Complimentary Cloud

Like it was placed ‘just so’, the cloud in this shot was timed.

Sky plays just as important a role in composition as the ground does. Indeed I think we must stop thinking of the landscape as split into symbolic areas such as ‘ground’ and ‘sky’, but instead as ‘shapes’ and ‘tones’. To my mind, sky should be indivisible from ground.

The cloud is just hanging there in the ‘perfect’ space. It is a diagonally balancing object to the volcano Papillon in the lower-right side of the frame. In my mind’s-eye, I see nothing else in the picture apart from the cloud and the volcano. Two objects, both unified, and highly related to each other through placement.

This is why I think areas of the sky play just as important a role in composition as objects on the ground do. Sky is not just a space that has to always be in the frame, and nor does it have to occupy 50% of the frame as it seems to for many images. Sky is just space, like any other space in a composition, and if you use it well it can aid in the power of the composition.

The placement of that cloud (and therefore the timing of the shutter firing was critical), but so too was its shape and volume of area. Had it been much bigger than the volcano, then I think it would have dominated. Instead, it is pleasingly proportionally equal to the volcano, and I find my eye is comfortably bouncing back and forth between the two.

The could is also of a pleasing shape. Not all clouds are created equal, which although rather obvious to some of us, still needs to be pointed out.

A cloud is never just a cloud.

The deception of simplicity

Like watching a proficient ice skater, one could be forgiven for thinking that skating isn’t that hard at all. Indeed, I think that anyone who can make something that they do look effortless has two forms of outcome in terms of how their audience may rate them:

1. For those in the know, who have experience of the skill they are witnessing, a sense of awe or admiration for making something that is really quite difficult look effortless.

2. For the uninitiated, seeing something done so easily can lead to a sense of being underwhelmed. Because they have no experience to refer to, they are easily fooled into thinking that the skill being demonstrated is easily attainable.

It is perhaps a contentious point to bring up, but sometimes contention has to be part of the conversation. So I bring up black and white photography as a classic example of something that to the inexperienced may appear to be easier than colour. The reasoning may go something like this: ‘black and white photography should be simple because there is one less thing to worry about: colour. You only have to concentrate on tone’.

But my view is that black and white photography done well, is extremely hard to do for the very fact that all you have to rely on is tone. Because colour has been removed from the equation, it means the viewers attention is left to focus on tone alone, and so the tones in the picture had better work. Any tonal errors or bad judgement will be more evident. The colour component isn’t there to help distract the viewer from noticing the tonal errors in the picture.

On a side note to this, it is often a ‘last ditch attempt’ on a workshop to salvage an image that has some inherent problem. Often I am confronted with the suggestion that we should “see what the image will look like in black and white”. As if the mere turning of a bad colour image into a monochrome one will save it.

The other aspect of simplicity that is deceptive is the mere fact that the less we know, the more we tend to think we know. And the more we learn, the more we understand just how much we didn’t know when we started out. I’ve talked about this before and it is called the Dunning Kruger effect.

Making effective simple images is hard.

You have to go through a long process of making a lot of complicated images first, to find out why they don’t work. Even then, you have to apply a degree of aptitude to understand that something isn’t working, and you need to find a way to reduce the clutter and unnecessary complexity, while at the same time not lose the image to sterility. The work has to remain engaging.

It is one of the reasons why I dislike the term ‘minimalism’. As Mozart said in the 80’s Amadeus movie ‘why sire, I only used as many notes as I needed, nothing more, nothing less’. Minimalism suggests that the work could have been just as good with more stuff in it. It also suggests that there’s been a deliberate attempt to reduce the contents of the picture to a point below most people’s level of normalcy. When in truth, the skill is in knowing, and being able to successfully apply the correct degree of just what was needed. Nothing more, nothing less.

I therefore believe that simplicity is itself deceptively difficult.

Perseverance in regaining momentum

I persevered yesterday. Despite feeling that there were no more images in the set of films I had which showed any promise, turns out I was (gratefully) wrong.

A lesson to myself, that I know all too well:

“There is always more than I saw. There is what I cannot see as yet.”

Which is a repeating story for all of us.

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I have come to notice there are repeating patterns to my own progress. Particularly so with portfolios. This is what I think the typical workflow and thought process is for me:

LOW MOMENTUM

1. A feeling of being overwhelmed by so much work to go through.

2. Procrastination. Worried that if I start on the wrong foot, the work will be derailed.

3. Sitting on the work for a while, letting it simmer in the back of my mind.

4. When I start work, I tend to go looking for the really magnetic, powerful images. There are usually if I’m lucky about two or three images out of the entire set that I feel are the best.
   

   MEDIUM MOMENTUM

5. Once I’ve edited this core set of images, I get a feel for how the entire set should look. This drives me forward in what I choose next to add to the set. I find I am theme driven rather than picking secondary images that just look good on their own.

6. I edit the complimentary images to suit the core images.

   HIGH MOMENTUM

7. As I add new images to the ‘core set’ I start to gain a sense of confidence in the set.

8. I edit the complimentary images to fit the core set. But I also now re-tune the core set of images to fit the complimentary images.

9. There is now a high degree of symbiosis between the original core images and the newly added images. They are working together and they influence each other in terms of further tuning and editing.

10. I find other images to edit which will compliment well the existing set. As the existing set is starting to take shape, I am able to see more clearly which unedited images will compliment the set.

    LOW MOMENTUM

11. I start to run out of unedited images to fit the set.

12. I try a few and some work, and some don’t. I start to feel a loss of interest for some of the unedited work, and although there are still some very interesting images, I just don’t feel they warrant further exploration or even any attempt to edit them.

13. I finish the portfolio, but I still feel there is work left undone that if I tried very hard, I might get some further good images to compliment the set. But by this point, I’m feeling that I’ve gone as far as I can go, and my interest levels are really depleted.

    ZERO MOMENTUM

14. The portfolio feels complete. I have a full story. It’s rounded, feels balanced, and it’s so set in stone now that I can’t see anything else I want to do with it. I park it. It’s done.

By point 14, I’m well aware that points 12 and 13 could have shown me more work that may have been of value had I persevered. But I do also recognise that my heart by this point, just isn’t interested now. I’m probably tired of working on the set, and I feel I have enough images to make a decent portfolio.

I have learned, as we saw above at the very start of this post, that there are often hidden gems left in the unedited material. It may be worth going back to them a few weeks / months later to see what is there. With some distance and a fresh perspective you may be able to pick out images that will compliment the set. But there are two things we should consider when doing this:

1) The original edited set was a performance. It has a look and a style to it that is partly due to how you were on the days you edited them.

2) resuming work on a completed set of images that have a strong style and approach later on, can be difficult. You aren’t the same person, and you’ve also lost sight of what it was that drove you to edit the work in a particular way in the first instance. You cannot regain it easily, and if you do, it will most probably be through trying several attempts, in which you gain some insight into what it was you were doing originally to make the images look the way they do.

The loss of momentum

Momentum has a huge part to play in our development as photographers. Pausing when you are in the middle of a creative flow can derail you and set you back.

I was made acutely aware of this yesterday when I attempted to ‘resume’ editing some work I had begun editing two years ago.

Let me explain. Two years ago edited I the set of images you see below. They were shot in Lençois Maranhenses national park in Brazil around May 2019. I felt the edits below were, and still are pretty good. Over the past two years I have always considered I got the edits about right for this collection. So I wondered this past week whether there were more unedited images in my films that I could add to this collection, if I resumed work on them.

I didn’t find much. Just one image (see above). And even then, it wasn’t so obvious. This process made me aware of several things:

1) When we are editing, we are often in a particular ‘creative flow’. Edit the images a week or two later and they will be different yet again, because the results have as much to do with how we are feeling and what we are ‘into’ during the the moment of creation.

In other words: editing is a performance.

It is one of the main reasons why I like to set a block of time aside to edit work in the same ‘session’. My head is going to be in the same place as I edit a collection of work, and I often find myself reliving the experience of the shoot.

So again: editing is a performance. Each performer / actor or musician knows that each time they play or act the same songs / scenes, they do them differently. And depending on their biorhythms, things vary.

2) I’d lost momentum. The ‘roll’ I was on when I created the nine or so images above had passed. Trying to get back ‘into that frame of mind’ was going to be hard. Almost impossible.

It took me a few false starts over a whole day before I was able to edit the top image to be anything close to an empathetic version of the original set. That is because it took me time to ‘adjust to the sensibilities of the original idea’, rather than it bend to suit me.

I have often thought of editing as a performance. Indeed, everything I do as a photographer has a ‘time’, is dependent on how I am that day. And trying to reproduce something later on to order seldom works.

Rather than think of this as a problem, I personally find it quite liberating. Because of the instability of how things might turn out, you have to learn to let go. You have to accept that some days are better than others, and this is quite a freeing idea. It removes the need for ‘perfection’. And allows room for give and take. For accepting things are they way they are, and is a strong reminder that creativity has an ebb just as much as it has a flow to it.

The presumption of acquiring photographic style

I often hear photographers say ‘I don’t know if I have a style’. For many years I wasn’t aware of even having one myself, and mostly I never thought about gaining one either.

Similarly to the photographer that only goes out to shoot once in a while, a weekend or two and a couple of weeks a year, aiming to be better just won’t happen. You don’t become a better photographer by not photographing, or only photographing a little a year. So stumbling on some nice shots once in a while is probably as best as you’re going to get. And if you keep applying the same level of practice to your photography, that is where your ability will stay.

However, you can also spend many hours, days, weeks, years working on your photography and never improve either. Because spending time alone on something does not make someone better at something. There has to be something else at play here in order to improve, and that thing is called ‘self-enquiry’.

Self-enquiry is the art of seeing and understanding what one is doing, and of learning from oneself. It only happens when we’re able to reflect and consider what we’re doing. Applying several thousand hours a year on your photography taking pictures without any aim to consider and reflect upon what you are doing will mean you learn very little, if anything at all.

Then there is the subject of what style actually is. I think there are two kinds of ‘style’:

1) a recognised format or look to your pictures that is accepted as a known ‘style’. It is something others do and if you do it too, you become part of that tribe of photographers. Your work looks like other people’s work but at least you have a style.

2) a unique style. That’s the thing we all wish to gain. To be able to look like no one else except ourselves. To find that when we create work, others recognise it as ours, without even having to ask. To do something that others do not do. To follow our own path.

Point one is much easier to do, while point two is almost impossible to achieve by hard work alone. I would say that point two is probably in the hands of the gods: the result of hard work and innate talent. Fortunate if you have that talent, but also fortunate in that you had the aptitude and mind-set to work hard at uncovering that unique style that you didn’t know you had. I believe there are loads of talented photographers out there that would have an emerging unique style, if only they put the effort in to uncovering it.

I have often believed that someone with half the talent but who worked twice as hard as someone who is twice as talented but does very little work, will be more successful. Talent is a magic ingredient we all want, but without the effort put it, talent will be squandered. Someone with less talent but the determination and drive will go much further.

When you meet someone who has a unique talent, and they are very very successful, you tend to find there is a very strong work ethic driving them forward. From my times with Michael Kenna, he very much fits into that category. An artist who defined a genre but also someone who is very dedicated and driven.

For most of us, just achieving point 1) above is the holy grail. Something that mere mortals can aspire to. Very little after all is original. Originality is the territory reserved for point 2) photographers.

So how do we find out if we have a style such as the one described in point 1? Do we just wake up one morning and realise we have a style? Or do we have to work through a set of problems in order to get there? Is it simply all about putting the hours in?

I don’t think so.

I think that you just have to keep making photos. But when you do create new work, consider if things are changing. Consider how much further you have changed from your work from a year ago. For me, changes aren’t obvious in weekly steps, but more in yearly steps. And when I zoom out to a decade the changes in my work become extremely obvious. Zoom in too much, and you won’t see the progress.

So just keep doing what you do, but develop a 3rd-person point of view about your work. Learn to be able to step outside what you do and look in as an observer would. Reflect about the work and try to leave your ego outside of the room. Try to learn from your own progress and study your work.

Studying one’s work is the only way I know of to recognise if a style is beginning to emerge.

We have no right to presume we will acquire a photographic style. That one day we will discover we have reached this magic target. We simply have no right to assume anything. We have to enquire, and we have to learn as much as we can about ourselves. The only way that will happen is by photographing often, and most importantly, through a lot of self-enquiry.

Portfolio development class announcement

This summer, I am running a portfolio development class

The class comprises of over three hours of instruction in building a portfolio. From initial image selection to final image tuning.

I will be using my own work, that was shot in Bolivia in 2019, as the basis for the portfolio creation. You will in essence be a fly on the wall, watching as I shape and hone a set of images into a finely tuned portfolio.

We will also cover the topic of developing one’s own photographic style. Portfolios are a great way of uncovering themes in your work and finding out a lot about your yourself as a photographer.

Each of the sessions is delivered weekly through the month of may  as a video,  and you can watch each of them as many times as you like. You also get to submit questions which will be answered in a follow up Q&A after each session.

Portfolio development is one of the best ways I know to help improve one’s own photography.

I hope you will join me this May.

Portfolio Development video class 2021 (Bolivia)

£175.00

One time

Sign Up

Good news for square aspect ratio shooters

Really Square Stuff.com have just announced an L-bracket for your camera, so you can shoot square aspect ratios in any orientation you like.

More information below:

Working with students

This past year, I’ve been doing a few on-line lessons on a one-to-one basis with students. I’ve really enjoyed it, as each student is different, but also I tend to see the same issues for most.

One such student, Leslie Tait from Orkney has been really excelling at his work this past few months. I’ve known him for some time, and I have often felt that Leslie’s work tends to vary a lot and be quite inconsistent. His compositions have improved greatly but I found that as we would walk through a set of images, the ability would vary enormously. So I thought the thing I should do with him that might help a lot, is to look at his work in sets of images. Otherwise known as portfolios :-)

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Images © Leslie Tait.

I’m really delighted at his progress. I can see in the sets of images he is now giving me a sense of cohesion that was not there before. Not bad for a 70 year old who took up photography 10 years ago.

I’m busy putting a portfolio development class together. It’s a ‘fly on the wall’ experience - 3 hours of myself putting a set of images together from initial selection to final edit. Perhaps I should get Leslie to do it for me, as he is clearly excelling at his homework !

Congratulations Leslie.

Elon Musk is no photographer

I’m a great fan of Elon Musk. Someone who know’s how to follow his dreams and turn a thought into reality.

He posted this today on his twitter account, and it made me laugh:

A lot of fun this post. but the alternative argument might be:

• All high resolution cameras are owned by aliens only.

So if you know someone with a 50 mega pixel and above camera, you now have a good explanation as to why they also have three eyes and an antenna sticking out of the top of their head.

Iceland Photo Tour September

Last week the Icelandic government changed their entry rules so that Vaccination Certificates from US and UK are to be accepted. As of today, they have announced that certificates of vaccination with vaccines already approved by the European Medicines Agency will also be accepted.

In anticipation of this, and the enquiries I’m receiving from photographers who have been vaccinated, I’ve chosen to set up my September tour to Iceland. We have six months until the commencement date, so I’m hoping that things will become much clearer over the coming months with regards to health practices.

We are still very much in the early stages of understanding what it means to be vaccinated, and what health practices still need to be carried out.

But I will say that since Iceland only accepts visitors who have been vaccinated or have had Covid, it follows that the tour will only consist of participants who have been vaccinated. We use a super-truck, and this does not allow for social distancing during the drive. A big coach/bus can‘t go where we go.

So I am to will follow rules and guidelines set by the authorities, but if this makes it impossible to run the tour, then the tour will be cancelled.

Iceland's Fjallabak - The Remote Interior

 Date: 23rd September - 2nd October 2021

Price: $7,995 USD
Deposit: $2,158 USD

Remote & Wild, Interior Black Deserts, Volcanic Craters & Lakes
10-Day Photographic Adventure

Introduction

This trip takes us from Reykjavik into the heart of the remote central highlands of Iceland - the Fjallabak nature reserve (behind the mountains).

Fjallabak is a spectacular highland wilderness area - a place of contrasts from vast black sand deserts to rhyolite covered mountains. It is a true wilderness, not so often photographed due to its accessibility, but highly worthy of any time spent there.