I was watching something recently, and there was a quote from Gandhi -
When asked what his message was, Gandhi replied 'my life is my message'.
And it resonated with me. I felt that everything I do; how I conduct myself and the way I interact with the world, as well as the art that I produce - is my message.
It's the same for all of us.
If you are a photographer, then I'd like to ask you - have you figured out what your message is?
Tightrope walking, Jaisamler, India. Image © Bruce Percy 2009.
I've just published a new collection of images from my Patagonia trip this May. They can be found under the recent work section of this website.
Lago Pehoe & Cuernos del Paine, Torres del Paine National Park.This was shot a few years ago that I never knew how it fitted in with anything that I'd done, up until now. So it is part of my new portfolio as it fits so well with the work from this year. Image © Bruce Percy 2013
I often get a feel for the work while I'm out there shooting. I remember saying to a friend once I was home, that I could see in my mind's eye a portfolio of black beaches contrasting against almost white skies. I could almost 'see' a two-tone collection.
If you like to focus on a theme in your work as I do, it's much easier to marry images together when you're dealing with a few tones or colours. Which I think is exactly what this portfolio does.
For me, I know that good images come about due to three things;
1) Good light
2) Right time
3) My ability to work with what i'm being given
The last point is the most important one. I've been saying for a while now, that I've been lucky to meet certain landscapes at the right time in my own photographic development. If I meet them too soon, then I run the risk of finding them hard to interpret because I haven't developed the sufficient skills in which to work with what I'm being given.
Lago Grey, Torres del Paine national Park
Image © Bruce Percy 2013
I've been coming to Patagonia since 2003, and despite loving the place, I've always found it hard to photograph and I believe it's because I haven't been ready until recently. I didn't have the skills with which to interpret a stark, monochromatic landscape. Looking back, I have often been going against the flow by trying to get Patagonia to give me what I wanted (saturated colours), rather than me being able to see the beauty and relationships in a landscape that excels at contrasts between light and dark. The black volcanic beaches are so far apart from the bright tones of overcast skies and snow covered mountains, that I see now, this was the key to me understanding this landscape.
I feel I'm always learning, always realising that each landscape has its own way that it wants to be conveyed. It's just a case of being receptive to it, and working with it, rather than against it.
Ice floes in Laguna Armaga, Torres del Paine national park
Image © Bruce Percy 2015
As part of my workshops and teaching photography, I often find that many of my participants have difficulty resolving what they thought they saw, with what their camera saw.
I've felt for a long while, that seeing should not be believing. There are evolutionary aspects to how we construct our reality, and this can be a problem for us photographers, because we are often 'tricked' by our own nature.
In this TED talk, Donald Hoffman puts forward that we 're-construct' our reality in our minds. In other words, we create the visual world we live in - inside our heads. Hoffman's talk goes a long way to making the point that all visual experiences are interpretive ones.
It might be useful in helping those of you who have difficulty resolving the differences between what you thought you saw and what your camera saw. Just simply knowing that there's a lot of psychology to it, might be enough to help you understand that you shouldn't trust what you see, but instead, try to look more closely.
Please do watch the video, but stay with it. It does get a little scientific for a few minutes and then ties up nicely at the end.
When I look back over the past twenty years of my photography, I can remember many moments when I had an epiphany - a sudden insight, to what kind of light really worked well in a photograph.
Lago Nordenskjöld, from a secret location Torres del Paine, Chilean Patagonia.
Shot in mid-afternoon light on an overcast day.
Image © Bruce Percy 2015
If I summarise it, it would be down to this;
I started out shooting in bright blue sky sunny days because my eye liked it. But I found my camera didn't as the pictures wouldn't come out the way 'I saw them'. The first epiphany was that camera's don't see the way we see, and what is exciting to the human eye, is too high contrast and hard for a camera to record.
Then there came the second epiphany: If I shot at sunrise or sunset, the colour was often beautiful and it gave my images a sense of magic (or glow) that I couldn't quite get during the sunny days I had been shooting in until that point. I learned that the light is warm at sunrise and that often the atmosphere of a place is often calm too. Midday light is a rather cool light in comparison to the warm tones of sunrise.
For a long while, I would do nothing but shoot at sunrise and sunset. It's a great learning experience to continuously work in soft light at these times of the day, and although we all seek those golden colours, they don't always suit the environments we're photographing.
Shooting the isle of Rum from the Isle of Eigg one overcast, rainy miserable day, in 2007 taught me so much about overcast light, and how beautiful it can be in a photograph.
After many years of working in this light, I found myself on a very wet beach one afternoon in winter and had another epiphany. Midday light worked too, so long as the light was very overcast. I hadn't up until this point, imagined I could get any kind of 'mood' to my work except by working during the golden hours, and since this moment back in 2007, I started to employ working at other times of day, providing that the light is soft.
Over the course of 10 years, I'd gone from shooting only in sunny light, to only shooting during the golden hours, and then finally, coming back to shooting in midday light, so long as the light was soft. My understanding of the kinds of light I could shoot in had altered and I knew that soft light works best.
And then another epiphany happened. Although I would shoot any location if the light was soft, at sunrise, sunset and in the middle of the day, I found that some of the images didn't work because the light had to suit the subject. For instance, the stark black volcanic beaches of Iceland work well if the light is very cold / monochromatic. Composing a monochromatic black beach with warm light seemed at times to be at odds with each other. The landscape didn't really need the warm tones of sunrise, and if anything it was a distraction.
Small ice floes in Laguna Armaga, Torres del Paine, Chilean Patagonian winter
Image © Bruce Percy 2015
These days I still prefer to work with soft light, but I try to work with landscapes based on their tones and colours. Some places are monochromatic in nature and therefore I feel they work best in a neutral colour temperature (midday). For example, Torres del Paine national park can be a monochromatic subject. The mountains are granite grey with dark sediment rock layered upon them and Its beaches are made up of black volcanic rock. The mountains have a very stark look to them, so rather than seeking to shoot them in the warm glow of sunrise and sunset only, I find that the cooler colour temperature of midday light can often work better.
I've come to realise over the years, that beauty is everywhere and it can be rendered under different colour temperatures - not just the golden rays of sunrise and sunset.
I just thought I should let you know that I am being interviewed by Paul Griffiths for his 'Live and Uncut' Google+ Hangout tonight at 8pm BST (British Summer Time).
The interview is about 1 hour long and seems to be a general chat about how I got started, what cameras I use, etc, etc.
I believe you may need a google+ account to view this, as I'm not too up on g+, but here is the link to the hangout: https://plus.google.com/u/0/events/cu2uhd0t3b3frk0vh53dn1jfkl4.
Maybe see you there :-)
