I've just read an article in a popular outdoor photography magazine that was written in defense of shooting sunsets that I can't help but write a reaction to.
He does say in the article that he knows many photographers who think that "capturing a sunset as a creative end in itself is a waste of time". Well I think I probably fit into that category so I figure I'd best explain why.
But first of all I'll start by stating that taking photographs of anything for any reason is perfectly valid and I wouldn't deny anyone the right to take photographs of whatever the hell they want to take pictures of. Part of the problem in reacting for or against an article like this is in approaching the question of "why do we take photographs in the first place". There are hundreds of answers to this I can imagine, from "because I like playing with cameras" to "I'm trying to communicate the meaning of my life" via "I like calling myself a photographer" and "I'm obsessed with coloured/black and white stuff" but I'll try to cover a few that I think may make sense to readers of this website.
Am I taking pictures for myself or for others?
Eliot Porter, Pool in a Brook
If you are taking photographs just for yourself then there is nothing that is bad or good. The only person who matters is yourself and so the only arbiter of quality or subject is yourself. The only reason that other people may matter is if you have a self imposed peer group that you challenge yourself with. For example Vivian Meier was a street photogapher from Chicago who never showed her pictures to anybody but who obviously had a sense of 'art' and had various street photographers as an influence. In this case, I believe that although she never showed her art to someone else, she was definitely creating her art for herself but also for an imaginary audience of some sort
If you are taking pictures with an audience in mind (imaginary or otherwise) then the audience can be anything from a general general public who are totally unfamiliar with landscape photography (beyond the type of art that they absorb through a cultural osmosis) through various levels of art aware individuals and also to other photographers.
So is your desired audience artistically aware? Do they like the visual equivalent of pop music or jazz?
Joe Rainbow, Gunwalloe Scales
For me, and quite a few of the photographers I talk to, their primary goal through photography is to express themselves in an original and creative way and to share that with a group of artistically minded peers. There are also photographers that work primarily because it’s something they enjoy and they like a challenge to see if they can create the best photograph they can.
The two goals I’ve listed above seem quite complementary but there is a fundamental flaw in the second in that the ‘best photograph’ is a subjective thing and the audience that ends up being defaulted to is ‘other photographers’, either on photo sharing websites or camera clubs, etc. The worst thing isn’t the fact that it’s other photographers, it’s the fact that the feedback from these other photographers is given as judged in a tiny amount of time and by a small picture and, online at least, the final result is a statistical anomaly judged by how much you comment on other pictures, write about your own pictures, how often you post, etc, etc.
Now I’m not suggesting that there is anything inherently wrong with playing the camera club/photo sharing website game. The main thing to be sure of is that you are driving things, not letting it drive you. You can choose which feedback to react to and which to ignore and in the end you can gain from using these resources.
Magnus Lindbom, Rauddalen
What has all this got to do with sunsets though? Well, it’s to do with being in control of why you take photographs and having a plan of how to progress your craft.
In any craft/art, you learn the most when you are challenged the most. If as painists we stayed with 4/4 tempo in C major with octaves and fifths on the left hand then although a non-pianist may be impressed by what we can do, we will be limited in our potential for creativity. Introducing minor keys and sevenths increases the potential for musicial texture dramatically. I see sunset/sunrise pictures as the equivalent to C major (with coastal sunsets as C major 7ths to push an anology) and although they may have a place, we should be looking at balance. We should challenge ourselves to take photographs in cloudy weather or at midday, in the rain or fog. By challenging ourselves, we bring our problem solving head into action and by doing so we stand more chance of finding solutions that are unique to ourselves.
Using my musical analogy, it would be foolish to dismiss sunsets as irrelevant. Just as major chords are a significant part of much music, using the warm light of a sunset or sunrise can be a significant part of a photographers pallette. But I would say that to make something creative and original out of a sunset or sunset light you need to have a ‘plan’ - an approach that can shape the work you do rather than just reacting to the environment. Even with single pictures, if you use the the light or sunset itself as just an ingredient in a wholesome meal.
I’ve included some sunset/sunrise pictures from various artists here with a short commentary against each. All of these photographers have taken a sunrise and used it's light in a way that creates something original and beautiful.
In Joe's case, he has chosen to use a the glow of the sunrise as a reflection in the pools of tidal water, creating almost modernist shapes from the pebbles and shapes. Eliot Porter has done the same thing but gone even further to use the second hand light from the banks of the river and mixed it with the inky blacks of the water. The texture of the water's flow and the scattered leaves add detail to what if one of my favourite of Eliot's pictures. Joe Rainbow has captured an outcrop of stone that acts as a wonderful foil to the energetic water flows and dynamic skies, using the light of sunset to illuminate a magic moment. Magnus Lindbom, a photographer I found out about when he was recommending Lapland locations has captured a the raw luminosity of the sun as it breaks through the clouds above a zebra striped raw landscape.
A bit of a departure for Joe here as he takes his family off to New Mexico for a holiday. Like most photographers though, there was no option but to take one or two (or four) cameras and it's a good job he did otherwise there would be nothing here this month. The pictures include a photograph taken on Joe's Panasonic LX5, a very capable camera and one I've been using myself (the photographs in the Photographer's Place article were taken on it).
Unlike many of the photographers we have discussed in our ongoing Masters section, John wasn’t a photographer from childhood, being more obsessed with drawing wildlife. His passion for photography was inspired when his mother sent him an issue of Picture Post when he was in Africa when serving in the RAF as a nurse. This edition had some extracts from ‘The Family of Man’, a pivotal photographic exhibition that was put together by Edward Steichen which featured the work of Dorothea Lange, Cartier Bresson, Edward Weston, Bill Brandt. These images struck a chord in his burgeoning political psyche and he bought a camera and started taking pictures whilst still in the forces. On leaving he tried to make a living as a freelance photographer but the lifestyle didn’t suit (he didn't’ like having to look for work).
Whilst working for a studio, he was asked to take over a portrait studio that was bought out by his employer and on the day the owner was told to go through the equipment with John, he was nowhere to be seen. John was confronted with an 8x10 studio camera and darkroom and ‘sort of guessed’ his way around it, in the end working their for four years. He was also working on his own documentary photography in Coventry, shooting the new immigrant population.
In 1970 he was asked to teach photography after trying to find jobs as a printer in London (even working as a camera salesman at one point). The University of Derby became his new employer where he taught the Diploma in Creative Photography.
His landscape photography began just before he moved to Derby, coinciding with the break up of his first marriage. He spent some a winter in wales with the woman who was to become his second wife and got absorbed in the landscape but didn’t start photographing it. It was only on his return and upon receiving the offer of an exhibition that he thought back to that time in the landscape and returned to wales with a camera.
His landscape photography was always about ideas about place rather than just the place itself. He wanted to capture a sense of the forces that shape the landscape at large. The results are photographs that have a raw power with a presentation that can look uncomposed to the hurried eye but is actually exquisitely balanced.
Nearly all of John’s work is based on the exploration of a theme or topic and worked out as a series of pictures over time. For instance his original work on the metaphoric use of wounds of trees accompanied the break up of his first marriage. Then, as he became more entranced by the landscape, he started to try to capture some of the elemental forces at work (initially inspired by the raw landscape of Wales) such as the wind, change, play, water, etc. Each of these themes would be explored in minutiae, working from the study of one trip to the plan for the next. Taking visual discoveries and expanding on them to see where they took him. It is these series of pictures that many find so fascinating.
in the late 1980’s he stopped his landscape work when he read a story about how landscape photography wasn’t addressing the more political side of the world and he couldn’t take pictures of beauty when the world was being wrecked. It almost seemed like his desire to take beautiful pictures conflicted with his understanding of critical theory. He took an MA in film studies in order to try to work out a foundation point to continue working as a photographer.
He had started working on still life work (thistles and also the tulip project) around the time he was taking his film studies MA (I think the tulip work started as a way of avoiding his thesis writing).
He worked on tulip photography for over a decade (I strongly suggest buying John Blakemore’s Black and White Photography Workshop which is one of the best books on the art of photography I have read - and not a bad technical book to boot). His still life work is all about metaphor and gesture.
Although John retired officially in 2001 he has since been asked to return back to work and is still enjoying teaching.
I strongly urge anybody who finds this work at all interesting to buy a copy of John Blakemore's Black and White Photography Masterclass. Despite the tutorial-esque title, the book is also a documentation of John's working method - see the review here.
Dark and threatening clouds hang over Great Gable's impressive southern flank.
Representations of landscapes throughout western art history have taken a back seat to works depicting the dramas of human existence. In many cases landscapes were reduced to a stage set in a historical painting or a stylised backdrop for a portrait. This is unsurprising as for much of our history the untamed landscape was considered a desolate place that was best avoided. However, in the latter part of the 18th century attitudes began to shift towards a new aesthetic appreciation of the natural world and this was in part due to ideals promoted through Romantic art.
Of the artist’s working in this era two have become synonymous with painting the emotional subtext of the landscape, the German painter Caspar David Friedrich whose images feature epic mountains towering above diminutive figures and dark trees in moonlight overlooked by gothic towers; while in Britain there was J.M.W. Turner whose paintings are so full of light and life that they are still fresh after nearly 200 years.
The cliffs of the Glamorgan Heritage Coast
Both painted from direct observations of nature rather than the imagined landscapes that characterise the work of earlier artists. It is this immediacy to the subject that conveys the spirit of place, which in turn demands an emotional response from the viewer.
While landscape photography is an obvious successor to what the romantics set out to achieve, in terms of its ability to document nature in its truest form, this idealistic heritage is almost an impediment to the contemporary landscape photographer, as in the minds of some the art form is considered backward–looking. This misses the point of what I believe both my work and that of others is about. Personally speaking it is about engaging with nature in a philosophical way that is as much about finding its structural essence and observing light as it is about exploring its environmental significance and my psychological relationship with it. This latter point is of particular interest to me as our place within nature is ambiguous, for we are both part of it and at the same time intellectually removed from it. It has the ability to stir profound feelings of belonging and yet as a species we are able to wreak havoc upon our environment in the name of progress.
This questioning of the relevance of representing landscapes through photography has made me conscious that it is far too easy to create images that can be dismissed as picturesque, forcing me to think about how to avoid repeating clichés. However this is easier said than done, as one has to be derivative before one can be innovative. Through my art education I have been exposed to many different ideas that have helped me see my way through such problems. One area that has greatly influenced me is the reductive principle of Modernism or the ‘less is more’ approach. This has interesting parallels with how our brains process sensory input and how much we can be said to be truly ‘aware’ of at any one time.
Loch Maree, Wester Ross.
The writer Aldous Huxley in his seminal work, The Doors of Perception, described the conscious mind as a ‘reducing valve’, bringing selective attention to events experienced unconsciously as and when they become significant. The reason the mind works in this way is to prevent confusion occurring as a result of multiple sensory inputs. This notion is especially relevant to photography as the camera will record everything that is in front of it, to the point where it is possible to include so much within one image that its meaning becomes unclear. To avoid this the photographer needs to minimise the wealth of information contained within the whole scene to its fundamental parts, identifying those elements that are intrinsic to and those that are a distraction from the idea that is to be communicated.
Sheer limestone cliffs fringe Flimston Bay near Merrion in Pembrokeshire.
Removing clutter leads to bolder compositions that both entice the eye and engage the viewer’s imagination. The less that is presented in one photograph the stronger the remaining features become. The problem with this is that one person’s beautifully simple is another’s definition of boring, such is the subjectivity of art. Although I would argue that a tendency towards simplicity is in the back of most photographer’s minds when they analyse the view, however strictly they choose to apply it. On a practical level it can be surprisingly hard to reduce complexity. Not all landscapes lend themselves to a simple treatment as they are often chaotic in appearance, making it difficult to get a fix on the main components. A clear-cut image might give the impression of being easy to create but this belies the effort necessary to find the pattern within the chaos.
The atmospheric ruins of Dunstanburgh Castle
In this attempt to establish visual order in response to the dynamics of nature it is important to not become overly controlling. When reacting to the environment my aim is to follow the flow, which is a somewhat vague concept that is by no means easy to define. For example there is a subtle something about the curve of a hill, the shape of a rock or the growth of a tree that suggests a direction intrinsic to the ‘feel’ of the landscape and it takes a certain amount of sensitivity to find this. A preconceived template of how landscape photographs should be composed that is too rigid could potentially squeeze out the very spirit that brings the subject to life. Each of my photographs is therefore the result of an emotional response as well as an analytical deconstruction, marrying the openness to experience the sublime inherited from romanticism with the stylistic and conceptual rigour encouraged by modernism. When a balance between these two different ways of interpreting the world is achieved to my personal satisfaction then I feel able to say that the image ‘works’.
Fran Halsall has worked as a professional photographer and writer for nearly 7 years, taking as her inspiration the wild landscapes, diverse geology and different habitats of the British Isles. She is the author of two books, The Peak District (Frances Lincoln, 2008) and Light and Shadow (Frances Lincoln, 2010), and is currently working on a third.
Fran is passionate about promoting the value of our natural heritage through her work and hopes that the national obsession with landscape photography is a sign that we moving towards a better appreciation of our environment.
John Blakemore has taught photography for over two decades and has worked as a fine art photographer for that period also. This book tries to distil his teaching into a single tome, covering technical and artistic bases along the way. The fact that this isn't just a technical tome or an art philosophy tome works very well in my opinion and reflects the fact that these two aspects of photography cannot really be separated (however much many photographers would like to do so).
The first chapter of the book discusses the full process of photography in terms of John's categories of "Relationship, Recognition and Realisation" - our relationship with our subject, our recognition of the moment an exposure needs to be made and the realisation of the final product, the print. The second chapter takes this framework and discusses how it worked for John's most famous work, the tulip series.
For those of you who don't know the tulip work, John spent over a decade of his life developing a series of photographs based around the tulip, all of which started whilst avoiding writing his thesis by taking photographs of 'stuff' that was on his kitchen table. That such a successful and intriguing body of work can arise from something so trivial a start should remind us that any of our photographs might contain the germ of a creative project. Although this chapter isn't about landscape photography, it is still relevant in nearly all of its content.
Chapter three concerns itself with the zone system and the art of pre-visualisation (his admiration of Minor White shows in his use of that term) and a lot of this might be of less interest to digital photographers, the discussions about tonality are still relevant. There is still an orthodoxy in black and white conversions that there should always be black blacks and white whites in every picture, something John rejects in similar words and I have to say I am in complete agreement with. Some of the pictures that I find strongest in John’s work are those high an low key pictures that limit themselves to only two or three zones and that rarely contain what John terms ‘dead blacks’ (he has a phrase ‘dead blacks and living darks’ which summarises part of his approach to printing). Using some of these techniques on my own black and white conversions improved them considerably. Chapter four is about Post Visualisation, the making of the print and again this may not be of a whole lot of interest to digital photographers but there are some gems hidden in the content.
The final chapter returns to John’s discussion of subject development; developing a theme or series. This works as an almost free form discussion of John’s projects (apart from the tulip which was handled in more detail in chapter two), discussing his stream, beach and emergence series and then moving away from landscape and onto his still life work. This chapter is full of little gems and I gained as much from re-reading it for this review as I did when I originally read it a few years ago.
Overall the book is a fascinating melange of technical and philosophical, art and craft. It sits on my bookshelves in the art section despite being one of the better tomes on the zone system I have read. I would strongly suggest every photographer buy or borrow a copy and read it but more importantly think about it whilst doing so.
The concept of balance in photography is not a new one, just this week I received another book on composition that says “The components of a great photograph should always be in balance” which is great as long as you know how to identify components and how much they weigh. The more detailed articles on composition and balance may end up drawing a fulcrum and showing two objects on it, one big and one little, with the big object closer to the fulcrum and saying ‘these are in balance!’. Again, very nice but what have these objects got to do with real world pictures. How can I identify which bits of a picture to weigh and then how do I weigh them.
Ok, I admit it. I'm a bagger, a list ticker, a trophy collector. I've accepted what I am and I'm not going to change. Over the years I've collected lots of different things from Matchbox cars, tin soldiers and beer mats as a youngster to sea-washed bricks, mountain tops and footpaths as an adult. I love nothing more than pouring over one of my extensive range of maps while listening to one of my extensive collection of Classical or Jazz CD's while drinking from a selection of ground coffees, planning my next hill walk, mountain climb or even footpath to add to my extensive collection. And, I love cataloguing and listing these collections too. Beside the total satisfaction of using a view camera I believe that is the reason I am more than happy to stay firmly in the analogue photography camp for now. I am able to amass a collection of images on celluloid; to hold them, cherish them, file and catalogue them, count them up and work out how far they would stretch if lined up end to end (OK, perhaps I'm revealing a little too much about my personality now!).
Firelight, Loch Etiv
Photography evolved out of my passion for the outdoors and I feel incredibly privileged to be able to work in my favourite places, at my own pace and for the most part without commercial pressure dictating the style or substance of my imagery. Photography has also enabled me to indulge my tendency to collect by pursuing a number of personal projects. These include climbing to photograph all 284 Munros ( Scottish mountains over 3000ft) with my Large Format gear, visiting and staying in all of the mountain bothies ( a perfect partner to the previous challenge) and most recently producing an extensive body of work from the vast tract of spectacular, empty land that I am so lucky to live on the boundary of.
A year or so ago an over-height truck tried to cross Connel Bridge which lies just two miles south of my home. The bridge had be closed for a considerable time while the vehicle was dragged back out from beneath the giant steel structure and for structural engineers to travel up from Glasgow to inspect the
Coffin Stone, Beinn Trilleachan
damage. During this 36 hour period anyone south of the bridge wanting to get home had to divert around the 100 mile perimeter route provided by the A85, A82 and A828. Within this huge circuit lies a great tract of land, virtually uninhabited with only four minor roads penetrating in at Glen Etive, Forest Lodge, Glen Creran and Bonawe. The entire area is however criss-crossed by ancient drove roads, stalker paths and landrover/forestry tracks that have become the target of my insatiable need to explore, discover and 'collect'. This area has more 3000ft mountains than Wales and England combined (25 in total), an equal number of Corbetts and a fair number of smaller mountains that provide excellent vantage points to view their larger cousins. To date I have climbed about 25 peaks in the area but am now dedicating two or three days a week when I am based at home to exploring its ridges and glens.
Rooftops of Argyll.
It's interesting that around the edge of the area are a number of Scotland's most iconic views, all of which could, if you felt so inclined, be photographed from the comfort of your car. Blackrock Cottage, Buachaille Etive Mor, Castle Stalker, Glencoe and Kilchurn number among the most photographed views in Britain and will continue to be for years to come, and yet behind these locations lie a whole world of possibilities just waiting to be discovered by the photographer. Looking at road maps all of the upland regions of Britain are divided up the same way by major roads creating many 'island' wildernesses for us to venture into and discover.
Unless you live in the South-East of England you are rarely more than 2-3 hours from a National Park or similar area and while all of these will have their popular spots for photographers they will be able to provide a wealth of material and probably a lifetime's work if you are prepared to go the extra mile required to get away from the crowds. So, I would advise that you make yourself a good cup of coffee, put on a CD, get out a map and start planning your next trip to somewhere local but new.
The Letter from Scotland is brought to you by Richard Childs, a landscape photographer who works with a large format camera and is based around the West coast of Scotland. If you want to see more of Richard's work or take a look at his excellent workshops, visit Richard Childs Photography
Robert Garrigus volunteered his photographs to be the subject of Joe Cornish and Tim Parkin's photography critique and what a good couple of compositions they were too. Many thanks Robert.
March 2011 Workshop Participants incl. John Blakemore
A couple of weeks ago I went on a workshop, a workshop that continues a series that started in the early 1980s and that have along the way have had photographers such as Fay Godwin, Lewis Baltz, John Blakemore, Aaron Siskind, Paul Caponigro, Martin Parr, Thomas Joshua Coooper and Cole Weston as leaders. Despite a hiatus in the late 90’s and early 00’s, the series has restarted, led by one of the founders, Paul Hill, and two of his colleagues who now teach his photography course at Trent university - Nick Lockett and Martin Shakeshaft.
My interest in the course was piqued by a special guest, John Blakemore, who I had met at an exhibition at Joe Cornish’s gallery and whose book, “Black and White Photography Workshop” had inspired me beyond what a ‘technical’ manual should. All in all, it seemed like an intriguing weekend, despite it not being overtly landscape oriented (and perhaps because of that).
This short article is not intended as a thorough review of the weekend, nor is it intended as a diary of my own weekend. It is more about my own thoughts about photography and how a workshop allowed me the space to think more about what my photography was about and perhaps where it was going.
Firstly a bit of background. My photography has been developing over the last few years in a way that has mostly been driven by improving technique in composition and craft. Along the way I have occasionally questioned my choice in subject matter and how I want to portray it, but I haven’t really spent a lot of time looking into what I am trying to portray with my photography. I sometimes feel that I am in the habit of making pretty pictures, albeit more complex and satisfying pretty pictures than I took at the start of my journey. I’ve had in the back of my head for a while that there must be some way of using photography as a means of exploring the world beyond representation, a way of using photography to develop and communicate meaning.
Out of the photographers I have seen that seem to manage something in this direction (Alfred Steiglitz, Edward Weston, Minor White, Harry Callahan, Jem Southam, etc) they all have developed ideas and themes over time and have mined their output for new germs of creativity. The old Photographer’s Place had a reputation for approaching photography in terms of narrative and theme instead of craft and it was this aspect that I thought I could gain from.
Martin Shakeshaft, Nick Lockett and Paul Hill (left to right)
The workshops are based in Wirksworth in Derbyshire and I arrived just as Paul Hill, Martin Shakeshaft and Nick Lockett were talking about their own work. If I can summarise them, Paul Hill was the founder and one of the original Photographer’s Place tutors (along with Raymond Moore) and was chairman of the contemporary group of the Royal Photographic Society (along with getting an MBE for services to photography). For more details take a look here.
Martin Shakeshaft is probably known to quite a few people for his photographs of the miners strikes in the 1980’s and has continued this theme recently and finally Nick Lockett is an editorial photographer who worked for many years for ITN, has been working on personal landscape projects regarding tracks in the landscape and now lectures at the DeMontfort university.
Following this was an ‘introduce yourself’ session for each of the approximately 12 people in the workshop. The attendants work ranged from documentary projects on domestic abuse, travel photography, student projects about the land or about closure of factories, etc. and the attendants themselves ranged from young to old, male and female and from relative beginners to quite proficient, advanced photographers.
This session ended the official work of the evening but we had a few conversions about what we were looking for and looked through a good range of books available (including ‘Inscape’, a fantastic book by John Blakemore that I hadn’t seen before).
After a reasonable night’s sleep in the ‘dorms’ at the residence (a converted church building), the morning started with a short talk by Paul Hill showing his recent work and then talking about how working in projects and series works and how the aim of the day was to try to being thinking in this fashion and, if possible, to create a few pictures to discuss the next day.
Now everything Paul had said so far implied that the way to start with this type of project is to begin shooting intuitively and then to examine your own pictures to try to work out what parts of this work stand out and to then work to develop those ideas and carry on shooting and interpreting iteratively until, well, until you get bored or can’t shot anymore or something else comes up, etc., etc. So what chance do I stand in developing something in a few hours? Well in my case I thought I’d work with what I know which was that there was a quarry I had seen locally and combining this with a desire to try to work in black and white as a precursor to putting some black and white through my 8x10. I couldn’t work on a narrative in such a short period of time but I had in my head that I want to explore how the quarry was used since it closed down.
Working whilst thinking about the project was intriguing and a rainy day made for challenging conditions but this helped in being able to see in black and white. I had an enjoyable session walking around with Nick Lockett, another large format landscape photographer, and although I didn’t have enough time to really think about what I was trying to achieve, I did get a few photographs and then it was time to head back.
Photos taken on course - second image is a photograph of the back of the large format camera using a Lumix LX5
We came back for a short break where I had a very interesting conversation with one of Paul’s graduates, George Miles (www.georgemiles.co.uk) who studies under Stephen Shore. He mentioned that Stephen Shore is a big Eliot Porter fan which surprised me but probably shouldn’t have having seen Shore’s rain forest work. The conversation was centred on the role of beauty in fine art and that there is definitely a bias away from overt beauty, almost a trivialisation of it.
The main focal point of the day was John Blakemore’s presentation on his work and the process of photography. John comes across as a sort of ‘pan’ like figure, still full of wonder with the world and very passionate about his work but with a chaotic streak running through things, a momentary irreverance that I found most appealing.
Instead of all sitting in rows with John presenting to us from on high, we all sat around a table and John talked about his work and passed around example prints. And these prints are something beyond anything I’ve ever seen. I went to the Ansel Adams exhibition recently, expecting to see some good printing displayed and, despite them being very good, I wasn’t blown away. I then went to see some of Fay Godwin’s exhibition prints and these were very nice too - I preferred them to Ansel’s in some ways but I could see that they didn’t exhibit quite the control. John Blakemore’s black and white prints take things to a different level completely - I didn’t want to let some of them go as they were passed around.
I’ve since found it difficult to describe why they affected me so much. Obviously the subject matter was beautiful also but I think it’s because he has such an amazing control of high and low key areas and a few prints that were handed out worked in the very top or bottom couple of zones - i.e. zones 1-3 or 8-10 in some cases. In other cases, the combination of print and paper quality added up into something almost visceral - a lot of the ones I was impressed with were printed on Agfa Record Rapid, a very popular paper in it’s day and one that has a surface half way between smooth matt and glass - like a good quality book print looks but with much more depth and tactility.
Anyway - although the prints blew me away, it was what John said that really affected me. Now this is going to be difficult to describe and may sound trite in some ways but I’ll give it a go anyway.
John’s way of working is to use each photograph as a step towards a different way of thinking. Each photograph is a base camp in a journey of discovery or as John eloquently puts it "An individual photograph becomes not an end in itself but a link in a chain of expanding visual possibilities".
We have featured John in our latest Master Photographer series and have a review of his book “Black and White Photography Workshop”.
The course continued that evening but seen in a new light after the discussion with John and George. We spent some time looking through each others portfolios and discussing how we came to work the way we did. This is one of the key parts of photography workshops that isn’t mentioned. Whoever the workshop leaders are, you *will* get as much out of the conversations you have with other participants if you make the effort to discuss your work with them. Everybody has expertise in different areas and even though you may be a more advanced photographer, they will still have valid points to offer (even if it is only their considered opinion of your work as a third party). For instance, a woman on our workshop was working on a project about domestic violence and her connection with her own work was extraordinary. She had interpreted her own involvement in the project in a way in non-obvious ways which made the work even stronger for it. Many people may say that landscape work doesn’t offer the opportunity to make strong connections in the same way that work with people in does but I would disagree. It makes it harder and the connections may not be as instantly obvious but they are still there if you work hard on them and from this work that I saw, it made me want to try even harder to create a relevant body of work.
After a short sleep in the bunk bedded group accommodation (satisfactory if you are happy with Youth Hostel style accommodation) we reconvened to review our work from the previous day and I was recruited to help make a presentation on large format photography (never pass up a chance to evangelise!) after which many of the participants had their work reviewed by Paul Hill (an opportunity that I am going to take up once I feel I’ve built up a small body of work influenced by my time at the workshop).
Overall - the location is highly recommended (although I would avoid if you have a need for regimented scheduling and organisation - the planning is best termed as loose but this has it’s benefits). Go with an open mind and make the most of the opportunity to talk to landscape photographers that work in a more documentary or ‘fine art’ (oh I hate that phrase) genre.
Oh - and if you’re interested in large format photography and workshops, Tim Parkin and Dav Thomas have a place left on their March 25th Introduction to Large Format workshop - I wouldn't normally advertise my own services here but any profits from the weekend will get ploughed back into the magazine so if you need to convince the holder of the purse strings, just tell them that you have to go to support variety in landscape photography journalism! Maybe...
I have recently been hunting for a Golf trolley. Not that I have any intention of dragging a set of clubs around eighteen holes on a quiet afternoon but because I want to carry enough food, fuel, cooking utensils, bedding and clothing to stay in remote bothies for two or three nights at a time.
Having looked at many options over the past year including bikes with trailers, quad bikes, Rokon two wheel drive motorbikes (with trailer) and all terrain baby buggies (favoured by photographers in the US apparently) I settled on a golf trolley as my best option. It has to be able to take some serious punishment and therefore needs pneumatic tyres and a decent suspension system to survive the average 10km walk in along rocky Landrover tracks here in The Highlands. I got the idea from an American I met a few years ago while walking Alfred Wainwright's 'Coast to coast' walk which covers 189 miles from St Bee's Head in Cumbria to Robin Hood's Bay on the North Yorkshire coast. While climbing out of Kirkby Stephen towards the great stone cairns on Nine Standards Rigg I saw a solitary figure strolling down the track towards me pulling a trolley. He suddenly stopped, pulled a camera out of the top of bag, grabbed a quick shot and was on his way in seconds with none of the usual faffing with getting a rucksac on and off his back first. We talked for a while and I discovered that he had walked a number of long distance trails both in Britain and America and always pulled his gear rather than carried it. In doing so he saved his shoulders, neck and back any strain but also was able to access camera, sandwiches and jacket etc in an instant.
Cadderlie Bothy, Loch Etive.
So, having added a golf trolley and bag to my arsenal of equipment (to be used in conjunction with a proper camera ruck sac) I got to thinking about what other non-photographic specific pieces of equipment we employ to help us make images. Some of you will no doubt have visited focus where you will have been exposed to all sorts of expensive paraphernalia to 'improve' your photography but how often is the solution to a problem sourced from outside the photographic world? I have listed a number I have used below and hope that you will comment and add any of your own ideas and solutions too.
Redpoint. Slightly soft due to sinking camera.
The obvious problem facing landscape photographers is weather and most particularly rain. An umbrella is the obvious answer to enable you to continue working but what if you need both hands to work your camera or if it's windy or if the rain is that fine coastal stuff that comes from all directions? Sometimes I'm fortunate enough to have a willing helper but more often than not I'm out in the field alone and need to be self sufficient. On one occasion a few years ago I was set up at Braes on Skye attempting to photograph due North to Beinn Tianavaig across an amazing foreground of Paisley Pattern sand formations. The tide was rising fast and I estimated that I had about twenty minutes before my foreground was obliterated. There followed the most frustrating time spent constantly cleaning and re-cleaning fine misty rain off the lens and filters as a storm front moved in (seen approaching in the illustrating image). Eventually the encroaching waves wiped the foreground clean and I retreated to my car defeated.
Shade provided by clothing
I immediately went out and bought a fishermans umbrella system to provide shelter for similar occasions in the future but when it arrived it weighed 10kg and folded down to an enormous 6ft in length, hardly the portable accessory I had hoped for. Now, should I need it I use one of lightweight Terra Nova tents I had already and always have an umbrella handy too. Having seen Roger Longdin sporting a small umbrella mounted onto his tripod last Autumn and tried unsuccessfully to find one of these I looked instead at other users who may need to protect a precious load from the weather and of course discovered that there are plenty of clip on umbrellas available for prams and baby buggies that will easily attach to a tripod. I would advise attaching these to a separate tripod or monopod to avoid any camera shake occurring during an exposure. There is no doubt however that, having seen Joe almost dive into a gorge in Glen Nevis while chasing his umbrella there is definitely a need to tether the thing to the ground.
Taynish. Heavy Rain.
As well as rain, sun can also be a problem, especially when it suddenly picks out highlights in the scene. Just a couple of weeks ago I stood with a client beside Loch Bad an Scalaig near Gairloch holding a darkcloth between us to shade the foreground of another clients image. When he had set up the lower angle of sunlight had left the foreground shadow but now the top of a lichen covered log was catching the sun and there was no way the highlights could be held without some intervention. I have had to walk away from many scenes in the past when this has happened. Again, an umbrella could provide the solution but on one occasion I was lucky to be able to create a pool a shade using my fleece and two driftwood branches stuck into the ground to shade the dead roots of a pine tree washed ashore on Loch Etive. An 81b warm up filter was then used to neutralise the blue cast coming from the clear skies overhead.
Old Schoolhouse. Folding saw removed foreground sapling.
These days if I'm out specifically to photograph in woodland I'm likely to take secateurs, a folding saw and garden twine. I learned to take secateurs out with me when I used to walk extensively in The Chiltern Hills and Leicestershire because many of the stiles I had to cross were overgrown with Brambles, Briar Roses or Hawthorne which snagged and tore my waterproof clothing. As a photographer I often use them to 'tidy' a scene by removing or tieing back intruding branches, especially in forestry where the odd limb or two won't be missed (Please note that one should never do this in a garden or arboretum without permission from the owner).
I'm sure you have all found your own solutions to these and many more problems encountered while out taking photographs. Two problems I have yet to solve but encounter regularly are;
Soft sand on beaches or shifting mud in river beds, especially frustrating for a large format photographer because having set up a carefully composed and focused shot the camera can have moved very slightly but cannot be checked immediately prior to making an exposure because the film holder is loaded and the lens stopped down and shut down. It's only after committing to film that you check again to find that you have taken something slightly different to what you intended.
Imacher Point, Midge Carnage
Midges. Nothing yet can keep these pests at bay. On Arran last year they were being flushed out of the seaweed by a rising tide. The restful image I made at Imacher Point in no way reflects the reality for myself and the three other photographers suffering that evening. In the end we simply had to bail out and head back to Brodick while the chap who had sat patiently in his car watching our frantic Tarantella-esque thrashing stepped calmly out to capture what had to be the best sunset of the week with his digital compact!!
We are introducing a new series of articles on On Landscape, trying to cover one of the most difficult aspects of photography to talk about and to actually do well, and that is composition. I’ve spent the last four or five years of my photographic life obsessed with composition. My obsession has probably been detrimental to many other aspects of my photography but in my limited opinion, the most important parameter that defines a great photographer is the way in which they compose pictures. The conscious creation of a composition from the visual material around us demonstrates the difference between letting the camera doing the work and the photographer working the camera. Just as a meals ingredients may taste nice on their own and they can certainly improve a meal - a good cook one is who transforms the ingredients into something new.
The majority of people will have bought books that profess to offer a series of rules of composition and this ‘rule’ based education, a very western way of teaching, dominates nearly all literature of composition. Most people will also know that the rules are almost irrelevant to great landscape photography. I’ve written previously about the rule of thirds and it’s virtual irrelevance and there are a few other rules that have similar ‘issues’.
What is composition taught so badly though? Well, firstly it’s an incredibly complicated subject and the success or failure of most photographs depends on many different criteria. One persons great composition is another persons head scratcher.
However, there is a strong parallel between a few different creative subjects and photography. The first of these, and most commonly mentioned, is probably music. The choices of musical composition can be compared with photographic composition in many ways. Another subject matches very well though, but needs a little more thinking about, and that is graphic design.
A graphic designer typically works with a fixed area (the page) and places subjects within to create a balanced and attractive whole. The sense of balance and energy has great parallels with photography. However, this doesn’t help a lot as graphic design isn’t taught particularly well either. However, there is a great deal of evidence that people learn graphic design through studying other graphic designers and
Both myself and Joe have been thinking about better ways to teach composition and we have a few different ideas, some of which include
Visual excercises in balance
Analysis of well pictures to:
look at how they work
look at what doesn’t work
Use examples from the field at how to hone a composition
Tactics to work the edges of a composition and cropping
Learning to see colour
Learning to see 2D shapes not 3D objects
Layer Alignment
Cropping
We’ll be using all of the various facilities that the web gives us to enable some of these, such as video, animation, etc. and hopefully we’ll be able to fine tune these techniques with feedback from yourselves.
We’ll start with a little bit of workflow that a lot of professional photographers may use instinctively but that I’ve found is helpful to think consciously. This really covers only one ‘group’ of composition types so it isn’t a general workflow.
This starts with my search for ‘interesting ingredients’, as I like to think of the environment around me. These interesting ingredients may be plants, frost, ice, stone walls, etc. So
1) Find an interesting item that will become the ‘foundation’ of your picture. These items will be placed in the bottom are of the frame.
2) Now, through physically moving and using the zoom, you can move the back or background of the picture by making it bigger or smaller and by moving it left, right, up or down.
In order to get an idea how this ‘zooming’ and ‘moving’ technique works, think of the horror film effect (or the part of ‘Thriller’ by Michael Jackson) where there is a shot of the ‘star’s head and the background suddenly drops away but their head stays the same size. This is done by moving backwards and zooming in at the same time.
The technique allows you to ‘scale’ the background up and down and obviously by moving left right, etc to relocate the background.
This technique allows you to choose a background position and scale that works to complement the foreground, either by making edges and lines align or by providing space between them or positioning key highlight elements in the foreground against dark areas in the background (which is a topic we’ll cover in a future section). This works just as well with a vista as with a detail shot, as long as your picture includes the bottom of the frame nearer to camera than the top.
3) The final step is to just work out the available crops that you can use to simplify your composition. This may be an iterative approach where you go back to step 2 and try again, gradually honing down onto better compositions.
In a future issue we’ll go over this workflow technique in more detail and use it out in the field to show how it can be used in practise (for an example of this sort of technique - take a look at this old blog post - http://www.timparkin.co.uk/blog/finding-your-landscape-photographs)
I first saw Iain's work on flickr about two years ago, just as he was posting some of his old Velvia slides and some of his current work and was very impressed at his sense to composition and use of texture/pattern in nature. We chatted on the phone last week and he told me a little about himself, an ex-print designer who lives just north of Inverness (lucky blighter) and we sent him the usual questions which he has answered in some detail. As an aside, if anybody has any suggestions of additional questions we could ask photographers in this section, please let me know. So here we are .. Iain Sarjeant..
In most photographers lives there are 'epiphanic moments where things become clear, or new directions are formed. What were your two main moments and how did they change your photography?
I suppose for me, my epiphanic moments have involved the discovery of certain photographers and the way they look at the world. Since I was a child I have spent a lot of time outdoors, exploring both close to home and around the Highlands, and I have always taken photos to record the places I’ve been and anything that has interested me. But I would have to say that discovering the photography of Jan Tove in the late nineties had a huge impact on me and the way I went about capturing images. But I’ll explain more in the next question, as I notice it is about that specifically.
The second photographer whose work has had a massive impact on me is Danish photographer Keld Helmer-Petersen. I purchased his book ‘Photographs 1941–1995’ about 5 years ago and was immediately inspired by it. Not a landscape photographer as such, Keld’s style is modernistic and experimental. Often working with architectural, industrial or urban subject matter, he creates beautiful abstract compositions out of the mundane and ordinary – things we all walk past most days, tarmac, paint, metal etc. I was already seeking through my photography to capture beauty in the more everyday countryside, steering away from the famous dramatic locations. I enjoy simple compositions of branches, moss, rocks where the location is not obvious. However, Keld’s work opened my eyes to a similar range of possibilities in the built environment – fascinating patterns, colours, textures in the most overlooked of places. I now spend much more time in industrial estates as well as out in the wilds!!
I had previously made a connection between your work and that of Jan Tove and since then you have mentioned that he is a big influence. Can you explain what it is about Jan Tove’s work that so inspires?
Autumn Birch
In the nineties I was a little disillusioned with the more formulaic landscape and nature photography being done in the UK – while it accurately recorded the landscape, to me it lacked emotion and an artistic quality. There were certain photographers in the US who’s work I enjoyed and who I felt captured this better, such as William Neill, Jack Dykinga and Eliot Porter, but across the Atlantic we seemed to lag behind. However, in the late nineties I came across Jan Tove’s work and in 1999 saw him give a talk at the Scottish Nature Photography Fair. I was blown away and immediately bought a copy of his book ‘Speglingar’. Here were landscape and nature images from the heart – images that spoke as much about Jan’s relationship with the landscape as they did about the landscape itself. He masterfully composed images with incredible attention to detail of composition, colour & texture, each an individual work of art. This was someone expressing their relationship with the landscape in a way that I felt I could relate to. I feel a very personal relationship with the Scottish Highland landscape and was inspired to try to express myself through images of this kind. This marked quite a change in my photographic outlook and was a major influence in the style of my images. I since saw Jan speak again at the Scottish Nature Photography Fair in 2003 and bought his book ‘Beyond Order’, another stunning volume, and possibly my favourite Landscape/Nature Photography book. I know you have featured Jan Tove before, and I would strongly urge any photographers not familiar with his work to seek him out.
Both myself and Dav Thomas have a background that includes graphic design, as does Andrew Nadolski. We talked on the phone about the fact that one of you other life careers was as a print designer. Do you think a background in graphic design makes a difference to your compositions (and how)?
I think that having a background in design helps in a few ways. Firstly, and perhaps most importantly I think it helps develop a strong sense of composition and balance. In many ways creating an image that works is not so different from creating a design that works – dealing with issues of composition, colour, leading the viewers eye. I am very drawn to simple but strong graphic compositions with my photography.
For me creating images that work is all about balance, and not about compositional rules. I feel that images which rigidly follow rules tend to lack originality, no matter how expertly they are executed. I suppose you could argue that maybe it’s useful to learn the rules just so that you are better equipped to break them! But I think the most important thing to work on is balance in images. And for me I like to break images down to quite minimalist compositions, playing with the layout of the subject elements.
Echoes of War
I suppose one other advantage of having a background in design from a commercial point of view is that it gives you an insight into the publishing world, how images are used, a chance to be the person buying in photography. In my commercial work this has made me very sensitive to designers needs with issues like leaving space for text etc.
Could you tell us a little about the cameras and lenses you typically take on a trip and how you came to choose them.
My main interest in photography has always revolved much more around the artistic side rather than the technical. I’m guilty of only really learning enough of the technical side of photography to allow me to create the kind of images I wish to, and I always feel I should take the time to learn more, particularly processing. All of my early images were taken on a basic manual Nikon FM2, a cracking little camera, armed with Fuji Velvia.
After going full-time I was tempted to move up to medium or large format but decided for practical commercial reasons to go digital. I felt from the outset I should go for the best package I could afford and asked around friends for recommendations. Nature photographer Laurie Campbell was a big help, giving me some great advice on lenses. In the end I bought the Nikon D2X together with 17-55mm f/2.8, 70-200mm f/2.8 and a 60mm f/2.8 macro lenses – all Nikkor. I use a Gitzo tripod and Lee ND grad filters. This is still the kit that I take out into the field and covers me for all the types of images I take. I find the quality superb but I still miss that Velvia punch!
I wouldn’t rule out a return to film in the future for my personal work – I think medium or large format would be very compatible with the way I work.
After my recent tirade against 2x3 ratio photographs (well, OK, I only suggested that it was a more ‘difficult’ ratio) you go and prove me wrong in many ways. Do you think about the aspect ratio at all and how do you feel about cropping?
I have always worked with this ratio so to a degree it is just what I’m used to. With wider landscapes I like to create an image which flows, leading the viewer through the scene, introducing various elements (not always predictably) and I find this format satisfying for my style of photography. However, I have been experimenting quite a bit recently with a square format and am enjoying that very much. It’s very different in terms of composition and I hope at some point to do a project working purely with this format. In terms of square images I do obviously crop (although I normally envisage the composition when creating the image in the field), but generally I prefer to take the time to capture all images in camera and rarely crop afterwards.
I notice your personal work section mixes up urban/architectural and landscape photography, what inspires you about this different genre?
Yes, the last few years has seen me widen my interest into architectural subject matter - landscapes of the built environment. This has been partly due to the influence of Keld Helmer-Petersen and other other photographers. The clean shapes and colours of modern architecture provide great possibilities, but I particularly enjoy finding interest in functional, everyday structures as well as industrial sites.
I don’t see this as a change in direction, as I will always have a passion for exploring the natural landscape around me. I see it more as a widening of my interest, a recognition of form and beauty in the most unlikely of places.
Tell me what your favourite two photographs are and a little bit about them.
It’s very difficult to choose 2 favourites, so I’m going to pick one old velvia shot and one more recent:
Reeds at Dusk
This image was shot about 10 years ago on my way home from a shoot in Glen Affric. I was driving past a small lochan at the side of the road about 45 minutes after sunset when I saw the remaining colour in the sky reflected in the perfectly still water. I found a place to pull over, stuck a longer lens on and spent about 15 minutes playing around with the reeds and reflections forming abstract patterns against the rich colours.
Steps & Shadows
This is one of a series of images I’m working on exploring everyday structures. It’s a detail from one of the gas storage tanks in the industrial estate in Inverness but it could be anywhere. I like the simplicity of the image, the red hand rail adding a splash of colour, and the lamp balancing the diagonal line of the steps. A simple image but one which is a personal favourite.
Loch Droma
When you are ‘in the field’, what is your usual workflow? i.e. How do you find a picture? Do you take sketch shots and then go back to a choice spot and wait for light? etc.
I react very much to the weather conditions on a certain day as to what subject matter I will try to tackle. Strong light will tend to lead me to work on wider shots, whereas flatter, overcast conditions will more often see me tackling details and abstracts. But there’s no hard and fast rules! I often have a rough idea of a location and type of image I am going to work on but very much leave myself to react to new ideas and subjects which I might come across. If I’m travelling to an area I don’t know I will do a little research, but always try to allow myself to be spontaneous.
I often see a possible image when I’m out and about and the light is not right, or I’m not able to stop for whatever reason. I don’t actually take sketch shots, but keep a notebook on me at all times for ideas, locations to return to etc. and often revisit the same location. In fact I agree with many others that getting to know a place intimately leads to stronger images.
Loch Lurgainn
I spend a lot of time waiting for the light – if I feel I have a potentially strong image and the right conditions look possible, I will prepare the shot and spend considerable time hoping and waiting. Doesn’t always pay off but worth it when it does!
Your photographs come across as quite rich without being over saturated, do you do anything special in post processing?
I have always been fond of rich colours in my photography and working with Velvia certainly helped with this! Since moving to digital capture I still strive to create rich colours but this requires a little work in processing. I shoot everything in RAW and as most will know, images tend to be quite flat when downloaded from the camera. However, while I like rich colours, I find over-saturation can really spoil an image so I take care to just to tweak the curves and saturation a little – I try to keep processing to a minimum, and keep the image as true to what was in front of me as I can.
Lonbain Window
What sorts of things do you think might challenge you in the future or do you have any photographs or styles that you want to investigate? Where do you see your photography going in terms of subject and style?
I intend to continue exploring the built environment, and like the idea of creating more social landscapes – including people and their effects on the land. I enjoy the work of Stephen Shore, Joel Sternfeld and Ed Burtynsky and feel quite drawn to seek a wider picture of the Highlands.
Within my personal work I am tending to work on a number of themes or long-term projects - I am enjoying this way of working, and seeing which way they go. I might have the possibility of a solo gallery show next year and this may give me a chance to work one series up to a finished state. An example of one such project I’m working on is looking at WW2 archaeology within the Highland landscape.
However, no matter which direction I explore I will always have a passion for capturing the light and natural landscape of the Scottish Highlands – it has such a unique character.
Who do you think we should feature as our next photographer?
I would enjoy a feature on Marcin Bera, Dan Holdsworth or Hans Strand.
In terms of “master photographers” you’ve already covered a few of my obvious favourites… but maybe Ed Burtynsky or Josef Hoflehner?
Olaf Otto Becker’s large format images of the Arctic would also be great to feature.
Well - Many thanks for Iain for another great interview. You can see more of Iain's work at http://www.iainsarjeant.com and you might be interested to know that his first book, released last year, has come third in the Scottish Nature Photography book awards. Read Iain's book review & Tim's interview with Iain.
You can buy this book from the Orcadian online bookshop here.
Shinzo was a prolific publisher and of the 46 books he published or contributed to, probably six or seven are easily available second hand. I own three of his books and have another couple on order and the following is a brief review to compare and contrast these books and give my opinion on the relative interest therein. There is a list of the books that I have been able to compile from the internet at the bottom of this article.
I must be honest and say that my second taste of Shinzo's work after seeing the few picture from the AmPhoto "Landscape" book was somewhat dissapointing. "Intimate Seasons", posthumously compiled by his son Akira has pictures that are 50% Shinzo's and 50% his sons and although his son is a good photographer, for me his pictures don't hold the same depth as his fathers. And annoyingly, you have to keep referring to the back of the book to work out which photos are taken by son or father. The reproduction quality is absolutely fine and the images are strong, but I think I was expecting something a little more. However, returning to the book now with no expectations has made me realise that it is better than my first opinions.
It was when I received my copy of "Kamikochi, The Nippon Alps" that my initial opinions about Shinzo's work were confirmed. My copy of the book is slightly tatty (I tend to buy the cheapest copy of a book when purchasing blind through second hand retailers and then, if the books is one I see I will value, I go looking for a good copy) but the pictures are all unmarked and it is an absolute pleasure to browse. Shinzo's work in this book confirms my initial reaction to his work that I had from the Landscape book. His work is subtle and only occasionally betrays the photographic process (he only uses standard lenses and longer for the vast majority of his work) and his compositions show a subtlety of line and balance that strides a subtle line between chaos and order. He once said he waits for “the marvelous moment when I encounter nature without any fixed idea or preconception” which is a wonderful concept.
The last book I own is "Baume und Graser", or "Tree and Grass" in English (I have a german copy that seems quite widely available in the west). The work is as good as "Kamikochi" and they make quite a complementary pair. This book has a handy list of cameres and lenses used in the back which shows that there is a good mix of MF, 4x5 and 8x10 shots. Here is a list of the cameras and lenses used. Read more: Shinzo Maeda: Master photographer.
Shinzo Maeda may have been unkown to many western landscape photographers had he not been included the wonderful compilation book called “The World’s Top Photographers - Landscape”. Whatever you think of the book’s purpose or title, the content is mostly very good and the fact it advanced Shinzo awareness is a very good thing indeed. You see, Shinzo was one of those passionate and workaholic photographers that over time has produced a vast body of work that doesn’t conform to stereotypes. His cultural background definitely informed his vision but we can all relate to a photographer in love with his subject.
He was born in Tokyo in 1922 to a family who worked in the Forestry industry. Educated well and trained in textile dying and although he acquired the use of a camera when he was 13 (his brothers). In the end he bought his own camera and used it when out on his almost obsessive bird watching activities.
Drafted during the war, he fortunately never saw active posting as the war ended just as he arrived in Sumatra. As with many Japanese at the time, the cultural pysche and the after affects of the ware affected Shinzo deeply and he retreated to the mountains immediately after the war, finding a safe haven in the wilderness.
Upon his return, he took a job in a clothing company and spent the next seven years quietly working but in 1955 he started to visit the mountains again. It was on these hiking trips that he had the urge to try record the beauty and peace that he remembed from his earlier sanctuary in the mountains. He used some of the cheap cameras that were being produced in Japan at the time, Nikon, Canon and Mamiya, but it was Kamishima Shiro that suggested the use of the 4x5 view camera and he bought a Linhof Super Technika in 1964. A year later he gave up his job and dedicated himself to photography and two years later launched Tankei Photo Agency.
In 1974 he published his first collection of photographs entitled “The Four Seasons of a Home Town”, Maininchi Shimbun-sha, Tokyo which became a successful vehicle for his craft and the production of 46 photography books until his death in 1998 at the age of 76.
Joe Cornish is back with another Hindsight review of three photographs in that usual order, one well known, one not so well known and one that didn't quite work. This time Joe is looking at photos taken on his summer sojourns from his house near Stokesley in North Yorkshire.
We're starting a new section in this issue due to feedback from our subscribers and readers. We'll be regularly featuring critiques of our readers pictures and the 'critiquers' (is that a word?) will either be Joe or myself or one of our featured photographers. For this first critique, Hamish Roots has volunteered to be our willing victim and we'll be talking about two of his pictures taken on an epic trip to the Lake District that I also attended at the start of this year.
Our brief was that we would discuss composition and technique and that we would also address potential changes and post processing. Our first video will be freely available in order to give non-subscribers a chance to take a look at the format but from now on these will be premium features only available to paying subscribers. First of all we'll take a look at the pictures that have been put forward by Hamish. I must point out that this type of critique is always subjective and there is no single 'right' way to present a file and hence we must remember that this is 'critique' not 'criticism'.
Boundary Layer
Ice Fringe
And for those who would like to see the photoshop files that Joe finished with - here they are (right click and 'save as' if you wish to study in photoshop)
“Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year is one of the most prestigious competitions of its kind, attracting entries from professional and amateur photographers of all ages worldwide. The competition seeks to promote the discovery, understanding, responsibility and enjoyment of the natural world”
This iconic photo competition, based at the Natural History Museum and now in its 47th year, might not appear to be of direct interest to readers of Landscape GB. However, it has several categories that are landscape orientated or compatible, ‘Wild Places’ being the most conspicuous. Others which may appeal are ‘In Praise of Plants and Fungi’; ‘Urban Wildlife’ (which can be of wild plants in an urban environment, not only animals); Nature in Black and White (this includes wild landscape as the principle subject, and encourages creative use of dodging, burning and toning); and ‘Creative visions of Nature’ (conceptual depth, artistry and vision are the essentials here, and landscape is as valid a subject as the animal world).There are also special categories that include landscape as a major dimension, including the One Earth Award, and Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year.
In recent years the standard of wildlife photography has been stratospheric, but the standard of landscapes, in terms of depth and quality of entries, has been slightly less so, perhaps because of the name of the competition. Partly due to the ethos of the competition , WPY values photographic skills and tends to reject images that show overt signs of manipulation. Digital Guidelines on what adjustments are allowed (and not allowed) this year are available on the competition's website
Having been lucky enough to attend the Award dinner last year in the Great Hall of the Natural History Museum I can attest to the glamour and prestige of being an award winner (sadly I was not one, merely a guest!). It is a fantastic occasion, and to be involved in the final placings and therefore the exhibition and Awards is an unforgettable experience. The Natural History Museum’s presentation of the work is quite magnificent, with backlit transparencies being the exhibition style for the last few years. Each year the show also travels, ensuring wide media interest in the regions, and great public exposure for all exhibitors and award winners.
So why am I promoting it? Well, I am on the judging panel this year, and I want to see landscape photography really strongly represented. I am also aware of the hugely talented readership we have at LandscapeGB. So guys and girls, do please enter WPY – you have until 18th March!
Note from Tim : I've included some of the winners and commended pictures from the competitions in the last five years for you to see what sort of pictures are getting through
Whilst I was working on the content for this issue, I received a disturbing phone call from a colleague, Jason Theaker. He was calling from Whitby where he was about to lead a photographic workshop and, whilst scouting for said workshop, had found a website called ‘whitby art’ (whitby-art.co.uk - I won’t link to them as that would give them undeserved ‘google juice’).
The disturbing part of this website was that they were selling one of Jason Theaker’s pictures which was badly printed. The badly printed thing was something we must assume as the photograph had been stolen from Jason’s Flickr account and posted on their website as ‘for sale in canvas sizes up to 60”’ - well, from the 1200px wide original that makes a 20dpi print!! (or less than one pixel per millimeter).
Lest anybody proclaim that having pictures at this size on the internet is asking for it, I have also spoken to people who have had their commercial prints purchased and then scanned for illegal art repro purposes.
Whilst browsing the website, Jason also found another print by one of our featured photographers, Antony Spencer - amazingly including a 'certificate of authenticity'. Well, as you can imagine both parties were all ready for a frontal advance into Whitby to snatch their property off the walls of said gallery - apart from the fact that they couldn’t find it! Perhaps it doesn’t exist and is merely a figment of said pirates imagination?
I was asked what the best approach was and despite having no legal experience, I have had a fair bit of business experience and was fairly certain that going through the legal system wouldn’t result in anything except expense and stopping the guy using the pictures. I suggested that a bill be presented for ‘unrestricted royalty free usage’ of said picture. Well, the end result was that the images were removed from the website quite quickly.
Fortunately, stories like this where commercial operations try to profit from image theft are fairly rare and, as mentioned previously, the only way to guarantee it won’t happen to you is by not putting your pictures on the internet and also not selling your pictures (or comprehensively vetting everyone who purchases them). There are websites that can help you track image use such as the ‘Tin Eye’ reverse image search engine. Sadly, the way that this particular website has (badly) presented the image in some form of box canvas means that the image search engine couldn’t find it (it does work with colour changes, small clones and crops though).
Jason has written a little about the experience here.
The website has since been removed and an apology uploaded
"Whitby Art is now permanently closed and would like to apologise if we mistakenly represented anybody's pictures which were sent into a Facebook competition in December."
Make of this what you will, the lack of a link to said competition makes me a little suspicious. And the fact that he is still using stolen images on his personal website makes me even more suspicious. Here's a Google link to Whitby Art's proprietor - Page on blog - and here is a link to the original photo on flickr flickr page for photo
