Some technical PS tips for today

Sharpening

I’m a big fan of PixelGenius’ sharpening toolkit. Which sadly isn’t supported any more.

But I still use it even though it’s not supported, and I’ve found over the past few years that it sometimes isn’t visible in Photoshop’s menu when you install it, or when you migrate up to a new version of PS.

If like me, you love the sharpener, and want to keep on using it, then you can still get it to run, even on the latest Mac OS, if you run PS under Rosetta. You won’t want to use PS under Rosetta all the time, and I would suggest you only boot up PS under Rosetta when you wish to use the sharpener tool kit.

New Gradient Tool in PS

On another note, I got the fright of my life this week when I opened up PS. The latest version has been updated to make it work a bit more like some of the tools in Lightroom. I particularly dislike the new Gradient tool’s interface because I do not wish to see where the start and end points of the gradient are. I prefer to just keep drawing (and overwriting) a gradient until I get an immediate emotional response that says ‘that’s it!’. Fortunately, you can default the gradient tool back to the ‘classic’ interface. This is good news. I much prefer when a software company retain previous functionality where possible, rather than dictate a new way of working.

Improvements in gradient rendering?

But there is also something rather special about the gradient tool’s way of rendering now. They give you three different ways of how the gradients may ‘paint’ or ‘respond’: Classic / Linear and Perceptual.

I haven't studied them much as yet, but I am liking the Perceptual mode and find this one in particular appears to be reducing the chance of the gradients looking obvious. In the past few releases of PS I felt that the start and end points of most gradients were quite obvious when they had never had this issue in the past. I am grateful to have two other new modes for choosing how the gradation is applied to an image, and I look forward to getting to know the gradient tool in it’s new incarnation over the coming months. I feel there is a real enhancement here.

On listening to yourself, and trusting it

I wish I could teach folks to listen to their own hearts and minds more, when it comes to creating art. It is such an intangible thing to pursue: artistic confidence.

Red Point Beach, Torridon, Scotland, March 2022

Confidence does not imply aptitude to create great work. Neither is confidence the act of over compensating for one’s own abilities. Cockiness is not Confidence. Confidence is about being on a solid foundation of knowing where you are, and being able to live with it.

Confidence is also the act of being present, and of having an accurate view of one’s own abilities. Of knowing where your work needs to improve, and where its strengths and weaknesses lie. And of being comfortable with this knowledge.

Confidence is also the act of being able to try things without fear or worry, or of too much doubt. All artists doubt. All artists worry. But confident artists don’t let fear or doubt hijack their creative decisions too much.

Therefore, arrtistic confidence is the skill to have the convictions to follow through with what you want, and not to be swayed by what others are doing, or what others say. Not all feedback is of equal merit. Confident artists have developed the aptitude to be able to pick and choose the feedback that they see merit in, and discard the rest.

Artistic confidence is also the skill in understanding that not everyone will like your work, and still be comfortable and happy. If you are always hurt by other people’s views, then you need to work on your confidence. All artists create bad work, even those that you think highly of create bad work. How they deal with it is what matters, and that comes down to confidence.

I wish I could teach folks to listen to their own hearts and minds more. So often I feel that we know what we want to do, but self doubt and fear muddy the waters for us. We look for solutions in what others say too much, when we actually have the answers ourselves. We just need to listen to ourselves more.

Is the work moving forward?

A rhetorical question, but one that I rarely ask myself, but tend to ‘know’, when I am looking at a set of completed new images.

I find it much easier to gauge how much I’ve changed if I am photographing places I know well, and have had a long term relationship with. I have felt for some time that the only way to get deeper into a place, is to keep returning. But this should only be done if you feel compelled to go back. There is little point in returning to a place where you feel no interest, or didn’t feel you felt there was ‘something else left unexplored’.

For me, there is usually a hunch or a feeling that there is still much to do. Often times I think for most of us we have a sense of only scratching the surface with a location. So that in itself is an indication that your creative mind has found something worth returning to.

I think for me, my position is a little unusual, in that my job is tied to returning to places, sometimes on a yearly basis. With Bolivia’s Altiplano, I can see that the work has become more and more reduced over time. I seem to be much less interested in compositional subjects as such, and instead looking for images that work on a tonal and colour response mostly. I think with Bolivia, I am attracted to the colours that are present there, and how the light changes as we head towards dusk, or surface out of it in the mornings.

I have to keep my interest levels up, and coming home from photographing the same places each year and working on them in a similar way can quickly become tiring. So I have always just trusted my feelings when I find myself feeling interested in something in a way that I haven’t looked at it before. What interests me the most, is when I find myself doing something different with a well known location.

For instance, I had not considered editing some of the work with a view towards conveying dusk, and so this time round it has been a surprise to me to find myself experimenting with these edited ‘illusions’, of what I felt as the light fades in Bolivia. It is often a very beautiful time to watch the light fade, and yet I have never really known how to convey it.

Technically speaking, I do not shoot in the dark as the reciprocity times of my films are simply far too long, and they tend to be monochrome studies in the blue channel only.

But my aesthetic seems to be more happy these days to let some colour back in, and darker tones as well. I’m aware that I seem to be more comfortable now working with darker hues than I have been for some time. When I first started out 23 years ago, my work was all over the place, but mainly dark and contrasty with not much attention to tonalities.

Going back to places that resonate with you is really worth doing if you are keen to notice changes in movement in what you do. I will confess that around 6 years ago or so, I felt I couldn’t really go anywhere more with Bolivia. I did wonder at the time if I should stop going and move on to new pastures.

But I think that when something isn’t working any more, it’s not always forever. It is definitely a sign that you need to do something new with where you are shooting, and sometimes it’s a sign that you’re changing.

It may also be the mark that you simply need a pause, or to return later in several years time. You may have moved on a little in what your eye is looking for and it’s going to take some time for your abilities to catch up with what your mind’s eye is now seeking.

I am enjoying the new work I’ve created. I know for sure that I wouldn’t have made these images 14 years ago when I first ventured to Bolivia. I have had several periods where I felt my work had moved on in some way, and other periods where I felt it stagnate. All I know for sure, is that everything I do is always a stepping stone forward, even if I cannot see it at the time.

Kodak Portra Reciprocity Times

I’ve had trouble buying Fuji Velvia 50 for a year now. I am told that due to material shortages, Fuji cannot make enough of the stuff. An order I placed with Wex Photographic a year ago, is being honoured by a few packs of film every six months. It’s clear to me that Wex (and others) are simply dividing what they are being given and sending out the stock to all their customers, rather than honouring who ordered first.

When I was in Japan in January I managed to buy some Velvia. My guide in Japan has been on the hunt for me as well and has been lucky enough to find me some film that will keep me going for another year I suspect.

So I figured it’s time to look at different film stocks and try them out. I have a mass of Kodak Portra 160 sitting at home which I have used for portrait work in the past, and I’d like to see how I get on with the C41 process as well. So I think this is what I’m going to do.

So today I worked out what the reciprocity corrected times are for my most used shutter speeds when going long-exposure. I am hoping I got this right based on the graph below.

I think I will head out with the camera later this summer, to try this out. I will have to print this out and laminate it, as I do prefer to memorise these things, and work them out myself whilst in the field. Which is often something that participants on my workshops find funny, as they can often hear me counting and using my fingers to work out the adjustment based on the ND grad strength I’m using. I do not wish to use an App, because I would prefer to be in complete control, and the only way to do that, is to fully learn and become accustomed to the tools I use.

So here are the adjusted exposure times for Kodak’s Portra. Note that I always work on a 1-stop granularity basis. I never use half-stops or third-stops. In my view, I rarely need to work with anything finer than 1-stop differences. Besides, it makes for much easier computation if everything is either halved or doubled, and that goes for buying ND filters too.

 
 

Dream Processing

I just completed processing my latest films from Brazil, Bolivia and also some other trips I did this year. There is now a pile of films sitting waiting to be edited.

But I have this photo below - of my light table a few days ago etched in my mind.

I have too much to do right now, that doesn’t allow me time to edit the work, so while I am busy doing daily life chores, I am finding that I can’t help but visualise the final portfolio from my Bolivia tour. As much as I keep returning to the same places, I feel I’ve moved on as a photographer and I’m less and less interested in the literal view.

So I’m kind of enjoying the dreaming process I’m going through right now. I have been convinced for many years that one should collate and sort out their most recent images (RAW files), and just get a ‘feel’ for the work, before approaching doing anything with them. For me, that’s all about processing the films, collecting them into piles of transparencies, and glancing at what I’ve shot. The main thing is not to launch straight into editing the work.

I think I see a very different set of images from Bolivia for this time round, and if anything, just realising that I have so many potential images to work on, and that some of them are surfacing quite often in my thoughts is a good thing. Whether the final portfolio will be anything like I am imagining isn’t of any importance. It’s more about just finding that you are feeling inspired, and that your mind is dreaming, wondering, conjuring up different feelings and emotions about what you shot, that is what drives me forward.

I’ve got to go away for a few days, but I am now finding myself quite keen to look at this work next week when I have some time. This is another aspect for me; I do not like to edit images piecemeal, with only a few minutes free here and there. I like to have a good chunk of free time to do it, as I find I tend to become immersed in it. So for me, allocating two or three full days is ideal. I realise that this isn’t feasible for most folks, but for me, I’ve always enjoyed the solitude and I like to give myself plenty of space and time to work on images.

Light Table View

Been a bit quiet this past few weeks. I’m in the middle of processing films from my recent tours to Brazil and Bolivia.

Below is a photograph taken on my phone of my light table with Velvia transparencies just dried, and in the process of being cut, and put into a sleeve to protect from dust.

9 images from one roll of film, on my light table.

One of the things I loved about this year’s tour to Bolivia was that we had a lot of overcast light during the day time. My fantastic guide Silveria wanted to show me two of the islands on the Salar because she loved the shapes of them: pyramid and some kind of flying saucer shape. I have worked with Silveria before and she seems to understand and know what I’m looking for : graphic shapes and simplified composition.

Anyway, if there is a point to this post today, it is that even though I have been coming to Bolivia now for over a decade, there is often a chance to see something new. Partly it’s a case of being taken to new views, other times it’s that the light is different. But on this occasion, I know within my heart that what I am attracted to make images of these days, is quite different from what I was looking for back in 2009 when I first ventured here.

Bolivia has been a learning landscape for me. It is often easy to see our progress when we look back, and when I review and study my first efforts, and how the compositions seemed to become more simple as time went on, I gained so much in noticing that there were elements and traces of where my style was going to progress to, in the initial images from all those years ago.

I’m almost finished processing the films from the past year. I hope to start working on editing and publishing images from Bolivia and Brazil over the coming weeks. We will see.

What you start with, doesn't have to be what you end up with

I’m a big music fan. I write music and I’m a serious amateur musician. For me, it is always very interesting to hear one of the musicians I admire talk about their creative process.

Often times though, I see so many parallels, so many similar issues regarding the creative process. Whether it’s music writing, making photos, writing a book. Whatever. The creative process is always the same: it is a mirror of dealing with inner questions and looking for answers.

One such musician I love is Jon Hopkins. He is a classically trained musician that also works in the electronic fields. He has produced artists like Coldplay, and seems to be very comfortable working in classical music as well as very hard electronic genres.

In many interviews, he has explained that often times, the musical theme, or song that he starts off with, rarely survives to the end. By the time he has finished, the music is unrecognisable from the idea he started out with. Any trace of the initial idea has gone.

I have always assumed that any idea I start with, would remain if it is a good idea. and anything that is weak, should be ejected after some time living with it. So it’s interesting to hear this from Hopkins. as I didn’t interpret his statement as saying ‘whatever I start off with is fairly average and I need to work on things to make it better’. Instead, what I felt he was saying was: ‘even though the initial idea is good, I know it’s only a starting point, and I give myself permission to move beyond it’.

And this is the rub for me. Whatever we start with: we often give too much weight or importance to. If we don’t think it’s strong enough, then we may abandon it too soon, not recognising that it is merely a stepping stone - a catalyst, and go looking for something much stronger.

In Hopkins case, I think what he is doing is starting off with a strong idea. But he’s aware that a good or great idea may still just be a jumping off point, and there may be more to explore.

He wants to be surprised. He wants to be engaged in a way that he hasn’t been before.

In my view, the only way we can get to a level where we surprise ourselves, is if we are willing to let go of anything we have managed to create so far. Even if we have created something we like or think is good, we must be willing to take a chance by changing it, because there may, or may not be, something better beyond it.

I suppose this all comes down to learning to let things go. It is so damn hard to let go of an idea we think is good in the pursuit of something better. I have been there so many times.

But I have found that when I do let go, one of two things happens: I either find something much stronger (and realise that what I thought was good, was only ok), or I lose it all.

We have to be willing to lose it all, in the pursuit of finding something better. Otherwise we will always be working within the confines of a landscape that we already know.

Lençóis Maranhenses Tour 2024

Just a little notice today that I have published dates for a Lençóis Maranhenses tour for next May. The tour isn’t available to book as yet, because I am finding it very difficult for the agencies I work with to give me prices so far in advance.

So I’ve published the tour and dates, in case you may wish to make a note of it in your diary. I do hope to publish the actual price and allow booking of the tour sometime in the next couple of weeks.

This year’s tour went extremely well. I think we all got so many beautiful images, and I can’t wait to show them to you. I have just returned home and I’m needing a rest, so I hope to get round to processing the films in July, for inclusion in a newsletter.

Until then, here are some images from my 2019 trip there. The new tour is not a trekking trip. It is a 4WD trip and we are able to cover quite a bit of ground. This is also extremely helpful in reaching the most photogenic lagoons in time to shoot the soft morning and evening light.

On originality

“Good artists borrow. Great artists Steal”
- Pablo Picasso

I recently had a participant tell me that during a review of his work with a well known landscape photographer, he was informed his images looked a lot like mine. It reminded me of a story of a famous landscape photographer who, whilst reviewing a participant’s images, noticed that some of the images looked like several well known landscape photographer’s work. He said ‘these are all very nice. But where is your work?’

This has stayed with me over the years. Perhaps for it being rather brutally honest, and probably a very hard pill to swallow for the participant. But mostly because I think that aiming for some kind of originality in one’s work, too soon in our own development - can be extremely damaging. Let me explain.

“You begin by walking in the footsteps of your heroes,
but hopefully at some point your paths should diverge”
- Michael Kenna

I include the quote above (paraphrased), by Michael Kenna for a reason. Michael has occasionally gone to places where his ‘heroes’ have been, to make his own version of one of their classics. I include two images below:

Left: original Bill Brandt photograph.
Right: Michael Kenna’s homage to Brandt’s Snicket.

Michael Kenna has often name checked the inspiration for his own images and in this case, his photograph is called ‘Bill Brandt’s Snicket’.

That aside, the main reason for showing you this, is that I think it is perfectly natural for everyone to follow in the footsteps of the work that inspires them the most. In fact, I think it’s a rite of passage for all of us, and no one escapes this period in their photography.

Put it this way: if you’re learning to play guitar, it’s often best to start of by learning some classic riffs. By going along to photograph either an iconic composition, or to simply go to landscapes that are stylistically similar to the imagery you admire - can be a great learning tool.

As I say: this is a rite of passage for all of us.

So I think that when we start making images, being drawn to similar places, or looking for things that are stylistically similar to images we like is only natural. We have to learn to walk before we can run, and one of the best ways to learn to walk, is to at the very least emulate, or at best, be drawn to similar landscapes that we have enjoyed in the work that inspires us.

In my view, being told that your work looks like [insert photography of photographer you like], is no bad thing. Just being able to attain compositions that utilise stylistic aspects of the work you enjoy means you’ve learned quite a lot. It is almost impossible to avoid influences, but if you can pull of imagery that comes over as well executed, and to a similar level of the imagery you have been influenced by - then you’ve attained quite a bit of skill. And you are following your natural path by connecting with the stylistic signatures that you enjoy.

So in my view, rather than trying to avoid your imagery looking like someone else’s, we should embrace our influences. Sure, be aware of them - know where they are in your work. But don’t chastise your influences or ban them from your imagery. Influences are not only a contributing factor to where you’ve gotten to so far, but they will continue to teach, and help you flourish in your work going forward.

—

At the beginning of this post I mentioned two photographers who in essence had hoped that their participants would be more original. Or at least show work that was ‘their own’. I would like to say that although I think it is an admirable thing to encourage individuality, and to help promote that participants should look for their own voice in their work, It is in my view often extremely hard for anyone to execute. For the most part, if someone is to develop a sense of individual style or voice, it will tend to come in its own time. And it tends to come whether someone is looking for it or not. Because finding a unique style or voice is an incredibly elusive thing to find. If it wasn’t so elusive, we’d all have achieved it.

So, in my view, until you find your ‘style’ or ‘voice, you are best to just follow what inspires you. Irrespective of where it’s sourced from. This is all I have ever done, and I can only suggest you do the same.

Bolivia

I’m just on my way home from Bolivia. I have not been here for four years, and it was nice to return to some of the most special light I get to work in at sunrise and sunset !

I am looking forward to developing my films from this trip as soon as I get home.

In the photo above, I am with my guide - Selveria. I have worked with her back in 2012 and also around 2015. A real professional, she tells me that she is more comfortable at her home town of Uyuni’s elevation of 3,500m. High plateau people tend to have genetic differences that allow them to work better at higher elevations.

On this tour, we had 3 x land cruisers with drivers. I’m always amazed at the terrain we’re able to navigate over, as the roads are often nothing more than tracks in a vast desert.

I hope to post some new images soon of Bolivia. We ventured to some new locations on this tour.

Below I show a collection of images from Bolivia. I have come here countless times now, perhaps just as many times privately as I have the tours I’ve offered because I find the light here like nowhere else.