Gratitude

This week I am back in Japan. I have just spent some time with my friend and guide Tsuyoshi Kato. We first met in 2015, and I did not know, that I was the first guy to run a photography tour with him. Tsuyoshi is great friends with Michael Kenna, and while I drove Michael around Scotland in 2015, he was very kind to give me Tsuyoshi’s details.

Tsuyoshi has been one of the best guides I’ve ever worked with.

This week, I am feeling nostalgic after him showing me so many photos of our times together.

Tsuyoshi Kato, Jeaninne, myself, Rick, Steve, John, Peter & Steve. I think this was tour 2019.

Each day, I remind myself of the gratitude I have for what my photography has given me. I try my best these days, to practice a 10 minute ‘gratitude’ moment when I wake up. I know it might sound rather ‘hippy’, but I have found that sitting still for 10 minutes and thinking about the positives in my life, have been very beneficial to how I am thinking about my life.

Had someone said to me, that the simple act of taking up an interest in photography, and buying a camera would have given me all the experiences i”ve had so far, I would not have believed them. I am very grateful indeed for my photographic life.

It’s not really about the photos. It’s really about the experiences and memories, paticularly with people I meet. Less so with the landscapes I visit, although that is often very special.

The truth is: it’s all about the human connection.

I do not remember where I read it, but back in the early 2000’s when I was a keen enthusiast, I read some quote somewhere that said “a camera is a passport to gaining experiences”. I paraphrase here.

I am grateful for where my camera has taken me, and for whom it has put me in contact with. Not only have I met so many beautiful landscapes, I have also made many friends along the way. Ones that, had I stayed in a regular job in Scotland, I would not have met.

That is what I think is so inspiring about photography.

I’m very grateful for finding photography in my early 30’s. It has given me so much.

Aomori, January 2025. Tsuyoshi Kato, myself, Anna, Ulana & Geoffrey. Standing in front of a snow wall that is about 14 feet high.

Differences in popular aspect ratios

When buying a camera, the most important consideration for me is what aspect ratios it comes with. I avoid 3:2 because I think it is more akin to a panoramic format. Once I had been working with 6:7 and 4:5 for a few years, I could not go back to the 35mm format. It is simply too wide, and too short.

Below I show the differences between the popular aspect ratios from most narrow (6:7 is almost a square) to widest (3:2 - 35mm standard format).

Green: 6:7
Blue: 4:5
Red: 4:3
Yellow: 3:2

Venturing out in the field with the aspect ratio set for your given pictures will enable you to realise tighter compositions. I have found that the idea of cropping later to be too loose for beginners at least. For myself, I have found that once I began to work with 4:5, after many years of working with 3:2, my compositions ‘clicked’ more, and things just seem to fall into a more natural order when composing. I have great trust in working with constants, be it fixed focal length lenses, or fixed aspect ratios. They offer a degree of discipline to my process and make me work harder at fine tuning my compositions.

This is why I am re-writing my aspect ratios book. I think aspect ratios are too important, yet oddly, seem to be overlooked, or rarely considered when one buys a camera.

White Canvas Update

I got stalled for a while this year working on my new e-book. I’ve just resumed work on it, and although I feel a sense of procrastination in ‘how am I going to convey [insert any concept I wish to discuss]’ with the reader, things are surprisingly going very smoothly.

It ‘should’ be much easier second time round is the theory. I’ve written about aspect ratios before, and although it would have been tempting to work with the original text, I know in my heart that this would have caused so much work and given me so much pain. It would most likely have confused things.

You see, I think that as you get better at explaining things, it’s because you’ve gained more clarity about the subject yourself. Upon looking back on my original e-book, I feel I went for a much longer walk than was necessary. As Brian Eno once said ‘sometimes you find yourself saying something that you didn’t know you knew’. This is similar to the idea that if you can’t explain something well that you think you understand, you maybe don’t know it as well as you thought you do. So too, returning to aspect ratios after a decade of thinking long and hard about why aspect ratios really matter and are, in my view, the very first specification I would check when buying a new camera. I have found that my own sense of clarity about the subject is, well, just more clear :-)

If you’ve got a good sense of what you think are the pro’s and con’s about a subject, then it’s going to be a lot easier to work on.

So I think the little book is coming on well. I will just have to see how it goes over the next few months as I have a few trips on the go which may cause me to pause my work on it.

On a frozen lake

While I was in Mongolia, we visited a very beautiful lake which is considered to many Mongolians as a sister lake to Russia’s lake Baikal. It is 200km away from it. Lake Khövsgöl freezes over each year and my guide this October while I was visiting Mongolia has suggested I come back in February to shoot it.

One night, whilst sitting around a campfire we had going, he described his first experience of being on frozen lake Khövsgöl with his friend Baggy’s brother:

Perhaps I’m mad to even consider it. But he told me that all the locals use the lake as a short-cut in the winter time and drive right across it.

I was particularly taken by some of the trees that exist around the edges of the lake, and since it is en-route from my trips I will be running in Japan, when coming home, I’m tempted to do it. Despite feeling that I may not have the courage to actually go onto the lake.

I am thinking tonight about the number of times I have been uncertain about doing something, and still doing it anyway. In a way, I would say that most of my photography has been about gut instinct rather than any actual plan. I can feel myself drawn to visiting the lake next February, and I can’t quite say why. I think that my gut is telling me there’s not only great photographic potential, but also, that it will be an adventure of a lifetime to do this.

Airline regulations are changing regarding the carrying of lithium batteries

Many countries are now rolling out changes to how one can fly with lithium and lithium-ion batteries.

For instance, in Japan:


Effective July 8, 2025 (Japan time), do not store mobile batteries in the overhead bins during flights. 
When charging them onboard, always do so in a location where their status can be monitored at all times.
Lithium batteries and lithium-ion batteries cannot be accepted as carry-on baggage.
Carry-on is permitted only if the following conditions are met 
Rechargeable type (lithium-ion battery)

* With a rated watt-hour capacity of 100Wh or less .
   Carry-on only.  No quantity restrictions.
* With a rated capacity exceeding 100Wh but not exceeding 160Wh
   Carry-on only. Up to two electronic devices and spare batteries combined.
* With a rated capacity exceeding 160 Wh.
   Not permitted in the cabin or as checked baggage.

If you’ve got some flights coming up, best to check with your local airline what the policies are with regards to flying with camera batteries. It will be different for each country.

The moon as a compositional device

Next May, I’m returning to Bolivia. I’ve timed the trip so we will have the full moon on the Salar de Uyuni. This means we will experience moon-set and also moon-rise while on the salt flat.

In general, the moon is often far too small to make a dent on your landscape photography if shooting wide angles or even standard focal length lenses. I believe (but it’s been so long now) that in the picture above made in 2012, that I used the equivalent of a 75mm lens for this. Maybe more.

The other thing to consider is that the moon is a day lit subject. What you are seeing is the sun hitting it directly. This means the contrast range is out-of-this-world and impossible to capture the moons surface when the light levels are low. In the image above, I waited until the light was towards the brighter side of sunrise, so that I could still capture it.

The last thing to consider is that the moon is a moving subject. I found shooting over a few seconds would blur it.

I think what I ended up doing was shooting wide open, and also using a grad to avoid the moon burning out in the exposure.

The rest of the image is just ‘creative interpretation’ or ‘digital-darkroom skills’. Something of which I am very big on.

I’ll be returning to Bolivia next May, and currently have just one space left for the tour.

The first and the last picture have the most energy

I stumbled upon Harry Borden’s youtube channel last year. He is a commercial portrait photographer who has photographed many notable people.

I just wanted to reference this channel tonight for those of you whom are interested in portrait photography, or perhaps just have an interest in the last twenty years or so of the UK’s pop / political / celebrity history.

Whatever your views on Margaret Thatcher are, perhaps put them to one side. Just listen to Harry talk about how he made the portrait of her, and his experiences. All of his other videos are very much worth watching as well. He’s photographed pop icons from Bjork to political leaders such as Thatcher.

I should take my own advice

I’m a keen musician and have been since I was 12 years old. I gave up music around the year 2000 due to ‘hobby-burnout’ as I like to call it. Spending too much time on your hobby can kind of kill it, and I’ve advocated for a long time now, that all of us should take a step back, or a break away from our photography once in a while. Or better still, adopt a second hobby / interest.

In 2006, I returned to music. I think in retrospect, it was because I needed a step back from my photography. It is my calling I feel. More than a job, something that is at the core of myself. But when one is running workshops and tours all year, things can become a bit one-dimensional. I am glad I found music again as it has allowed me to take breaks away from my photography.

Whatever creative endeavour I get into, I have noticed I can get rather serious about it quickly. I have never been someone to do something half-hearted, and if I have, I often give up because I know my heart isn’t into it. When I find something that I am passionate about, I tend to become consumed by it.

In 2016 I started playing around with some instrumentals. In 2020 I got together with my vocalist friend and in the space of about a week he put vocals to an album we published on Bandcamp. I’ve now spent the past four and a half years working on a second album. One I’m very pleased with and feel it’s a step up in production values from our first effort in 2020.

This week I released the first track from the album, and for the most part, when I emailed everyone whom I thought would be interested, I got the well-meaning ‘cool’ or ‘i’ll listen to it later’ replies.

Few listened. I shouldn’t have been surprised at this but I was.

If you think it’s hard to get folks interested in your photography, then consider that with music it’s even harder. Firstly, with photography it takes seconds to glance at someone’s work and get an idea of what you’re looking at, and whether it’s any good. With music, it’s even worse because you need anyone who is going to listen to it, to actually put time aside to listen for a few minutes. Additionally, I think folks have to be in the right mood to listen to different kinds of music, and I have personally found that I need to find my own time and space to get into something. Or I need to discover the music in my own time.

I should really take my own advice on this one. I have said for years that when you do your photography - you do it for you. That is the truth of it. There is no one else out there who is more interested in your work than you.

Showing your work to friends and family is kind of pointless because they probably just won’t get it. They aren’t photographers, and will mostly just be happy that you’re happy. If you do feel you need to find an audience, then I think it’s pretty much like my post from yesterday - it’s not an audience you need. It’s a community.

For myself, I work pretty much alone on my music. My friend gets involved when I ask him for vocal ideas, but I am aware that I would like to branch out and meet other musicians. Find a community of sorts. Others that are interested in music, music production.

I started to do that back in February this year by meeting up with the Icelandic composer Mikael Lind. We met in a coffee shop as he kindly accepted my invitation to meet up. I love his ambient music - particularly ‘Intentions and Variations’.

And I felt connected. I felt an itch was being scratched. It was nice to meet someone who is producing music I’m interested in, and to find that he has similar thoughts about music production like I do.

I hope to meet up with Mikael again another time I return to Iceland, and right now, I’m enjoying very much sending him what I’ve been working on.

I made my album for myself. I got a lot of deep contentment out of making something I feel is professional sounding. I will continue to keep writing because I enjoy it, and because I don’t think I could stop anyway.

But I realise now, that I need a community, or a network of other musicians.

Somehow, it is important to me.

Creative Loneliness

I have for some time thought that photography is really a private endeavour. Meaning that we really do it for ourselves. The motivation to go out and make pictures is a deep need to create, to enjoy the creative process and to give our lives some added enrichment. That is why we ultimately make pictures.

But I would be lying to say that no one needs an audience. For reasons I cannot fathom, all I know is that every creative person out there needs to be able to show others what they do. And until one has experienced having an audience, it is something that we all wish to experience. A need even.

But perhaps what we need is a community. Not an audience. Photography, or the act of making pictures is often a lone pursuit. I think many (if not all of us photographers) are in some way loners. We prefer to have time on our own, and to enjoy relating to the land without the interruption of others. But wishing to have alone time and to work on our art does not mean that we wish for our results to remain unseen or hidden from others.

All creatives, no matter how introverted, need to show their work to others.

For the most part, this is one function that Instagram should provide: a space to find like-minded others with which to share your images, and to interact. In case you do not know this, this isn’t what IG excels at.

Social media platforms are brokerage firms. Irrespective of whom you wish to follow, they will not send you every update of those you’ve requested to follow. It is also true the other way around: those that express an interest in following you, aren’t guaranteed to see all your posts. Despite them wishing to. Instead, you get what these platforms choose you to see, and it is because they are in the business of trying to make money from advertisements, and by deciding how much reach your posts have.

This kind of ‘social networking’ I like to think of as discriminatory-social-marketing. You are asking a 3rd party to help you socialise, but only on their terms, not yours. And their terms are to only give you full reach to all of your audience if you pay.

Back to the problem at hand: all creatives need a community.

If you are seeking a community, you’re not going to find a high quality community on a social network platform. If you wish to have a community of value, one where you can share and express your thoughts, then I believe the way to find one is to build one yourself out of the network of people that you’ve met, and know. And even then, you have to be selective. Choose wisely those that you feel you can have the conversations you desire to have. Choose those that you feel have a level of ability or perhaps opinion, where you feel they are on a similar level to yourself.

I remember that Ansel Adams and Edward Weston used to swap prints with each other. They were peers. Everyone needs to find their peers. You need to find folks that stimulate you, that are interesting and interested. You need to find real connections, whether you do it through clubs, meeting others through tours or workshops, or simply by bumping into someone on your travels with your camera. That is how one builds a community that they not only desire, but need. IG won’t give that to you, simply because its aim is very different from yours. They are in the business of making money from exploiting your need to reach others.

False Horizons

I got an email the other day from someone asking how to keep their horizons straight. It might seem like a question that is quite easy to answer, or to fix, but I don’t think so.

Spirit levels may feel like they are the answer to this question, and although they are useful aids, particularly if one is dealing with a really bad ball head, or perhaps failing eye sight, they do not work all of the time.

I have found may scenes I wish to shoot cannot balance because the horizon line in the frame is actually a false one. Even if I were to balance the camera with gravity, the horizon line is not straight. The only way around this is to try to assess the horizon line against the edge of the frame of the camera. I tend to use the sides of the frame and evaluate the horizon line against. Even so, I still never get the horizon perfectly level. I do however, get closer to it.

But some scenes just have false horizons: the lake edge that rises in the frame as it recedes into the distance for instance. There is no fixing for this, and even if I were to get the edge of the lake level in the camera, everything else would be skewed.

reflections are vertical in this shot. But I shot the original image pointing up at the sky, so the reflections were converging. I had to use Photoshop’s Transform tool to correct them.

I do try to ‘see’, to acknowledge these issues whilst on location, but it is hard. I always tend to notice them once I’ve returned from a shoot.

If I were a digital shooter, I would be using live-view to help me assess the level of the picture. Crouching down and tilting one’s head sideways never works, so it is always best to evaluate your composition with your head level. You cannot balance anything if you are looking into the frame sideways.

For what it’s worth, I would try to stop relying on the built in spirit level of the camera, for one simple reason. While you are looking at the spirit level, you are no longer looking at the picture. The better practice in my view, is to look at the picture and try to relate it to the edges of the frame. You’ll be able to assess the balance more correctly because the balance of the scene is related to the placement of the subjects within it. In other words balancing a scene involves balancing the composition.

And once home, use the level tool in Lightroom or Photoshop to help you fine-tune it.

But please note that most pictures can only be balanced to a point. A compromise must be met between balancing a false horizon and the subjects within the picture. Balance the horizon and the trees now start to slope. Balance the trees and the horizon is lop sided. The solution is, if one is keen to keep the picture, is to try to see if having both slightly out may be enough of a compromise for the image to justify its existence, otherwise you should chalk it up to a learning experience to pay more attention to false horizons and how they interact with the subjects within your frame.

Also consider that there are inherent distortions when pointing the camera up / down that can cause trees and any other subject that is vertically upright to appear to be falling backwards. Pointing a camera down can cause tree reflections to fan out at an angle. These disturb and interfere with the balance of the composition and can also cause the scene to feel as though it is not level. The solution is to pay attention to the distortions and figure out if they are aiding or killing the balance of your scene. If they are, then a compromise is required: either don’t tilt so extreme, or perhaps think about investing in a tilt-shift lens. Using the lenses rise / fall movement will allow you to keep verticals straight, whilst still be able to look either up or down.

Leveling a picture it turns out, isn’t such a straightforward thing to do, and often requires us to practice visually checking if the verticals as well as the horizontals are going to disturb our perception of balance in the frame, and that takes plenty of practice and trial and error.