My guide in Iceland always takes me on the science route :-)
I had a nice time in Iceland last week. Here I am on the langjökull glacier.
Emotional 'reading' vs Cerebral 'reading'
Dave Hinton, one of my tour participants this September, sent me this photograph. Apparently the two people in it (click to enlarge) are one of the other tour participants and myself.
I really enjoyed looking at this photo as it helps convey the scale of the Icelandic interior. You won’t bump into other photographic tourists or tours here for sure, and even if you did, it would be rather silly if you were all trying to photograph the same thing. There’s more than enough to go round.
Myself and a participant on my recent Iceland interior tour
Image © Dave Hinton, tour participant September 2023.
Scale is one of the most difficult things to convey in a photograph. I remember on a workshop in Skye, one of my participants asked me if we would be photographing ‘the island’ rather than compositions of parts of a landscape. I asked him what he meant, and he told me his wife had asked him ‘yes this is all very good darling, but what does the island look like?’.
It was a valid point.
How do we convey the sense of a vast place, or an entire island in just one photo? Can it be done? (I think if it can, it would be very hard). Vista shots rarely work because although everything is in the shot, all of it is too far away, and there is no one single focal point of the shot. Everything is there, yet everything is lost. Similarly with arial shots of an entire island. You might get a sense of the shape of the island, but you can’t really make out specific aspects of it.
I sometimes think we wish to be all-seeing, all-present. We wish to capture ‘all’, and convey ‘all’. Yet, this is too much to attempt, and if we did accomplish it, the viewer would be unable to process it. I think that is why generally speaking, successful landscape are often a subset of a place.
I think trying to convey scale in photographs only works on a cerebral level and not on an emotional level at first glance. The picture above is beautiful for the general composition of the peaked hill side and the horizontal tones flowing through the panorama. The small figures in the centre are what I would call ‘easter eggs’ - features you see secondly. Therefore, this photo is first accepted and taken on an emotional level by enjoying the sweeping tones and atmosphere of the landscape. It is then taken on a cerebral level when we notice the two figures. That is when we context switch from emotional to cerebral. We are now analysing the size of the figures against the backdrop of the vast Icelandic landscape, and we cannot help but compute spacial distances and figure out that this landscape is huge.
But there always has to be that context switch from emotional to cerebral. We cannot enjoy scale and beauty at the same time. Beauty is emotional. Scale is a cerebral effort.
I believe that ‘reading’ (looking at) photographs sometimes requires a mixture of the two : sometimes we are emotionally reading while other times we are cerebral in our reading. We move between the two as we continue to look at a photograph that has beauty and scale in it.
I suppose what I’m driving at, is that emotional and cerebral viewing are independent of each other, and never shall they meet. When we have to shift gears to look at the picture another way, any emotional spell that was cast upon us is now in danger of being thrown aside, or at the very least interrupted, in the pursuit of understanding scale.
More a rhetorical question than anything, I wonder which is best? A photograph that keeps us rooted in the emotional at all times, or one that allows us to find a second underlying theme, such as scale?
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Many thanks to Dave Hinton for allowing me to reproduce his thought provoking image on this blog.
The Photographer's Ephemeris - a photo walk through
Preamble: I’ve chosen to switch comments on for this video. I would like to hear if you enjoyed the editing side of the presentation - which begins about half way through.
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I’ve known Stephen Trainor, the developer of TPE (The Photographer’s Ephemeris) for more than a decade. We wrote an e-Book together which kept on selling and selling for a decade.
The Photographer’s Ephemeris has come a long way, and now has fantastic 3D maps and 3D sun and moon graphics.
Stephen asked me recently to explain how I came about my photo ‘Laguna Blanca Nocturne’.
And so here is a 10 minute video explaining my motivations behind the scene above.
I always check my locations before going as to where the sun will be. I had not anticipated getting such good light at this lagoon, as we often arrive in Bolivia (and close by this lagoon) around 11am at the start of my tour here.
This last May I felt blessed. The light was overcast, and soft. Ideal for midday shooting….. Glad I checked out TPE before I went….
Please do leave a comment if you enjoyed the edit session.
Going lower gives depth
One of my participants recently made the assumption that this image was made with a telephoto because of the deliberate out of focus foreground, and also perhaps because the Cono de Arita is a hard subject to judge in terms of distance.
Well the image was made with a standard lens, in my case that means an 80mm lens. Although it has a similar field of view as a 40mm lens on a 35mm camera has, it still has the compression and depth of field properties of an 80mm lens. So there is that to consider. But the main reason why the foreground is so out of focus is because the camera was lying on the surface of the ground.
Tripod height is critical in composing. I so often see participants locked at the same height for the duration of a workshop, and for me, I always like to experiment to see how the image may change if I put the camera much lower, or even much higher than I am.
Some locations are so vast, that even when I have moved, the scene changes little. Bolivia and the Puna of Argentina are such places. If I cannot find anything of note to use in the foreground then I will experiment with focal lengths to try to give different perspective.
But I often think that we ignore placing the camera below our own eye level at times, and in particular putting the camera right down on the ground really forces the foreground to be extremely blurred. I like this effect a lot, and it does help impart a sense of dynamics and compression to the shot.
Editing brings focus
My dear friend Sven Kohnke is a talented photographer. He has come on a few workshops with me now and is always a welcome voice during my editing sessions.
I re-joined Instagram a few weeks ago (I don’t really know why I did so - perhaps I was missing being part of community? I don’t know). But there is a mini community of souls on there that I have met on my workshops. Many have become friends, as is normal when you run trips and spend a good week with a group of people.
Whilst on Instagram, Sven’s portfolio popped up and I saw this image:
The one thing I have learned about my own work, is that even when I think I can’t go any further with an edit, there is always more to do. I don’t look at editing as ‘fixing things’, but more as ‘interpretation’ and it is one of the ways in which we can impart a sense of our own vision and style onto our photographs.
So I set about playing with Sven’s image and this is where I ended up:
I felt that this version brought more focus to the work, while also lending a more graphic aspect to it as well.
There are about five or six main areas where I altered the tones in the image, but I wonder how many of them you can spot?
The ones that I would guess where you can’t see where I’ve change the image are, in my view these three main areas:
The base of the building is darker, and the top of the reflection where it joins the building is darker also. This is deliberate, and although may seem counter-intuitive, I have allowed the building and reflection to be more ‘separate’ from each other.
The building has a vignette around it. It is brighter in towards the middle. This has been done as a long tall oval shape.
The same treatment for the building has been applied to the reflection: it too has a vignette - but i only needed to darken the top of the reflection to achieve the ‘oval’ shape.
In my view, every alteration should have a clear intention. Mostly, I find myself doing these last three edits to help impart a sense of 3-dimensionality to the image. Gradients are one of the ways we can tell the viewer about distance and shape.
The more obvious edits are the darkening of the surrounding buildings to remove any distractions and allow the eye to settle on the building and it’s reflection.
One last thing, I moved the building up in the frame. I felt it was sinking (it is - it’s in Venice!), but by placing it above centre, it now feels more upright, more forward, and also it feels taller as well. The height of the building has space now to stretch down and continue through the reflection and have sufficient space around it and its reflection. Prior to this, I felt the reflection was almost hitting the bottom of the frame and in a way, was a little bit like an after-thought. The picture now feels as though it is about the building and its reflection.
“when an edit is executed well,
it should become instantly integrated, as though it was always part of the original capture”
Had I not chosen to show you the before / after versions, I think most folks would not know what had been done to the picture. They would just ‘believe it’. This is the ultimate goal in any editing we do. To cast a spell upon the viewer.
Sven is incredibly good humoured to allow me to edit his beautiful image. He is also gracious enough to put up with my requesting that I write about this edit on my blog.
If I have any single message to impart, is that editing is one of the ways we can help bring our work to another level. If we edit well, we can often bring out the parts of the scene that we know are elegant and beautiful, while at the same time quieten the areas that are less so. When we do this well, editing brings clarity of purpose to the composition. It achieves an enhanced creative focus to the work at hand.
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Postamble: You can view Sven’s instagram here.
I would like to thank Sven very much for being such a good sport, and allowing me to reproduce this edit here on my blog.
Before and after. Click to see larger.
It's time to start living again
Since returning back to my workshops and tours around eighteen months ago (first trip was to Iceland as they opened before anyone else did), I have noticed that the world is not back to normal yet.
This has been confirmed to me by being in touch with so many pre-covid workshop friends. Most are telling me they haven’t been anywhere yet. But not only that, for most, the camera has been sitting in their camera bag for three years now. This was confirmed to me this week when a good friend told me he was concerned about using his camera this October, because he has become so rusty.
I feel like we all went to sleep, and some of us are taking a long time to wake up from the sleep. I know in my own case it has taken me a good many months to get myself back up to speed with working on my trips. I still sort of feel that my body isn’t quite 100%. I have since come to the conclusion that shutting down a society for even just a short while, has long lasting effects on people’s lives. Emotional, spiritual, energy wise, and of course financial.
But for me, it’s the emotional and spiritual side that I’m noticing the most. Folks aspirations don’t seem to be there so much and many have settled into a confined life centred around home and working from home.
I would say: if you haven’t been out on a trip somewhere yet with your camera, then perhaps it’s time to think about even dusting it off and going somewhere in a weekend or two. Plan some time, plan a private trip.
Momentum has been lost, and I know all too well that when I lose momentum creatively speaking, it can take a bit of effort to get the ball rolling again.
If you still haven’t been anywhere yet, or taken your camera out of its bag in three years, then I’m hoping that maybe this post today will give you the impetus to change that. There are beautiful images waiting for all of us us out there, and we won’t get the last three years back.
Talent
When I think about what it is that we are all striving for, it is to create beautiful work. But beautiful work isn’t just ‘pretty’. Beautiful work is so, often because of a uniqueness. Either that uniqueness is something to do with the way the photographer saw the composition, or it could be in how they choose to edit it.
A very old image. But I like to think that there were already clues and signs to what I do best.
In my view, we all need to work on ourselves, and the first thing we need to realise is that we tend to do things that others don’t do. Instead of hoping our work will be up to scratch like the work of a photographer we admire, we should really take delight in the fact we don’t do what they do. You do ‘you’. And it just so happens that you do ‘you’ very well.
The problem is in actually knowing which part of the work you create is ‘you’, and being able to understand which parts are your influences as well.
I really do feel that we all have a uniqueness, but it is often masked or smothered by our attempts to be more like someone else, or to aspire to the same kind of look as someone else’s work.
You, my dear reader, have a unique voice. You excel at being you. If you look at it another way - nobody will be able to do ‘you’ better than you do. And with this in mind, since everyone else is taken anyway, why not spend the time trying to find out more about you?
Just a regular day at the office
I was sent this today by my photo tour participant Steve Semper, from the Puna tour I did in 2019, in Argentina. A good group of folks, and this is shot just after a sunrise visit I think.
Image below is of my guide ‘Pancho’, whom I’ve known now for about seven years. This shot was made at the labyrinth area. I have had to work hard to find vantage points here that work at sunset. Last visit I felt I cracked it, and now we are able to get good light on these hills of clay at the most beautiful time of evening.
I often feel that on the finished portfolios I publish on my website, there is no scope to show you all the distances and the varieties of landscapes we pass through on our way to the places I like to shoot for sunrise and sunset.
It is often an adventure. This is one of the three Hilux vehicles we travel in as a group.
Many thanks to Steve for getting in touch today and sending these to me. It is a nice thing to go back and remember the tours I do.
Art & Fear
“even the failed pieces are essential”
At the beginning, and perhaps for many many years, most of us direct our attention to the technicalities of picture making, not realising that perhaps the keys to our improvement as a photographer lie more with how our attitudes, and beliefs shape our work.
At some point, we have to work on ourselves.
Art & Fear book. It’s a small book, light enough to carry with you on your day to day journeys, and I am enjoying it very much.
It took me a while to realise that everything that I do, even the so called ‘failed’ pieces have value. Everything is an experiment. Everything is a prototype. To create surprising work and to exceed, I need to move past restrictions and boundaries. Looking at my work as either a success or failure prevents me from doing that.
These days, if I am asked ‘how many successful images do I get on a roll of film?’, I tend to respond with:
“everything is a stepping stone to the next image, so every image is important in that process”
“even the failed pieces are essential”
Meaning that everything is an exploration. Images that I am particularly pleased with rarely come from just making one shot. I have to make several, and I have to try out many different variances of composition, focal length. This can only happen if I give myself the permission to do that.
“you learn how to make your work,
by making your work”
These days, I don’t look despondently at the images that had to be made in order for me to get to the ones that I am most proud of. These days I realise they had to happen. That they are an essential part of the process. They are the reason why the images I am most happy with are what they are.
I think I know myself pretty well these days. Having had to do a lot of self enquiry about how I deal with the ups and downs of creating art. But I am never finished with learning about myself. Therefore I welcome continuing to read about the creative process from others. Not only is it always good to hear confirmation of what you trust to be true in someone else’s writings, but also, that I may hear a view that I had not considered before.
I am always reminded by the little saying:
“I didn’t know I knew that”
This is another way of saying ‘I had an epiphany’ . I had a moment of sudden insight.
As always on this blog. I am less and less interested in the technicalities of image making, or the gear. I am more interested in the person behind the camera, because it is in our hangups, our attitudes and perhaps misguided beliefs that we inhibit our progress as photographic artists. Misguided ideas that good artists know what they’re doing for example, can hold us back, because:
“making art is risky”
And yet, this is not so apparent to most. Many of us will spend years, decades, or perhaps our life times thinking that we need to focus more on the equipment, the gear, and the ‘how to’ aspects of image making. While doing so, we will often be unaware that the keys to how we move forward as an artist lie in our gaining understanding of how our views and attitudes shape us.
“tolerance for uncertainty is a pre-requisite for success”
How we deal with success and failure, and how we deal with the fear of failing in our image making, are issues that we all must face at some point. Perhaps the sooner we do this, the better.
Behind the Scenes in Bolivia
There’s a lot that goes on behind the final images that you see on this website. I am not normally a ‘snapshot’ shooter, but since I got a mobile phone with a decent camera, I’ve tried to capture some photos of my trips for my school friends who request that I send them home some images, so they can get a feel what what it is that I do.
So the images below are from this year’s tour to the Bolivian Altiplano. We travel in three Land cruisers with our own guide and three drivers. The guides are exceptional in terms of their knowledge and I’m always impressed with the driver’s capability to fix a failing land cruiser in the middle of nowhere.
Here’s a little video, which I hope will convey the scale of the landscape in Bolivia. My guide and driver are in the front, and it’s just after sunrise. I’ve been told they are discussing food, and my friend Kathy who organises this tour for me each year tells me they are ‘typically talking about food!’. There are no real roads as such in Bolivia. Just a myriad of dust tracks sprawling out in all directions, but the drivers and guides always know where to go :-)
I always prefer to shoot in the softer light, and since Bolivia is a high contrast, cloudless place most of the time, that means gearing the trips up for getting to the places for sunrise and sunset times. But we did get some cloudy weather this year on the Salar, and that allowed me to work with much lower contrasts, to produce the Salar images you see of the islands below.
But I think sometimes, I feel aware that participants wonder just how much the images I make, are true to what we see when we are there. Well obviously there is my own artistic take on the places, but you can’t put in what wasn't there, and one of my participants this year told me (I paraphrase) “I thought the colours in your images had been put in later during post-processing, but now I see that they truly are very special when we are there at sunrise and sunset”. The light is indeed special in Bolivia, and I find that it starts to ‘glow’ at the times when most photographers tend to retreat. For me, the special light is just before sunrise, and just after sunset, at the point when most folks think the light show is over, it is just getting started.
Looking forward to next year’s tour. I have decided to change the itinerary so we spend only one day in Chile, and the rest of the time in Bolivia.
