Making Room for wonder

I was initially attracted to photography by impressive images. Images that had strong contrasts, strong colours, and impressive dramatic scenery.

I think this is a rite of passage for most of us. We are initially drawn to the spectacular and It is only after some time, that I think we begin to appreciate the more nuanced, subtleties of low contrasts, muted colour palettes and simplification of subject matter.

 I’m often reminded of a quote:

 “Just because you can, doesn’t always mean you should”

Rather than seeking to make impressive images, I much prefer these days, to leave room for wonder. Space in the work, to be able to pause, rest the eye and find my own interpretation. I think overly impressive images tend to be deficient in this regard.

Their aim is to invade our senses. There is no gentle invitation to come to the work in my own time. And once there, staying with the work is equally hard, for what instantly appealed, soon evaporates.

 I have come to appreciate quieter imagery. Subtlety of tone, contrast and colour. Where fatigue is less likely to set in. It makes for a more comfortable viewing experience. And gives a sense of dynamics to the work, for you can only have intensity if there are quieter passages to compare against.

In my view, the subtlety of an edit, is the territory of the experienced photographer. For experience brings confidence. Confidence to avoid overcompensating. Confidence to know when enough is enough. Because good editing, can only be achieved if one’s abilities to ‘see’ have improved.

 No longer impressed by the overly bold, or the need to impress others, the confident and experienced eye seeks nuance in the work, because it knows, that this is where we make room for wonder.

My world of Photography & Music

If you are a regular reader and have been following me for some time, then you’ll know that I have origins in song writing. I’ve been a musician since I was 12. Untrained - something I regret a little as I wish I had some knowledge of musical theory.

I released a new piece of music this week with my friend Nigel Sleaford as vocalist.

To me, music and photography are one and the same.

I am preoccupied by tones, and separation. With photographs, getting all the components of the photograph to sit in their own tonal registers, and not clash is part of the composition process.

In music, composition is called ‘the arrangement’. The choice of instruments and their tonal responses is important. What they play and how they make room for each other is a vital part of the arrangement.

I have been thinking that I seem to spend most of my time in photography or music thinking about frequencies. Light (high frequencies) and dark (low frequencies), and how they interact.

The art of committing

There’s always a risk, that once we’ve found a good idea, if we modify or change it in some way, we may lose the essence of it. Unable to move forward, for fear of losing an initial idea in the pursuit of a greater one, the work halts and is left in limbo.

I used to be grateful for the undo option, as I could go back if I’d found I’d taken a wrong turn. Undo seems like a creative safety net. Freedom to take a chance, to see where the work may go, and if we make a mistake, we can always retract. It certainly has its uses.

But we must commit at some point. And I think there’s an art to doing so.

You see, I think it’s very hard to let go of work. And when we have an undo option, we can postpone finishing the work indefinitely. if we so choose. But we have a duty to clear the decks at some point. To close off work that has gone on for too long. So that we can make space for new work to enter our lives. And we must also learn that the creative process is made up of a series of commits, of decisions to get to the finishing line.

I don’t like having limitless options. I work better when I am forced to commit, knowing full well that I cannot go back. It’s taught me to trust myself more. It’s also taught me to go with the flow.

The creative process is much like a performance. You are running live and anything may happen. Unintended results can bring inspired consequences. Committing to something I did not intend, can be a real power move.

Commitment is now a welcome part of my tool set. A key skill.

It helps bring purpose and intent to the fore in my work. And if I’m uncertain, it allows me to draw a line under it, so that I can be free to move on.

Landscape Fluctuations & Photographer Variability

A curve, a line, gradated tones. That is ultimately what photographs are.

Photographs are also aesthetic signatures. Each of us has our own: the hues and contrasts that each of us is attracted to, or find pleasing are part of the personality of the work we produce. We all have our own signature.

I’ve often thought of my landscapes as teachers. It is why I return to some of them on a yearly basis. Because there is much still to do, much still to explore. And often some kind of progress, or development in any stylistic approach I’ve found.

2024 set

Two small portfolios. The above set shot in 2024. The set below shot in 2019.

To me, the 2019 set were working more with the lines and shapes of the lagoons. The 2024 set are slightly more abstract in nature and I am deliberately playing with the loss of information of dune slopes, so that some of the lagoons appear to be hanging in space. It feels like a refinement to me. The tones have been pushed out more. The lagoons are darker and the sand lighter. More graphic.

2019 set

And the set I produced in 2025 (below) are somewhat more a return to what I was shooting in 2019. More back to regular lagoon shapes. Less abstract compared to the 2024 set.

Partly this is because I think I just didn’t find the conditions lent themselves to going more graphic on the work, but mostly I think because I just didn’t feel that I wanted to go so graphic on the set.

I’ve noticed that around 2024, the work I was producing was becoming very minimalistic and more graphic. I really like the work from this year, and somehow, through no direction of my own, the graphic sensibilities eased off. It’s as though I got tired of pushing things too graphic. But I think it’s simply more that creativity tends to ebb and flow. One year I may go super graphic with the work. Another year I may find less so.

2025 set

Irrespective of whether these sets are better than the other - I much prefer to consider that they are the result of light / landscape and photographer variances. I tend to be variable :-)

But it does illustrate that returning to the same landscape to make pictures each year, often does not result in making the exact same set as before. Or that there will be a mood or difference in what you get based on your own mental state and what the landscape is providing.

That is why I always enjoy returning to and repeating landscapes. They get under my skin and I know that it is impossible to repeat what I did before - even if I tried. And always impossible to go back to ‘capture what I missed last time’.

Instant devaluation

Good ideas are not so common. But they do happen once in a while for most of us. Whereas, unique and exceptional ideas are extremely rare and may never happen for most of us. Ever.

Great ideas tend to get copied. Emulated. Used as ‘inspiration’. They tend to get replicated to the point that they become a trope. Perhaps even a cliché. So common in fact, that their importance of just how rare they were when they were created is soon lost.

In photographic terms one may hear the devaluation of a great idea executed by someone using the following statement:

“it’s quite obvious when you go there”.

For what is often lost, is context. The contrast of what the world was like before the original idea came into existence. For it is impossible to go and copy something if it does not already exist. And even harder to create an original idea out of thin air.

I always think that great ideas always lose their value once published. Humans copy. It is what we do. Trends are in essence, folks all buying into the same idea. That’s what Fashion is. Mass acceptance of something.

Great photographs are inevitaby devalued. Partly because newer and fresher things are derived from them. Nothing is ever truly original and in the process of emulating and replicating other peoples ideas adaptions and mutations of the original idea will come into existence.

But also, great photographs are devalued quite simply because it is often very hard to grasp just how hard it was to create the original idea. For once it is there, we have hindsight. And hindsight always affects our judgement.

It really doesn’t matter if you do create unique or great work. Chances are, you will be instantly forgotten in the sea of copyists who want to go and make similar images as you. That is just the way it is. Give birth to an idea and it is yours if you do not publish. But once you do publish, then your idea is no longer your own. The audit trail of who found the composition and how ground breaking you may have been in capturing it is soon lost.

Reigniting an old project

This week I’ve had to go back through my images over the past while, to look for those that may have directional light in them. As I’ve returned to an old project where the sun direction is important. More on this later, once I know things are beginning to firm up.

That aside, I was surprised to find out how many images I have where the sun seems to play an important role.

I was very much under the impression that I only ever shoot in soft light, and that I always avoid directional light. But that seems to not be the case.

Have you ever had a look at your own work, to see how many of your images tend to be shot on overcast days? Or when the light is very directional? It can be very informative to do so.

Outshining everything else

I went to see a Turner painting in Edinburgh (my home town) today. It is beautiful. No getting around that. But what struck me the most was that it outshone every other painting near it.

I was stuck by thinking how modern it must have looked at the time of its creation. I love when that happens: getting context is very important.

But even now, the Turner painting felt like it was from the future, or at the very least, contemporary. It was for me, more about the extreme brightness of tone, the subtlety of colour.

Why film is more detailed than digital capture?

An interesting analysis of film with an electron microscope. I enjoyed this very informative video. Very much worth a watch.

Lasting Imagery

Next year I will be 60. I am trying to reconcile where all the time has gone. I am starting to realise that my plan to ‘grow up’ at some point, may never actually happen (perhaps more to my delighted surprise than anything).

Each summer I like to take some time off from my workshop and tour schedule. I’ve been at home now for 3 months without needing to get on a plane or wake up at 5am. It’s good for me to do this each summer. Cut the travel right back, stay at home, and work on other things. Which is what I have done.

Print by Jerzy Jędrysiak, I picked up in my 20’s in Prague or Krakow, while travelling around Europe by train.

But while I have been spending a lot more time at home, I started to realise that my home has so many art pieces in it. On the photography front I have a Michael Kenna original, two John Blakemore originals of his kitchen Tulip studies, and also a lovely Charlie Cramer print that I bought directly from him.

It dawned on me that I have this print I bought in Krakow or Prague back in around 1994. Time and memory have made it difficult for me to remember which city. All I know is that it is one or the other - if you know the artists - I would love to know. I’ve had it in a very cheap frame since I bought it whilst inter-railing when I was 26.

What dawned on me was that in the last 32 years - I have never tired of it.

I still love it, just as much as the time I saw it hanging in a shop near the centre of either Prague or Krakow.

It took me a few weeks to realise that I should finally get around to getting a frame for it, that I think it deserves.

At the framers

I got a beautiful frame made for a watercolour I love of a mountain in Scotland - Suilven, by the Scottish painter John Bellany. It is a family airloom as John was my uncle. It is a much treasured painting and I got it beautifully framed several years ago. And so, I have opted to get my Krakow print framed the same way.

Here is the frame painting by my uncle John:

Suilven by John Bellany

Somehow, since taking my 32 year old print to the framers to get framed up in a more professional frame, I am feeling as if some kind of wrong has been rightened.

I think there is a mixture of emotions going on for me here. Firstly, I am lamenting being older. I wish I was 26 again. Secondly, I am now recognising that the art that I’ve lived with for 32 years has never tired on me. Third, I am realising that the print has history for me. Fourth: I have never fully respected how important it is to me. I’ve had it in the cheapest frame I could buy since my 20’s.

Little did I know back in 1994 I was buying a print that would accompany me through most of my life.

And yet, here it is.

Begging for a better frame. Because the one that it has lived in for 32 years was always an afterthought.

I’ve come to realise that this print is quite important to me. It’s been here for most of my adult life, and in a way, deserves to be presented to its full potential. Rather than being stuck in a cheap frame that I had always assumed ‘will do’.

And this whole episode has got me thinking.

At some point, we have to come clean about our relationship to the art we have around us.

It is either convenience fodder, or it has great meaning. There is no in-between. We either respect it for what it means to us. Or we don’t.

And I think something changed for me this week. I realised that this print was very important to me, and yet this was not reflected in how I was treating it. I needed to get it framed properly. Because a well framed image is able to show us its full potential. Anything less is really holding it back from us enjoying it to it’s full potential.

One way of making a commitment, a statement to the work being indispensable, is to get it framed professionally. Because once you do that, you acknowledge, in concrete terms, that the work is means more to you than you could possibly explain.

—

Postscript: the image is by Polish artist Jerzy Jędrysiak. I used Google Lens tonight to find out who the artist is. So I had bought this image in Krakow, not Prague.

The idea dictates everything

Is a pretty good mantra, for your creative decisions.

Rather than thinking there must be a specific way to do something, or that there are confines and rules to the creative process, the real issue is whether you have an idea to begin with.

No idea, then you will be stumbling around. That can be ok for a while. I will sometimes find I just need to ‘start’ with no idea and see if an idea will come.

But once you have an idea, then that should dictate everything that you do.