The 5th instalment of my talk with Sam Gregory from TheTogCast has been published. Although I’m discussing the book layout, I do cover a few aspects of the image making process.
What is outside the frame is just as important as what is inside
For most of my early photography - perhaps the first ten years - I seldom used any telephotos. I was a wide angle (24mm equiv) nut with occasional 50mm shots. I think this is very normal, and I would urge everyone to start with a few focal lengths than buy loads of lenses.
My camera bag these days has around five lenses plus an assortment of teleconverters. I now shoot in all different focal lengths but it took me a while to get there.
I've learned so much by going to the lesser 'obvious' landscapes. In landscapes that may appear to hold very little appeal due to there being too many distractions, there may be something wonderful to shoot if you can isolate it with a telephoto.
Hokkaido for instance has so much infrastructure and machinery everywhere, it takes effort to find those good compositions without some unwanted object creeping into the frame.
While I was in Romania, I had the same issues. It is a complex landscape, but I actually take a lot of delight in finding those more simpler shots amongst the noise.
I think it’s all about practice, and exercising your ‘visual awareness’. If you can pin-point an isolated group of objects out of the noise, the way that someone can maybe pull out a separate conversation from a crowd, then this is good ‘visualisation’. I’d urge doing this all the time, even when you’re not taking photos. It’s all good practice.
Reconnecting
I made it to the isle of Harris this week. What was originally planned as a workshop (and cancelled a few months ago) has become a holiday break for me. I have for company my dad. whom I have been looking after for the past few months. Since I get on really well with him (he’s such a push over :-) it’s nice to be able to make photos with someone who’s quite happy to sit in the car and enjoy the scenery.
It has been six months now since I last used my camera. Before you assume that I must have been frustrated not having the time to shoot, I have to confess that this wasn’t the case. I realise for most, there is very little time each year to make photos, and most are often dreaming about being away somewhere. For the past several years, I’ve had no problem segregating my photography time and other time into compartments. When I am not making photos - I give myself permission to enjoy other things and look at it as much needed time away from it. And when I am making photos, I’m focussed.
I do think ‘time away’ from any passion / hobby is important. I’ve had periods where I was stale and I didn’t know it. I only noticed it once I had some forced time away from it, and realised how ‘fresh’ and ‘new’ it felt once I returned to it.
But today was the first day I have been out with my camera at sunrise in a very long time. It is also the first time I have made photos on my own in many years. I am either on workshops, or when photographing privately I often invite some photography friends along for the company.
It has just been such a thrill today, to be outside on my own. I had forgotten how much I enjoy it, and a few thoughts came to mind while I was outside;
First, it dawned on me that photography is my life. I could not live my life without being a creative person, and when I was reaching for my light meter, or working out my reciprocity exposures, it all felt like a hand going inside a comfortable glove. I don’t think I could do anything else.
Second, I have not enjoyed beautiful light in six months. Just standing on the beach I realised that getting any new photos would just be a bonus, and it really didn’t matter if I got any new photos at all. What I was there for, was to feel present. To feel the wind on my face, to watch the waves move in and out, and to just enjoy being. Taking pleasure in the present moment. It was wonderful.
Third, I gave myself permission to take the pressure off. The past week I had been wondering if I would get anything new on Harris. I have photographed it so many times over the years, and I so sometimes feel that some of the locations I have become close to over the past decade, are old friends now. But today while I was out, all pressures disappeared. I just realised ‘what will be will be’, and ‘it’s just wonderful to be here’.
I must admit that when I first arrived a few days ago, I suffered from procrastination. This is different from the slow-start that many photographers tell me about. I never have problems with ‘getting into the zone’. But I do have problems at times just starting at all. Just getting in the car with the gear and going somewhere to do something.
I felt a sense of pressure. Since I had not photographed in several months, I was beginning to wonder if I would feel anything if I went out to make photos. The way round this is to just start. Doesn’t matter how good the work is - just start.
As Ernest Hemingway once said “The first draft of anything is shit.”
It’s about letting go. Creativity should be about that anyway. Leave the judgement aside for a while.
I do hope you can get some time to make photos. Perhaps a park nearby, a river that you like, or some familiar coast line. Even a place that you know well and have photographed so many times in the past that you feel you are tired of. I’d urge you to go.
If you haven’t made photos in a long while, go. It will do you good.
Hálendi Book discussion 4/13
Sorry for the hold up with these. They were supposed to be published every week but Sam from the TogCast got caught up with other stuff. So they’ve resumed, and they are coming out every Wednesday now.
I hope you might find some good information in this one. I discuss tripods and composition, and also gear. Yes, gear !
Why grads are still required, even now
This is an old post from Jul 2016. But it still holds true. I thought it might be good to re-post some of my earlier entries as there is a lot of still valid information hiding in my blog.
I hope you enjoy this article, and it makes sense,
Bruce
—
Why grads are still required
I find it very interesting that it's completely impossible for us as a species, to see true dynamic range. We don't actually see the world the way it really is - our eyes compress luminosity so that everything in the upper regions all looks the same:
The human eye compresses luminosity. In other words, we are unable to see true dynamic range. It is a physical impossibility. Digital cameras can however see the true dynamic range. Even so, just because they can, does not mean they render images the way we see them. We need to use grads to do that.
We are in fact, all blind to true luminosity in the real world. Whereas digital cameras aren't: they are able to see that the sky is 4 stops brighter than the ground. But just because they can see it - it doesn’t mean digital cameras are giving us what we want. It just means that digital cameras don’t see the way we see. And that’s the important bit.
We tend to view everything we look at, as a mid-exposure. When I look at the sky, in my mind I see a mid-exposure of it. And when I look at the ground, I see a mid-exposure of it also. As my eye scans around, I build up an internal representation of the world - a collage or collection of mid-exposures.
This is why I don't agree with the concept that 'if a scene can fit inside the entire histogram, then we don't need grads'. This belief, lacks understanding of what it is we are trying to do with grads in the first place and also what a histogram represents.
Image shot without a grad. Sky is overexposed while ground is underexposed. Although it is contained within the histogram, and is a true representation of what is there, it does not match how the eye perceives the scene (the human eye compresses dynamic range whereas digital cameras do not),
With a grad in place, the dynamic range of the scene is reduced - but not only that - the ground values move towards the mid-tone area (right) of the histogram, while the sky tones move towards the left (mid-tone) area of the histogram. Giving an image that is closer to how our eye sees.
In the images above, the left-hand one is an example of what happens when I don't use grads. The image may well 'fit into the histogram', but the ground is underexposed and the sky is overexposed:
The left-hand side of the histogram represents dark tones while the right-hand side represents bright tones. I now have a muddy underexposed ground (left-hand side of the histogram) and overexposed sky (right-hand side of the histogram).
So everything fits, but the image sucks.
And the thing about histograms is: Just because you have the space - it doesn't mean you have to fill it.
The problem is, my eye doesn't see the ground as a dark area, nor the sky as a bright area. My eye tends to perceive them both as similar to each other and as a mid-tone. So if I wanted my histogram to represent what I saw, I would expect to see a 'single humper' histogram like this one:
One where the ground is a mid-tone and the sky is a mid-tone too. In effect, the ground and sky would share the same area of the histogram.
And that's where grads come in, because they do this for us. They not only push the sky from the right side of the histogram to the middle tone, they also move the ground from the left side of the histogram towards the middle tone. Yep, grads not only darken the sky - they also brighten the ground because they reduce the dynamic range or width of the histogram. Since your camera is always aiming for an 18% mid-tone, everything moves towards the middle: sky goes left and ground goes right.
Again: just because you have the space - it doesn't mean you have to fill it :-)
If you do choose to use grads, there are a couple of benefits to using them:
1) You will have more space in the left-hand side for more shadow tonal information. When you don't use grads and squeeze everything into the histogram you push the ground to the left - and underexpose it. And when underexposing - you tend to compress (or quantise) different lower tones into fewer tones. Twenty discreet tones are summed into one or two tones. However, If you use grads, you open up the shadows by moving the ground towards the middle area of the histogram and this compression becomes less of an issue.
2) Conversely, the same is true for the sky. You have more space on the right for more tonal gradations and you record more tonal graduations. If you didn't use grads - many of the brighter tones are squeezed together or quantised - several tones become one in an attempt to fit it all into the dynamic range of the camera.
3) If you use grads the RAW image doesn't suck so much to look at.
Point 3 is perhaps the most important one for me. If we put all the science to one side, I'd much rather come home with something that already looks inspiring to work with. A more balanced exposure through the use of grads will do that for me. I wish to be engaged when I review the RAW files, I don't wish to have to think about jumping through some additional hoops before I can figure out if there is anything of value there. If I don't use grads, I may let a few images fall between the cracks if I have to do additional processing before I can visualise if the image holds promise.
So for me, coming home with a more pleasing balanced image that requires less work to see if there is potential, is the most important aspect for using grads.
But that's just me. Which of the two images above would you choose to come home with?
Working beyond the obvious
In 2018 I visited South Korea by invitation from my good friend Kidoo. I think we spent around six days in total shooting, with a whole lot of driving thrown in. When I first arrived in South Korea I remember thinking how amazingly modern Seoul is, and I had wondered if I might find anything to shoot at all. As we ventured out of the capital I never ever felt that there was a clear demarcation point between urban and the rural landscapes. Kidoo assured me there are national parks in South Korea but for most of my journey I was greeted with a similar infrastructure to the one in Japan: lots of industrial areas, built up places, and any free land was used for farming.
I never make casual images. I never take the camera out of the bag to make images I’m not intending on keeping. I think I passed the point many years ago of knowing when a composition is worth shooting or not. In my earlier years I would just shoot something even if I knew it wasn’t any good. That seldom happens now, and it’s not because of the cost of film or the cost of anything. It’s just that I think I know when I’m mostly wasting my time on a place.
So it was a great surprise at the end of the six full days of shooting that I found I had around twenty rolls of film exposed. I remember saying to Kidoo ‘I found the landscape quite hard to shoot, and I didn't feel at the time that I was getting much, but I’m surprised to find I’ve shot twenty rolls of film, so there must be something in them!’. My South Korea portfolio is now one of my favourites. It was a surprise to both Kidoo and myself how nicely they turned out.
It is often a reminder to me that like compound interest in a bank, image acquisition is a slow accumulative process. It is very easy to think you are getting nowhere but one should cast those kinds of thoughts from their mind. We are not in the business of trying to accumulate successful shots. We should just shoot when we like something and avoid shooting if we’re not feeling it.
I have had many journeys over the past decade where I have found myself creating work I could not have imagined a year before. It is always of great delight to me to feel that there are always surprises and unexpected fortunes up ahead with image making.
It is not supposed to be rote. It is completely fluid, and with that, we need to learn to let go, and see where it takes us.
Where is the producer?
In many creative roles, artists often have a sounding-board, another person who is able to look at the work they are creating and help them make sense of it, or perhaps help them iron out the rough edges.
If I were a novelist, then I would have a book editor to tell me where the story was weak, or needed more focus. if I were a song writer, I would have a producer to tell me where the song needed more structure, or perhaps to go straight to the chorus at the beginning of the song.
I remember listening to Nile Rodgers talking about working with David Bowie on the song ‘Let’s Dance’. He said to Bowie (I paraphrase) - “the song should start by going straight into the chorus. No verse, no intro - straight into the chorus”. He was right of course, but the thing was - Bowie needed someone else to tell him that. He was too close to his own work.
So as a photographer, who do you have as your sounding board? Who helps you make sense of what you create? or helps you iron out the difficult bits?
Or even more importantly: help you iron out the bits you didn’t know needed ironing out?
I think being a sole photographer can be a difficult role. Because you have to be the judge of your own work. That, is something that is extremely difficult to do. It’s why musicians have producers, and it’s why authors have editors.
I’ve often written on this blog that I need to distance myself from my own work in order to get some kind of objectivity to it. One way I do this is by leaving any recently made images for several weeks before I review and edit them. This is because it allows me to reduce any attachment or emotional bond that I created at the time of capture. I need to be able to look at the work honestly, and being too attached to it isn’t going to give me that view. As the saying goes ‘love is blind’.
But even this is not 100% effective. The moment I begin working on anything, an emotional bond starts to form. It’s a skilled artist who can be ‘outside of their work’ while still maintain a passion and connection to it.
So you really need to have someone else to talk to, to get reviews from. Or you need to be clever enough to listen to many views of your work and decide what is valid input and what isn’t. Amateurs tend to not have enough experience to know when any advice is any good, and are often easily swayed by other’s opinions. More experienced artists tend to know what they like and want, and so tend to be better at receiving advice and knowing which parts of it ‘resonate’ for them. To me, the key to good advice is this: if you feel you have some kind of epiphany, then that is often an indication of good advice. But it’s not so clear cut, and trying to figure out where you begin and end, and where someone else’s opinion is marring your own judgement takes experience.
But let’s step back a bit again. We all need a producer, someone who is able to mentor you, without trying to enforce their own aesthetics or values upon you.
And of course mentors vary in ability, and you may also find that an amazing mentor might not suit you at all. This is quite common in the music recording world. I have read many accounts of a famous band hiring in some mega-producer, only to find out that the relationship was counter-productive. Some artists have had albums that have been delayed for years because they went through a raft of different producers until they found the right one.
Needless to say, being a photographic artist is one of the lonelier artistic endeavours. Book writers have editors, musicians often have producers. Actors have directors. We in some way, only have ourselves.
If you can find someone who you feel helps you grow at what you’re doing, then that’s great. But it can be a difficult and long road not just to find that person, but to also have the insight and maturity to look at your work with honesty.
Image Proofing.....
I’ve got the sequencing of the images completed for my next book, and the text is mostly written. We’re just working out the paper and cloth materials for the publication. Book projects always take longer than anyone would ever realise.
Here are some image proofs. I print everything to make sure it’s right before it goes for print. Often noticing things in the print that I didn’t see on screen, it’s a great sanity check. When I do notice something in the print, it’s often interesting to me to note that I can now see it on screen. But never the other way round.
When what is outside frame influences what is inside the frame
This little area of Hokkaido is rather special to me. There are many rolling hills with bunches of copse together. When I am here, I am always striving to isolate groups of the copse with maybe a few single trees around them, but it’s so hard because there are often more complex, less attractive aspects of the landscape trying to creep into the shot.
As simple as this shot may appear, it took quite some effort to do, because I was constrained by a large forest just outside the bottom area of the frame. I found I had to go higher and higher up a hill to get enough clearance, and even then, in order to completely remove the unwanted forest, I had to settle on this composition:
Due to the large forest (just outside the bottom part of the frame) being so close to the little trees, I couldn’t give the trees enough space below them. This forced me to push the two little trees towards the edge of the frame.
At the time of capture, I remember thinking ‘this is a little unusual’, as everything in the frame of interest is really bunched down at the bottom of the frame. Can I live with it?’.
I think all you can do is make the shot, and leave the pondering for another time. And indeed, as I’ve lived with this image over the past two years I’ve grown to really enjoy it. To me, those little trees are so keen to be part of the copse. But they’re almost being pushed out of the scene.
So sometimes it’s ok to put subjects at the very edge of the frame. Sometimes it’s ok to create tension. I just think that it has to look like it was intentional. Otherwise most viewers will assume it’s a bad composition.
I don’t like to constantly look at my work and prefer to ‘let it go’ and move on to other things, but when I have some project to do (such as preparing images for inclusion in a book), then I feel this is the perfect invitation to return and review older work. I often find I feel quite differently about the images, and I must say that this particular image has grown on me over time.
Colour Temperature
I’ve been trying out a few printer papers this week. The paper on the left is a warm paper. While the paper on the right is a cool paper.
Do you notice the border around the actual images has a different colour temperature? I think the border on the left is more obvious, but the border on the right is less so. The right hand image’s border is cooler (more bluish).
There are really always two versions of an image when you print it: what you see on your monitor without any paper profile being previewed (I’d say this is what you had originally intended while editing the work). The second version is the printed version.
With the second version, the paper we choose to print on contributes (read that as affects) the final result. If our aim is to have the paper reproduce exactly what we saw on our monitor while editing then you may set yourself up for a lot of angst and madness. We have a few reasons why our images won’t look exactly the same, but it is possible to get them close, if you’re willing to spend time on accurate colour management, good monitor profiling, and also working through loads of different papers to get one that is closest to what you intended.
I think the better option is to think of the paper choice as an artistic one. Accept that each paper brings its own character to your work, and choose a paper that allows you to bring something out in the work in a way that you like.
In my example above, the original image without paper profiling is somewhere in the middle between the warm and cooler versions shown above. I think it’s hard to make a cold image remain cold if you print it on warmer paper and you will find that some of the cooler tones are ‘smothered’ by the character of the paper. But that may be a good thing if you find that printing a cold image on a cold paper makes it look ‘too cold’.
Then there is the effort of trying to tune the original image to be more cold on a warm paper, or less warm on a cooler paper. To me, that is really a defeating point. If you want your image to be cold, chose a cold paper. Why print it on a warm paper? The warm paper is going to do everything in its power to add warmth to the image and you will have a thankless task ahead of you. You will indeed be fighting upstream against the current.
So the best approach in my view, is to choose a paper that brings along its own artistic contribution. This may mean having to demo the same image on different papers (this is where paper proofing can help), but there’s no real substitute for actually printing it to see how it comes out.
I just love printing. It is always very satisfying for me to see my work become a tangible object. Looking at my work in print form often teaches me a lot about the actual image. I often see things differently, notice something in print that isn’t so obvious on the monitor, and yet when I review the monitor version can now see it. Printing is like removing a veil from the work. To finally see what the image really is, and whether it’s as strong as you thought it was. But it’s also a highly personal and artistic part of photography. And one that everyone who calls themselves a photographer should do.