A crisis of abundance

When I started out making pictures a few decades ago, there was little thought on my part about how I would live with the work as time went on. I think that for many of us, the pursuit of the image is what consumes most of our time when we first start out.

It is only now several decades later, that I am aware of the mass of work I have created over many years. Not all of it is consistent and I've come to realise that although there are images which have stayed strong for me, some of it I am now embarrassed by. It seems that the passing of time invites objectivity.

There is clearly a skill to be mastered as one learns to live with their older work.

As part of my preparation for an exhibition I am doing this summer, I've been revisiting some of my older work and also reconsidering many of my more resent images. I've been thinking about how I should approach looking back at what I've done while also remaining in the present moment. I've also been asking myself the question 'how should I look towards the future without being tied down by what has gone before?' Because I do think that any body of work that has been amassed over time can become a weight, a burden to shoulder.

Learning to let go of who we were, of what we were trying to do, and what the work represented, is I feel,  the best way to go about moving forward. If I am able to also accept that the work itself is more a document of a moment, and does not strictly represent who I may be right now, then that allows me the freedom to grow.

It also allows me to view the work as open to re-interpretation. Why should work be cast in stone, to be one way just because that is how I felt at the time I first created it?

The nub of living a creative life, as I see it, is to recognise that the only thing that is constant in our lives is impermanence. The way we see the world now, and the way the world is, is always changing and just because we said or felt or believed something one day, does not imply that it is still true another day. We are entitled to change and in fact we are always changing.

By accepting that things come and they go, gives me great comfort to understand that what I do, is just a transient expression of who I was at a moment in time. Sometimes these expressions (images) become part of me - works that I am immensely proud of, and sometimes they are works that lose appeal over time. I do not judge myself harshly for what I have done, because that would lead to trying to obtain unreachable goals. By accepting that I am changing and that my work may vary in quality and quantity over time, allows me freedom to continue. The way I see it, it's the only way to prevent my older work (my history) from having more prominence than it should.

Seeking Balance

We are always striving for balance in our photography. We look for it when we are working with tones, when we are composing and also, in how much time we spend on our craft. I know only too well that sometimes spending too much time on what I do can create an imbalance.

As photographers we are drawn to our passion because deep down we are seeking to find a balance between light and shade. Light and share are our Yin and Yang.

Ataranga Hanga Piko Riata, Easter Island
Image © Bruce Percy 2016

The process of seeking balance is important even though I believe the goal of reaching it is not. It is important because it is the mechanism that allows us to create new work. Without this 'seeking' we would become static and nothing would be produced by us. It is also an impossible thing to achieve because life is fluid and when things are always in a state of change, balance is difficult to keep.

Instead, I see 'seeking balance'  as a journey that allows me to explore and create work along the way. It is in moving and changing between states where our creativity flourishes.

Volcanic fault line, Tongariki, Easter Island
Image © Bruce Percy 2016

So I think it's healthy to find there is an ebb and flow in one's work. I have moments when I produce very little and then times when I am very creative.

In considering how seeking balance affects my work, I'm aware that recently I've been moving towards a more monochromatic, less saturated look. But sometimes the work does not suit it and I return once more back to more vivid colours. One could argue that this is me seeking balance in the colour aspects of my work.

I've also become aware that sometimes my images are heading towards brighter tonal ranges and then back towards darker tonal ranges. One could also argue that this is me seeking balance in the tonal aspects of my work.

I've come to realise that this moving and shifting is as if I'm flexing some tonal muscle, getting used to a new range of tones that I've not worked with before.

Image © Bruce Percy 2016

I believe that we are always hunting, searching, looking for balance in what we do. Yet seeking balance is not about attaining it, It is really more about the movement from one state to another and how new work comes into being through the changes in us.

Just as Yin cannot exist without Yang, and darkness cannot exist without light, creativity cannot happen without a need to seek balance. Once we understand that the act of seeking balance in our work is really a journey, and not a struggle to overcome our limitations, then we become free as creative people to see where it may lead us.

the recounting of an experience

For a long while earlier this year I felt as though winter would never end.

Now it feels like a distant memory.

I've just been browsing through my images from the island of Senja. It's the first time I've done this since I finished work on the edits back in March this year. You see, I don't often look at my own work once it's done.

But today I received a print order for one of my Senja images, and one thing has led to another and I've just spent the past twenty minutes browsing through the images I created back in February of this year.

When I look back at the images from a shoot, I often find my mind is filled with the same sensory feelings I had at the time I was there. It's like I've just been transported back to the shoot and I'm reliving everything I felt whilst there, and who I was at that moment in time.

I can recall the quality of the light throughout the day while I was on the island of Senja, and how it never really ever got very bright for most of the week. While I was there I was living in a perpetual semi-winter-darkness of muted tones and almost no colour. My energy levels were sluggish as I was still feeling the effects of the short days and lack of sunlight that winter often provides.

I think that's one thing that is very powerful about our own imagery. Because the images are ours, we have the ability through them, to be transported back to a place and time as if it was just a recent event in our lives. This is a highly personal experience as our images don't have the same effect on others. The impressions they give us are ours and ours alone.

I find any personal feelings tend to diminish the more frequently I visit my images. If I look at them too much, the impression of the shoot and my time whilst there gets lost in the new imprinting of current experience,  of where I am now, and of who I am at the moment of the current viewing. And the more I do this, the more the images become so familiar that they trigger almost no memory of past events at all. I  become numb to them.

Like a piece of music from our past that is played on the radio, the music has power to take us back to another time. I think with images we've made, the same is true. I just don't wish to view them too often, otherwise I worry that any emotions and memories associated with them will soon become blurred at best, or at worst, lost to me forever.

Do you desaturate outside of your comfort zone?

We also have our comfort zones when it comes to colour and contrasts. As a beginner I was always reaching for the high-contrast option, the deep blacks and bolder colours that I could get from my Velvia films and from the available light in the landscape.

But our world does not just have one face. It has many faces and many colours, tones, contrasts, and all of it is worthy of being utilised in our photography. I think moving into new regions, using softer tones and more subtle colour palettes takes time though. Again, like a child building a vocabulary of words, we too have to build up a vocabulary of light qualities and colour responses that we know will work in our imagery.

Desaturated (compare to the originals below).

Our comfort zones often mean we have a tendency to push for the dramatic and bold. Not just in our photography, but in most things in life:

Q1. Does the bass and treble on the hi-fi system have to always be boosted?

Q2. Does the food always need to have salt and sugar added to it?

Q3. Do we always have to search out dramatic sunsets?

Q4. Do the Photoshop / Lightroom sliders always have to go up rather than down?

Can't there be enjoyment in the subtle as well as the dramatic? Do you even allow it in your work? Or are you always striving to make things shout out more to the viewer?

Going the other way leads you into new territory where there is another beauty, another enjoyment.

A1. Turning the Bass down on your hi-fi allows the mid-range to have more clarity.

A2. Cutting back on the sugar and salt in your food allows the natural flavours to surface.

A3. Shooting in more muted light brings you to new colour palettes, softer tones and new moods in your work.

A4. Moving the Photoshop / Lightroom Sliders to reduce things rather than boost them bring you to new colour palettes, softer tones and new moods in your work.

We often hang on to stronger tones and colour more through habit than an appreciation for them.

The originals before I desaturated them. We often hang on to stronger tones and colour. It's a habit, more than an appreciation for stronger colours and harder contrasts.

Where do your comfort zones currently sit? Are you often trying to push the dramatic aspect of your work or do you also play with the more subtle, softer aspects of our world? I ask this in all seriousness because photographs aren't just about great placement of objects to make good compositions. Good compositions aren't just about objects, but often about the interplay between colour, contrast and luminance.

We have so many comfort zones in what we do, and knowing where you are with that, indeed who you are, is key to growing as a photographer.

Using tones outside of your comfort zone

When we edit our work, I think it's very easy to sit within a confined range of known and often used tones. We have what I would describe as a tone comfort-zone, one which we have settled into and tend to apply to most of our work.

Part of this is due to visual awareness issues, of not really thinking about luminance in the first place. We think of our images more in terms of scenery - mountains, rivers, grass, rocks, whatever. But we haven't passed this early stage and moved on to thinking about these subjects less as what they are, but what they provide in terms of luminance and other tonal qualities.

Indeed, our edits can be rather narrow in their tonal range, just like our vocabulary is narrow when we first learn to speak. We have to move outside of our comfort zone at some point, but this can be difficult if we're not really aware of what's out there and how luminance levels in the far brighter and darker regions of our images may serve us.

One technique I use is to push the luminance to extremes and then reign it back until I think it looks good. It's well known that if you move something to where you think it should be and compare that to where you would have ended up if you pushed it well beyond where you think it should be and move it back, your initial judgement will have been conservative. In other words, by really going over the score and then moving it back to where you think it should be, you'll find you've pushed the boundaries in your edits.

We all have our visual comfort zones and it's good to try to move beyond them. The only way to do that is to exercise your visual awareness by placing yourself at the extremes well outside the normal parameters that you reside, and see how the new terrain fits.

Our visual sense needs to be exercised for us to learn to truly see what is possible, and this is one such way to do it.

New Atacama images

I have a backlog of so many images from my travels over the past few years and I've become aware that there really has to be the right time to work on them.

Rather than fret and put pressure on myself to work through that backlog,  I should just work on what I feel inspired by and leave those other images for another time. But the backlog 'does' need to be cleared, otherwise a 'creative blockage' - builds up in one's mind, which isn't a good thing.

One of the difficulties for me, is that I need space and time away from what I do, so I can approach the work with a sense of enthusiasm and objectivity. If you travel a lot like I do, and there isn't a lot of space in your schedule, then it can be hard to find your mojo.

Balance is key to everything we do in life. Too much of one thing and it starts to suffer. These days my photography is no longer my hobby. I have had to choose other activities so I have time away from what I do. So this summer I've spent a bit of time cycle touring and long-distance racing around the north of Scotland.

I mention all of this, because I simply cannot come home and delve right into editing work straight away. Apart from requiring some distance to maintain a sense of objectivity from the shoot, by the time I've spent over a month somewhere, I'm a bit saturated. The enthusiasm is starting to wane simply because I need some balance in my life.

Regarding the editing of this new Atacama work, I had a few false starts trying to begin work on them. When I've not given myself enough time to recharge - I can view things rather negatively. If i'm not in the right frame of mind, it's easy for me assume the images I've shot are no good.

It's hard to gain inspiration in something if you're needing some time away from it.

So this is one of the reasons why I have a backlog of images from the past few years. I just haven't found the right time and place to edit them. To ease the burden of feeling there is so much of a backlog, I've given myself complete permission to have that backlog. I've also made it clear to myself that it's ok not to work on stuff when I don't want to.

This self-acknowledgement has helped tremendously in dealing with the work. I've found as a result, that the work doesn't get left behind. The fear of neglect has gone, and a new way of working has surfaced. It is not unusual for me to delay working on images for up to a year or more now. I like to think the gestation period gives me time to consider and approach the work the right way.

This collection of Altiplano images had a few false starts. I was letting self pressure get in the way. So I backed off from it all and chose to do other things.

Then one morning, with no intention to begin work on them, I found that things just started to click. There was positive flow. As a result I never made it out of the house for the next 24 hours. I immersed myself in the flow of creativity I found myself in and above all enjoyed the process.

Shedding Old-Skin

"We need space in our creative endeavours,
just as much as we need space in our photographs"

Often, I feel too much emphasis is placed upon the creation of work. But I think as artists, our non-creative time is just as important. We need to understand and most importantly, respect that periods of inactivity are just as healthy as periods of activity are. They give us a much needed pause in our creative lives to reflect and grow.

Moonfall, Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia. Image © Bruce Percy

Creative drought is often viewed upon negatively. There is a fear that since we cannot find any inspiration to create, or cannot create at will, that perhaps the creative well is dry for good. Our thoughts go along the lines os 'I shall never be able to create anything ever again!'

I think we should look more positively at these periods of inactivity and recognise that as with any creative endeavour, there is always going to be an ebb and flow to what we do. A yin and yang. To create, we must have periods where we do not.

I see these moments of inactivity as a rest, a pause in the music of our creativity. But there is more than just this, I've often found these periods to be the precursor to some new growth in my artistry.  What I had thought may be the dwindling of my creative force, turned out to be the beginning of a new direction, or the reinforcement of a style in my work. The shedding of old skin.

If you are currently experiencing some creative drought - a bare patch in your creativity, I would suggest you accept it and let it ride itself out. Take your foot of the gas and wait.

Just as when we have a pressing issue that we do not have the answer to, I've often found that given some time away from it, the answer will come. As my dad has often said to me when I was trying too hard to get something to work: "best give it a rest for a while and when you do come back to it, you'll see it in a new light".

To label ourselves, may be limiting

This week I received an e-mail from a good friend of mine who at the age of 46 has discovered that she's got a talent for drawing and painting. She said that she had always assumed she was a musician and it's been a bit of a surprise to her to find out that she has this other talent for drawing and painting as well.

Blue Pond Shirogane, Hokkaido, Image © Bruce Percy 2015

The same thing is true of myself. For most of my early adult life, Music was everything to me. I played in bands, wrote music and worked with others at creating songs. I was so serious about what I did that I'd even been offered a publishing deal at one stage. I built a home studio to record all my music and if anyone had asked me up until the age of 33 how I would define myself, I would have said that I was a musician.

Until I reached burn out.

The interesting thing is that everyone else around me was always commenting on my photographs. "Bruce writes music, but you should really see his photographs". I took photography as a very incidental interest - I had owned a camera since the age of 22 and would make the occasional decent photo without really understanding how.

This was more a mind-set than anything to do with my true leanings. I had chosen to see myself as a musician and every other creative outlet was simply just for fun, and into that fun-category, I'd placed my photography.

Things keep changing, and I keep finding out new things about myself through my art.

Even though my friends could see that I had an aptitude for photography, I could not. I was blind to my own possibilities.

I genuinely believe that if something is right for you - it has a tendency to grow and take on a life of its own. I call it 'positive flow'. When I'm creating work, the best images tend to just come easily. Similarly, with anything in life, if it's right - it tends to have a natural flow to it. When it's not right because maybe the timing is wrong, or 'something' is wrong, it tends to jam, to get stuck. Good artists, I feel, know this. They have a natural intuition that tells them where to go with their work and how best to keep moving forward. It took me a long while to listen to that intuition.

Sometimes who we think we are, or how we see ourselves, may be outdated, Applying labels to ourselves can be limiting, while compartmentalising what we do as creative individuals is perhaps the most restrictive thing we can do.

These days, I try to keep things open. I prefer to see myself as a 'creative person' rather than as a photographer, because It allows my creativity to go wherever it feels it wants to.

With this in mind, I feel I am ready to embrace any new direction that I may go, because I understand that not to, would be a great disservice to my true self.

When you think you're just about lost - you're probably nearly there

Last week I posted this article about keeping objectivity in what we do.  As a response to my post, I received a few emails from readers who were preoccupied with a more fundamental aspect of their creativity: that of knowing whether any of what they do is any good. The nature of the questions I received were more along the lines of 'what if you think all of your work isn't any good?' or 'how do I know when I should give up on something?'.

I came here on a hunch. I had no guarantee's that anything I would shoot in the Puna regions would be any good. I also found that the majority of what I did shoot wasn't any good. The final portfolio on this site is only a tiny fraction of what I did shoot, and it took me a while to see there was still something of value - because upon first review, I had assumed I'd gotten nothing.

No one is alone in feeling that their work sucks from time to time. I fully sympathise with these feelings because I get them just like everybody else does. In fact, I think it is part of the natural process of being a creative person to have doubts and feelings of dissatisfaction about what you do from time to time.

There are often spells in my own creativity when things don't happen, or that I am dissatisfied with the results. But the thing is: I understand that I am at the mercy of my own creativity. I can't control it, and I just have to accept that sometimes I am going to suck. I've just over the years realised that it's ok to suck.

I've been a creative person all of my life: whether it was drawing and painting as a kid, music composition during my teenage years and 20's, and photography since my 30's, to know that creativity has an ebb and flow to it. I can't control it. So it's best to ride it out. 

Besides, sometimes when I find the work is not going the way I wish it to, it's usually because of a change within me. Sometimes the reason why new images don't seem to work is because I'm on the cusp of something new. Other times it's just because I'm tired, or maybe needing a rest and it's time to do something else for a while.

Besides, if we created wonderful work all the time, then it would simply become our new 'average'. So I think it is natural to have this 'tug' of balancing one's own aspirations against one's own abilities.

Growth can often be painful.

If you feel your work isn't up to the standards you'd like it to be, the best bit of advice I can give you is to get it out of your system so you can move on. Everything we do is a stepping-stone - a mark in time. If you keep working endlessly on something that isn't working, then you are stuck. So best just produce it, even if the experience wasn't a good one, and move on.

I think creativity is all about letting go. It is about giving yourself permission to make mistakes and it is about deliberately getting lost. For being lost, means that you are somewhere new in your work, which is often an opportunity to learn.

Creativity is not about controlling the entire process and neither is it about knowing where you are all the time. If you want a guarantee about what you are doing, then creativity is not for you.

Each time I pick up my camera, I have no idea whether the results will be successful. So when I do start out looking for new images, I do so with an openness to failing. I fully accept that some of my images will be better than others, and because of this, I avoid giving myself a hard time about it.

So be kind to your creativity. When you feel it isn't working, best give it a rest and do something else for a while. The inspiration will return.

And also remember, that when you think you're lost with what you are doing, you're probably nearly there :-)

Valle de Daliì

This week I've been working on the images I shot in Bolivia this summer.

I have a lot to say on the matter, but right now, thought I would share these images with you today. They were made in the Dalì desert - it's not a region you can get to in 4WD as it is now off-limits, to protect the region from car tracks messing it up. This means that you have to walk uphill for 2 hours from the roadside and because the altitude is around 4,000 metres - isn't easy going due to the lack of air.

My guide and myself started to walk into the Dalì region at around 2pm and didn't get into the area until just after 4:30pm. On my walk, I noticed that the sand colour would abruptly change from light tones to dark tones, and indeed, you can see some evidence of this feature in the pictures above - what might look like shadows on the surface of the desert floor is actually the variance in tone from one sand texture to another. 

The rock formations here are spread out over such a large distance, that its impossible to visit them all, so I really just had to opt for one location and stay there for the evening shoot. And what light / cloud formations we had. As much as I try not to pre-visualise a shoot before visiting a place, I had seen the Dalì stones from the side of the road and it had been a place i'd had in my mind's eye for some time. I often find that when I go back to somewhere I know well, I have a 'list' of things I would like to capture. You see, the first visit to any place often feels like you skim off the really obvious places, and each subsequent visit requires more effort, or you start to visit places that are more off the beaten track. That's exactly what I'd hoped for during my private time in Bolivia this year.

It has to be said that it is also the hardest place to 'be'. Photography wise it is quite easy because each morning and evening the light is often superb, but in terms of what the environment is doing to you - it's tough.

I found over the two weeks that I was living up at high elevation (3,600m to 4,800m), my lips got chapped, the skin on my hands started to blister from the overall dryness of the place and dust was never to far away from me most of the time. The temperatures range from -17ºc in the morning to 20ºC in the sun during the day (but the wind is always present and it feels much colder). The UV light is hard on your skin and your eyes, plus, each time you step into the shade, the temperature plummets.

But what a landscape. It is the place I'm most interested in and inspired in right now with my own photography.