Snow shoes for tripods

You may have noticed that I have a predilection for snow landscapes. They bring a certain minimalism to my compositions. As someone who has photographed in snow for many years now, I've always found it hard to keep my tripod from sinking so deep into the snow that sometimes it's much lower than I intended.

Gitzo GT5342LS included accessories, no longer offered. Note the big ski-pole like snow shoes. They were 'ok', but not really perfect. And now we have nothing.

When I extend the legs (one of the many reasons why I choose to use a very very tall tripod) I can sometimes get round this issue and have the tripod at the height I want, despite the legs having sunk so far into the deep snow that it is often difficult to position the tripod exactly where I want.

On all my Gitzo tripod purchases, they have always come with an accessory bag that contains the items you see above: alen key's for tripod maintenance, grease for re-greasing the tripod after a major shoot (you should disassemble and strip down your tripod after it being in salt water at the very least and strip it down regularly to keep it working like new).

The bag also comes with some snow shoes. They look a little like the shoes that are at the bottom of most ski poles. I've found them in general to be an improvement on not using them at all, but they are still not ideal. They do not allow me to really get some kind of floating for the tripod.

I've been looking around the web to see if someone makes some decent show shoes for tripods. It appears that this is either a major oversight by tripod makers, or that perhaps the market is so small that they haven't bothered. 

I guess I may have to go and design my own.

Ben Hope, Sutherland, Scotland, 2017

I'm in the far north of Scotland this week. I've rented a cottage and I'm here relaxing and spending some time with two very good friends. There has been some snowfall the past day or so (this is officially a La Niña year - so cold fronts seem to be on the horizon and best you be ready for a cold winter!).

Ben Hope, Fuji GFX 50s, 32-64mm lens
Image © Bruce Percy 2017

I made this shot today of Ben Hope - the most northerly Munro in Scotland. (a Munro is a Scottish mountain over 3,000 feet high. Scottish mountains aren't that big in the scheme of world sizes, but they are beautiful and we like to walk them. So we have given any mountain over 3,000 feet the status of being a Munro).

I can't say that I particularly like digital capture. I am a dyed in the wool Film shooter, much preferring the process of living with the captured image in my mind's-eye, and having to trust my intuition that I've got it on film. Still, I was lent a GFX 50 megapixel medium format camera by Fujifilm for this week. It has, in my opinion, one of the nicest interfaces in a modern camera for composition. Namely: they have considered aspect-ratios as part of the integral design of the camera. All the usable aspect ratios that you could want are here: 3:2, 4:5, 4:3, 6:7, 6:19, 2:1. They can be dialled up at a moments notice by one of the many configurable buttons on the camera body and get this - the aspect ratio is identical in both the eye-piece and live-view preview screen. Aspect ratios are no after-thought on this camera. I wish other camera manufacturers would implement aspect ratios as a major part of their camera designs. At best I often find that they have been implemented in non-standard ways across the entire range of models they offer. Some crop destructively the final image while others allow you to undo the crop to retain the entire sensor area. Others don't even record the aspect ratio you shot in, and many of them have clunky interfaces with which to move between aspect ratios or at best, only offer a handful of useful ones which are only viewable on the preview screen and not in the eye piece.

One of the most important features for anyone when they buy a camera should be whether the camera has at the very least an aspect ratio that suits their eye, and at the very most, a nice interface to allow them to switch between many of the more popular ratios available. 5:4, 6:7, 4:3, Square, 1:2, etc. I would personally never buy a digital camera that came with just 3:2 on it, and I would have to have at the very least 1:1 and also 4:5. I would also reject a camera if I found it requires more than one button press to get to the aspect ratios to change them.

When choosing a camera, aspect ratios should be high up on my list, well before resolution or any other feature as it is the aspect ratio of the camera that either aids you in composition, or hinders you.

I think the journey from the car to the final composition is decided by the use of the chosen aspect ratio. It is in my opinion folly to assume we can work in 3:2 with the aim of cropping to 5:4 or 1:1 once we get home. The final compositions are just never as tight. No, instead, by going out in the field with a camera that works in your chosen aspect ratio can you excel at your compositions. And that is one thing that the GFX does very well.

Before you think that I am giving up film for digital, I would like to reassure you that I am not. I have been a strong believer that if something works : don't mess with it. I love what I do with film and as much as it has its own limitations (it really does, trust me), so too does everything. But I know it well, I know how my film responds to what I'm shooting and I love the process. I just don't get the same vibe or excitement when I have a preview screen that gives everything away. I much prefer to live with the image imprinted on my mind, and with a hopeful expectation of a nicely processed image in a few weeks from the time I've captured the work, but that's just me. Your mileage will vary for sure.

The beauty of the unknowable

I'm a bit run down. I have tinnitus which has been with me for more than two weeks now, and shows no signs of going away. I know it's all to do with stress and working too much.

I did not see this image coming. Pre-visualisation was never part of the equation. There is so much beauty in the unknowable.

So if you don't mind, I am going to curtail my blogging for a while now. Besides, it's really hard to keep coming up with things to write about which have any substance or value. So I'd much rather say nothing at all, than say something that has nothing at the core of it.

I'll be back in a while (not sure when). But I think this is my cue to go out and find something else to inspire and recharge my batteries with.

I do feel I've done a lot this year, accomplished more than I had imagined, and met a lot of wonderful people along the way. It's been a real pleasure to meet so many nice people at my exhibition this summer, and to release a new book,

Plus I feel my photographic style is still very much on the move. Where it is going,... I do not know. But that is why we do what we do: to enjoy the pleasure and the subtle beauty of the unknowable.

Moved by the forest

If I were to sum up why I came to photography and why I still do it, it would be because I am in love with the elements of wind and rain, of feeling alive when I am in certain kinds of landscape.

I've never been one to get distracted by the technical. I really don't care very much for f-stops or shutter speeds, nor for any fixation on resolution or any other technical aspect that leads me away from my belief that photography is about an emotional response; I love it because of what it allows me to feel.

It is inspiration for me, to find a book that connects with the great outdoors on an emotional and also poetic level. In Jim Crumbley's book 'the great wood', he writes so movingly about what was once the great forest that covered my native Scotland. It is a beautiful book.

It is also book that does not use photographs.

Instead it uses beautifully crafted sentences to conjure up a picture of what he feels about the landscape, and it is of great relief to me to be able to jump into my imagination by reading rather than looking.

I need a break from looking at the world in pictures.

We all need time away and we all need balance in our lives. Too much of one thing can cause burn out or for things to become stale. I appreciate that you may get your photography inspiration from looking at many photography websites (such as this one). But I do not.

Instead, I manage to re-charge by retiring from the visual world. It is the contrast of looking at it from a literary side that seems to act as a form of respite. Too much looking at pictures, pictures, pictures leads to everything looking and feeling the same. By reading words instead, I am able to conjure up mental images that seem to be more effective than any photograph could be.

As landscape photographers, I believe that each one of us is really a naturalist at heart, though some of us maybe don't know it yet. We may have come to landscape photography through a love of technical things like cameras and f-stops, or we may have come to landscape photography through an appreciation for the outdoors. Whatever the catalyst,  sooner or later, we all become spellbound by the beauty of what is there.

Put the iPad away, disconnect for a day. Go for a walk in the open air and see what's there.

There's simply too much noise on the web now, and too many distractions with which to fill our time with, and most of it so transient that it will make no difference, except to rob us of valuable time spent where it's needed the most; outside.

Go find your forest, a place where you can tap into your love for photography; It is out there somewhere. Just waiting for you.