Are you documenting, or looking for style in your work?

This past week I’ve been reminiscing on my recent trip to Argentina’s Puna region, that I have been photographing now for close on to a decade.

It was interesting hearing the group’s opinion about the landscape. The biggest impression I heard from them was of the variety of different landscapes that they saw. For instance, we visited a really beautiful sand dune complex on one morning which yielded some very nice new images (if my films turn out to be as good as I hope they are).

It was a reminder to me that my portfolios of what I end up showing from my travels are always going to be a subset of what I encountered. No matter how hard I work at trying to capture what I’m seeing, the final results that I publish will always be a skimming of the surface of what I saw.

There is a natural process of reduction: first we filter down our travels by choosing not to photograph certain scenes. Then we go through a further refinement or reduction by reducing down the set of images we shot to the ones we think are decent. In the process of working towards showing others our best work, we omit images because they fall short in some way. Either the compositions are weak or the light is not good. Either way, we inevitably reduce and reduce what we encountered into a very small subset that simply cannot convey what was encountered and experienced.

Then there is sylistic reduction. In an effort to make the work more cohesive, sometimes this may result in collecting images that are more focussed on working together as a set, rather than being a full document of what was there. In fact, when I think about this more, I have a strong feeling that tight portfolios are at odds with documentary photography, as my set of images from my visit to the Puna in 2022 may convey:

In the above set I more or less reduced down a 10-day tour to a few key locations. There were many ‘documentary’ shots that I took, that would have weakened the final set in some way, either by subject dilution, or by throwing too much contrast and the viewers attention in a direction I would not wish to take them. I’m drawn to a stylistic motif in the final set above, but this bears no relation to the variety of scenery that was actually presented with. When I consider my portfolios over the past few years, it is clear to me that I have not been interested in documenting a landscape for a very long time now.

Yes, there is much more to shoot in the Puna. Yes, there is little room for variance in my portfolio above. I know this to be true. I cannot do both so one has to be sacrificed to aid the other. It’s just that one has to weigh up which is most important. Do you focus your final output on documenting what one saw, and risk losing a sense of stylistic sensibility to the work? Or does one focus on conveying a tight style, but do so at the risk of abandoning all the variety one saw of a place?

The choice is ultimately a personal one for each of us, and there is no right or wrong. Just a personal preference for one over the other. But this does assume that you’ve realised at some point that there is conflict at play here. You cannot have both.

So perhaps this is something that you should ask yourself about your photography:

“what is it that I am trying to do?

Are you trying to work towards finding and honing a sense of individualistic style in your work? Or are you more interested in trying to document all that you experienced?

I have a very strong feeling that both cannot exist together in a portfolio. If they do, then I would expect compromise to feature largely in the final work. Which would ultimately weaken the final output.

So which is it for you? I know for me that I am more interested in developing a style in my work, and for that reason, any hope of documenting all that I saw, was abandoned a long time ago.

But that’s just me. What about you?

Eigg Workshop March 2024

I’m just finishing up a workshop I ran this past week on the isle of Eigg here in Scotland. Below is a ‘portfolio’ example created by the participants work during this week’s workshop.

As part of my Scottish workshops, I always take a high quality digital projector along, so we can review and edit participants work throughout the week. My aim in doing this is many:

  1. most photographers tend to undervalue what they shoot, and it is only in editing the work that I can often show that what may have appeared to be an average shot upon first review, is actually an image that holds great promise.

  2. Editing is an undervalued skill, often viewed as nothing more than just a post-exercise in tidying up an image, when in fact it is a life-long skill in bringing an image to it’s full potential.

  3. to instruct on how compositions could have been tighter / simpler.

  4. to instruct on how choice of subject equals choice of luminosity, and how tonal separation play an important part in image composition

  5. localised contrast selection can make a huge difference to simplifying / aiding composition.

  6. Adobe’s advice to punch up the RAW file in the RAW editor, is fundamentally the wrong approach to delivering images that selectively lead the eye through the frame whilst maintaining soft tonalities and conveying ‘punch and depth’ at the same time.

  7. Luminosity can be edited to lead the eye through the frame.

  8. Subjects appear to stand out better if you spend time quietening their surroundings.

  9. Editing informs fieldwork. Not the other way round. You will become a more selective shooter / composer if you work at your editing.

As part of all my Scottish workshops, I aim to bring the images from all participants together at the end of the week into a cohesive set. I think portfolio development is the key to finding one’s own style, and conveying it to your audience. During the week I start off by editing everyone’s images on an individual basis, but as the week progresses, I show how to go from what may appear to be a random collection of images to a cohesive set. This is done through not just selection, but also editing the images together.

It was a good week this week. The images did start off as a rather random set, but as the week progressed I felt I was able to show how just the six above could feel more cohesive, not simply by what was removed to make the final set glue together better, but also in how iterative editing between this final set brought them together.

Many thanks to Caroline, Mike, Paul J, Paul M, Matthias and Peter for coming all the way to Eigg with me.

Airport Scanners and Film

My latest experience of going through airports with my film has made me decide to take ISO800 and above film with me now. Let me explain.

At Edinburgh airport I was informed that all film below 800 ISO had to go through the scanner, and that the scanner was safe for any ISO below that number. I know for a fact that film is not safe below even 400 for regular old fashioned scanners, and for the new CT scanners (which are rapidly being rolled out everywhere) even one single pass is detrimental to the films.

At Paris Charles de Gaulle, they have introduced CT scanners. I managed to get the film hand checked. But it’s not going to work all the time by asking. In Buenos Aires they told me the scanner was film safe (it degrades the film) and I was forced to put it through.

So I think the best plan is to turn up with films that are above 800 ISO and tell them you have very high speed film and need a hand search. I think that might just work.

If you can, buy the film locally at your destination and perhaps see if you can find somewhere to process it for you and post to to your home address.

Tone Paintings

“We are mostly light seekers
”We use subjects only to support the light that we have found

I was looking at these images recently and received the comment that they are ‘tone paintings’. It got me thinking about whether they are. I know for sure that I am more interested in tone and gradation rather than subject matter. For instance, I prefer to work with weather conditions which give atmosphere to the imagery. When you use rain to obliterate backgrounds, things become less literal, and more subjective. It seems that I am seldom drawn to a scene these days as a ‘subject’, but more for it’s hue / colour and luminosity properties.

When I enquired and looked back at some of my other portfolios I became aware that this form of photography - of creating ‘tone paintings’ is something that I have gravitated towards over some years now. I am less and less inclined to be drawn to a place because it is a strong literal subject, but more because of the hue / colour and luminosity properties.

If I reach further back, it seems that I have always been interested in this the most, but I had tried to think of hue / colour and luminosity as properties of the subjects I was shooting, and not perhaps the main point of the reason why I made the photos.

Lençóis Maranhenses below is a good example of that. I do not think these images are of sand dunes (well, they are), but that is not the purpose for shooting them. I use dunes (as most of us do) to convey tonal gradation, colour gradation, and perhaps as a relief to study these properties alone, rather than get confused by trying to attach them to a particular subject. In a way, the hues, luminosities are the subjects of these images.

So I suppose what I am really trying to say is that although we are often looking for good subjects to photograph, we wrongly make the assumption that the light is what helps make the image more interesting. When in fact I would say that it is the other way round: we use subjects to support the qualities of light we find. We are mostly light seekers, and subject seekers only to support the light that we have found.

Free to compose more anonymous, less obvious shots

It’s taken me a while to realise that since I started to focus more on portfolio sets (as they convey, or help push you towards a style), that I’ve found myself including images that are more anonymous, or perhaps less obvious as contenders to help support the portfolio set.

Portfolios in a way, although they may stipulate constraints so that the images conform to a look or a feel, have in a way allowed me to go looking for compositions in the landscape that might not feel immediately apparent as a strong contender as an individual image, but instead, help or be a supporting image in a set.

I think there is a danger in always looking for the Alpha shot, and discarding the Beta shots as a result. We’re so intent on looking for those images that have a strong composition etc, that they are perhaps too powerful to be included in a set, because they would compete, rather than work with the others.

I got told a while ago that my imagery had moved away from the less iconic shots to a more abstract view. I think this is true, but it wasn’t a conscious decision: it just happened, and I think it mostly came about by my fascination on working on sets of images.

Make the landscape your own

“For me, the ultimate goal is to be able to find myself in the images I make.”

“I just think that even if I tried to get as far away from myself as possible,
I would still be there in my own work.”

There are two ways you can look at photography. One is to think that when you photograph something, you are recording it for posterity. Bundled into this is the belief that the photograph is a realistic impression of reality. Then there is the other way you can look at photography: as a personal expression where you are trying to show others what you saw and felt. I don’t think both can coexist as I think they are mutually exclusive or at the very least, contradictory from each other.

I have this old friend of mine, Steven Feinstein, whom is probably nearing his late 90’s now. He came on a few trips with me about 8 years ago, and said something which I thought could be taken one of two ways. He said ‘Bruce you seem to go anywhere in the world, and make the same photo’. The context of him saying this was that he was being friendly and supportive. It did not come over as a criticism, but more an observation. I said to him ‘well, I think I will take that as a compliment’, because what I saw in his statement was that he was saying ‘wherever you go, your photos look like you’.

Well, whether that is what he meant or not, it gave me pause to consider that I think this is what I am most interested in. I do not wish to record something the way it was, I wish to find my own view. I am sure some (but not all) of you are like this also. You wish to find your own take on something, or to show others what you saw or felt.

For me, the ultimate goal is to be able to find myself in the images I make.

Reviewing the set of portfolios of images below, perhaps Steven was right; wherever I go, I make the same photo. I really don’t mind if this is true. I’d actually find it quite a compliment. Because I think we all want our images to be instantly recognised as ours.

I’ve had time to let my style surface, to be more apparent to myself. I am of the mind that I’m extremely lucky. Not everyone figures out if they have a style, or may even have one.

I’m at a point now that my style is so far established that even if I tried to get as far away from myself as possible, I would still be there in my own work.

But for most of us, we don’t know if we have a style, and the problem is, being able to find yourself in what you produce. That is the million dollar quest. Because I am convinced it is not so easy for ourselves to be objective about what we do. I believe the biggest blind spot we have, is in seeing ourselves. This is because it is incredibly difficult to recognise our own strengths and weaknesses. We do not know ourselves, and in a way, photography is the process of working through that.

I believe the only way to find ourselves in our own work, is to continually review, continually create collections of our work, and to continually think about how they relate to each other.

Sets of images below:

  • Puna de Atacama, Argentina

  • Lençóis Maranhenses, Brazil,

  • Bolivian Altiplano, Bolivia,

  • Hokkaido, Japan,

  • Central Highlands of Iceland

All different countries, all different landscapes, but somehow they all look stylistically similar. That is where I find ‘me’ in my own work. How about you?

Letting your impressions guide you

I spent a week around mount Fuji this January. I will refer to Mt `Fuji as ‘Fuji San’ for the rest of this post.

For many years now, I have found that while away for a week or two making photographs, I often build up an impression in my mind as to how the work is progressing. This impression may be as vague as simply knowing that I have encountered enough scenes to produce a portfolio of maybe six to nine images. Or it may be more concrete. I may have two or three very strong compositions floating around my mind.

I am a strong believer in trusting my impressions: if I find a scene that is strong, and feel I’ve found a solid composition of it, then the image will tend to linger in my mind for the remainder of my time away.

Since I am a film shooter, I cannot review my work until I return home and get the films processed, so I have found that impressions are incredibly valuable in guiding my creativity.

I think building up an impression of your imagery as you go through a week’s photography is a good skill to develop. I would say: when I started out, I often found there was a huge disconnect between what I had seen and what I had actually captured. As the years have rolled on and my experience has grown, I find that there is less of a disconnect between what my impressions were, and what I actually got in camera.

I have never heard of anyone else talk about this, but I think developing an awareness for how the shoot is progressing is something we should all do. I would wager a bet that most of us tend to build up an intuitive feeling about the images we’re collecting over a week or two of shooting, but I’m not sure that most of us take it any further than this.

With regards to my shoot around Fuji San, I had the overriding feeling that the set was going to have a stark look to it. There were one or two images that were lurking around in my mind but they didn’t feel compositionally strong. They remained in my mind because of the atmosphere that I was immersed in whilst making them. These are the lake shots you see here.

I have found that my own criteria for what I’m looking for has changed over the years; if I can find strong compositions this is great, but if not, I can easily work with places where atmosphere and light compensate for any lack in subject interest. I would put this down to experience. I have made many portfolios that are about the quality of the light rather than subjects.

The weather during my week had been mixed, but I had noticed that most of the images that were floating around my mind had come about during days when it was snowing quite heavily. I had a hunch that the final resulting set would be fairly monochromatic as a result. But that was really about as far as it went.

All this gave me, was the overall feeling that I had enough images to make a portfolio, and that they were going to be centred around the light rather than any solid subjects. I was aware that I had made a few shots of Fuji San, which didn’t quite fit into the same category; they were unashamedly subject related: the mountain was all consuming. When returning home I remember thinking on the plane how I could marry the more etherial shots with the more traditional ones of Fuji San. I also considered that it was perhaps fortuitous that there were no contenders in the more anonymous shots to compete with Fuji San. The portfolio would be a collection of images of the volcano, and more supportive, secondary shots that provided more of a context than anything.

Lastly, although I love listening to the impressions that I build up whilst on location, as they help steer me, or perhaps just give me confidence to keep going, I do not religiously hold to any ideas I had while on location. I am no fan of pre-visualising the final work. I am more than happy to come home and whilst editing the work, if I feel the work wants to take a very different route, then I go with it. Pre-visualisation in any form is tantamount to creative-constipation in my view. I do like to listen to how I am feeling about the work I’m producing whilst on location, but it is only as a guide. It allows me to make the work, but it does not instruct me on how to edit it once home.

Fuji San

It’s just so nice to photograph a new place. This past January I spent a week around Fuji San (this is the Japanese name for mount Fuji. San being a word of respect, much like “mr” or “mrs”).

The mountain is one of three sacred mountains in Japan, and there is reason to understand why so. It is a commanding presence when visible. But it is often hidden behind banks of clouds for days upon end. When it does appear, you feel as though you are with a great presence. It seems to have a commanding power over those who witness it.

The conditions this winter time were the best I could hope for. It is unusual to have it snowing around the mountain, or for snow to come so far south (Fuji San is just a few hours away from Tokyo). But Tokyo experienced some snow fall while I was visiting the mountain.

I always like to work in changeable weather conditions. Sunny days do not do it for me. They are one dimensional in terms of light and lacking in atmosphere. I much prefer inclement days, or what most might say are ‘bad weather days’. I had thought that by now, most landscape photographers would know that photographing in rain, or when it’s foggy or difficult can produce more interesting work but I still see comments from time to time about how bad and difficult the weather was in Scotland for instance, when I think this so called ‘bad weather’ is one of the benefits of visiting Scotland. You are often able to work in different atmospheres and qualities of light.

It is so easy to judge a place on one visit. To go home and think this is what it’s always like when you go in January. But I think this isn’t always the case with Fuji San. What is guaranteed however, is that the mountain will disappear for days on end. Planning to come and photograph should be taken with the view that you may not see the mountain at all.

As with all photographic endeavours: anticipation of a guaranteed outcome is never good. Come assuming you may not see the mountain at all, and take anything else that you are given as a bonus.

Glacial Outlines

I’ve just set up a new tour to the interior of Iceland in the winter time. For those minimal black brush strokes you can see in the gallery below:

I feel I kind of lost my wind a bit this past 3 years. The whole covid thing really derailed me, and although I feel I’ve turned a corner last Autumn, I am realising now, looking back at this work, how focussed I was back in 2020.

An explanation of the photos above: what you are seeing is black ice and gravel protruding through during a white out.

I seemed to go very minimal around this time (2020). I quite like the abstract nature of these shots although I think I would be preaching to a limited audience on this one. But witnessing the glacier in a white out is so much more different from making photos of it. Scale cannot be comprehended and then there is the issue of lost 3D interpretation, which was lost while standing in front of the glacier. My mind had to figure out what each of the lines meant and how they related to one another.

I don't suppose this collection would appeal to many folks out there. But that isn't the point is it? Photography should be a personal thing, a representation of what you saw and what you want to convey to others. It should be as unique as we can possibly make it, and when I look back at these shots, I feel sure that this is what I was doing.

I am returning there next February to run a tour if this is of interest to you.

Jigsaw puzzle

I’m looking back at this image from last year’s Hokkaido tour, as I just revisited the same location a few weeks back. Last year I was able to fit the copse on the right under the centred tree, and do the same with the single tree on the left.

This year, I did not see the same composition at all and it reminded me how difficult it was to get into the right position last year to make this shot work. If memory serves me correctly, the camera was literally lying in the snow, sitting on the floor and my tripod had been put to one side. It was the only way to avoid the side trees crashing into the centre tree.

Tripod height is a major factor in composition. But sometimes I need to go lower than my tripod can manage (I own a tripod without a centre column, but I still find occasions where I need to camera to be lying on the ground).

This is where I think viewfinder design is critical. For my old analog camera, I use a 45º viewfinder, so I can place the camera on the ground and still see the composition. For digital shooters the live view is important, and perhaps an angled viewfinder doubly so.