On Creativity

When you’re creating work, there has to be an element of ‘I don’t know how I got here’, Or ‘I didn’t see this happening’. Otherwise, it’s most probably contrived. Creativity doesn’t work to a plan or a schedule.

Trust yourself, and let got. See where things take you :)

Take it from me: I seldom know what it is that I am going to create, and I find it very inspiring to live in a world where perhaps some of my best work hasn’t been created yet, and I have no idea of what it will be, or when it will be.

Just go with the flow.

We're getting closer.....

My Hálendi book is moving forward. We’ve completed the image sequencing, text and book prefaces. One nicely written preface by a very fine Swedish photographer. And another by my Icelandic guide - quite a heartfelt account of growing up in Iceland.

All the press files are complete and we have a printer in mind.

But things take time.

Just wanted to let you know that the book is still moving forward.

Positive Inversion

Still paying around. Nothing more, nothing less.

I’m just enjoying seeing how opposite areas of the frame become more interesting when an image is inverted. This one seems to be very successful and to me, it’s the rim of the lake - the highlight tones fading off to black that attract me the most.

Grasleysfjöll Inversion

Like a surreal night scene.
Or perhaps a view from standing on the Moon.

Some of my images work very well when inverted. Others do not. This one of a mountain range in the central highlands of Iceland works very well.

Shot in the depths of winter when there are no roads, nothing to speak off, I noticed that the wind had swept part of the mountainside off. We saw just faint black lines hovering in space. I asked my guide / driver to take me closer (we were on a valley floor) only to find he went much further than I thought we could - he took the vehicle up the side of the hill in deep snow to the brow of the hill. This photo was made from just a few steps outside of the car.

The inverted photo has a completely different meaning for me. The feel is completely different and it almost feels as though I am standing in some surreal night scene, or perhaps standing on the Moon.

Breaking the spell / building a new one

Motifs are very important in my photography.

I can see them more clearly when I remove the ‘landscape’. When I remove the auto-response to go ‘this is a picture of a piece of reality’.

Inverting an image of scenery forces the viewer out of their comfort zone.

It helps to break the illusion or spell that photos are ‘real’. They’re not. In the place where ‘reality’ existed, there now exists an abstraction. One that hopefully casts a new kind of spell over us.

Inversions

We should all be pushing the boundaries of our work. We should be trying to push the boundaries of what the norm offers. We can grow so much by entering areas of photography that we have not visited before.

For me, I’m more interested in the edge of reality, of the edge of definition. By inverting my photos I have broken that spell that says ‘this is a capture of reality’, and set a new contract between the viewer and myself. The work is no longer verbatim. Instead it is much more open to being interpreted in any way possible.

You may dislike the work, or find it too strange. But I think that’s good if it generates that kind of response.

For me, I’m just exploring. I have yet to reach an opinion, and indeed, feel that trying to strive for one so early in any direction or path I take would be a bad move.

Right now, I’m just enjoying seeing familiar work anew. I’m noticing different things in familiar images but most importantly, they feel quite different. There is a different atmosphere to these.

Art, photography, craft, whatever you call it. It is allowed to be transient, to be a product of the moment. Why does everything have to be produced with the intention that it last forever?

Grads still have a place in digital photography

Today I’d like to discuss the validity in still using Grads in an age where digital cameras have so much dynamic range that many believe that grads are no longer required. To do this, I need to go over what happens to the exposure when we apply grads.

Yesterday I discussed why using Aperture Priority is better than using Manual, particularly when using grads. Aperture Priority automatically re-balances the exposure as the grad is applied:

As you can see, the grad reduces the difference in contrast between sky and ground. And since the camera wants to take an average between the two values, we find the sky and ground moving towards mid-grey (18%).

In the above illustration you can see that the ground values are now lighter once the grad has been applied. This is key to my post today. When you apply grads, what you are essentially doing is opening up the shadow detail in the histogram / exposure of the photo.

Consider the histogram on the left. No grad was applied, so we end up with a classic ‘double humper’. The ground has been squeezed into the lower tones of the histogram while the sky has been squeezed into the upper registers of the histogram.

Note where 18% grey is.

The ground is essentially underexposed, while the sky is overexposed.

Also consider that the ground is residing in the shadow ‘darker’ area of the histogram. This results in loss of tonal information in the shadows as many dark tones are being quantised. Many tones become one.

Now let’s consider the same image shot with a graduated filter:

The ground values have been moved towards the middle area of the histogram. Same for the sky values. The important points to consider are:

The shadow information has been opened up (marked in red). We now have more tonal information stretching over a longer tonal scale way down into the shadows.

The highlight information has also been opened up (marked in red). We now have more tonal information stretching over a longer tonal scale way up into the highlights.

For me, the main reasons why I use grads are:

1. I wish to avoid underexposed ground and overexposed sky

2. I want to go home with a pleasing negative to work with.

3. I don’t want to have to jump through additional hoops in the processing to figure out if the image is any good. Working with an image where the sky is overexposed and the ground is underexposed isn’t very inspiring at all !

4. if I didn’t grad, I’d have to process every file I shot to see if they were any good before I began work.

5. Working with a nicely balanced exposure straight out of the camera can be, and often is, a very inspiring way of working. You can see straight away whether the composition and image works or not, and I remain engaged.

Engagement is the key for me.

I don’t want to struggle with bad exposures to make them nicer. I want to work with images that inspire me, and that means pleasing, balanced exposures.

If I go home with a nicely balanced exposures, I am more likely to work with them. Conversely, having to trawl through hundreds of images with dark foregrounds and bleached out skies wondering if they might be good once I’ve put them through my editor of choice isn’t going to fuel my creativity. And it’s certainly not going to inspire me.

Light meters are dumb, they just try to turn everything 18% Grey

This is not a complaint. It’s just a fact. And something we all need to understand about light meters.

Here are some fallacies:

1. There is such a thing as the correct exposure

2. Metering something gives its correct exposure

Here are the truths:

1. Metering something gives the exposure values to turn it 18% grey

2. You choose which part of the scene is turned 18% grey, and let everything else transpose around that.

Why 18% grey?

There are a number of reasons for why 18% grey was chosen:

1. A light meter has to set the exposure for something. So an average value is as good as any. Most things look about right when exposed as an 18% grey subject.

2. The human eye perceives most things as a mid-tone.

With point 2, let’s consider this some more. If you point your camera down at the ground and take a shot of your feet, and check the picture, the image will look about right. If you also check the histogram it will be right in the middle of the graph. The shot has been exposed as an average (18% grey) and it looks about right. Now do the same with the sky. Point the camera right up at the sky so the entire sky fills the frame and take a shot. The photo will look about right, and guess what: the exposure will be right in the middle of the histogram. Another 18% grey exposure.

So the human eye tends to perceive most things as an exposure around 18% grey. Knowing this, and also knowing that your light meter is trying to turn everything 18% grey is useful.

For me, all I need is Aperture Priority and Exposure Compensation. When shooting a scene I let the camera work out the average value (18% grey) and if I feel it’s underexposed (as will happen with snow white scenes as the camera tries to make the snow 18% grey) I can apply compensation of maybe +1 or +2 stops.

Exposure is pretty simple. Camera light meters are really dumb. They just try to take an average all the time and make the scene 18% grey. There is no such thing as ‘the correct exposure’, and the meter reading you get is the values you need to turn the subject 18% grey. That’s all a light meter does.

Graduated filter update

The post below first appeared in April of 2016. Since then, I’ve been using the Medium grads extensively along with hard grads. I’ll explain at the end of the post below, why I have settled on medium as well as hard grads. Here is the post from April 2016:

Lee filters introduce two new graduations of ND filter

In April,  Lee-Filters announced two new graduation sets to their ND product range. Up until now, you had the choice of either soft-graduation or hard-graduation ND filters. Now you have two further choices - very-hard-graduation and also medium-graduation filters.

Lee filters have just introduced a new 'very-hard' and also a new 'medium' graduation filter set to their existing line of soft and hard ND-grad sets.

I currently own the 1, 2 & 3 stop versions of both soft and hard-grad filters. They are useful in many different ways. But with the news of the newer graduation types, I think my filter set is going to change.

Soft or Hard, which should you choose?

Each year when I send out my trip notes for the workshops I'm running, I ask everyone to buy the hard-graduation filters. Despite some participants reluctance to get the hard-grads because they think the graduation may be too obvious (it's not) in the picture, I find the existing Lee hard-grads just about right for most applications.

The reason is that Hard grads are actually quite diffused once they are put up so close to the front of the lens. They give enough bite to change the picture, and do so without being too obvious where their placement is. They are perfect for when you just want to grad the sky only.

Soft grads on the other hand are too soft for just grading the sky - their bite doesn't cut in as much as I'd like. But I do find that Soft-grads have other uses: they are ideal for instances when there is a gradual change from the bottom of the frame to the top. Instances like lakes where the water is extremely dark at the bottom of the frame and it gets brighter towards the horizon. Using soft grads across the middle of the water help control that.

So in general: hard grads are for controlling the sky when there is a sudden shift between ground and sky. Soft grads are useful for scenes where the entire scene changes gradually as you move up the frame.

Grad Placement may not be so critical, and here's why

It really depends on the focal length. Smaller focal-lengths provide a sharper rendering of the graduation whereas larger focal-lengths diffuse the graduation, making hard-grads softer.

If you zoom out - the graduation becomes more defined. And as you zoom in, the graduation becomes more diffused. With a hard-grad it means it's a hard-grad at 24mm but it starts to act more like a soft-grad when used at 75mm. Soft grads are soft at 24m but they become far too soft once you get up to and beyond 75mm.

I illustrate this below. Using the same hard-grad, I zoom in from 24mm to 150mm. As I do so, the graduation becomes softer. I am essentially zooming into the graduation:

Using the same hard-grad, as I go up the focal lengths from 24mm to 150mm, the graduation becomes more diffused. My hard-grad essentially becomes a soft-grad at 150mm.

I have a medium-format rangefinder system. I can't see through the lens, but I've never had a problem with placing the hard-grads, and it's all because of a combination of them being so diffused so close to the lens, and the higher focal lengths. My wide angle is a 50mm for example.

Which Graduations should I choose, and why?

Your choice of camera format will also determine how your grads will behave.  Smaller-formats user smaller focal lengths, while larger formats use larger focal lengths for the same angle of view. For example, a 24mm lens in 35mm format has the same angle of view as a 50mm does in medium-format. But the same grad used on a 24mm will be more defined than if it were used on a 50mm, even though both lenses give the same angle of view.

In the graph below, I show the equivalent focal lengths for the 'same angle of view' as you go up the formats from MFT (Micro-Four-Thirds) to Large format. You can see that the focal lengths get longer and longer. This means that your soft-grad filter will become softer and softer as you move up the formats.

As you go up the formats, the focal lengths get longer for the same angle of view. This also means that any hard-grads you buy become softer as you move up for camera formats. Or harder as you go down the formats.

So it's not just a simple case of choosing soft grads over hard ones, because you think they will be less noticeable in the final image. You also have to take into account the focal lengths you're using.

In my own case, I use Medium Format cameras, and I mostly use hard-grads because they give me the right amount of graduation across the frame for the focal lengths I mostly use (50 and 80). When I use the hard-grads with the 50mm, the placement isn't so critical as there's a degree of diffusion there already, but the filter still bites into the image enough to make hard-grads a viable choice. When I use soft-grads though, they tend to be too diffused for the focal lengths I use. 

Which of the new range will I be tempted to get?

Since I'm a medium format shooter, I'm tempted to replace most of my soft-grads with the new medium grads. The medium-grads will give me what I am looking for (but not getting) from my soft-grads.

I will remain using the standard hard-grads, as they are perfect for my wide and standard lenses, but I am interested in buying some very-hard-grads for use with my telephoto lenses. As explained, when you get up to such high focal-lengths, hard-grads become less and less effective.

Using different types of graduation is a key component to good exposures. I've found for many years that I could do with some graduation filters that are somewhere between the old hard-grad and soft-grad sets, and there is also cause to have very-hard grads for use when using higher focal lengths. So for me, I will be buying some of the medium-grads and very-hard grads to compliment my ever-growing set of ND filters.

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January 2020

As of January 2020, I’ve had time to use the medium grads now for just under four years. I find them indispensable as part of my set of grad filters. I use medium and hard grads just as much in the field and both are used for different reasons that I can summarise as follows:

1. On longer focal length lenses, hard grads are always required. Zooming in just diffuses any graduation of any kind so they act more like a soft grad when you get up to the 100m focal lengths and beyond.

2. Hard grads are useful from 50mm to around 150mm. Go wider (below 50mm) and hard grads become too hard.

3. Medium grads are useful with very very small focal lengths (below 50mm). As you zoom out, the graduation becomes more defined. So medium grads give sufficient feathering.

In summary, medium grads at the right focal lengths do what most of us assume soft grads will do. They are really useful in empty areas of water and sky where we need some bite into the photo without being overly obvious. Using hard grads in empty areas of the photo can be too obvious.

I haven’t tried the very hard edged grads - I feel these would only be of use on longer focal lengths (100m and above). As my article stated above - as you zoom in, the graduation becomes more and more diffused. Hard becomes medium, and medium becomes soft. Soft becomes ineffective.

I have rarely found much use for soft grads. They are simply too soft once placed up close to the lens and the graduation becomes so diffused as to make little to no difference to the photo. Indeed, I find myself often placing soft grads so low in the frame in an attempt to make them bite into the photo that they end up just darkening the whole scene as if they were a full ND.

Hard and medium grads are the way to go. I use both and have all strengths from 1 to 3 stops.

Grayson & Chris

Today’s post is nothing to do with photography. But instead, I wanted to show you this because it moved and inspired me. It put a big smile on my face.

I loved watching these two very special bro’s hanging out together. Both very special people.

Chris has a natural aptitude for communication with people who have a wide variety of special needs, and it’s clear to me that his work comes from the heart.

Grayson is a very special boy. What a fantastic personality! He gives out so much love, and is so loved. It made me feel very privileged to watch this buddy chat.

Thank you Grayson and Chris!