Challenging our vision through inversion

Recently, I found that I can invert all the colours on my apple laptop via the system preferences*.

It was a fascinating experience for me to go over familiar work of mine and notice new things in the work. All because I was being forced to see it differently through inverting the colour and luminosity.

What was most fascinating for me, was how my perception changed about the work. With some images I was able to see new shapes that had not been apparent upon previous viewings. Other times it was more that I noticed imbalances in the tones between one area of the image to another area. But I also found that sometimes the images just became quite erie in some way. A new mood or feeling was being projected by them.

As a photographer, I'm always looking for ways to see my images anew. The problem with working on images for so long or living with them for a while, is that become invisible. I stop seeing what's really there, and I become blind to potential errors or issues in the work.

Inversion has been a technique used for a long while. When composing, or editing my work, I will sometimes turn the image 180º so that my eye is forced to walk around the image in a different way. Since I am mostly a left-to-right viewer, I find my eye stumbles into things that weren't an obstruction when they were turned the right way up. 

So if you can use rotation to invert an image and see it differently, then why not invert it tonally? 

* To invert the colours or turn your entire screen monochrome, go to System preferences / Accessibility and choose the Display submenu, you will see the choices 'invert colours' and also 'use grayscale'.

The space between us

My father has often pointed out to me, that many of my pursuits or hobbies have been solitary ones. When I was a small kid, I spent a lot of time painting and drawing and much preferred to spend a lot of time on my own. I am to my own admission, a covert introvert. Over my life, I've learned social skills to help me hide the fact that I spend a lot of time looking within, and find the time on my own with my own thoughts something that I really need, and also enjoy.

When I made this photograph of this small volcanic cone in Argentina, I'm sure I tapped into my ability to remain within the scene while at the same time be outside of it. My camera is a great way of giving space between myself and my subjects.

Now before you start to think that I'm someone who's not sociable or able to have a conversation with, those that know me probably find me very chatty and outgoing. The reason why I bring this up, apart from to convince you that I am a normally functioning human being, is that I think one of the true skills of a photographer is to be able to be part of something while at the same time remain outside it. Let me explain further.

In order to really see something for what it may present in picture terms, there needs to be a degree of separating ourselves from what it is we are photographing. We need to be able to look at something differently from those around us. Rather than thinking of our potential subject as something of purpose, we are instead looking at it from an aesthetic point of view. There has to be space between us and our subjects for this to happen. But there also has to be a sense of connectedness to our subjects as well.

I think I have, through my own genetic introversion, gained skills at a young age to be part of what was going on around me, while at the same time remain within myself. This skill has allowed me to be able to exist in the external world while also hold onto my own rich inner-life.

I think this is one of the components of most if not all photographers: we have the ability to be part of our surroundings while at the same time, be separate from them. There is no better tool that I can think of other than the camera which allows us to exist in the world, while also at the same time be outside of it. When we pick up a camera, we create space between ourselves and our subjects. We are no longer part of the scene but instead we are outside of it looking in. And I think this is a situation that many of us find comfortable to be in.

Before you assume that my point of view is that all photographers are introverts (this could be true, it may also be false), the point I am really trying to make today, is that making photographs requires an interesting mix of being able to be part of something while at the same time be outside of it.

If you are someone who has a rich inner-life, then you may find that photography has come naturally to you because it allows you to be outside of the situation, while at the same time part of it. But if you are not an introvert, then maybe this experience of being outside of the scene is still an interesting one for you because it is something you don't normally encounter. It's a real luxury to be able to enjoy something in a way that isn't often encountered in our day to day activities.

Either way, the point I am making today, is that for photography to work, we have to have an interesting mix of being able to be part of the scene we are photographing, while at the same time remain outside of it. Cameras allow us to do that, and I think that's one of the reasons why I was drawn to photography in the first place; It satisfies my need to be part of the world, while at the same time remain outside of it all, looking in.

Hokkaido 2nd time round

Just finishing up in Hokkaido tonight. Going home tomorrow. Wonderful trip. Can't wait to get the films processed :-)

Biei, Hokkaido December 2015.
Image © Bruce Percy 2015.

First time for everything!

With my friends in Hokkaido.

A crisis of abundance

When I started out making pictures a few decades ago, there was little thought on my part about how I would live with the work as time went on. I think that for many of us, the pursuit of the image is what consumes most of our time when we first start out.

It is only now several decades later, that I am aware of the mass of work I have created over many years. Not all of it is consistent and I've come to realise that although there are images which have stayed strong for me, some of it I am now embarrassed by. It seems that the passing of time invites objectivity.

There is clearly a skill to be mastered as one learns to live with their older work.

As part of my preparation for an exhibition I am doing this summer, I've been revisiting some of my older work and also reconsidering many of my more resent images. I've been thinking about how I should approach looking back at what I've done while also remaining in the present moment. I've also been asking myself the question 'how should I look towards the future without being tied down by what has gone before?' Because I do think that any body of work that has been amassed over time can become a weight, a burden to shoulder.

Learning to let go of who we were, of what we were trying to do, and what the work represented, is I feel,  the best way to go about moving forward. If I am able to also accept that the work itself is more a document of a moment, and does not strictly represent who I may be right now, then that allows me the freedom to grow.

It also allows me to view the work as open to re-interpretation. Why should work be cast in stone, to be one way just because that is how I felt at the time I first created it?

The nub of living a creative life, as I see it, is to recognise that the only thing that is constant in our lives is impermanence. The way we see the world now, and the way the world is, is always changing and just because we said or felt or believed something one day, does not imply that it is still true another day. We are entitled to change and in fact we are always changing.

By accepting that things come and they go, gives me great comfort to understand that what I do, is just a transient expression of who I was at a moment in time. Sometimes these expressions (images) become part of me - works that I am immensely proud of, and sometimes they are works that lose appeal over time. I do not judge myself harshly for what I have done, because that would lead to trying to obtain unreachable goals. By accepting that I am changing and that my work may vary in quality and quantity over time, allows me freedom to continue. The way I see it, it's the only way to prevent my older work (my history) from having more prominence than it should.

Back in Hokkaido

I just arrived back in Hokkaido last night. It's great to be here, despite the 9-hour time difference and feeling slightly woozy from the jet lag.

Last year when I first visited this Island, the weather was not what I had been expecting. Too mild and with very little snow, I had to pick my compositions very carefully and also had to pass up on so many great locations as well. This year I am assured is back to -17ºC temperatures and almost waist-level snow in places. So much so, that I may not be able to get to some of the locations I fell in love with last year.

Photography as well all know, is a great leveller. It teaches you to accept what will be, because we have no control over the elements. And to come back to a place with expectations that have been formed by previous visits is also folly. It's best to clear the mind as much as I can and try to keep an open mind, because it is with this acceptance of adventure that new ideas and new images are born. I can't wait :-)

I'm also looking forward to sharing a glass or two of Saké with my guide :-)

Greetings from Hokkaido, Japan

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Left to right: my guide, myself & my friend Sonja

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First time for everything. I've never been on the roof of a car before. Getting down was worse than getting up.

Kodachrome Rumour

I'm always interested in just how viable it is to bring back older products. Last year we saw the Moog Minimoog synthesiser resurrected. It's something i never thought would happen, and it seems that some of the film companies are now starting to realise there is still value in their older discontinued product lines.

It's being rumoured on a few websites lately that the CEO of Kodak was quoted as saying:

"We get asked all the time by filmmakers and photographers alike, ‘are you gonna bring back some of these iconic film stocks like Kodachrome [and] Ektachrome,'” says Overman. “I will say, we are investigating Kodachrome, looking at what it would take to bring that back […] Ektachrome is a lot easier and faster to bring back to market […] but people love Kodak’s heritage products and I feel, personally, that we have a responsibility to deliver on that love."

It's a big 'if' right now, so don't read this as 'they will bring it back'. For me, it's simply inspiring to know that the film companies are looking back at their older products and realising they still have a lot to offer if resurrected.

Kodak Brings Back a Classic with EKTACHROME Film

Film is not dead. I've known this for a while because I looked into it a while back. Today is nice news to hear that Kodak is re-introducing Ektachrome film and is manufacturing it in their Rochester plant.

Since 2009, film sales have been on the rise. Indeed, it is not unusual for me to find maybe 1 or 2 people per workshop who is what I would call a 'hybrid' photographer or 'flexitographer'. Someone who now plays with analog mediums as well as digital.

This is a massive turn around from the usual question I got asked about 10 years ago of 'have you gone digital yet'. The way I see it is that we have certain behavioural patterns to embracing new things and I'd like to draw comparisons to music listening mediums.

Each time something new comes out, there used to be a terrific rush to adopt it. Bring in the new and throw out the old. Back in the 80's we had this notion that one format had to replace all others. Cassette tape and vinyl records were promptly abandoned by many for CD. Roll forward to the present time, and we are now living in a multi-format society where it's more a case of lifestyle choice whether you listen to your music digitally or via vinyl. In fact, we live in an interesting time where CD is now mostly obsolete and yet vinyl is alive and well (albeit selling in very very small quantities compared to other digital mediums).

So with regards to music listening, we've gone past the honeymoon period of embracing digital and abandoning analog listening mediums and now enjoy both.

The same can be said for photography. We have gone past the question of 'have you gone digital yet?' to perhaps asking questions such as - what else is out there that I can play with? And the answer is that many photographers are now enjoying working with other mediums such as traditional black and white printing, black and white film, colodian wet plate process, palladium printing, and of course digital capture.

It's an interesting time to be a photographer, because we have all these mediums at our disposal and it's heartening to know that many of us are experimenting and playing with them.

In Kodak's case with Ektachrome, I feel this rebirth of the film is more to do with the requirements and needs of the motion movie industry to have film for a few reasons: firstly, there is the need to archive. Digital is not the most safest way to do this and the more secure way is to have hard-copy. Always. So there is a desperate need from the motion picture houses to have film stock available so they can archive and keep their films for posterity. Secondly there is still a demand from certain film directors to shoot on film. There has been an active campaign for film to stay around.

From my own perspective, I think film is here to stay. But there is a problem with keeping it here. Currently with vinyl album production, most of it is being done on old pressing plant machines. The infrastructure to keep vinyl albums alive is based on dedicated people maintaining these older presses. Similarly, I think the biggest challenge to keep film production going is to maintain the lines and processing plants that make them. Re-tooling when things break down is problematic for large-scale existing plants, but surprisingly, it is not a problem for some of the newer films that are coming from cottage industry businesses.

Anyway, the upshot is that any 'scaremongering' about film being end of line product is simply that now. Film still has a future now that things have settled down a lot and we as creative people have more options at our disposal. It's a good time to be a photographer.

Interview

I was interviewed by Sam Gregory from @thetogcast and it's now available on iTunes and also their website. Some nice questions too :-) You can hear an excerpt (I believe it's just a small section) of it below:

And you can hear the full interview and subscribe to TheTogcast on iTunes below:

Printing is the only way to truly evaluate your work

It is only when we print, that we can truly see what we have. Until we print, we are dealing with a half-realised, half-baked image.

My calibrated & profiled monitor and daylight viewing booth. The daylight viewing booth is essential in print evaluation and also in calibrating my monitor.

Even though my computer monitor is calibrated and profiled to a tight tolerance, I still find discrepancies in my photographs once printed.

One of the most obvious errors is to discover that the brightest tones in the image, aren't really bright at all. The weird thing about this, is that once I notice that the tones aren't as bright in the actual print, I can now see the same problem when I view the image on the computer monitor. Even though when I looked at the image originally on the monitor, I thought it looked fine.

Our vision is often tricked and what we think we're seeing, isn't the case at all. Let's look at how our computer monitor may fool us. Take for instance this image below. It's a snow scene and I've chosen to work on it with a black background. The image looks pretty bright to me, almost white.

But if I change the background of my monitor to a light-grey tone, the snow scene doesn't look so bright any more.

And this problem just gets worse if I change the background to white as you can see below. The snow scene isn't looking so white any more, but instead, it looks quite muddy. Those bright tones are really mid tones.

Interestingly, if my monitor is calibrated correctly, the white background should simulate what the image will look like if printed on a white piece of paper, and in the example below, I may find that the image will be too dark once printed.

In the final image below, I've brightened it up a bit more to convey what I was looking for originally. This has only been possible because first I viewed the final edit on a white background on my monitor, but more importantly, once I printed it, I noticed it really wasn't as bright as I'd hoped. Now that I've corrected it and printed it, I'm happy, but surprisingly, it also stands up on my monitor also.

My monitor can only take me so far in evaluating my work. I really need to print it to get a better feel for how far I've taken the work, and how much further I still need to take it.

There is certainly some form of perception 'error' at play here and I'm sure it's to do with the fact that when looking at a file on a monitor, the light is transmitted, while looking at a print the light is reflected.

Either way, what I do find to be true, is that prints show up any discrepancies in my images more easily than any computer monitor can. This has nothing to do with the quality or correctness of my monitor, but more to do with the simple fact that there is some perceptual errors introduced by looking at something that is electronically transmitted. 

So printing can be used as a kind of reference, to find discrepancies in the work so you can go back and work on ironing them out. The thing that is most surprising about this, is that if you are able to work on your images until they look great in print, they will also look great on the monitor also. But the same is not true the other way round.

If you really want to push your image editing forward and get the best out of your work. You really have to start printing it.

Just make sure that you have your monitor calibrated and profiled as best as you can get it (use a decent colorimeter for your monitor - X-rite i1 display pro for example), but even once you have calibrated and profiled your monitor, there is only one way to confirm that it is correct: that is to use proof print that is guaranteed to be close to the file it was printed from. I use Neil Barstow's ICC verification target. Once I have calibrated my monitor, I check it's accuracy by comparing the ICC verification target against the file it was created against. The target is placed under a daylight viewing booth such as my GTI viewer below, and I open up the file in Photoshop. I also ensure that the right ICC profile is selected and proofing is switched on. If there is a difference in the colours between my target and file on my monitor - then I need to redo the calibration. I often find that it is more about the colour temperature of my monitor. In the image below, you can see that my monitor is perhaps a little colder than the target is under the viewing booth. So I will turn the white point down of my monitor a little and reiterate the process until my monitor is very close to what I see on the target.

My GTI viewing booth on the left, and my  Eizo 27" monitor on the right. I have the target file opened in Photoshop and proofing switched on. This is the only way to confirm that my monitor calibration is right.

When you do print, let your gut tell you what's wrong with your work once you print it. If you notice that the tones aren't as punchy as you thought they were, then look again at the file on your monitor and I'll bet you that you will now notice that they indeed lack punch there also. Your monitor isn't the best reference for telling you how far you need to go with your edits: your prints are.