Should photography be a private endeavour?

Over the years of running workshops, I’ve had to do a lot of thinking about the ‘why’s. Why are some compositions good, while others are bad? For example.

One of the ‘why’s I’ve had to think long and hard about is the ‘why do we do photography in the first place?’. I think the answer is different for everyone out there. Even though I think it ‘should’ be simply ‘because we enjoy it’. But I don’t think the answer is as clear as that, or the only one out there.

We all do photography for different reasons. Some of us do it because there is an inner artist that just wants to create new things. I think this is where I come from: I see photography as a creative endeavour and one which allows me to show my own voice. But for others, being an artist may not even come into it. It could be a simple past-time, something that gives enjoyment for nothing more than itself. There is no desire to exhibit or complete work. Instead, the pursuit, the simple act of going out there into the world to make photos is enough. It’s certainly something I admire as I personally wish I was more inclined to be that way, than where I am today.

Running a small photography business like mine, means that it’s important that my work has some interest for an audience. I make my living from running workshops and tours, and people come with me because (hopefully anyway) they like what I do, and want to share in going to places that share the same aesthetics as my photographs. So there could easily be a pressure there on my part, to feel I have to deliver a set of good new images from time to time to keep my audience interested. I am lucky that I don’t feel that way: right now, I just create what I want to create, and luckily for me, there are others out there who like what I do. I’m very fortunate as I know this might not always be the case in the future.

So at the moment, my photography has become a very public thing. I use my work to help sell my tours and workshops and also my abilities as a photographic teacher. So my work has to be out there for others to see.

But I’ve come to realise lately, that I think photography is a very personal endeavour. It is something that, if I were not running a business, I would make my photography a private endeavour. Because I think that although some of us do hope to get kudos and praise from others, ultimately, we do what we do, for ourselves. It’s just for us.

I can envisage a time in the future, once I have retired, that I will be creating images, but I won’t feel the need to share them. You may think this to be crazy or just plain stupid. Why create the work, if no one is going to see it? Well, I think it’s ok to create work that no one is going to see. Because we create the work for our own enjoyment. I’ve certainly been made aware that even when others like what I do, they seldom like it for the same reasons I like it. So after a while, as much as it’s appreciated that others like your work, you realise that the thing that matters the most is how you feel about it. Everyone else’s viewpoint, as welcome as it is, is really secondary to the point. You do your work for yourself, and in that way, it can exist as something that has no purpose other than to be enjoyed in the making.

I think right now, we are living in times where kudos about our photography is taking too much attention from the actual act of just creating work. With so many platforms to share our work we can so easily get lost in a chase for higher like counts, or to win competitions. But the truth is, that the person who cares the most about your photography : is you.

I think I’m at a stage in my own work, that I’d really like it to be a private endeavour. I think I can do that by choosing which aspects of my work I would be happy in sharing, while maybe there may be a few projects each year that I keep for myself. I’m not sure you perhaps understand, but I think all artistic creative people need to keep a little back of what they do for themselves. You don’t have to show everything that you do, and I think there’s something deeply personal in keeping some of your more private work back.

We do photography for no other reason, than we do it for ourselves. Sharing is nice, but it’s not the real reason why we do it. Photography can be such a personal endeavour, with no need for other’s views about what we’ve done. We do what we do, for ourselves, and isn’t that enough?

The aura around image making

Way back in the days of film only - the 80’s, when I was around 21, I got my first film camera. It was an EOS 650 with standard lens.

At the time, pressing the shutter was a big deal. Because every time I fired the shutter, I had committed some light to film. There was no undo feature, no delete button, and there was no preview to check that I’d got what I thought I had. Learning was slow, because it was often weeks before I got the film back, and in that time I would have forgotten how I’d set the exposure of the camera.

Elgol, Isle of Skye, 2010. Image © Bruce Percy 2010

Everything about working with cameras back in the 80’s meant that firing the shutter was a pretty big deal. As a result, most of the time, you didn’t do it. Everyone, and I mean everyone, thought twice before they fired the shutter. It was a different time, a different place we were in. All we had were analog cameras and firing that shutter meant we had to be sure we wanted to make the shot.

Although these days I am in a position not to worry about the cost of film and it’s associated processing, I still find that pressing the button of my camera has remained ‘a pretty big deal’ for me.

Some things become engrained in us.

Sure there were financial aspects to pressing the shutter back in the 80’s, but there was also an aura around the process of making images. We had no preview screens with with to check the final image, and there were often days if not weeks before we saw the results, so learning from our mistakes was much slower. We had to learn to trust ourselves, and our judgement had to come before we fired the shutter, not as it is now for many where they fire the shutter and then cast judgment on the preview.

But most importantly for me: there was a sense of magic that happened between the point I fired the shutter and seeing the final image. Often what I saw with my eye and what came out in the film were quite different. Getting films back was like Christmas each time: rarely if ever, did an image come out the way I had expected and this meant that there were real surprises as well as disasters in the processed films.

This ‘aura’ around firing the shutter has always stayed with me.

Although I am now in a financial position not to worry about the cost of exposing film, I still find that firing the shutter means a pretty big deal to me. There is a sense of commitment to it, a sense of finality. What has been done cannot be undone, and I have to live with the consequences. When I think that I’ve captured what I was looking for, I have to make a decision as to when to choose to walk away from a scene. To be able to say ‘i’ve got it’, and to walk away requires trusting in one’s own abilities, but perhaps more importantly, allowing oneself to ‘let go’. It’s ok if the images don’t come out, it’s ok if I screwed up, but I have developed a sense of faith in myself to get it right. Trust in one’s own abilities only comes when you are able to let go of technological crutches, and these days I tend to listen to my gut more.

As a photographer I have learned to listen to how I feel inside before I fire the shutter. I make the judgement before I make the picture, rather than making pictures and then making the judgement.

How does it work for you? Are you aware of how you feel at the point you fire the shutter? And specifically, have you learned to trust your gut? Or are you still relying on the technological crutches (preview screen) to confirm what you’ve got?

1 Space available for Printing Masterclass

I have had a cancellation for next May’s printing Masterclass. Perhaps this is of interest to you?

sold out

Fine Art Printing Photoshop-CS Masterclass

£448.00

Image Interpretation & Printing Techniques

2019, May 27 - 01


Price: £1,695
Deposit: £448


6-Day Photographic Mentoring Workshop
Wester Ross, Scottish Highlands

Introduction

This workshop will cover the technical workflow aspects of printing from Screen calibration, proofing to print evaluation.

As part of printing your work, we will cover the same lessons taught in my Digital Darkroom' workshop, because good prints are made from good edits. And good edits can only be verified by printing.

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Bad days of autumn and winter are approaching

The seasons have caught me out: it seems as if summer was only just a few weeks ago. The nights are now very dark here in Edinburgh and I’m finding the seasonal shift, of windy days and rainy nights comforting. As I’ve grown older, I’ve become accustomed to certain seasonal shifts and the weather they bring. Had I not become a lover of landscape photography I may dread the advancing winter and the dark wet days of autumn. Instead, I believe that my love for photography has allowed me to think that all days, of any kind of weather are beautiful. They all have a special character. To shoot in sunny weather is a really limiting factor on one’s own photography and for me, I’d much rather be out there in what many lay-people call ‘bad weather’.

I wish you lots of photographic potential and wonder this autumn and winter.

Adventure in the Central Highlands of Iceland

I’m just home from almost an entire month in the central highlands of Iceland.

I think I’ve made a lot of very special images from this trip, as we had some atmospheric / wintry conditions to shoot in. In the photograph below you can see some of my group and myself standing around waiting for a squall to pass through.

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Image used by kind permission. © Martin Bowen, 2018
September Fjallabak Iceland tour, 2018

In my view, fair weather photography is pretty one-dimensional. To open up your shooting options and to give your work some atmosphere, you need to shoot in all kinds of weather. It is not unusual for me to shoot in rainy, windy conditions. It’s the only way to get certain tones and atmospheres in my work, and I’ve learned a load in the process also. Besides, dramatic weather is quite exciting!

We had a blast. It was challenging trying to anticipate just how long some of the squalls would be. There were a few moments when we had hiked a little distance from the car, only to find ourselves in a white-out. Realising that we might not find our way back to the car if we stayed where we were, we would start to retreat while we could still see our footprints.

After a few days we learned to read the weather. We knew that most squalls that came through lasted for a few minutes and then things would clear. Learning to read weather and to understand the rhythms at play is advantageous. I’ve met a few mountaineers on my trips who have learned to do just that, and I often wish I had the same skill with regards to reading weather systems.

me checking for when the clouds would cover the sun. The weather would vary dramatically, with sunny weather followed by a snow storm, followed by zero visibility in some cases, followed by some sunny weather……
Image used by kind permission © Martin Bowen 2018

The best shooting was done was at the edge of the storms. Just as the snow would start to blow in, the black deserts would have a stippled effect as hail began to land lightly, before it would all disappear in a white-out. Then, as the squall began to pass, we would be standing waiting for it to clear and that was the other best time to shoot - as the visibility began to come back.

Photographing in clear weather is just so….. boring by comparison.

I’m certain I got a lot of new, interesting material from this visit to Iceland. I shot 51 rolls of film, and my cameras were often condensing up - the prism finders of my old Hasselblad 500 series cameras would become so hard to look through, that I just had to guess and hope that I was getting on film what I thought I was seeing.

You have to venture outdoors in all weather. Staying in-doors because it seems like a bad day will only limit your photography, and I’ve only ever had a couple of trips where the group and I couldn’t get much done because the weather was beyond bad. Otherwise we have always managed to get something.

If you don’t go, you don’t get.

Altiplano Book Sold out

Just a final note today to say thank you to everyone who bought a copy of my latest book. It sold out within a week. The standard editions sold out within about six hours. Quite a surprise. Thank you.

Only 5 copies left of Altiplano book

Dear all,

Thank you so much for all the wonderful support. The Standard edition and the Black edition of my Altiplano book have sold out, and we only have 5 copies of the special edition left.

I’m quite surprised by the level of interest for this book. I wasn’t sure if it would be of interest to you because of last year’s ‘best off’ collection in my Colourchrome book. I felt that perhaps the Altiplano is too specific an interest, and may only appeal to a small number of people.

I’m sorry if you wanted a copy of the standard edition, but didn’t get one.

It is hard to judge how many books to print…. it is a difficult one to judge because printing books is an expensive operation, and profits / margins are very low. To make money at all on printed books is hard.

But I so wanted to print this book. I felt it might be a vanity project (in other words - my desire to produce this book may be at odds with the interest in it). But I love books. I have a huge collection of them at home and I think photographic books are very important. Just like prints are. Photographs aren’t finished until they are printed or reproduced in books. Uploading them onto a website is nice, but it doesn’t really convey the detail and subtleties of the image.

I also love designing books. The concept is important, the laying out of the images is very satisfying, and then of course, having it all bound up into a final product just seems to feel like something greater than the sum of its parts.

There has been months of discussion and work between myself and my friend Darren Ciolli-Leach, who as a graphic artist is behind the finer details of my book designs. Without Darren, my books wouldn’t be as beautiful as they are. He has a fine attention to the medium of print, paper types and fonts. It is his level of expertise in book production that I admire, as he is always able to take my initial fuzzy idea and turn it into a professional product.

Both Darren and myself produced this book because we both love photographic books, and we love to try to create something beautiful. It’s all about the passion for doing something special.

I would love to continue to publish a book each year, so I am now busy working on some future concepts, and busy making new images in the central highlands of Iceland. Perhaps for that next book…..

Thank you for the support. It means a great deal to me.

Book now available to purchase

Altiplano Photographic Monograph

Extremely limited edition of only 310 copies.

This book contains 67 photographic plates from my journeys to the Altiplano regions of Argentina, Bolivia and Chile over a 9 year period.

Shipping on 1st of November

Foreword by Paul Wakefield

The book also contains a number of essays on the subject of composition and of working with simplified landscapes. The book is introduced by Kathy Jarvis who has written a number of travel guides about the region, in order to set the context for the landscape and how it has been shaped by the people that live upon it.

300mm x 300mm

Soft cover

108 pages

67 full colour plates

Foreword by Paul Wakefield

Introduction by Kathy Jarvis

Essay on simplified composition

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The book comes in Three editions

• Standard edition

• Special edition with slipcase and choice of one print

• Black edition with slipcase and three prints included

from discovery to technique to tic

How often is what you do, more a ‘tic’ than ‘discovery’? I think that there are really three stages in approach to picture making:

1. Discovery

2. Technique

3. Tic

Discovery is when we learn something new. Learning something new can come about by accident. While attempting to use a tried and tested formula, something may go wrong and we find out that the result is quite pleasing. It can also come about by simply putting ourselves outside of our comfort zone deliberately. Discovery in our art is what makes us grow and change, but it is not responsible for us fine-tuning what we do.

Technique is when we learn to do something well. We adopt new practices, or take on something we haven’t done before but we need to fine-tune it. Fine tuning comes from practice, from doing things many times so we learn to understand where the boundaries are in any new technique we have and where the sweet spot is.

The last stage is when any adopted technique becomes more a ‘tic’ than intentional technique. What I mean by ‘tic’ is that we stop thinking about it and we just tend to apply it without any thought. Sometimes this is good - such as muscle memory - we know instinctively where the right buttons are on our equipment for instance, or we simply know we need to balance a scene against a false horizon and not use a spirit level….

But there is also the negative-tic. The kind of tic you do all the time, the one that has no thought behind it except that ‘it’s what I always do’. This kind of tic in our working methods is dangerous because it can lead to our work becoming predictable, and to us falling into a rut with what we do. For example: always setting the tripod up at the same height (something I see with some participants - every single shot they make is always taken from the same height). This is a ‘tic’ - a practice that is done with no thought applied.

I think all three stages of Discovery, Technique and Tic are valid as they are natural parts of the life-cycle in us adopting working practices. But I think that Discovery is crucial to moving us forward, as too is Technique. Tic on the other hand needs to be watched carefully, because this stage of any of our approach can lead to a lack of thought or purpose in what we are doing.

It’s good to be aware of what we’re doing. And of understanding when something we are doing, is just being done, because it’s what we always do. Everything we adopt in our working practices has mileage: the Discovery period may last weeks or even years, and the technique period may be something we master in a day or so or perhaps we never master. But when all those stages are over, and we now find that any approach we have is becoming more a ‘tic’ to what we do, then I think it’s time to re-evaluate and see if you really need to use it any more.

Why compete?

Some say that competition is good for us. In technological circles and business in general, competition between rival companies is good for advancing our knowledge and expertise. 

But what about competition in the arts? Is there a valid reason for allowing competition to be part of what you do? I think so.

As much as I personally have a big problem with photography competitions (more on this later), I can appreciate that as creative people, we photographers need to have a sense of drive in what we do. Creating good photographs isn't something that happens by just going out once in a while with our cameras and making a few snaps: there is often effort - a lot of it - applied in the pursuit of trying to create good work. Sure, talent comes into it, but I've met many talented people in my life who never complete anything and through laziness, never move forward with their art. Conversely, I've also met less-talented people out there whom, through a sense of drive and pushing themselves forward, are able to move their photography further. Talent is one thing, but drive or lack of, is another and you need to have talent and drive to move your work forward in general.

Any vehicle you can find, which will help move your photography forward (or give you a sense of drive) is a good thing. It could be; setting up a project, an exhibition, creating a book. Anything that has a goal attached to it will help focus your efforts and stop you from meandering lost and rudderless around in a mix of 'not sure what to do, or where I'm going'. So projects and goals are important to help you move forward with your photography

I have a dilemma though about competitions. Rating art is a bit like saying you like blue better than pink, or that vanilla ice cream is better than a cat. Fish are good but bananas are better. Photography competitions are meaningless, and the only result one can look for getting out of one is the pursuit of focus in what one does. Winning is irrelevant and meaningless. The focus that a competition can give you, is the real prize.

Life is full of competitive forces. Getting promotion at work, being first in the queue to get off the bus, first to get tickets for a concert before it sells out. Life is a competitive race and as a species we need competition to survive. Our genes and species didn't get here, and neither did you, without our ancestors striving to make this happen. So in a way, competition is built into the core fabric of every human being, and every living thing on this planet.

If I were you, and you are thinking of entering a competition: think long and hard about your motivations to win one. Winning is really meaningless. But the focus that it may give you in honing your skills, working towards something is more valuable than any kudos you may get from the winning.

Art was never about competition. And art shouldn't be measured or compared. But competitions do have their place: if they give you a sense of focus and drive to move forward with your work, then they are no bad thing. Just remember that winning them has nothing to do with your art, because art is personal. You do it for you. You don't do it to 'win'.