Dancing in the streets

This is a street scene from Havana, Cuba. I shot this on a little Voightlander Bessa R3a rangefinder camera on Kodak Portra film (my favourite film for people shots). There's something very nice about film that seems really 'organic' to my eye. But it was really the chance encounter with these children that makes the image for me.

Cuba is a country full of music. You hear it everywhere - morning, noon and night, in peoples homes, in passing cars and out on the street too.

These kids were really getting into the swing of things as I came around the corner, and I just couldn't resist taking this shot.

Culpeo

The Culpeo is a South American species of wild dog. It does look very much like the foxes we get here in the UK, but this was shot in Torres del Paine national park in Chile last november. I've just upgraded to Apple's Aperture 2.0 and whilst doing that, I've come across this raw file from last years trip to Patagonia.

Elliott Erwitt said that he has negatives spanning the entire duration of his career (well over 40 years worth) and he sometimes finds upon reviewing them that there is something he missed first time round.

It's good to revisit all the transparencies (or raw files) that you've shot - there may be something there you missed first time round.

I find it hard to be objective straight after a shoot and a sense of distance is often required. It's only then that I can see images for what they are, rather than what I wanted to achieve.

I'd forgotten about this picture of the Culpeo. It has a nice composition.

Night photography

I've been using film for a very long time. To me, film has a a completely different look and feel to how digital images look. It's almost like the difference between how a motion picture looks and how something filmed on video looks. Film has a way of suppressing blown highlights in a pleasing way, whereas digital just hits a brick wall.

But digital has quite a lot of advantages over film and I've pretty much come to the conclusion that I will be using both in the future. Film is strong in the departments of skin tones (Kodak Portra) and Saturated landscapes (Velvia). Digital on the other hand has immediate feedback and in terms of doing night shots or sunrise/sunset shots, it doesn't suffer from reciprocity effect which is present in all films.

In case you don't know what reciprocity effect is I'll explain. Film exposure is pretty much consistent from around 2 seconds upwards. But when you shoot longer exposures, the relationship between the shutter and the aperture fall apart. In essence, film becomes less sensitive to light, the longer it is exposed. So typically, if your light meter indicates an exposure time greater than 2-4 seconds then the meter is pretty much guaranteed to be wrong. You have to compensate and extend the exposure time in order to get a correctly exposed shot. If you don't, the film will be underexposed.

Now with digital capture, all of this becomes a thing of the past. The only issue you have to contend with is digital sensor noise. If you can imagine, the sensor is sampling the scene for the entire duration the shutter is open, and that means heat build up on the sensor. Due to all the electrons flying around, noise build up. Some cameras have algorithms built into them to remove the noise at the end of the exposure. That's why if you shoot a 10 second exposure, it takes the camera quite a bit of time after the exposure has complete to show you the preview.

The image you see above is a digital capture. I'm pretty sure I would never have caught this on a film camera without having a lot of skill and experience of shooting in the dark. I was able to dial in the exposure value I wanted into a nice little remote handset called a Canon TC-80N3. It allows me to use the camera on bulb and dial in the number of hours, minutes, seconds for the exposure... which is great as I'm always forgetting to keep check on the stop watch I carry with me (yes, a stop watch is a 'must have' for long exposures).

In terms of how the image was made, I'd been out shooting at Torness nuclear power station on the east cost of Scotland. I was just returning back to my car after it had got dark and whilst putting things away, I saw the sky moving very quickly. I loved the orange colour from the sodium lights in the car park and in particular thought the lights looked rather alien with all this strange light and swirling clouds going on. So I set up the camera on a tripod and used the remote timer I mentioned above. It took around three attempts to get the correct exposure because my light meter couldn't give me a reading so I had to guess (I have a hand held Sekonic meter). After each shot, I was able to check the preview screen to see if I'd got the exposure correct.

I love surreal images and I certainly subscribe to the idea than an image should be an expression of your imagination. Shooting at night adds another dimension to photography and your own experiences of being 'out there'.

Of course, this could have been captured on film, but I wouldn't have known if I'd got it 'in the bag'. I'll be posting more articles on both film and digital, because each has it's own strengths and weaknesses.

If you do go out to shoot at night - take warm clothes and a flask of hot tea, and don't be surprised if the first few attempts result in you coming home because you got a little bit freaked out..... it takes a while to get over the fear of being out in the dark on your own.

To view my portfolio of Torness images click here.

A cold evening shoot

One of my favourite places at the moment to photograph is the location surrounding Torness nuclear power station. Torness is situated on the east cost of Scotland on a reclaimed peninsula which is protected from the sea by a man made coast line of concrete blocks.

I like to do repeat visits to locations. Sometimes I'll come home with nothing, while other times, Ill find something new. In January we had a really hard cold spell. The changes in seasons can often add a new dimension to a place so I decided to head out to Torness to see what might happen.

I'm always looking for compositions, and if I find something that is of interest, I then start to look for things around to anchor it. What I mean by this is that I will try to find elements of the surrounding landscape to use in order to 'lead the eye' into the picture. This is always done with what is there - I never move things of create a contrived view point. I just look for what is there and decide if it's a good place to shoot from.

With wide angle images it's a classic compositional device to have something in the foreground of the image. My initial interest had been in the two concrete towers in the distance, and I knew that an image of them alone would not be interesting enough. The cost line had been manufactured (yes, that's right - it's not natural) of large stone blocks that had been moved into position to create a defence against the sea. It was covered in frost and the cracks and textures of the ground were far too interesting to pass up on. So I spent a few minutes searching the location for the best vantage point where I could get the right composition.

This is something I always do - I explore the surrounding landscape - always looking for the best compositional aspect. Many people use their zoom lenses to move around a scene, and often stay routed to the same spot for the entire duration of the shoot. I tend to like to roam, make a few shots and move off again. Always in search of a better vantage point.

The resulting image was a long exposure because the light was starting to fade, and also, because I'm partly fascinated by the idea of compressing many moments of time into one image. But what I also loved about the shot was the monochrome aspect to it. The light here in Scotland is very 'cold' and tends to have more blue in it's spectrum. Coupled with fading winter light and an overcast sky, I had very soft tones with which to shoot and used a 3 stop ND Soft Grad filter on the image to balance the earth with the sky.

February's Featured Image ~ Girls Fishing at Sra Sang, Angkor Wat, Cambodia

I’d been in Cambodia for around three weeks and one of the things I tend to do when I go abroad to take photographs is base myself in the same location for extended periods. In Cambodia’s instance, I based myself in Siem Reap for the entire time I was there even though it is so tempting to move around. Don't you feel the need to move and explore more locations? There is this fear that you’re not seeing enough, or that you may be missing a magic image that is only just around the corner, right? Wrong.

Well, I'm not really that black and white about things, but what may be a bland shot today, may not be tomorrow. Many things can change between two visits to the same location; the light may be magical one day and drab the other. On this day two girls decided to go fishing and I'd been patient enough to hang around for a while to see what might happen. It's all about anticipation.

The image was shot at a man made lake called Sra Sang. I'd been coming here on and off over the three weeks. On the morning of this shot, the sky had been thunderous and dark. Alongside this, there was not a breath of wind so I knew the lake would be completely still and the reflections of the thunderstorm would be nicely reflected in the lake. So I headed down here hoping to make some nice landscape shots. I never knew before hand that I was going to get a lovely 'people' image such as this.

Upon arrival, I had the usual greeting from the children there. 'Do you want to buy a bracelet?', 'Do you want to buy a postcard?'. The only thing that had been dropped from the conversation from previous outings was 'How long you you stay?' and 'Where you from?'. These two questions had been answered on my other visits to Sra Sang, and they were just trying their luck that I may buy yet another postcard or bracelet from them.

Anyway, after about a good hour, the children had pretty much got tired of me and I'd started to blend in as a semi-permanent fixture to their day. That's when the magic happened. Two of the girls in the group had gone back to fishing in the lake and because I was now semi-invisible, I was able to approach them and take this shot.

What gets me about it though, Is that I had no idea that I'd get anything like this before I'd turned up that morning. Each day brings it's pleasant surprises in life, and Photography is no exception. I'd gone to take some landscape shots and came back with a 'people' shot that was one of my own personal favourites of the trip......

I feel it works for a few reasons. The light is great, the composition is pleasing. Note how the subjects are leaning from the right into the frame, and they are on the right hand side of the frame. The reflection of the sky in the water makes it look as if they are actually on a ledge, hanging above the clouds. And that's happened because I've isolated the shot. There's nothing else at the sides and top of the frame to anchor the image. You have no reference point..... Plus, I think the rangefinder camera I used allowed me to be more subtle too. I really don't like SLR cameras for people shots because they are too noisy and it becomes hard for me to blend into the background.

But my point is; if I hadn't been repeatedly coming back to this location, I wouldn't have got this shot.

I'm glad I hung around.

The Art of Photograpy

Welcome to my blog. I've decided it was time to air my thoughts on Photography. In particular, I'm a bit tired of gear-head web sites as it seems to me that everyone is so hung up on gear, gear, gear and nobody is interested in discussing the making of an image, or the more emotional aspects of taking pictures.

So with my blog, I aim to attempt to give a running commentary on my experiences, the highs and lows of being out there in National Parks, landscapes, anywhere that there is a potential picture to be made.

Selfoss waterfall, North East Iceland. Shot at dawn whilst the sun was burning off the fog that had settled during the night.

I'll of course discuss some of the gear involved, but I'd much rather tell you about what my senses picked up and what inspired me. Or how difficult it was to achieve the shots I was after.

Photography is an emotional art, it's about getting out there, letting your senses become heightened through the act of photography, and seeing the world with an acute sense of vision.