The loss of momentum

Momentum has a huge part to play in our development as photographers. Pausing when you are in the middle of a creative flow can derail you and set you back.

I was made acutely aware of this yesterday when I attempted to ‘resume’ editing some work I had begun editing two years ago.

Let me explain. Two years ago edited I the set of images you see below. They were shot in Lençois Maranhenses national park in Brazil around May 2019. I felt the edits below were, and still are pretty good. Over the past two years I have always considered I got the edits about right for this collection. So I wondered this past week whether there were more unedited images in my films that I could add to this collection, if I resumed work on them.

I didn’t find much. Just one image (see above). And even then, it wasn’t so obvious. This process made me aware of several things:

1) When we are editing, we are often in a particular ‘creative flow’. Edit the images a week or two later and they will be different yet again, because the results have as much to do with how we are feeling and what we are ‘into’ during the the moment of creation.

In other words: editing is a performance.

It is one of the main reasons why I like to set a block of time aside to edit work in the same ‘session’. My head is going to be in the same place as I edit a collection of work, and I often find myself reliving the experience of the shoot.

So again: editing is a performance. Each performer / actor or musician knows that each time they play or act the same songs / scenes, they do them differently. And depending on their biorhythms, things vary.

2) I’d lost momentum. The ‘roll’ I was on when I created the nine or so images above had passed. Trying to get back ‘into that frame of mind’ was going to be hard. Almost impossible.

It took me a few false starts over a whole day before I was able to edit the top image to be anything close to an empathetic version of the original set. That is because it took me time to ‘adjust to the sensibilities of the original idea’, rather than it bend to suit me.

I have often thought of editing as a performance. Indeed, everything I do as a photographer has a ‘time’, is dependent on how I am that day. And trying to reproduce something later on to order seldom works.

Rather than think of this as a problem, I personally find it quite liberating. Because of the instability of how things might turn out, you have to learn to let go. You have to accept that some days are better than others, and this is quite a freeing idea. It removes the need for ‘perfection’. And allows room for give and take. For accepting things are they way they are, and is a strong reminder that creativity has an ebb just as much as it has a flow to it.

The presumption of acquiring photographic style

I often hear photographers say ‘I don’t know if I have a style’. For many years I wasn’t aware of even having one myself, and mostly I never thought about gaining one either.

Similarly to the photographer that only goes out to shoot once in a while, a weekend or two and a couple of weeks a year, aiming to be better just won’t happen. You don’t become a better photographer by not photographing, or only photographing a little a year. So stumbling on some nice shots once in a while is probably as best as you’re going to get. And if you keep applying the same level of practice to your photography, that is where your ability will stay.

However, you can also spend many hours, days, weeks, years working on your photography and never improve either. Because spending time alone on something does not make someone better at something. There has to be something else at play here in order to improve, and that thing is called ‘self-enquiry’.

Self-enquiry is the art of seeing and understanding what one is doing, and of learning from oneself. It only happens when we’re able to reflect and consider what we’re doing. Applying several thousand hours a year on your photography taking pictures without any aim to consider and reflect upon what you are doing will mean you learn very little, if anything at all.

Then there is the subject of what style actually is. I think there are two kinds of ‘style’:

1) a recognised format or look to your pictures that is accepted as a known ‘style’. It is something others do and if you do it too, you become part of that tribe of photographers. Your work looks like other people’s work but at least you have a style.

2) a unique style. That’s the thing we all wish to gain. To be able to look like no one else except ourselves. To find that when we create work, others recognise it as ours, without even having to ask. To do something that others do not do. To follow our own path.

Point one is much easier to do, while point two is almost impossible to achieve by hard work alone. I would say that point two is probably in the hands of the gods: the result of hard work and innate talent. Fortunate if you have that talent, but also fortunate in that you had the aptitude and mind-set to work hard at uncovering that unique style that you didn’t know you had. I believe there are loads of talented photographers out there that would have an emerging unique style, if only they put the effort in to uncovering it.

I have often believed that someone with half the talent but who worked twice as hard as someone who is twice as talented but does very little work, will be more successful. Talent is a magic ingredient we all want, but without the effort put it, talent will be squandered. Someone with less talent but the determination and drive will go much further.

When you meet someone who has a unique talent, and they are very very successful, you tend to find there is a very strong work ethic driving them forward. From my times with Michael Kenna, he very much fits into that category. An artist who defined a genre but also someone who is very dedicated and driven.

For most of us, just achieving point 1) above is the holy grail. Something that mere mortals can aspire to. Very little after all is original. Originality is the territory reserved for point 2) photographers.

So how do we find out if we have a style such as the one described in point 1? Do we just wake up one morning and realise we have a style? Or do we have to work through a set of problems in order to get there? Is it simply all about putting the hours in?

I don’t think so.

I think that you just have to keep making photos. But when you do create new work, consider if things are changing. Consider how much further you have changed from your work from a year ago. For me, changes aren’t obvious in weekly steps, but more in yearly steps. And when I zoom out to a decade the changes in my work become extremely obvious. Zoom in too much, and you won’t see the progress.

So just keep doing what you do, but develop a 3rd-person point of view about your work. Learn to be able to step outside what you do and look in as an observer would. Reflect about the work and try to leave your ego outside of the room. Try to learn from your own progress and study your work.

Studying one’s work is the only way I know of to recognise if a style is beginning to emerge.

We have no right to presume we will acquire a photographic style. That one day we will discover we have reached this magic target. We simply have no right to assume anything. We have to enquire, and we have to learn as much as we can about ourselves. The only way that will happen is by photographing often, and most importantly, through a lot of self-enquiry.

Portfolio development class announcement

This summer, I am running a portfolio development class

The class comprises of over three hours of instruction in building a portfolio. From initial image selection to final image tuning.

I will be using my own work, that was shot in Bolivia in 2019, as the basis for the portfolio creation. You will in essence be a fly on the wall, watching as I shape and hone a set of images into a finely tuned portfolio.

We will also cover the topic of developing one’s own photographic style. Portfolios are a great way of uncovering themes in your work and finding out a lot about your yourself as a photographer.

Each of the sessions is delivered weekly through the month of may  as a video,  and you can watch each of them as many times as you like. You also get to submit questions which will be answered in a follow up Q&A after each session.

Portfolio development is one of the best ways I know to help improve one’s own photography.

I hope you will join me this May.

Portfolio Development video class 2021 (Bolivia)

£175.00

One time

Sign Up

Good news for square aspect ratio shooters

Really Square Stuff.com have just announced an L-bracket for your camera, so you can shoot square aspect ratios in any orientation you like.

More information below:

Working with students

This past year, I’ve been doing a few on-line lessons on a one-to-one basis with students. I’ve really enjoyed it, as each student is different, but also I tend to see the same issues for most.

One such student, Leslie Tait from Orkney has been really excelling at his work this past few months. I’ve known him for some time, and I have often felt that Leslie’s work tends to vary a lot and be quite inconsistent. His compositions have improved greatly but I found that as we would walk through a set of images, the ability would vary enormously. So I thought the thing I should do with him that might help a lot, is to look at his work in sets of images. Otherwise known as portfolios :-)

View fullsize

Click on the image for a larger view.

Images © Leslie Tait.

I’m really delighted at his progress. I can see in the sets of images he is now giving me a sense of cohesion that was not there before. Not bad for a 70 year old who took up photography 10 years ago.

I’m busy putting a portfolio development class together. It’s a ‘fly on the wall’ experience - 3 hours of myself putting a set of images together from initial selection to final edit. Perhaps I should get Leslie to do it for me, as he is clearly excelling at his homework !

Congratulations Leslie.

Elon Musk is no photographer

I’m a great fan of Elon Musk. Someone who know’s how to follow his dreams and turn a thought into reality.

He posted this today on his twitter account, and it made me laugh:

A lot of fun this post. but the alternative argument might be:

• All high resolution cameras are owned by aliens only.

So if you know someone with a 50 mega pixel and above camera, you now have a good explanation as to why they also have three eyes and an antenna sticking out of the top of their head.

Iceland Photo Tour September

Last week the Icelandic government changed their entry rules so that Vaccination Certificates from US and UK are to be accepted. As of today, they have announced that certificates of vaccination with vaccines already approved by the European Medicines Agency will also be accepted.

In anticipation of this, and the enquiries I’m receiving from photographers who have been vaccinated, I’ve chosen to set up my September tour to Iceland. We have six months until the commencement date, so I’m hoping that things will become much clearer over the coming months with regards to health practices.

We are still very much in the early stages of understanding what it means to be vaccinated, and what health practices still need to be carried out.

But I will say that since Iceland only accepts visitors who have been vaccinated or have had Covid, it follows that the tour will only consist of participants who have been vaccinated. We use a super-truck, and this does not allow for social distancing during the drive. A big coach/bus can‘t go where we go.

So I am to will follow rules and guidelines set by the authorities, but if this makes it impossible to run the tour, then the tour will be cancelled.

Iceland's Fjallabak - The Remote Interior

 Date: 23rd September - 2nd October 2021

Price: $7,995 USD
Deposit: $2,158 USD

Remote & Wild, Interior Black Deserts, Volcanic Craters & Lakes
10-Day Photographic Adventure

Introduction

This trip takes us from Reykjavik into the heart of the remote central highlands of Iceland - the Fjallabak nature reserve (behind the mountains).

Fjallabak is a spectacular highland wilderness area - a place of contrasts from vast black sand deserts to rhyolite covered mountains. It is a true wilderness, not so often photographed due to its accessibility, but highly worthy of any time spent there.

UK Workshops

Due to the vaccine roll out here in the uk going so well (over a third of the UK population has been vaccinated) there is now some light at the end of the tunnel, and it seems that I may be able to resume my workshops later this year - with perhaps UK clients at least.

If you live in the UK, and are looking to do some photography workshops with me, I am in the process of setting up some more local trips.

The first trip I’ve set up is to Assynt this October. If you live in the UK and want to come, then now is the time to book :-)

Please check the workshop page, as I am in the process of setting up some more workshops for the rest of the year and into 2022.

Sold out

Assynt & Inverpolly, Scottish Highlands

£688.50

Price: £2,395
Initial deposit: £688.5
2nd Deposit of £688.5 due six months before tour start date

5-Day Photographic Workshop

Date: March 2 - 7, 2026

Introduction

In the far north west lies some of the most distinctive mountains of Scotland. Stac Pollaidh, Suilven, Canisp and Cul Mor dominate the landscape, yet there is an abundance of wide open space. This is real highland countryside with some dramatic coastal scenery to boot.

Add to cart

Sound of Snow Deluxe Edition Still Available

Thanks to everyone who bought the book so far. It has meant a lot to me at this time, since I am unable to run workshops or tours right now, the book contributes greatly to my current income.

The standard edition of the Sound of Snow book is now sold out, but I still have copies of the deluxe edition available- which comes in a soft white cloth slipcase and a choice of one of three prints.

Sound of Snow is now available for advanced orders

Just to let you know that my new book ‘The Sound of Snow’ is available for advanced order (shipping this June). Please note that the book is an extremely limited print run of 340 copies.

There are three variants (click on the respective one for more details):