the break in the clouds and figure that it is distracting. I would not make the exposure, either waiting for the break to dispel, or re-composing as best to remove it all together.

But as much as I hate to admit it: I'm not infallible. I still have a long way to go with my own photography, because photography is all about awareness, and I sometimes let a little issue like this break in the clouds slip through the net. I would say that I often notice issues like this whilst in the field.

I think this is definitely one of those cases where living with a new image for a few weeks, or in this case, several months, has allowed me to grow irritated by this anomaly. What appeared to be ok to me at the time I first edited this image, now rubs me up the wrong way. This has only happened because I've had time to live with the work, and eventually begin to see it for what it is, rather than what I tricked myself into believing it was.

So there are perhaps three things to consider in this post:

1) Always leave some time between the shoot and the edit before you work on the images, as this will give you greater objectivity

2) Once edited, live with the work for some time, so you can learn to see all its facets, it's perfections and imperfections. This too, will give you greater objectivity, and you will learn a few things about yourself in the process. For me, I learned that I still don't often see all the issues in an image until much, much later on. I still have a long way to go in closing this gap between image creation and the editing stage.

3) Noticing the break in the cloud while looking at the image a few months down the line, has taught me to be more observant to these issues while out creating the images in the field. My time behind my computer has taught me what to look out for and observe more while making the original capture. As I said at the beginning of this post: there should be little difference between our time behind our comptuter screens and our time out in the field. We need to be able to interpret scenes as scenes, whether it is real and in front of us in all it's 3D glory, or whether it is a 2D representation on our computer screens. We are dealing with shapes and tones always. There is no difference. What we do and learn behind our computer screens should feed back into our time out in the field. That's why I abhor the term 'post-processing', because it encourages the attitude that there is a distinction between the two. There is no distinction. There is only shapes and tones.

The only difference between the two states of 'being' is that we think there's a difference. We are masters at deceiving ourselves.

Conservation vs Acquisition

As photographers, our overriding priority should be to look after and respect the landscape.

So when we choose to seek out rare and special places to make images of, we should always tread lightly, and with great respect for the environment we make photographs of.

Recently, a friend told me about a special little waterfall in the centre of Iceland. I was intrigued, because the pictures I saw of it showed how beautiful it is, yet it is not on any tourist map. Looking into it a bit more, I discovered that it's not very easy to find (it's pretty hard in fact) and although there are several websites specialising in articles in how to find it, it's still not easy to figure out where it is.

I decided to go look for it, and sure enough, it took me a few hours to find it. The waterfall is very hidden. It's not obvious where it is, and there are no signposts, nothing to indicate that there may be anything of particular interest or beauty nearby.

I was delighted when I found it. It is such a beautiful waterfall with lovely glacial meltwater flowing through it. So beautiful I took pictures of it, and so delighted was I about being able to find it, I couldn't wait to tell my friends about it too.

I discussed the finding of this waterfall with a friend, who knows the people who own the land there. My friend told me the locals prefer to keep the waterfall private. I can fully appreciate this on several levels. Firstly, it is not very far away from one of the biggest tourists attractions in Iceland, so if it got better known, it could easily be overrun with tourists and never be a peaceful place to visit ever again. Secondly, I've found Icelandic people to be immensely respectful to their landscape. I have had dealings with a professional tour operator out here for instance, who do not wish to take photographers to one particular spot because of how delicate the landscape is there. I think this is extremely admirable and I respect this attitude very much.

But I often feel that the pursuit of landscape photography can be at odds with respect for the landscape and I think as landscape photographers, we have a responsibility to act with great respect for the places we visit and record.

At the time of writing, I think photography has reached an all time high in terms of popularity. It is not simply the pursuit of photographers any more, but an additional interest for tourists to such a degree now, that I feel there is a large hybrid group of people out there who are photography-tourists. Those of us who wish to travel to many destinations, experience them, but also record them as best as we can. I started out this way myself - being into travel firstly, and wanting a camera to record the places I visited. Fast forward a few years and I was soon traveling for the pursuit of photography first and foremost. And this is perhaps the issue.

When we transform from being a tourist to being a tourist-photographer, we are dealing with an additional set of requirements, that have to be contained within the same set of rules that all other tourists have to abide by. In other words, we have to work within the same boundaries of respect and manners for the places we visit, even though our requirements have shifted from just enjoying and observing a place, to that of more detailed exploration.

Specifically, as photographers, we tend to be more inquisitive than most tourists. We tend to want to get access to places that are off-limits. For example, we may wish to get closer to the edge of a waterfall than most tourists would get, so we can attain the shot we have in our minds-eye. We tend to be very driven in our aspirations, and although I think having this kind of drive is great, I just wonder at what cost this come to the places we visit?

The late Galen Rowell once wrote that by photographing special places, we set them on a path towards conservation. By raising their profile, they become a place that many people care about, rather than a place for the few. That awareness and love for a place can be a great thing. It can stop a place from being abused or damaged. However, there is another side to this coin. With all things, we gain something in the process of raising the profile of a place, but we also lose something of its innocence in the process also. If we choose to keep it secret and hidden, then we believe and hope that it is safe from being damaged. But to have a place left hidden to protect it, is like having a beautiful painting that no one gets to see. Surely beauty should be there for everyone to enjoy? I certainly think so.

Photography can be an all-consuming passion, one where getting the shot becomes so overwhelming that we put everything else to one side. But at what cost do our own actions come at, if we only have a secondary respect for the places we wish to record?

As I said at the start - and I feel I must reiterate my point: I just feel, as photographers, if we do choose to seek these rare and special places out, we should tread lightly. Our overriding priority should be to look after and respect the landscape. Everything else should come as a secondary priority. We have to safe-guard the landscape for our own enjoyment. But we also have to safe-guard the reputation of ourselves and other like-minded photographers for the future also.

*Addendum. Since writing this post, I've been talking to others about the wear-and-tear that happens to a place as volumes of visitors increase. I didn't really cover this in my posting, and would like to do so now. With regards to the waterfall mentioned in this article, I had an interesting email from a very well known Icelandic photographer who explained to me that he knows of this waterfall (and other less well known places), but does not take tours here because of the delicacy of the environment.

So being sensitive to an environment is not just to do with how careful we are, but more about managing the volume of traffic a place attracts. As a friend pointed out to me, the steps in an ancient monument are worn down, but it’s not due to misuse that this happens, but more to do with wear and tear.