Lost in Norway
Depriving myself of sleep, I spent most evenings ‘lost in the moment’ above the arctic circle in Norway’s Lofoten Islands.
In this podcast, I explain why it’s possible to go slightly mad in the pursuit of photography.
Please click on the image to play the podcast
Bruce, I hadn’t looked through your Norway images until this podcast perked my interest. Once again, I’m left in speechless awe at their beauty. Your podcasts are a real jem in an internet world full of useless photography gear related nonsense.
I have a quick question if that’s ok. You’ve talked about grad filters before, and your relatively ‘lax’ approach to just sort of ‘bunging them on’ (I’m paraphrasing slightly!). I’m interested in what you do when a major part of the subject, such as the house on page 16 of the Norway gallery, impinges over the sky. Presumably the grad must go over this too, but do you even encounter problems with an unnatural contrast over the top part of the subject?
Thanks,
mike
Comment by mike — 23 September, 2008 @ 11:24 am
Hi Mike,
A good question, as sometimes a grad can bring problems whilst trying to sort out dynamic range issues.
I have to confess that I use grads most often to get the density values (no blocked shadows, or burned out highlights) at the point of image capture, and if a scene needs further correction, I will use traditional darkroom methods (in a digital environment such as photoshop) to help – either by dodging or burning, or by using layer masks to make corrections which simply aren’t possible to do at the point of exposure.
In the particular image you mention, I’m sure that I did further processing. I used a grad to control the overall dynamic range to make sure the sky wasn’t going to completely burn out and the house would certainly have required some lightening.
These are all stock traditional darkroom techniques, brought into the digital domain.
Others would use HDR, which I personally abhor, since it often looks too fake, and besides, composting images – isn’t IMHO what photography is about.
Comment by Bruce Percy — 23 September, 2008 @ 11:31 am
Thanks for such a quick response Bruce, that is really interesting. I’m quite used to dodging and burning in the darkroom, and I’ve also got used to doing it with my images in Lightroom or Capture NX (which makes it pretty easy). When I get some time I’m going to try scanning some Velvia negatives and see what I get. From what I’ve heard though, getting a good scan in the first place from velvia is a challenge, as its already compressed dynamic range is difficult to control, and leads to even less dynamic range in the scan. Of course I will try it for myself to find out. I can’t remember if I asked this already, but how are you getting those trannies into the digital domain? The colour reproduction, at least from what I see in your galleries, is outstanding.
Comment by mike — 23 September, 2008 @ 12:39 pm
Hi Mike,
I use a Nikon Coolscan 9000. Yes, Velvia can be a challenge – if you shoot it in broad daylight. I tend to control the dynamic range using a grad, shoot in soft light. That way, it’s easy to scan.
I had no idea Lightroom has dodge/burn features now. I’ve got Lightroom 2 on order, so I look forward to experimenting with it.
My work is not verbatim Mike. There is a lot of darkroom processing at times and I have a leaning towards vibrant colours. I have my own techniques out in the field as well as in the dark room in terms of how I achieve this.
Comment by Bruce Percy — 23 September, 2008 @ 1:09 pm
Your images look stunning because their your images Bruce! They do have a quality which I find quite unique, even in the velvia-world of landscape photography.
Lightroom 2 is, i have to be honest, an absolutely cracking program. Despite the annoying price difference between the US and Europe (even just downloaded) it is really so good I just bit the bullet and downloaded it. You can now do localised adjustments to RAW files, non-destructively of course, which is really quite smart. The colour rendition of canon and nikon raw files has also been infinitely improved with the new camera profiles, which try to match colours (for example there are Nikon-specific landscape, portrait etc). I have found them to be remarkably good, and they are still technically in beta.
Comment by mike — 23 September, 2008 @ 1:28 pm
Yes, my images are mine, because I made them :-)
Seriously, you do what you do, because of your own artistic leanings. If I tried to do things differently, they would still look like mine.
It sounds to me like Lightroom 2 is converging on what Aperture offers. I was in love with the philosophy of Aperture, but they have issues with performance. The library features of Aperture were miles better than LR1, so I hope Adobe have improved this. I couldn’t see the benefits of using LR1 when I already had Bridge and CS3. It just seemed to be a bit of everything, admittedly – very performant. But I couldn’t just settle for tweaking the Raw files a wee bit, which is what I suspected most LR1 users were doing. As for Aperture, I didn’t use it’s editing facilities as much as I liked them, I used it because it’s library features were like nothing else out there.
Comment by Bruce Percy — 23 September, 2008 @ 1:57 pm
Great set of shots Bruce and I completely understand what you mean when you refer to the ‘one more shot’ mindset. We spend so much time waiting for the right light than when it presents itself for such an extended period and transforms the scenery, it seems a shame to be asleep!
Loving the Bessa R3A BTW, it handles a dream and certainly feels more tangible than my digi slr.
Comment by AndyC — 24 September, 2008 @ 8:54 pm
Thanks Andy,
And glad to hear you’ve made friends with the Bessa R3a. It’s a real camera alright. I like the 1:1 ratio viewfinder – tip, keep both eyes open and view through the viewfinder with your right eye – you can now see what is coming into the shot with your left eye and anticipate ‘the decisive moment’.
Comment by Bruce Percy — 24 September, 2008 @ 9:33 pm
Hi Bruce,
I had the same experience when I was in the Mountains in Siberia. I got so “mad” about early morning photography that I recoverd from this trip for several days sleeping all the time.
It’s what we pay to get stunning pictures. I noticed that the more I sacrifice my comfort the more spectacular pictures I can take.
Comment by Victor — 26 April, 2009 @ 5:37 pm