An unexpected gift at an unexpected time

I passed on these huts for many years. I’d like to think I just wasn’t ready. Well, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that I got round to shooting them, and I shot them when I did, because that is when it was time for me to shoot them :-)

Recently, I’ve noticed that I am playing more with man made structures. With these huts, I found that the corrugated roofs almost looked like ploughed fields - a landscape on their own. Especially when the roofs had frost on them, as they do here.

Busy film processing.....

80 rolls of film to process this week in my home. I’ve just set up the film hanging racks. It’s been maybe around two or three years since I started to process film myself and it is still very much a learning experience.

There’s something very satisfying about being in control of the entire process from shooting to printing. But I must confess I still have issues with the film curling once it’s up to dry on the hanging racks you can see in the photo above.

I’ve got a humidifier set up this week to see if that will help, as I believe the curling happens because there are different surfaces on each side of the film and one dries quicker than the other.

I’ve been meaning to write for a while now about my experiences with the film processor I bought. I got an Analogico Dev.a film processor which on paper looks to be ideal. I did however buy it one year into them releasing it and had a hunch that I might be an ‘early adopter’ and to expect teething problems. This has turned out to be true more than I had imagined, but I have found Analogico’s support to be first rate and they always get back to me within a few hours. Always with a solution.

Perhaps at some point, I will buy a newer machine from them, as I think the one I have is now full of so many custom fixes to keep it going. So many things have broken over the time of using it, and always they have encountered the issue before and have a solid reliable fix for it. I am sure that when I do get round to getting a brand new machine, i’ll maybe look back at my first one as an early prototype.

I also had issues with the film developer I was using. If I am not mistaken, I think it’s quite hard to process E6 films in a drum processor and the best way to get even development is to use true inversion (in other words - shake the drum around every once in a while to ensure even coating - this is not possible when the film is sitting in a drum that is fixed onto a spindle on the machine).

I’ve got it tuned as best as I can, and I’m quite happy with the results now.

3 inches of water

This was the first time ever for me, to see parts of the Salar de Uyuni flooded. My guide said that the best conditions were when the water is only a few inches deep as it meant when walking around, no waves would be created. You don’t need a lot of water to create reflections.

I don’t think I’ve ever had the exact same conditions on any of my tours or workshops when I repeat them. I appreciate that for many, coming to Bolivia will be a once in a lifetime visit, but I often like to think that if a place resonates in some way with you, and you have the urge to go back, you should follow it.

I’ve found certain landscapes to be teachers. They just keep on giving. Bolivia is where I first started my unconscious journey towards simplification in my images. It is an old friend these days. It is now seventeen years since I first came here, and I have not tired of returning yet.

In terms of personal development and style, this can only come through visiting the places that resonate with you, and that give you something that others don’t see.

There are far too many people going to the same places and shooting the same things. This is very normal and natural: when we are learning to photograph we tend to gravitate to the locations and compositions that inspire us in other people’s work. But if one wishes to foster a personal style, I think it has to come from finding ‘your own’ places. Rather than following what everyone else is doing, find what interests you, and go with it.

I’ve had a long relationship with many countries and locations in South America. I am aware that these places have contributed to my style of imagery and as I say - have been teachers. I am always thinking and dreaming of where I will go next and I think the best way to find your own path, is to focus on what you love. Not what everyone else is doing.

From Bradord to California Dreaming

The wonderful artist David Hockney as died today.

Hockney first made a real dent in my universe in the film ‘Tim’s Vermeer’ and in his book ‘Secret Knowledge’ where he discusses how he believes many of the great artists used technology to make their great works. He believes Da Vinci and many others like Vermeer used the Camera Obscura to create their great works.

Case in point: Vermeer’s uncanny 3D realism paintings which shone above his contemporaries in terms of looking like ‘photographs’, which, if Hockney is right : they are. The ‘Girl with the Pearl Earing’ is not only a beautiful work of art, but it could also be viewed as a photograph that is recorded faithfully in paint.

All of Vermeer’s paintings were painted in the same studio room, are off similar dimensions, and seem to show chromatic aberrations and other lens defects in the final work.

For me, Hockney, like most, if not all, the painters I love, were photographers at heart. The only difference was that they used oil and their memory and imagination to show others what they saw.

Many photographer's make the error of assuming that we all see the same things.

In a literal sense I don’t even know if that’s really true, and how can I know? For how does one know that the red of the balloon that they experience, is the same red that others experience?

We cannot know. And we will never know.

No, photography is not literal, and it never has been. In a way, it is a lie that was spun many years ago that the camera captures what is there.

Photographs are interpretations. They do not show truth, because truth is often a matter of perspective.

To me, photography is the modern way of paining. If Da Vinci was alive, I am sure he would embrace the camera. He would look at is for what it is: a tool for image capture, and one which will create almost anything depending on who’s hands it is in.

Indeed, Hockney himself played with electronic mediums to create and display his images.

All photographers are painters. All painters are photographers.

I do not know of one notable photographer that does not love painting. Indeed, if I remember correctly, Henri Cartier Bresson starter as a painter, and in later life returned to it.

I love the world of painting. Paintings are photographs in oil, or watercolour or acrylic. For painters are obsessed with light and shade, or colour or monochrome. Photographers, like painters, love a great composition.

Hockney’s paintings are studies in light, shade and form. They are highly individualistic. He was not afraid to show others how he saw the world, and in my view, that is what painters should do.

It’s also what photographer’s should do: show others their unique vision of the world.

13 seconds On the Salar with Pete, Tommy & Vera

From my recent tour to Bolivia. Magical view of the Salar during Sunset. Once sunset had finished I recorded this short video during twilight on my DJI OSMO. I love making short videos as memories of my trips and the OSMO is very small and uber convenient.

I’m just home now. Time to decompress after six weeks away. Film procesing next, and two months worth of book keeping and admin to catch up on.

Uyuni Train Graveyard Graffiti

Yesterday we visited the Uyuni train graveyard. I’ve come here many times but never made any photos. Yesterday it was a lot of fun to take some very quick images over 30 minutes or so with my little Leica M240, which after one month has already developed a fault - the LCD stopped working :-)

There’s something to be said about working very quickly. There’s a fluidity to it. Rather than every step being overly considered, I find myself being able to be more free with decisions.

Anyway, these little travel vignettes are perhaps just turning out to be a travel blog of sorts. It’s good to create these kinds of images in-between my ‘landscape’ work, as I find my photographic eye is kept engaged throughout the day. Particularly during the times when the light isn’t so great for working on my landscape images.

180º to the sun

180º to the sun is where you will find the strongest sunset and sunrise colours. It is where you will experience the earth shadow at its strongest. Earth shadow is the blue (twilight) region in the sky, as can be seen in this image shot on my iPhone tonight on the Salar de Uyuni.

As the sun drops further below the horizon so the earth shadow heightens, until the entire sky is in twilight. In my iPhone image below, the earth shadow has just begun.

Tahua

I’m in the Bolivian town of Tahua today. This morning’s shoot was at a salt mine, and then we went for lunch. I am bringing my little Leica camera with me when we go out for lunch as I find some of the restaurants very interesting.

Today’s restaurant was on the top floor, and there was a lot of light streaming in the windows, lighting up the pale blue floor.

There is a simple charm to the Bolivian interiors. It’s a poor country, but people put a lot of pride into the little they have. I enjoyed very much making these shots of our lunch area.

I’m enjoying using a little rangefinder Leica again. It’s a simple machine, quite old, but relatively speaking a new camera for me, as all my Hasselblad film cameras are mid 80’s.