Many thanks to Alister Benn for inviting me to be interviewed. It was nice to talk to a fellow Scot, and his interview approach was very informal and I think, opened up the conversation quite a lot.
There is a cost to this
This month I have been running an on-line set of classes about composition. As part of the class I invite participants to ask questions about some of the concepts of observations that I’ve put forward. It’s always interesting to be asked questions because for me, often it’s not the question I’m being asked that is intriguing, but more the motivation that has caused the question in the first place.
We seldom say what we really mean, and we seldom expose the true motivation that spurred us on to say what we said. And for me as a teacher, I am more interested in understanding why someone arrived at the question they had, because often the question is not the real question they started with: it is a filtration and mixture of ideas and concerns that has been bundled, re-packaged, and re-translated to try to form some kind of intelligible format that they can vocalise.
In other words, it’s damn hard understanding ourselves at the best of times. We have to work through the jumbled up thoughts and impressions we have, to try to figure out what we want to express.
As a teacher, I think you begin to look beyond the questions you’re asked. And some teachers I believe, get really good at figuring out the author’s underlying motivation of drive.
For me, I have felt that over the sessions I’ve run this summer, there is an overall feeling that most photographers feel a sense of frustration that their work is all over the place. Some images are good, while some are not. Sometimes they feel they are not progressing as fast as they would like, and they would like this to stop. They would like to have more clarity about how to proceed.
So I just wanted to share my thoughts on ‘progress’.
I would start off by saying, any medium out there - whether it’s sports, drama, music, painting, or photography all require one thing: a lot of commitment. And when I say a lot, I mean ‘more than what most people are prepared to give’. If you want to be creating work that is above average, then you’re going to have to sacrifice a lot. Perhaps less time with your family, or giving up that job you have.
And you have to accept that failure is part of the deal. Every artist fails every day. Including the famous ones. They’re just better at dealing with it, and most understand that failure is just part of the package. To create great work, there has to be bad work to contrast against.
You build on what you’ve learned. You build on your experiences. You learn from your mistakes. And you don’t get good at something by being an occasional warrior.
If you only go out with your camera a few weeks a year, or once in a while at a weekend, progress is going to be very slow. Sure, you may be a talented person who creates good work, but I’m talking about creating work that even you, will be surprised by, because it exceeds what you’ve done in the past. That kind of progress is not the property of the occasional photographer. It belongs to someone else entirely.
It does not mean you should torture yourself. Or put yourself under an inordinate amount of pressure. Nope, I don’t think great work comes from that kind of hardship. It has to come from a place of catching a ball and wanting to run with it. Seeing something in what you do, and knowing there’s a lot more to come if you keep on going. And keep going. And keep on going.
There is a cost to creating great work. You will have to give up on other aspects of your life to do it. I am sure of it. It is my belief that anyone out there who has made a name for themselves in what they do, has had to pay for it with less time and attention elsewhere in their lives.
So becoming a better photographer is no easy path. And even the great ones still have their off-days, where the work is so garbage that they don’t show anyone it.
I think the best attitude to have, is to enjoy what you do. Wherever you are, at whatever ability you have reached. Enjoy it. Of course, sitting around thinking how great all your images are won’t drive you forward, so a bit of healthy-introspection and awareness as to where you are is vital. If you see fault in your work - that’s good. Because it means you’re looking for something more.
Just be kind to yourself.
Hálendi book standard edition sold out
Just a short note today to say that the standard edition of my new book is now sold out. Thanks once again to those of you who have supported me at this difficult time by buying a copy of my latest book.
I only have a few Deluxe and Black editions left.
Enigma or resolve? I'd choose Enigma every time
I have always had a massive dislike for photographic captions.
I think there’s much more power in an image if it doesn’t have a caption. I mean, let’s face it -when someone says to you “I have something to say to you, but I can’t tell you”, you can’t help but feel a sudden, immediate need to know.
Enigma is a very powerful tool, if used well.
I’d much prefer to work out the puzzle, rather than have it explained to me. Which is why I have always had a massive dislike for photographic captions. Photographs are visual stories, and by that definition, they should be self explanatory.
Resolution: the act of removing any uncertainty in the work, in my view does not help the work. It just allows the viewer to get get off lightly. It does not encourage the viewer to become engrossed. As soon as the explanation is given, the viewer is now free to move on.
So i’d choose enigma every time. I think the work becomes more powerful if the viewer is left guessing.
Travel Insurance?
Since Covid broke in March this year, I have heard from many people who have told me that:
Their travel insurance company did not pay out for any cancellation.
and that many of the travel insurance companies are advising clients to make a charge-back against the travel company they booked with.
This all seems to suggest that travel insurance is a waste of time. And not only that, it suggests that travel insurance companies want us to pay them money for nothing in return. But perhaps worst of all, it seems to indicate that travel insurance companies have no ethics, and are advising customers to divert their insurance claims by making other companies pay them back.
If this is true - then what is the point of travel insurance, and why would any one continue to pay?
I’d like to hear from you about your insurance claim experiences. Did you find that the travel insurance company paid you back for a trip that you either were forced to cancel yourself because the situation was getting bad, or maybe you were already somewhere and the travel insurance company didn’t honour the terms?
Let me know - please email me your experiences.
Individuality
To me, the word ‘trend’ means ‘followers’. Being a follower in my book has never been cool. It just signifies people who have no thoughts of their own.
It also means ‘current’. And being ‘current’ means it’s already happened. It’s over. It’s done.
The best way to try to avoid being dated, is by not following trends.
And the best way of doing that, is by being yourself. Because no one else in the world is better at being you, than you are.
Thank You for buying my new book
To those of you who have been so kind to place an order for my forthcoming book, I wish to thank you so much.
Right now, the income from this book is more important than ever
Since March, my whole workshop business came to an abrupt halt. It is around 90% of my income. I make a very small amount from e-Books and prints each year, and the majority comes from tours and workshops. So 90% of my income has disappeared.
I do not see a future for me right now. I know I am not alone. Many of us are affected, or are going to be affected in the coming months.
I am anticipating that next year is going to be a lot tougher than this year has been for me, as I think tourism and travel are going to be impacted for many years to come. I think my survival is going to be dependent on publishing books, and on-line tuition.
I personally think that there has never been a more important time to patronise the arts. If there is an artist out there that you like, supporting them by buying something from their store (and not Amazon - since Amazon take most of the profits and the artist gets almost nothing), will help them a great deal.
Thank you!
So once again, I wish to thank you for buying my book. It’s currently one of the few life-lines I have right now, and I deeply appreciate the gesture, especially as I know that for many of you things are also not easy.
Hálendi Book Advanced Orders now available
I’m pleased to announce that I am now taking advanced orders for my new book.
This time we have changed to an Italian printer, and the book is a hard-back. It comes in 3 variants.
If you would like to order one, the edition run is very limited to just 300 copies. Just click on the button below to go to the order page.
Black edition cloth cover
Black edition slipcase cloth cover
My thoughts on on-line teaching
Back in April when I chose to offer on-line teaching, I was skeptical that it would be as effective as being in the same room as my student.
Images by Fee Chin, used by kind permission. Fee is one of my on-line students.
Over the past month or so of working with around six people on a weekly basis, I’ve found that the teaching in many ways has out performed what’s possible in a classroom environment. Most of my students have excelled by the third lesson to a point beyond where most of my students get to on a 5-day course. I have a few explanations for this:
The first one is that I get one solid hour of uninterrupted time with a student. I do not get that amount of time, even though there are 7 hours per day in a 5-day workshop. Because my time is split between 6 people. Each at different levels, each with different problems.
The second reason is that they get a week'-gap to go away and think about what we’ve gone over, and review their work, and take time on editing it. This is not possible on a 5-day class - things are compressed - and I am trying to get people up to speed in 5 days as opposed to 1 hour per week for six weeks. The six week gestation period really makes a big difference.
I get to review everyone’s work before we meet. I usually spend a few hours going over everyone’s material and making notes so that when we meet, I have some clear direction and instruction for them.
fourth, working online has not been such a communication barrier that I had anticipated. The delays are usually minimal and the lines are often fast.
There’s more chance of things sticking and you retaining the knowledge, if the learning is reinforced over six weeks as opposed to 5-days.
The most important part of all of this is perhaps point 2. Stretching out a teaching experience over six weeks as opposed to condensing it into 5-days is much better.
Conversely, these are the benefits I see from the 5-day class:
We have shooting time together, and things we learned in the classroom can be worked on in the field in the evenings. We don’t have that option on the on-line class.
There is more time together for ‘random discussions’ and other things come up that maybe wouldn’t during a 1-hour one-on-one session.
There are a few things that come up as problems in the 5-day course, that don’t happen in the on-line class:
People get fatigued from trying to work and edit images for more than a few hours a day. Regular breaks are advised.
You need time away from the work to reflect. Each time I edit my own work, I like to shelve it for a few days because when I do look at it again, I am often surprised by themes, errors, potential opportunities that I had not seen the last time I looked at it.
Condensing so much into 5-days doesn’t give any space to reflect and let things sink in.
So there are pros/cons to both formats, but I am finding that on-line teaching is definitely as valuable as a traditional 5-day class.
I’m sure I will continue to offer the Digital Darkroom class in future (if / when things get back to normal). I’ve had participants tell me how useful it is, but I am definitely sure that I would like to continue with the on-line option as well. I enjoy it so much as I get to know each student’s drive and work better.
Indeed, many students have told me that the Digital Darkroom class is something they wish to repeat each year as a ‘top-up’ and I think that doing both can be a good combination. I suppose I’m just trying to convince any doubters that on-line teaching is a useful endeavour as well as the standard workshops. It’s just different.
Abstraction vs Classical
When I work on a composition of a subject, I tend to make around 3 major images of the same subject. In other words, I like to work the scene and for one subject I will maybe come away with three images that are hopefully quite different.
My view is that: there is no one single composition to be found. There are often many.
The image above is more graphic, more abstract than the scene below, which I consider to be more ‘classical’ in composition. By ‘classical’ I mean ‘expected’, ‘traditional’ or perhaps just a bit more conventional.
I would like to explain that when I made these two photographs, they were maybe a few minutes apart. On one of them I chose to include the sun in the clouds whereas the top image I chose to leave it out. I think that it takes courage as a photographer to remove a vital component of a scene in order to maybe focus or strengthen what you are doing. My own personal view is that the image above is stronger than the image below. It is more ‘quantised’, or ‘reduced’. I’ve reduced it down to a few black lines. The bottom image although containing those black lines isn’t as powerful because our attention is taken elsewhere (the sun). But more over, the bottom scene is clearly a photograph of a volcano in a landscape. It has a great deal of content. Whereas the image above does not have the same clues to give us context. It is less a photo and more like a calligraphic drawing with two black ink strokes.
Often when we talk about composition, it’s about the placement of objects in the scene, whereas i tend to think that tone and colour are just as important as the subjects. But I think to create more surprising work, we need to step away from classical thoughts. Again, to explain what I mean by ‘classical’, I mean ‘conventional’. And I don’t mean it in a positive way. For a while now I’ve had a real problem with conventions such as ‘rule of thirds’, etc. These are just conventions to get us going, but they are also a trap in taking us into a cul-de-sac of the mediocrity. Making compositions that people expect is just going to make your work predictable and boring. But you do have to start there - learn the basics, so you can ‘unlearn them’ later.
It’s simply not enough now to create a ‘nice composition’. I think my first image has the edge on the second because it’s slightly less conventional, perhaps a little more graphical. More abstract. It requires a bit more time to work out than the bottom image.
When you are composing, try to work the scene. Don’t just assume you’ve found your composition. Yes, it’s a nice composition but there are many more. Try to work the scene by moving around, and by removing some of the elements of the scene that you initially thought were vital. I think it takes a sense of conviction to remove that sun from the 2nd image and focus on the volcano. But I have often said that composition is more about what you leave out, than what you leave in.