This week I almost sold my Hasselblad kit. It’s caused me so much grief, but I think when I consider how hold it is – over 20 years old, It’s just really needing a good service!

I think what’s swayed me from dumping the entire outfit, is that the compositions I’m doing in square are very enjoyable to make, and I think it’s led me to do thing that are a little bit different from how I would approach a landscape with a 4×5 aspect ratio camera.

This is a big talking point on my workshops. I detest the 35mm 3:2 aspect ratio. It’s far too letter box, and either too narrow and wide (landscape), or too tall and thin (portrait mode). I love 4×5 because it works so well for distributing objects around the frame. I’ve said it here before – the Mamiya 7 camera is not a 6×7 camera – it is a 6×7.5 camera – so the aspect ratio is exactly that of a 4×5 camera.

But square… ahhh, I love it. Although it is not for every single composition and I sometimes find myself grappling with a particular location because I know it can’t work, won’t work with the aspect ratio of the camera I have in my hands: which goes back to what I’ve been saying for a long while – walking around with a dodgy aspect ratio is going to kill your compositions. I believe that many of us, if we were given a 4×5 or 6×6 aspect ratio to work with, would do so much better in our compositions.

Well I’m rambling now. I really intended to show you the above shot of Harris, it is one of the first images I made on this beach, before I reached what I felt was my ultimate composition:

I just find myself never stopping at one composition on a location. I’m aware there are always other ways to view the same story, different points of view of the same scene. But I do love the first image you see in this post. I think it’s ok to have many different views of the same scene, some that are more dramatic than others, and to love them all.

I knew something was there.

The weather was closing in and the isle of Taransay on the horizon was often being misted in rain. The light was getting low and my exposures were going down into the 10 minute region (due to reciprocity).

When I encountered this scene on last May’s Harris workshop, I spent about an hour or more just in this small location, looking for that elusive ‘essence’ I’ve been writing about over the past few weeks. The funny thing is, when I do feel I’ve reached ‘it’, and made some shots of it – the scene is often etched into my mind (I shoot film 100% of the time – I’m not a digital shooter, so I have to work with the scene in my mind a bit more than I would if I had a preview screen). I think we need to trust the gut instinct about these things. When you hit upon something that is working, it is as if your entire sensory input is being overloaded. I seem to find everything around me becomes more acute.

Here’s an image that was shot in the same area just a few minutes apart.

I should tell you that I found the stones in the bottom left hand corner too distracting and as much as I tried to compose with them in, they never really felt as if they should be part of the composition. I’m often not really aware of what it is that’s bothering me when I make images. I just tend to go with listening to how I’m feeling inside. I knew however, that it was the white streak of seam going through the foreground rocks that was pulling me in, and I felt very much that this was the ‘essence’ of the scene I was trying to capture.

Often we’re not close enough.

When I moved to the right to try and extract the white rocks, I found that the dark eye patch seen in the bottom left of the first image became more of a ‘motif’. It filled in the bottom left hand side of the frame beautifully. I find that with a bit of fine tuning, moving in closer, moving around just by a foot or two, things can ‘snap-into-focus’.

A few days ago I titled a blog entry ‘finding the essence’. I felt the title was apt at the time because my posting was about objectivity. When reviewing your own images after a shoot, being able to see the essence or beauty that is there, rather than being blinded by a desire to see what we wished the image to be.

Well, I’ve been thinking about the word ‘essence’ and also the particular image of Harris I showed on the blog in that particular posting.

I responded to that image of Harris (reproduced here – image #1), because there’s a lot of harmony going on in it for me. The tones really resonated with me and I also felt the composition was very simple too. When these two elements are married together, often the resulting image seems to be a more powerful statement. I think this image works so well for me because the ‘essence’ of the landscape has been conveyed very clearly – the message is strong.

Compare image #2 that you see further on in this post. It’s got similar light, and was shot on the same evening. Except I think this image does not work so well. It’s missing that extra ‘something’. I think it’s failed to reveal the ‘essence’ of the landscape.

I often feel that simplification is a complex thing to pull off. What looks simple is often harder than it appears. Landscape images for me, must contain a soul, they must resonate with you on an emotional level, and breaking things down to colour, tone and form is the best way forward to make images that do that.

Image #2 is too clever. There’s too much going on in it, even though there’s not that much at all in the shot. But things are competing with each other. There’s perhaps too much texture in that sky to sit in the background and let the eye fall on the patterns in the sand in the foreground. It feels as if I’ve put the wrong sky in with the wrong foreground. Both are not working in harmony.

Image #1 on the other hand is a different case. That sky sets a mood, but there’s almost no texture in it. That lack of texture complements the lack of texture in the sand in the foreground. It is as if the sky and ground are working together – a form of visual empathy. And then we have that diagonal streak in the sand. It’s allowed to be the focal point of the image and everything else around it is there to support it – not take away from it.

As much as I’ve tried to explain the images, and get you to think about why one works better than the other, I don’t think there’s such a thing as a rule book, and I have to confess that although image #1 is my favourite – it was a complete surprise to see it in my processed transparencies. In other words – I did not plan it. And i don’t think I could have.

That’s what I love about photography. It’s those surprise elements. You only know what it was that you were looking for, once you’ve found it. That was certainly the case with this image.

A few days ago, Dumitru, one of my participants for my workshop on the Isle of Harris, sent me this photo.

I’ve found the last three or four months to be quite hard going. Running workshops is a great way of marking my time, and I really enjoy them. But they’re also extremely demanding and I do get quite tired from time to time.

So here I was, on a beach in south Harris, in weather that was perhaps better than the weather we’d had in Summer, enjoying some time on my own. Dumitru said that I looked like I was meditating. I guess I was. Having some free time, on my own, to think my own thoughts, is a real luxury when I’m running a workshop.

Before I finish off this post, each year I notice how my Harris trip in November is always either a late seller, or does not reach the number of participants I’d like on it. Ok, I understand that folks are thinking about Christmas when November comes, and that their holiday time is set out for the summer months, but there’s a reason why I do my workshops in the autumn and winter months: the light. It is by far the best time to come to Scotland. September to early May are good times, and when we get into the real winter months, we’re talking about low suns, shorter days, more moody light etc, etc. I guess I wish I could convince folks to come to Harris then, but it seems that it’s not the case.

It’s the gain of the one’s who decide to come, and the loss of those who don’t. But I will continue to come back to Harris during the winter months, because it has a very special place in my photographers-heart.

I’ve been to the Mcleod standing stone on Harris a few times, but this May, we had some very special lighting conditions and I was able to get an image of it that I’m happy with.

It was a special evening. The clouds seemed to gather, brooding, dramatic.

As the evening went on, the light just seemed to get more and more interesting and just before 11pm, we were heading back to the van for our return journey back to the hotel when I saw these textures in the sea on the beach below the Mcleod stone.