Exhibition

Below is a photo of thirteen of thirty eight prints on display at my exhibition in Edinburgh this week. It's been really rewarding to see my work up on the wall, but most important to me is that I have been able to share this special time with so many wonderful friends that I've met through my photography. So many nice friends at my private opening night last night: thanks for coming :-)

Campo de Piedra Pomez (the pumice stone field)

Imagine a field with white pumice rock, in strange shapes and patterns, that goes on for tens of kilometres. This is where I camped for two nights so I could be there for sunrise and sunset.

The elevation is around 3,500 metres. The drive in from the nearest town of El Piñon is long, perhaps two hours, and not that easy to find again if you are trying to leave the Pumice field after the sun has gone down. A GPS system is very much needed.

But I chose to camp here for two very long days.

In the daytime the tents that my guide brought in would bake. They were like greenhouses with the sun beating on them, but to be outside was even worse. And there was no shade from the overhead sun. So I just had to open the doors of the tent and pray for a breeze. The final hour towards sunset would start of slow, but as the light started to change, things would happen fast. Too fast, and even though I had spent the afternoon scouting out potential locations that I thought had great composition potential, I still found the light didn't react the way I had anticipated. I had to change plan and react fast.

After sunset had finished, and after a few moments of wrestling with my camera because the film back would occasionally jam, the temperature would plummet. I'd return back to the camp site to find my guide Pancho had made a dinner for me, and we'd stare at the milky way (what a sight to see when there is no light pollution for many many miles all around!), before deciding it was now getting too cold to stay outside.

The mornings would be worse. Really, really freezing cold. Can you imagine having to get out of a nice warm sleeping bag to try and put on some freezing clothes? And then stumble around with a head torch looking for good compositions? My hands would be biting cold and sometimes I would swear to myself. It was painful.

Once the sun was up, I'd feel a sense of relief. The feeling had returned to my frozen hands, and I was now glad that the long wait was over: we could leave this place. As beautiful as it is, and as fascinating as it was to walk around this massive field of strange structures the size of houses, I was glad to be leaving for civilisation.

You have to put the effort in, to get something back. I had planned to come back here for two years and although the two days of hanging around here had been long, boring and uncomfortable, I had felt I'd managed to tap into the potential of this place. Often it's the places that are hardest to get to, that intrigue me the most.

The Labyrinth, Tolar Grande, Argentina

I went back to the Puna de Atacama this past April to do some further photography, because the first time I was there (2015), I saw so much potential but failed to capture what I saw.

This trip was more successful. And this is one of my favourite places - the labyrinth just outside the dust bowl town of Tolar Grande. It is remote, takes about 2 hours to get here from its neighbouring town and we drove out here two mornings and two evenings so I could get this shot. You see, it takes a while to figure out where the sun is going to hit the tips of the mountains of red clay, and then I only had 20 minutes (if that) to make some exposures. So it was all a bit of a rush, with long driving distances in between.

I'm just editing the latest collection of Puna images as of today and it's been very enjoyable to go back and relive the trip. The Puna is the Argentine section of the Atacama which comprises the Chilean section, the Bolivian Altiplano. But all three are different in some ways and the Puna has a few surprising locations that are not present in Chile or Bolivia.

More to follow soon.

Book is now Sold Out (and out of print).

We sold the last copy of my 3rd book today. It is a strictly limited edition run of 300 copies and as such, we won't be re-printing it. Many thanks to those of you who bought a copy. We will be shipping them out 2nd of August.

Tapping into an energy

When I begin to work on a new set of images, I feel as though I've tapped into an energy far beyond my own comprehension. It's as if I'm not driving the work and that it is coming from elsewhere. That might sound a bit hokey, but I really can't put my finger on what the creative process is. It has its own energy. All I know is, that when I'm creating new work,  I'm on a creative high, as I sense something new is coming into being.

Images shot in the central highlands of Iceland March 2017.Images © Bruce Percy 2017

Images shot in the central highlands of Iceland March 2017.
Images © Bruce Percy 2017

Standard edition now sold out

The standard edition of my book is now sold out. We currently only have 6 copies left of the deluxe limited edition book as seen below, which comes in a dark blue cover.

This is a one-time printing only. We won't be making a 2nd printing of the book.

I'm delighted with the response to the book, and now that I've seen it myself, I'm very very happy with the print reproductions inside. 

If you'd like a copy, we only have a few Bolivia print editions and Hokkaido Print editions left.

Many thanks to those of you who bought a copy of the book.

Bruce.

Bolivia Print Deluxe Edition.

Paper & Pencil - Grasleysufjöll

I know I had to go elsewhere before I came here.

If I had reached this landscape years ago, I doubt I would have known how to approach it and I would have struggled with it. Everything I have done with my photography has been a stepping stone onto other other things. For me, when I look at my recent work, I always see hints of the past and of other experiences and places that have contributed to take me to where I am now.

Grasleysufjöll, central highlands of IcelandImage © Bruce Percy, March 2017.

Grasleysufjöll, central highlands of Iceland
Image © Bruce Percy, March 2017.

Things happen through connections, be it emotional ones or physical. I've been following my 'art' with my feelings for many years simply going with what feels right. Every once in a while an exterior influence comes in and leads me somewhere new. Had I not been looking for a professional guide to help me get access to some of the less accessible, more remote areas of Iceland, I doubt I would have come to the central highlands in winter time. It was after all his suggestion. I had no idea just how photogenic this place could be. The conversation went something like this:

'Bruce, there is a landscape here that I think you would like,
but it is costly and difficult to get to.
It is a white canvas of black brush strokes, very minimal, I think you would like it
'.

And he was right. But I couldn't have done it without him and to this day I would still have no knowledge of this place if he hadn't mentioned it.

The central highlands of Iceland in the depths of winter time, is somewhere few go. Those that do are in convoy and are most probably only locals heading into the mountain cabins for some winter get togethers. There are no roads as everything is under several feet (or metres) of snow. Driving here requires skill, even as an experienced 4W driver, the skill required is above most 4WD skills.

I have some lasting memories of this trip into the central highlands and perhaps the most impressionable one is of how I took the photo you see at the top of this post today. I was literally standing on the top ridge of a mountain that my guide drove up on to. One minute we were in the valley below and I said that I liked the outline of the faint mountains and a few minutes later his car was driving up the slope to get me there.

When we arrived, the entire landscape was a white-out, with only a few impressions of black volcanic rock poking through the snow where they had been weathered by some recent rain and wind. Indeed, when I made this shot, the snow was blowing over the dark ridge you see in the foreground and the background mountains were coming and going with varying degrees of visibility.

The scene was etched into my mind not just because of how graphically strong it was, but mostly because my guide had taken a perverse pleasure in being able to take me anywhere. You see, for most of the year you are not allowed to go off-road. If you depart the main roads, even in the highlands, there are heavy fines involved because you will be eroding the land. But if you come here in winter and there is deep snow everywhere - then you can go anywhere that you car can take you (and can't take you, as you may find out!).

I don't think I've ever stopped a car and gotten out on a mountain ridge before. Nor have I encountered a scene like the one you see above anywhere else on my travels. Sure, I've been to many winter places with lots of snow, but I have never seen such an abstract and minimal landscape such as this - ever.

Our vehicles on a mountain ridge, suspended in space.Image © Bruce Percy, March 2017

Our vehicles on a mountain ridge, suspended in space.
Image © Bruce Percy, March 2017

Different Perceptions, a Different loudness

I've often thought of photography as the act of 'paying more attention than usual' to my visual world. Rather than just glancing everywhere, I spend more time studying and watching how light affects and modifies objects around me. I look more.

But I've come to realise that photography isn't just about increasing visual awareness. We may believe that we are just honing and developing our visual awareness, but other aspects of our consciousness are also being heightened. In particular, I seem to be more sensitive to intrusive sounds in my environment than I used to. I'm sure I noticed them on a subconscious level in the past, but these days I seem to be more conscious of them. What was once quiet, is sometimes now too loud, aurally as well as visually.

But it's not just in my auditory and visual awareness that I seem to be more conscious these days. I also seem to be more aware of the levels of noise within my thoughts.

Take today as an example: I have a body of new work to edit, yet somehow I cannot find the peace within my mind to begin editing. I just 'know' that today, and indeed this week isn't the time to work on them. All I know is that I need a certain space in which to edit this work, but simply marking off some free time in my calendar isn't enough. I have to be feeling it as well.

If I'm not feeling it, I'd much rather go and do something else and leave the work alone for another day when I will have the proper emotional tools to work on it properly. But this too, depends on my level of awareness to figure out when there's no point in working on something because i'm either too tired, or just not in the right frame of mind to work on it.

We are all bobbing along on a sea of varying levels of perception and awareness. Some days I find I'm less sensitive to what is going on around me while other days everything can be too much. Visually, aurally and emotionally. I'm either in the right space to work on something or I'm not.

I've been saying for a while now, that improving one's own photography is sometimes about developing visual awareness, but that's only a tiny part of the story. Improving our photography is really about developing our awareness of everything around us and as well as what is going on within us. Photography isn't just about what we saw, it's also about what it meant to us and what it means to us now, and to do our intentions justice, we need to know when we've found the right levels of quietness within ourselves to bring the work to completion.

The Photographer's Ephemeris 3D

If you don't use the Photographer's Ephemeris application, then I would strongly urge you to look into it. I use it all the time to figure out the sunrise and sunset times wherever I am, twilight times and also for figuring out where the angle of the sun will be during certain times of the day.

Stephen Trainor, the app designer will be releasing a 3D version of it soon, which incorporates a 'Google Earth' like view of the terrain so you can see how the light will fall on certain areas.

You can find out more about the current 2D version of TPE from the link below. It runs on most portable devices:

Where do we go from here?

Recently, I've been giving a lot of thought to how much my photography has changed over the years. I feel that it is only in the last two or three years that there has been a distillation, a fine-tuning of ideas and style into where I am now. It's as if everything came into sharp focus for me around three years ago and everything before then was a slow gradual journey, one where I felt things were changing but I didn't know where they were going.

It's only now that I feel I've reached a point where things have become easier for me. I now have better confidence in myself and trust myself more in how I am developing as an artist.

Trees in a snow storm, Hokkaido, January 2017Image © Bruce Percy 2017

Trees in a snow storm, Hokkaido, January 2017
Image © Bruce Percy 2017

A creative life has these moments, or plateaus perhaps, of feeling that you've arrived at some level playing field where you can bask in some form of creative comfort for a while before the next (sometimes difficult, other times just natural) adaption occurs. Because growing requires change, and although I know and believe that change is good, it can also be a time of great uncertainty.

If I look back at Ansel Adam's work over his lifetime, it is clear that he, like many other artists, he had a very creative period and then things started to tail off. By the end of his life, he was perhaps more a curator of his legacy. His skills had developed so much that he was able to go back to his iconic work and produce bolder, deeper prints than when he first started out.

My 3rd book is about to be published soon, and it has given me pause for thought. Is this the final mark of a period of great growth and creativity for me? Will I look back on this book in years to come and say 'that was my most creative time?' 

I am aware that I have done so much and witnessed so many wonderful things over the past eight or nine years since I went full time, that I feel it may be unlikely I can perhaps top that for a further similar duration. I am older, I feel different (i.e not the same way as I felt when I started out eight years ago), so things have changed, and indeed, are always changing.

I believe that each artist or creative person reaches a point in their own development where they are at the summit of what they can do. It's an inevitable point to reach in one's own creativity but we must continue to move forward with an open mind to see if there is still mileage in the road ahead.

Indeed, there have been many moments where I felt I could go no further, only to find that the period of contemplation was either brief or lasted for many months or years. I've had periods in my creativity where I have felt I had nowhere else to go, yet looking back I see now that I had only just started.

Contemplative moments are good for us. Thinking about where you've been and where you think you may be going are healthy thoughts to have. You just need to believe in yourself that things are going to change and understand that progress is not linear. There will be times and even long spells of inactivity, times when you feel you have nothing left to say, only to find that you are now entering a period of great productivity. Being open to whatever may come, and accepting that you are on a journey that has no fixed course is the only way to be.

Learn to live in the present and understand that everything you are doing or experiencing is transient: it will not last. That goes for periods of little or no productivity, and for times when we reach new summits in what we do. Regardless, thinking about where you are and understanding yourself at this present moment is good for a healthy creative life.

So today  I'm left wondering 'where do I go from here?' And I can't wait to see what's up the road ahead.