Light Table View

Been a bit quiet this past few weeks. I’m in the middle of processing films from my recent tours to Brazil and Bolivia.

Below is a photograph taken on my phone of my light table with Velvia transparencies just dried, and in the process of being cut, and put into a sleeve to protect from dust.

9 images from one roll of film, on my light table.

One of the things I loved about this year’s tour to Bolivia was that we had a lot of overcast light during the day time. My fantastic guide Silveria wanted to show me two of the islands on the Salar because she loved the shapes of them: pyramid and some kind of flying saucer shape. I have worked with Silveria before and she seems to understand and know what I’m looking for : graphic shapes and simplified composition.

Anyway, if there is a point to this post today, it is that even though I have been coming to Bolivia now for over a decade, there is often a chance to see something new. Partly it’s a case of being taken to new views, other times it’s that the light is different. But on this occasion, I know within my heart that what I am attracted to make images of these days, is quite different from what I was looking for back in 2009 when I first ventured here.

Bolivia has been a learning landscape for me. It is often easy to see our progress when we look back, and when I review and study my first efforts, and how the compositions seemed to become more simple as time went on, I gained so much in noticing that there were elements and traces of where my style was going to progress to, in the initial images from all those years ago.

I’m almost finished processing the films from the past year. I hope to start working on editing and publishing images from Bolivia and Brazil over the coming weeks. We will see.

What you start with, doesn't have to be what you end up with

I’m a big music fan. I write music and I’m a serious amateur musician. For me, it is always very interesting to hear one of the musicians I admire talk about their creative process.

Often times though, I see so many parallels, so many similar issues regarding the creative process. Whether it’s music writing, making photos, writing a book. Whatever. The creative process is always the same: it is a mirror of dealing with inner questions and looking for answers.

One such musician I love is Jon Hopkins. He is a classically trained musician that also works in the electronic fields. He has produced artists like Coldplay, and seems to be very comfortable working in classical music as well as very hard electronic genres.

In many interviews, he has explained that often times, the musical theme, or song that he starts off with, rarely survives to the end. By the time he has finished, the music is unrecognisable from the idea he started out with. Any trace of the initial idea has gone.

I have always assumed that any idea I start with, would remain if it is a good idea. and anything that is weak, should be ejected after some time living with it. So it’s interesting to hear this from Hopkins. as I didn’t interpret his statement as saying ‘whatever I start off with is fairly average and I need to work on things to make it better’. Instead, what I felt he was saying was: ‘even though the initial idea is good, I know it’s only a starting point, and I give myself permission to move beyond it’.

And this is the rub for me. Whatever we start with: we often give too much weight or importance to. If we don’t think it’s strong enough, then we may abandon it too soon, not recognising that it is merely a stepping stone - a catalyst, and go looking for something much stronger.

In Hopkins case, I think what he is doing is starting off with a strong idea. But he’s aware that a good or great idea may still just be a jumping off point, and there may be more to explore.

He wants to be surprised. He wants to be engaged in a way that he hasn’t been before.

In my view, the only way we can get to a level where we surprise ourselves, is if we are willing to let go of anything we have managed to create so far. Even if we have created something we like or think is good, we must be willing to take a chance by changing it, because there may, or may not be, something better beyond it.

I suppose this all comes down to learning to let things go. It is so damn hard to let go of an idea we think is good in the pursuit of something better. I have been there so many times.

But I have found that when I do let go, one of two things happens: I either find something much stronger (and realise that what I thought was good, was only ok), or I lose it all.

We have to be willing to lose it all, in the pursuit of finding something better. Otherwise we will always be working within the confines of a landscape that we already know.

Lençóis Maranhenses Tour 2024

Just a little notice today that I have published dates for a Lençóis Maranhenses tour for next May. The tour isn’t available to book as yet, because I am finding it very difficult for the agencies I work with to give me prices so far in advance.

So I’ve published the tour and dates, in case you may wish to make a note of it in your diary. I do hope to publish the actual price and allow booking of the tour sometime in the next couple of weeks.

This year’s tour went extremely well. I think we all got so many beautiful images, and I can’t wait to show them to you. I have just returned home and I’m needing a rest, so I hope to get round to processing the films in July, for inclusion in a newsletter.

Until then, here are some images from my 2019 trip there. The new tour is not a trekking trip. It is a 4WD trip and we are able to cover quite a bit of ground. This is also extremely helpful in reaching the most photogenic lagoons in time to shoot the soft morning and evening light.

On originality

“Good artists borrow. Great artists Steal”
- Pablo Picasso

I recently had a participant tell me that during a review of his work with a well known landscape photographer, he was informed his images looked a lot like mine. It reminded me of a story of a famous landscape photographer who, whilst reviewing a participant’s images, noticed that some of the images looked like several well known landscape photographer’s work. He said ‘these are all very nice. But where is your work?’

This has stayed with me over the years. Perhaps for it being rather brutally honest, and probably a very hard pill to swallow for the participant. But mostly because I think that aiming for some kind of originality in one’s work, too soon in our own development - can be extremely damaging. Let me explain.

“You begin by walking in the footsteps of your heroes,
but hopefully at some point your paths should diverge”
- Michael Kenna

I include the quote above (paraphrased), by Michael Kenna for a reason. Michael has occasionally gone to places where his ‘heroes’ have been, to make his own version of one of their classics. I include two images below:

Left: original Bill Brandt photograph.
Right: Michael Kenna’s homage to Brandt’s Snicket.

Michael Kenna has often name checked the inspiration for his own images and in this case, his photograph is called ‘Bill Brandt’s Snicket’.

That aside, the main reason for showing you this, is that I think it is perfectly natural for everyone to follow in the footsteps of the work that inspires them the most. In fact, I think it’s a rite of passage for all of us, and no one escapes this period in their photography.

Put it this way: if you’re learning to play guitar, it’s often best to start of by learning some classic riffs. By going along to photograph either an iconic composition, or to simply go to landscapes that are stylistically similar to the imagery you admire - can be a great learning tool.

As I say: this is a rite of passage for all of us.

So I think that when we start making images, being drawn to similar places, or looking for things that are stylistically similar to images we like is only natural. We have to learn to walk before we can run, and one of the best ways to learn to walk, is to at the very least emulate, or at best, be drawn to similar landscapes that we have enjoyed in the work that inspires us.

In my view, being told that your work looks like [insert photography of photographer you like], is no bad thing. Just being able to attain compositions that utilise stylistic aspects of the work you enjoy means you’ve learned quite a lot. It is almost impossible to avoid influences, but if you can pull of imagery that comes over as well executed, and to a similar level of the imagery you have been influenced by - then you’ve attained quite a bit of skill. And you are following your natural path by connecting with the stylistic signatures that you enjoy.

So in my view, rather than trying to avoid your imagery looking like someone else’s, we should embrace our influences. Sure, be aware of them - know where they are in your work. But don’t chastise your influences or ban them from your imagery. Influences are not only a contributing factor to where you’ve gotten to so far, but they will continue to teach, and help you flourish in your work going forward.

—

At the beginning of this post I mentioned two photographers who in essence had hoped that their participants would be more original. Or at least show work that was ‘their own’. I would like to say that although I think it is an admirable thing to encourage individuality, and to help promote that participants should look for their own voice in their work, It is in my view often extremely hard for anyone to execute. For the most part, if someone is to develop a sense of individual style or voice, it will tend to come in its own time. And it tends to come whether someone is looking for it or not. Because finding a unique style or voice is an incredibly elusive thing to find. If it wasn’t so elusive, we’d all have achieved it.

So, in my view, until you find your ‘style’ or ‘voice, you are best to just follow what inspires you. Irrespective of where it’s sourced from. This is all I have ever done, and I can only suggest you do the same.

Bolivia

I’m just on my way home from Bolivia. I have not been here for four years, and it was nice to return to some of the most special light I get to work in at sunrise and sunset !

I am looking forward to developing my films from this trip as soon as I get home.

In the photo above, I am with my guide - Selveria. I have worked with her back in 2012 and also around 2015. A real professional, she tells me that she is more comfortable at her home town of Uyuni’s elevation of 3,500m. High plateau people tend to have genetic differences that allow them to work better at higher elevations.

On this tour, we had 3 x land cruisers with drivers. I’m always amazed at the terrain we’re able to navigate over, as the roads are often nothing more than tracks in a vast desert.

I hope to post some new images soon of Bolivia. We ventured to some new locations on this tour.

Below I show a collection of images from Bolivia. I have come here countless times now, perhaps just as many times privately as I have the tours I’ve offered because I find the light here like nowhere else.

Getting good at a few things - the gift of limitations

When I first entered into photography back in the year 2000, digital capture was still very much in its infancy. I did not choose film, it was the only real serious option at the time, and so that decision was made for me.

It is now 2023, and I am still using film. I have found over the years of using the slide film I prefer (Velvia 50), that I have had to work in a narrow range of light. The film I use has a latitude of maybe 3 to 5 stops. I have always assumed that it is around 3 stops, and because of this, I also use grads to reduce down my scenes from 3 stops to zero stops between ground and sky.

Because the film is so limited in dynamic range, right from the beginning, I had to learn to ‘read’ the light available to me and figure out if I could shoot in it. It turns out that most light I couldn’t. I had to go looking for light where the dynamics were within that 3-stop range, and that meant looking for very soft light.

As it turns out: very soft light is perhaps the most beautiful light we can work in. And I’ve learned over the years I’ve been working with my limited film range, that my film has pushed me into learning to work in this particular light more than any other kind of light out there. I suppose I kind of like to believe that I have become an expert in soft light.

This has happened, only because of the limitations of the medium I use. If I had maybe started a decade later when digital was more established, I might not have walked that tightrope in being forced to work within the narrow range of soft light situations.

I think the tendency to think that we need more dynamic range in our cameras is a leaning on technology to provide for us, where in fact we should be learning to work with the limitations of what we have.

Consider if all your lenses broke except for your 50mm. If you were unable to get to a camera store, or mailorder, and you’re currently in the middle of the Atacama desert, what do you do? You work with what you have.

Will this catastrophe ruin your visit to the Atacama? Probably not. In some ways, having the choice of which lens to use removed from you is a blessing. You have one less thing to worry about.

It will also probably mean you will start to look at the landscape from a 50mm viewpoint. All the compositions you will begin to notice will tend towards 50mm. I would go so far as to suggest that you’ll start to get very good at it, the more you’re forced to work with your 50mm lens and nothing else.

There is one other aspect of having this limitation forced upon you: I am 100% convinced that you will produce work that you wouldn’t have, if you’d had any choice of focal length available to you.

It is only when we are pushed up against a wall, that we start to become inventive. After all, how do you know if you’ve gone too far, if you’ve never reached the boundaries of your own comfort zone? Having a limitation like catastrophic lens failure thrust upon you will give you a chance to find out.

In my view: i’d much rather get good at one thing, than feel as though I have a limited understanding of many. Limitations are good, and working around the edges of what’s possible can lead you to a place in your creativity that you may not have visited before.

Tools to damage

I remember getting a phone call from the very nice old man who services and repairs my old Hasselblad film cameras. He started with asking me ‘have you been anywhere wet recently? Because your camera is rusting inside’.

The photo here is of my Hasselblad body (one of two I’ve taken with me on this trip) where the leather exterior has started to peel away due to the humidity, and the body / mirror shows sand inside.

In my view, as much as I love equipment and try to look after it. It will get subjected to wet conditions (Iceland and Japan), and desert / sandy conditions in Iceland and the Atacama. I have worn out several bodies, sometimes in just a couple of years from these machines being subjected to all kinds of conditions.

The image always comes first, and if I have to subject my cameras to unkind conditions, then that is ok.

For me, this is no hardship. My cameras are relatively inexpensive to replace. They are all old 1980’s film cameras and lenses. Despite prices for second hand film cameras increasing over the years, they are still very inexpensive compared to some of the new digital cameras out there.

I am always curious as to how much we hold ourselves back in the pursuit of our image making when we are concerned that our camera equipment may get damaged. This is really the issue I am focussing on today in this post. Do you for instance only shoot when it’s dry? And do you pack your camera away the moment the first drops of rain appear? If so, then you are definitely holing yourself back from making use of the changes in the weather. Always only working in dry conditions, on fair days is going to limit your photography. Not just in the diversity of images you come home with, but also in your learning of working in different kinds of light.

Perhaps there is a balance that needs to be reached. A compromise between 'accessibility to all kinds of weather’ against ‘cost of repair’. If you wish to explore places which may be more demanding on your equipment, then perhaps budget for spare lenses, and at the very least a spare body. Perhaps even decide to buy two of a consumer camera rather than go all out for the super high end twice-the-price equivalent. It will make your priorities clear, and you more willing to take risks with your equipment.

I certainly think being on the lookout for spare lenses, or a spare body should be part of your photography plan. And if you can’t justify owning two bodies, then perhaps think about buying a used backup body for that big trip of a lifetime, and sell it once you get home.

Like learning how to manage our money (which we don’t get taught at school), we should learn to manage our expenditure on equipment to build in a portion of ‘in the event of a failure’.

For myself, I always travel now with 2 x camera bodies, 2 x standard lenses, 2 x standard wide angles, plus a superwide. And with my tele lenses, I have some overlap in the selection I bring with me, so that if one link in the chain is missing, I don’t feel the gap.

Acknowledgment of reaching your own summit

When we are being retrospective, we tend to focus on the things that have changed: what we do now that we didn’t, and also what we did do, but don’t do any more :-) Rarely however, do we notice the elements of our photography that remain the same.

I’ve just been reviewing my latest work over the past year or so, and I’ve come to the conclusion that although there has been a shifting in what I do over the past decade, I really haven’t changed much at all.

This reminds me of the saying ‘the more things change, the more they stay the same’.

Image used by kind permission. Image © Michael Scandling.

I don’t think this is particularly a bad thing. Nor is my post today lamenting the lack of change in my work. Because I know in some ways it has changed. It’s just that well, there’s an integral part of what I do that I can’t escape. And that part is me.

It is, in my view, such a rare opportunity to see yourself in your own photography. Like the blind spot that is not being able to see ourselves the way our friends and family see us, we are blind most of the time to that part of our ‘art’ that is us.

I think the only way to be able to get a glimpse of ourselves in our own work, is to have been taking photos for a very long time. You need a lot of distance, and a lot of water under the bridge, with which to compare your most recent work with that of what you did perhaps when you first started out. See anything ‘familiar’ ? If you do - then that is most probably you.

I wish I still had the email I got from Michael Kenna. When he published a reprint of his Rouge book, I noticed that although the new edition was expanded with images that were shot at the time of the original publication, the inclusion of them showed signs of his future work to be at that time. When I wrote to him and said ‘I see Hokkaido in these images, before you went to Hokkaido’, he replied with a bit of poetry which I wish I could remember. It more or less said something along the lines of ‘the more we change, the more we stay the same’. Included in his email was also an early Kenna image - taken around the early 70’s. Although it was 35mm format, it had all the earmarkings of a Kenna shot - foggy, with a simplistic minimalist composition of a park somewhere in England. I could see him in this early shot so well, and yet at the time of capture, he still had to form his style.

I think now that I’ve been making images for over twenty years, I have the benefit, or opportunity to be able to see ‘me’ in my imagery - the part that has stayed the same all this time.

It is in doing so, that I think I can assume that I’ve reached the summit of where I am meant to be. With this acknowledgment, I realise that the future is perhaps mostly going to be about honing what I already have, rather than making massive changes. I think this is something one has to reach an understanding, and also an acceptance with oneself.

It is what it is, I am what I am, and this is what I do.

2-stop ND filter increments, and 1-stop exposure granularity

It’s taken me 20+ years to figure out that for long-exposure work, having a set of ND filters that are 2 stops apart is the best way forward.

I have always used 1, 2, 3, 6 and 10 stop ND filters. But over the past while I have found that the jump between 3 stops to 6 stops is far too much. Same for the leap between 6 stops and 10.

So now I use 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 stop ND filters.

Further to this, what I should let you know is that for the past decade, I work my exposures out in 1 stop increments. I do not meter in 1/2 stops or 1/3rd stops. They are in my view - simply too fine and 1 stop differences is as fine a granularity that I need for my films.

I would like to also add that it becomes a lot easier to meter, and to add exposure compensation when adding ND filters, if you work with your camera set to meter at 1-stop increments only.

Consider if your camera is set to expose at 1/3rd stop increments. It is very hard to work out for 2 stops more would be if your exposure is at 1/9th of a second. It becomes a lot easier if your camera rounds it down to 1/8th of a second. Adding two stops onto this means you just divide it by 2, twice:

1 stop increment = 1/4 of a second

2nd stop increment = 1/2 of a second.

I like working in 1 stop differences. It’s as fine as I need it, and it also simplifies my working out the exposure compensation difference when applying ND filters.

Inner symphonies & the role of feeling deeply

I got a new album of music to listen to this week called ‘Inner symphonies’. I liked the title but it was only when I opened up the gatefold sleeve of the album that I understood the title. Inside were the words ‘for those who feel deeply’.

And it got me to thinking about the role of our emotions on our photography. As a good friend of mine has often said to me ‘the camera points both ways’. I have always understood that my own ‘art’ whether it was music making, drawing and painting as a kid, or photography now, has been, and still is, routed in something within me.

Each time we make a photo, perhaps we are making a mini inner-symphony? Each image we make can often symbolise something more about us, than the actual subject. Well, I think that is the way it should be.

Logic in a way, shouldn’t even come into the equation when making images:

‘Think less, and feel more’

is perhaps the way we should approach what we do. Or perhaps ‘respond’ rather than ‘think’.

I know I am someone who overthinks things, but when it comes to producing art, it is one of the rare moments in my life where overthinking, or even thinking diminish (those who know me may dispute this, and say that I never think at all ;-) . I seem to disappear and enter a form of meditation when I am making pictures.

I prefer to be drawn to something for reasons I do not know, than for reasons I do. As I believe that unearthed motivations have more truth in them than anything that is apparent. I like to think about what Mark Hollis once said about improvisation when writing songs. He said that when you are improvising, the first notes you play tend to be the more honest ones. Each subsequent replay becomes less and less honest, and more contrived as you struggle to now control the magic you just found.

And so, I think this is the way it is with fieldwork.

Respond rather than think,

do before analysis,

and try to be fresh each time you make a picture.

Perhaps I should invert this, and say:

feel first, respond second, and think later

There is magic in improvisation. For it is the act of escape from rules and self imposed aspirations. Working fluidly, and without any analysis or overthinking, is , in my view, the right path to creating surprising imagery and art.