Light Quality & Dynamic Range

Today I just feel like putting up one of my images from my March trip to Iceland. It was shot on film (I'm 100% film, no digital). Fuji Velvia 50 RVP Film, and a Mamiya 7 (Mk1) camera.

Shot on Fuji Velvia 50 RVP Transparency film, Mamiya 7 (MK1) camera with 50mm lens.

I've tried shooting this waterfall many times now, but this has been the most successful effort by far simply because of the colour response. This image was made at sunset and it turned out to be a specially beautiful one.

I visited the falls in the middle of the afternoon and stayed until it started to get dark. I don't like to rush around locations preferring to focus on two or maybe three locations per day. So I was here from around 4pm to 7pm and the timing was just right.

I prefer to get to know a place. Over the space of three hours, I'm able to build up a mental map of the location as I find out more about the vantage points. Since I had been here before, I knew where my favourite composition position would be and it was just a case of waiting for the right quality of light.

Although the horizon in the photo is level, the camera was not. I always balance the scene in the camera against the four sides of the frame - not with gravity. In this instance, the false-horizon you see in this photograph was actually slanting - if I'd levelled the camera with gravity the horizon would be sloping uphill from left to right.

 I find spirit-levels completely useless in this regard and I wish people would throw them away. I often notice participants focussing too much on what the spirit level says and not what is in the actual photo. No one knows where gravity was, nor do they care when they look at the final photo - they just want to see that any horizon, false or otherwise is level, and that can only be done by balancing the photo against the frame its enclosed in.

I'm just so delighted that I managed to be here, in winter, when the light was right. My other attempts were not as strong as this one, and it was simply because the light wasn't working during the other visits. 

Which brings me on to the subject of dynamic range. My film only has around 3 to 4 stops, but it turns out that most of the beautiful light we are seeking tends to happen within this small dynamic range anyway. I'm never too sure why there is such a desire at the moment to get more and more dynamic range, as I feel that one of the skills of a photographer is to learn to work with the confines of what we're given.

The bottom line is that we work with sunrises and sunsets because the quality of the light is soft and beautiful, not because the dynamic range is easier to work with. You can ask for as much dynamic range as you like, but it won't mean you'll shoot more beautiful images, it will just mean you're able to shoot in more different types of light :-)

Colour Constancy - how we fool ourselves

Colour Constancy - "the ability to perceive an object as having relatively 
the same colour under varying illumination conditions"

I've been saying for a while now, that being a good photographer requires a heightened sense of awareness - not just of patterns and themes within the landscape, but also of colour.

But colour is difficult to perceive accurately in the landscape, because our brains and visual system have evolved to allow us to perceive the same objects as having relatively the same colour under differing lighting conditions. This a is very useful evolutionary trick that allows us to identify objects under varying lighting conditions but it can be a problem for photographers when trying to visualise how the final image will turn out. This is because cameras don't have colour-constancy - they record the variances in colour that a subject goes through when the source of light changes.

As Wikipedia says:

"A green apple for instance looks green to us at midday, when the main illumination is white sunlight, and also at sunset, when the main illumination is red."

Color constancy: The colours of a hot air balloon are perceived as being the same in sun and shade while we are on location, but does the final photograph allow us to perceive them as the same? (Image source: Wikipedia)

Another example would be to consider a white shirt under white sunlight. The shirt looks white to us, but if placed under a shaded green tree, the shirt has now taken on a green cast, except that we still perceive it as white and not green. 

This is a real problem for us as photographers, because for many of us, we don't see the green cast until we get home and review the images. Colour constancy is not so useful to us as photographers when we wish to see the actual colour that the object will be rendered on our film / digital sensor. Our visual system hijacks us into believing that the apple still looks green, even though it has taken on a warmer hue, or that the white shirt is still white, even though it has now taken on a green cast.

It is important to understand that objects do not have colour, but instead, that colour is an 'event'. We need three things for us to see colour: a light source, a subject, and of course ourselves to witness the light being reflected of the subject. As the light source changes, the light reflected back of the subject changes and as a result, its colour changes. But because of colour constancy, we perceive the colour of the subject to be relatively stable as the light source changes.

Cameras do not see the way we see. They do not have colour constancy - if the apple takes on a different colour at sunset, then the camera sees and records the change in colour, but we in turn do not. Similarly, if the white shirt takes on a green cast whilst placed under a tree, then the camera is able to see this and record it also, whereas we do not.

The only caveat to this is when we set the white-balance of the camera to 'auto'. When we do this, we tell the camera to 'tune-out' any colour casts and try to render what it is recording as a mid-day temperature. So in effect, 'Auto-white-balance' is the camera's own way of obtaining colour-constancy. I don't believe we should use AWB (auto white balance) in cameras because we would effectively be tuning out the warm hues that are present at sunrise, or the cold hues that are present at twilight. 

I see colour-constancy as a handicap though. For landscape photographers what we really need to see is how the colours change under varying light sources. Yet our visual system is doing everything in its power to 'tune-out' everything so we don't see these colour changes. You can consider colour-constancy as our own in-built 'auto-white-balance'. 

Colour constancy allows us to perceive squares A and B as different, when they are actually the same luminance. (source Wikipedia). Try it out - open this image in Photoshop and use the eyedropper tool to check the RGB values of square A and B. You will find that they are both R:120, G:120, B:120.

Being aware of our own in-built 'white-balance' - our ability to tune out these colour changes is important. We need to be aware of the different colour temperatures that are present throughout the cycle of a day from twilight (cold, blue) to sunrise (magentas, warm) to midday (neutral) and how these will affect the subjects we photograph.

Over the years, I've learned to be more aware of how colour constancy is affecting my judgement.

About a year ago, I was standing on a beach with a group of workshop participants. There was a prominent red sky towards where the sun was rising, and I knew this would mean that if the light source is warm, the entire landscape would be bathed in the same warm tones. The first thing I notice about many photographers is that they want to shoot towards the sun because they perceive the red colour being present only in that direction. They don't perceive the rest of the landscape as being bathed in the same warm light, and this is because of colour-constancy. I asked my group to tell me what colour the clouds were during the sunrise. To my eye, they were magenta. It was interesting to note that half of the group said they were magenta while the remaining members said the clouds were grey. It was only when reviewing the work in our mid-day editing session that it was obvious the landscape was pink, and so too were the clouds, yet half of the group weren't aware of it at the time of capture.

Understanding our own visual limitations, of how we can be tricked into thinking that a subject's colour remains mainly constant under varying lighting conditions is a key awareness skill.

My first Digital Darkroom Workshop

I'm just home from leading my first ever "Fieldwork to Digital-Darkroom" workshop, which entails marrying what is done out in the field with the post-edit stage. My course is based on my e-book - 'The Digital Darkroom - Image Interpretation Techniques'

Still very much a work-in-progress e-book, but I feel I'm getting a better sense of what should be included now that I'm teaching digital-darkroom interpretation skills.

The course was run at Adrian Hollister's Open Studio environment in the north-west of Scotland. Adrian runs many workshops with such notables as Joe Cornish, David Ward, Eddie Euphramus and the wonderful Paul Wakefield. His studio has six iMac computers, all colour calibrated and it's on the door-step of some wonderful landscapes which are within a 30 minute drive. Perfect venue for running such a workshop.

I've been wanting to run a course like this for a very long time, because I feel that the editing stage is often considered as an almost secondary, isolated task, something that is unrelated to the capture stage. 

Adrian Hollister's Digital Darkroom Studio, Mellon Charles, Wester Ross, Scotland

I firmly believe that the fieldwork and editing stages are interrelated. Our editing sessions teach us about things we didn't notice at the time of capture and they illustrate to us what we need to be more aware of in future - if we choose to make the connection! Similarly, once we know how far we can push and pull images in the digital-darkroom, we are in a more informed position whilst choosing certain subjects, contrasts and qualities of light. There is a symbiotic nature between the two, and so for me, the word 'post' as in 'post-process' discourages our thinking into believing both tasks are unrelated, when they are not.

In fact, I abhor the phrase 'post-process' because it makes the entire editing stage sound like a functional, emotionless act. Images become something you could just stick in a washing machine, turn a few dials and let it run on auto. Which isn't the case. Editing requires much awareness - of tonal relationships, of competing elements, of flow throughout the image.

And adjustments made in the digital-darkroom should be made whilst noticing how our emotional response is affected when we change tones and contrasts in the work. It is much to do about 'feel' as it is to do about technology.

So I made a point that this week's workshop would not be about teaching photoshop, or teaching Lightroom. Anyone can do that in their own time, and that kind of knowledge is easy to get. No, what I wanted to teach was how to interpret what you've captured - to see and take advantage of themes present within the composition, to notice tonal relationships between subjects within the frame, to see that each image has an underlying structure that almost spells out how it should be edited to bring these motifs further forward. 

The digital darkroom is a creative space, one where we can bring out the essence of the motifs we discover in the image. That's its primary function for me. I do not see this as a way for fixing bad images. A bad image is always a bad image. We have an expression here 'you can't polish a turd'. Instead, I see it as a way to bring out the beauty and essence that can, with a bit of interpretation, be found in a good image.

But interpretation is a skill, and like composition, has to be earned and improved over the lifespan of our involvement with photography. There is no manual for this, just an improved ability to read an image, to understand what is going on, and to know your toolkit (software) well enough to be able to bring forward your interpretation.

So I was curious to see how my group of participants would edit their work after five days of guidance and continuous feedback. I definitely saw improvements in most participants work. Certainly in the daily reviews I would notice that all of the participants had observations and awareness of what might be done to help remove distractions, or bring out themes within the work, but what I had not envisaged was that some of the group would be far too subtle with their edits and I think there are a few reasons for this.

Firstly, each one of us has our own aesthetic. We have our own tastes. Some photographers are more interested in the verbatim. What they see out in the landscape is what they want to capture, and so the edits will be done with a lot of sympathy for how they perceived their reality.

Secondly, some will under-edit because of a lack of objectivity. Ideally we need a few weeks between capture and edit. I always find that if trying to edit work straight away is hard because we're so often attached to an idea of what we wanted to convey and if the image is not successful in this regard, we may feel it is not a success. Leave it for a few weeks and you will come back to it with a fresh eye. If there are any motifs of themes within the image - you're more likely to work with those because you're more open to see other things where you were not at the point of capture.

Thirdly, I think under-editing happens through a lack of confidence. Too scared to adjust the image too much because the photographer feels they don't have enough skill to know what to do. But I also think it may be because they feel they may lose something in the process, and could be holding onto how the image looks now, and can't see beyond that to another destination.

It's this that interests me most and I must confess that I feel there is no clear answer. Editing is a skill that is derived from many years of self-improvement. If I look back at my own editing abilities, and consider images I shot 10 years ago, I can see that often I knew there was something missing in an image, but I couldn't put my finger on what it might be. I see tonal errors in them where at the time of edit, my abilities were so untuned I thought I saw beauty. Where I was perhaps overcome by the strong colours of my chosen film, I now see a clumsy edit.

Digital-darkroom skills take a lifetime of continuous self-improvement. We have to put the work in. But we also have to be smart about it. Simply cranking up contrasts or saturation across the board is a clumsy way to edit work, and it should be something that doesn't happen so much as it did when you began your editing career. But things only change if you take the time to consider and reflect on what might be the best way forward to edit your work, and self-awareness is something that has to be built upon over time.

I found my Digital-Darkroom workshop did help my participants. There were moments where I felt I had led my horses to water, only they were unable to drink, because if they can't see it themselves, then I can't force them to. Improving editing skills can't be rushed, but certainly a week in the field and behind a computer with a photographer you like the work of, may help bring about an improved sense of awareness, and that's what I believe happened this week.

Red Cross Donations for the Nepal Earthquake

I've chosen to donate to the British Red Cross. 

Nepal Red Cross volunteers are searching for survivors, providing first aid to the wounded and running blood banks. 

Please donate now to save lives.

click on the image to be taken to the British Red Cross web site.

If you would like to help the people of Nepal, then you can donate below. This is the official website of the Red Cross.

My thoughts are with the Nepali people

I'm very sad to read the news today of an earthquake that has hit Nepal. I just returned from Kathmandu a week ago, so it's very strange for me to learn of all the injuries and many dead.

The Nepali people are a very nice people, and my thoughts go out to them at this moment. 

Bodhua Stupa, which has unfortunately been damaged in the earthquake.

The Philosophy of Returning

I'm in Nepal just now, just passing through Kathmandu on my way to Bhutan. It's a 'family' trip this time - with my dad and brother, but I've brought my cameras along, hopefully to make some new images of the people of Bhutan while I am here.

A very rare and special encounter in the UNESCO town of Baktapur in the Kathmandu valley yielded this image for me in 2009.

I spent today going back to some old haunts. One in particular - the Boudha Stupa in the Tibetan area of Kathmandu was a special place for me back in 2009. So much has changed in the past six years for me since that trip that I couldn't help being a little reflective today about it. I found myself remembering who I was at that time, and what I was looking for as a photographer.

I've always felt there is a great deal of value to be found in returning to a location more than once. In fact, many of the landscapes I have photographed, I have gotten to know over many years and by returning many times. Some offer up their secrets upon the first visit. I may find that the first encounter is so special that an impression remains indelibly marked on my psyche for many years to come and seems to be the benchmark for all further visits. Most of the time though, I feel that each visit allows me to learn a bit more about a place, and understand it better. I also find that each new encounter yields different images.

The adage that you can't repeat what you did is often true, and going back somewhere to try to reproduce a certain look, mood or feeling just doesn't happen. You change. The location changes. And new things are brought forward as a result.

A woman I encountered many times at Boudha Stupa in Kathmandu in 2009, but it took me about six days to work up the courage to get in close and make this photo of her.

Being here today, I noticed that the Boudha Stupa has not changed, and it is still a remarkable site to encounter, particularly in the morning when it is covered in birds and all the local Tibetan's come to do their early morning prayers. But what has changed is that there are fewer Buddhists / Tibetans and Hindu's in traditional dress. In fact, the majority of the people I saw this time round were dressed in western style clothing. I am reminded today that the old pass away and the young replace them. The only thing constant in life it seems,  is change.

I didn't feel like making pictures today though, despite the Stupa being very beautiful, I felt I had more or less 'said it' back in 2009 and today has reminded me that what I managed to capture back then, was the product of about 12 mornings of repeated visits, hoping to find a new nugget that I had not been presented with on previous days. In short, what I got, was the product of hard work.

I feel today that I've been given the rare gift of being allowed to appreciate my work in a new way. At the time of making these photographs I felt I could have done better. But returning today, I now see that the place is hard to photograph. The people who come here to pray do not wish to deal with a photographer asking them for images.

The Boudha stupa at dawn. Many birds frequent the place in the morning during prayers. A more traditional dress sense was evident back in 2009, and seems to be more 'rare' now in 2015.

But I also feel that I have no desire to photograph this place any more. I just feel I am content with what I got back in 2009 and there's no need to try and add to it.

So if I have any specific point to make today, it is perhaps that returning to a location can sometimes make you reflect, and give you the opportunity to notice how you've changed as a photographer. I feel I am looking back at who I was in 2009 and noticing where I am now.

Maybe some places need to be returned to only a few times. Like a special event in life, that one cannot repeat again, it's perhaps best to just remember it and cherish it for what it gave you at that moment in your photographic development.

My original images of the Kathmandu valley mean more to me now, since I have returned. My shoot in 2009 was a special moment in my own photography-life and I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to reconnect with it and reflect on how hard I had worked to create it.

And that's just great :-)

Aesthetic Consistency

As my own photography continues to develop, I'm noticing that the portfolio as a whole is becoming more important than the sum of its parts.

I find these days, that my edits are not done on an image by image basis, but instead with more thought about how an image may sit alongside its partners in the collection. I find that although I edit each image on an individual basis and apply what I feel is relevant for its own benefit, I also do a second stage edit whereby I try to find the image's place within the portfolio. This may for instance require me to tune the colour palette of an image to fit more in-line with its brothers, or it may require me to weed out images that don't fit because they don't share an 'aesthetic consistency'. 

Aesthetic consistency is perhaps another way of saying 'style'. I'm never too sure what style actually is: is it just a way of saying that images conform to a set of rules, or is it a way of saying that images fit what we know or have come to expect from a photographer? I really don't know. But I do know what I like and I tend to gravitate to those images that I find aesthetically pleasing.

In the collection you see above, I think there is a theme at play. Not just in subject matter, but also in form and tone. On the one hand you may say the images are related by the black sand beaches, or the white ice (which is deliberately on the blue/cool side). You may however say the images are related by the use of strong diagonals throughout most of the pictures, or you may say they are related due to the same aspect ratio (shot in portrait mode). One may say they are related because they are from the same photographer, and as such, show his own style.

Either way, images have to be strong on their own, but it's also of great benefit if they can strengthen the portfolio as a whole. Your work has to represent you as a photographer, so only showing your best work, and presenting it in the strongest way is of vital importance.

I never underestimate the importance of this. Quality control is vitally important in conveying who and what you are. By showing your best work and presenting it well (in the form of a strong portfolio) should never be underestimated. That's why I'm always striving for a sense of 'aesthetic consistency' in what I do.

Something in-between Sunlight & Shadow

For a long while now, I've been fascinated by the power of suggestion over a more literal interpretation. I was initially attracted to this aspect of photography through the work of Michael Kenna in the late 80's. His use of shadows and night often convey a sense of mystery or at the very least mood to his imagery.

Just recently, I found out about Ray Metzker, who passed away last year. His work conveys similar concepts to Kenna's. He was interested in suggestion rather than a literal translation. His use of sunlight and shadow to conceal his subjects often lent his work a sense of mystery.

 Solitary pedestrians and urban spaces transformed by sunlight and shadow. Image © Ray Metzker

Suggestion is a powerful tool to possess as a photographer - because being able to get your audience to stop and listen to what you are doing often happens through the art of suggestion.

 In Ray Metzker's images, he shows tremendous skill in using sunlight and shadow to convey mystery. What may have otherwise been an ordinary scene becomes more interesting and thought provoking when shade is used to conceal or reveal.

Ray would produce portfolios based on these tonal suggestions rather than by subject matter. This resonates with me because I feel I have been doing something similar; for a while now, I have been choosing images where they are related either by tonal response or by colour palette.

Ray Metzker's use of sunlight and shadow was masterful. Image © Ray Metzker

To explain further, I find Iceland to be a monochromatic place: black sand and white ice. Bolivia is about blues and reds: the lagoons of red sediments and the salt flats at twilight intertwine to offer up a particular colour palette. So I tend to go looking for subjects that fit together tonally or by colour - as a collection. These two places are responsible alone for me branching out into monochrome work. They have taught me that the portfolio - the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

I see a similarity in Ray Meskier's work where he chooses subjects that are collected together by tonal similarities. People in the city often photographed as silhouettes, or with their identities concealed by use of shadow strengthen his portfolio as well as lend a very decisive look.

Images don't always have to utilise the full tonal range. Here Ray Metzker uses mostly shadow to mid-tones only. I find the deliberate concealment of the people's faces adds further mystery to the image. Image © Ray Metzker

His work has a style - something that we are all trying to develop or bring forward in our own work. And this is perhaps the most important lesson from looking at this work: it's clear that Mezkier has thought about the aesthetic qualities of his final selection of images and also the subject matter in such a way that we are clear each photograph is by the same author.

I learn a lot by looking at work that I find inspiring. It doesn't have to be landscape related for me to 'get it'. I just have to find a connection in the work - to see something that I find intriguing, or that makes sense to me in some way that I hadn't thought of. With Ray Metzker's work, I do exactly that. I learn about image selection based on using tonal responses but I also learn that his choice to make people very anonymous or to conceal their identities through his use of shadow and sunlight can lend the work a thematic quality which goes a long way in conveying a photographic style.

And sometimes it's the sudden split between shadow and sunlight that throws a contrast; like two images spliced together, providing a sense of tension between the two subjects in the frame. Image © Ray Metzker

And then there are his choices in composition. I've always thought that street photography has less to do with aesthetics and more to do with narrative. But in Ray's work the story is missing. He has deliberately chosen to conceal most of his subjects so we know very little about them. Instead we are presented with compositions constructed through form and tone only. They are like landscape studies about the people in a city.

A study of graphic qualities. Image © Ray Metzker

On the subject of Blogging

If you feel I'm not on here much, or not writing as frequently, it's simply because of two things:

1) work commitments
2) only wanting to write when I have something to say

In the age of 'social networking', I'm aware that many people expect a constant, frequent update on what I'm doing.

I'd just like to point out that when I'm running workshops / tours, I usually have very little free time to myself. I love my workshops and tours, enjoy the participants company, but it's a very intense period of time - often getting up at 5am and not finishing until 9pm. So I have very little free time to blog.

Also, I don't wish to pollute my site, or your free time with noise.

So just to let you know - I do intend to keep on Blogging and I do intend to keep filling this blog with my thoughts on photography. I just want to make sure that what I post, is of value.

So please do keep checking in from time to time :-)

Michael Kenna comes to visit :-)

Just wanted to share with those of you who don't read my newsletter. I had a nice time with Michael Kenna in the landscape for 4 days this March. He's a lot of fun and hope to see him again some time when / if he can fit it into his schedule.

Michael Kenna & Me, March 2015. It was a lot of fun MK - thanks for the visit !

He has been a terrific influence on my own work, so it was a real pleasure and honour to spend time with him. Best of all, he such an unassuming, fun person to be around :-)