BIG STOPPER

I've been in contact today with Robert White, a fantastic camera shop here in the UK about buying the new Lee Filter Big Stopper. If you've not heard about the Big Stopper yet, it's a 10 stop full ND filter which basically greatly reduces the amount of light coming into your lens, so you can go crazy doing long exposures.

I'm a big fan of the Lee filter ND Grads and full ND's. They are very neutral. Over the past two years of doing my workshops, I've seen many people come on trips and try to cut corners by buying Cokin filters. Only to be disappointed by the poor filter holder and the colour shifts that are apparent in the filters.

So as much as Lee filters are expensive, they're very worth it in my opinion. But what I didn't know was just why the filters are so expensive, and when you hear how they are made, you'll have a better appreciation for the costs that they sell them at.

As usual, I got into a discussion about the terrible waiting times for any of the Lee Resin and Glass filters and the chap at Robert White started to tell me about the filter making process. He said that it takes roughly 1 hour to make a resin or glass filter. They're hand made and dipped into boiling dye. Depending on how hard or soft the graduation should be, they are dipped in at different rates. Then each filter is checked against a spectrometer for colour shifts and the filter is re-applied to another vat of dye to correct the colour shift. At each stage, they have to monitor the light fall off for each filter. It really is a long process.

When I considered this, it made me realise that the filters are pretty cheap considering how much time and effort goes into making them.

I've got a big stopper on back order (4 to 6 weeks). I love using full ND filters in the early morning light, but a 10 stop filter is more a requirement for mid day shooting (for me anyway - I shoot film, so I can't really go more than a few minutes on Velvia before something horrible happens).

Not all monitors are created equal

One of the things that keeps coming up on my workshops is that people spend $$$ on cameras, lenses, printers, etc and if they choose a monitor, they either skimp on it, or go for the biggest thing they can get. Hardly ever, does anyone consider that some monitors are worse than others for editing images and getting accurate colour. Admittedly, there are accessories in the photographic medium which are tedious. We hate to have to spend money on them. Tripods, ball heads, clamps, are often the weakest link in the chain for most entry level photographers. Surely a £50 tripod will do. As we become more experienced in our technique, we start to appreciate that spending £400 on a tripod is worth it. We've experienced 'creep' in the cheap tripod, and it's seldom steady too.

I think the same applies to monitors. Most of us will think of spending around £200 to £400 on a computer monitor and think it's good enough. But there are around three different technologies out there and some of them are really unsuitable for image editing.

I don't claim to be an expert in this region at all. But I find it strange that we will spend a lot of money making sure we capture high quality images only to view them on a sub standard screen.

How many people for instance, have LCD panels that change colour when you change the viewing angle? How many people have bought a glossy screen and think it makes their images look great. Consensus is out at the moment on whether glossy screens give an unrealistic impression of whether the images are rich enough. My own personal feeling is that anything glossy gives an overly enhanced impression of rich blacks where they may be none. I prefer to edit on a matt screen.

I'd be curious to find out what percentage of photographers out on the web have calibrated monitors too? How many people are judging others work on screens that are displaying the wrong colours. Or worse, can't display them because if you try to calibrate the screens, the LCD technology won't be working at it's optimum luminance values?

Id' be interested to hear from you - do you have your screen calibrated, and if so, what sort of screen is it? Glossy, matt? Is it a Macbook Pro matt screen (mine won't calibrate).....

Just back.... and popping out again

Hi all, I'm just back from the fabulous isle of Eigg. I ran a nice small workshop there last week - hi to Adam, Brigitte, Dave & Pete.

As is usual with a great trip of any sort, I feel like I've returned from Mars. I can't help feeling 'did it really happen?'

We had a slight mishap with the Council deciding that no vehicles from outsiders are allowed on the island any more, so we had to make do with borrowing a vehicle for our early morning jaunts down to Laig bay. Eddie kindly gave us a lift a few nights along the small 1 mile track to the bay too.

I thought it would be cool to put up a little contact sheet showing a collection of images created by everyone on the trip. We had a fair mixture of 'weather' , most of which is 'good'. Seldom is weather 'bad' for photography unless it causes problems with keeping filters and lens elements dry.

I had a great time though. Workshops tend to be as good as the people who come on them, and you get out of a trip what you're prepared to put in. Everyone without exception on this trip got into the spirit of the week. I'm a little shell shocked to be home now, but I'm excited to think I'll be going back in September for another trip.

I'll probably not be on the blog much for the next few weeks. I'm away at the end of the week to the outer Hebrides for some 'me time'. Just me and my camera and a stack of Velvia. Wish me luck. Until I'm back on the blog good and proper, good luck with your own photography.

Volcanic Ash

As you may already know, an Icelandic Volcano erupted a few days ago. It's currently spilling lots of ash into the atmosphere which is being blown across the north part of the UK and mainland Europe. I'm off to Eigg this week for a workshop, which should be right in the path of the ash. It will be interesting to see how much this affects the images we make whilst there.

Tim Parkin is on the north west at the moment, and he posted this image on his twitter page last night:

If you would like to know more about what Tim is up to while he's away in his nice new camper van, perhaps you could join his tweets on Twitter :-)

A new eBook, HD Podcasts & eMonographs

Over the past few years, I've noticed that the internet seems to be changing. With social networking coming more to the fore, it almost feels sometimes, that there's a lot of information out there, but it's hard work to find what you want.

With that in mind,  I've been wanting to share more of my experiences, share more of my thought processes and perhaps pass on a thing or two to you all.

I'm very passionate about what I do. Making photographs is only part of it, but I love to teach people, help them on their way if I can, and feel I've contributed in some way. I do this by running workshops, which can be immensely satisfying. They're a great way to spend time in a small group of like-minded people who all share the same enthusiasm for photography, and learn some new things. I find the trips great because not only does everyone pick up new things, I get to learn more too.

But It's become more evident that some of you can't participate and perhaps some of you are not sure if a workshop would be right for you, so what better way to pass on a bit of my experiences and tips, than in in the form of eBooks?

With all this in mind, I've been busy putting together a lot of e-Books for you all. I wanted to share my images in a better viewing experience than just a gallery on the web, and I also wanted them to be inspiring in some way. I've put together some short stories in the monographs (picture books). Hey, it was great for me to do this - getting to review what I'd done, relive my experiences was fun and I'm sure you'll get a lot of inspiration out of the results too.

So with all this in mind, I'm pleased to let you know that the e-Books shown in the above picture are available now, and I intend to add a lot more in the coming months too.

You may notice there is an 'HD movie' icon in the above illustration. In case you didn't know - I do a little podcast for iTunes (see the subscription link on the right hand banner to this page). The podcasts are a great way for me to share what I do and try to give you an insight into the experiences I had whilst out shooting in some place like India or Iceland.

The podcasts are something I care about deeply. Due to the bandwidth nature of iPods and iTunes, the quality is, to me, somewhat lacking. So I've prepared some HD versions of the podcasts for you too. They let you see the images in full resolution on a nice big monitor while you enjoy Hi-Fi quality sound too. Trust me - it's a much improved experience from looking at them in a tiny iPod screen or in low-res on the web.

Lastly, I'd like to let you all know about my latest 'technique' book - 'Nocturne - mastering low light photography'.

This eBook covers the essentials if you are to go and make some nice dreamy otherworldly landscape images at the edge of daylight.

I've had a lot of folk over the years ask me how I make some of my images. Why is the light the way it is for example. I've covered some of this on this very blog, but I feel that sometimes, a blog isn't really the best mode of communication. Now that i've discovered the power of the eBook format, I think it's a great medium for sharing my technical experiences and tips with you. You can find out more about it here.

I hope you're all as excited as I am about where this is all going. Being able to communicate, share ideas, teach, inspire - it's all wonderful stuff and I think that with all the new mediums that the web is now starting to provide - it's just getting better and better.

This'll probably be my last post on the blog for the next week as I head out to the Isle of Eigg this Sunday. A whole week of workshop teaching, good eating, great beaches and good company I'm sure, await me. See you all in a week or so's time.

Visualisation part 5

Well, now that I've put the finishing touches to my Nocturne eBook about low light photography, It's time to start focussing more on the visualisation book I have started to piece together. I'm away next week for a week though. I'm off to the Isle of Eigg to conduct a photo workshop and it's one of my favourite locations. We have lots of nice home cooking at the Glebe barn to keep us all well fed (honestly, we eat like kings here - it's great), and we're only a mile or so away from the beaches we're going to photograph, so it all works out really nicely in logistical terms too.

So back to this visualisation subject.

Misconceptions

In order to visualise, we need to remove a couple of misconceptions that seem to be quite commonplace.

Misconception 1 - photographs are real

When we look at a scene, we have to be capable of imagining it as a final photograph. This usually means that we have to start to think of a scene as something more abstract. Photographs are 2d representations of what was before the lens. They are statically frozen moments of time.

Misconception 2 - photographs are truthful

How many times do you get people saying that the photographer lied because he manipulated the shot. Well, what about the camera lying. It doesn't see the way we see. It has a greatly reduced contrast range that it can handle. This is one of the reasons why photographs don't come out the way we imagined they should. We need to adjust and manipulate the image to match what we saw. But I wouldn't stop there. Each one of us interprets what we see in front of us differently. Seeing is believing - turns out to be very subjective. So when it comes to making adjustments to an image, we often do this to make the scene conform to what we saw in our minds eye.

Photographs can't be truthful because they are an edit of the real world. Like a tv documentary that edits the script to match the view point, so to, do we do the same thing with a scene. We choose what to leave out of our story and what to emphasise. We colour the story to suit our own perspective. They are only truthful in conveying what we feel.

And of course, humans do not see in different focal lengths, so how can a wide angle shot of a scene be truthful?

Visualisation Part 4

Visualisation, I think, is the act of looking at the real world, and imagining it as a picture.

I know a lot of large format photographers love using the medium because it enables them to visualise better. I've heard some photographers say that once an image is projected onto the ground glass at the back of the camera, it has taken on a new meaning. They're no longer looking at the real world - instead, they are looking at an interpretation of it.

3D into 2D

Firstly, the image is now 2D instead of 3D. This is an interesting point in the art of being able to translate a scene into a photograph. We must be able to view a three dimensional scene before us and know how it is going to look in the final picture. I feel a lot of people struggle with this. For instance, closing one eye to view a scene allows you to remove that extra dimension and see how objects in a scene relate to each other. If you have two objects close or overlapping - it's easier to interpret this in 2D than in 3D. I've seen photos I think will work and when they're flattened down to 2D, they become confused, messy images where it's hard to discern where one object ends and another begins.

Upside Down

A lot of large format photographers prefer to compose an image upside down. Large format cameras don't have prisms in them to turn the image the right way up. If you don't know this already - the real world is projected onto your retinas upside down. Your brain takes care of turning it the right way up. With an SLR, the image is flipped the right way up for you. But with a basic LF camera, it behaves very much like our own eye.... the scene is projected onto the ground glass upside down.

A lot of photographers prefer this, because they say when the image is upside down, they no longer think of it as some meaningful scene. They just see shapes, tones, diagonals, curves. They're able to take a step away from the 'scene' and think of it more as a collection of pleasing shapes and lines. They're able to see it more as a picture than reality.

I think as photographers, if we want to improve our visualisation technique, we need to start believing that whatever we see through our viewfinder is no longer real. We need to think of it as a picture hanging up on a wall. Cropped, composed, with pleasing harmonious tones in it.

Glencoe weekend Workshop!

Just a quick note to let you know that a new Glencoe weekend workshop is now available for booking. Dates are 1st to the 3rd of October. The weekend trips are very popular. The Torridon trip for October is mostly sold out now, so if you're interested in coming, details are available here and you can book here

Visualisation part 3

Ok, so yesterday I mentioned how I prefer to visualise without the aid of a preview screen on the back of a camera (note that I am not referring to digital or film here - I want to keep the medium out of the argument for the time being).

But camera choice does affect visualisation. I know, I have a tendency to say 'the camera does not matter', but this is really my way of saying 'focus less on buying gear and more on making images'. So in what way does a camera affect how we visualise a scene?

Aspect Ratio

Use the same aspect ratio camera for long enough, and we start to 'see' pictures in that format. I find on my workshops that I will often 'see' a scene that I know will work really well on my camera (which is 6x7 aspect ratio) but when I try to show the composition to participants and set it up using their 3:2 aspect ratio cameras, I often find I can't get the composition to work the way I was seeing it. I've become very used to seeing everything around me in 6x7 aspect ratio.

I think this is an important point because although we are influenced by the aspect ratio of the camera we are using, the camera may not suit our pre-programmed way of seeing. In short, we need to match the camera to the photographer's way of seeing sometimes.

Personally, when I moved from 35mm to 6x7, I noticed I seemed to get along much better. I think I have a pre-disposition to seeing in that format. Whereas others may not.

A good photographer can be hampered by using a camera that does not compliment his way of seeing. I've certainly had people on my workshops using 3:2 cameras where I've felt they should be shooting square format. Everything about how they compose a shot often leads me to want to crop off part of the scene.

Lens behaviour

Understanding how the lenses we own render a scene, is important in aiding visualisation.

I think this is why I prefer to use prime lenses. I have 3 in total. 50, 80 and 150 mm focal lengths. They are the equivalent of 25, 40, 75 in 35mm terms.

Using primes makes me hunt a scene with my feet rather than with a zoom ring. So it aids me in finding better compositions. In terms of visualisation though, when I turn up at a scene, I instantly know which lens to use - because I seem to flip in my mind from 50, 80 or 150.

I'm always saying that simplifying or reducing the amount of equipment aids in making better pictures, and I think in terms of visualisation, having less choice, helps us get to know and visualise with a small set of lenses.

Visualisation Continued.....

One of the things I think that is important in the making of an image, is visualisation. It's such a broad word though in terms of meaning. For the past few days I've been pouring over all the Ansel Adams books to get a better definition. Ansel says: 'visualisation is the mental process of seeing the final image in the minds eye before the picture is taken'.

In order to be able to imagine, or I prefer 'realise' the final image in our minds, I think we need to have an established style, which I think most book writers call 'voice'. Having a strong sense of what your style is, understanding what you would want to do to a scene in photographic terms comes with experience and practice. I know for instance, that my printing techniques have morphed over time. I seem to have a stock number of applications that I will apply to a scene depending on how I interpret it. For example, one might be to darken the foreground down a little to help navigate the eye into the scene.... Because I've had years of experience of interpreting my images in the 'dark room', this has rubbed off on me such that I tend to do that interpretation at the point of capture too. It has affected my judgement at the point of making an image. It has, to be blunt, influenced even my choice of subject.

I will choose a subject these days, not specifically because I think it's beautiful, or obvious (such as an iconic location), but because I find symmetry in it, find balance, pleasing tone and I know it will work well as a photographic print.

This I feel is at the heart of visualisation - being able to look at a scene, reality, and instantly be able to convert it in ones mind from 3D to 2D, with time frozen and understand how the colours and tonal scale of the scene will be rendered on my film.

Which brings me back to dear old film. I find that using film actually helps me in the visualisation process. Because I have no immediate feedback on a preview screen on the back of my camera, I have to build up a mental picture in my head of how the image is going to be interpreted by the camera. The camera as we should all know - does not see the way we see. It is a much less dynamic eye. So there I am out in the field, making an image and for the most part, I have an imagined view of the scene in my head, I have to work out the dynamic range of the scene, use ND graduation to control it. But this all happens as a sixth-sense for want of a better term.

Now consider digital. We get instant feedback, we're able to see how it turned out and correct if need be. That's great isn't it?

To a point.

What digital does for us is break any engagement we have with 'living in the moment'. The instant we stop thinking about making an image and look at that screen, we may as well be checking our e-mail on our iPhone. We're no longer aware of what is happening around us, or even where we are. There is also an over-reliance on the screen. A lot of my pupils on workshops 'believe' what they see on the display and it can't be trusted. It's not calibrated, and screens vary in terms of quality. It is a handicap in some ways to visualisation because it deceives.

But it is a great learning tool in understanding exposure and composition. It's just that there should be a point when we no long use the screen on the back, because we are capable of visualising the final scene in our minds eye and we can trust our judgement.

Visualisation is the abstraction of reality, in some ways, we disengage from the real world because we are able to imagine the real world as a photograph. So my view is that when capturing a scene on film or digital, we should be striving to get the full tonal scale recorded - no blocked shadows and no burnt out highlights. We're not trying to capture the scene as is - in one go. We're aiming to come home with good raw material that can be used to create a good print from.

As Ansel said 'the negative is the score, the print is the performance', and as Ruth Bernhard said 'to stop at the negative, is to not realise the full potential of the image'.

So there we are, visualisation is the mental process of imagining the final print at the point of capture. I think Ansel was right.