Retrospection

This year has seen a lot of activity for me.

India, Nepal, Bolivia, Eigg & Harris

In January I went to India followed by a trip to Nepal in February.

Then in March, I spent a month recuperating at home with post-viral ’something’.

I did manage to get up to the Highlands to re-visit the isle of Eigg and the north west, and was greeted with one of the most wintry experiences I’ve had to date here in Scotland.

April saw me go back to Patagonia where I conducted my 3rd photo workshop there (it was a hoot).

And then I quickly followed that with a trip to Bolivia to photograph the Altipano. A Mars like landscape, otherworldly, only comparable to Iceland for photographic potential.

Summer saw me photograph some of the Scottish islands – Harris, Lewis and also the Orkney’s, and this August I went back to the Orkney’s to try to get some photographs I’d missed the first time earlier this summer.

Where do I go from here?

And now what? Well, I have my first Scottish workshop imminent – it starts in two weeks on the Isle of Eigg. A small Scottish Island with one of the most photogenic beaches in Scotland overlooking the island of Rum.

I have eight people coming with me – two Danish, one Italian, one Spanish, one Australian, two Scottish and one English…. and of course me :-)

I’ve prepared a lot of course notes about my ‘process’… how I achieve my images, but I’m looking forward to the company and sharing of ideas….. That is, what I feel, workshops are all about.

Apple

It didn’t happen. Some of you may remember I was contacted by Apple, with interest in using some of my images for desktops. I presume this was for the now released Snow Leopard Operating System.

Upcoming Talks

I’ll be posting late September. Until then, if you live in the Falkirk area or Cumbernauld area, then you may be interested in the talks I have lined up:

3rd September, Falkirk Camera Club
22nd September, Cumbernauld & Kilsyth Camera Club

There are more talks lined up for the rest of the year, so please check out my schedule.

Workshops

Harris & Lewis

As you may be aware, all of my photographic workshops for this year have sold out. I’m now starting to fill spaces for next year’s workshops.

However, I do have spaces left on my Isle of Harris trip for this November in the outer hebrides. Harris was a nice surprise for me this year because I’d been wanting to get there for a long time but my Schedule never permitted it. The place is very beautiful – lots of big expansive golden sandy beaches with not a soul to see for miles and miles. It’s a wide open expanse of a place with standing stones not too far away on the adjoining island of Lewis. Perhaps you might want to come? More details here.

Sometimes, all it takes is a simple smile to make me feel that I’ve captured a portrait well. In this instance,  the pose was natural and that smile of her’s really got to me. There’s a glow in her eyes too and I can’t help smiling inside because of it.

That’s one thing I like about photographing people from undeveloped regions. They’ve not been conditioned from an early age to go into a rigid stance and turn on the most horrific ‘cheese-mode’ smile. I use the word ‘horrific’ appropriately.

So this lady in Baktapur, Kathmandu Valley, due to decades of not being photographed has responded well considering she’s probably never had a camera weilded in front of her before. Of course I’d like to give all credit to that part of the image making process to myself, but I think it’s more to do with spontenaety and lack of conditioning on her part.

Michael shoots 5×4 and has a real passion for the format and his art.

Breaking light over Loch Etive © Michael Stirling-Aird

I was struck by how nicely printed the images were and the pains he has gone to have them framed and mounted too – very beautifully done.

If you live in Edinburgh, then I strongly suggest you head down to the Gladstone Gallery, on the Royal Mile (EH1 2NT). The gallery is open from 10am to 7pm between the 7th and 12th of July.

I met David pretty much by chance. He’d stumbled upon my site and had written a very kind review of my work and we got talking. He’s very enthusiastic but I didn’t really get a chance to meet him until I was in Nepal this year. I’ve since kept up correspondence with him and I find him to be very inspiring: when you’re busy trying to make a go of being 100% professional, it’s always good to surround yourself with people who are positive, forward thinking and inspiring.

So David has published his first book, and although he is predominantly a ‘people photographer’, what I found striking about his book was that I feel the contents apply to anyone be it a landscape photographer or a street photographer. The text is engaging and if I didn’t know better, I’d say that David is a very talented writer – end of story. But his images are very beautiful too. He’s got an innocent charm in how he approaches subjects and I personally felt I could draw a lot of parallels to how he approaches his photography to my own.

This book is not a technical book. And I’m grateful for it. The last good read I had was Galen Rowell’s ‘Mountain Light’, an inspiring book about being out there and ‘connecting’ with what you see. David’s book is similar in that respect, but it’s more aimed at the enthusiast who wants to improve his skills. he talks about ‘Vision’ – something that the late Galen Rowell brought up, as did Ansel Adams, but what David does is break vision down into it’s integral parts. It’s a nice book which makes you *think* more about what it is you are trying to do with your photography, rather than what gear you want to buy. And for that, It’s rather refreshing.

David used to be a stand up comedian. I only bring this up because each time I pick a paragraph to read, I can’t help being reeled in. It’s nice writing, humourous, humble and engaging.

If you don’t know the magazine well, it’s a pretty nice read – full of articles about people doing alternative activities in Scotland and has a nice green slant on most ventures that people are getting into.

Pushkar

Part of the issue for me is that negatives are hard to review (I’d have to load them into the scanner 2 at a time) and contact sheets cost a bomb to get done at the time of processing. I really don’t mind paying to get film processed. Sure it’s costly, but the results are always worth it, but contact sheets at £5 on top of the cost of processing the film – is out of the question for me.

But here’s the thing, I joined a local camera club last year – Midlothian Camera Club. I do lots of talks around Scotland so I’m lucky to get to observe a lot of clubs and in general, I think most clubs are great. They’re all different, but the great thing is that you’re surrounded by folk who love photography. I just loved this little club because they were all so sociable and I was feeling that I needed to get out and meet some new friends etc. I think my reason for joining wasn’t really anything to do with learning anything, it was more about just being able to spend time around folks who like to talk about photography and ‘get it’. If you know what I mean.

Anyway, my little club has their own premises and dark room facilities.  So there I was last night at the back of the club doing my first contact prints (colour negative film onto black and white paper), aided by a long time member of the club (thanks Adam!). It was just such great fun being back in a dark room and before I knew it, I wanted to do some large prints.

Anyway, this photo is one of the images on the first contact sheet I processed last night. It’s cropped a bit, because the Indian in the scene was a very tricky customer to photograph. I couldn’t get near him and he was taunting me…. yet he was just so incredibly photogenic (in my mind anyway). This was shot on my Contax 645 with 140mm lens. I now have a 210mm lens for the kit which would have suited this subject better). He was a ‘rascal’ as we say here in Scotland.

So I don’t really know what the aim of this post is. Perhaps I’m suggesting that getting in touch with your local photo club is a good way to enhance your photography. I’ve met so many great people over the year in the club and I think I may be on the verge of entering the domain of trad dark room printing. But I also wanted to show you this shot, taken in Pushkar, a very religious place (similar to Varanassi). I’ve only just begun to dig into the negatives and will spend some time at my club this weekend developing more contact sheets, so I can decide on which images I need to load into the scanner tray……

Before reading the rest of my post, I encourage you to watch this video first.

Ok, so you watched it? I’d love to know what your feelings are on the matter. But before you rush off to post an entry to me, I’ll tell you mine, straight to the point.

I really deplore people who use the word ‘photoshop’ to imply cheating, like photoshop is bad. It’s not. I also don’t agree with people who feel that photography should be truthful. In their minds, they have this concept that when the shutter is clicked, the unmanipulated image contains truth. That is incorrect from the start because if it were true, the image would be 3-D. It would also have the same dynamic range that our eyes are able to record, but the simple matter is that cameras, sensors and film do not see the way we see. And in order to convey what we saw, we have to use things like Neutral Density filters and dark room techniques like the ones you saw Ansel doing in the video.

I use photoshop techniques all the time. I’m a big fan of layers and masks. I like to add localised contrast to elements of the scene. I also like to ’suggest’ to the viewer aspects of the image by controlling brighness and darkness.

But there is skill in what I do out in the field too. I cannot turn any old image into a good one. I have to have good light, good subject matter and above all else, a sense of strong vision.

I feel I am very much in tune with how Ansel approached his images. He was a master printer. But he had a strong sense of vision and when he saw a scene, he knew how he wanted it to be realised.

It’s pretty disparaging when people say ‘oh, you photoshopped that’, as if to say ‘you cheated’. It demeans the value of the work.

Let’s put it another way. If it’s as simple as just getting a copy of photoshop and playing around with images, we’d all be making great images, but we’re not. The subject is a whole lot more complex than just assuming that if you have a really expensive camera or a copy of photoshop, you’re going to get great results.

So I’ve got a few Canon lenses for sale. They are all in mint condition, boxed with end caps and where appropriate, lens hoods.

£360 Canon 70-200 f4 L  (just as good as the f2.8 lens I’ve used in the past in terms of optical performance).

£300 Canon 100 f2.8 macro  (this is a superb lens, one of the best in the canon range I’ve used)

£200 Canon 50 f1.4  (much better than the 1.8 lens, not just faster, but sharper too).

£180 Canon 24 f2.8 (I tested this against the 24L and came to the conclusion that the 24L was a waste of money)

All are mint, no marks on lens elements, or cosmetic blemishes and all have had light use.

If you are interested, e-mail me for photos of the items.

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