Your own voice

 This week I was interviewed by the UK photographic magazine 'Black & White Photography'. It was interesting to find out that they were particularly interested in my isle of Harris photos below. 

During my chat with Mark Bentley, we got on to the subject of style and that of finding your own voice.

Isle of Harris images as requested by the Uk magazine 'Black & White Photography'. I'm always surprised by the choices others make when choosing which images of mine to use for publication.

I've learned that I can't guess how some of my images will be received, and I never hear the same things about them. This has taught me that I just need to listen and trust my own intuition first and foremost. I can't anticipate what others will like or dislike about my work, and the only person I need to satisfy is myself.

I've worked with many participants through the years on my workshops here in Scotland. The subject of finding a style is never far away from our daily critique sessions, so it's only natural that I should have formed some views on this.

To my mind, a voice is a unique thing. to be recognised, you need to stand out from everyone else in some way. So I think the main characteristic of those who create very personal work is that they have a deep trust in themselves to be independent and do their own thing.

Anyone who does something unique does so,  because they do not to pander to trends or others opinions. Take it from me: I hear opinions about my work from others all the time and there is so much variety in what others tell me, that I've come to the conclusion that if I tried to follow it - I'd get lost pretty quickly. Instead, what I choose to do (note that I'm the one choosing what to do here) - is listen to the stuff that makes sense or enlightens me in some way.  The rest - the stuff that I feel doesn't make sense or can't see any value in, I just take as someone else's opinion. Interestingly, I find that most of the time, others opinions usually tell me more about them, than me.

No one else can live my life or make my creative decisions for me. The only person who knows where I want to go with my photography is ultimately me. I can glean some advice from others but in general, the impetus to do anything in my work has to come from within. 

So here are my thoughts on finding your own voice.

• Your own voice, is something you find when you go it alone.
• Your own voice, is something that only you can find.
• Your own voice, is something that comes through a process of self enquiry.
• Your own voice, is something that becomes apparent over time.
• Your own voice, is something that comes to you when you listen and observe the changes within you.
• Your own voice, can't be found by being part of the derivative. Follow others and you quickly get lost in a sea of ubiquity.
• Your own voice, is something that happens when you are free of current trends.
• Your own voice, is something that comes when you don't try to please others.
• Your own voice, is something that comes when you are free of expectations.
• Your own voice, is something that comes when you are free of ego.
• Your own voice, is something that comes when you know yourself (i.e your capabilities and limitations).
• Your own voice, comes when you stop copying your influences. Embrace your influences and use them as the basis for where you start, but don't get tied to them.
• Your own voice, comes when you do your art for you and you alone.

In a nutshell, you need to have the courage to follow your own path, and above all, believe in yourself.

The memory of a colour

While I was in the Fjallabak region of the central highlands of Iceland this September, I encountered a number of vast black deserts. I've been in vast landscapes of nothingness before, such as the Salar de Uyuni salt flats of the Bolivian altiplano, and also the pampas of Patagonia.

These places are captivating endless nothingnesses that make the eye hunt and hunt for something to latch onto. At least, that's what I think happens when humans encounter something so vast and featureless.

One of the many black deserts of the central highlands of Iceland. Black can come in many shades and hues, as I discovered.

This was nothing new for me. But what was new for me, was that I discovered that black isn't really just black. There are many different types of black desert to be found in Iceland. One of them - near the volcano Hekla, is so jet-black (it feels as if nothing can escape it's pull) that you realise every other black desert you've witnessed has to a large degree - some kind of colour to it.

There's a lot of psychology at play when it comes to interpreting colour.

Bruce Frazer's excellent book on colour management. Every photographer should read this.

For instance, I've been reading Bruce Frazer's fantastic book 'Real World Colour Management', and in it he describes the psychological factors involved in how we interpret colour. Colour is as he describes it 'an event'. It is light being reflected off a subject and viewed by an observer.

We have what he describes 'memory colour'. For instance, we know what skin tone looks like, and we all know the kind of blue a blue sky should be. We know 'from memory' how these colours should be. There are psychological expectations that certain colours should be certain colours. 

I think this applies to how I perceived the black deserts of Iceland. If i say a desert is black, we think of it as jet-black, even though it might be a deep, muddy brown-black, or a deep muddy purple-black.

I think most of the time, many of us simply go around looking at colour but not 'seeing it'. We use memory colours all the time with little thought to what the real colour of an object might be.

For example, last year during a workshop, my group and I were all working in very pink light during sunrise. Knowing that the entire landscape was bathed in a pink light, and that many of us don't notice the colour cast so obviously, I asked my group individually what colour the clouds were. Half of the group correctly said that the clouds were pink, while the other half incorrectly said that they were white. My feeling on this matter is that those who said the clouds were white - were attaching a memory of what they think clouds should look like. They were, in other words, not really noticing the colour of the object at all, but just attaching a common belief that clouds are white. This is a good example of memory colour.

But let's go one stage further. This might actually not be colour-memory at play though. It could simply be our internal auto-white-balance working. It's known that the human visual system is very good at adapting to different hues of white light. If we are in twilight, we may not see the blue colour temperature of the light on the landscape (but we sure would notice it's twilight if we take a photo on a digital camera and look at the histogram - there will predominantly be a lot of information in the blue channel, and very little in the red and green channels). Likewise, if we are sitting in tungsten light at home, our visual system adapts and tunes out the 3000k warm hue that we're being bathed in.

I think I was applying 'colour memory' to the black deserts of Iceland - I wasn't aware of the subtle differences in hues between one black desert and the other, because I had just attached a memory of what I know black should be (all blacks are black right?).

Being aware of the subtle differences in colour is hard work, because our visual system has evolved to adapt to whatever context we exist in. If we are sitting in pink sunrise light, we tune it out. If we do detect any pink at all,  it's in the more obvious region of the sky where the sun is. That's why most amateur photographers point their cameras towards the sun at sunrise (I tend to point 180º the other way, because I know the pink light is everywhere, and the tones are softer and much easier to record).

If I see clouds, I assume they are white because my visual system has its own auto-white balance. If I see skin tones, I use colour-memory to assume all skin tones to be the same, regardless of what kind of light the person is being bathed in. For example, if someone is standing underneath a green tree, there will be a degree of green-ness to their skin tone which I won't see, because of colour memory.

We lie to ourselves all the time, but our camera doesnt. It tell's it like it is, and I think this is the nub of todays post: being a good photographer is about being as colour-aware as we can be.

This is not an easy thing to do, because we are hijacked by our own evolution: our visual system tunes out colour casts all the time, and we also apply colour memory to familiar objects. We expect certain things to have certain colours, and as a result, we tend to ignore the subtle difference that the colour temperature of the light we're working in can have.

As I keep saying to myself as I work on my new images from Iceland "Not all black deserts are black".

The Art of Being Quiet

I've been wanting to say for a while now, that I'm sure some of you may have noticed that my blogging activity isn't as frequent as it used to be. Through working a lot on my tours and workshops, things have gotten very busy for me. I find that I need  to get time away from my business, as well as time alone each year to find my own inspiration. There is only so much that you can give before you start feeling that you need to keep something back for yourself.

Space in a photograph conveys silence and silence can often be beautiful.

So I'd much rather write on this blog when I feel I have something of merit to say, and when I feel recharged enough to say it.

If I think about some of my most favourite pieces of music, they often contain moments of silence. Silence is a creative way of conveying calmness, or pause for thought. In photography, space in an image conveys a sense of calmness or silence and I find silence in photographs very moving. 

I'm aware that there is a trend to blog and facebook/tweet your every waking thought, but I find very little beauty in doing that. I don't wish to bombard you with noise, because sometimes that's all I may have to offer you.

Besides isn't there an ugliness in this kind of constant intrusion? And a beauty in silence?

Sensory Numbness?

I'm on the isle of Jura on the west coast of Scotland this week for some private time away from running my workshop business.

It's so quiet that we've been discussing how just the little noises seem to be the main background soundtrack to life here. For instance, the water in the nearby stream and the wind rustling through the leaves of the trees and of course the bird song, are our new audio backdrop.

And this has got me thinking about a time I used to visit my dad, when he lived on the isle of Seal (an even smaller, quieter Scottish island). Where he lived, there was no city-noise - no noise pollution to speak of. When things get so quiet, you tend to notice the smaller sounds.

I remember one night hearing a car which sounded like it was maybe just outside the house. My dad told me it was perhaps a mile or so away and this made me realise that in towns, the background-noise levels are so high, that I've gotten so used to filtering it out, to not pay attention to it.

The same can be said about light. At my dad's house, with no street lights - it was so dark outside -  that I couldn't see two feet in front of me. I had to go back to his house to get a torch so I could go and fetch something from my car just outside. Another time I was visiting, the moon lit up the landscape for miles and I could see without any need for a torch.

I think that when we live in cities, we are bombarded by light and sound pollution. So much so, that we spend most of our time filtering it out. We learn to become sensory-numb to our surroundings, otherwise it's simply too much to handle.

In landscape photography, having a keen sense of visual awareness can help improve our compositions. I've noticed over the years of running workshops that many participants tell me it takes them a day or two to get into the mode of 'seeing'. I'm wondering if it's because we have taught ourselves to filter things out whilst living in cities and when we venture into nature, we have to reverse that, and pay attention to even the smallest visual detail. This takes a lot of effort and 're-learning'.

While I was running a workshop on Eigg, we had the sun rising behind us. Everyone wanted to go that direction (I personally hate shooting into the sun or towards a sunrise or sunset), but I maintained that we stay where we were, as during sunrise and sunset, the colour temperature all over the sky is really beautiful - not just in the direction of where the sun is. My reason for staying where we were was because the tones are easier to shoot at 180 degrees to the sun.

I think it's very easy to latch on to the obvious blazing sunrise or sunset colours, and to believe that the colours are only evident in the direction where the sun is, but if we take time to consider the softer tones around the entire sky, we can see that they are evident everywhere. Only we tend to filter them out. I think this is a case in point of us looking but not 'seeing'. In other words, we are filtering out qualities in the landscape because they are too subtle for our overly de-sensitised nervous system.

Before I finish this post today, I'll tell you one more account. Last year while running a workshop on the same island, we were looking at the clouds being lit up by the sunrise and I asked each member of my party what colour the clouds were. Half of them stated that the clouds were grey while the other half correctly stated that the clouds had a magenta colour to them. It's interesting to see that some of us have to work hard to notice the subtle differences in tone and colour around us.

In our everyday encounters, we are very seldom asked to consider colours, or subtleties of tone. I think this is perhaps why many of us love photography in the first place - because it allows us the luxury to spend time thinking about aspects of the world around us that we rarely get a chance to enjoy.

Being a good photographer has always been about 'seeing', not just looking. I wonder if our city environments are teaching us bad habits by encouraging us to adopt a level of sensory numbness?

When impressions don't match results

When I'm out making images, I have to trust my intuition - it's part of being a film shooter - I can't see what it is I've captured until the films are processed much later. I would say though, that after shooting film for over 20 years now, that I feel I've got a fairly good grasp on how well things are going at the time of capture.

But there have been a number of occasions of late, where I feel that what I created, once home, and reviewing the transparencies, did not equal what I thought I was achieving at the time. In some instances, the final images have surpassed what I felt I captured. This was evident last summer when I visited Iceland. I had a terrible head cold and felt that the entire shoot was a disaster. So much so, that I came home early, feeling very despondent and assured that the whole shoot had been a disaster.

When they returned, and I finished work on them, I discovered I had this collection of imagery:

I was a little overwhelmed at just how well the final images turned out, and in particular, how the images are perhaps some of my personal best work, despite my belief at the time that things weren't working for me whilst on location.

I'm curious as to just what it was, that helped me make such a strong collection of images, despite my belief at the time that the images were no good?

I feel, that we should always be willing to review not just our work, but also ourselves. I little bit of introspection - or self-awareness is no bad thing, and in fact, I think it's perhaps the most important thing in photography. We often overlook the most important ingredient in image making - ourselves. I've written about this on several occasions now, and I've even gone to the trouble of writing an ebook about it too.

So I'm no stranger to being surprised by my own efforts - a creative person should find himself surprised every now and then, and if he isn't - it's maybe because he never re-evaluates himself, or the work he's created.

Above is a contact sheet for my first escapade to the Lofoten Islands last March. I feel this too, is a very strong body of work. The only difference between this and my Iceland shoot, was that I knew I was capturing something of merit at the time.

So this year, I've been to Lofoten twice. I'm in the middle of editing the final images from two shoots - one in February where we had the most spectacular light and plenty of snow, and a second trip in March where the snow was fast disappearing and I didn't feel that enthused about what I was capturing.

Again though, I'm surprised. The latest (and most disappointing shoot) seems to be providing the most thought-provoking images out of the two shoots. Which is not what I anticipated.

I think there are perhaps numerous reasons why we should have such a disconnect between what we anticipated and what we actually get. I'll try to cover some of them (as I see them) here for you. Maybe you'd like to suggest some others that I've missed?

1. Lack of experience is the obvious one. But as I've said, I feel I've become pretty proficient at what I do, but there are still those moments where my vision seems out of sync with my ability.

2. Being overwhelmed by the experience of simply being there. Some places are more pleasant to shoot than others. But this has little impact on the final image. A rainy day can make the whole experience feel worthless, yet we can still come home with some surprising images. Part of this is because we have to learn that the quality of light that we find pleasing and enjoyable to be in, is not the same as the quality of light that a camera prefers to record. Camera's like low contrast light.

3. Energy levels. If you feel like crap, you can't really be that objective about what it is that you're doing. If you're unexperienced, you  will most probably let it influence your shoot as well. More proficient photographers (although not immune to this), can often still come home with good images because of the amount of experience and technique they've built up.

But i'm wondering, if you're not entirely there - if you're feeling sick, or your mind is distracted, and you still come home with good images, then what is going on? Is perhaps the illness taking your mind off things a little? Is it acting as a distraction? A distraction that allows the mind to think more laterally, and come up with things it ordinarily wouldn't?

Your comments are welcome.

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