Getting good at a few things - the gift of limitations

When I first entered into photography back in the year 2000, digital capture was still very much in its infancy. I did not choose film, it was the only real serious option at the time, and so that decision was made for me.

It is now 2023, and I am still using film. I have found over the years of using the slide film I prefer (Velvia 50), that I have had to work in a narrow range of light. The film I use has a latitude of maybe 3 to 5 stops. I have always assumed that it is around 3 stops, and because of this, I also use grads to reduce down my scenes from 3 stops to zero stops between ground and sky.

Because the film is so limited in dynamic range, right from the beginning, I had to learn to ‘read’ the light available to me and figure out if I could shoot in it. It turns out that most light I couldn’t. I had to go looking for light where the dynamics were within that 3-stop range, and that meant looking for very soft light.

As it turns out: very soft light is perhaps the most beautiful light we can work in. And I’ve learned over the years I’ve been working with my limited film range, that my film has pushed me into learning to work in this particular light more than any other kind of light out there. I suppose I kind of like to believe that I have become an expert in soft light.

This has happened, only because of the limitations of the medium I use. If I had maybe started a decade later when digital was more established, I might not have walked that tightrope in being forced to work within the narrow range of soft light situations.

I think the tendency to think that we need more dynamic range in our cameras is a leaning on technology to provide for us, where in fact we should be learning to work with the limitations of what we have.

Consider if all your lenses broke except for your 50mm. If you were unable to get to a camera store, or mailorder, and you’re currently in the middle of the Atacama desert, what do you do? You work with what you have.

Will this catastrophe ruin your visit to the Atacama? Probably not. In some ways, having the choice of which lens to use removed from you is a blessing. You have one less thing to worry about.

It will also probably mean you will start to look at the landscape from a 50mm viewpoint. All the compositions you will begin to notice will tend towards 50mm. I would go so far as to suggest that you’ll start to get very good at it, the more you’re forced to work with your 50mm lens and nothing else.

There is one other aspect of having this limitation forced upon you: I am 100% convinced that you will produce work that you wouldn’t have, if you’d had any choice of focal length available to you.

It is only when we are pushed up against a wall, that we start to become inventive. After all, how do you know if you’ve gone too far, if you’ve never reached the boundaries of your own comfort zone? Having a limitation like catastrophic lens failure thrust upon you will give you a chance to find out.

In my view: i’d much rather get good at one thing, than feel as though I have a limited understanding of many. Limitations are good, and working around the edges of what’s possible can lead you to a place in your creativity that you may not have visited before.

Tools to damage

I remember getting a phone call from the very nice old man who services and repairs my old Hasselblad film cameras. He started with asking me ‘have you been anywhere wet recently? Because your camera is rusting inside’.

The photo here is of my Hasselblad body (one of two I’ve taken with me on this trip) where the leather exterior has started to peel away due to the humidity, and the body / mirror shows sand inside.

In my view, as much as I love equipment and try to look after it. It will get subjected to wet conditions (Iceland and Japan), and desert / sandy conditions in Iceland and the Atacama. I have worn out several bodies, sometimes in just a couple of years from these machines being subjected to all kinds of conditions.

The image always comes first, and if I have to subject my cameras to unkind conditions, then that is ok.

For me, this is no hardship. My cameras are relatively inexpensive to replace. They are all old 1980’s film cameras and lenses. Despite prices for second hand film cameras increasing over the years, they are still very inexpensive compared to some of the new digital cameras out there.

I am always curious as to how much we hold ourselves back in the pursuit of our image making when we are concerned that our camera equipment may get damaged. This is really the issue I am focussing on today in this post. Do you for instance only shoot when it’s dry? And do you pack your camera away the moment the first drops of rain appear? If so, then you are definitely holing yourself back from making use of the changes in the weather. Always only working in dry conditions, on fair days is going to limit your photography. Not just in the diversity of images you come home with, but also in your learning of working in different kinds of light.

Perhaps there is a balance that needs to be reached. A compromise between 'accessibility to all kinds of weather’ against ‘cost of repair’. If you wish to explore places which may be more demanding on your equipment, then perhaps budget for spare lenses, and at the very least a spare body. Perhaps even decide to buy two of a consumer camera rather than go all out for the super high end twice-the-price equivalent. It will make your priorities clear, and you more willing to take risks with your equipment.

I certainly think being on the lookout for spare lenses, or a spare body should be part of your photography plan. And if you can’t justify owning two bodies, then perhaps think about buying a used backup body for that big trip of a lifetime, and sell it once you get home.

Like learning how to manage our money (which we don’t get taught at school), we should learn to manage our expenditure on equipment to build in a portion of ‘in the event of a failure’.

For myself, I always travel now with 2 x camera bodies, 2 x standard lenses, 2 x standard wide angles, plus a superwide. And with my tele lenses, I have some overlap in the selection I bring with me, so that if one link in the chain is missing, I don’t feel the gap.

Acknowledgment of reaching your own summit

When we are being retrospective, we tend to focus on the things that have changed: what we do now that we didn’t, and also what we did do, but don’t do any more :-) Rarely however, do we notice the elements of our photography that remain the same.

I’ve just been reviewing my latest work over the past year or so, and I’ve come to the conclusion that although there has been a shifting in what I do over the past decade, I really haven’t changed much at all.

This reminds me of the saying ‘the more things change, the more they stay the same’.

Image used by kind permission. Image © Michael Scandling.

I don’t think this is particularly a bad thing. Nor is my post today lamenting the lack of change in my work. Because I know in some ways it has changed. It’s just that well, there’s an integral part of what I do that I can’t escape. And that part is me.

It is, in my view, such a rare opportunity to see yourself in your own photography. Like the blind spot that is not being able to see ourselves the way our friends and family see us, we are blind most of the time to that part of our ‘art’ that is us.

I think the only way to be able to get a glimpse of ourselves in our own work, is to have been taking photos for a very long time. You need a lot of distance, and a lot of water under the bridge, with which to compare your most recent work with that of what you did perhaps when you first started out. See anything ‘familiar’ ? If you do - then that is most probably you.

I wish I still had the email I got from Michael Kenna. When he published a reprint of his Rouge book, I noticed that although the new edition was expanded with images that were shot at the time of the original publication, the inclusion of them showed signs of his future work to be at that time. When I wrote to him and said ‘I see Hokkaido in these images, before you went to Hokkaido’, he replied with a bit of poetry which I wish I could remember. It more or less said something along the lines of ‘the more we change, the more we stay the same’. Included in his email was also an early Kenna image - taken around the early 70’s. Although it was 35mm format, it had all the earmarkings of a Kenna shot - foggy, with a simplistic minimalist composition of a park somewhere in England. I could see him in this early shot so well, and yet at the time of capture, he still had to form his style.

I think now that I’ve been making images for over twenty years, I have the benefit, or opportunity to be able to see ‘me’ in my imagery - the part that has stayed the same all this time.

It is in doing so, that I think I can assume that I’ve reached the summit of where I am meant to be. With this acknowledgment, I realise that the future is perhaps mostly going to be about honing what I already have, rather than making massive changes. I think this is something one has to reach an understanding, and also an acceptance with oneself.

It is what it is, I am what I am, and this is what I do.

2-stop ND filter increments, and 1-stop exposure granularity

It’s taken me 20+ years to figure out that for long-exposure work, having a set of ND filters that are 2 stops apart is the best way forward.

I have always used 1, 2, 3, 6 and 10 stop ND filters. But over the past while I have found that the jump between 3 stops to 6 stops is far too much. Same for the leap between 6 stops and 10.

So now I use 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 stop ND filters.

Further to this, what I should let you know is that for the past decade, I work my exposures out in 1 stop increments. I do not meter in 1/2 stops or 1/3rd stops. They are in my view - simply too fine and 1 stop differences is as fine a granularity that I need for my films.

I would like to also add that it becomes a lot easier to meter, and to add exposure compensation when adding ND filters, if you work with your camera set to meter at 1-stop increments only.

Consider if your camera is set to expose at 1/3rd stop increments. It is very hard to work out for 2 stops more would be if your exposure is at 1/9th of a second. It becomes a lot easier if your camera rounds it down to 1/8th of a second. Adding two stops onto this means you just divide it by 2, twice:

1 stop increment = 1/4 of a second

2nd stop increment = 1/2 of a second.

I like working in 1 stop differences. It’s as fine as I need it, and it also simplifies my working out the exposure compensation difference when applying ND filters.

Inner symphonies & the role of feeling deeply

I got a new album of music to listen to this week called ‘Inner symphonies’. I liked the title but it was only when I opened up the gatefold sleeve of the album that I understood the title. Inside were the words ‘for those who feel deeply’.

And it got me to thinking about the role of our emotions on our photography. As a good friend of mine has often said to me ‘the camera points both ways’. I have always understood that my own ‘art’ whether it was music making, drawing and painting as a kid, or photography now, has been, and still is, routed in something within me.

Each time we make a photo, perhaps we are making a mini inner-symphony? Each image we make can often symbolise something more about us, than the actual subject. Well, I think that is the way it should be.

Logic in a way, shouldn’t even come into the equation when making images:

‘Think less, and feel more’

is perhaps the way we should approach what we do. Or perhaps ‘respond’ rather than ‘think’.

I know I am someone who overthinks things, but when it comes to producing art, it is one of the rare moments in my life where overthinking, or even thinking diminish (those who know me may dispute this, and say that I never think at all ;-) . I seem to disappear and enter a form of meditation when I am making pictures.

I prefer to be drawn to something for reasons I do not know, than for reasons I do. As I believe that unearthed motivations have more truth in them than anything that is apparent. I like to think about what Mark Hollis once said about improvisation when writing songs. He said that when you are improvising, the first notes you play tend to be the more honest ones. Each subsequent replay becomes less and less honest, and more contrived as you struggle to now control the magic you just found.

And so, I think this is the way it is with fieldwork.

Respond rather than think,

do before analysis,

and try to be fresh each time you make a picture.

Perhaps I should invert this, and say:

feel first, respond second, and think later

There is magic in improvisation. For it is the act of escape from rules and self imposed aspirations. Working fluidly, and without any analysis or overthinking, is , in my view, the right path to creating surprising imagery and art.

Why I photograph the Highlands of Scotland

I have often thought that what we show others in our photographs, is really an insight into how we feel within. One may assume that when we look at photos of a landscape, they are just that - photos. But if we ask ourselves ‘why did the photographer choose to visit this place in the first instance?’, then the pictures take on a deeper meaning. And if we ask ‘why these particular compositions?, then we may find our curiosity is piqued.

Isle of Rum, Scotland 2022.
Photographed on Fuji Velvia 50 film, pushed quite hard in the edit. Hence the film grain, which I find particularly pleasing.

 I have been attracted to the more wilder landscapes of Scotland for many years, and I’ve had to give it some thought as to why these places attract me. I think each landscape we fall in love with is personally relatable in some way. We either see something of our childhood in it, as I do with the Scottish Highlands, or we see a longing for something. I have a hunch that my family holidays as a young boy left an impression upon me. Both my parents are highlanders, and each summer we would leave the confines of our new town home for the highlands. The contrasts between new town dwelling and vast highland plains with shifting light was, and still is, stark. When I am in the highlands, I feel I am a Highlander, and my city-lifestyle is all but a faint memory. I feel a timelessness here and perhaps a deeper connection to my family’s history.

 But coming here to visit, is a different endeavour to that of coming to photograph. A beautiful landscape does not guarantee a beautiful photo. Good photographs have to be earned. With the shifting light, constant threat of being rained upon, and of being blown away by fierce winds, the highlands are challenging, but when the elements conspire to produce a good, if not great photo, then favourable results can be extremely rewarding.

 A photographer’s work is never done. Each visit just confirms that there is still more to uncover. More mystery to be solved. In a way, I find this inspiring, and also surprisingly comforting as well. Each time I have visited a landscape and produced a few images I really like, they are often far different from anything that I had hoped for, or envisioned. This illustrates that there are many more surprises up ahead for us all as photographers. So much potential is still waiting for us to explore and uncover. And many mysteries waiting to be peeked at, if not entirely solved.

And it is with this final comprehension, that I believe we should all revel in the anticipation of what images lie in store for us.

 

Make the landscape your own 3

One of the ways we can make the landscape our own, is to photograph locations that are lesser known. Of course there is always the skill in photographing well known places in an original way to consider. But I think the best way forward, to find your own voice, is to go to places that are less obvious, or perhaps personal to ourselves.

Over the past six or seven years I have shied away from spending time on social media platforms because of the glut of images that are being uploaded each day. I do not say this with judgement of others: do as you please of course. But for me, I would much rather find out about a landscape or a location in a more organic way.

Finding out about places this way, alleviates me from being overwhelmed by photos of it. Because I am aware that the more photos I see of a place, the more difficult it is to see it ‘my’ way.

About eight years ago I sat in a hotel in San Pedro de Atacama, chatting to a couple from Brazil. It was new years eve, and they had turned up on a Harley Davidson tricycle. Tassels included :-)

During our chats, they told me about Lençóis Maranhenses national park in Brazil and about how beautiful it is. When I returned home, I decided to look it up, and like most places I try to research, I rarely see well executed landscape photos: the default seems to be standard tourist shots. This goes to confirm my view that most of the world has not been photographed well, if at all.

It took me a few years to get round to going to Lençóis Maranhenses. I never seemed to have a gap in my schedule and I felt I was taking a chance on it, because the photos I had seen of it were not that inspiring. I had to ‘see beyond’ what was being shown to me and imagine what it might be like if I tried to shoot there at sunrise and sunset.

Visiting the national park, I found it to be more photogenic than I had imagined. In fact, I thought it was amazing and captivating in a way I could have only hoped for.

This to me, is an organic approach to finding your own landscape: going with your own hunch. Taking action from a conversation, or a cue from something you saw somewhere.

But perhaps the best way to make the landscape your own, is to work on places that are personal to you. Over the years that I have been photographing Iceland, it has become a very deep and personal relationship for me. I first visited the country in 2004. It is now almost 20 years since I first went, and I am confident that my relationship with the country has only deepened as I have kept returning.

And when I have returned, I always seem to find new places that resonated with me. Such as the interior. I had a hunch for a while that it might be my kind of thing, and so I started to go into the interior about 2015.

I feel some of my best work has been made in this landscape, and in terms of ‘making it my own’, I think the landscape here has defined me as a photographer in many ways.

I feel there’s far too much following others in the landscape photography world. We are social by nature, and we tend to follow the herd. In making the landscape our own, we have to be more independent in our seeking out places. Because that is how our photography will ultimately be defined.

Eigg Workshop

Just home from a week away on the isle of Eigg here in Scotland. I would like to thank everyone who attended - they came from far and wide - Seattle and near Sydney Australia.

It is always a real honour to think that folks would like to come this far to spend time working with me on photography. Such a lucky person I am.

Many thanks to David Estape Izquierdo for sending me this image of myself and Ron MacDonald on the beach at Laig bay.

I am finding the workshops at the equinoxes quite physically demanding for myself - long hours from 5:30am till around 8:30pm each day, and as much as I love coming to Eigg, I am aware that this year, and 2024 will be my last with groups here. I wish I could run the Eigg workshop during the winter when sunrise and sunset are more easy to handle, but due to the unpredictability of the weather, and therefore cancellations of ferry crossings, it’s too much of a risk. Hence why 2024 will be my last year on Eigg.

Thanks to everyone who came this week. There were a lot of jokes, and everyone was very good fun. I don’t think I’ve been with such a die-hard ‘hard-core’ group of people in terms of using all the available time to make images.

Make the landscape your own 2

One of the ways we can ‘make the landscape our own’, is to edit the images with our own ‘aesthetic sensibilities’. I believe that each of us has our own sense of artistic-taste as to how pictures should be edited. We also have our own visual-taste as well.

For many, although these attributes exist, they are still relatively unknown to themselves. I think it has taken me a very long time to find out what my aesthetic style is, and it has only surfaced as I’ve worked over many years on my portfolios. And explored pushing the edit in terms of luminosity adjustments.

As part of my yearly programme, I have often run a digital-darkroom class - the focus being the edit. What others call ‘processing’, which in my view makes a very creative part of finding out about your own style and aesthetic sound as though it’s just something you throw at the software to pump something out that is a bit more polished. When in fact, editing is just as huge a part of the photographic life-cycle as fieldwork is. Get good at interpreting your images, you get good at being a better photographer.

The image above, is a massive departure from what I originally captured. The edit was not done to ‘save’ the image, but instead to bring out key elements of the scene and quieten others. Editing in my view is not only highly interpretive, it is a highly creative endeavour, and one that is a life-long, never ending effort to master.

Which seems to go against the grain of what I have experienced with most workshop participants whom have chosen to come on my editing class. Until my class, most have been rather careful with their edits, with only the most subtle of soft adjustments, often to make the image as a whole more punchy.

In my view, editing is where the score becomes the performance as Ansel Adams coined. Image capture is one thing, but how you bring out elements in the frame, while quietening other aspects of the scene is your passport to your own style, and what might set you apart from everyone else.

I think the other aspect of trying to make the landscape your own, is also to try to capture scenes that are rare. In the instance of my picture of the isle of Rum above, I have rarely seen temperature inversions of clouds painting along the horizon like this. Having been coming to Eigg for over 14 years now, I feel I am often looking for something more than what is usually on display here.

Indeed, I am in general often ‘looking for more than what is there’. To dig below the surface of the usual. I do not say this to imply that I succeed at it. Far from it, but I am just always hunting and seeking to find something in the landscape. I think you know what I mean.

If you’re able to achieve this, then I am sure it contributes to making your images more unique.

In a world where everyone is publishing beautiful pictures these days, we should all be looking for something that allows our images to be set apart from everyone else’s. I do not mean this in terms of being competitive. I do not think I am so. I am just keen to produce the best work I can, as I get great personal satisfaction from feeling I have found my own coal seam to mine.

Editing, and image interpretation will give you so much to learn about why your images work, and where areas of them do not, should also give you a passport to making your work more cohesive as in working towards portfolios or sets of images. But to make your portfolios stronger, and therefore your visual style stronger, you have to be more discerning about what you choose to publish.

One way of setting your images apart from the crowd is your editing aesthetic, but so too, is what you choose to publish, and if you can find unusual conditions where an image was made, this will only contribute to your own voice.

make the landscape your own

I’ve just update the website with some new portfolios, and to also round up the presentation of the main page, I’ve added in two portfolios that have been absent from the site for a few years as well.

I’ve been thinking and dreaming of making some new images of Eigg for a long while. I have not had time until the past year to revisit, and to make some new compositions.

I find it very interesting to consider the question :

“would I have made these shots 10 years ago?”

to which I know that I wouldn’t have.

All the experiences that I’ve had shooting in the black deserts of Iceland, the minimalist snow areas of the Fjallabak nature reserve of the Icelandic interior, and also Hokkaido, I see in these new images of Eigg. These places that have taught me, and where I have grown, have fed right into the way I chose to approach editing this work.

You can never go back to where you once were. Well, you can, but you don’t go back the same old person you were back then. When you go back to old places, old friendships or relationships, you always bring with you the experiences you’ve gathered in the time you were absent.

Looking at my new images from Eigg, I’m reminded of something my dear friend Stephen Feinstein once said to me, whilst standing on the very beach that features in these photos:

“Bruce, you seem to make the same image, no matter where you go in the world”.

I know :-)

It put a smile on my face too :-)

I told him “I’m going to take that as a compliment”, as I’m sure that is how it was intended. I believe what Steve was telling me was:

“you manage to make the landscape your own”.

Which is the highest compliment I think I have ever received, for it is what I think we all aspire to do with our photography.