Humanity has an unsatisfiable appetite for exploration. And we are able to create tools that take our inadequate bodies further away from the limits. Both cameras and vehicles are instruments that facilitate freedom. My passion for travelling away from the frantic chaos of the cities has enabled me to find a satisfying experience many people can only dream of.
Since I was young, freedom was something that I was pushed to embrace. As we build such a connected world, feeling free gets scarcer every day. I've been close to nature my whole life, but photography really assisted in appreciating things from a fresh perspective. It was learning not only to see but also to breathe, feel, smell and hear differently. Nature itself became a complete aesthetic experience for me thanks to being able to record life in the format of an image.
Doing landscape photography is a humble endeavour that made me look at the environment in a novel way. We all know that nature is massive. But capturing it in a way that even light gets invited inside the scene is a whole different experience. If I was asked to pick one single theme from nature, seascapes would be it. The massive force of the sea striking into the shores makes you feel literally like a mere grain of dust.
Waking up way before dawn has never been a problem for me, and that is quite fundamental for a nature-oriented photographer. Getting up at early hours makes me feel like being ahead of everyone else in the world. The whole process of sort of commuting between my bed and the ocean at times where pretty much everyone else is still sleeping is a powerful relation.
We are surrounded by chaos, but we can record it. And that is the true power of photography. We can record everything in ways that are simply impossible for our eyes. The aspect that moves me the most about shooting seascapes is that I can't predict what will happen in the end. I simply can't. It is beautiful how I can be in control of everything, but the actual photograph. I can be certain of where the sunlight will be coming from, I can measure light, I can frame my scene meticulously. I can even try to control my shivering body, but I can't control how the waves will swirl and crash in front of my camera, and that's what I love most about doing seascape photography.
Here I've selected some of those photos that have made me feel free. I wish I could share with the world the huge joys behind what many consider to be a sacrifice or a luxury. Nature shouldn’t be seen in that way. Beyond the adventurous theme of this selection of images, I’m taking the liberty here of using the power of photography to at least make one single human being more aware of our environment. Many campaigns are now showing us dead creatures and plastic flooding us, and trust me, it is happening. Finding pollution free seascapes is starting to be a problem. And photography is the best tool I have for making others aware of the beauty of our planet.
Every single image that you can see here has a story of its own. And I bet they look quite peaceful in your screens. What I really wish I could share with you is all the huge adrenaline rush I get every time that I'm in front of these cold waters. Photography pushes me into savouring seascapes in an unmatchable way. Photography enables us to remember and to build identity. Let's start taking photography less granted. My memories get more vivid every time I have the opportunity of revisiting these photographs. These are small pieces of my visual treasure; so please, enjoy!
Our next two featured photographers are notable for their determination to improve their landscape photography, and their drive in doing so, although they have chosen different routes and, for now, outcomes (for one photography remains a hobby to fit around the day job, for the other photography is their livelihood). Both are active on social media, notably Twitter, which has witnessed and encouraged them both along the way.
In this issue, we catch up with Neil Burnell. If you still mostly associate Neil with long-exposure photography, you’ll learn how extended application in the form of year-long competitions has benefitted his skill set and broadened his interests and portfolio.
Would you like to start by telling readers a little about yourself – where you grew up, your education and early interests, and what that led you to do as a career?
I grew up in Brixham, Devon, and I’m still here today! It’s a lovely town on the coast of South Devon and I’ve never felt the need or wanted to move away.
Growing up, my interests were always sports, mainly football, but any competitive ball sports really. I also had a keen interest in sea fishing which would eventually lead me to a love for photography later in my life. At school, there were very few lessons I enjoyed in all honesty, but I did love Art & Design and decided to pursue a career as a designer at South Devon College by undertaking a Design & Photography National Diploma course. I did really enjoy the Photography part of the course especially the darkroom development side of it, but at this stage, I didn’t consider it as a career. Looking back now I kind of wish I had, although things could have turned out so differently and who’s to say I’d be enjoying photography now if I’d taken that career path.
I’m now working as a designer within the food industry, employed by Caterfood, a foodservice distribution company.
How did you first become interested in photography and what kind of images did you initially set out to make?
I’ve always owned a camera but I really lacked direction with my photography. It wasn’t until I started taking the camera fishing that I thought about shooting seascapes and landscapes. Initially, I shot images of friends holding fish they had caught, this then led to people fishing within the landscape and eventually I was looking for compositions purely of seascapes and it was at this stage I decided to put more time into photography rather than fishing. Before I knew it I had purchased a tripod and was experimenting with filters.
It’s not often that you can shoot amazing landscapes indoors, but the ghost town of Kolmanskop, Namibia, is just that kind of place.
The Namib Desert is relentless. On the drive into the little seaside port town of Lüderitz, sandwiched between the South Atlantic Ocean and the high dunes, sand blows and drifts over the highway like a scene from Mad Max, threatening to swallow it whole. Heavy equipment stands a way off, waiting to push the voracious dunes from the road. Give the Namib a chance, and it will quickly reclaim anything that human hands have built.
The diamond mining ghost town of Kolmanskop, a collection of skeletal buildings a short way off that same highway, is a testament to just that fact. Abandoned with structures and possessions largely intact by its inhabitants in a rush to a richer set of diamond fields to the south, for more than 60 years the Namib has been reclaiming the town, the desert now as much a part of the buildings as it is a setting for them.
That the Namib Desert gave this southern African country its name is no mere coincidence. Taken from an indigenous Khoekhoe-language term, ‘Namib’ loosely translates as ‘immense’ or ‘vast and empty’, which might qualify as the geographic understatement of the century.
Taken from an indigenous Khoekhoe-language term, ‘Namib’ loosely translates as ‘immense’ or ‘vast and empty’, which might qualify as the geographic understatement of the century.
Stretching for more than 2000km in a 200km-wide band spanning the country’s entire coastline, nothing defines Namibia more than this, the oldest and perhaps most spectacular desert in the world, its 400,000 square kilometres of area almost completely uninhabited.
I've taken up climbing in the past 2 years, so when Hazel sent some information over about her recent project which was inspired by Gwen Moffat the first woman mountain guide and her book ‘Space Below My Feet', I was intrigued. After an email conversation, I was delighted that Hazel agreed to an interview about her project and she talks about how she approached visiting these locations and creating her own experiences based on the stories from the book.
You studied a BA (Hons) Photography at Blackpool and the Fylde College (2006-2009) and undertook a MLitt History of Photography at St Andrews University (2012-2013). Tell us about how you chose this as a study path/possible career and how this shaped your approach to photography.
During high school I became interested in photography and built a darkroom in the loft at my parents' home. I quickly chose this as a pathway as I was fascinated by the power of photography. White balance blew me away! I later progressed to the local FE college to start my studying and soon was trapped in the journey.
Education allowed me to explore both the practical and theoretical aspects of photography and gave me a positive grounding. I am very thankful to every tutor I have had for their advice and direction. It also led me to develop a complex relationship with photography, through questioning the purpose and motive in image making. This fuelled my interest into the history of Photography but left a significant time gap in my portfolio of work. Only recently have I re-ignited my practice; this time I have ownership of it.
You are a lecturer currently teaching across a range of levels at North Warwickshire and Hinckley College, including delivering on the BA (Hons) Visual Media, in affiliation with Coventry University. You obviously lecture in different formats of visual media, so what drew you to landscape photography rather than other media or genres?
My greatest inspiration comes from literature. I always have a book about the environment on the go, and this fuels my energy to get out and explore.
For me, photography needs to be a natural act. With the fast pace of education, I enjoy escaping on weekends and holidays into the quieter hillsides. My passion for photographing in the landscape was ignited when I heard Jem Southam speaking at the Responding to a Landscape Symposium in November 2017. The symposium elevated the status of landscape photography providing the reassurance I needed to chase my own project. I previously had been struggling with building my physical strength to take on the outdoors walking and climbing challenges, and as such had no space for the photographic practice. As my physical strength has developed, my photographic practice has taken centre stage.
How do the other genres/approaches to photography inform your landscape work?
I feel like I react to the landscape in a similar style to a street photographer. I like to capture as I go. My greatest inspiration comes from literature. I always have a book about the environment on the go, and this fuels my energy to get out and explore. I am currently reading Robert MacFarlane’s Underland, and can already see my photographs are seeking out shelter and darker areas!
Tell me about the photographers or artists that inspire you the most. What stimulated your interest in photography and who drove you forward, directly or indirectly, as you developed?
I must give a great level of credit to Thomas Joshua Cooper. I was lucky enough to meet Thomas and see his studio space whilst I was studying in Scotland. I interviewed him for a paper I was writing on The Philosophy of Time in Photography. We discussed the concept of time, specifically human experience of time, in his own photographic practice. It is only recently that I have looked back on this meeting and realised its significance. Thomas’s approach to his subject reminded me of how important it is to take the photos instinctively, void of external influence.
Your previous work has fallen into two key themes; social limitations and expectations, and the function of man-made spaces. Was this by design or accidental? Tell us more about these two key themes and why they are important to your photography and narrative.
I identified these two themes when I was trying to categorise the bodies of work I have created for my current website. I am forever questioning the purpose and actions of mankind. I use photography to understand the world around me and as a tool to question. Recently this has been focused on the environment, and how this environment has an emotional and mental influence. Previously I have explored childhood and the way society impacts on individuality. In many ways, all these themes both seek a comprehension of how we can be most true to ourselves.
I am forever questioning the purpose and actions of mankind. I use photography to understand the world around me and as a tool to question. Recently this has been focused on the environment, and how this environment has an emotional and mental influence.
Your work is mostly project based with a number of different projects displayed on your website. How have you gone about forming, researching, working and finishing a project? (Big question, sorry!)
I don’t always create my photographs for a series, but I do like to share them in collections. I keep my Instagram account much looser and more of a visual journal. I feel a series helps present a narrative. John Blakemore describes images being choreographed. Each move works alone, but when they are put together, they can have a much greater impact. Although weak choreography is also a risk!
Is there a part of the process in a photography project that you like the most? If so what is it and why?
Yes, I like to be out in the environment. I like the moment before I take the photograph the most. The imagining of it. Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to press the shutter.
Tell us about your current project ‘SPACE ----- MY ——‘ which was inspired by Gwen Moffat the first woman mountain guide and her book ‘Space Below My Feet’, first published in 1961.” How did you find out about her? What inspired you to do a project based on the book?
I found Gwen’s book in a book barn, just by chance. I like to go there because they do a great cake and have a roaring fire in the winter! I hadn’t heard of her before. I started reading it, and so did my husband Dan. She had been to so many of the locations we love to visit. We started discussing her when we visited these places. It wasn’t until later that I realised the connection between my images and her texts and began producing the outcomes for ‘Space ----- My ----.’
How did you go about researching the locations and which places to visit?
The places she went to are the places we naturally end up going so I haven't had to research or specifically target anywhere. Although, I have been known to enjoy hours crawling around the OS Map hunting for names of places in her book. The exact location is not of utmost importance. I have spent some time trying to work out where her cottage near Dolgellau is without any success, but every time we see a derelict building in the area, we joke that its Gwen’s house. I prefer it this way, not knowing! Our next trip is to the Isle of Skye, another one of her stomping grounds.
The places she went to are the places we naturally end up going so I haven't had to research or specifically target anywhere. Although, I have been known to enjoy hours crawling around the OS Map hunting for names of places in her book
You say about the project “Through delving into their personal encounters they encourage me to visit the landscape and create my own experience.” How did you go about this? Did you take the book on the trips and think about Gwen’s narrative and reflect on that?
Absolutely. There is always a book in my bag. Gwen, Robert MacFarlane, Nan Shepard, just to name a few. The links are never literal, just dancing away in the background. Gwen also wrote murder mysteries; I find these equally interesting. The way she writes has enabled me to see a more human side to her character; she likes a good gossip, or the village people in her books do!
I love your “What would Gwen do?” approach to life experiences. Please tell us about a couple of “What would Gwen do?” moments.
Mostly they involve me in tears! These environments that we go to explore deliver both mental and physical challenges. Edmund Burke’s theory on the ‘sublime’ scaffolds the project; the notion that romantic grandeur, intertwined with horror and terror, is never far away. The ‘Gwen’ moments can start fifteen minutes into the walk; this for me is always the hardest part when I remember it's going to be hard work. As my legs and lungs scream, I visualise Gwen stomping her way up, without stopping. Then when the routes get tough and I question if I can do a move on a climb, Dan shouts to me ‘Could Gwen do it?’ I imagine Gwen leading her way up the same bit of rock, and re-focus.
How do you approach the post processing of your work?
Bringing together the images and the text is my second favourite part of the process. I print out the images and I photocopy out the pages from the book, I spread it all out over the table and simultaneously delve back into the walk and literature. I revisit the pages and redact the words that don’t match my own experience of the walk, leaving behind the words that I share with Gwen. I initially used Tippex, but I was getting through too much, so I now circle the words and do a digital redaction afterwards. I have made a little paper frame that I use to select a fragment from the page. The image that syncs up with the text tends to reveal themselves without much thought.
Tell me what your favourite two or three photographs from the project are and a little bit about them.
Half-hearing the conversation
Very early on in Gwen’s book, she speaks of ‘Ordinary Route’, one of her first climbs in the Ogwen Valley, Snowdonia. She didn’t seem particularly taken by it, describing it more like walking than climbing. This would usually put me and my husband, Dan, off, but as my first wet, winter climb it became a whole new challenge! This image was created towards the end of the day following the climb. The route descended to the same area as the approach. Looking back up at the route we had just climbed, and seeing the clouds rolling in, I feel this image has captured all of my fear, elation and cold fingers! I did laugh as I redacted the text and found the phrase ‘hearing half the conversation’. This was such a true statement from the day, as Dan had led the way, and the wind and valley echo had prevented our communication!
Bewildered
Gwen walks at night, the dark does not deter. I have been terrified of ending up walking or climbing after sunset and can often get fixated on needing to be back at the car well before dark is on us. This winter I have made a conscientious effort to address this fear and have found the beauty of dusk almost an addiction. It’s amazing how our eyes adapt. After a walk up Cadair with Dan, we returned to my Dad’s house, in a nearby village, just before dusk. Dad was just leaving to take the dog out for a walk, so I said I would go to the edge of the forest to get a few images; an hour later I was still walking. The phrase ‘I don’t remember making any decision to go’, alongside the other three phrases, summarises this walk perfectly!
What is next for you? Are there any other projects, another exhibition or are you focusing on your teaching?
In the summer, the tables will turn as I become a student at Dartmoor Summer School of Photography. I have the origins of many projects fluttering around and hope this experience will help me focus in on my approach. Trees seem to be screaming at me for some attention!
The North Wales Project, of which I am grateful to be a member of, are collectively exhibiting at The Northern Eye Festival in October this year. As a collective, we aim to raise the voice of documentary photography in North Wales.
A significant proportion of my practice is created in Snowdonia. I hope my work will bring a comment about the rural environment into a genre that predominantly focuses on the streets.
In January of last year, I began photographing a body of work documenting Romanian NGO ‘Foundation Conservation Carpathia’ (FCC) as they strive to create a new European Wilderness Reserve in the heart of the Southern Carpathian Mountains. The project, entitled ‘Carpathia’, was initially funded by the Royal Photographic Societies annual Environmental Bursary scheme in association with The Photographic Angle. I intended to publish a project diary here at On Landscape after each seasonal trip. However, I was unable to publish any of the photographs until the Royal Photographic Society ran a ‘Carpathia’ feature in the print journal this year. Now that has been published; I can continue to release the work elsewhere. So, although the work was made throughout 2018 and early 2019, I still intend to publish my project journal here – albeit retrospectively…
Targului River, the proposed location for Beaver reintroduction programme, Raul Targului Hunting Area
About the FCC
When it comes to economic data, Romania is nearing the bottom of all of the statistics in the European Union. However, when it comes to environmental statistics, the county comes out on top. Boasting 6 million hectares of forests, it has the largest surface of virgin and unfragmented forest in the Union; the most significant population of large carnivores, where bears, wolves and lynx are still commonly seen in their natural environment; and over 3700 plant species, many of them endemic to the region.
It is said that “the forest is Romania’s brother”, however in recent years, this innate connection to the forests is being put under incredible strain. The restitution of formerly nationalised land, a process that began in 2004, eventually resulted in a new ownership structure of two-thirds of Romania’s forests. Communities and landowners associations received larger, contiguous properties, while the majority of private land consisted of smaller parcels with less than 50 hectares. In the years that followed, logging companies bought many of the privately-owned forests, and tremendous deforestation was the outcome. This resulted in large clear-cuts that have painfully scarred vast mountain slopes, leaving the area deserted. The only viable solution to protect these areas from greed and corruption was via direct purchase.
Farmland perimeter in Ciocanu Village
Founded in 2009, Foundation Conservation Carpathia (FCC) is spearheading efforts to protect and restore a significant area within the Southern Carpathians through the creation of a new European Wilderness Reserve. By purchasing large tracts of forests and meadows, FCC ceases logging operations and lease hunting rights to guarantee full protection of all natural elements. Over the past decade, FCC has succeeded in acquiring over 21,000 ha of forests for protection and has managed to create an entirely hunting free area of 36,000 hectares, in addition to planting over 1.5 million saplings and restoring more than 500 hectares of clear-cut land.
Founded in 2009, Foundation Conservation Carpathia (FCC) is spearheading efforts to protect and restore a significant area within the Southern Carpathians through the creation of a new European Wilderness Reserve. By purchasing large tracts of forests and meadows, FCC ceases logging operations and lease hunting rights to guarantee full protection of all natural elements.
The Romanian Carpathians provide a home to an incredibly diverse mix of wildlife – over 3,500 animal species thrive there, many of which are strictly protected by European law. With few exceptions such as bison and beaver, the entire mammal fauna is still present in viable numbers, including the large carnivores. After the fall of communism, however, numbers of large mammals have suffered from overhunting, poaching and disturbance through logging. I became fascinated in the story of FCC and after meeting the team on a reccy in September 2017, I returned to their project area in January 2018 to begin making photographs. These trips are covered in my On Landscape article, here.
Although there can be unique and broad interpretations, landscape is a major theme in all forms of art. One of them is photography. Landscape photography is a means to represent the places in which we live and a way to portray what we see around us. A landscape is rarely defined by its size but rather the phenomenon or ecological mosaic that is presented for us to consider. The physical elements often include landforms such as mountains, hills, lakes, or the sea. It could also encompass vegetation, buildings, structures, or even, transitory elements like weather conditions. Bottom line, it represents how we see and interpret our space from many perspectives. It can be as broadly varied as forests, tundra, deserts, cities, farms, ruins and riverbeds. However, what makes a landscape image emotionally effective is how it resonates within us, conjures a memory, or allows for a momentary escape.
Recognising that, there is something more than the traditional landscape that we see with our eyes. What I am referring to is the landscape that our mind recognises and interprets. It often appears at times and in places when and where least expected. It is one that once we chance upon it, we can barely see anything else. It is like the clouds passing overhead which present us with a dynamic display of subjective images that call to us and our imagination.
Imagine a sweet summer morning. You walk along the beach where the sparkling water meets the sand, breathe in the fresh air, hear the waves lapping along the shore, and feel the sand squish between your toes. The grand scene takes your breath away but there is also undiscovered magic happening beneath those sandy toes that can be equally beautiful and totally mesmerising. Like the clouds above, the scene is ever changing, developing, and disappearing. You take a closer look.
Over millennia, rock is broken down in tiny and varied particles of minerals which make their way to the shore by eroding rivers, glaciers, volcanoes, moraines and bluffs. These ancient minerals amalgamate with newer ground up shells and invertebrates to create one-of-a-kind blends of colourful sand and oxides reflecting each beach’s local geography in a magnificent palette. Every beach is eternally restless and adapting and is as unique as a fingerprint.
For me, as a photographer who loves creating abstracts, my core photography began with landscapes. It is impossible for me to walk past this natural and evolving sand art without seeking out the landscape. Hills, valleys, aerials, and abstract visions form and morph before one’s eyes as the water washes back and forth.
For me, as a photographer who loves creating abstracts, my core photography began with landscapes. It is impossible for me to walk past this natural and evolving sand art without seeking out the landscape.
The incoming waves and merging spring fed streams play with the often vibrant colours of the mineral particles and the reflected colour of the sky to shape and craft magical and dynamic abstract designs and illusory landscapes.
To the discoverer, this offers endless possibilities and fun. Camera in hand, or not, the display can be spellbinding. This experience is reminiscent of childhood hours spent rotating and flipping a frame of coloured sand sandwiched between two sheets of glass to create new and wondrous designs. Suggestions of magical lands emerge as the sand slips into shapes of mountain peaks and gorges only to be turned over to start again.
But it is not only the beach which conjures up such scenes. The suggestion of landscapes can be found in close-up photography of more static or slowly evolving subjects such as the rusting metal on abandoned cars, peeling paint on neglected walls, or decaying surfaces on old boats or buildings. There is so much that you can allow your mind’s eye to peer into and discover with merely a closer look.
Rust, another name for iron oxide, occurs when iron or steel is exposed to oxygen and moisture for a long period of time. As years go by, oxygen combines with the metal and eventually weakens the bonds of the metal itself. Although slower moving than that of a beach, the corrosion and decay forms unique designs in the paint and the metal beneath it. This is what makes the discovery of a single abandoned old vehicle in a field or an entire car wrecking yard so exciting. Amongst the deterioration and the incessant and tenacious recall by nature, there is a bounty of landscape illusions to be discovered.
Wood and glass of abandoned buildings and structures, long exposed to the elements of weather and time itself, takes on a patina that is unique and inviting to the mind’s eye. The organic enzymatic changes that occur in the wood as it rots change its composition while the addition of mould and mildew alter and decorate surfaces and form new and tangible textures. Cracking, peeling and bubbling of paint and varnish not only reveal the past before the ravages of time took charge but also show us that nothing is constant. It also reminds us that perhaps we should look at the old and decaying with a fresh perspective. There is often more than meets the eye. For me, as a photographer who loves creating abstracts, my core photography began with landscapes. It is impossible for me to walk past this natural and evolving sand art without seeking out the landscape.
Cracking, peeling and bubbling of paint and varnish not only reveal the past before the ravages of time took charge but also show us that nothing is constant. It also reminds us that perhaps we should look at the old and decaying with a fresh perspective.
When I first began photographing, I often sought out the traditional landscape. I now see landscapes appearing everywhere. Recognising this has led me to a deeper exploration of the landscape illusions that I stumble upon. The visual images that merely suggest a landscape, yet seem totally out of context, are what really tug at my wild imagination. I strongly believe that the subliminal part of our minds is also very busy at work in the background when we are making the image. Often it is in the review of the scene later during editing when the discovery takes place. Forests appear in the rotting boards of an old building offering a glimpse into its woodsy beginning. A seascape develops on the side of a drydocked fishing boat reminiscent of its life on the sea. A desert scene can be found etched on a piece of glass that has melted and fused in the blazing sun. A winding road can suddenly materialise on the fender of a rusting automobile. And a sand sculpted scene of hills and dales tells the story of the minerals that have wound their way down to water’s edge to decorate the beach with their kaleidoscopic colours. As paint peels and reveals the past beneath its surface, a new life takes hold. It is no longer just an ordinary wall with peeling paint. It is a land to be discovered and explored as history reveals itself, a coincidental connection is made, and a story waits begging to be told.
We spend a great deal of time rushing from one place to another, seeking the iconic shot, ticking the bucket list boxes. Sometimes in our haste, we even forget to breathe. We miss the moments that we don’t even know we are striving for. The connection with the world around us has become so tenuous and fleeting. In our quest for the next Instagram selfie, we fail to go below the surface and look inwards. We overlook the fact that we have a beautiful, curious mind that craves non-electronic stimulation of the senses and a chance to explore on its own untethered terms.
It takes discipline to slow down and smell the roses.
It takes time to see beyond the obvious. If we allow it, an enchanting world can be conjured up from something totally unexpected. But we need to allow for the unexpected to happen.
It takes time to see beyond the obvious. If we allow it, an enchanting world can be conjured up from something totally unexpected. But we need to allow for the unexpected to happen. Something as simple as the fleeting brush of light on found glass can send our imaginations soring, if only we take the time to notice it.
So, next time you go for that contemplative beach walk, remember to stop, look down, take some long slow breaths. Enjoy the moving magical show of nature’s sand art right at your feet. Breathe in the moment. Explore the details of the abandoned barn on the country roadside. Discover the drydock yards at the end of the harbour. Seek out the car graveyards being reclaimed by nature. Just let go and unleash your imagination. You won’t be disappointed.
I started photography a few years ago and have been following a select few photographers over this time who have always given me inspiration to me. I follow them purely because of their love and passion and skill in photography.
One of these is Erin Babnik. Her limitless exploration and intensive work in French Alps and Dolomites is extraordinary. Her endlessly amazing work has always given me the strength to go out and explore the outdoors for myself. The photograph shown here is a personal favourite and is an example of her profound work and her love and dedication to the craft.
As she says elsewhere, this photograph wasn’t an easy one to take and was caught in the glimpse of a sunray as it passed over the mountain. As a viewer and a photographer, it shows a beautiful combination of foreground and background. Those leading lines of wildflowers reaching towards the peaks along with its moody nature combine to give something truly enchanting. The photograph speaks for itself and whatever the weather was, there was much hope in capturing that special moment.
As a photographer myself, I understand that it is only possible to truly capture these moments when you enjoy your surroundings and are in tune with mother nature. If you have ever heard Erin talk, she has spoken about “The Balloon Story” a few times.
Welcome to our 4x4 feature which is a set of four mini landscape photography portfolios submitted from our subscribers. Each portfolios consisting of four images related in some way.
Submit Your 4x4 Portfolio
Interested in submitting your work? We're on the lookout for new portfolios for the next few issues, so please do get in touch!
These are the well-known mountain peaks surrounding Canmore, Alberta. A frequent site for travellers driving alongside the highway to Banff. I was pleasantly surprised when I found by accident the perfect weather conditions for some amazing photos. Combining the quality and direction of light, the type of lens, along with the perfect angle of the sun allowed me to show off the full textural detail of this remarkable mountain range.
The windy, cloudy weather of the mountains ensures that your shot will always be changing. Sometimes you’ll have a clear sky, twenty minutes later you might not. While this affects the background, it can also affect your subject, as the shadows of any clouds above can completely change how the mountains look. For the aspiring photographer, a cloudy day in the mountains can yield a cornucopia of photos.
The choice to convert in black and white is one that I’ve been experimenting with for a while. Without the distraction of colour, black and white photography allowed other aspects of the shot, such as the texture of the mountains, the light peeking through the clouds, and more.
It starts with that sound. At first, you can barely make it out, is that the wind? But as you get closer the subtle music becomes clear. The air is cooler. The moisture envelops. What only a few months ago chilled you to the bones, now feels delicious after the exertion. As the light starts to come up and bounce down the walls of the chasm, the contrast of white water and granite starts to emerge from the darkness.
While the mountains in Massachusetts lack the size required to produce waterfalls of the impressive scale of our neighbouring states to the north and west, I am entranced by the more modest intimacy of the falls of my home state. Each has a certain unique quality that makes it special.
The Icelandic south and east coast are varied, stunning, and formidable in its natural formation. I cannot say whether this mini portfolio gives a true image of Iceland, but it is my contention that Iceland can only be witnessed. It is an island that is full of natural events which awaken you from an unconsciousness to the huge forces at play under our very feet. Iceland experiences the full symphony of such events: glacial, tectonic, biologic, geologic, cosmic. These events manifest themselves most evidently in water all over the island. It flows seasonally through a multitude of forms: ice, snow, rain, river, glacier, steam, ocean. Its impact on the landscape is clear, as is its necessity to sustaining human life.
Iceland was the last major island to be inhabited in about 900AD, leaving the landscape mostly unscathed from human intervention. My experience of Iceland was, therefore, a real connection to the elements. These four images demonstrate the juxtaposition of the landscape: the scale and force with which these natural events occur, carving and shaping the landscape; versus the fragile cyclic symbiosis of the Icelandic environment. I do, however, find Iceland at such odds with itself - it places a high economic importance on tourism, ironically thereby endangering the very nature which people travel to see. I think these images tell the story of just how important it is to preserve such a beautiful, yet fragile, natural environment.
Last year, and unknown to me at the time, I was fortunate to get a place on what I believe became the last National Trust photography day that allowed participants to access inside the old Atomic Weapons Research Establishment (AWRE) buildings at Orford Ness.
Tours now – the next is in August 2019 – do not permit interior access due to safety concerns. The buildings are certainly unstable.
All arts have their limits, and I admit that the limits of photography are rather narrow, but in good hands it can be made to lie like a Trojan. However much truth may be desirable in the abstract, to the artist there is no merit in a process that cannot be made to say the thing that is not.~Henry Peach Robinson
We’re all familiar with photographs showcasing magnificent natural-looking scenery, majestic and timeless and free from human incursions. Most of us also know that many such photographs depict places that are often crowded, managed as tourist attractions, where a wild-looking view may only exist in one direction while a raucous crowd may be just outside the frame.
Photographers working in such places, wishing for their images to convey impressions such as wildness, remoteness, or peaceful contemplation, often compose their photographs deliberately to exclude people, roads, and structures that might betray the true nature of the place and the true experience of being in it. Such photographs—even if presented as “unmanipulated,” or as, “straight out of the camera”—may cause viewers to accept as true an impression that is patently false. The Merriam-Webster dictionary uses the phrase, “causing someone to accept as true or valid what is false or invalid,” as a definition for the word, “deception.”
Photographers working in such places, wishing for their images to convey impressions such as wildness, remoteness, or peaceful contemplation, often compose their photographs deliberately to exclude people, roads, and structures that might betray the true nature of the place and the true experience of being in it.
Does it matter that a photograph is not “manipulated,” if the viewer is? In art, the answer is easy: manipulating the impression of the viewer is the very goal of art (at least of most art). But what of the vocal mob who decry manipulation of photographs with such terms as unrealistic, unethical, or immoral, but who have no qualms about deceiving their viewers, so long as some idea of purity of process is held sacrosanct? How is that ethical?
Sometimes you just need a little help. In this case, it was building a shed and who better to recruit than a top landscape photographer! Fortunately, the shed didn't take too long to build and so Joe was available to help me create some video content for you lovely readers out there. We managed to record two such videos in between trips out into the Highlands and the first is from his trip to Cornwall where Joe has some great light and beautiful Spring conditions.
For this issue, we’re slowing down and wandering around with Sarah Marino, a photographer, educator and writer who together with husband Ron Coscorrosa splits her year between home and a nomadic life in a trailer. From the latter, you might expect a portfolio full of iconic American scenery, but over time Sarah has found greater fulfilment through the changing conditions, intimate scenes and delicate details for which she is best known.
Would you like to start by telling readers a little about yourself – where you grew up, your education and early interests, and what that led you to do as a career?
I grew up in a suburb of Denver, Colorado in the United States. Although I did well in school and had a lot of ambition, I didn’t have a strong sense of what I wanted to do with my life and made some poor decisions as a young adult. I was the first person in my family to go to college and initially enrolled at a prestigious engineering school. I succeeded on the academic side but the cutthroat culture of the school was not a good fit. I transferred to another university and graduated with two degrees – one in American history and one in business. I was involved in political advocacy at the time and found my first professional job on a congressional campaign, with the plan of going to law school soon thereafter.
After an intense and mostly unpleasant experience on the campaign, I again realised that highly competitive environments are not a good fit for me and I decided against law school. Feeling rudderless, I applied for a wide range of positions and ended up accepting a job offer at a large nonprofit organisation. Finally, and mostly by accident, I found a culture that was welcoming, collaborative, and mission-oriented – a much better fit. This job led me to a happy, wide-ranging career in Colorado’s nonprofit community, including owning a nonprofit and philanthropy consulting business for almost a decade. While I still work with a few long-term consulting clients, I am getting closer to working as a full-time photographer each year.
A recent rain smoothed out and softened the surface of formerly weathered mud tiles in Death Valley National Park, California.
How did you become interested in photography and what kind of images did you initially set out to make?
About five years into my nonprofit career, I decided that I needed a graduate degree since I wanted to become a CEO and lead a large organisation. I finished a master’s degree in public administration while working full-time in an intense, high pressure job.
During those two stressful years, I tried to get outside for hiking and camping as much as I could because it was my only break. I started taking along a camera and soon realised that photography offered a chance to give my weary brain a rest.
During those two stressful years, I tried to get outside for hiking and camping as much as I could because it was my only break. I started taking along a camera and soon realised that photography offered a chance to give my weary brain a rest. The contemplative process of exploring, observing a landscape, setting up a composition, and crafting a photograph offered a chance for my racing mind to slow down. My initial photographic interests were quite similar to what I focus on now – small scenes, patterns, plants, trees, and an occasional grand landscape.
As I started taking my photography more seriously, I also started experiencing the thrill that can come with external validation. At the time, Marc Adamus was emerging as a driving force in the US landscape photography community. I decided that I wanted to take photos like Marc’s photos, mostly because those types of photos received the most attention. I completed three workshops with Marc and they were instrumental in my development as a photographer. During the first workshop, observing Marc’s adventurous spirit motivated me to build my outdoor abilities and skills (and I learned a lot from observing his creative process). During the final workshop about a year later, I realised that copying Marc’s photos and style offered little in terms of personal satisfaction and I started the slow journey back to focusing on the types of subjects that were among my initial inspirations.
Lightning strikes the mountains behind the Great Sand Dunes in Colorado.
Who (photographers, artists or individuals) or what has most inspired you, or driven you forward in your own development as a photographer?
My interest in nature is the driving force and inspiration that has propelled me forward as a photographer. As I spend more time outside, I find more things that fascinate me. The feelings of discovery, wonder, and awe inspire me to get outside more often, explore the same places more deeply, and experience new places.
While I admire many nature photographers, I actively try to keep the work of others from directly inspiring or heavily influencing my own work. When it comes to photography, I have an impressionable mind, especially with regard to visiting specific places. This led me to partially adopt a practice that photographer Cole Thompson calls photographic celibacy.
As I analysed how I was working, I came to the conclusion that when I studied another photographer’s work, I was imprinting their style onto my conscious and subconscious mind. And then when I photographed a scene, I found myself imitating their style rather than seeing it through my own vision. To overcome this tendency I decided to stop looking at the work of other photographers, as much as was practically possible.~ Cole Thompson
For about a year and a half, I spent very little time looking at nature photography, with the exception of occasionally seeing the photos shared by friends on social media.
I stopped looking at other photographers’ websites and never researched locations by looking at high-quality nature photography of the places I would be visiting. I decided that if I wanted to create photos that are more reflective of me
I stopped looking at other photographers’ websites and never researched locations by looking at high-quality nature photography of the places I would be visiting. I decided that if I wanted to create photos that are more reflective of me, I needed to stop spending so much time allowing other people’s visions to get imprinted on my own. This practice helped clear my mind and gave me the mental space to figure out what I wanted to photograph and how I wanted to photograph it. I cultivated internal motivations and developed significantly more confidence in my work during this period, as well. Now, I spend a bit more time looking at nature photography but still avoid looking at photos of a place that I will be visiting in the near future.
Almost every time I discuss these ideas with other photographers, I get strong disagreement so I know that this practice doesn’t work or isn’t compelling to most people. However, when I consider my biggest breakthroughs and periods of progress with my own photography, this approach was essential.
How have your experiences over the last 10 years changed your perspective on life and the necessity of making a living?
My only sibling passed away after a bicycle accident when I was 14 years old and it was an incredibly traumatising and consequential experience. I can trace most of my ambition and the constant feeling that I need to fit in as much as possible to this experience. This initially manifested as a drive to be a top achiever in school and then morphed into a desire to accelerate professional accomplishments. While this approach produced an impressive resume, it also left me feeling emotionally tattered and constantly stressed. I daydreamed about taking a year off to rest and focus on photography but given my situation at the time and my addiction to work, making it happen seemed impossible.
In 2011, I met my now-husband, Ron Coscorrosa, during a photography trip in southwestern Colorado. Ron had saved up so he could take a sabbatical from his work as a software engineer. While I initially had no romantic interest in Ron, I found his life choices to be instantly inspiring because, at home, I was surrounded by people who only defined success through career-oriented achievements. Getting to know someone who defined success in terms of enjoying life was a revelation and it motivated me to start making different choices. At the time, I had a busy consulting practice and selected projects based on things like prestige and visibility. I started instead of selecting projects that allowed me to work remotely and maintain a flexible schedule. I also went through a long, difficult process of crafting a new identity – one that wasn’t based solely on traditional career success but instead of actually enjoying life.
Getting to know someone who defined success in terms of enjoying life was a revelation and it motivated me to start making different choices. At the time, I had a busy consulting practice and selected projects based on things like prestige and visibility.
Ice formations on a backcountry lake in Colorado's San Juan Mountains.
Once we got married, we significantly reduced our expenses, moved to a small town with a lower cost of living, and figured out a way to travel a lot more (finding remote work, buying an RV, and introducing our cats – successfully! - to travelling). While I make a lot less now and still feel self-induced pressure to cram in as much as possible, I am much happier living a simpler, slower life with more time for travel, being outdoors, and photography.
Across the breadth of your portfolio, which places, projects or themes have the most resonance for you?
This is a hard question to answer because every natural place I have visited resonated with me in some way. Still, I feel most at home in wide-open desert landscapes. Exploring is easy since cross-country travel is allowed in many places. Desert landscapes also seem to hold more surreal surprises than other types of ecosystems. It is exhilarating to head out to a familiar place and not know what we might find since some desert landscapes can change dramatically after flooding or extended periods of dry weather. As noted in 1-star Trip Advisor reviews for places like Death Valley National Park, these landscapes can look like desolate expanses of brown at first glance. With a closer look, however, such places are often full of life and are transformed under different lighting throughout the day. All these things come together to make such landscapes feel magical.
I also spend a lot of time seeking order among chaos. This is probably the most common theme in my photography, as I find the greatest pleasure in finding patterns and repetition in nature. It is fascinating to see patterns repeat in all different kinds of subjects and at all different scales. Finding these subjects, being able to photograph them, and then presenting them in cohesive collections bring me a lot of joy.
Would you like to choose 2-3 of your favourite photographs and tell us a little about why they are special to you?
Edge of Light
The edge of a sand dune catches the last light of the day at a remote dune field (Death Valley National Park, California).
When comparing my black and white work to my colour work, I think my black and white work is a better representation of my interests in and affection for the natural world. I always feel constrained when working with colour photographs and my perfectionist tendencies often get the best of me. For example, I took this photo in the late afternoon. The shaded sand dunes took on an unattractive shade of brown. By portraying this scene in black and white, I could get past my issues with the brown dunes and accentuate the strong contrasts in a way that would look artificial if rendered in colour. This photo remains one of my favourites because of the frill of wind-blown sand – a little detail that makes the photo for me.
Seaweed Patterns
Glistening seaweed in a tidal flat in Iceland
I took this photo across the street from one of Iceland’s busiest photography spots. This is an interesting place to observe photographers because most people get out of their car, walk the short distance to get “the shot,” get back in their car and drive away. It is sad to see how few people explore since the area offers many subjects for photography – tidal flats full of this seaweed, extensive sand ripples, areas of standing water that reflect the surrounding mountains, and a series of pretty cascades all within five minutes of walking from the parking lot. When people ask me about my photography style, I say that I photograph by wandering around and my photos are the result of what I find while on these meanders. This is an example of how easy it is to find subjects just by wandering around. I continue to enjoy this photo because of the repetition of the beautiful, intricate patterns in this seaweed. The slight wetness also adds a bit of a silvery sheen, which I love.
Many photographers work in a solitary manner – at least while in the field. Can I ask you about the dynamic of working jointly with your partner Ron? How much do your vision and style have in common, and how do they differ?
Ron and I are fortunate to have remarkably similar interests when it comes to being in nature, like our mutual affection for desolate landscapes and spending a lot of time seeking out tiny subjects. Since our interests align, we are able to easily choose places to visit that interest us both. If we are visiting a place that requires hiking to access the spot we are planning to photograph, we almost always hike together and then split up once we arrive at our destination. If we are photographing from the car or a parking lot, we sometimes spend a little time exploring together but much more commonly go off in our own direction.
One of the most common questions we are asked is, “Who is the better photographer?” This question is confounding since we never think in these terms, as we are not territorial or competitive at all. If I see something interesting, I am often as excited about sharing it with Ron as I am about photographing it myself.
Fuzzy grasses capture fallen autumn cottonwood leaves in Zion National Park, Utah.
A frilly desert plant at the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Florida.
Ron is a carefree person and just enjoys being outside. He never puts pressure on himself and rarely brings expectations to a place. I, on the other hand, sometimes feel the pressure of a moment. This last winter, we made a detour to Zion National Park because of a forecasted snowstorm. I have wanted to photograph this area with a coat of snow for many years and this happened to be the first time that everything aligned for us. The snow was magnificently beautiful but was already melting by the time we were up for sunrise.
I enjoy photography a lot more when I can move at a slow pace and just see what a place has to offer without the pressure of rare conditions or a lot invested in a once-in-a-lifetime trip.
Instead of enjoying the experience, I ended up feeling a lot of pressure and stress because of the uniqueness and fleeting nature of the conditions. Ron, with his more low-key approach, enjoyed it a lot more and is happier with his resulting photographs. This dynamic is why I am most happy showing up at a place without a lot of expectations or a plan I enjoy photography a lot more when I can move at a slow pace and just see what a place has to offer without the pressure of rare conditions or a lot invested in a once-in-a-lifetime trip. Comparatively, Ron can excel in both situations. The more time I spend with him, the better I am getting at adapting my inclinations to his style and it has improved both my photography and experience as a result.
Which bits of gear have survived you ;-) and can most often be found in your camera bag?
A few years ago, I had a rough phase with gear: dropping a lens onto a sidewalk, watching a lens slowly roll out of my bag and down a 30-foot hill before plopping into a cascade, and ruining a camera in heavy waterfall spray. Since then, I have tried to be more careful with my equipment although I do still joke that it is not the smartest move to buy used gear from any nature photographer…
I use Canon equipment including the Canon R mirrorless camera, plus 16-35mm, 24-105mm, 100 mm macro, 70-200mm, and 100-400mm lenses. With the exception of the 70-200mm lens, which I reserve for longer hikes since it is lightweight, I always carry the other four lenses in my camera bag and use them in similar proportions.
Extensive badlands in the early morning in Death Valley National Park, California.
Death Valley National Park’s flooded salt flats, which looked like ice on this cold morning in the desert.
Can you give readers an insight into your workflow from the point of image capture to output?
In the great debate about Photoshopping and “fakery,” I fall somewhere in the middle of the continuum. I want to present my subject at its best and will accordingly fine tune things during processing but also want to stay grounded in reality. For me, the power of nature photography is rooted in the idea that the photographer actually experienced the moment they are presenting. While dropping in a better sky or perking up a mountain might be a fully valid creative choice, learning that the photographer didn’t actually experience the moment of awe as they are presenting it takes away something valuable for me as the viewer. Thus, I want to maintain what I see as authenticity when presenting my work, especially with my colour photography.
Conversely, one of the things I enjoy most about black and white photography is that the starting point itself is a departure from reality. This provides significant creative freedom – a freedom that I more fully realise when processing my black and white photographs. This typically means building significant contrast into the scene, with strong light and dark tones, using levels, curves, and basic luminosity masks as my primary tools in Photoshop. My process also includes emphasising or deemphasising specific elements of a scene through dodging and burning. I use many of the same tools for my colour photography, just with a much lighter hand. I generally want my black and white photos to be visually striking and more aggressive whereas I want my colour photos to convey grace and elegance.
Layers of colourful mountains emerge from a clearing storm in Iceland's rugged and remote interior.
Workshops, done well, are an important source of income for many professionals but is there a danger that their proliferation encourages learners to think that everything they need to know or do can be achieved via this route? We learn a lot from experimenting and failing and following curiosity and resisting the pressure to get it right and show the evidence of this. Where might a balance lie?
The opportunity to learn from an experienced professional in the field can be invaluable and even transformational.
I think the field of nature photography and individual photographers would be better served if more workshop leaders took less of a checklist approach and offered more education on personal expression, how exploration can create unexpected opportunities, how to see beyond the obvious, how to cultivate curiosity, and how to adapt to changing conditions.
Unfortunately, a lot of workshops heavily focus on a checklist approach or have instructors that are too reliant on pre-determined plans or ideas. While this approach can result in a nice collection of photos at the end of a trip, it can also encourage some practices that are contrary to creativity and personal expression – adaptability, flexibility, curiosity, and an orientation toward exploration.
As an illustration, we were photographing coastal scenes one evening in Olympic National Park. We came upon a workshop taught by a well-known photographer. He planted his ten students in one spot, all facing the same direction and photographing the same subject in the same way. There were no clouds behind “the shot” but there were interesting clouds in other directions, plus a lot of other potential scenes and subjects up and down the beach. In watching this scene unfold, I was frustrated for his students that they were being taught such a narrowly focused approach to nature photography. In other settings, I have seen a similar approach to teaching, with workshop leaders talking about how a location always has one composition that is the best or telling students to focus on what they came for (the grand landscape) rather than what catches a student’s eye (some shiny mud patterns).
A good number of students want to be brought to the best locations and instructed on the best compositions. I fully understand that this approach meets the needs of a lot of instructors and their students. However, I think the field of nature photography and individual photographers would be better served if more workshop leaders took less of a checklist approach and offered more education on personal expression, how exploration can create unexpected opportunities, how to see beyond the obvious, how to cultivate curiosity, and how to adapt to changing conditions. The latter helps instil a set of skills that is perpetually useful and can help set a photography student on a more personally fulfilling path in the longer-term.
How would you advise readers who feel that you must have a plan – about where to go and what to photograph?
I always think about a particular story when discussing this topic because it is such a dramatic example of how expectations can eliminate opportunities and stifle creativity. A student came to a friend’s workshop with the goal of photographing waterfalls. The conditions were not conducive to photographing waterfalls but were excellent for forest scenes showcasing fall colours. The student ended up leaving the workshop early because she couldn’t see past her expectations while the rest of the participants enjoyed one of the best autumn seasons in memory. The simple lesson: minimise expectations, keep your plans flexible, and you will likely be happier as a result.
While this advice is simplistic, I think it is a key to finding more satisfaction in nature photography (excluding certain types of photography which require a lot of planning, like night photography). I offer this advice because following it has been transformative for me since I used to be heavily driven by expectations and pre-conceived ideas. Now, I try my best to minimise my expectations for a place, free my mind of specific photos I might want to take and open myself up to what I see one I arrive. I slow down and wander around, photographing the things that catch my eye along the way. I do not always succeed (see: Zion example above) but generally, have found this approach to be much more fulfilling than the alternative.
Many of the people that we’ve interviewed have come to photography through a love of the outdoors and outdoor pursuits but I guess it may now only be a matter of time before someone does admit that they got into photography through what they saw on social media. Visual outputs have always influenced us but they weren’t previously so obviously linked to statistics (popularity and ‘success’, whatever that means). How can we moderate the risk that nature once again becomes something to exploit for our own end? Is photography still a force for good, or are we now becoming part of the problem?
At least in the United States, nature photography has historically been a major force for good. Many conservation campaigns have been propelled forward and achieved success because nature photographers have helped create a compelling visual record of what could be lost without preservation. For previous generations, even photographers without a personal conservation mission often came to photography first through their love of and experience in wild places. This meant that a photographer would learn about Leave No Trace and other wilderness ethics along the way.
Now, many people are coming to nature photography through social media, especially Instagram, which has created the dynamic in which nature is seen as an expendable commodity. The recent poppy bloom in southern California is an illustrative example of how social media encouraged a lot of people without grounding in outdoor ethics to visit a place, treat it with disrespect (sometimes unknowingly and sometimes intentionally), and cause irreparable damage in the process. While it might not seem like a big deal for one person to step off a trail, the cumulative effect of hundreds of people doing so can be significant.
Bright maple leaves and a few green oak leaves stand out among a less vibrant bed of fallen leaves in Zion National Park, Utah.
Increasingly, individual photographers can reach thousands of people with a single post. With reach comes responsibility and the need to acknowledge one’s ability to impact behaviour for the good or bad through our photographs and messaging. Beyond individual photographers, news organizations, commercial brands, and tourism agencies bear a lot of responsibility for these trends, as well. For example, one major camera brand posted many photos of people frolicking in wildflower fields during the same super bloom, often with hashtags inviting people to share their own similar photos. This sends the message that such photos get attention and thus should be imitated if you want to be featured by that brand in the future.
To start addressing this swirl of complex issues and negative impacts, a group of Colorado-based nature photographers came together to create the Nature First movement, starting with 7 Principles that nature photographers can follow to help minimise our collective impact. The 7 Principles include:
Prioritise the well-being of nature over photography
Educate yourself about the places you photograph
Reflect on the possible impact of your actions
Use discretion if sharing locations
Know and follow rules and regulations
Always follow Leave No Trace principles and strive to leave places better than you found them
Actively promote and educate others about these principles
After launching on Earth Day in late April, more than 1,200 photographers from 40 countries have joined the Nature First movement. If your readers would like to learn more about the initiative and join for free, they can visit www.naturefirstphotography.org. Since we spoke about workshop leaders above, I also want to mention that the Nature First organising group offers some specific advice for workshop leaders and those with large audiences since we believe that such individuals have a special responsibility in modelling and educating others about these practices.
Steam from a nearby geothermal feature helps simplify this scene and show off the structure of this tree which has died due to its proximity to an encroaching hot spring. Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming.
Do you have any particular projects or ambitions for the future or themes that you would like to explore further? A while ago you mentioned that you would like to move from eBooks to producing a printed book.
One of the best things about working as a photographer today is being able to reach an audience without going through traditional gatekeepers. We started self-publishing eBooks in 2013 and eventually added video tutorials. The ability to develop and sell these products has been a key part of being able to transition from my consulting career to making a living through photography. We plan to continue expanding our offerings in the future; this summer, we will be working on three digital portfolios and possibly new video tutorials.
One of my goals is to publish a printed book – either educational or a portfolio book - but it feels like a daunting endeavour at this point. I have started researching and writing a book on composition and have considered approaching some publishers to gauge their interest. Still, I keep on feeling the pullback to self-publishing since I would have more control over the final product and it would likely be more financially viable. Even if the composition book doesn’t turn into a printed book, I still hope to publish something other than digital products in the future.
Is it important to you that other people see your work in print, and if so, how do you choose to print and present your pictures?
Printing has been my single greatest source of frustration with photography and remains the area in which I have the most to learn. I love photography because I find great joy in being outside.
Printing is an extension of the things I do not like about photo processing – it can be highly technical, entails a lot of time in front of a computer, and requires iterations that are expensive and frustrating without an on-site printing set-up.
I go through waves where I almost enjoy photo processing but generally see it as a less appealing part of the digital photography process. Printing is an extension of the things I do not like about photo processing – it can be highly technical, entails a lot of time in front of a computer, and requires iterations that are expensive and frustrating without an on-site printing set-up.
Without regularly sharing prints of my work, I know that I am missing out on a critical part of the photography process. We recently purchased a large format printer and one of my primary goals for this year is to significantly increase my knowledge of fine art printing and get to the point where I can confidently print any of my photographs.
A misty morning in Mount Rainier National Park.
If you had to take a break from all things photographic for a week, what would you end up doing? What other hobbies or interests do you have?
My main interests beyond photography include cooking and hiking, often while socializing with friends and family. I have slowly perfected my ability to bake a loaf of artisan bread, can now make an almost perfect pistachio gelato and have significantly expanded my ability to cook a good vegetarian meal from a broad range of worldwide cuisines. A few years ago, we moved from urban Denver to a town of about 1,000 people in southwestern Colorado so we spend a lot of time exploring this area. We have been choosing a region each summer and then hiking as many trails as we can, often without camera gear.
And finally, is there someone whose photography you enjoy – perhaps someone that we may not have come across - and whose work you think we should feature in a future issue? They can be amateur or professional.
Michele Sons. While I really enjoy Michele’s more traditional nature photography, as she has a talent for creating photographs that capture the elegance and grace of the places she visits, I find her Feminine Landscape series to be especially well done.
Thank you, Sarah. It’s been great to catch up with you.
If you’d like to see more of Sarah’s images, you’ll find her portfolio at https://www.naturephotoguides.com; she’s also on Instagram. You can read the blog post that Sarah wrote about minimising the impact of your photography here.
An up-close look at a Joshua tree in Joshua Tree National Park, California.
Glistening seaweed in a tidal flat in Iceland
The edge of a sand dune catches the last light of the day at a remote dune field (Death Valley National Park, California).
Steam from a nearby geothermal feature helps simplify this scene and show off the structure of this tree which has died due to its proximity to an encroaching hot spring. Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming.
A small waterfall flowing through moss-covered rocks in Iceland.
A high-up view of the amphitheater surrounding a waterfall in Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge. The area surrounding this waterfall was heavily damaged in 2017 due to a massive wildfire started by careless people playing with fireworks.
A recent rain smoothed out and softened the surface of formerly weathered mud tiles in Death Valley National Park, California.
Colourful rocks below textured ice in winter in Zion National Park, Utah.
A tiny section of pretty moss growing on a downed tree in Olympic National Park, Washington.
A misty morning in Mount Rainier National Park.
Layers of colourful mountains emerge from a clearing storm in Iceland’s rugged and remote interior.
Lightning strikes the mountains behind the Great Sand Dunes in Colorado.
A frilly desert plant at the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Florida.
Ice formations on a backcountry lake in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains.
Bright maple leaves and a few green oak leaves stand out among a less vibrant bed of fallen leaves in Zion National Park, Utah.
Fuzzy grasses capture fallen autumn cottonwood leaves in Zion National Park, Utah.
Extensive badlands in the early morning in Death Valley National Park, California.
Death Valley National Park’s flooded salt flats, which looked like ice on this cold morning in the desert.
Dappled light travels across a dense tropical forest on the Hawaiian island of Kauai.
Gibraltar was a place I wasn’t overly familiar with, aside from the cultural icons we all associate with the place from the stories of others; Barbary Apes, Brits abroad, red post boxes and telephones boxes and the vernacular. I didn’t go to Gibraltar intending on producing a body of photographic work, it was an incidental meeting, but it has always been the concept of place which dominates the focus of my work.
A couple of years ago my fiancé and I went to visit a friend in neighbouring Spain, and we flew into Gibraltar as this was the closest airport. We’d heard horror stories of the landings there due to the Rock and the Strait and how this impacted upon the weather. We needn’t have worried, the landing was fine, but the Rock gave for a rather imposing and monumental greeting, its north face stands prominent next to the airport as if to assert its presence to you as soon as your feet touch the tarmac. From that point on I was captivated. We hadn’t planned on visiting Gibraltar as part of our trip, it was acting merely as a transitory place, somewhere to pass through. Looking back now, it’s hard to understand how I could have been so dismissive, but I didn’t know then what I do now.
It is quite difficult to describe the oddness of being in a foreign country, with my Euros, suntan lotion, travel insurance and Mediterranean climate to then drive twenty minutes along the coast, park our car and walk back into the UK. The familiar sights of Morrisons supermarket, Debenhams department store and the Union Jack flag anchor you right back at home, but there is something which disrupts that anchor from fully settling, such as the Gibraltarian flag alongside the Union Jack, the warm and balmy climate, the sound of locals conversating in their local dialect of Llanitos (a rather beautiful linguistic blend of cultural influences such as Spanish and Jewish) and the Spanish street names. It is an eloquent synthesis of those who have come and gone over time as a result of its military history, as well as those who move back and forth across its border with Spain every day for work and pleasure.
The familiar sights of Morrisons supermarket, Debenhams department store and the Union Jack flag anchor you right back at home, but there is something which disrupts that anchor from fully settling, such as the Gibraltarian flag alongside the Union Jack, the warm and balmy climate, the sound of locals conversating in their local dialect of Llanitos
Owing to its land border with Spain, it is no surprise that families are very commonly a mix of Gibraltarian, British and Spanish. A tight-knit residential community of just under 33,000 at the last count in 2012, and an area which measures approximately 2.6 square miles it is a place where people know each other well and are in close proximity. When General Franco closed the border in 1969 in an attempt to strangle the Gibraltarian economy, the family relationships were tested and owing to the ties with neighbouring Spanish communities, families of mixed cultures were forced to choose which side of the frontier to remain on when it closed, either detached from their families and friends or from their places of work. Franco’s attempts to bring the place to its knees was not successful and his actions only solidified the bond within the community, but the scars and trauma from that period of time still remain to the point where some have refused to cross the frontier since it reopened in the early 1980’s.
On my day trip to Gibraltar on that first visit, my initial observations were that it was very much a political landscape. Evidence of the multitude of battles and siege attempts is embedded in the land and terrain. We set about immersing ourselves in the popular tourist attractions, but I was more intrigued by everything other than these aspects. I wanted to unearth the parts of Gibraltar which we may not already know, and which offer an additional dimension to the place.
When I returned back home to mainland UK my interest didn’t fade. I spent a considerable amount of time doing research into Gibraltar whilst planning a return trip. I didn’t have a pre-conceived basis for a project, I always prefer to be in the place and to document what I see and what interests me and allow the narrative to unearth through the images. All I knew at this stage was that I was very interested in the place and wanted to be better informed before I returned to explore further.
Upon my return to Gibraltar some six months later I set about exploring the peninsula and chose to do this all on foot. I find it a much better way for me to absorb my surroundings and Gibraltar is not so big that this is too much of a challenge, or at least I thought! The evening of my arrival a storm arrived which demonstrated the ferocity of the infamous Easterly wind across the Strait. I could lean into it at times and it would support my full body weight. Walking and photographing with these weather conditions was a real challenge but I was on a tight timescale with a logistical plan in place to cover as much ground as I could whilst I was there and so hiding in the hotel was not an option; instead, I considered it part of the experience and embraced it.
Tunnel Exit
The strong winds lasted for 3 days but eventually gave way to bright sunshine and warmer temperatures, but this posed its own challenges as well. It was in this direct and intense sun that we hiked to the summit of the rock along roads with gradients so steep I felt I would fall backwards if I stopped. Much to my amazement, locals were running and cycling up these same roads. I watched them with an immense amount of respect and disbelief. I was lucky enough to have my fiancé with me as my support and assistant for this trip and we managed to hike the full height of 1,398ft with two full camera kits on our backs. I carried a digital and 35mm kit and my fiancé carried the large format kit. It was brutal and challenging, but very much worth the effort. There is a route you can take known as the Med Steps but the locals felt this would be unsafe with our equipment on our backs and so advised us against this and we listened to them, after all, they knew this place a great deal better than we did.
When reviewing the imagery from my trips so far, I became overwhelmingly interested in the information that the landscape held within it, what it could reveal. I had captured dynamite blast scars in the walls of the rock and discovered that there is a vast network of tunnels inside the rock for defence purposes which spanned from the Great Siege of 1779 through to the Cold War era.
When reviewing the imagery from my trips so far, I became overwhelmingly interested in the information that the landscape held within it, what it could reveal. I had captured dynamite blast scars in the walls of the rock and discovered that there is a vast network of tunnels inside the rock for defence purposes which spanned from the Great Siege of 1779 through to the Cold War era. The World War Two tunnelling activity saw the network extended from around 7 miles to 25 miles and even contained a five-storey hospital and the military occupants had to pass messages by motorbike.
Blast Scar
Europa Waterfall
Through the imagery, I had taken and through the research and information I was able to find, my project and the narrative really started to lean towards an interest in how the landscape had been utilised and shaped for the occupation of the peninsula and the subsequent defence of it. It was a constant jutting together of a natural force and a manmade force. The terrain also revealed to me the challenges in terms of water management and flow and how this also played into the natural forces and how our determination to occupy the peninsula meant finding ways to control this flow. There are no lakes or rivers in Gibraltar and so historically drinking water was obtained by water catchment on the slopes of the rock in addition to wells.
The Eastern side of the rock, owing to its flat surface, had at one point been covered in corrugated metal sheeting to catch rainfall as a water source but was to the demise of the plant life and wildlife which called it home. This area of the rock has now been restored and brought back to its former state, but remnants of this metal sheeting can still be seen today. Rainfall catchment soon became insufficient to support a quickly expanding population and so a desalination plant was formed, and the vast reserve tanks are contained within the rock. The waste product from this is sent back out to sea via a waterfall known as Europa Waterfall and despite being a manmade feature, appears entirely natural. The rock itself plays host to huge rooms of computer servers, taking advantage of the cooler temperatures and low fire risk and has more recently started to be used for wine storage but, it also offers spaces within it which are formed naturally such as St. Michaels Cave which provides us with a visual of how nature forms its spaces at a much slower pace and with a Cathedral-like finesse which far exceeds the brutal blasts of dynamite.
Forbes Quarry
The more significant discovery for me was surrounding the traces of the Neanderthals found in Gibraltar. At the back of an apartment, block carpark was a quarry by the name of Forbes Quarry. It was the site where a full adult Neanderthal skull was found in 1848 and was the first ever found. Traces of their lives were discovered in Gorham’s Cave where historic etchings were also uncovered. The quarry is now fenced off due to rockfall risk and is not accessible to the public. I felt profound sadness that this site was not able to be celebrated for its significance, it told us so much about ourselves, who we are and where we came from. This, for me, really underpinned the importance of what our landscapes can provide us with in terms of information, traces, remnants and scars. I hope at some point this site is given the status it deserves.
The longer-term goals for the project are that it is still ongoing, and I will continue to return to Gibraltar to conversate with its landscapes. There is still so much for it to reveal and this will always hold my interest. I have begun to exhibit some of the work this year and will be looking to expand on this in the near future.
Wearing a dress and high-heeled boots, I grabbed my camera, jumped in my truck, and took off down the street. I could no longer bear to watch the low clouds wrap around the mountains and the shadows dance across the sand dunes from my hotel room in Death Valley National Park in California. I had been waiting for a group of workshop participants to arrive but had just received a text message saying they were delayed in Las Vegas. I had time to chase the light. I had to hurry. The storm was clearing.
After turning up a dirt side road, I started making images. First, I made a tight vertical composition to add visual tension to what was already a dramatic scene. I did a little dance, waving my arms and hips from side to side, in pure delight. I waited. The light changed. I made a different image, a horizontal one with extra sky to emphasise the isolation of a distant peak shrouded in fog. I danced. I waited. The light changed again. I made 72 frames in a half hour during a blissful spell I didn’t expect to have.
My workshop participants finally arrived, and I started the workshop the same way I start most of my sessions, with an introductory presentation encouraging participants to connect with the landscape in their own way. As usual, I opened with my definition of what I believed a good photograph was: “An outward expression of what an individual photographer deemed meaningful enough to notice.”
As usual, I opened with my definition of what I believed a good photograph was: “An outward expression of what an individual photographer deemed meaningful enough to notice.”
I ran through key concepts like the Wallas Creative Model, conceptual blending, pareidolia, and metaphorical associations (e.g., “What else is it?”) hoping to trigger personal responses to scenes and subjects. We played an improv game to not only help get the creative juices flowing but to also get into the mindset of taking the current situation into account and building an orderly response from chaos—something we face when photographing nature.
During the next four days, we practised these ideas and techniques to achieve more deliberate, contemplative photographs in various locations, some iconic and some off the beaten path. The first goal of our outings was to simply enjoy and appreciate our surroundings. Then, if a scene moved the participants to make an image, we’d approach it with more engagement and less aimless spraying-and-praying (taking a bunch of photos and praying, usually at home while sitting in front of the computer, one turned out well); to go beyond the “I-was-here” snapshot that thousands, if not millions, of people, already had captured; and to acknowledge that an expressive photograph originates from the mind of a photographer and incorporates weather, light, and location but does not depend upon them. The act of photographing would then be a deliberate one, one resulting from an individually-defined deeper relationship with a place.
This photograph appears with the introduction to TJC’s book ‘Dreaming The Gokstadt’, (and if I wildly paraphrase) in which I think he describes the difference between elemental landscape that demands conventional immediacy, to catch a cloud, a ray of sun perhaps, against landscape outside of a conventional chronology of the moment, where the necessity is to gaze and absorb the landscape and to make a photograph to reflect this moment of contemplation.
At least that is what I get out of reading his introduction, that gazing is a way of seeing without expectations, and where composition and meaning are revealed by the place itself in gazing past the immediacy of the place.
‘Snowbird’ was made at Stanton Moor in Derbyshire, and I was there that very day as a student on a field trip organised while TJC was a visiting lecturer at Sheffield School of Art and Design, now Sheffield Hallam University. Just out of the minibus we students were trudging through the snow probably wondering how far we had to walk to get away from each other when I swear TJC let out an exclamation and encouraged everybody to ‘just move along’ while he set up his camera. To quell the general bemusement he had to show us all what he’d seen, and yes, it was ‘Snowbird’. So much for gazing and contemplation Tom, it was a photojournalists reaction to an event! But boy-oh-boy did it get me thinking about the landscape in a different way from that day to this.
Welcome to our 4x4 feature which is a set of four mini landscape photography portfolios submitted from our subscribers. Each portfolios consisting of four images related in some way.
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Interested in submitting your work? We're on the lookout for new portfolios for the next few issues, so please do get in touch!
These images represent an ongoing project exploring the River Darent in Kent. The Darent is an ancient chalk stream that emerges at Greensand Ridge in Westerham. After passing through the Darent Valley, it eventually joins the Thames at Dartford. Whilst over the centuries, there has been a human imperative to interfere with the flow (through building bridges and watermills, etc.), only limited control over its power is ever achieved. In contrast with these infrastructural efforts, the flow of the river remains awesome and at times terrifying.
I have excluded any reference to context or scale within these images to make them generically representative of the flows that have supported life on earth since the beginning of time. Although the project is focused on a particular geographical location, I hope that the images of the river’s natural force take on a more metaphorical meaning, reminding us of our individual and collective journeys.
For many years I've been fascinated by country churches. They are some of our oldest buildings and are everywhere - there's always a list of those that I want to visit and photograph. Interiors I usually photograph in colour but I often convert those images to monochrome. Exteriors I photograph using a camera converted to capture infrared (830nm for the technically minded).
I find that infrared is the right medium to show the beauty of them and also adds an air of mystery. Many years ago I used infrared film to photograph churches but I find digital infrared much more satisfying in that, using Elements and Nik software, it enables me to produce the images that I want. many country churches are in villages but some stand apart from their associated villages, surrounded by countryside - hence "Churches in the Landscape".
Visiting the Isle of Arran last year on a lone photo trip, I enjoyed the sea and the hills but found my highlight at dawn two miles down the coast from my hotel at Corrie. Horizontal slabs of grey and red sandstone were washed by the retreating tide, leaving a miniature landscape of ridges and pools, ambiguous in shape and scale.
These are photographs taken over twelve hours during a brief visit to the Moroccan end of the Saharan Great Sand Sea. There were ideas and inspiration everywhere and show both the cool and warmth of late and early sun. We were just far enough into the dunes to forget that the hotel and my lovely bathroom were only a half hour camel ride away!
It’s interesting how circumstances can combine such that even if you have what others might consider to be iconic landscapes on your doorstep, your photographic curiosity takes you away from the obvious through a choice of composition, photographic technique, and/or print processes. Stuart Clook’s work mixes places beloved by 21st century filmmakers, audiences and adventurers with 19th century photographic and printing processes, exploring the way that colour can influence perception and deliberately making room for error and discovery. We had a taste of Stuart’s ‘Precious Landscapes’ for our subscriber’s 4x4 portfolio feature back in 2017 and as he prepares for his first solo exhibition of the work, we thought it would be good to find out more.
Would you like to start by telling readers a little about yourself – where you grew up, your education and early interests, and what that led you to do as a career?
I grew up and went to school in Llangollen, North Wales and from an early age, my interest and passion was fly fishing for trout and salmon in the local rivers and lakes. At 15 and 16 I represented Wales in the junior fly fishing team and had no thoughts for photography. I left school at 16 with a scholarship to go to Manchester and study Polymer Science and then continued my studies in London for a further three years before returning to North Wales to work as a material scientist in a new research facility for BICC cables. Seven years later, and a decision to go find some adventure, I decided to move to New Zealand. I have worked in various Manufacturing and Operations management roles for the past 25 years and now look after quality and regulatory affairs for a medical device company that designs and manufactures mobility equipment for adults and children with physical and mental disabilities.
How did you first become interested in photography and what kind of images did you initially set out to make?
I didn’t pick up a camera until moving to NZ, and then only as a way to record my fishing and tramping adventures using a disposable waterproof camera that took 24 pictures. Very much a point, shoot and wind on. I would drop it off at the local camera store and pick up my negatives and prints a week later. My photographs of smiling faces and big fish were just that and were great for keeping memories and for bragging at the local fishing club but I was never really satisfied with my other photographs of the rivers, valleys and incredible scenery that I was fishing and camping in. Coming from a similar size country with some 55 million people to one with 3.6 million and with only a third of those living on the South Island the landscape is huge in comparison.
Largely untracked and with remote and wilderness areas it was breathtaking, and it wasn't long before I bought my first proper camera, a Nikon F60.
Largely untracked and with remote and wilderness areas it was breathtaking, and it wasn't long before I bought my first proper camera, a Nikon F60. That's how it all began and over the next several years the fishing trips turned into photography trips, the photography improved and the landscape images I was printing onto canvas and fine art inkjet papers were starting to sell through a local gallery which helped fill the petrol tank and kept the ink and paper flowing through my printer.
What’s your local area like and which places are you drawn back to, time and again?
I live about 20 minutes out of Christchurch over the Port Hills at the top of Lyttelton Harbour on Banks Peninsula. Banks Peninsula is the remains of two long extinct volcanoes that have been claimed by the sea resulting in two large harbours with numerous bays and coves. I enjoy photographing along the coastal tracks and on the tops between the bays where there are what remains of native bush and totora forests that had not been totally cleared by the early European settlers. An hour’s drive away is the Southern Alps, a mountain chain that runs the length of the South Island. Here there are beech forests and alpine meadows in the valleys and rivers and lakes that drain the year round snow covered mountains. I make many day trips into the mountains exploring new ground and revisiting familiar places at different times of the year. I especially enjoy making longer trips in the autumn and winter when the light is not as harsh as in summer and when there is a good chance of a gathering or clearing storm.
What changes have you observed – for good or bad – as film and social media have popularised the landscapes of New Zealand?
I have been in NZ for 25 years and yes the numbers of visitors has increased significantly in that time. I don’t see it as a bad thing; the dollars the visitors bring with them are a big part of our economy and our walking tracks and back country huts are being renovated and improved as a result for the enjoyment of all us, locals and visitors alike. NZ’s South Island is still largely unpopulated and with the extremes of our geography there are not many roads to get around on, hence it can be quite crowded and busy and is why you see a large number of images on social media that are of the same scenes and locations. Recent films like the Lord of the Rings and The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe have only further raised the number of visitors coming and as a result there are visitors and tour groups jumping from one film location to the next and it is not uncommon to have dozens of tripods and cameras clicking during peak times in the iconic locations and roadside rest areas. This does of course make it difficult if not impossible to make a unique photograph of the scene without being influenced by those you see on social media or in magazines and is actually one of reasons I started to look at other ways to make my photographs and particularly in the printing of them.
One of the images you have chosen for this interview is of the Wanaka tree and is a good example of this. This tree has been photographed thousands if not millions of times and I can hear my kiwi friends groaning at ‘not another Wanaka tree’ image. This photograph was taken several years ago when I first started to explore alternative printing techniques and it really helped to open my eyes to what is possible.
This is a cyanotype print that has been bleached and then re-toned using several exposures of watercolour pigment using the gum bichromate process. A work of labour, yes, but tremendously satisfying when it comes off.
This is a cyanotype print that has been bleached and then re-toned using several exposures of watercolour pigment using the gum bichromate process. A work of labour, yes, but tremendously satisfying when it comes off. To get to the final print that you see here took many failures over several weeks before I had a print I was happy with and it was this process of making prints that I started to fall in love with as much as working with the camera in the field.
Who (photographers, artists or individuals) or what has most inspired you, or driven you forward in your own development as a photographer?
The artist and writer Austin Kleon writing on how to be more creative published a book titled ‘Steal Like an Artist’ and - along with a quote I have written up on a ‘post it’ note above my desk from the film director Jean Luc Goddard, who in a response to criticism he received for a new film said “it’s not where you take things from, it’s where you take them to” - it is very much my philosophy when looking for inspiration and new ideas. I will dive down all sorts of rabbit holes, be it in camera techniques and gadgets, to variations in the printing processes I am using, to completely new printing processes.
When I first started making ‘serious’ pictures I would find ideas and inspiration in the photography and art books and magazines in the local library. A couple of photographers that were a great inspiration at the time were Peter Eastway, Andris Apse and Craig Potton who set a very high standard to aim for in terms of composition and technical excellence.
My appetite though to take my photography to a new place led me to explore the historical and alternative printing processes. The change from chasing so-called technical perfection and the precise nature of digital processing and printing, to a hands’ on and often long process of nurturing a print through successive printing exposures and development, to finally holding something that has a unique beauty is extremely satisfying.
I’m learning about and making full use of what’s called the photographic syntax. This is not just the choices made with the camera as to the subject, composition, lighting, contrast, colour, etc., but how the physical print materials and tools influence the final result. For example, how the choice of paper and texture affect the way the light reflects off the print surface and the type of brush used to coat the paper. I am discovering a whole new way to help me express what I see and feel.
I’m also very much in awe of the photographers from the early years of photography when much was unknown, and how experimentation and mistakes led to new discoveries.
I’m also very much in awe of the photographers from the early years of photography when much was unknown, and how experimentation and mistakes led to new discoveries. My influences include the style of the Pictorialist photographers of the late 19th and early 20th century and the many artists today using these same processes. Photographers such Robert Demachy, Imogen Cunningham and today Peter Liepke with his ‘Above and Beyond’ series of gum bichromate prints, Diane Bloomfield’s gum over cyanotype prints and Beth Moon’s sublime platinum prints also come to mind. I study how they use their cameras and how they make prints that are full of atmosphere and mood. I have to mention Edward Steichen as well, and his use of combination printing of gum bichromate with cyanotype and platinum is something I work with quite a lot in my current work. One of my all-time favourites is his 1904 print of the Flatiron building in New York.
Have there been any especially decisive moments for you or has anything changed your relationship with the camera, or your approach to photography, over time?
A key decisive moment in my printing has been to let go of perfection which was a hangover from my digital processing and printing days. I spent far too long when I began using these Alternative processes in making step wedges trying to achieve a ‘perfect’ calibration between my digital negative and the final print. Making my first prints with a ‘good enough’ calibration and feeling my skin tingle as the image appeared through the developer was all I needed to give up on step wedges and start making real prints.
Another ‘ah-ha’ moment has come recently with the move to using a medium format and a large format film camera. The isolation from the world when using a dark cloth or waist level viewfinder has made an enormous difference to my composition. You become completely absorbed in the process, much more so than when viewing a scene through a DSLR viewfinder. These are also fully manual cameras and I really enjoy the problem solving and mental gymnastics that I go through, working back and forth between how I think I will print the image and working out the exposure I need using an old Minolta spot meter. It doesn’t always work out as intended but that again is all part of the enjoyment of it to me.
Would you like to choose 2-3 favourite photographs from your own portfolio and tell us a little about why they are special to you?
Well this is really hard, but if I look back over the last several years then these prints are very much like mile markers in my understanding of how to use them in finding my “voice”
Marching trees
My first really satisfying print using the style of the Tonalist painters and selecting a colour to help create a mood in a print.
I was exploring the bottom of the South Island in my small camper van in late winter. The photography had been good and I was pleased with several images I had been able to capture. On my last full day, the weather had turned pretty foul with a full on southern storm and knowing it would be another day at least before it started to clear I decide to head for home. A few hours later I could see on the distant horizon a series of pine trees along a ridgeline and they looked very much like they were following each other. As I drove closer, I knew I had to find somewhere to stop and see if could make something of them. I ended going up and down a 400m stretch of road several times before finding a farmer’s gate that provided just enough room to get off the highway. As it was raining heavily I decided to set up the tripod in the back of the camper van and open the sliding door on the side of the van. With my longest lens at 200mm and timing my exposures in between gaps in the traffic to minimise vibration, I made three or four exposures. On returning home and processing them through Lightroom and Photoshop as normal I then used a new technique that I had come across for making duotones for the gum bichromate process. This is similar to split toning where you can add a different colour hue to the warm and cool tones in the image. This is done by using the channels function in PS to split the RGB image into it's component Red, Green and Blue greyscale separations. The Red separation is used to make a digital negative for the cooler tones for printing with platinum and the warmer tones are printed using yellow pigments and the gum bichromate process with a digital negative made from combining the Green and Blue separations.
The final print is a platinum print with several layers of gum printed in registration over the platinum to build up the colour and depth in the image. I also used a yellow pigment that contains mica in the last couple of gum layers so that as you view the print the specular highlights from the mica bring the print to ‘life’.
Icy grasp
I have lots of failures in what I do and this series of prints and this one, in particular, is a reminder to me that persistence can pay off in the end.
This is a platinum print on vellum with silver leaf gilded onto the back of the vellum. The image is of a small stream in mid-winter that makes its way down a scree slope towards the main river a km away in Canterbury’s High Country. The stream is no more than 5 or 6ft across and at its deepest maybe only 12 inches, and I could see that it was freezing at night and thawing during the day depending on how warm it got. This cycle must have been going on for several days or longer and the resulting ice patterns were like windows into the depths of the icy world below. I had my Bronica with me and with its square frame I had a ball and used up a whole roll of film making 12 exposures in all.
Printing onto vellum (which by the way is made from plant materials, not the traditional animal skins) is technically challenging and even now I never quite know if it’s going to work. As soon as you apply the liquid platinum salts to the vellum it starts to buckle and roll up like a scroll. I have made many experiments and explored dozens of different vellums in trying to learn how to control and tame the vellum to make a print that I was happy with. After developing and drying the platinum print and once I have it somewhat flat again I then using guilder’s size to apply the silver or gold leaf to the back of the print. When this is then varnished the vellum becomes translucent allowing the silver leaf to shine through the lighter tones in the print and combined with the unevenness in the vellum surface it creates a three dimensional feel to the print.
Andalusia
The image is from our holiday though Spain in 2017 with my wife Louise. The small barn was seen from a long way off across the valley in the evening and by the time I got back to the location the following day it was already well over 40degC and with a 200mm lens I made a couple of exposures. Several weeks later after getting back home I was ready to print and knew that I should use palladium only in the print and that with the right paper humidly during exposure I should get a warm toned print, perfect for how I remembered the day. The straight palladium print was very nice but by adding a gum print over the top and adjusting the ratio of pigment, gum, dichromate and exposure I could add additional depth and texture to the darker tones of the trees on the ridgeline and the shadows in the ploughed fields. This was perhaps one of my first successful uses of the gum process to target specific tones in the print to add depth and ‘richness’. I find the gum process to be one of the most creative processes I can use in my printing.
Which cameras and lenses do you like to use? Do you have a favourite format or film?
Up to around 2 to 3 years ago, I was using a Nikon D800e and my go to lenses were a 24mm and a 45mm tilt-shift and an 80-200mm f2.8 zoom lens. Today I am using film almost exclusively and I find the whole experience totally consuming and although frustrating at times it is highly rewarding and satisfying.
The two cameras I use today are a Bronica S2 from the early 1960s for which I have 3 lenses; a wide, normal and long lens equivalent to 28, 50 and 110mm on a full frame sensor. It produces a square format 6x6cm negative and I love it. If I want to, I can put the main subject of the scene in the centre and use the symmetry of frame to help with my composition to focus the viewers’ attention and not worry about thirds or golden circles etc. I have earlier this year bought a 4x5 Chamonix large format camera. A gorgeous camera made of teak, aluminium alloy and carbon fibre and also the lightest camera I have ever owned. It has asymmetrical movements on the rear standard which along with its reasonable price was the main reason I chose it. These movements make it a lot easier and quicker to control depth of field in the image, particularly if I’m in a hurry when the light is changing, and although I have only been out with it half a dozen times so far I am really enjoying getting to know it.
Film wise I only use black and white film and mostly Ilford’s Delta 100 due to its low reciprocity which helps keep my exposure times to a minimum.
How popular are analogue and alternate processes in New Zealand?
Film photography like most everywhere is having a resurgence, particularly among the younger generation. We have a couple of new film labs popping up in our two largest cities and we even have a small group of dedicated enthusiasts raising funds to set up a community darkroom in Queenstown. As far the alternative or historical processes go, I would say they are still very much off the beaten track and perhaps seen as a little eccentric.
There are a handful of photographers using wet plate processes for portraiture and I know of a couple of artists through social media working with cyanotype, lumigrams and gum bichromate.
There are a handful of photographers using wet plate processes for portraiture and I know of a couple of artists through social media working with cyanotype, lumigrams and gum bichromate.
I provide a platinum printing service to other photographers and artists and I have also started delivering workshops in the last nine months in using digital negatives with the cyanotype and platinum process so there are a small but growing group of fellow kiwi practitioners.
For readers who are not familiar with alternate processes, can you give them an idea of what they offer and what is involved?
The majority of the alternative processes are contact printing processes that use a negative of the image that is the same size as the final print. Most people use Photoshop to make the ‘digital negative’ and print it onto an inkjet transparency or photo paper using an Epson or Canon printer. Depending on your chosen process the light sensitive chemicals are measured out and mixed following a recipe. This is then brushed onto your chosen paper or substrate and allowed to dry in the dark. The digital negative is then placed on top of the dried sensitised paper and held tightly together using a sheet of glass and clamps and exposed to UV light, either by placing it outside on a sunny day or inside using UV lamps. Once the paper has been exposed it is then developed, washed and allowed to dry.
What would you suggest to those who would like to try some of these processes but are put off by their perceived complexity or cost?
These processes are not necessarily expensive; yes if you go straight to Platinum and Palladium then these are at the expensive end of the spectrum but there are many processes like Gum bichromate, Cyanotype, Kallitype and Salt printing that use very inexpensive materials.
To really get a good understanding of what is involved and to see if it is for you with a minimum of the cost I would strongly recommend a workshop. This will not only save you money, but considerable time and you will come away with a good understanding of what is involved and several finished prints to review and hopefully enjoy when you return home. If you are handy with some basic tools you can make a lot of the equipment yourself. For the UV exposure unit, you can find DIY plans on the internet or like me find a second hand sun tanning bed in an online auction for no more than the cost of a Sunday lunch.
You refer to the fact that with the techniques that you use, results are never guaranteed. Is the margin for error from something that you can’t wholly control and the chance of serendipity part of their appeal to you?
I love the fact that it doesn’t always go to plan. It’s a big part of the creative process for me and makes each print unique. I’m also working with chemistry that is affected by many variables, for example, our water at home comes from a volcanic spring about 1km up the valley and it can change in the level of iron and calcium impurities which interfere with some of the processes I use. If it’s really bad, particularly if I am making cyanotype prints, I will collect water in several 25 litre tanks from the nearest petrol garage in Christchurch for processing my prints. Finding solutions to problems can often take me in different directions.
I love the fact that it doesn’t always go to plan. It’s a big part of the creative process for me and makes each print unique.
You have a couple of forthcoming exhibitions, including a solo exhibition. What work will you be showing for these and where can people see your prints?
Yes, I’m very excited and yet full of dread and self-doubt at the same time. These are my first shows on my own and I will be exhibiting prints from the last couple of years. The first one is in July at Chambers Art Gallery in Christchurch and then in September and October at Gold Street Studios which is about an hour north of Melbourne, Australia. These will all be New Zealand landscapes printed in platinum/palladium, cyanotype and gum bichromate. I also have an exhibition planned for July next year at Photospace Gallery in Wellington where I am also planning to run a couple of print workshops to accompany the exhibition.
Do you have any particular projects or ambitions for the future or themes that you would like to explore further?
My vellum prints are a larger body of work that is slowly coming together. Finding the right image and conditions means it will be one of those projects that will likely keep running in the background.
My vellum prints are a larger body of work that is slowly coming together. Finding the right image and conditions means it will be one of those projects that will likely keep running in the background.
With my new 4x5 camera and a 10-inch enlarger that I was very kindly given last year, I’m starting to explore silver gelatin printing and after taking a Mordancage workshop late last year with Elizabeth Opalenik I’m currently experimenting with the process for my landscape images. Mordancage is a bleach and etching process that lifts the silver emulsion from the shadow areas in a traditional darkroom silver gelatin print to create veils which can be removed or rearranged before redeveloping to create a print that is quite unique and one of a kind.
If you had to take a break from all things photographic for a week, what would you end up doing?
I haven’t been fishing for probably three years and have recently promised an old friend that this season coming he needs to come and rescue me from my garage darkroom and go bush.
And finally, is there someone whose photography you enjoy – perhaps someone that we may not have come across - and whose work you think we should feature in a future issue? They can be amateur or professional.
Well, this is really a hard one as there many great landscape photographers. Looking at my bookcase I see several Joe Cornish and David Ward’s but I also see New Zealand’s Andris Apse and Craig Potton, two great traditional NZ landscape photographers. Andris goes to enormous lengths and planning to photograph the NZ wilderness and will have many stories to tell you. For someone a little more contemporary I’m sure you will also enjoy viewing and reading Tony Bridge’s insights and landscape photography.
Thank you, Stuart, and good luck with the exhibitions.
Stuart will be showing ‘Precious Landscapes’ at the Chambers Art Gallery, Christchurch, New Zealand from 9 – 27 July 2019, and at the Gold Street Studios in Victoria, Australia, between 28 August and 27 October 2019.
If you’d like to see more of Stuart’s work, his website can be found at http://www.labrettophotography.com/
In the start of a hopefully regular series, we are taking advantage of the many passing photographers by bribing them into the house with tea and biscuits in return for a quick chat about photography. In the first edition, we're talking to Paula Pell-Johnson of Linhof Studio and our own Joe Cornish where we cover ground from megapixels to film and some of the new products that Paula is excited about in the coming months. One of these 'interesting' new products is the Hasselblad CFV II 50C.
As a drop-in back for old Hasselblad medium format cameras, it's a little bit interesting but once you introduce the tiny 907x body adapter which will take X1D lenses and with converters for Hasselblad mount (and via other converters to Mamiya, Bronica, LF lenses, large image circle 35mm lenses, etc) we have a system that is incredibly flexible. The final inclusion of an electronic shutter means you could mount it to a coconut and use it as an organic pinhole camera if you really wanted! It's the first really flexible MF back which should appear at a top-end DSLR price. We hope to get our hands on one in the coming months.
We should apologise for the slightly less than perfect sound. The recording was made last-minute via our Macbook microphone. Future instalments of "Passing Through" will hopefully sound a little better.
Are you passing through Glencoe in the coming weeks or months? Why not pop in for a cuppa tea and a catch up? We're looking for other stories from our community, whether it's talking about a trip, a project, some of your favourite images. Drop us a line and we will get in touch!
I remember the feeling of proud excitement as I walked past the headmaster’s office and first spotted a picture of mine stuck to the wall with 4 drawing pins. It was an 8”x 8” picture in a rather tatty mount, the type that used to get sent with an enlargement from Trueprint at the time. I had won the school photo competition and it was the first time I had seen my work exhibited in public.
The picture was of a sunset taken on a school trip to Blackgang Chine in the Isle of Wight. It was shot on a Kodak Instamatic that my sister’s boyfriend had given me, having felt sorry for me after I’d spent a year shooting 120mm film on a plastic camera that I had won in an amusement arcade crane machine. My dad had always made an effort to capture moments from our family holidays on his camera, so I was excited to follow in his footsteps. A real camera took me that much closer to doing this, and I started using it to take photos of my mates, family days out and sunsets (which always seemed to be good in my little corner of Leicester). The camera produced square format images which I diligently stuck into a scrapbook that I still have to this day. That camera and the sunset picture in the Isle of Wight started me on my road to becoming a photographer.
In my teenage years, I loved wandering around the countryside, getting up at dawn and walking across to the fields near my family home to capture whatever I could with my new camera. The landscape wasn’t particularly inspiring; it was fairly flat with a few small clumps of trees and hedgerows around the farmer’s fields. I could always find something interesting to shoot though, whether it was a single tree stood alone in an open space or the dew on the young wheatgrass with the sunrise backlighting the droplets of water.
Forty years later I am working as a photographer still, having managed to persuade a few art colleges I was good enough to give a place to. My work these days is mostly lifestyle photography and video shot for advertising and corporate clients. My paid work is a long way from the landscapes I used to take as a kid but luckily I get to work on my own projects between commissions and landscape photography still fascinate me.
The Triptych
The word ‘Triptych’ originates from the Greek adjective meaning ‘three-fold’ and was adopted by Christians in the early modern period to display altar art on three relief-carved panels. In this period, and as the technique was adopted into Gothic architecture, the centre image was often larger, clearly the intended focus of the work. More recently, however, artists have begun to place equal emphasis on each panel by making them all the same size. I was attracted to the triptych in this form and sought to further the balanced outcome by having each piece focus on the same landscape. In this way, each image is of equal importance but provides new information by showing the subject from a new angle. With each changing frame, I hope that a sense of movement is created that more accurately portrays the changeable scenic reality.
The first time I had the opportunity to use the triptych form was when I was photographing a beach on the Northern coast of Fraser Island, Australia. A very remote area, the beach was deserted, meaning I was able to shoot the environment stripped bare of people. I was shooting on a Hasselblad (the love of the square format hasn’t left me) but wanted to simultaneously capture the detail in the sand and water, along with the distant breaking waves and the remoteness of the scene. Working on a wider lens meant sacrificing at least one of these elements, so I ended up shooting closer segments. Having shot a few polaroids and looked at those in unison, I had the idea to put them together with the skyline acting as a constant. This made the group more of a recognisable set, and my first triptych was created.
Planning Shots
Narratively speaking, the main aim of the triptych form is to show change. This comes with a number of factors to consider in the planning process, as there is a lot to play with when deciding how to present such a constantly changing environment in only a few moments. An important factor to be planned then is the time element. I am amazed by how a landscape can change so strikingly over just a few hours, and this can be accentuated by putting multiple images next to each other. This is particularly powerful in landscape photography, as the slow movement of the weather is emphasised when placed in comparison with a scene from only a few hours before. There is something very powerful about seeing three versions of the same landscape next to each other that could never be witnessed at the same time in reality. Emphasis is placed on the extremity of a change that would usually seem minor.
The change of time can, of course, be just as noticeable when confining the shoot to a few short minutes. Waves crashing on a beach, for example, change through the lens constantly and the transitioning sand and water can be brought to life if seen in triplicate. It gives you more options for getting your message across. Even when a landscape is seemingly static, time is considered in planning the consistency of the pieces. In open areas such as large vistas, triptychs can act almost like a panoramic view, providing more information on the landscape with the only change in pieces being the perspective. Still, though, time is important. If you wait too long to take all three pieces the landscape with inevitably change. If you happen to take one shot when a cloud has gone overhead, that shot will have different lighting to the others. This must all be considered when planning a triptych.
Symmetry is another factor that must be considered more significantly when planning a triptych. Sometimes you can achieve this simply by making the central image more distant, with the side images being more detailed. However, even when they are the same size, three images together will often feel like the central image is the most important with the two images to its side being supporting players. It is important to me that each image could stand up for itself if it were viewed individually. If you have two good images but a third that isn’t quite up to scratch the finished result won’t be as powerful. It's important to make sure all three are strong in their own right. Sometimes triptychs don’t work out as planned and I end up using just a single image on its own. “If in doubt leave it out” is something I repeat to myself often when editing!
Locations
I’ve been very lucky over the years to have worked for many travel companies which have taken me all around the world. I’ve seen some amazing locations and often shot them with a lifestyle element. The jobs are commissions of course so I can’t go off taking up client time on personal projects, however, I have managed to sneak a few shots here and there while travelling around. The images of clouds were mostly taken while travelling between jobs, as were some images I have of the sea taken from a cruise ship job. Many shoots come while on a holiday, wandering around my garden or local countryside locations. I find that gardens and garden wildlife can be great for photographic studies and can work just the same as large landscapes. My project tends to make me look closer at what’s around me, to look for opportunities wherever I might be. My image of the clouds at sunset was taken in Australia too, but could really have been taken anywhere with the right weather and time of day.
I think the most important thing about any sort of photography is simply being out there trying things out. I have never been too technical- the best camera to have is the one in your hand as they say. I tend to be a photographer that will watch the light and how it interacts with the landscape. I love shooting water and clouds for this reason. Shooting any body of water twenty minutes after the sun has gone down always works well when the failing light in the sky is reflected in the water rather than direct harsh sunlight hitting it earlier in the day. The soft muted colours come through to the fore, creating a much nicer atmosphere. I find there is a particular headspace you can inhabit when out watching the changing weather on a landscape. Its incredibly relaxing to put some time aside to be immersed in your natural surroundings.
Social Media
Having been shooting triptychs for many years, I have been newly inspired by imagery-based social media and how this offers up a whole new range of artistic opportunities. In my professional life, I have taken on Instagram and Twitter as an important element of marketing and have looked closely at what constitutes a successful post. The immediacy of taking a photo one second and having it viewed by the world the next is in many ways challenging for a professional photographer, as content becomes diluted by the sheer number of images being posted every second. However, I am not one to turn down a challenge and I have found that triptychs can be used incredibly effectively in this new social media environment. When posted over a short period of time, each ‘panel’ is first viewed respectively and can generate interest as the overall image slowly comes together. The fact that your Instagram page presents posts in a three-across formation provides the perfect opportunity to exhibit multiple triptychs, allowing the viewer to see them as a whole, and then to further inspect them individually if they choose.
Smartphone images posted on social media are often taken closer to the subject, with less consideration of overall composition, due to the fact that they can focus a lot more closely than many consumer cameras. Again, this creates new opportunities, as it results in images that often have a different point of view, lower angles, twisted horizon lines and movement that previously would have constituted a failed image. I try to use these alternative photographic principles in my photography, to keep imagery fresh and avoid too much of the obvious. This is not so simple to do with landscapes of course, but it might mean taking a different viewpoint or just getting in there on the ground and amongst the daisies.
If you ever see me on my hands and knees, drenched in early morning dew and with a phone in my hand, I'm probably trying to find that unusual angle for the final shot of another triptych!
I am not often known for including manmade structures in my photographs and I could be considered guilty for the determined exclusion of them most of the time. The reason for this is, to me, I find them distracting in what I am trying to say with a photograph, which is often my appreciation of the landscape. The inclusion of manmade structures such as buildings seems to draw attention away from this and, in part, the hand of man commands recognition once again.
This however changed when I made my first trip to the High Plains of Montana and the Dakotas in the USA recently. Strangely, I have been somewhat fascinated by the open, flat vastness nestling beneath huge skies for many years. For a photographer that is dizzy with inspiration beneath mountain spires, lakes and at the coast, this place could not be further from the norm for me. Along with the landscape, the remains of times long ago also had me returning to the pages of many books again and again to gain an appreciation of why this was. Where and why did everybody go, or more importantly, why did they come in the first place?
Prior to 1900, the High Plains of the USA were generally regarded as a bleak wilderness, not suitable for settling families or communities. This was all about to change when the powerful railroad companies wanted to extend their tracks across these vast plains and the trains needed to be serviced regularly for this to succeed.
Prior to 1900, the High Plains of the USA were generally regarded as a bleak wilderness, not suitable for settling families or communities.
The federal and state governments of the time gave the railroad companies millions of acres of land and they wanted to get on with the job. A massive campaign was launched by the railroads to attract incomers and promised virtually free land in the vicinity of the railway lines where they could farm and become prosperous, and come they did!
A chance perusal of Lizzie Shepherd’s website in 2018 had me quickly booked for a return visit to one of the most beautiful places on earth. I am not usually one for hyperbole but there are few places that stir up the emotions more than a visit to the Outer Hebrides (also known as the Western Isles), a 200km chain of islands lying a mere 20 miles off the north west tip of Skye in Scotland. When Mother Nature is at her worst, the Outer Hebrides have that “edge of the world” feel, where a dramatic but unprotected coastline meets the full force of the Atlantic.
The chances of a rewarding photographic sortie north of the border looked excellent. With the workshop booked, I recalled the withdrawal of Bonnie Prince Charlie from the islands in the mid-1700s and that infamous tune had me tapping my fingers with drum beat anticipation:
Loud the winds howl, loud the waves roar,
Thunderclaps rend the air; ~ extract, The Skye Boat Song
With the workshop booked, I recalled the withdrawal of Bonnie Prince Charlie from the islands in the mid-1700s and that infamous tune had me tapping my fingers with drum beat anticipation.
And so, late March had me travelling with Lizzie Shepherd and Alex Hare to a place I love and a chance, perhaps, for photographic redemption; my images from a 2015 visit were OK but I knew I could do better, much better. With white sandy beaches, turquoise-blue seas, rocky foreshores, abandoned crofts and one of the best-preserved standing stone circles in Europe, I relished the opportunity of a return visit, especially with the possibility of changeable weather and potential for storm light.
Arriving at the CalMac ferry terminal at Uig on the north west tip of Skye, I was rewarded with a punctual ferry and calm seas. Once boarded, the 100-minute traverse of the Minch (that narrow stretch of sea between Skye and the islands) passed quickly as I flicked through Iain McGowan’s excellent “Hebridean Images” (1993), a superb, mood-setting collection of 35mm black and white photographs evoking island life and the landscape beyond. On disembarkation, I was greeted on the dockside by the Isle of Harris Distillery - a good start! A few hundred metres up the road had me nestled snugly within the arms of our very comfortable and conveniently-located hotel - the Harris Hotel - which I can heartily recommend without grace, favour or recompense. March into April is statistically one of the drier periods in the Outer Hebrides (and mostly midge-less) but the forecast was for mixed weather - ideal! - and possibly snow flurries at the end of the week. With the thoughts of snow-capped mountains at the back of my mind, I was in high spirits as the group convened.
Such a great challenge and honour for me to write an end frame article for On Landscape magazine. Thank you for the opportunity.
Recently, I have started to wonder less about how an image is taken and more about its power of striking a chord. This way of approaching an image, from an enthusiast photographer’s point of view, can be very useful to improve as a photographer and to understand photography more as a creative art.
I am pretty sure that everyone can list several favourite images for the most various reasons. Sometimes it is because of the light, sometimes it is thanks to the gorgeous subject or sometimes it is an original composition. However, we are not always able to explain why an image means so much to us. This happens (at least to me) when every part of the image spreads emotions and feelings towards the viewer. Well, despite the different tastes and preferences I think that the majority of us aims at making this kind of images. Of course not an easy task…
The image I choose has exactly the power of summarizing most of the feelings and emotions I feel when I am in the mountains and in nature in general. Above all, it is “responsible” for my transition from grand landscapes to more intimate landscape photography (together with other much appreciated artists such as Guy Tal, Hans Strand and Theo Bosboom among others).
Welcome to our 4x4 feature which is a set of four mini landscape photography portfolios submitted from our subscribers. Each portfolios consisting of four images related in some way.
Submit Your 4x4 Portfolio
Interested in submitting your work? We're on the lookout for new portfolios for the next few issues, so please do get in touch!
These images form part of a body of work that will focus on the river Dart in Devon.
Using Alice Oswald’s award winning, long form, poem “Dart” as a guide I am hoping to interpret the river as it flows from its source on the high, floating bogs of Dartmoor, through south Devon to the sea.
These four images are taken around the Dart’s source, high up on the mires and peat bogs of central Dartmoor. Oswald herself refers to this area of Dartmoor as having an “amphibious vagueness, neither pool nor land”. It is an area devoid of feature, where a thin layer of grasses cover a sodden earth. It is a primordial landscape, an Ur-landscape, whose power lies in Blake’s sublime or Nietzsche’s void rather than the picturesque.
It is an unforgiving space. The lack of physical features, the constant wind, the wet everywhere make it both physically and emotionally exhausting. In Oswald’s poem one of the “voices” deliberately imagines a figure on the horizon so as to quell the sense of isolation and vulnerability. In three visits to the area I’ve yet to see another soul.
Walking on a little mountain pathway, in a cold spring morning in Abruzzo, even a slab of ice can hide fancy shapes and profiles. Just for a moment, it is worth stopping and admiring this wonder.
Perfect squaring is repeated like fractals, making nature more and more fascinating. A thousand bubbles enclosed and hidden in the cold, motionless, seem to want to escape and free themselves.
Like a sun, ice shows its perfect, linear, sharp rays too, forming incredible geometries that are sharp and perfect in their symmetry. Even a face hidden behind the tiny ice seems to look at me and whisper to keep its secret.
Like many in artistic pursuits, I am plagued by the question of validity. In the last few years, I have found something approaching quiet confidence thanks to a way of working (rather than through choice of subject or its presentation). I was spurred on by my rediscovery of the technique of reversal processing, which in short, consists in the creation of positive images from standard silver gelatin emulsions layered on paper or film. I put a sheet of photographic paper in the back of the camera and expose it; after some relatively quick chemical processing, it is good to go into my album. The prints are definitive and final because the only parameter I can control is exposure; the rest is tied to the chemistry. There is no post-processing possible.
The prints are physically connected to the place and time of their creation. This is one of the great attractions of slide film, especially in any of the sheet film formats. I used to shoot 5x4 a lot. Their disadvantage is that you can't just put them in an album to enjoy as prints. Sheet film is also, most commonly, enlarged to create the print. Creating prints in camera means the end size of the print is known, which in turn means that the aperture can be set to create a definite depth of field. I am an artist in control of my output.
I have used the reversal process to create a visual autobiography, a diary in pictures. This has freed me from more commercial constraints and, I feel, has brought me closer to the Truth. Much of this work follows a quest for the typical and the topical. I am also constrained by practical reality. Thus it is, that I take a lot of pictures in my home town. This series is taken in woodland just a few minutes from my front door.
I have recently come to the conclusion that my past obsession with truth and reality in my photography was causing me headaches. The notion that a photograph doesn’t lie is such unfortunate fallacy. Even the notion of documenting I have had to throw out. Now, instead, I reframed my thinking and approach to photography as one of creative expressionism. I am an artist. For me, my photography is one of abstraction, something to be celebrated and not be condemned. There are so many layers to this notion of ‘Truth’ that I will explore in this article.
I think the first time this really came into my head, that I need to let go of truth was when I first started to wrestle with accurate colours. I learnt to print my colour work in the darkroom with negative films with RA4 process type C prints. Getting what I thought was accurate colour was helped along with viewing filters. I didn’t really stop to think about the colour palette I was using, nor about how accurate my colours were. You tried as hard as I could to get each photograph resolved. I was just so excited to be printing in colour. If I got them anywhere near nice I was happy. Next, I started printing my transparencies onto Cibachrome. There wasn’t many transparency films to choose from at that time particularly for those of us who loved greens. I don’t think at the time I even had an understanding of the different exposure latitudes of the different films I was using. For me choosing a film has always revolved around what I perceived as the film having truthful colours in the green spectrum. Transparency film seemed to win every time. This eventually led me to settling on Provia transparency film as my preferred medium for colour photography.
Later, I do remember the angst I experienced in getting satisfactory prints when it comes to colour. This has extended over the years into my digital photography. It is one of the reasons I have avoided colour photography for the last few years. A few years ago I decided to let go of the notion that I had to have truthful colours in my work.
Perfect colour accuracy as a truth is very difficult, neigh impossible for me. Therefore I should pursue the abstraction of colour as part of my photography as just part of the course.
I was at Kiama on the south coast of NSW. I started to intentionally abstract the colours in my work. So once I started playing with them, I soon had satisfactory work. Later that year in a workshop I was running with Mark Littlejohn and Tim Parkin in the Lake District, I was educated in Mark’s approach of actively abstracting his colours with split toning. Hmmmm, someone else, whom I admire, who actively abstracts their colours.
One of the things that prompted me to approach Adam about an interview at this particular point in time was the campaign that sought to prevent the planned hydro schemes in Glen Etive. Adam has for some time been considering in photographic terms the structures that we tend to avoid or overlook, including the many hydro-electric dams built in the Scottish Highlands in the 1950s and 1960s. The massive scale of these prompts me to wonder whether our views (in both senses) of such interventions in the landscape change over time, as nature does her best to try to mellow them. We live with a legacy of constructions, sometimes happily, sometimes less so. What will our successors’ and descendants’ views of today’s proposals be in 50 years’ time? It wouldn’t be fair to expect Adam to answer this, but perhaps through his eyes we can re-evaluate – and perhaps in some cases where the hand of man is now less obvious – fully realise what we have already done to the Highlands.
Would you like to start by telling readers a little about yourself – where you grew up, your education and early interests, and what that led you to do as a career?
I was born in Birmingham. I didn’t stick around though, my family left within three months to live in Lincoln. At five years old after another move, I ended up in Edinburgh. My whole childhood from then on was spent living on the outskirts of Edinburgh. While I lived in the city I had access to the countryside and I spent much time exploring it on my bike. Well that was until the early 1980s when home computing became a reality. From then on I spent most of my teen years in a darkened room playing computer games and then writing my own. When I left school I went onto Leeds University to do a Maths degree, followed by an MSc in the then trendy subject of Chaos (Non-linear mathematical systems) at Heriot-Watt University back in Edinburgh. My first job and in fact my only job was at the video games company DMA Design as a programmer. I spent 23 years there. During that time it morphed into Rockstar North and I slowly made my way up the ladder, eventually becoming the Technical Director. Much of my time at Rockstar was spent working on a little known game called Grand Theft Auto. In 2015 I left. Working at Rockstar was all consuming; I had very little time for anything else and I had this other thing I wanted to do, called Photography.
How did you first become interested in photography and what kind of images did you initially set out to make? How much time are you now able to devote to photography?
In my childhood, my father was a keen photographer. But being a contrary kind of kid I showed no interest at all. My sister was the one to take on that mantle. She was the one messing about with darkroom chemicals in our bathroom.
It wasn’t until 2009 that I took up a camera with the intention of taking more than snapshots. I had a year’s sabbatical from work and we spent it living in the Pyrenees. While there I purchased an iPhone 3GS. Suddenly I had a camera in my pocket all the time. I started taking pictures around the ski resort we were living in. This was a bit of a revelation. The joy I got from trying to get the right composition was something new to me. The iPhone camera had many limitations and I started to hit them more and more. So when some friends visited and one of them had a DSLR I realised that was what I needed. After that, I was lost. All I could think of was Photography. If I wasn’t out taking photos, I was processing them on the laptop, reading up about technique or perusing websites for the latest equipment.
I have come to realise photography can be so much more than pretty pictures or pleasing compositions. It can inform, tell a story, evoke an emotion.
Initially, I took photos of everything. But given at the time I lived in the mountains the obvious thing to take photos of was the surrounding landscape. This would become my concentration. The majority of my photos were of either mountains or the local woodland.
Nowadays I am lucky enough to be financially independent so I could spend all my time devoted to photography but I probably split it evenly with various programming projects I have running at the same time.
Who (photographers, artists or individuals) or what has most inspired you, or driven you forward in your own development as a photographer?
Given I have had no formal education in photography my first inspirations were various photographers I found on social media. Initially, my inspiration came from a number of photographers who were doing black and white long exposure work. This included people like Joel Tjintjelaar, Julia Anna Gospodarou and Russ Barnes. This would lead me to the work of Michael Kenna.
Since then though I have come to realise photography can be so much more than pretty pictures or pleasing compositions. It can inform, tell a story, evoke an emotion. This came through following people like Rob Hudson, and the work of the collective Inside the Outside, of which he is a founding member, and Iain Sarjeant whose imprint Another Place Press is releasing some of the more interesting photobooks within the landscape genre. My own work now comes from a mixture of influences including the New Topographics (Bernd and Hilla Becher, Lewis Baltz, Robert Adams) and some of the more recent landscape work from the likes of Mark Power and Toshio Shibata.
What is it that draws you to document our interventions in the landscape rather than adopt the more prevailing romantic view? Looking through your Journal entries, visual form and structure are recurring themes, whether you’re looking exclusively at man-made forms, or comparing and contrasting these with natural features.
I want to tell stories. The stories the landscape tells on its own I am not so interested in. Rocks move, seasons change and repeat, plants grow and die. These can become interesting when used as metaphors for the human condition, but on their own do not provoke anything strong in me.
The stories the landscape tells on its own I am not so interested in. Rocks move, seasons change and repeat, plants grow and die. These can become interesting when used as metaphors for the human condition, but on their own do not provoke anything strong in me.
I’m no good at metaphor so stick to documenting humans interacting with the landscape. Much of my work tends to centre around environmental subject matter. I try to find a space within the conflict between conservation of our environment and the development of it for our needs. This leads me to make images of landscapes formed by man.
Outside of my long term projects, repeating forms and geometric structures are something I like to play with. These don’t necessarily have to come from the man made. If nature is ready to present these to me I’m happy to point my camera at it. But in general, the geometry of buildings provides a source for this more frequently.
What reaction, interpretation or value do you hope to provoke in viewers in response to the man-made and the monumental?
Life is complex. My images represent complex situations where difficult decisions are being made between the value of a landscape in itself and the value of developing it. When I am documenting these, I’m not setting out some doctrine. I don’t generally have a solution to the issues I am highlighting. I hope I can encourage people to investigate further and also not respond in such a dogmatic way which can so often be the case when it comes to conservation issues.
When standing in front of some of the large infrastructure man has placed on the landscape it is hard not to be in awe. The fact that we can build at this scale and push nature around to this level is quite something to behold. Unfortunately, we are also very good at destroying at the same time and what we lose is sometimes of more value than what we gain.
Would you like to choose 2-3 favourite photographs from your own portfolio and tell us a little about why they are special to you?
Demolition Sequence #1
The sequence is from the destruction of the chimneys of the Cockenzie power station in East Lothian. The project was about nostalgia, looking at a structure that many people had some attachment to. They were part of the horizon line when viewed from Edinburgh. Driving north up the A1, when you saw the chimneys you knew you were nearly home. At the same time though Cockenzie, when running, was the dirtiest power station in the UK. Not something to be so nostalgic about. The project was also about our industrial heritage. The power station represented a point in our history when we were dependent on coal. It was also considered an important modernist building. None of this was thought to be important enough to conserve and the power station was demolished in 2015.
Trotternish ridge in Skye
This is a landscape shot and it is of rather a well-known spot. It could be a landscape photography trope. I hope not. This is late April snow looking down the Trotternish Ridge in Skye. I like the detail the snow brings out in the mountains. The flat light and fog have turned them into cutout cards placed on top of each other. They seem to exist outside of the real world. For the rest of that visit to Skye, the only thing I made photos of were snow covered mountains, trying to repeat what I had here.
Lawers dam
The image is part of a much larger project. I have spent the last few years documenting the hydroelectric infrastructure built in Scotland post world war 2. This also shows off a format I have been using quite frequently. I call them broken panoramas. I initially used them because of limitations of my equipment. The Hasselblad camera I use has a 6x6 square negative. Dams don’t tend to be square. They are long and thin, much more suited to a panorama image. I started to take two images to generate a panorama. But because I had been taking the images on film it felt wrong to try and stitch them together in Photoshop so I just present them as separate images. Later I did buy a panorama camera but liked the aesthetic so much I continued to present the panoramas in this way.
Most of my project work is done on a Hasselblad 503CW film camera. Many people talk about how film slows them down and that makes them think more about what they are doing.
Can you talk a little about the cameras and lenses – and film – that you like to use, and whether this has changed over time?
While I started out using digital exclusively, for the last four years I have been using a mixture of film and digital cameras. Most of my project work is done on a Hasselblad 503CW film camera. Many people talk about how film slows them down and that makes them think more about what they are doing. Even though I know I take approx. 10 times the number of photos if I’m using a digital camera and still come away with the same number of keepers as when I’m using film I actually think one of the main advantages with film is the enforced gap between taking the photo and seeing the results. When I come to review the negatives may be a few days later or even up to a month later I come to them with fewer preconceptions. I’m less likely to choose a shot because I wanted it to be good.
Black and white negatives are developed by myself and printed in my home darkroom. Darkroom printing is such a magical process. Everyone should have a go at it. Colour negatives are sent off to the lab to be developed and I scan the results when they return. I do really like the colours you get from a colour negative and have found it difficult to replicate these with a digital camera. It adds another parameter to your decision making as well, as different colour films have quite different looks. Colour negative film is incredibly forgiving and can handle high contrast scenes much better than digital.
At the time of writing, the future of the Stills Gallery in Edinburgh seems uncertain. How valuable a resource has it been to you in developing your practice, and what can photographers do to support such facilities?
The City of Edinburgh Council is currently proposing to triple the rent Stills Gallery pays for its premises. This would damage its ability to deliver its programme of exhibitions and events. Stills is one of the longest established photography galleries in the UK and has brought groundbreaking photography to Scotland for many years. While this in itself is enough of a reason to ensure its survival it is also a great resource for local photographers. Stills has a large darkroom facility and an extensive digital suite. It gives photographers access to top of the range equipment that most would probably never see outside of college or university.
Personally, I have been on a number of courses that Stills run. I have learnt both B&W and Colour developing and printing at Stills. I have also made extensive use of their darkrooms to practice and improve my printing skills. It has given me skills I use every day in my photography practice.
The first thing photographers can do to support such facilities is use them. Many people just never find the time but if you want them to be available you need to use them. Go to their exhibitions, use their resources, take one of the courses. If the facilities aren’t used then that gives councils, arts bodies, reasons to not support them. If you are interested in helping Stills you can sign their petition.
What role does digital play for you in making, processing, or printing/presenting images? You’ve developed a modern-day digital alternative to the viewing frame that allows a preview of a specific camera and lens combination without the need to remove the camera from your bag?
I work with a lot of bulky old film cameras, but this doesn’t mean I have left technology behind completely. I am finding frequently my photographic eye is a lot more optimistic than it should be. Many times I find a composition I like, but after spending 5 minutes of getting my camera out of the rucksack, setting up the tripod and framing the shot, I find it wasn’t worth the effort. To short circuit this process I wrote an iPhone app that did the pre-visualisation for me. You set what camera and what focal length you are using in the app and just point the phone at what you want to photograph. You will then get a preview of what you would see through your camera viewfinder on the iPhone screen. If you like it, then get your big camera out. Otherwise, move on. The app is called Viewfinder Preview and is available on the iPhone App Store.
We met back in 2016 on a bookmaking and sequencing workshop co-hosted by John Blakemore and Joseph Wright. How much difference has seeing their creations, and learning to make your own, made to your photography?
My favourite part of that workshop was when John opened up his box of treasures and produced all these photobooks he had made. They came in all sorts of formats and sizes. Photography can be so much more than just making an image. John showed that how you present it and how you sequence it within a group of other images opens up many paths for creativity. Not always, but there are many times now when working on a project I am already thinking about how I would present it in a book form right from the start. This will define what images I take and what format they are in.
My favourite part of that workshop was when John opened up his box of treasures and produced all these photobooks he had made. They came in all sorts of formats and sizes. Photography can be so much more than just making an image. John showed that how you present it and how you sequence it within a group of other images opens up many paths for creativity.
How important a part of the process for you is printing an image, by whatever means, and the trials and tribulations that we encounter in getting it wrong, before we get it right?
Printing is a very important part of the process. The physical object, the photo, holds so much more than the ephemeral digital image. A printed image is part of this world, you can hold it in your hands, have a much closer relationship with it. And it can add another layer of creativity in how you present your imagery.
I print a lot of my B&W film using traditional darkroom methods. Most of these are on small 10x8 papers and are for personal consumption. I am still learning when it comes to darkroom printing. It’s a much slower way to process and print film than scanning and moving some sliders in Photoshop but the resultant silver gelatine prints are really rather nice. The tonal quality and depth of black from a darkroom print is so much better than an inkjet print.
When I am printing inkjet prints, it is generally for a book. I don’t tend to print single images as I find the process quite frustrating. I never seem to get the result I’m looking for. If I need prints for sale or exhibition I tend to use professional printers as they do a better job than me.
Transient is newly formed; we are still trying to work out what we are. We formed because we felt there weren’t enough opportunities for Scottish photographers and we were looking to make them for ourselves.
You’ve recently exhibited as part of the Transient Collective. What role does the group hope to play, and how important is it for photographers to work together and interact beyond the online community?
Transient is newly formed; we are still trying to work out what we are. We formed because we felt there weren’t enough opportunities for Scottish photographers and we were looking to make them for ourselves. This initially formulated itself in our inaugural exhibition ‘Landmarks’. Six of us presented bodies of work under the theme of landmarks. These could be physical, personal or temporal. The exhibition featured quite a disparate subject matter including epilepsy, childhood trauma and my own hydroelectricity work. The advantage of being in the group was the responsibility, pressure and stress of setting up an exhibition was spread across six of us. At the same time, we still had enough space each to present a good body of work.
The collective has also provided us with a forum to present work in progress, and receive more honest feedback. This is something I think all photographers/artists need. Sometimes you need to be told what you are doing isn’t working, but then also having someone you know critically look at your work and give positive feedback is equally helpful. Feedback can also include new possible directions for what you are doing. Social media has pretty much proved it is incapable of any of this.
You’ve spent a lot of time visiting and photographing - and presumably researching - the structures associated with the 50+ hydro-electric dams built over the 20 year period following the Hydro Electric Development (Scotland) Act of 1943. What was it that drew you to this?
For the last few years, I have spent the majority of my time on a project documenting the hydroelectric schemes built in Scotland post World War Two. The initial reason for starting this project was an aesthetic one. I like the contrast between these large masses of concrete and the Scottish glens they are strung across. Especially in the remoter areas of Scotland, they have quite some presence. This evidence of so much human endeavour while there isn’t a soul in sight.
After doing a bit of research I found the story behind their construction was as interesting. The government body created to do this was set up in such a way that its priorities were the people of Scotland, instead of profit. Much modernisation and investment were needed in the Highlands. Any profits made supplying electricity to the Central Belt of Scotland were used to construct smaller hydro schemes in the remoter areas of the Highlands. They also had a duty to encourage socio-economic development through investment in the region. The politic will that created this body would go on to build the NHS a few years later.
I don’t think the romantic view of Scotland’s wild landscape has really changed much over the last 150 years. It is still the main argument for conserving our landscape.
What have you learnt from it that is relevant to both our present-day relationships with the physical legacy and our reactions to current infrastructure development?At the time fears were voiced about the ruination of the landscape and detriment to tourism, but publicly these were perhaps tempered by the social vision to bring power and improvements to the Highlands, and the employment that it created? It probably helped too that it was delivered at no cost to the tax-payer.
There was much opposition to the hydro schemes initially. This came from the landowners, salmon fishing interests, the coal board, the tourism industry and conservation bodies like the National Trust and the Association for the Preservation of Rural Scotland. In the end, either alterations were made to appease, or the social vision overrode those concerns. Many of the concerns over the ruination of the landscape were overplayed and nowadays one of the biggest tourist attractions in Pitlochry is the dam.
I don’t think the romantic view of Scotland’s wild landscape has really changed much over the last 150 years. It is still the main argument for conserving our landscape. The likelihood of someone coming down on the side of a development versus conservation is generally related to how much direct benefit they would receive from that development. The photographer who spends two weeks’ holiday in Scotland is probably more likely to be interested in the conservation side of the argument than the individual who sees investment in his local community. The modern day equivalent of the hydro-scheme development would be the many wind farms that are being constructed in Scotland. For many communities that direct benefit is not so obvious anymore. In general, the electricity being generated is sent down to the Central belt of Scotland or even onto England and the profits go to a public company and mainly benefit shareholders. Of course, now this is all tempered by the fact we need to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. So many people, regardless of locality, see a direct benefit of developments like wind farms because they can relate them to a reduction in greenhouse gases.
Do you have any particular projects or ambitions for the future or themes that you would like to explore further?
I would like to release my hydroelectricity project ‘Neart nan Gleann’ in book form at some point. I have been building book dummies recently looking to get the right form and testing out various sequences of images.
Regarding projects and themes I have one more idea to investigate related to electricity production in Scotland. I would also like to look into the Forestry industry. When travelling around Scotland it is hard not to notice the industrial woodland installed to generate timber. The scars of the recently felled, that interrupt this spruce monoculture, could never be considered beautiful. I am still attracted to them and want to investigate further. Of course as well as excluding much biodiversity these woodlands are also a carbon sink and we should be looking to increase our forestry coverage, but maybe with a little more variety.
If you had to take a break from all things photographic for a week, what would you end up doing? What other hobbies or interests do you have?
If I suddenly managed to lose all my cameras, I would probably spend more time coding on one of my many little programming projects. Most of the apps I make are small tools I use during my photography, so if that counts as photographic, I would get on my bike. I love cycling. I have cycled all my life. It is one of the best ways to leave the world and your worries behind. Being able to get out of town and sail down small country lanes is a wonderful thing. It is also the best way to investigate your local countryside. A bike is fast enough to get you somewhere, but not so fast you miss everything on the way.
And finally, is there someone whose photography you enjoy – perhaps someone that we may not have come across – and whose work you think we should feature in a future issue? They can be amateur or professional.
I’ve recently come across the work of Frances Scott. She is currently exhibiting as part of a group exhibition at Stills Gallery in Edinburgh. She is presenting three images from her project of walking the coastline of all the islands in Orkney. Her imagery is a mixture of the manmade and coastal details. Along with this, she has a series of images which are the GPS tracks of various walks she made along the Orkney coastline. Each one includes a couple of comments from her notebooks about the walk. These images are really intriguing. They give away very little, but enough such that you want to know more about these walks.
Thank you, Adam. It’s been great to find out more about what you get up to when you disappear, and we look forward to seeing ‘Neart nan Gleann’ in book form – keep us posted!
To clearly express my feeling for life with photographic beauty, present objectively the texture, rhythm, form in nature without subterfuge or evasion in technique or spirit, to record the quintessence of the object or element before my lens, rather than an interpretation, a superficial phase, or passing mood – this is my way in photography. It is not an easy way. ~ Edward Weston, 1927
There are a number of highly photogenic dune systems in the United States. The best known include Mesquite Flat Dunes in Death Valley National Park in California, the White Sands National Monument in New Mexico and the Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado; but there are also others that are somewhat less well known and less often visited such as the Oregon Sand Dunes National Recreation Area; the Algodones Dunes in the far south east of California; the Dumont Dunes in the Mojave Desert in east California; and (perhaps) the Oceano Dunes on the coast of California, situated between Santa Barbara and Monterey.
The Oceano Dunes are but one section of the Guadaloupe – Nipomo sequence that stretches for some 29 km along the coast from southern San Luis Opisbo County to the northern part of Santa Barbara County. It includes the highest coastal dune in on the west coast of the U.S., Mussel Rock Dune at 150m, just south of Oceano. The sequence includes the Pismo Dunes to the north and the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes National Wildlife Refuge and Rancho Guadalupe Dunes Preserve to the south. There are also areas where sand buggies and other All Terrain Vehicles can make a lot of noise, including the Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreational Area. The size of this permitted area has been reduced over the years but if you Google the Oceano Dunes you will find much more about riding the dunes than about photography.
The Oceano Dunes are but one section of the Guadaloupe – Nipomo sequence that stretches for some 29 km along the coast from southern San Luis Opisbo County to the northern part of Santa Barbara County
However, I qualified the Oceano Dunes with perhaps less well-known because while they may not attract so many photographers today 1, the area has an interesting history and has been the subject of some classic photographs, most notably by Edward Weston, his son Brett Weston and Ansel Adams. Nancy Newhall in The Photographs of Edward Weston2 published by the Museum of Modern Art in 1946 wrote:
Considered by many to be Weston’s most accomplished series of images, the twenty-nine Dune photographs that resulted from his time at Oceano certainly show the artist at the peak of his creative powers. Weston first visited the area briefly in 1934 but returned two years later with his lover and muse, Charis Wilson, for an extended period of photography.
He found the undulating landscape perfectly suited to his interest in form and pattern and produced work that encapsulated many of the ideas he had been developing about the photographic image.
Much later, in 1948, Edward Weston was filmed at Oceano by Willard van Dyke as part of a film about him called The Photographer produced for the US Information Agency3. Van Dyke had studied as an assistant with Weston and was a founder member (with Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham, Ansel Adams, John Paul Edwards, Sonya Noskowiak and Henry Swift) of the f64 group. He later gave up still photography in favour of film making. In a 1982 documentary, he said that this was so as not to compete with his good friend and past mentor Weston.
I’ve been hearing a LOT about filters lately. It seems half the photographers on my social feeds are brand ambassadors for one filter company or another and boy do they make sure I know! Recently our own Tim Parkin has unwittingly made On Landscape part of the hype train. Kase Filters are the MOST COLOUR NEUTRAL FILTERS! Shout it from the rooftops! Or don’t use filters at all.
For those of you, like me, who are ‘in deep’ in the landscape photography world it sometimes feels like you are living in the Twilight Zone. Gear discussions about almost totally irrelevant specs “an extra 0.5 stops of dynamic range” soon turn heated and we forget about the photography itself. But nothing has confused me more than the modern obsession with Graduated Neutral Density Filters, or grads.
An admission
Before I really lay into the use of grad filters I thought I would undermine myself by explaining my bias. When I started photography 12 years ago I did washing up through my university holidays to finance my first SLR. All my gear was second hand, and there was no way I was going to buy a filter set when I could exposure blend for free on my pirated copy of Photoshop CS2. Back then blending exposures was time consuming and complex. I made many mistakes along the way, but I quickly reached a level that matched the effects of grads and later exceeded them from a technical perspective. When I became a backpacker the reasons for the digital process multiplied - I didn’t fancy carrying that extra half kilo or looking after a load of delicate bit of resin in challenging environments. That is to say, I have never used filters and, barring a foray into film, I never will.
Setting aside my own experiences there are many reasons to make the case for a “gradless” capture process.
1. Getting It Right in Camera
If you ask photographers why they use grads you’ll get a mix of answers, but chief among the explanations is ‘Getting it Right in Camera’.
On the surface, this is the reason I understand most of all. As someone who greatly values realistic photography I completely understand the satisfaction that comes from capturing a scene as it is.
That warm fuzzy feeling you get when you press the shutter button and you know you have The Shot™. On the surface, this is the reason I understand most of all. As someone who greatly values realistic photography I completely understand the satisfaction that comes from capturing a scene as it is. You also get the instant feedback in the image itself, you can see then and there on the back of the LCD that you have succeeded. Unfortunately using filters can be problematic. There are better digital methods.
Selecting and placing grads is almost an art in itself. The photographer can look at a scene and judge the luminance balance between the sky and ground (commonly) as well as how quickly that light transition occurs and then select a grad that roughly does the right thing. The grad must then be positioned correctly in accordance with the scene (usually now using live view because it is the most precise method). Ideally, the lens should be stopped down to the selected aperture in order to see most precisely what the final effect will be. Select the grad incorrectly or position it poorly and you’ve just done the opposite of what you intended. You are “Getting it Wrong in Camera” (do you see what I did there?). “Getting it Right in Camera” is, of course, shooting an exposure bracket.
A thing is not what you say it is or what you photograph it to be or what you paint it to be or what you sculpt it to be. Words, photographs, paintings, and sculptures are symbols of what you see, think, and feel things to be, but they are not the things themselves.” ~ Wynn Bullock
While looking through Paul Caponigro’s book “Seasons” I was surprised and delighted to discover it contained an autobiographical text to accompany the portfolio. As an admirer of his work, I was interested in learning about his journey and philosophy regarding photography. In reading his autobiography I became particularly interested in his experience studying under Minor White. He mentions White’s method of reading photographs, and how students were often put alone in a room to look at his work until they could get past the obvious subject and discover what deeper implications might be conveyed by the images. Over time Caponigro became disillusioned with White’s approach. Beyond recognising that a photographer should impart some of her or his self on their work, he questioned if every image “needed to be so excessively burdened with ‘meaning’”. He came to find Minor’s adherence to Zen too intellectualised and formulaic. After a time he yearned to free himself of rigid dogma and simply open himself up to experience and to make expressive images that were “the results of quiet action and discovery”. He advocated less thinking and more doing.
I happened upon this autobiography at a time when I was questioning the idea of meaning in my own work. As photographers, we talk often of meaning and making photographs that are personally expressive. But, what does this really mean? I know the common definition is that expressive images are those that are not of things, but about things. As White himself said, “One should photograph objects, not only for what they are, but what else they are.” Of course, the operative and somewhat ambiguous word here is the “else”.
I happened upon this autobiography at a time when I was questioning the idea of meaning in my own work. As photographers, we talk often of meaning and making photographs that are personally expressive.
But, does this mean that every photo must be a metaphor? With regards to my own work, was I truly making meaningful images? And if so, what was I trying to say in those images? Are my images metaphors or simply pretty or interesting photos bereft of any deeper meaning or message? I feared being guilty of fraud, of talking the talk but not walking the walk. Troubling questions indeed.
We have already covered a previous project of Theo’s with “Autumn Leaves” and we were very pleased to hear that he was taking on a more substantial project that covered multiple countries including the coast of Scotland. The project can be summarised as covering the tidal zone of Europe’s Western coastline. Theo humbly says “It was never my intention to cover Europe’s entire Atlantic coast” as if this was perhaps a passing thought, discarded at the last minute. What he did do was to find a judicious sampling of fifty beaches across nine countries including the Faroe Islands, Scotland, Norway, Iceland, Ireland and Northern Ireland, Portugal, Spain and France. The goal was to show the diversity of this transition zone and portray some of the dynamism everyone can experience when visiting the Atlantic coastline.
Theo gave a fantastic talk about the project during our Meeting of Minds conference in 2018 and it was sometime later that I realised I hadn’t bought a copy of the associated book (I must have had something else distracting me!). I have since bought one and have been enjoying sampling from it from time to time over the last few months.
I’ll skip to the chase on the recommendation as I can heartily recommend purchasing it and the book itself is very well printed and hardbound (which I’ll come to in a moment). The book needs little written narrative to explain itself and is a great case study in how to create a body of work that walks the line between a documentary approach and an interpretation. Each photograph is an aesthetic work by itself but the accumulation of many visual fragments adds up to a very personal take by Theo.
And it is the closer details that make the book special to me. Many people would make the main part of the project about the bigger views and include smaller details as asides. Theo’s work makes these smaller fragments the main story and uses larger views to place them in context.
Distilling a project like this into a final ‘product’ sometimes benefits from using an external editor and designer and Theo was very lucky to have a very talented colleague to help with this, Sandra Bartocha. As a photographer herself (and a very good one) and with her own experience of book and magazine publishing, Sandra was able to create an eye catching, professional design and I’m presuming she also helped with the sequencing which is excellent (some inspired facing images and a good sense of cohesion across the chapters).
If you want to support Theo, you can buy "Shaped by the Sea" directly from his website (click here) or if that's not possible you can get it from 'all good book shops' (or horrible ones if you really want to)
I’ve picked a few of my favourite photos to demonstrate these different aspects.
Every photographer has an image that means a lot to them, even if it's not the most successful on social media or one that friends and family don't 'get'. Images that stretch the edges of compositional norms, that show well-known places in different ways or that reflect a moment that means so much personally in your progress as a photographer or just in life.
If you have a personal favourite photograph of yours and a story behind it and why it means so much, then why not share that with our community. Submit your favourite image here.
It's interesting that this series is all about my favourite photo, rather than my best photo. To some extent, the two are interchangeable but by no means always. I'm sure that we all have pictures that we really like, even though secretly we admit that there are technical flaws such as the picture is less than tack sharp, or the composition is a bit imbalanced etc. Some time ago I read in a response to "What do you consider to be your best photo" the photographer replied "it's the one I have yet to take" or words to that effect. Fair enough, we all strive to do better...
For this piece, I have chosen an image that I made in September 2015 and it remains both my favourite photo as a successful outcome from what was a difficult location for me, but also as probably my best in technical terms. It is sharp, well exposed, has a decent composition (well, to my eye at least!) and I think it shows what I felt that morning.
The location is Veidivotn, arguably the "Lake District" of Iceland and a truly stunning alien landscape, far removed from what I would expect to see on this planet. We arrived just as it was getting light and as I got out of our vehicle, an eerie silence enveloped us: although we were a sizeable group of nine we were all very quiet. I felt overwhelmed by the magical, mystical and incredibly rich scene in front of me. In fact, to be honest, I was so overwhelmed that I couldn't see a single subject to take, there was so much choice that I suppose I just froze, I literally didn't know where to turn. The group dispersed in different directions and I too wandered off along a ridge, but with little idea what I might shoot.
A good 45 mins or so later, having shot two mediocre frames, I started wandering back to the minibus. I noticed that the sun was soon going to pop-up over a ridge and I saw 3 or 4 of my companions lined up ready for their shot. I felt somewhat despondent at my lack of success, especially as I knew that there were subjects all around me - if only I could see them amongst all this beauty! Having no better ideas, I decided to join the group.
Lovely curves leading deep into the scene, great contrasting light and dark shapes, wonderful colours against the black lava ash and, to cap it all, intense pre-sunrise colours in the sky.
As I walked up, the shapes in the landscape changed relative to each other and began to come together; the light was beginning to intensify and I hurried further on to find a spot of my own, looking for a slightly different view. Suddenly the hills of lava and ash, the lakes and the distant valleys all snapped into place. At last I felt that I might get a half-decent shot!
Lovely curves leading deep into the scene, great contrasting light and dark shapes, wonderful colours against the black lava ash and, to cap it all, intense pre-sunrise colours in the sky. I had to work fast to expose my shot before harsh sunlight flooded the scene; to add to the pressure, I could already feel tiny drops of drizzle floating around as a rain storm approached. I lined up and adjusted my composition, set the focus and attached the grad filter. First click, check the histogram, make a small adjustment to the exposure and re-set the focus. Click again, the histogram looked OK. Check the filter - just a few small drops of drizzle, quickly wipe and shoot again. And then it rained, hard. I had shot three frames in the space of about 2 minutes; I wanted one more to capture the light filtering through the rain, but the filter was covered with raindrops. Game over.
When I got home and processed the files, that third image had just two tiny drops which were easily dealt with. A few weeks later I had the photo printed in a lab at 24" across and it is on my wall to this day. I have several other pictures taken subsequently that I really like, but none have usurped its place. For over 3½ years it has remained my favourite - and I still think it’s my best.
Welcome to our 4x4 feature which is a set of four mini landscape photography portfolios submitted from our subscribers. Each portfolios consisting of four images related in some way.
Submit Your 4x4 Portfolio
Interested in submitting your work? We're on the lookout for new portfolios for the next few issues, so please do get in touch!
As a young child, the superstitions and folklore I experienced staying at my grandparents in the mountains of County Sligo left a lasting impression on me. Living in a thatched cottage beneath a 2000 foot tall mountain with no electricity and running water set the scene for a magical setting, particularly when sitting around an evening turf fire listening to my grandmother’s stories of fairies and ghosts. All the time the oil lamps flicker straining for its golden light to reach into the darker recesses of the kitchen. The mountain range that dominated this region is steeped in ancient history and Mythology. I felt when I was breathing in the air with a soft mist on my face I felt connected to an older time, sharing this space with the seen and the unseen.
The Red man
Sculpted in cement I created this fairy character that is known as the Red Man. The Red Man is another similar version of the leprechaun, in that he is a small creature about half the size of a man. His name is Irish for ‘red man’, given to him because – you guessed it- he dressed from head to toe in red, including a scarlet hat and cloak. He is also usually depicted with long grey hair and a wrinkled face. Like the leprechaun and Clurichaun, he is a fan of practical jokes, usually leaning towards the more gruesome kind. His appearance is also a sign of impending bad luck.
Banshee Tower
The Banshee Tower, Ducketts Grove Castle, County Carlow, Ireland. It is believed that the voices of the past and the ghosts of their owners haunt the high tower and the grounds of the roofless shell of Duckett’s Grove. The eerie atmosphere and spooky stories that shroud the skeletal ruins of this once magnificent Gothic mansion, built in the first half of the 19th century, are probably the main reason for the mystery and fantasy that arise from these beautiful remains.
Celtic Merrow
Celtic Merrow is another of my sculpted cement figures. It should not be assumed that merrows are kindly and well-disposed towards mortals. As members of the sidhe, or Irish fairy world, the inhabitants of the Land beneath the Waves have a natural antipathy towards humans. In some parts of Ireland, they are regarded as messengers of doom and death.
The tower at Kildavnet
The tower at Kildavnet on Achill Island is thought to have been constructed by the Clan O’Malley in about 1429, but is associated locally with a descendant of the original builders, Grace O’Malley or Granuaile. This legendary pirate queen is thought to have been born around 1530 and died in about 1603. The Tower at Kildavnet is one of a series of such strongholds that Granuaile established along the western seaboard (she is said to be buried in a similar tower on Clare Island) as she dominated the waters during the 16th century.
These 4 images form part of a larger series of images and probably my favourites so far. The project initially started without any intent, and after venturing out in similar conditions, a collection of images started to come together.
To me, they represent a quiet moment of mood, all the images were taken at times when there is no sound, perfect silence, a time to reflect and recharge. Having this thought process has allowed me to just go out, no plan, no pressure, a rewarding mindset.
Having been to Iceland several times over the last 10 years I was aware that my collection of images tended towards the big vista. I decided that my 2018 visit would feature more detailed images. The reality was that the big vista was hard to resist but I did come away with some detailed images. This 4x4 collection, all from 2018, features different textures of rock found in the Western Fjords of Iceland.
Lofoten is the place where mountains and ocean meet together. A small archipelago where every day several villages preserve history and tradition. Hamnøy is the oldest and most iconic of all Lofoten Islands, favourite place for photographs from all over the world. Sunrise is probably the best moment to capture its quietness and the magical colours surrounding the "rorbu", the traditional fisherman's cabins.
As I write this, the buds are visible fattening on the trees, and the landscape in the northwest Peak District is greening up. It’s a good time of year to head for the woods, but then any time of year is a good time to do so. Even the most unpromising scrap of woodland offers an escape from everyday life and an opportunity to reconnect with the sights, scents and sounds of nature. Paul Mitchell has become well known for his complex and beautifully lit woodland scenes, though this is by no means his only strength as a look at his website will reveal. Hopefully, our Revisited feature will allow you to catch up with his work, and may even give you an insight or two if the complex patterns of branches and stems leave you lost for a place to start. Even if you venture into the woods, find a place and simply sit, it will be time well spent at any time of year. You can read the original featured photographer interview from 2011 here.
What has changed for you, photographically speaking, since Tim spoke to you way back in 2011, or given you the most enjoyment?
What I perceive to have been the biggest change for me over the last eight years is my gradual, but inevitable, slide towards digital capture. I’ve certainly not abandoned film completely as I do still enjoy venturing out with my pinhole camera on a fairly regular basis. Indeed I still have all my large and medium format cameras and intend holding on to them as long as possible. Why the change though? In a nutshell… convenience. My increasing appreciation of the countryside and woodland has made me realise that you have to react quickly to the ever changing seasons and weather conditions which is why I keep my camera bag handy next to the front door. I very often just pop out for an hour or so at dawn and can still be sitting at my desk by 9am. I can then download, review and process my images on an ad hoc basis without waiting to finish off a roll of film. It is also fair to say that digital has ‘come of age’ and has now equalled, if not surpassed, the results I was obtaining with film.
Have your tastes in photography changed at all, or what you find inspiration in? (Either in terms of your own work, or what you enjoy looking at.)
As with my taste in music I’ve always considered my interest in photography to be quite eclectic in nature. I appreciate a well-crafted Joe Cornish landscape image as much as I do an Alex Soth or Andreas Gursky. I often feel that those who confine their interest to a small number of genres are missing out somewhat in their total appreciation of photography. Indeed my own interest in woodland compositions has led me to seek out inspiration from some of our traditional landscape painters such as John Constable, Paul Sandby and John Sell Cotman. The more contemporary work of Christopher Burkett and Shinzo Maeda always continue to inspire.
If you're reading this then you're probably a disciple of the quest to explore nature in all its forms; hiking, discovering, conquering and escaping into mindfulness. We would argue there's a human need for photographing in these places. We want to sometimes tame them and idealise them, set ourselves a compositional challenge and bend the location to our will. It's about unearthing something unseen, to create surprises, offering a wider acknowledgement that our own way of seeing is unique to us, that we are different. Though perhaps that's not quite enough.
Last autumn I visited Spain, once again in search of wooded scenes making use of the autumnal colours. It was on my list of photographic things to do; always looking for a less well-known location and places that challenge me as a photographer. I found the experience enjoyable and intense at times, which is an ideal state. The subsequent set of photographs produced was also satisfying. However, once the images were in a set, I felt something was missing. Whilst interesting and perhaps pretty, they did not convey to me anything other than the natural forms I had recorded, however skilfully. There was no narrative. There were no layers of meaning.
Mystery in photography is often seen as a sign of artistic endeavour. The more we can ask the viewer to seek an understanding of the image, the longer the image is in their presence, the more successful the photograph. With this in mind, some photographers seek to obfuscate their photographs through processing hoping that this will give them artistic credibility (harking back to Pictorialism perhaps). They imbue mystery, believing it will offer meaning. It's the wrong road and one which I suggest you shouldn't take. Look at the work of the masters such as H.Callahan and E.Weston for guidance on this issue.
Fotospeed has announced that they will be hosting Foto Fest 2019 as the festival heads into its fourth year. Once again, the festival brings together 4 talented photographers to deliver talks about the inspirations, techniques, and stories behind their images. You will also have access to the market place featuring industry leading brands and take advantage of some very special offers. The market place is open and free to anyone who wishes to visit with or without a ticket for the talks.
Read on to discover everything you need to know about Foto Fest 2019, including details of the talks. If you have any additional questions, you can contact the Fotospeed team at sales@fotospeed.com or 01249 714 555.
Event details
Where is it?: University of Bath, Bath
When is it?: 8th September 2019
What time?: 9.30am – 5.00pm
How much are tickets to Fotospeed talks?: £40 day pass
How much is the Market Place? FREE with or without a ticket to Fotospeed Talks
Speakers
Martin Parr
Arguably one of the most legendary documentary photographers of his generation, Martin Parr will be headlining Foto Fest 2019. With over 100 of his own books published – and another 30 edited by him – Parr is most noted for his humorous and anthropological observations of human habits through the lens of social class structures.
At Foto Fest, Parr looks at his long career in photography and finishes with work from his recent National Portrait Gallery exhibition earlier this year.
Rachael Talibart
Award-winning photographer Rachael Talibart is most known for her Sirens portfolio, critically acclaimed photographs of stormy seas, named after creatures of myth and legend. Her work has been exhibited around the world, and she delivers photography workshops and tours as the owner of f11 workshops.
For Rachael, the coast isn’t the end of the land; it is the beginning of imagination and possibility. In her Foto Fest talk, Rachael will explain some of the techniques – from the conventional to the experimental – that she uses in her own work, why she makes the images that she does, and how she generates the ideas behind her work. In an age when it sometimes seems as though everyone is a photographer, Rachael will encourage you to create coastal images that stand out from the crowd.
Tom Way
Tom Way is an award winning professional fine art wildlife photographer who has been awarded in various international competitions including the European Wildlife Photographer of the Year. Spending the majority of his time overseas, Tom’s main passion is Africa where assignments have seen him focus on Elephants and Lions in Kenya, and Leopards in Zambia.
In his talk, Tom will discuss what it takes to be a Wildlife Photographer, tackling the issues of light, angles, and how to compose a sellable image. You’ll hear stories of Tom’s adventures abroad and how he went from working in a gym to taking and exhibiting wildlife images around the world.
Nigel Danson
Nigel Danson became a full-time landscape photographer after a life-changing accident at Yosemite Park, which caused him to leave his job as CEO of a software company he founded – something he describes as the best decision he ever made.
In his talk, Nigel will look at the tips, tricks, rules, and processes that he has learnt through making over 100 landscape photography videos that will help you improve your images and create prints that you’ll want to hang on your wall.
What's Included with the ticket
4 incredible talks from 4 world-renowned photographers
FREE all-day parking
FREE entry to Fotospeed Market Place - access exclusive show deals for one day only
Live demonstrations, technical advice and all the latest equipment
Marketplace
There will also be an opportunity to get help and advice from our experts and enjoy some amazing event only deals. We will be featuring these top brands and more:
Fotospeed, Kaiser Fototechnik, Clifton Cameras, Sony, Lee Filters, Rotolight, Canon, The RPS, and more
When people find out that I am a photographer, inevitably, they ask how I got started. In response, I tell the story of my journey from novice to now, making sure to highlight the time I spent shooting and developing black and white film. I reminisce fondly on time spent in a darkroom because to me, it is a peaceful space. When I explain it to people, I talk about how developing film is a meditative process, where the rest of life’s worries and stresses fall away for the time that I am in the darkroom. If I am thinking about dodging and burning, or chemical baths and film reels, I cannot help but to be fully invested in that moment. In hindsight, it has occurred to me that all aspects of landscape photography have been restorative for me, not just my time in the darkroom. That is part of why I have made it a centrepiece in my life. It encourages me to travel, explore in nature, practice mindfulness, develop connections with the world around me and create something of beauty.
Although I have always thought about the positive impact landscape photography has on my own life, I only recently realised that photography has therapeutic value for others. The realisation came while I listened to a photography podcast featuring William Patino, a landscape photographer out of New Zealand1. William said that several years ago he’d been diagnosed with depression and photography helped him manage it. In his own words, “photography was this tool that allowed me to kind of see colour and hope and beauty in the world again. Depression just really made me very numb to everything and photography was a tool that helped me feel alive.” That is a powerful sentiment that resonated strongly with me. Among other things, photography has been a way for me to celebrate the beauty of the world and to hear someone else verbalise my feelings were strange. Of course, I’ve always known that I use photography to celebrate nature, and of course, I’ve always known that I found happiness in the act of creating art. However, until hearing that interview, it never occurred to me that those two things were two sides of the same coin.
Time spent in nature has long been known to have health benefits. Gregory Bratman, a graduate student at Stanford University, conducted a study to measure brain function before and after a person was immersed in nature. Participants were asked to describe their baseline level of brooding, worrying over the same issues repetitively or fretting, and they were scanned to measure blood flow in the brain.
Two years ago, shortly after our second Meeting of Minds conference, we said goodbye to David Ward as he set off to run an eco lodge in Botswana. We weren't sure when he'd be back (if ever!) but we're very happy to say that he's returned after two years and not only started photographing again but agreed to write about it for us. Welcome back David!
If somebody had said to me when I turned 50 that shovelling elephant poo off paths would ever be part of my daily duties I would have laughed in their face. Yet, at the tender age of 57, this was exactly what I found myself doing – sometimes once or twice a day.
Elephants in camp
Obviously, this was not “normal” for a landscape photographer/workshop leader. But I was no longer a photographer: I was now a safari camp manager. Since I was eighteen years old I have defined myself as a photographer, in the same way, that someone with medical qualifications defines themselves as a doctor. Such labels tend to overshadow other aspects of one’s life. Of course, I was also a father, a lover of music, a bus driver, someone with a keen interest in science, a walker, a writer, a onetime carpenter, a teller of bad jokes, an aspiring philosopher and a thousand other things.
Such labels tend to overshadow other aspects of one’s life. Of course, I was also a father, a lover of music, a bus driver, someone with a keen interest in science, a walker, a writer, a onetime carpenter, a teller of bad jokes, an aspiring philosopher and a thousand other things.
But “photographer” was probably - most of the time - top of any personal list of my activities, attributes and skills. Consequently, I found that picking up elephant ordure was nowhere near as upsetting as having cast aside photography; something that I felt, and still feel, is a fundamental part of my life. So what led to this wild and somewhat painful change in direction?
It’s tempting to blame my partner, Saskia. After all it was she who suggested that running a safari camp in Botswana would be exciting, challenging, rewarding and also help the conservation of endangered species. But she wasn’t twisting my arm (at least not so hard that I couldn’t bear the pain).
Ultimately, two factors influenced my decision to make the move.
Firstly, I have felt for a long time that I should do something concrete to help with conservation efforts. Making contributions to charities and supporting campaigns are obviously worthwhile but, as someone whose whole life has been spent trying to reach a deep communion with the natural world, I felt I needed to do more than give money. Helping to save some of Africa’s megafauna seemed like the most worthwhile thing I could do. Nick Brandt’s (https://www.nickbrandt.com) elegiac photographs of East African wildlife had really moved me. Elephant populations in Africa have declined by over 30% since 2007. They suffer horrifying deaths to satisfy the illegal ivory trade. The carnage wrought by poachers who trade rhino horn as a drug to ignorant people who believe it will cure their cancer or fix their wilting libido is equally senseless.
I was browsing the BBC News Magazine back in January 2019 when I came across this article 'The concrete blocks that once protected Britain'. I was drawn into the fascination of these structures: How were they built, where are they located, how did he find them all, were they all documented? The list of questions went on and I eventually got in touch with Joe to find out about his family connection to the sound mirrors and how he went about documenting part Britain's history.
What sparked your passion for photography?
The darkroom at my old college. It was 2010, I was at Exeter School of Art, which coincidentally had both black and white and colour darkrooms. It was the first time that breaking the rules and not just doing as you were told was encouraged. Being able to experiment and see the results appear under the red light was the most amazing thing. I would skip other classes and just spend hours in there.
You studied photography at Brighton University. How did this experience shape your photography?
Brighton was where I found my voice as a photographer. It was a safe environment where I could get things wrong and teach myself to be the photographer I always aspired to be. It also helped that one of my favourite photographers, Mark Power, was the professor at the time. I only had a few classes with him but it was enough to get me on the right path.
Why did you choose landscape photography as opposed to other genres?
Photography has always been my way of making sense of the world and my relation to it. Photographing the landscape came naturally to me. I have always enjoyed the solitude and adventure it brings. It took me some time to get the confidence to explore other genres. I was quite awkward and a bit shy when I first started out, apparently as a kid my mum had to essentially train me to look people in the eye when I spoke to them. Truth be told portraiture was not something that came naturally, I had to work at it. Now I love both.
Photography has always been my way of making sense of the world and my relation to it. Photographing the landscape came naturally to me. I have always enjoyed the solitude and adventure it brings.
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Tell me about the photographers or artists that inspire you most. What books stimulated your interest in photography and who drove you forward, directly or indirectly, as you developed?
That does change from project to project but overall my main influences starting out were Alec Soth, Mark Power, Jem Southam, Simon Roberts, Nadav Kander and Broomberg and Chanarin. However, you don’t see any of their influences In Defence of Lost Causes.
In terms of books, Charlotte Cotton’s The Photograph as Contemporary Art was like the bible to me early on, it eased me into the inescapable and necessary theoretical side of photography.
Simon Roberts has a studio in Brighton, I met him within a few weeks of being here and he has been my mentor ever since.
Tell us a bit about the project 'In Defence of Lost Causes’. Where did it all start? What's your personal interest in this subject?
It started with a conversation I had with my dad the night before I moved to Brighton a few years ago. After the rest of the family had left the dinner table he shared a story he hadn't told before. He began to describe large concrete structures dotted along the coastline between Brighton and Dover, a precursor to radar that used sound to detect enemy aircraft that in turn, his dad had described to him. When I was a child he told me stories about my grandfather and his involvement in radar. One of his recurring jokes has always gone along the lines of, “It’s not rocket science, I should know, my dad was a rocket scientist.”
Initially, I was drawn to the family connection, but later after researching early aircraft defence experiments I became fascinated by the story of the sound mirrors.
How did the project evolve? Did you have to refine the vision of what you wanted to achieve?
Initially, I planned to walk the 90 odd miles along the coast from Brighton to Dover photographing anything that fit my dad’s original description of concrete concave structures dotted along the coastline. The resulting photographs would have played around with scale, representation and interpretation. To start with I didn’t want to see what the structures looked like but I couldn’t help myself, and then as soon as I saw a few examples of them online and learnt there were more around the country I knew I wanted to take a more topographical approach.
Initially, I planned to walk the 90 odd miles along the coast from Brighton to Dover photographing anything that fit my dad’s original description of concrete concave structures dotted along the coastline. The resulting photographs would have played around with scale, representation and interpretation
How did you go about researching where they were and the locations? Were they all documented or did you have to do a lot of in-depth analysis to get the information? Did you include all the sound mirrors? If not, how did you decide which ones to include?
There are whole books dedicated to them and they are well documented online with numerous blogs and forums that mention where they are located. The National Archives was also a valuable source of information which has maps, original documents and archival pictures of the sound mirrors in use.
Yes, I photographed every remaining sound mirror in the country.
Tell us about the project and how you planned it, how long it took, how did you decide in which sequence you chose to visit the locations.
I researched each of the locations and cross-referenced the information between different online sources. Once I had the coordinates I used Satellite view on Google Maps to confirm the locations before plotting each of them on a custom Google Map.
I photographed the Brighton to Dover leg in Spring of 2016, then was commissioned by FT Weekend to photograph the remaining structures on the Northern coast in November 2017.
Were there any of the sound mirrors that you found particularly challenging to photograph or were in interesting locations?
Each had their own challenges but the Warden Point sound mirror was particularly tricky. The structure was originally built on the cliff but due to erosion fell off into the sea some years ago. The majority of the time it is submerged but when the tide is fully out it is still accessible. Only half of the mirror still remains so I had to shoot it at an angle that would accentuate the concave. In my picture, black seaweed drapes over the bottom section of the structure and the cliffs behind purposefully align with the tideline markings.
Photography is more than just a tool for observation, it can peel away the original context and function of a thing and transform it into something entirely different.
The images tell a story of the sound mirrors and their significance in history and their failure. What visual (and non-visual) narrative did you want to leave the reader with when you were working on this project?
That any advancement, technologically, creatively or otherwise, takes years of experimentation and failure. That cutting edge technology of the day will eventually fall into ruin.
Photography is more than just a tool for observation, it can peel away the original context and function of a thing and transform it into something entirely different. Here we have a primitive military technology - that through amplification made the speed of sound faster than the speed of light - being presented as monuments of experimentation.
Tell me what your favourite two or three photographs from the series are and a little bit about them.
Visually my two favourites are Abbot’s Cliff and the 200ft wall at Dungeness. On an aesthetic level, they both do it for me, the feeling of awe is there and they both incite the sense of intrigue that I hoped for. This is more important to me than how I made the photographs but conveniently they both do have anecdotes.
Abbot’s Cliff
When I arrived at Abbot’s Cliff the light was still peak midday sun - perhaps the worst lighting for the sort of pictures that I make. The light was creating a distractingly unappealing orb shape in the centre of the structure. I took my time working out which angle I wanted to shoot the picture from, set up the camera and sat in the grass reading a book waiting for the sun to change position. It took several hours of waiting but the sun did eventually pass over creating an eclipse effect. For me, this slither of highlight makes the picture what it is.
200ft wall at Dungeness
I took the three pictures at Dungeness on the second trip I made to the site. They were originally built on marshland but now a line of housing separates them from the sea. Over the years they have been subjected to kids vandalising them and idiots on BMXs using them as half-pipes so the council built a moat around them to stop all access. The first time I went to make the pictures I underestimated how deep the surrounding flooded trench was - it’s practically a lake in places - so went home empty handed.
The second time I went back with an inflatable to put all my gear on, stripped down to swim shorts and swam across. I put my clothes back on and spent the afternoon working out which were the best angles to shoot the structures from. The 200ft wall at Dungeness is just that, a massive concrete wall some 30ft high and 200ft across. I photographed the back corner at a diagonal so it would fit in with the other pictures in the series but I love how strange it looks.
You used a large format camera for this project. Could you tell us a little about the camera and lenses you typically take on a trip and how their choice affects your photography?
To confess, I am a bit of a camera nerd. As much as ideas drive my work, the tools that I use are always highly considered. I don’t always use the same camera for every project, I tend to experiment with different set-ups before I find something that works. For In Defence of Lost Causes, I used an Ebony 45SU which is a non-foldable wooden 5x4 field camera that allows for fairly extreme camera movements for its class and bellows that can take wide lenses without any issues. I wanted the structures, which range from 15ft to 30ft high, to fit the same area of the frame, I ended up using a Schneider 90mm f/8 which has a large enough image circle for extreme movements. In terms of camera movements, all of the images in the series used front-rise but occasionally swing as well (Selsely) to help with diagonal perspective and on occasions tilt (Dover 15ft) to change the focal plane to keep my shutter speed high enough to avoid slow-mo plants in the foreground.
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?
Yes definitely, these eureka moments where things just start to make sense. I remember the moment that I decided I wanted to be a photographer. I was maybe 17 years old, on a foundation photography course, trying to find quarries to photograph. It was before I was educated in the history of photography. I had this raw, untainted by the burden of research, idea that I would photograph quarries as if they were beautiful rolling landscapes. No one told me landscapes didn’t have to be idyllic views, that landscapes could also be of scenes tainted by man. Now, of course, this idea is unoriginal but at the time I had no idea. After hours of driving around, I eventually found a claypit quarry in St. Austell, Cornwall, UK. I remember scrambling up this slope, looking up and just dropping to the floor in total awe. I just sat there looking at the landscape in front of me for what felt like hours. The water at the bottom was a bright turquoise, the white sweeping cliff edge on the opposing side was marked with streaks of pink. A miniature forest had grown in the basin of the void and ducks swam carelessly in the bright pool. I tumbled down the steep slope and all of a sudden I was in another world.
Chase subject matter that you can really get your teeth into, with research that excites you so much it keeps you awake at night and technical considerations you have to really work for.
I had this feeling there was almost too much to photograph but just totally in love with making landscape pictures. Later, when all the films came out totally blank, I realised I had knocked the camera heavily when I clambered my way down. But it didn’t matter, I was totally hooked on photography after that.
The second hasn’t really happened yet.
If one of our readers was thinking about embarking upon a large project similar to yours, what insights and learnings would you give them?
Chase subject matter that you can really get your teeth into, with research that excites you so much it keeps you awake at night and technical considerations you have to really work for. For the work that I do, if a project doesn’t do all of these things then it is not worth pursuing.
What is next for you? Where do you see your photography going in terms of subject and style?
After Charlotte asked me to write an article for End Frame I spent some time searching through my collection of photography books trying to select a favourite image to write about. Then I asked myself why I was searching for a favourite image when it has been hanging on the wall for the past 10 or 15 years — and I’m still not tired of it! It’s “The Labyrinth” by Tasmanian wilderness photographer Peter Dombrovskis.
This is of course not the first time an image of Peter’s has featured in End Frame, which shows what a gifted photographer he was. His work gained prominence in the early 1980s when his photograph “Morning Mist, Rock Island Bend” was used as part of the successful campaign to stop the damming of the Franklin River in southwest Tasmania. He was a passionate environmentalist with a deep love for the Tasmanian wilderness and was widely regarded as one of the world’s foremost wilderness photographers. Tragically, he died of a heart attack while photographing in the Western Arthur Range in southwest Tasmania in 1996 at the age of 51. He was posthumously inducted into the International Photographic Hall of Fame in 2003, becoming the first Australian photographer to be accorded this honour.
I’ve been a great admirer of Peter’s work ever since seeing his collection of postcards, diaries and calendars on my first trip to Tasmania in the 1980s. He was able to bring out the essence of whatever he photographed, be it the wider view or the smaller, more intimate details in the landscape. In all of his images, his deep love and reverence for the natural world is apparent. Through his work, the general public glimpsed the wild beauty of the Tasmanian wilderness and, more importantly, what would be lost if it wasn’t protected.
Welcome to our 4x4 feature which is a set of four mini landscape photography portfolios submitted from our subscribers. Each portfolios consisting of four images related in some way.
Submit Your 4x4 Portfolio
Interested in submitting your work? We're on the lookout for new portfolios for the next few issues, so please do get in touch!
Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains are a small cluster of rugged granite peaks and crystal clear lakes, linked together by forests of pine. They are a favourite of outdoor enthusiasts of many kinds; day hikers, backpackers, paddle boarders and kayakers. mountain bikers, horseback riders, fishermen, photographers, etc. The mountains’ snowmelt feeds the rivers of central Idaho; the area’s main and only town, Stanley, is a mecca for rafters and kayakers. And for those seeking serene mountain panoramas, and the ambience of a small mountain town, there is that too.
Location
The Sawtooths are located in south central Idaho, in the Sawtooth National Forest. They are about the junction of Hwy 21 and Hwy 75. near the town of Stanley. ( population 68 in 2017 ) Twin Falls, Idaho lies 143 miles south of the Sawtooths, and Boise is located 132 miles to the southwest.
Weather
As you would expect from a high mountain locale, the temperatures are cooler than average. Summer highs average 79 degrees with a nighttime low of 36 degrees on average. During the winter months, Stanley is consistently one of the coldest places in Idaho. Keep your light coat or sweater handy, and you should be comfortable from May to October. It is a dry climate, the average rainfall is only 12.2 inches per year and snowfall averages 76 inches.
Photo Experiences
There are abundant photo ops in a relatively small area. The views begin about 5 miles west of Stanley, at Stanley Lake. This large ( for the area ) mountain lake is overlooked by McGown Peak, a large pointed buttress of granite rock. Several miles closer to town is a pull off that gives access a tremendous panorama of pole fence and sagebrush stretching out to a wide expanse of granite peaks topped much of the year with snow. Just across the road is a wide view looking down on a small tree-lined creek meandering thru a grassy valley. This creek is lined with the pole fencing characteristic of the area to keep the cattle out of the stream. About a mile west of Stanley is another paved pull off. A large open meadow area with a pole fence meandering back and forth leads your eye to another beautiful group of peaks. At dusk, the light on these mountains makes for a striking photo.
In town, a short drive up a small hill to the school and airport leads to another great panorama. Here is the Sawtooth Valley Meditation Chapel, a log cabin with large windows facing a scene that is fittingly peaceful and serene.
From the highway junction south, it is just a continuum of photo worthy views. My favourite is at Little Redfish Lake. An early morning stop yielded a still lake view with an impressive line of mountain peaks reflected in the water. Further down this same well marked side road, you can walk down to the waterline and photograph Redfish Lake with an impressive pine covered rock ridge on the other side of the water.
Back out on Hwy 75 headed south, it is difficult to drive because your eyes are drawn to the views you are driving by. By carefully pulling over to the side of the road or using access roads, I took picture after picture in the first 20 or so miles. My Canon 24-105L was set from 24mm to 70mm for most of these moderate distance photos. When you have travelled 25 miles, a road heads west to Alturas Lake. Alturas is another photogenic mountain lake with a large granite ridge backdrop. Out on the highway again, just a few miles further south is another lake, Pettit Lake. It sits in a similar setting as Alturas Lake. Past Pettit Lake, the road climbs and winds up a hill to Galena Summit. You’ll find a large overlook there, named for Frank and Bethine Church. (Frank Church was a well liked Senator from Idaho; the Frank Church Wilderness area is also named after him ) Here you can take in the quintessential view of the Sawtooths. You see them extend west into unroaded areas, and north all the way to Stanley. This view shows you clearly how rugged these bare granite peaks are, and the limited area they cover. It is 32 miles from Stanley to this panoramic opportunity.
Best Time To Visit
Summer can be quite busy in the Stanley area, with trucks and trailers stacked tall with river rafts parked along the roads; the parking lot of the gas station/convenience store can get quite congested. I was visiting during the 3rd week of June. I would suggest a little earlier or wait till after Labor Day if crowds turn you off. ( the area starts shutting down in mid-September when the temperatures drop ) For more information about the area, I would suggest the Chamber of Commerce’s website. It is very well done and full of the knowledge you will need to plan a visit.
This set of images, from my current researches, were taken on a trip to Shetland, in March this year. They are examples of where my motivation for taking the image is that I have perceived pathos, isolation, a feeling of being left behind in such human constructions. In doing so, I am endowing these buildings and objects with personalities and emotions of their own, as if they can feel pathos as we do. In my mind, these are not dereliction photographs, where evidence of former human presence and activity is the key motivation. Instead, these are buildings and constructions themselves demonstrating a stoicism, despite being abandoned, overlooked and apparently, no longer of value.
This concept of banal human constructions having anthropomorphic qualities shows up in many of my images. Other such qualities I have so far identified include Confrontation, Survival and Exclusion. Hopefully, by the end of the researches, I will understand what draws me to take photographs of such scenes and in the desaturated, flat lit ways that I do so.
In August 2018, I was travelling in middle France, searching for inspirational places, as there are many highlands there. I eventually came across these ones, they were one of the most isolated areas I've ever seen in this country, apart from the high mountains like the Pyrenees or the Alps. I always was really attracted by this kind of barren, windswept and uninhabited landscapes.
There is something really cinematographic in them, and this was exactly what I was looking for. So a few months later, at the end of the winter, in March 2019, I decided to go back there. There was still snow patches across the moors, a glacial north wind was blowing strong, and swarms of birds were waving under a darkened sky, only pierced by rare rays of light. The scene was reminding me of Andrei Tarkovsky's movies, Andrew Wyeth's paintings or the atmosphere of some series like Fargo or True Detective. So I kept these influences in mind and started a series to transcribe the ambience of these forgotten lands where almost no one lives, which I call the High Moors.
I went into photography pretty early, as a kid, with disposable cameras. Year after year, this art took a more and more important place in my life. Quite quickly, it became primordial, passing from a simple tool of testimony to a real medium of artistic expression. My work is now mainly focused on wild landscapes, but also strongly influenced by cinema or painting, and increasingly including a bit more human elements.
The danger always exists that our technology will serve as a buffer between us and nature, a block between us and the deeper dimensions of our own experience. Tools and techniques ought to be an extension of consciousness, but they can just as easily be a protection from consciousness. ~Rollo May
Inner experience is the subjective significance, or meaning, we each associate—intuitively and/or consciously—with certain circumstances and perceptions, and the emotions inspired by this significance. While some predictable commonalities exist in the significance most may associate with some known circumstances, generally speaking, we don’t all experience the same (objective) circumstances in the same way—what one person may find beautiful, heroic, tasty, or interesting, may impart altogether different perceptions in another. For example, a person raised in a religious tradition may feel intuitive reverence for the divine in circumstances where another, raised in a different tradition, may just as intuitively experience wonder and mystery without supernatural associations; a person accustomed to a certain cuisine may delight in dishes that another person of a different culinary background may find distasteful, and so on. While it may seem obvious that such things as tradition, education, personal sensibilities, or social norms, may influence one’s intuitive perceptions, what is less obvious is that we each also possess a considerable degree of conscious control in shaping our intuitive perceptions. Indeed, in some cases, a degree of conscious thinking and cognitive training may transform our experiences—in a greater sense, our perceptions of the world, of ourselves, and the courses of our lives—in pervasive and important ways.
Indeed, in some cases, a degree of conscious thinking and cognitive training may transform our experiences—in a greater sense, our perceptions of the world, of ourselves, and the courses of our lives—in pervasive and important ways.
In past writings, I touched on the personal value of favouring qualities of experience to qualities of photographs. This attitude has been so transformative for me, that I am no longer interested in making photographs unless they ensue out of some personally-meaningful experience (even if just a moment of peace and inspiration). But experience is not a singular quantity and has dimensions and varieties that warrant discussing more specifically.
In April, Tim and I went to the Isle of Skye for two days to see if we could get away from the madding crowds (even on a busy Bank holiday). I think we did OK but we wanted to ask our subscribers to send in their images from less travelled Skye locations. Although we're sure a fair few people would rather keep some locations quiet, a few people were willing to share there own favourite spots. A big thanks to all who appear below! There's still a couple of days left if you want to add yours!
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Toby Deveson
July 2015 using a Nikkormat and a 24mm lens. Taken on Kodak T-Max 400 and printed uncropped by me in my darkroom
Paul Marsch
Raasay Squall
Glen Brittle
Along the Sound of Raasay
Leslie Ashe
Trumpan, Waternish Peninsula Approaching storm
Loch Harport - a sudden shaft of light
John Liggins
Kylerhea to Breakish road through Glen Arroch looking back to the Knoydart Peninsula on the mainland.
Kylerhea to Breakish road through Glen Arroch looking to Knoydart Peninsula. Looking toward Broadford and The Cuillins in the distance
8083 near Torrin looking over Loch Slapin towards Bla Bheinn
Jo’s images have been punctuating my social media feeds for a while now, soft and personal expressions of her relationship with nature and the seasons, a perfect escape for the urban and the world weary. Her ‘A Year in Nature’ little squares are a good reminder of our country’s biodiversity where man has had a lighter touch. Hers was among several names that I know who graced the latest International Garden Photographer of the Year awards and for me it was a pleasure to see these individual interpretations doing well in the Abstract Views category. In 2018 Jo was awarded a bronze medal for a Portfolio of Photography at the RHS London Plant and Art Fair. We featured some of her images earlier this year in our 4x4 Portfolio and in this issue we’ll find out a little more about Jo and her passions.
Would you like to start by telling the readers a little bit about yourself – where you grew up, your education and early interests, and what that led you to do as a career?
I was born in London but grew up in the West Country, Alexandria in Virginia and New Delhi in India, so I guess I’m what’s known as third culture. I went to so many different schools, but my favourite was multi-cultural. I love everything about exploring different cultures and my childhood was peppered with exotic foods, words and sensations.
I’ve always been happiest alone and in nature. Not that you are ever alone in nature. I built a den in the garden hidden in the hedge and dreamt of living in it, away from the people world.
I took my O levels (that shows my age) in India and am still in touch with most of the class of 1985, despite us being spread across nearly every continent. For kids that led transient lives travelling we have managed to find a point in our life to put down some roots and stay connected. These connections reinforce my belief that we are all the same and seek the same things: love, security and purpose.
Year on year, digital sensors seem to improve, and with that, dynamic range expands. The figures look good with 11-12 stops being commonplace and the very best sensors capable of capturing 15 stops of dynamic range. This challenges or exceeds the previous benchmark, colour negative film.
Landscape images are often made in challenging, high contrast conditions, yet on the face of it most sensors – if exposed correctly – can handle that range. From the bright highlights to the deep shadows. It’s true the raw files need some work to reveal those details; fortunately, raw converters are up to the task with excellent recovery tools that can be used globally or locally.
The project, or series of photographs, is from the local area where I live, West Lothian. West Lothian itself is geographically quite a small county, situated in the central belt of Scotland. It's not my home county, that is County Antrim in Northern Ireland; However, it's somewhere I know well, that I have met a lot of wonderful people in and where I have chosen to raise my family.
Scotland itself is well known for the drama it conveys through its stunningly beautiful landscape and the diverse and intricate weather. However, the terrain of West Lothian is less 'eye-catching' and one has to look more carefully for images. This certainly didn't come easy to me at the start.
So why did I start this project?
Well, to be honest, it was almost forced upon me. Before its creation, I very much enjoyed chasing the larger scenes in the Northern territories of the Scottish Trossachs and Highlands.
Before its creation, I very much enjoyed chasing the larger scenes in the northern territories of the Scottish Trossachs and Highlands. The escapism and hugely obvious drama that greeted you every time you entered these areas created an excitement in me that was almost infectious.
The escapism and hugely obvious drama that greeted me every time I entered these areas created an excitement in me that was almost infectious. In fact, it was infectious - massively so.
However with an increased workload, family and young children and the ever-increasing fuel costs, I was driven to find photographic possibilities closer to home. I'll be honest, I resented this greatly at the beginning. I didn't want to drive or walk a mile from the house to see what I pass 10 times a day in the car. I wanted to chase the light in areas I'm so lucky to live near to, but I had to stick to the new plan.
Although the immediate visual 'grab' wasn't there from the low key terrain, I began to notice that West Lothian had a number of little woodland areas, owned largely by the Woodland Trust and other conservation agencies. I also began to notice that they offered their own possibilities for exploration and their habitats changed as the seasons developed. And within myself, I felt at ease and increasingly absorbed with the subtle views that were so close to my front door. So, since 2013 my whole mindset changed towards my natural landscape photography.
And now here we are, six years down the line. I have a real body of work created, consisting of approximately 50 images I am truly happy with. All the images have been taken within approximately 10 miles of the house and have been taken in short outings to the woodland, often before or after work. The support I have had for the work has been so wonderful, especially from others that specialise in the field of woodland photography. Without this continual support, would the series still be ongoing? Doubtful, as external 'drive' was greatly needed in the early days. Nearly all of the images have been taken on colour negative film, and whilst medium or process is not important, it has helped slow down my own approach to the project and has provided consistent tonal properties to the body of work.
Will the project ever be finished?
Maybe if I move house! However, I very much doubt it. Even when I visit a familiar scene, it is never truly the same as the previous time I set foot in the area. Over the next 12 months, I hope to print more and release a few limited edition box sets of images, however, the real enjoyment is just immersing myself in the familiar, knowing that I'm potentially adding to something I'm already proud of.
Tim Parkin: Having revisited these locations many times, what are the biggest changes you've seen?
John Irvine: The levels of deforestation at some of the locations have been a bit upsetting if I'm honest. There are a number of scenes that are no longer there. Whilst is it nice to have a negative of the scene, it is a bit of an awakening to the realisation of the long term existence of woodland areas.
In terms of intricate differences or changes, it is probably the lack of consistency in the seasons - especially with the mild winter we have had this year. I've pretty much given up on returning to scenes that have attracted me previously due to certain characteristics due to the fact that they'll never be recreated. The core form of the trees will often be fairly consistent, however foliage, leaf cover and the ever presence of mankind certainly do not remain the same.
The levels of deforestation at some of the locations have been a bit upsetting if I'm honest. There are a number of scenes that are no longer there. Whilst is it nice to have a negative of the scene, it is a bit of an awakening to the realisation of the long term existence of woodland areas.
TP: Do you have a favourite season or conditions to visit in?
JI: Not really if I'm honest. Due to logistical constraints, I rarely take pictures in Winter as I'm either at work or with family. Autumn is naturally a draw however I just shoot when I'm able to. This has been refreshing and doesn't pigeon hole the time of day I shoot in. I believe that this, in turn, makes me more creative and I feel that I don't go through the motions like I would if I always shot my images later Autumn/early November.
TP: Conversely, have you been surprised at some work created during 'lesser' conditions/seasons (mid-summer, harsh light, etc)?
JI: I feel that some of my stronger compositions have been in less obvious conditions as I don't have flamboyant colours, for instance, being the main draw to the image. I probably work harder during these occasions, and whilst I wouldn't say I'm overly successful, the reward when it does work out is often better.
TP: People are often worried about working in urban areas during anti-social hours - have you had any bad encounters?
JI: This hasn't been something I've ever really had to encounter. When I completed my Peace Walls project back home I was pretty careful regarding the logistics. I would often shoot during the long days of summer and would frequently be set up on locations at 5am, whilst people were asleep. The more natural based locations that were intertwined with an urban scene were often met with questions of interest and intrigue with some really lovely responses from people that you wouldn't expect. I did have to leave out a couple of locations that I would have loved to have photographed, however, this was a calculated risk due to employment/personal reasons.
TP: Did you bump into any other peculiar creatures (other than landscape photographers)?
JI: Ha ha, not really. In fact, on your point on landscape photographers, I have never met a single other person photographing a scene near to me during the woodland project. On reflection, that's hugely appealing and something I suppose I haven't thought a great deal about. The notion of me being the only person to have taken a picture of a particular scene brings a smile. This is not an elitist thing - as I still enjoy landscape photography of all forms, popular or otherwise, but more a quiet pleasure.
TP: Do you think your urban work in Northern Ireland has rubbed off on your local work at all?
JI: I would definitely say it has. Certainly, my images have been quieter than they were previously, in terms of tonal properties and the core forms within the compositions. My approach to thinks now has certainly got a more documentary feel, and I feel most satisfied, creatively speaking when I can combine nature and a documentary landscape.
It was pointed out by a couple of readers that I’d missed a couple of tests that they would have liked to have seen. These were a ‘scratch resistance’ test and a vignetting test. Whilst I didn’t foresee these changing the results really, I was keen to include them. I also promised a short video on each filter to demonstrate some of the usability issues I’d talked about in the last issue. Skip this section if you just want to see some more test results and videos.
As for many contributors to end frame, choosing my favourite landscape photo is an impossible task. Often the answer would be the photo that I have seen most recently. Instead, like some other contributors, I have chosen a photo with a message, perhaps even a prescient message as the photo was in a book published in 1986 and must have been taken well over thirty years ago before concerns with impact people were having on nature had reached its current level.
Choosing this photo is about Fay Godwin’s book, The Secret Forest of Dean (Redcliffe Press and Arnolfini Gallery in collaboration with the Forestry Commission, 1986), in which it is printed, as much as about the picture itself.
The book is one that has been on my shelves for at least thirty years, having been given to me because I was interested in photography because it was about somewhere local and possibly because it was favourably reviewed in The Guardian newspaper. I have looked at it periodically over the years but it was only very recently that I took a more serious interest in it, because I had started thinking about undertaking a similar project.
Individually, the photographs in the book might be thought unremarkable. They are all black and white and although they all have an excellent range of tones—the mark of good traditional darkroom work—many of them don’t stand out as particularly dramatic (though that may be because I have never seen the originals, only reproductions in a small paperback book). The first four images include two of sunlight streaming through trees and two of trees in mist but the rest appear to have comparatively flat lighting. A few have some clouds, though nothing particularly dramatic and several other skies are plain white. However, none of this stops the images from having an impact.
The theme linking these images is that Godwin focused on the marks that have left on the landscape, not avoiding in order to show a more beautiful natural landscape.
There are photographs of the industrial archaeology, of houses, smallholdings, a wrecked barge, a harbour pier, the decayed iron foundations of a bridge, a fence, and even some motor tyres dumped in a hollow by a tree. Not the usual subjects of landscape photography.
There are photographs of the industrial archaeology, of houses, smallholdings, a wrecked barge, a harbour pier, the decayed iron foundations of a bridge, a fence, and even some motor tyres dumped in a hollow by a tree. Not the usual subjects of landscape photography. In addition to showing the landscape as it actually was, she also documented the people of the area—the Foresters—and their way of life.
There are many images I could have chosen but the one I have opted for is a very simple image of a brick-built bridge spanning a former railway track bounded by a wall on one side and a low bank on the other (The Secret Forest of Dean, p. 59.) It is not the most dramatic image in the book—that prize would probably go to “Fence” or “Gossamers” with the wonderful sunlight streaming through the trees—but I find it a fascinating image.
The foreground is covered in leaves and the textures of the leaves and the wall, rendered in mid-tones, are clear even in the small reproduction in the printed book. The Romanesque arch of the bridge is framed on one side by a sapling leaning over with the wall leading into it on the other side. The whole picture is covered in fine detail. It is a beautifully balanced image. And then what makes the image for me is that the darkness under the bridge frames an image that is complete in itself—another view of the railway line overshadowed by another slender tree.
A seemingly simple scene, in which man-made objects and nature combine. The book tells us that the brickwork was deemed unsafe and had to be demolished, meaning that the view is no longer there.
Welcome to our 4x4 feature which is a set of four mini landscape photography portfolios submitted from our subscribers. Each portfolios consisting of four images related in some way.
Submit Your 4x4 Portfolio
Interested in submitting your work? We're on the lookout for new portfolios for the next few issues, so please do get in touch!
These sets of images are captured in different conditions and at different places around Milton Keynes, UK. While capturing these photographs I just had one thing in my mind and that was to capture the mood. In photography, light play very important role. You have to be there on location at right time.
I am an Amateur and a self taught photographer. I am into Photography from last 8 years and like to capture Nature and Landscapes in different weather conditions.
These photographs are a contemplation on the British and Irish peat landscape as a non-passive, productive environment. The primary intention of the work is to interrogate the effects of human intervention on the dynamics of our atmosphere using the tools of expressive photography. ‘Torfskeri’ is an Old Norse name for the iron tool for cutting peat.
In an effort to raise awareness of the environmental importance of peat and its ability to mitigate the worst effects of climate change I have travelled extensively, throughout the British Isles and Ireland photographing peat-lands. Research funding assistance for this project has come from The University Centre, Blackburn.
Peat is formed when land becomes water-saturated, limiting oxygen and retarding the natural decay of plant matter such as sphagnum moss. The process of laying down peat is incrementally slow, a layer of peat increases in depth by an average of 1mm per year. As a result, some UK peat bogs are 1000 years old and 10 meters deep. Ancient peoples would sometimes plunge sacrificial offerings in to the deep, dark wetness of these mires, the anaerobic, qualities of bogs preserves artefacts and remains. Each lowland raised bog provides an habitat for thousands of species of insects, hundreds of rare plants and endangered birds such as skylarks, curlew and snipe.
Since pre-history, and exponentially, throughout the agricultural, industrial and post-industrial revolutions, our bog-lands have been exploited by anthropogenic activity to provide fuel for heating, cooking and for horticultural purposes. In some countries Peat is harvested on an industrial scale, supplying energy for electricity power stations. Unfortunately some bogs are being quickly drained in order to satisfy the present demand for land to provide housing and property development.
3% of our Earth’s land mass is peat but peat bogs, being a carbon sink, store 30% of all terrestrial carbon. This non-renewable energy source acts as a vital sequester of Carbon Dioxide, Methane and Nitrous Oxide. When bog-lands are desiccated through cutting, burning, or draining these ‘greenhouse’ gases are released, contributing greatly to climate change.
The Torfskeri series is made using traditional photographic materials, primarily Ilford film and fibre based, matt paper, a Leica M camera and lenses and hand printed in the darkroom. Aesthetically, these pictures are evocative of the slick darkness and weighty substance of the mire material that Seamus Heaney, in his poem ‘Bogland,’ likened to “Black Butter.”
A bubble erupts on the turbulent water,
Unaware of the vastness
Of the expanse on which it rides,
Dancing on the high waves,
Braving the winds.
Innocent in its mirth
Happy since its birth,
Undaunted, by the threat of sudden burst. ~ K Ahsan
I've always been fascinated in the circular form where ever it's found from galaxies to atoms. I studied archaeology to degree level and the circle was a reoccurring theme in prehistory that particularly interested me. Following workshops, with Paul Kenny, my interest in the form was intensified and Paul has greatly informed this work.
These images were all made on my patio at home after some sharp frosts this winter. My eye was caught by an air bubble trapped under a thick layer of ice in an old washing up bowl left on the patio on its way to the veg plot. I started experimenting with this and found I could create more bubbles by tipping the bowl. I then looked around the garden and found frozen rainwater in the bottom of circular pots, I removed these and played, resulting in these images.
On the afternoon of the 2nd of February 2018, I witnessed an accident which truly shaped my practice as a photographer. When out filming two climbers at Avon Gorge in Bristol, tragedy struck on the cliff face just next to us. A climber had fallen, and his climbing partner ran over to us, pleading for our help. As I stood looking up at the cliff face, I could just about make out the rope which the climber was now at the bottom of, indicating the length of his fall. Rescue teams worked tirelessly for the hours that followed in an attempt to save the climber, however, they were not successful.
This incident, which will forever hold a place in my mind, had a strong influence on a recent project - ‘Buried in the Rocks’ and became the first location I shot for the project. After witnessing the incident, I began to research whether there had been any other fatalities like this one. At the time, in my state of naivety, I had not even considered that death could occur in such way, in doing an act that you have control over and you are doing because you enjoy it. Through my initial research, I found more fatalities like the one I’d witnessed and learnt that there were not just a few of them. Over the last 30 years, England and Wales Mountain Rescue have reported 91 deaths relating to climbing incidents alone and this number continues to grow.
Giants Cave Buttress, Bristol
Over the last year, I have been researching and planning visits to these locations to create a narrative documenting these tragic events. Before even picking up the camera, there was a huge amount of pre-planning that went behind a shoot. I’d find out as much as I could about the fatality from news articles as well as from the Mountain Rescue blog. This would provide me with information about both the incident and the location where it happened. From this, I’d move onto researching the location to put myself in the best position possible to be able to find it. I’d plan all my routes out on maps as well as printing off photos of the location and any details that could help. A lot of the time, I was looking for a very specific detail on the rock face to pinpoint that it was the correct location. I wanted to be as accurate as possible within my imagery so my main method was to hike to the specific grid reference relating to the fatality.
Each journey to a location came with an aspect of mental challenge. I often had the lingering feeling that the path I was walking on would have been the same one that the climber took just a few hours before his or her last breath. These thoughts sent shivers through my spine but after photographing a few locations, I think I became slightly immune to it.
I was able to photograph 38 locations which does not directly reflect the statistics from Mountain Rescue. The main reason for not photographing them all was because I could not find enough information about them. For obvious reasons, Mountain Rescue is unable to share information about the fatalities so, therefore, I was often relying on news articles and then using the dates to search the Mountain Rescue blog for the same incident. This meant I didn’t have much control over where I was going to shoot. Although this was frustrating, it was the only way I could do the project as I knew I had to be as honest as possible in the portrayal of these events.
Each journey to a location came with an aspect of mental challenge. I often had the lingering feeling that the path I was walking on would have been the same one that the climber took just a few hours before his or her last breath. These thoughts sent shivers through my spine but after photographing a few locations, I think I became slightly immune to it. It became something I had to do. The more fatalities I found, the more of a problem I felt this was. I was utterly shocked that so many people had died doing what they love - it was supposed to be fun after all, right? Further research around the story would often identify where it went wrong - there were stories from gear not being put in properly, to climbers leaving their helmet at the bottom whilst they climbed to the top, to only slightly misplace a foot and fall to their death.
My personal background within the outdoors meant that this project was do-able for me. Without the understanding of navigation, there wouldn’t have been a chance for this project to be capable of coming together. I am currently training to be a Mountain Leader which gives this project another level of meaning to me - a more personal one - in that I will one day be responsible for the safety of other people in the mountains.
The weather conditions and type of light I was shooting in didn’t particularly bother me for this project. I didn’t choose a particular season or time of day to shoot in because the project wasn’t about creating a specific look. What was more important to me was being honest and moral. I wanted to capture each place in the most realistic way possible. In addition to this, I was limited on time as I could only afford to go away for two or three days at once. This meant waking up to be at my first location for sunrise and shooting right up until sunset. It also meant I couldn’t be picky about the weather; I had to get out, no matter what the elements threw at me. I think my longest day was in Snowdonia where I was at Dinas Cromlech at 6am and photographed five locations throughout the day.
Dinas Cromlech
The trips were long and weren’t always successful which meant that the project needed a lot of time dedicated to it. The closest location I visited was an hour’s drive plus an hour’s walk from home. The weather also had a huge impact on what I did. The first time I visited Crib Goch in Snowdonia, I was greeted with fog and torrential rain. I had the camera out for 5 minutes before heading back down the mountain, for my own safety but also to save the kit. This resulted in a second 4-hour drive to Snowdonia a few months later. The second time, the weather conditions were much better which hugely influenced the shots I got; I was able to get up onto the ridge and explore much more within the location whereas the first time, I wasn’t even sure if I was pointing my camera at the correct ridge.
Crib Goch March 2018
Crib Goch October 2018
From the beginning, I knew I wanted the final outcome of the project to be in the format of a book. The narrative lent itself to be a book and as the project was long-term, it worked to have such a well-considered ending.
Every image had a meaning, and a story which earnt its place in the book whilst the underlying, albeit dark narrative, held the whole piece together.
Every image had a meaning, and a story which earnt its place in the book whilst the underlying, albeit dark narrative, held the whole piece together. Knowing what the outcome was going to be really shaped how I shot the locations. Once I’d done around ten locations, I put a dummy together which allowed me to see how the project was growing and what I needed to do next. It also allowed me to see how different photos were working together.
Initially, I had intended on having a location per double page spread to put full emphasis on the single person’s story. I imagined the full spread to be one image of the entire rock face. As the book evolved, I started to realise that I needed to shoot different angles and from different distances; I shot the crags in every possible way so that I had options when it came to the layout of the book. There was also a point halfway through the project that the way I’d photographed the crags meant they’d all have to be left hand pages. So, moving forward, I shot everything else to work on a right-hand page. This made the development of the project much more of a fluid process as I was constantly referring back to how the images were working together.
The final book is still in development; I’ve made a few copies and will be printing a larger number over the next few months. Recently, there has been a lot of news from Mountain Rescue about the growing problem with people heading into the mountains unequipped - most of the time they are referring to hikers more than climbers but the lack of ability to prepare for the worst catches the best of us out. Seeing the pleas from Mountain Rescue for help with getting the message out to the public, only confirms for me the importance of the project I have done and may continue to do. There are still many locations out there that I haven’t photographed which gives the potential for this project to continue. However, I feel the book has provided a natural end to the project and has successfully portrayed the narrative.
What motivates a landscape photographer to do what he or she does? What is the drive that makes the photographer pick up a camera and walk into nature, sometimes at ungodly hours of the day and in testing weather? What makes us keep spending time and (for most of us) money, to produce yet more pictures?
Of course, the answer is personal, and there may be at least as many answers to the question as there are photographers out there. But do you know the answer when it comes to you? And is the answer the same today as when you started out? Will it be different tomorrow?
For some of us, the answer will be so self-evident that it does not need any thought, the focus is in the doing it rather than reflecting on the motivation. But for quite a few of us, I believe the reason why we do shoot nature is something that is at least slightly obscured, even to ourselves. We might feel the desire to do it, feel the emotional reward; and want to take a particular kind of picture or shoot in a particular type of location or in a particular style. But we might not have put into words why what it is that really is the drive.
I think that whatever artistic craft you pursue, there is quite a lot to learn by reflecting on your motivations. Thinking about why you do what you do is a way of deepening your craft, putting more of yourself into the work. If you know why, you can zero in on that ‘why’ in your future work, making that even more focused towards your aim. But also, by thinking about the ‘why’, you might find something about your past work and about yourself that you may not even have given any thought previously.
Thinking about why you do what you do is a way of deepening your craft, putting more of yourself into the work. If you know why, you can zero in on that ‘why’ in your future work, making that even more focused towards your aim.
When I look at my own work, and also that of others, I am often first taken by the visual look. What emotions does it spark and how does it trigger my imagination? It’s often non-verbal, it goes right for the gut. I call this, the emotional hit. After the hit wears off, I start to analyse and my mind often goes first to technical stuff. What equipment was used, how is it composed, settings, location? The emotional hit and the technical analysis are both ways of learning from a picture. But in addition to that, I try to spend some time on every picture thinking about the ‘why’. What made the photographer take this picture. If it is my own, why did I take it?
Over the past six months, I have been running a podcast about landscape photography; talking to Swedish photographers about their work and zeroing in on why they shoot what they shoot. (Podcast “Fotografen och landskapet”, in Swedish only I am afraid).
My experience from the podcast and from also talking to many others in the community is that a photographer’s motivation for taking a specific, individual landscape photograph is often the same as the motivation for that photographer to be in landscape photography altogether. In some sense, each picture we take is a part of a bigger quest for our photography. A quest we pursue frame, by frame.
Living as we do in Ballachulish, we often hear news from the Isles, and particularly Skye, that they are overcrowded with tourists. It reached a fever pitch last year with CNN Travel listing Skye as one of their places to “avoid” and the police “advised visitors to stay away unless they had already booked places to stay”.
So when we were approached by Jakub Bors, landscape photographer and operations manager of the Skeabost hotel on Skye, about possibly working together on an article we asked if he could show us a few locations that would give a quiet time even on a busy day. Never one to turn down the offer of being spoiled for a couple of days, we arranged a date and it just happened to coincide with the Easter Bank Holiday weekend. What a time to test Jakub’s choices!
Now the Skeabost Hotel itself is in a pretty handy location, sitting just a few miles outside of Portree and we arrived and immediately decamped into Jakub’s car and started our lightning tour.
The first thing we did was to drive up toward the North of the island and this meant passing Portree and driving up past the Old Man of Storr and the Quiaraing. I decided to count how many cars were parked below the Storr but I when I got to about fifty and so I’d guess there were possibly another ten or twenty. It looked like a trail of ants making their way up past the clearfell toward the viewpoint. I’m not sure how the area copes with all of that traffic and no facilities of any sort (eww!!).
We were heading further North though and we skipped the Quiraing turn off and finally stopped at Duntulm castle, but not to visit it. Instead, we stopped a bit further round for a nice viewpoint. Unfortunately, photographically speaking, it was a gloriously sunny and blue sky day and closer to midday than sunrise or sunset. You might get some nice late evening light if you got the chance but considering the conditions, we decided black and white mode would make the most sense.
Still only seeing tourists from afar, we moved around the coast toward Uig and visited the Cave of Gold a Kilmuir. A bit more of a walk but the destination was a delightful Staffa’esque cave with basalt columns, lichen and solitude!
Managing contrast was an issue here but the A7R3 handled the conditions nicely and with a bit of dodging a burning produced something illustrative if not artistic.
Driving down to Uig took us past some lovely long distance views of Harris basking in the sunshine. We opted to park up and visit Uig Woods which were replete with Wild Garlic and almost budding bluebells. It’s a wonderful atmosphere if a little tough for photography but the falls and plunge pool at the end gave me a few minutes distraction. Still not having seen a soul we walked back to the car.
Up above Uig, we took a walk around the old cemetery which had a fabulous view of Uig bay and had some amazing moss and lichen covered gravestones - my only colour moment of the day!
We then encountered our first tourists as we tried to find a place for coffee. Talisker distillery and bay were heaving and we had our quick caffeine fix and ran away again. Jakub then said “We’re now off the Sligachan!” and I thought he’d gone mad!
I’d seen the crowds over there as we’d passed at 9am and heaven knows what it was going to be like at 3pm. Well, it was just as expected and we only just got a space in the car park. A quick wander around the old bridge and then Jakub led us upriver to a fantastic little waterfall which is probably known to photographers but is obviously just a few yards too far for tourists.
The water level was incredibly low and, with the possibility to get something a little original, I dropped myself into the middle of what would normally be a massive waterfall and found some nice eroded rock shapes with the opportunity to position a small cascade and a few mountains in the background. After a twenty-minute pseudo yoga session, contorting my tripod into the optimum position, I think I created my photo of the day. Time for gin and tonic back at the Skeabost!!
We continued our conversation at the bar and Jakub assured us that there are many more secluded places than he had shown us but he just wanted to show how you can get a quiet time as long as you avoid the icons (Fairy Pools, Fairy Glen, Old Man of Storr, Quiraing, Neist, Elgol, Kilt Rock and Talisker Bay). The difficulty with Skye is mostly to do with road access. So many people all using the same roads, so that even if you want to go somewhere quiet, you still get stuck. If anybody has been to the Lake District on a bank holiday weekend, they’ll know that this isn’t restricted to Skye though and I think the Lake District is a LOT worse in many ways. The win for the Lake District is the plethora of parking and facilities at most locations.
The following day, Jakub had put us in touch with a couple of friends, Janice and Ewen who run Seaflower, a boat making trips out to the Isle of Rona. They have an exclusive contract with the family that own Rona and this guarantee there would be no other sightseers island and it would be the ideal way to get away from the crowds. We boarded a very modern looking catamaran in the morning and then took a leisurely journey up the side of Raasay up to a bay at the bottom of Rona where some of the old sheilings were.
It was another glorious blue sky day so great for exploring. We spent a while exploring the area around the main bay which had some lovely rocky shoreline and wooded inlets. After a wonderful buffet dinner on board the boat, all locally caught by Ewen’s father, we then spent a couple of hours exploring the island. It’s not huge but there is a track across the whole length. You could easily spend a few days exploring here though, which is good as the owners of the island rent out a couple of cottages for a special getaway (£600-£700 for a week out of season).
We just had a wander around the bay where the cottages were and took a couple of photographs as we crossed the top of the island. Amazing views in all directions and the chance to see all sorts of birds like sea eagle and golden eagles. We saw a golden eagle, a bunch of oystercatchers and a curlew and loads of sandpipers. Pretty soon we had to return though although on the way back we hugged the coast of Skye and enjoyed an uncommon view of the Old Man of Storr.
So Is Skye ‘Closed for Business?’
From what you read in the newspapers and online, it would seem like Skye is ‘closed for business’ due to the overwhelming numbers of tourists and photographers. However, the truth is that, just like many other locations, the iconic viewpoints are getting more and more overcrowded. If you want a quiet time in Fairy Pools, you’d best do it mid-week in late winter / early spring and get in location for sunrise. Otherwise, go and explore for yourself and just avoid the few tourist traps and you’ll have a great time.
A big thanks to Jakub Bors and the Skeabost Hotel for acting as our hosts for the day and to Janice and Ewen of the Seaflower for a wonderful trip to Rona. The hotel is excellent and we can highly recommend it as a base for exploring the top end of the island. Likewise the Seaflower trip to Rona will please any non-photographers travelling with you and still give you some unique photographic opportunities.
Jakub’s Comments
The Isle of Skye is a legendary location for landscape photographers, and I am lucky enough to call this incredible Scottish island home. My four years on the island were filled with joy full of amazing moments with my camera, but also moments of concern when being able to see how much busier some of the favourite spots got over the past few years. There are several movements on the island trying to figure out how to control and redirect the thousands of visitors arriving at the island and all heading to the same locations.
As a photographer and someone who keep capturing the locations in their current state, I've decided to help by sharing photos from more unusual and hidden spots around the island. It's been over two years since I started this "project" and since then I shared hundreds of photos, guided two photography groups around those "rare" locations, and I am currently starting to work on my new YouTube project (keep an eye out here) with the Isle of Skye Landscape Photography series including over 40 secret landscape photography locations. I genuinely hope that all of this will help my fellow photographers and other visitors to discover more than just the five iconic places around this beautiful Scottish island.
Do you have any images of Skye?
A call out to our readers - if you have any images from off the beaten locations on Skye then please submit them to us and we’ll set up a gallery in the next issue of On Landscape.
Submit to:submissions@onlandscape.co.uk Details: Image to be 2048px long edge. Please include a caption of location and title for your image (and don't forget your name too!) Closing date: 1st June 2019
Sometimes you can remember clearly the first image that you saw from someone that made you sit up and take notice; in this case, it is ‘Cloud Construction’. Periodically since David Queenan’s images of the Forth Bridges have punctuated my feed, bringing back memories of the commute that used to sandwich my working days. Rather than restrict image selection to just ‘natural’ landscapes, I wanted on this occasion to include a number of David’s photographs of buildings and structures. I like the graphic quality of these, and they are a good reminder to us all to stop and look up. It also reinforces the point that, while we (or others) may consider ourselves primarily ‘landscape photographers’, there are no boxes in life and we need not limit our curious minds.
Would you like to start by telling readers a little about yourself – where you grew up, your education and early interests, and what that led you to do as a career?
I was born and brought up in Bo’ness, which is a small town in West Lothian about 20 miles to the west of Edinburgh. I still currently live and work there as a freelance graphic designer and photographer – it’s a very central location with good access to motorways and allows me to reach many of my favourite photographic locations within a couple of hours.
I attended the local schools and, although I wasn’t a great academic, I managed to come out with 5 O-Levels, 4 Highers and a ‘Sixth Year Study’ in Art, which was enough to gain me entry into the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee. Art was easily my strongest and favourite subject at school, and I was always drawing and painting in my spare time. I was a big fan of Yes at the time and always loved their album cover artwork by Roger Dean and decided that graphic design was what I really wanted to do – although, not realising at the time that very few designers actually get to work on album covers for famous bands.
How did you become interested in photography and what kind of images did you initially set out to make?
Kate Somervell is the first photographer to be under the spotlight as part of the 'Focus on" feature at Joe Cornish Gallery. The exhibition which runs from Saturday 11 May - Saturday 11 August.
We caught up with Kate ahead of her exhibition to find out more about what inspired her photography, her style and the challenge of producing a series of works.
What sparked your passion for photography?
Like many other photographers of a similar vintage, the words Kodak Instamatic may well take you back in time. A mechanical treasure with resounding clunks and clicks and a cartridge film. Having captured enough images to fill the cartridge often took some time, the random subjects included the countryside, beach walks with the dogs, family picnics, the odd birthday or family gathering. Finally, the cartridge was taken to the chemist for developing. The anticipation and excitement usually only lasted until the prints were collected, only to be followed by the crashing disappointment when looking at the results. The blurred images, head or a limb missing, and then the range of oh so helpful advice stickers telling me to hold the camera still, or whatever technical disaster I had achieved next, there were many. The carefree days of not having to worry about what was in focus or not, and what on earth did aperture or depth of field mean anyway, and as for composition?
At school, I did nothing to impress my art teachers, and painting or drawing were never within my grasp. But I loved handling a camera and I shot colour film for many years, albeit in a fairly random way. By now every walk was accompanied by a camera, and I was recording the countryside. The excitement of getting the prints back was never lost, and occasionally I got everything into the frame, however, I still understood nothing about light!
Many years later, I managed to free up some time and decided to learn photography. It was a very conscious decision and one I have never regretted, and I am still learning every day. My ambition at the time was to learn to take a half decent image. I had no idea this wonderful addiction would become a major part of my life that it has. It was early on in the days of digital photography and the quality was improving by the week, and so off I set off on my new adventure. I really just wanted to capture the magic of the countryside, the big sweeping views, the colour…or so I thought.
Why did you choose landscape photography as opposed to other genres?
Initially, I just wanted to record the world around me so it wasn’t really a decision as to what genre. In the early days, I was unaware of how many different genres there were. I wanted to capture big vistas as I saw them. That was what I saw, what I knew and where I felt comfortable.
Initially, I just wanted to record the world around me so it wasn’t really a decision as to what genre. In the early days, I was unaware of how many different genres there were. I wanted to capture big vistas as I saw them.
Then I discovered how incredibly difficult it is to do well! There are a few photographers who produce beautifully crafted landscape images which truly come from the soul, such as Joe Cornish and Paul Sanders. They are rare beings, and there are many imitators.
Whenever I get stuck or inspiration fails me, the most effective remedy is to change genre. I love to go and shoot some architecture or visit a city as I find the different challenges and change of environment really help me fine tune my vision when I am back in the field. A good walk with no camera can be equally effective.
Tell me about the photographers or artists that inspire you most. What stimulatedyour interest in photography and who drove you forward, directly or indirectly, as you developed?
There are so many artists and photographers whose work I admire. I was lucky to study art history years before photography took over! From Turner’s treatment of light or the clouds in a Constable to the exquisite detail in a still life by de Heem. The power of observation and interpretation is there for all to see if only we looked.
Going to exhibitions can be influential and inspirational. Last year The Shape of Light at Tate Modern was extraordinary and I visited a couple of times, it still wasn’t enough!
So many images have struck a chord with me from Edward Weston’s shells or dunes to the hauntingly beautiful images in the books of abandoned buildings by Simon Marsden. Graham Cook’s recent exhibition at the Joe Cornish Gallery, InnerVisible is a staggering collection of truly inspirational abstract works of art.
Fine tuning my vision over the years has been helped massively by the input of many photographers and writers, including Joe Cornish and David Ward. Duncan McEwan, Phil Malpas, Clive Minitt, Eddie Ephraums and Paul Sanders have all been major contributors to my development as a photographer.
Elizabeth Roberts, Editor of Black and White Photography, is the most extraordinary editor and writer, photographer and teacher with her skill in drawing both words and images from people in the most encouraging way.
I am hugely indebted to Charlie Waite, who originally suggested I concentrate on black and white many years ago, and also, for Light and Land which has been such a huge stepping stone through the best of its leaders.
Thank goodness you all have a sense of humour, and we have enjoyed much laughter over the years.
You enjoy the challenge of producing a series of work. Tell us more about how youapproach this and develop a series of images.
This has resulted from doing several Open Studio Workshops with Adrian Hollister and Eddie Ephraums in Wester Ross. Whatever the subject, there is always an outcome which more often than not is a series or set of images. These can be made into a series of sequenced prints or made into a book.
Sometimes I shoot a specific location or subject. Some series can be either a day or a week’s work, other times they can be much longer-term projects which evolve during the process and can end up very differently from the initial idea. Keeping an open mind and letting go of fixed ideas is really important. A seemingly stand-alone image shot today may become part of a series next month.
Sometimes I shoot a specific location or subject. Some series can be either a day or a week’s work, other times they can be much longer-term projects which evolve during the process and can end up very differently from the initial idea.
Who has specifically helped you in realising your photographic ambitions over the past few years?
The more photography I do, the more I realise the importance of collaboration. Attempting to do everything on our own is an uphill struggle. Sharing ideas and images with other people whether photographers, artists, gardeners or designers can be both supportive and instructive.
My heartfelt thanks to Joe who has given me an incredible opportunity to exhibit at the Joe Cornish Gallery. This has inspired me to keep making images so I can develop as a photographer.
It is wonderful to work with Jo Rose, Curator at the Gallery, who has been incredibly supportive. Some work has been accepted and some rejected, and I keep learning and improving. I am lucky to live locally so I am a regular visitor and to have such a great photographic resource on my doorstep is fantastic. And I couldn’t achieve any of this without the technical wizardry of Mark Banks.
Looking at the gallery on your website, I can see that you enjoy experimenting with different techniques in both photography and printing, as well as producing black and white images. Tell us about the various techniques including digital photogravure, that you have used and how you go about learning and developing a new technique.
Some techniques are relatively easy to learn as you go such as double exposures, where it really is just a matter of experimenting, trying things over and over again until you start to get the results you are hoping for.
Some techniques are relatively easy to learn as you go such as double exposures, where it really is just a matter of experimenting, trying things over and over again until you start to get the results you are hoping for.
However, sometimes if there is a lot of technical skill combined with equipment, such as photogravure printing, then it is really important to seek help from people who are true masters of their art. I went to Spain where I tried photogravure printing which I loved and was taught by Tariq Dajani. Whilst there, I went out in the mornings to shoot around the lake near where he lives. This resulted in the series of Reeds images.I returned to Spain in November where I spent a week with Tariq, to produce the final prints of the Reeds. As a technical perfectionist, he produced the acetates and prints, allowing me to concentrate on inking the plates and creating the final prints. That feeling of lifting the paper away from the plate on the press was amazing.
Polymer solar plate photogravure printing is a modernised version of copper plate printing. Firstly, the digital image is printed onto acetate on an inkjet printer. The acetate is then placed onto the polymer coated metal plate and exposed to UV light in a vacuum chamber, this hardens the polymer of the lighter areas and leaves the dark areas soft. The plate is then rinsed in water and dried and re-exposed to UV light. Then the plate can be inked and wiped before it is placed onto a dampened piece of paper and manually pulled through a traditional etching press. Every print made involves this latter part of the process so it is both intensive and time consuming.
It was wonderful to be involved in a process that was both mechanical and physical, very far removed from digital ways and pressing the button on a printer.
What new techniques have you tried but not continued with and why? What hasworked and you’ve then incorporated into your photography?
There is such a variety of techniques to try, and I find it fun experimenting. Personally, I really struggle with ICM and it is the least successful and therefore least used of the techniques I have tried. It has become incredibly fashionable, and in my opinion, can be greatly overused! Occasionally, however, somebody produces an image that is
staggeringly beautiful. Never say never….
On the other hand, I love shooting double exposures. Creating them in camera is truly challenging, to get two perfect compositions that really work together to form one final image is very satisfying. I haven’t yet got to multiple exposures; I am sure it is a matter of time……
I love shooting double exposures. Creating them in camera is truly challenging, to get two perfect compositions that really work together to form one final image is very satisfying. I haven’t yet got to multiple exposures; I am sure it is a matter of time……
You have a defined style which concentrates on tone, texture and structure, and some of your black and white landscape images are very abstracted. How have you developed your style? Has this changed or evolved over time?
Over the past decade, my style has changed drastically. From the early ‘colour, wide vista’ days to the black and white images of today. This really is the result of taking thousands of images and more importantly to sharing work and being helped by some amazing photographers. I have been incredibly lucky to meet so many people who have helped me while starting to understand a little more about both photography, and myself.
I now have more time for photography, to try new techniques, and digital photography has given me the freedom to experiment. The instant feedback on the LCD at least gives us a guide to whether something has potential or not.
The most significant change is that I think my visual awareness has developed and I see better, there has been a downward spiral in my stress levels and I am much more connected to my subject, and I give myself permission to experiment, and if something doesn’t work, it doesn’t matter. There is always another way.
Your website is called ‘Solitude Photography’ rather than just your name like most photographers. Can you give us some background on the name and the significance for you?
Like many other photographers, I am happiest on location and hiding behind the camera. This seems to be true for virtually every photographer I talk to. Sharing work is extremely important, it can inform, educate and inspire. At the same time can make us feel vulnerable, and for many, exhibiting is about the work more than the photographer. The name Solitude Photography works for me on several levels. Landscape photography can be a solitary existence. We are often alone in the field, processing, and printing. It can be really valuable to share work in progress, to get help with editing, advice on things that work together. This needn’t be with other photographers, but sometimes other creatively minded souls. I hope many of my images convey a sense of peace, even though some are much busier, others more ethereal.
The Joe Cornish Galleries are launching a new series of exhibitions for gallery photographers called Focus On, where their work will be displayed for a three month period.
You’re the first photographer to display their work in this new series of exhibitions. Tell us how that came about and what you’re most looking forward to for this exhibition.
Jo Rose, Curator at the Joe Cornish Galleries really understands the value of sharing work. I have been showing work here for some time and I had a mini exhibition called Life on a Lead which was a fun way to start. I am lucky to live in North Yorkshire so I can visit regularly and I think Jo could see commitment, determination and ambition as well as the ability to deliver. We had been talking initially about displaying the photogravure series, and then she approached me with the idea of ‘Focus On'. This gives the Gallery Photographers a fantastic opportunity to engage with their work on a different level, and for a much longer period, and to engage with visitors and to hear their opinions.
Events including talks and ‘meet the artist’ means we can share our work on a much more personal level, to talk to visitors and get feedback on our work. This is not an exhibition in the truest sense or a complete body of work, but about showing a greater variety and depth of work, seeing what works and doesn’t, and what visitors respond to.
It is both a privilege and a responsibility to be the first photographer in the ‘Focus On’ series, and it is probably the only time in my life where I will be followed by David Ward!
Tell us about the images that you’ll be exhibiting. Will you be displaying a new series of work?
The images are quite a mixture, and that is the whole point about Focus On…because it is an opportunity to show a wider selection of images than one might show in an exhibition.
Firstly, there is the limited-edition series of photogravure images of reeds which were shot and printed in Spain.
The other images show a much wider variety of both subject and style. From woodland to the coast, with double exposures, high key and abstract images all included. The majority were shot in North Yorkshire, and others from Venice, the Lake District
and Scotland
If it is a series of work that you are exhibiting, how are you approaching the sequencing of the images in the exhibition? What visual and non-visual narrative do you want to leave the audience with?
The exhibition space in the room is divided up by doorways, windows, bookshelves and a mantlepiece. This structure breaks the space down into smaller groups which is great.
The photogravure series of reeds will be displayed on one wall, along with acetate and plate and a brief description of the process.
The exhibition space in the room is divided up by doorways, windows, bookshelves and a mantlepiece. This structure breaks the space down into smaller groups which is great.
The remaining images will be subdivided into smaller groups and the sequencing will be led predominantly by tonal range.
Although I have measured the space available and done basic layouts, it is really important to be flexible. One can suddenly see new combinations that are a complete revelation. However, this may well change depending on what looks right and Jo Rose and I think on the day.
I love being outside and surrounded by the natural beauty of the world around us. I feel a strong connection with the landscape, and it would be wonderful if the audience could relate to an image on some level, whether it is how an image looks or feels. Sometimes we need to slow down, be still or look for longer. Whether it is walking in a park, or past a tree on the street, stop and look, and look again, now what do you see.
The slower I work in a location the more potential images I see. This is about being receptive to the world around us, and to find moments of peace or calm in this frenetic world we live in. Just ‘being’ is a great thing to achieve as it seems we spend our lives always ‘doing’. That solitude, peace and stillness, is there if we choose it.
Tell us more about the printing and framing of the images for the exhibition e.g. paper, size etc.
The photogravure series are printed on various handmade or Somerset papers which are off white and textured. The paper is hand torn before printing which gives a deckled appearance. They are float mounted in a box frame.
Image/Plate size is 122 x 152, paper (approx.) 198 x 260, and frame 357 x 410. All the other images I printed on Fotospeed Signature Platinum Baryta 300 and close mounted, and both sets are in limed oak frames. Image 98 x 127, Frame 325 x 340.
I am indebted to Andy, Paul and the team at Wensleydale Galleries in Leyburn for their patience and all the trials we did in getting to the final stage of mounting and framing or the exhibition.
Tell me what your favourite two or three photographs from the exhibition are and a little bit about them.
That is a tough call! The three images I have chosen all have one thing that unites them, I keep discovering new details in them, details I hadn’t noticed before.
I love working in mist and fog, although it can be a battle to keep lenses dry. Judging when it is going to clear can be tricky as then the light can change very quickly. This woodland image was just one of those moments and I love the depth within it.
When I was first playing with double exposure, I was shooting autumn woodland, so there were lots of beech leaves on the ground. I tried many different combinations over quite a length of time and then one day it suddenly came together.
Water abstract holds my attention, simple yet complex.
What sort of post processing do you undertake on your pictures? Give me an idea ofyour workflow.
As little as possible! Post processing is the least enjoyable part of photography for me. However, it is the necessary evil on the route to producing a good print. I use both Lightroom and Silver Efex, the latter I find particularly effective in the treatment of mid tones. Later in the year, I will revisit Photoshop which I think I will use for specific
techniques and that may seem less daunting.
What is next for you? Where do you see your photography going in terms of subjectand style?
I have some ideas rattling around for a book which I started this year and will continue
to work on next year, and maybe beyond. In terms of subject and style, I honestly do not know, and that is fantastic.
Many thanks, Kate for your time. Kate's exhibition runs from Saturday 11 May - Saturday 11 August at the Joe Cornish Gallery.
Kate will be in conversation with Joe Cornish at the Galleries on the afternoon of Thursday 16 May and will also at the gallery for 'Meet the Photographer' event on Saturday 13 July.
Our Graduated filter system tests are nearly at an end (or at least at a point where I’m happy to commit to some conclusions as someone has just reminded me about vignetting tests and a final video in the field).
The latest couple of tests that I’ve undertaken have been about usability, both in terms of getting the filters on and off, rotating polarisers, inserting graduated filters, etc and finally seeing how easy they are to keep clear of water and dirt. Plus I’ve weighed the filter components and looked up the prices.
NB: Since making these tests we have been contacted by Cokin who would like to add the following "At the time the test and review was conducted, Cokin’s UK distributor was only able to supply the CR39 resin X-Pro filters. Whilst these performed well, they are not up to the standard of certain glass filters. However, Cokin do now have a full range of high-performance, glass ‘NUANCES EXTREME’ filters available and Tim will be reviewing these soon, when Cokin’s new filter holder system is launched". Hopefully we'll follow up this review with some extra changes that have happened across a range of filters.
Inserting and Moving Grads
My first analysis looks at how easy the filters are to insert, move up and down and whether they are ‘sticky’ or not. I did this by measuring the amount of force needed to make each movement and then assigning some ‘weightings’ to each to give a final score.
Here’s a screenshot of the graph of results, click here to see the full spreadsheet.
I wouldn’t worry too much about differences of a point or two here. I would have four main groupings
Very Good
H&Y, ProGrey, Wine Country and Lee with Kase
Good
Lee (old and new) and Breakthrough
Average
SRB, Firecrest, Benro, Kase, Haida, Nisi and Sirui
I’ll cover some of the actual differences when we get to the usability scores and the description of each later in the article.
Usability
Personally, as long as any colour casts are within a reasonable range, it’s the usability of a filter system that makes the biggest difference (cost aside for a moment) and so I’ve spent the last few months trying out the different systems in a range of conditions. I’ve also tried each system using gloves of various thicknesses as well to simulate those cold winter mornings when the last thing you want is to fight with your equipment on top of freezing half to death.
Here's a screenshot of the usability results which you can access directly by clicking on the image.
As you can see the columns show different aspects of usability which should be self-explanatory. The 'security' column shows the risk of knocking the adapter off or not attaching it correctly. Also, the chance of dropping or knocking off graduated filters or polarisers.
And here's a screenshot of the glove testing which you can access directly by clicking on the image.
The thin gloves were a pair of fleece thinsulate gloves (such as these, the thicker pair were Rab Guides (see here).
Water Shedding
I wanted to check just how good the water-resistant/easy clean coatings were and so I made a few tests where I used a spray bottle to slowly soak the filters and then gave them wipes with a wet chamois and then finally tried to clean them properly using a dry cloth. Here’s a photo of all of the filters in their wet state.
The results surprised me as I was expecting just a small difference and the filters to be grouped into resin, uncoated and coated but in fact, there were lots of finer-grained differences. The very best filters kept the drop size quite small when the filter was getting wet and shed the water easily. Here's a comparison of the way the drops formed between a good filter and a bad filter - in this case, Breakthrough (left) vs Firecrest (right).
They also were fantastic when wiped as the only remaining bits of water were very tiny and could hardly be noticed through the viewfinder and these dried off quickly because of their size. The worst ones just smeared big blobs of water everywhere and remained wet even after wiping. Here’s a comparison sample of the best to worst filters (in this case Breakthrough, Haida, Lee and SRB).
We also noticed a difference in the way that the filters cleaned. Some filters (such as the Wine Country/Blackstone shown below) smeared a lot. This couldn’t be seen through the viewfinder but was annoying never-the-less). Some cleaned OK after a few wipes (Resin filters) and most of the glass filters cleaned quite quickly (the best corresponding to the best in the water wipe test). I factored this into the water shedding results but it was only a small factor and didn’t change order of results.
Here's the final table showing the water shedding scores which you can access directly by clicking on the image
Here’s a gallery of all of the water shedding results :-
and here is a gallery so you can see each in close up.
Overall Scores
Before we get to the final overall results, I wanted to include three tables showing the colour accuracy scores from the previous issues and also the price and weight tables. Click on the table to access the full google spreadsheet.
Colour
Weight
Price
I have created a table of results showing various aspects of each system and grading them as a percentage. These ‘scores’ will inevitably have a little bit of subjectivity and arbitrariness about them but along with the short video on each system in the next issue and my written description you should get an idea when they rate as they do. I’ve created a weighted total in the last column, one taking into account price and weight and the other excluding them.
I’m reviewing these in the order of the total which takes into account price and weight. If you exclude price and weight the order doesn’t change too much but the Wine Country and Sirui both go up one place.
H&Y
The H&Y filters were a late addition to the tests and were a recommendation by Giovanni Coronna and I’m very grateful he did so as they’re probably my favourite filters (despite the price, more on that later).
The main things to know about the H&Y setup are that the filters are in caddys, and very secure ones; they mount magnetically; the polariser/ND’s use a drop in system with a cog for adjustment (which I love); and the holder uses a slightly add way of attaching which seems insecure but is actually ok once you’re used to it.
Magnetic filters
This is the obvious talking point and looks a bit like black magic when you first play with them. Given the price of the grads, I was a bit nervous at first. However, knowing that the grads are made from Corning Gorilla Glass (like the latest phone screens) and that they have the caddy to protect the edges (where breaks usually start) I didn’t feel too bad. However, what looks like a screw lock to prevent the filters being knocked off is just a tension lock to prevent accidental adjustment up and down. I did a quick check on how much force you need to actually knock them off made me think it would be good to have an accessory slot at the front to prevent and to give a little mental reassurance if you’re hanging over cliffs or mountains, etc. I’ve used this system more than most though and never had a problem (including hanging over cliff edges in Skye). UPDATE: H&Y confirmed they are releasing a replacement front design that clamps the filters in place which will be released before Autumn hopefully.
The big advantage of magnetic filters is the ease of use of the system. It’s so easy to quickly place a grad on, especially with gloves, and stacking two filters was very simple with the cumulative magnetic force actually making the second filter more secure.
Drop in Polarisers and ND filters
Both H&Y and Haida use a drop in filter system and in my mind it’s the ideal solution to annoyance of screwing in and unscrewing filters. The second best alternative is the magnetic polariser system used by Kase and Breakthrough. H&Y’s drop in filters have a very prominent adjustment wheel with a good action and which uses a detent system to hold the filter in place (which means it won’t drop out even shaken around upside down). H&Y have a few options for drop in filters including a polariser, 6 stop ND & polariser combo and a 10 stop ND with rumors of a drop in variable ND later this year.
Corning Gorilla Glass v3
If you’re spending a lot of money on filters, taking care of them becomes a major factor. Having filters made of toughened glass makes a big difference and having been sent a sample by Kase and thrown it around on gravel and concrete I’ve been very impressed at their strength. H&Y filters go a step further and use Corning’s Third Generation Gorilla Glass. This is substantially stronger than toughened soda lime glass (B270) which you can see here. At £200 a filter, I haven’t tried throwing them around but with the caddy system protecting the edges, I think you’d be hard pushed to break them from normal drops.
Unusual Mounting System
Unlike most filter holders, the H&Y has a novel way of mounting onto their adapters. It’s best to watch the video to see how this works but the following photo might make things clear but it’s like the Cokin way of attaching but with a couple of locking screws either side.
I was at first a bit sceptical of this but in the field, it works well, even with gloves on, and is quite secure. It takes a little adapting too if you’re used to the usual side clipping system though but it’s probably just as secure and as easy to use once you do adapt.
Conclusion
Overall the H&Y is an excellent system, good quality graduated filters with magnetic mounting, simple usability through drop in polarisers and NDs and all reasonably lightweight. Definitely my pick of the crop.
Kase
My choice for second place went to Kase because of a great balance of very few negatives, the cost is excellent, they’re the lightest system (for a holder and four grads), the water repelling was great, they’re easy to use and they’re the best classic filter system in my opinion. The weight can be reduced to sub-resin levels if you wanted to get their 1.1mm system as well!
So let’s take a look at some of the details of why we liked Kase
Graduated Filters
The filters are B270 toughened glass and from my own rough tests are very tough indeed. Kase supplied a sample of the glass which I’ve been throwing around on concrete and gravel to no ill effect. The colour accuracy of the filters is also very good indeed with the 1.1mm filters testing the very best using a spectrophotometer. I also like that they include a ‘medium’ filter (as do Lee, Haida, Nisi and 84.5).
Holder
The holder is the lightest on the market if you include the polariser and second lightest, just below the new Lee holder, if you don’t. It’s also the simplest to use and the only two negatives I can raise about it are that it uses a screw in clamp (I’d like to see a simpler spring latch with a screw in lock) and the polariser is hard to remove with gloves on.
Polariser
The lightest polariser going at 20g, because it excludes the rotating system (this is a permanent feature of the adapter). It’s a magnetic system which makes it very easy to attach (although harder to remove because of clearance).
Conclusion
A really good value, classic polariser system. Currently the best ‘heir’ to the Lee throne.
The Rest
Below H&Y and Kase which I think would be first and second by most ways of judging, in our weighted scoring table are a bunch of systems quite close together and the relative order changes a bit if you change the weighting. I would say that Breakthrough, Haida, Nisi, Lee, Benro and Wine Country would all make most people very happy. They each have their advantages and disadvantages including price and weight. It depends on what you value and how you use your filter systems. I’ve worked out my own weightings and hence results and will order these comments based on these.
Breakthrough
Despite the slightly hyperbolic marketing (no they weren’t the first at everything and no they don’t have the most colour accurate polarisers, ND or grad filters), the Breakthrough was generally pretty good across the board. I like their glass filters which felt great and shed water and dirt exceptionally well. I also give bonus marks for polariser usability and simplicity.
Magnetic Polariser
Although a lot heavier and more bulky than the Kase polariser, the Breakthrough one is a lot easier to attach and remove. It’s adjustment is via a ribbed ring sitting on the adapter itself. I have to make a personal objection to the way that some filter systems have a bulky adapter (with some others like the Nisi forcing the use of step up rings). I much prefer a simple adapter ring with no strings attached (although I forgive Kase the simplicity of their adapter which includes a rotating front as it is still compact).
The polariser is really easy to locate and it snaps in with a strong magnet. However, it is quite stiff and unless the adapter is screwed into the lens well, I have had it unscrew on me as I try to adjust the polariser (familiarity may make this easier though).
The polariser can be removed without taking the system apart as long as you’re not wearing thick gloves (unlike the Kase, for instance, which needs a prominent nail to hook under)
Classic Slots
One of the joys of the Breakthrough system is the use of classic slots for filters, just like Lee have used for years. This isn’t a bad thing as it makes inserting and adjusting filters very easy with little faffing and sticking. Sometimes simple is good!
Conclusion
So the Breakthrough scored pretty well through being very usable, especially with gloves on, having easily manageable filters and not being too bad in the other departments. A solid showing.
Haida
This is another drop in filter system which gets bonus points for polariser usability but it’s not quite as easy to use as the H&Y one. However, the rest of the Haida system is also good. It’s easier to use with gloves than the Kase system although inserting grads needs a little bit of practise as they don’t line up quite as easily. We tested both the Haida RD and normal Haida. The colour of the RD was definitely better with the obvious advantages of robustness and seemingly a bit better coating.
Drop in Polariser and ND
The Haida drop in polariser uses a pinch lock system which seems more secure than the H&Y (although I couldn’t get either to bunch passively once inserted fully). This can also be used for ND filters and is excellent at stopping light leaks. The drop in filters are also lightweight.
Graduated Filters
In colour terms, the Haida were more than acceptable for general use but they weren’t as accurate as the other glass filters and had more variability (most had a small cool cast). They also weren’t great at shedding rain and wiping off water. The holder does make inserting grads slightly more difficult as the ‘tension’ on the sides of the slots is positioned to it resists just as you start inserting the filter and the slots aren’t very deep which means you have to get the filter exactly aligned to insert cleanly - not a major issue as I imagine you would get used to it.
Conclusion
A good system that ticks a lot of the boxes. The grads could be more colour neutral but they’re good enough that most won’t notice (and way better than most resin filters). The holder design with the drop in polariser/nd system is the way to go in my opinion but there are a couple of usability issues with this (more difficult in gloves) and the aforementioned grad insertion issue that means it didn’t get a better score.
Nisi
The Nisi system is a very good value setup, especially now they produce their cheaper tempered glass filters, and has pretty good usability. There’s certainly nothing to dislike about the system but there are a few minor niggles. We tested both the 'optical glass' Nisi filters and also the toughened 'Explorer' range. There was no discernible difference in colour or sharpness.
Combined Adapter and Polariser Mount
A few filter systems tested use the combined adapter and polariser system. Kase, Firecrest, ProGrey, Breakthrough all have some version of a polariser mount and a way to rotate it. My issue with this system is partly the increased bulk on the end of each lens (if you have an adapter per lens) or having to screw a single adapter on each time you use it.
Kase and Firecrest make a very slimline version of this where you’d be pushed to tell at first that it uses this system. Breakthrough and ProGrey use larger versions with a knurled ring around the edges to rotate the filter. Nisi uses a more complex system where the adapter has the cog included and has to use step-up rings to adapt your lens to the adapter.
Personally, I prefer to have a simple adapter permanently mounted to each of my lenses.
Screw Mount Polarisers
Nisi also use a screw mount polariser which makes usability an issue in some cases. They do mitigate some of the issues by having a very short throw thread (only takes a half a turn to screw down and it locates the start of the thread a lot quicker than other systems) but it’s never going to be easy with gloves on. It’s nowhere near as bad as the Benro polariser which I can’t actually remove at the moment (despite stripping my nails off in the process). Magnetic attachment or drop in polarisers is definitely the future.
Toughened Glass Filters
If you’re spending double the price of the Lee filters to get a glass system and using them outside in some difficult conditions, the last thing you want is to have them break even through small falls. Nisi has made a point out of saying their filters are made from optical grade glass and try to explain in their literature that they think their toughened glass filters are inferior optically. The claim doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny, however.
The supporting literature says “"Is image quality different? Yes! You may not see a great deal of difference". In fact, you almost certainly won't see any difference because of the glass material itself as B270 (toughened glass) is used for lenses as well as the ‘optical glass’ H-K9L. The difference is a very slight change in light transmission and a tiny difference in refractive index. For a complex lens design made out of H-K9L might have a bit more transmission than a similar lens made using B270 but for the 2mm of filter in front of the rest of the filter system there will be no visually discernable difference. As for optical quality, as they are both used in lens systems, the optical quality will be governed by whether the filters are optically flat or not. In my own tests (in a previous article) I couldn’t see any difference between any of the glass filters tested, even though I was photographing through the filter held at 45 degrees to a 400mm lens at nearly 50mp.
Personally, I think the cheaper, toughened glass filters that Nisi have just introduced under their “Explorer” brand are a no brainer purchase.
Conclusion
A very competent filter system with few major disadvantages (most of which are to do with the adapter and polariser).
Benro
Benro threw in a real curveball with their graduated filter system. Not only did they include a caddy system but it has cogs on the side and has a geared system to move them up and down. Overkill? Read on!
Geared Graduated Filters
In the quest for more selling points, Benro has introduced what has to be the most bling. A geared system for adjusting the height of graduated filters. Each caddy has linear gears on the side and the main holder has a big red wheel that you can push or pull to align with the slot you wish to adjust and, once engaged, you can sit behind your camera and tweak to your heart’s content.
In reality, I found a couple of issues with this. The first is that the way the caddy inserts into the holder means it’s very easy to ‘cross load’ them. The second is that it’s really solving a non-existent problem. There hasn’t been a situation where I couldn’t just move the filters up and down with my fingers. I suppose I might be able to contrive a situation where I had three filters and the middle one was lower so I could only access the bottom where it stuck out. But I’d be happy to work around this.
Conclusion
Personally, I think the geared graduated filters are a bit of over-engineering. Others may find the feature useful so I’ll leave that open. The rest of the Benro system is OK - the graduated filters are good but not as colour neutral as some. The polariser attachment lets the system down and is very difficult to remove. Overall it’s an OK system that I’m sure many people will be happy with.
Lee
Lee have just redesigned their filter holder and it’s definitely an improvement over the old holder. The ability to lock the filter holder so it can’t get knocked and also lock the rotation if desired is a big win (you’ll know what I mean if you’ve ever had to look for the brass spring and knob, usually dropped in long grass). The holder itself now looks like a sports car accessory dressed in faux carbon fibre and electric blue flashes. However, it is actually injection moulded plastic which still has the benefit of being lighter than a metal equivalent and makes the new Lee holder the lightest on the market at 52 grams.
New Latching Knob
Excuse the title of this section but I wasn't sure what else to call it. Essentially the new knob has a second blue ring on it that allows you to lock the filter on in one position and in the other to lock the filter on AND stop rotation, In practise, they seemed very similar and both did the locking job but made it hard to rotate the filter.
New Slots
The new slots are slightly different and make it easier to insert grads but they are a little ‘stickier’ than the old system (not by much though).
It’s worth mentioning that this ‘stickiness’ was noticed as an annoying aspect of a few of the holders tested (by stickiness, I mean the difference between the force to get the filter starting to move vs the force to keep it moving. If the starting force is high then the filter can ‘jump’ in position). For instance, the Haida holder was very sticky, as was the Nisi. On the other hand, ProGrey was amazingly smooth, as were the Lee and Breakthrough systems. When you’re making minor adjustments to grad positions, this stickiness can be quite annoying.
Polariser Mounting
Lee’s old method of mounting polarisers was a bit of a pain. It involved undoing the slots and then adding a metal ring to which you could screw in the overside polariser. Most people I know had two adapters, one with and one without the polariser, just to make things easier. The new system mounts the polariser onto a plastic adapter which has ‘clips’ either side which then push onto sockets on the filter slots. The polariser mounts easily enough and it has a nice cogged outer ring for adjustments but mine is exceptionally stiff to remove. I imagine it could get easier over time but I’ve yet to be able to remove it without first removing the adapter from the camera.
Graduated Filters
The graduated filters by Lee turned out to be the most accurate of all tested. This was very pleasing to see. However, I also tested some of my older filters (over 10 years old) and the results weren’t quite as good (to say the least). I won’t include those results here but I wouldn’t be buying them based on my tests.
Then again, I’ve used the old set for lots of photographs I’ve been very happy with which just goes to show that you don’t need perfect to be very happy with the results. Considering the price difference from the Lee filters to other manufacturers glass filters, you could easily replace Lee at least once and still be cheaper. There is a definite shift in colour over the years with Lee’s resin filters though.
The big issue with Lee’s filters is really the problems around dealing with static and also water shedding. Keeping them clean and clear was substantially harder than the better glass filters. Living with cats as I do means that the Lee filters probably had an extra stop of density reduction just through hair accumulation (OK, not quite that bad but you get the idea)
Conclusion
Both Lee’s old and new filter systems do the job very well for just graduated filters and the old system was really only let down by the polariser mounting. The new system solves some of that with a few teething problems. Not the most usable but you wouldn’t go too far wrong with it.
Wine Country Filters
The Wine Country system is one that I had very high hopes for. The developers have approached the problem with a “no holds barred” mentality and definitely not scrimped financially. Given all of this, it was a surprise to find the system had a few major flaws.
Firstly I’ll say that the system is very pretty indeed with stained wood side handles and polariser rotating wheel. The holder is made of a sturdy metal construction and the filter caddies out of a high quality glass fibre epoxy resin casts with a positively ostentatious brass coin controlling the locking action. Quite the accessory for Alpa lovers.
Adapter Attachment
The security of attachment of the filter adapter to the lens is particularly important. It’s doubly so when the system costs twice the price of other systems, is twice as heavy and doesn’t use toughened filters. As such you would expect an extra level of security. Unfortunately, the system used is a major let down. Essentially we have one screw retainer which doesn’t engage in a slot on the outer rim of the adapter and hence has to be fully tightened to prevent the filter holder falling off in any downward facing position.
Ideally, adapter systems should have a two-level attachment system. One ‘catch’ should allow quick attachment of the filter holder. A second level should allow the locking of the adapter down completely.
If the Wine Country system is used in a downward facing position and you wish to rotate the whole adapter to realign the grads, you must hold onto the whole adapter to prevent it falling off before releasing the screw and turning the filter holder.
Weight and Cost
The difference in weight between the Kase filter system and the Wine Country system is quite something. The Kase 1.1mm holder, polariser and four graduated filters come in at 273g whilst the equivalent Wine Country holder, polariser and grads is a hefty 834g, over three times as heavy. To go along with this increased weight, the Wine Country system is over twice the price of the Kase system.
Polariser Attachment
With such a critical start it’s nice to say something positive about the system. The way the polariser attaches and rotates is really well executed in the WC system. The positive action of the large wooden wheel rotates the polariser 90 degrees for a 180-degree rotation of the wheel and does so very smoothly. The two small clamps lock the polariser in place very well and should be a model for how the filter holder could lock onto the adapter.
Graduated Filter Slots
The caddies fit into slots on the front of the filter adapter up to the midway point and then beyond this, you have to depress a sprung button on the front of the left-hand slot. There are two buttons, one for each slot (the back slot being for ND filters and has a light trap). Once depressed the caddies move freely and letting go locks the caddy in place. Wine Country had a few issues with the tension of the buttons at first which allowed the filters to slip down but this has been fixed in a more recent design. One “Gotcha” which I fell for is holding the wrong filter as you press the button. This means the other filter just drops all the way. Fortunately, the system has a 'stop' to prevent the filter from falling out so just annoying rather than dangerous.
Conclusion
The Wine Country system is ultimately a disappointment. It plays on aesthetics more than functionality and for me, that is the wrong priority. However, it still performs well and, if you can forgive the usability issues, it will look sooo bling on the front of your camera!
SRB
SRB is a nice filter holder let down by poor grads and a screw in polariser. If they could make a glass filter and a magnetic polariser it would be a contender with some of the better filter systems as the usability was first rate.
Sirui
A much simpler polariser and filter holder system, the Sirui is competent but didn’t stand out enough to be an attractive choice despite having some of the more colour accurate graduated filters. The major let down was the action of mounting and unmounting the filter holder to the adapter and mounting and unmounting the polariser (a normal screw in).
ProGrey
A resin-based grad system with a simple slotted holder and adapter mounted polariser. The graduated filters had a cast that was noticeable in pictures. The system had a few usability issues such as a fiddly way of mounting (see final video in the next issue) and the screw in polariser wasn’t straightforward to use. However, the system was one of the lightest tested and the graduated filters were very smooth to insert and adjust.
Firecrest
One of the earlier filter sets we tested and which we were initially quite pleased with. However, in comparison with some of the other filters, it was let down by some usability issues (particularly with the screw in polariser and when using gloves). The filters were also the worst at shedding water and dust and were bad on smearing when cleaning. Overall they lost a small number of points across a range of issues and ended up quite low in the rankings. NB We tested the Ultra filters, not the older ones.
Other articles in this Graduated Filter Test series
I first learned of the work of Jem Southam in 2015, via my subscription to On Landscape. The archive of talks held by the magazine offers a wealth of knowledge and insight into the technique and practice of photography and is a wonderful resource for accessing the creative process and absorbing the unique perspective, philosophy and approach of a spectrum of wonderful photographers.
Jem Southam’s talk from 2013 and my subsequent viewing of his body of work was a major revelation to me and continues to inform my practice of and approach to photography. For example, and quite coincidentally, I have been returning every year for five days to the same spot in the mountains of the Southern Alps of New Zealand, to a little known place called Temple Basin. ‘Temple’ is a unique subject, It is a ski lodge set half way up a mountain in Arthurs Pass National Park. Temple is a small private club field and is the only such field to be permitted in a National Park in New Zealand. I am now ten years into documenting the environment at this location and Jem’s talk has greatly informed my approach to creating a body of work over time about this place.
Welcome to our 4x4 feature which is a set of four mini landscape photography portfolios submitted from our subscribers. Each portfolios consisting of four images related in some way.
Submit Your 4x4 Portfolio
Interested in submitting your work? We're on the lookout for new portfolios for the next few issues, so please do get in touch!
"Intimate photography", as it's often called, becomes increasingly popular as Landscape photographers such as myself look for substance in areas other than those with wide vistas. It doesn't take long, however, to come to the realisation that these intimate, elemental scenes can be found anywhere.
The 4 images I've chosen are examples of things that go unnoticed, hidden in plain sight. They can sometimes become unintentionally abstract as the thing that grabs our initial attention is usually shape, form, texture etc. Some scenes could be as easily stepped on as they could be walked past, but I don't think the discovery of elements such as these (as brief or as long lasting as they may be) is a result of a trained eye - it can be as simple as looking down at the ground beneath your feet.
The Leelanau Peninsula of Michigan is where I have the good fortune to make my home. Yet as I have recently discovered, there is a side to the landscape I have only just begun to become acquainted with, at least from an artistic standpoint. Each year Winter descends on this rural and wild region, transforming the landscape with her snowy white veil, and opening a window of opportunity to explore a creative aspect I have not pursued in the past. Lately, I have found myself growing more and more obsessed with the concepts of minimalism, tone, shape, and form. Recently I have begun to explore these concepts and have opened my mind to not only new compositional subject matter but to making photographs in the 6x6 cm square format using black and white films. This practice has awakened my scenes and rejuvenated my passion for making images and I find myself revitalized on my life long quest as an image maker.
Through this pursuit, my style and philosophy have evolved. I have allowed myself to lift some constraints that I had in place and open the door to new creative possibilities on my path as an artist. I have enjoined working in the smaller field of focus that the square aspect provides and have begun to see tonal relationships in the landscape much clearer through the use of black and white film. I have found inspiration in the work of artists such as Michael Kenna and Bruce Percy, and while these artists have helped me to see in a new and different way, I find my own style alive, well and evolving in the process.
As a wise man named Heraclitus once said “The Only Thing That Is Constant Is Change “ I too find it is the only way forward, the way up and the way down. It keeps things fresh and me sharp and engaged in my work. I look forward to making pictures in this new style through all seasons of life, both the landscapes and mine. I welcome unblocked creative flow and evolution. Most of all I look forward to being outside exploring our amazing world, finding beauty both hidden and in plain sight and sharing my findings through my photographs with the world.
Lake MacIntosh has been my refuge and sanctuary for quite a few years. I've gone there in times of sadness and distress as well as happier times. I feel a deep connection with the land, the trees and the water. I've photographed there in every type of weather but love grey overcast skies the most. Every time I go there, I see something new. The lake is a continual source of inspiration. Lake MacIntosh is located in Longmont, Colorado, hence the mountain views.
A strong fascination with the concept of time has permeated my work from the very beginning and indeed now, in retrospect, I realise it might well be the reason why I chose photography as a medium of personal expression and investigation of the world I live in. In fact, I also realise this same fascination with time might very well have explained also my attraction for philosophy and science, and particularly astronomy and geology, a branch that constituted my professional and academic background many years ago. Today, as an artist photographer, it seems that this same fascination for the concept of time goes on permeating through my work. It was already the case when working on “Timeless”, that culminated with the publication of the book of the same name, and “Dead End”. But temporality has also become the red line or thread throughout the creation of several bodies of work currently on-going.
The Memory of Light
I decided to study where that fascination came from, why and how photography could be used to the service of representing “the intractable” (Barthes), and how photographic practice, theory and criticality could inform my views and work on the concept of Time.
I’m sorry. I don’t think you’ll like what I’ve got to say. But it needs to be said. I doubt if anything in your experience - in any of our experiences - makes my conclusion plausible. And, of course, there’s always the chance it’s a false conclusion But, I’ll ask you to entertain just one thought throughout: what if? What if this is how it’s going to be? Maybe, by the end, you’ll wonder, “why wouldn’t it be?” That would be a good outcome; if would mean that you’ve put hope aside and are ready to look at what is to come squarely in the eye.
What if… industrial civilisation began to disintegrate in the course of the next century? Not in cataclysmic, Hollywood-style but rather, incrementally, in different parts of the world at different rates and with varying consequences? There is plenty of evidence that this process has already begun in countries where the value that is the absolute bedrock of civilisation, civility, is being expunged in public and private discourse. Violent words and hateful speech have a long history of morphing into barbarism and destruction. Much of this ugliness is propagated by a spectrum of righteous zealots whose dogma never seems to acknowledge our collective reliance, as a single species, on the integrity of natural systems. In this sense at least, no ideology is rooted in “the real world”; each is just a story adherents tell themselves to fulfil a particular need., material or spiritual.
Our unprecedented connectivity and the weakness of moderating firebreaks makes the transmission of shocks to and from the outer fringes possible as never before. While people have a long history of telling lies to further their cause, the extent to which these can be put, repeatedly, before credulous people, is new. For all I know, I may be a victim myself and for that reason, the claims I make here are substantially based on direct observation of how people behave, my 40 year involvement in environmental advocacy and a lifetime of working outside.
My parents, Ardis and Philip Hyde, as a team, made a full-time living in nature photography for 60-years before many others did. They also not only helped to make national parks and other wilderness, they quietly and for the most part privately, helped pioneer the Post War wave of the Back to the Land Movement. Before sustainably became a trend, they lived a low carbon, low impact, self-sufficient lifestyle.
They lived in the wilderness, which not only surrounded their home and gardens in the Northern Sierra, but also became the typical destination for professional projects, many in national or state parks. They also made a point of traveling over back roads through the wildest places possible on the way to photography locations. They often parked for the night far from any towns, perhaps in a gravel quarry, on a side road or in a primitive campground.
Philip, Ardis and David Self-Portrait, Waterpocket Fold, Capitol Reef National Park
Though Mom grew up in Sacramento and Dad in San Francisco, both of them had roots in camping, farming and wilderness. Mom often spent weekends on her grandfather’s ranch. Also, her father took the family camping in the Sierra many times a year. Dad hiked in the hills of San Francisco, Marin County and beyond. He first backpacked in Yosemite National Park with the Boy Scouts when he was 16. He also backpacked the Yosemite backcountry with his father and brother. Part of what brought Mom and Dad together was a desire to be in the outdoors as much as possible.
Starting early in Dad’s career, going against the advice of both of his mentors Ansel Adams and David Brower, he and Mom decided to live in the wilderness, not just work there.
Starting early in Dad’s career, going against the advice of both of his mentors Ansel Adams and David Brower, he and Mom decided to live in the wilderness, not just work there. They took up residence in the mountains far away from the photography marketplace. They acquired 18 acres with National Forest bordering two sides of the property. Dad built what was originally only a 1200 square foot home with a garage, but he added a second bedroom and a larger studio later. The house sits about three hundred yards above Indian Creek on a shelf formed by an ancient rockslide from the precipitous rock faces of the peak across the creek called Grizzly Ridge, which rises 3,000 feet nearly straight up and is capped with snow most of the year.
Piers, San Francisco Waterfront (see the end of the article for captions for all photos)
Dad designed, drew the plans and built the house by hand. It took him two years because he did most of the work himself with some help from Mom in the evenings. A few other friends helped pour the foundation and hoist the large beams for the roof. Everything about the home, the large fireplace made from stones from the property, the flat roof, the solar hot water panels, the clerestory windows, the raised bed vegetable garden, the fruit trees and the whimsical stone lined pond and flower garden were all ideas adopted from other pioneers of conservation and low-impact living.
Mom not only taught kindergarten full-time in Greenville, California, she also became known for her knowledge of organic gardening, food storage and preparation. She became an expert on gardening to attract butterflies, bees and other beneficial creatures in the Mountain West. She planted Butterfly Bushes, Virginia Creeper, and Japanese Maples. She was an expert plant pirate and regularly gave other gardeners cuttings. She grew 4-5 varieties of Dogwood and many other colorful shrubs and dwarf trees. She also became highly skilled at canning, freezing, preserving, making her own soap, bread, cheese, butter, tofu and many other household goods. She grew strawberries, raspberries, and rhubarb. When I was about seven, she and I planted a vegetable garden.
Riffle Through Woods at Rough Rock, Northern Sierra, California, 1983
For better harvest yields, Dad let in more sunlight by cutting trees at the edge of the forest for firewood, leaving me to dig out the stumps. From a young age I remember hauling straw, sand, topsoil, manure, gravel, sawdust, wood chips and peat moss for the garden, as well as the winter’s wood supply in many loads in our dark green dented 1952 Chevrolet step-side pickup my parents bought from photographer Bret Weston in 1955.
“When I left the city for good in 1950 to live in the mountains,” Dad said. “I knew that I was leaving behind the opportunity to make lots of money. I think that when I first chose photography, I was choosing the pleasures of creativity over the consolation of wealth. I define success for myself in terms of my lifestyle. Success is freedom and opportunity to do what I want to do...”
“When I left the city for good in 1950 to live in the mountains,” Dad said. “I knew that I was leaving behind the opportunity to make lots of money. I think that when I first chose photography, I was choosing the pleasures of creativity over the consolation of wealth. I define success for myself in terms of my lifestyle. Success is freedom and opportunity to do what I want to do. But some people seem to think that once you’re successful, you can just coast from then on. That’s certainly not true for me; I have to keep working hard, which is a good thing, or I might sit back on the oars and float downstream.”
He not only put in a lot of physical labor at home helping mom carve a home out of the wilderness, but photographed far from home for long months each year and sent out masses of press and show prints when he was home. He was working to get his nature photographs used by organizations and publishers before the market for nature photography had been established. However, by continuously sending out prints, negatives and transparencies, and because nobody could argue with their quality and power for illustrating nature, publishing credits and exhibitions gradually came. Also, his mentor David Brower began to expose his work and use it in the popular and widely known Sierra Club calendars, and brochure and mailers for many other conservation organizations such as National Audubon and the Wilderness Society, as well as many more local groups all over the Western States. Sunset magazine and other expensive slick magazines started using more photographs solely of nature during the transition to color as image reproduction technologies improved. Sunset, Life and other publishing houses also produced books showing and selling the American West to new families after World War II, who were also newly automobile-mobile and looking for places to visit, explore, camp and stay in the burgeoning variety of motel franchises. Hyde’s photographs, by the end of his full-time career, had been the primary illustrations in a few dozen large picture volumes and appeared in over 80 other books.
Meanwhile, Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and his sons Bret and Cole, Minor White, Imogen Cunningham, Dorothea Lange and other fine print makers became increasingly popular in the black and white collecting art world. They invited Hyde and his other classmates and a few others who had talent in the darkroom, to exhibit with them in significant shows all over the nation and the world. White curated a solo show of Hyde’s work at the George Eastman House Museum, which led to a Hyde solo show at the Smithsonian in 1956.
From the time of their marriage in June 1947 until Dad began to lose his eyesight in 1999, he spent an average of 99 days a year in the field. Mom accompanied him the most during the months of June through August when she had time off from teaching kindergarten. Dad traveled mainly between April and October in the Western United States; camping, backpacking, driving, riding horses, mules, trains, planes and boats to access wilderness for almost one third of every year of his more than 60 years of full-time photography.
The spring and summer of 1955 are good examples of how much the Hydes traveled in Dad’s early career. Even with this level of road travel, Ardis and Philip still averaged far fewer driving miles than the average American couple. Throughout a 60-year full-time photography career, the Hydes averaged together less than 10,000 miles per year. American couples average over 27,000 miles per year.
Drakes Beach from Hilltop, Pt. Reyes National Seashore, California, 1962
In 1955, after buying the 1952 Chevy Pickup from Bret Weston in March, Mom and Dad put a camper shell on it, christened it Covered Wagon and took off in it from April through September. They spent the last 12 days in April over 300 miles from home in the Coast Redwoods. Next Dad turned around and journeyed alone over 600 miles south for the first half of May to photograph Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite. Continuously for the next three months Mom and Dad backpacked, camped, river rafted and drove thousands of miles through Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington and Oregon. This included three river trips: 13 days on the Colorado River through little known Glen Canyon, 26 days on the Yampa River in Utah and Wyoming inside Dinosaur National Monument, and five days on the Ladore River, also in Dinosaur. By August 16, after three weeks in Wyoming in Yellowstone National Park and Grand Tetons National Park on a Sierra Club Pack Trip, Mom got a ride home with participants, but Dad continued on to Glacier National Park way up in Montana for 10 days and Olympic National Park in Washington for two more weeks. Dad did not see home until September 10.
Cathedral in the Desert, Glen Canyon, Utah, 1964
Such a schedule makes it challenging to build much of a life at home. However, after I was born in 1965 Mom began to stay home from many of Dad’s photography trips and she planted a garden. Her gardening endeavors increased in size and scope until when I was about 10 years old, she had expanded the tenable area from one side of the house to three sides and her vegetable garden grew to approximately 15 by 20 meters.
Part of what moderated Mom and Dad’s push to achieve was a belief that life is meant for living and not just for work. My parents read Eastern philosophers such as Lao Tzu, who taught that happiness lies in being rather than doing. They read Lin Yutang, who in his large volume called The Importance of Living enlightens the reader with such chapter titles as, Human Life as a Poem, Playful Curiosity, Tea and Friendship, Enjoyment of Nature, and On Going About and Seeing Things. Many other texts of philosophy, art, culture and large picture books lined the walls of bookshelves in our mountain home.
Part of what moderated Mom and Dad’s push to achieve was a belief that life is meant for living and not just for work.
Near Water’s Edge, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, 1964
Another book I remember seeing around the house, Living the Good Life: How to Live Sanely and Simply in a Troubled World by Helen and Scott Nearing, contained instructions on how to live an enjoyable, self-sufficient lifestyle. About two months before my mother passed on in 2002, I interviewed her about gardening for beneficial insects and wildlife for a magazines article. We also discussed a garden I planted at my own home near Pecos, New Mexico. At one point Mom excused herself from the dining table where we were talking, walked into her bedroom and came back with her own personal copy of Living the Good Life. With moistening eyes, she handed it to me and said, “This was our bible, besides, of course The Bible.”
Indeed, Living the Good Life had been the bible for the entire Back to the Land Movement that began in the 1930s and peaked in the 1950s. The Nearings left New York City and farmed on rural land first in Vermont, then Maine. After their book came out, they developed a national following of people who moved out of the cities to get away from Post War crowding, industrialism, pollution and competition. Also, for the first time in history, the human psyche confronted the possibility of mass annihilation with the invention of the atomic bomb.
Like the Nearings, the Hydes endured exposure to a wide range of rural and wild conditions and predicaments. Mom and Dad were survivors and minimalists who conserved resources, energy and money. Dad either repaired or jury-rigged water lines, oil pumps, motors, batteries, light switches and everything else in the house and vehicles.
Like the Nearings, the Hydes endured exposure to a wide range of rural and wild conditions and predicaments. Mom and Dad were survivors and minimalists who conserved resources, energy and money. Dad either repaired or jury-rigged water lines, oil pumps, motors, batteries, light switches and everything else in the house and vehicles.
He fixed flat tires and mended broken equipment with patience, ingenuity and often little resources. Mom planned the food and supplies for their travels and did the preparation and packing. She supported Dad emotionally, physically and spiritually, even when she did not go along on his travels. When she did go along she kept the daily trip logs, read the guidebooks and learned the plants, animals and birds in each area they visited.
In 1962, the same year Rachel Carson released Silent Spring, the Sierra Club first introduced color to landscape photography with the release of In Wildness Is the Preservation of the World with color photographs by Eliot Porter and quotes from Henry David Thoreau and Island In Time: The Point Reyes Peninsula by Harold Gilliam with photographs by Philip Hyde. While In Wildness was a well-planned art book, Island In Time was a rush project for which David Brower chose Dad as photographer because Brower knew Dad could quickly get enough artistically interesting, yet documentary feeling images to put together a book that not only helped raise the funds necessary to buy the land to establish Point Reyes National Seashore before the developers could subdivide it, not to mention it shared the Point Reyes story with Congress and President John F. Kennedy, who finalized the Bill making it part of the national park system.
Iceberg, Snow Patches, Ellery Lake, Yosemite National Park, 1980
Iceland has undoubtedly opened many people’s minds to the photographic possibilities of the far North and other places such as Greenland and the Faroes are now increasingly being talked about. It’s easy to think that our bucket list of adventures is image and internet driven. For Romain Tornay it was the stories that he read from an early age that inspired him to travel to and experience the same environments that had so fascinated him.
Can you tell us something about where you grew up, your early interests and whether those influenced your studies and choice of career?
I was born and grew up in the small town of Martigny in the canton of Valais, in the heart of the Swiss Alps. Although I enjoyed most of the activities of young children, I always had a great admiration and attraction for the great outdoors. Like many children, I dreamed of living in a hut lost in the middle of a forest. I quickly became passionate about the alpine world around me. I spent my youth walking, climbing, skiing, watching wildlife, understanding weather and nivology.
Hesitating between geography and biology, I opted for biology because science seduces me particularly. Although I specialized in environmental sciences, I oriented my career towards teaching so that I could pass on my passion and also enjoy school holidays to continue to realize my personal projects.
How did you first become interested in photography and what kind of images did you set out to make?
I became interested in photography as a child. I had fun evaluating magazine portfolio images, and I was photographing everything with my Kodak Disc 4000. But most of all, Grand Reportage pictures made me dream. I stopped taking pictures after childhood.
We can consider that my real start in photography began as an adult. I had already travelled a lot but two regions fascinated me in particular: the Far North and Africa.
Chance and certain circumstances led me to the North, which I wanted to photograph. Twenty years ago, it was not easy to travel to these countries and I wanted to share through images what I experienced and observed. I therefore clearly associate the birth of my passion for photography with my first trips to the North.
My first photos covered some action, some landscape, some animal life, some still life, a bit of everything but also sometimes nothing special. What is certain is that at that time I already had the necessary patience and determination that I still apply today in my photographic activities. My experience and my photographic approach progressively evolved over the years to be more refined, and especially more precise.
Cheryl Hamer and Glenys Garnett are landscape photographers who ‘come at’ their landscapes from a slightly different perspective; here they explore both their differences and their similarities and how the march of technology continues to aid and abet their creativity.
They had both been aware of each other’s imagery for a long time and without realising it, both found each other’s work to be very inspiring. Glenys particularly liked and admired some of Cheryl’s work with ICM and Multiple Exposure techniques and Cheryl was increasingly drawn to Glenys’ great use of ‘textures’ and layering in photoshop. They both identified with each other’s very broad creative approach to photography and have now recognised that ultimately, although they may take different routes, for both of them it’s about communicating something ‘extraordinary in the ordinary’.
They started collaborating when a new Facebook group SheClicks was set up last year (2018), a forum for both amateur and professional women photographers to share and network. Cheryl approached Glenys with some ideas and they then set about developing possible ways of working together initially through social media and possibly to meet up in the future.
Glenys became particularly interested in the way that Cheryl almost exclusively produces her images in-camera whereas her own approach is to have an idea, go out and shoot a series of images and then combine them in software afterwards. This is mainly down to the fact that the Fuji XT2 only allows 2 exposures in-camera so she has been limited to some extent. Similarly, Cheryl began to play with textures and layering in photoshop – and so, in the eternal way of art, they have influenced and encouraged each other to play and develop and to further expand the way they see the world.
The wonderful world of landscape photography is continuing to grow and change and is comprised of more and more people who want to get more creative and make images that are different from ‘classic landscapes’ taken in the golden hours.
Cheryl Hamer
The wonderful world of landscape photography is continuing to grow and change and is comprised of more and more people who want to get more creative and make images that are different from ‘classic landscapes’ taken in the golden hours. There’s nothing at all wrong with classic landscapes of course, along with the rest of us, I have spent many happy hours planning shoots and then waiting for that light that we all love so much.
However, as I’ve said before in On Landscape, the discovery of the in-camera multiple exposure facility in my camera several years ago was an absolute revelation to me and has enabled me to take my photography in a different direction.
As a photography workshop and tour leader I am often asked questions like “how did you do that”, “you must have made that shot in photoshop”, or, “do you think it’s wrong to make creative landscape images in photoshop”?
The simple answer to that latter point is no, I don’t think it’s wrong – but I do think it’s important to be honest about how you make a shot.
I try to make most of my images in-camera, using that multiple exposure facility and often some intentional camera movement too. I do it that way because I get huge personal satisfaction from it; I love planning and pre-visualising how I might be able to make something work in-camera and then putting in the time trying to make that happen. I love the fact that I get a lot of dross! This kind of work is hugely experimental – you can have an idea of how to do it, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it will work out first time. I love looking at the first try and thinking – ‘no, that isn’t quite right, why not, what do I need to change to make it look closer to what I have in my head?’ Then I try again – you have to have tenacity and a willingness to play and experiment to make this approach work – and being a child at heart, I do love to play!
There are two other key reasons why I love to work this way; firstly, I feel it helps me to strive to capture the real spirit and essence of a place, and secondly, I think it helps me to see the extraordinary in the ordinary. Hopefully, my images will help others to have some sense of those two things as well.
I think I can best explain what I mean by referring to two of my images below.
For whom the Bell Tolls
The first one is a collage of Penmon lighthouse which I call ‘For whom the Bell Tolls’. I made it this way because for me the essence of this place is the lighthouse completely surrounded by the sea, and with a white shingle bank off to one side. I love to just sit and gaze out to sea and listen – because that bell tolls away about every 30 seconds, warning shipping of just how dangerous this stretch of water can be; overlaying the bigger lighthouse has enabled me to draw attention to that bell, whilst at the same time showing the sea and shingle that are also such important elements of the place.
A Winter’s Dusk at One Tree Hill
I am also an old romantic (in its broadest sense) at heart, and in the second image – ‘A Winter’s Dusk at One Tree Hill’ – I have striven to express the romanticism of this place. That tree stands alone at the top of the hill and I can almost feel it gazing out to sea! Whilst it works very well as an ordinary shot, for me the addition of the impressionist feel reflects that atmosphere perfectly.
However, back to the thorny issue of just what we can achieve with Photoshop. You can of course create the same kind of images – which are often impressionist and/or abstract in mood – using photoshop. You can take a picture of a tree for example from lots of different angles, and then stack them up in different layers, alter the opacity of the layers, and in that way, create an impressionist image. Or you can create the same thing in camera.
Artists have been using different materials for centuries – and we don’t castigate them because they’re not all sticking to the same tried and tested materials, or brush strokes etc.
Similarly, you can use some of the ever burgeoning ‘texture layers’ that are commercially available – and they can add a great ‘look’ to your original image.
In all honesty, I don’t think it matters which way you do it, as long as you’re clear about what you’ve done.
Let’s just cast our minds back over the history of art. Artists have been using different materials for centuries – and we don’t castigate them because they’re not all sticking to the same tried and tested materials, or brush strokes etc. Surely one of the ‘essences’ of art is that ability to see things differently, do them differently and embrace what the advancements of the day can bring us? Post processing software is simply part of that process and what a wonderful tool it is. I do think it’s important that when we are using it, we use images that we have taken ourselves, but with that proviso I see no conflict in using it to create something a bit different.
Glenys Garnett
I was born in Leeds and have lived in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, for over 30 years. My photography has evolved over a long period of time but I can’t remember when I didn’t have a camera at some point in my hand. I am now retired but have a career background in IT so I have always been interested in digital imaging ever since I first had a camera and of course, digital imaging software has been around a long time, so it is something I have always experimented with over the years.
I have a love of art and the environment and it seems a natural thing for me to use photography as a means to achieving my vision of the world around me. For some reason, and I can’t explain it, I have a desire to create, and my taste in art is quite eclectic, but I am particularly drawn to impressionism and cubist art and this has had a great influence on me and my work.
I have a love of art and the environment and it seems a natural thing for me to use photography as a means to achieving my vision of the world around me.
Most of us now use some sort of digital imaging device, like a camera or tablet and billions of images are being generated on a daily basis. There is a staggering and infinite array of subjects around us, and I feel it is important to look and see each moment and creation of an image as a unique piece of art. I firmly believe the camera is a tool, and for me, it is used as a painter uses brushes to paint a canvas.
It is important for me to feel the landscape I am in and create and develop images that are meaningful rather than wait for the right light to come along. It can be very liberating not to worry about whether the conditions are right or wrong for a particular location, and that leaves me free to experiment and create something evocative. The desire to say more about my environment and capture what some people would say is mundane and ordinary is important for me because it does represent the environment where I live.
The use of camera technology like ICM, multiple exposure and other creative techniques are not new to photography but they are increasingly being re-discovered and used by photographers to create a unique look to their images. There is often a randomness in some of these techniques that really appeals to me, the idea that you don’t always know what you are going to get. Often my images will contain a combination of ICM and Multiple Exposure and whilst I love making images this way in-camera, I find that there are just some things I cannot do without post processing. Some of my compositing is quite simple in technique in that it may consist of only a few layers combined occasionally using a texture, and the idea for some of these might come in the field depending on the conditions around me.
I also make and use my own brushes for use in my images that I have captured in the field or by photographing botanical matter on a Lightpad.
The use of Photoshop allows me to take my creativity one step further to produce composites and enhancements to my images often using multiple layers, blending modes, textures and techniques that are not available in-camera. I also make and use my own brushes for use in my images that I have captured in the field or by photographing botanical matter on a Lightpad. I will often get an idea for a creative image and set about finding and shooting images that will then be worked into a composite.
If I spend time in a place, I will often produce a composite image that for me encapsulates what I felt about the environment around me. It is no accident that trees feature heavily in my work, they are a dominant feature of our landscape and I am fascinated by them.
Lone Tree on Egton Moor
A good example of this is the Lone Tree on Egton Moor. I spent a few days on the North York Moors in the summer of 2017, in what turned out to be probably one of the best years I have seen for the heather. The image for me encapsulates not only the idea of the Lone Tree, ubiquitous in many landscape photographers’ portfolios but the swathe of pink heather in front representing the moors as they appeared to me at the time.
I think for most creative people it is about enjoying the process rather than the end result, and if I had one piece of advice to give to anyone who wants to be more creative with their photography it would be to learn your equipment inside out so that it doesn’t become a barrier to the creative process.
I think Cheryl and I both enjoy the process as much as the end result, and seeing the work that Cheryl does and understanding her techniques has made me think a little bit differently about exploring more in-camera methods. To this end, I purchased a second-hand Canon 70D which allows up to 9 exposures and I am going to start experimenting with this over the coming months. I don’t see this as a replacement to the way I work just an additional technique in my toolbox.
Every day I go out with my camera I feel like I am working with a blank canvas and feel there is an infinite number of possible ways to express myself. This is what I love about this wonderful art form.
So where does all that leave us?
I think it can be seen in this article that we both have a similar attitude and approach to photography and creating images. We both want to say something about the landscape and environment through our work. We may go about it in a different way, but ultimately, we both have a love of using the camera as a creative tool and feel it is important and a fundamental part for both of us in our creative process.
There is a sense that our work has influences in artistic styles and genres that we both try to encompass in our imagery, whether that is through the use of camera movement, multiple exposures made in-camera or in post-processing. There is no wrong or right way for either of us and we both try to encourage others to experiment, think creatively and consider different approaches to image making. So, however you want to make your images, please feel free to do it your way, but just be honest about how you’ve done it!
Articles on Multiple Exposure and ICM in Landscape Photography
In mid-December 2018 I had the good fortune of being on a workshop in West Cornwall led by David Ward. I had been to Cornwall 5 years previously and 6 years before that but had never come away with images that I really liked. Certainly, that first visit was very early in my photographic development and at that time I was definitely learning to “see”, but I could and should have done better on the second visit! This latest trip last December went far better and I am very happy with what I got, but one day, in particular, produced surprises: not just in the images I made, but also in what I felt while making them in the most inclement and difficult weather conditions, how I approached the photography and how I departed from my usual tripod-mounted “slow photography”.
That day had been consistently forecast for about a week to be very rainy with storm-force winds and indeed the night before was already very stormy with ferocious wind and rain hammering against the windows. The morning started depressingly dark and grey; looking down to the sea from our clifftop house at Sennen we could see it raging, covered with white spume and froth, enormous waves barrelling in from the Atlantic.
That day had been consistently forecast for about a week to be very rainy with storm-force winds and indeed the night before was already very stormy with ferocious wind and rain hammering against the windows.
Ideal conditions for a leisurely breakfast, followed by intellectual conversation while relaxing on the sofas and armchairs... After an hour or so David popped out to the minibus and came back saying it wasn’t too bad… quietly ignoring the fact that the ‘bus was partially sheltered by the house. We all agreed (no pressure!!!) to go out to Lamorna, a small sheltered cove facing roughly south-east. We arrived in steady rain but the harbour wall did offer some shelter, at least from the worst of the wind and rain.
We gathered our gear and grouped at the sea end of the wall. Although the wind was driving the spray mostly away from us across and along the cove, raindrops still settled on the lens despite frequent wiping before each shot. Using grad filters was basically futile, or at least I had no success. I quickly got frustrated as frame after frame was spoilt and I ended up deleting all shots taken with the wide angle zoom. I even briefly thought of going back to sit in the bus and watch the others battle it out. But I have to admit, it was exhilarating being so close to the violent waves thundering into the cove, I didn’t want to miss out. I moved a little further back into a corner of the wall and changed to a telephoto zoom with a relatively deep lens hood, giving the front element more protection.
As I stood watching the waves charging in, suddenly and in very quick succession I thought panning/tracking, slow shutter speed, ICM – far removed from my usual contemplative style, tripod-mounted camera, remote release, grad filters etc! And even if I still had some rain spots, well it’s all part of the atmosphere! After a handful of frames including the harbour wall (shooting at around 80-100mm full frame equivalent – I was using micro 4/3), I concentrated on the abstract shapes and patterns in the water using around 150-300mm equivalent.
As I stood watching the waves charging in, suddenly and in very quick succession I thought panning/tracking, slow shutter speed, ICM – far removed from my usual contemplative style, tripod-mounted camera, remote release, grad filters etc!
My shutter was mostly in the range 1/6 to ¼ sec. With white balance set to my default of daylight, under the dark overcast sky the water came out a mix of rich greens, blues and cyan; in fact, I even reduced the saturation on some images as the sea colour was too tropical for a stormy grey day! Panning with the incoming waves produced streaks of white foam, while the slow shutter speed gave a strong sense of motion. The shapes of the waves recorded beautifully, often imparting further dynamism to the result. We all had a challenging but enjoyable time producing different images, some from the rest of the group are truly arresting. For me too it turned out to be a good morning’s work. Time to go back to the house for lunch!
The rain slowly but only partially petered out and we went out again in the afternoon, this time to Gwynver beach below our house, at the bottom of the cliffs. We walked out to the headland to try and catch big waves crashing against the rocks, but once again I found the wind and spray were too much of a hindrance. I left the others and walked back maybe only 70-80 metres, enough to get out of the wind roaring around the headland. In contrast to the morning, I decided to stay well away from the waves: they reared up out at sea, then crashed on the beach as the wind literally whipped off their tops. The spray would surely prevent me from getting clean images. At first, I tried a few frames with foreground rocks on the beach, but they weren’t successful and I decided to again go for abstracted water. Even with my telephoto set to its maximum 300mm equivalent, I was capturing much wider views than in the morning and so used far more horizontal panning as my main ICM technique: the results from the vertical ICM were simply nowhere near as good. With the shutter speed set mostly at 1/6 sec, I caught the layers of waves while emphasising their shapes.
So there we have it, one day at the seaside in difficult conditions; using techniques that I knew about but had never tried in combination like this, framing abstracts rather than conventional views, freely and deliberately moving away from trying to reproduce what the eye saw and going for depicting the exhilarating and visceral experience I had. From my perspective, it worked and the images I have remind me of that deeply felt experience rather than merely the view.
We all know that “a picture is worth a thousand words.” But how did this simple piece of wisdom become, for so many photographers, an excuse to reject words altogether and to insist that our pictures “speak for themselves.” In adopting such a view, I believe we miss a golden opportunity. Words, when used well, can be a powerful ally in our quest to make more meaningful pictures.
In this article, I will explore the pictures-versus-words debate from both sides. However, in light of my introductory paragraph, it will come as no surprise that I favour a pictures-and-words conclusion.
First, for clarity, let’s assume that the “words” used in connection with our pictures might be: Titles, a few words, usually presented beneath or beside an image; Captions, a few sentences that provide a longer commentary about an image; Statements, several paragraphs or pages to introduce a body of work in an exhibition or book; Textwithin the image space, either captured in-camera (e.g. road signs) or added to the image afterwards (e.g. a poem or inspirational quote).
Turbulence uses the classic title composition technique of generalising from the specifics of a scene (dramatic storm clouds rolling across the Cape Breton Highlands in Nova Scotia) to the more universal concept of turbulence. The viewer is left to choose whether to interpret turbulence from the perspective of an aeroplane flying through the clouds, or more personally, as turmoil during a troublesome time in life.
In this article, I will concentrate primarily on titles, and most of my examples will be drawn from landscape imagery, but the reasoning can be extended to other photographic genres and other types of accompanying words.
Some historical background about the evolving relationship between words and pictures may be helpful for our discussion. (For a detailed account I recommend Ruth Bernard Yeazell’s splendid book, Picture Titles: How and Why Western Paintings Acquired Their Names, Princeton University Press, 2015).
In effect, titles were introduced as a practical means of referring to works of art for the purpose of marketing and inventory control.
Five hundred years ago, when art was the exclusive domain of the ecclesiastical and social elite, and the general populace was illiterate, artworks were rarely titled because there was no need. They were permanently housed either in private collections in manor houses, where the owners were familiar with them or within the precincts of churches, where they served to inspire a congregation who, because they couldn’t read, would have no use for titles anyway.
Then, technological advances during the 18th and 19th centuries, accompanied by shifts in the social and educational climate, led to increasing “democratization” in the art world too. Artworks became more widely accessible and mobile: displayed in public art museums and travelling exhibitions, reproduced in catalogues, and sold at auction houses. So, it became necessary to identify them. In effect, titles were introduced as a practical means of referring to works of art for the purpose of marketing and inventory control. Often this was done, not by the artists themselves, but by the curators, publishers and dealers who handled the art. Gradually these titles, supplemented by longer captions and exhibition statements, came to satisfy the demand of an increasingly literate and diverse public for information about an artwork’s origin, and even for guidance in its interpretation.
Bedrock Mosaic is a title that guides viewers into the image by providing information about the subject matter (bedrock) but suggesting that it should be interpreted artistically (as a mosaic) rather than geologically. Mosaics are artworks created from an assembly of small pieces of coloured stone, glass or tile, which makes the title an appropriate choice for this colourful, fractured rock face.
By the late 1800s, titles had become commonplace in galleries and most artists had taken on the role of titling their own artwork – although some chose to exercise the option of Untitled, No.# in defiance of this new convention, creating a de facto “negative title” that came to have a meaning of its own.
By then photography had also entered the scene. Indeed, it was in response to photographs that the expression, “a picture is worth a thousand words” became popular. In 1920s America, the recently invented 35mm camera, together with developments in printing press technology, enabled the widespread publication of photographs in newspapers and magazines. Shrewd editors (and advertisers!) quickly realised that a single picture could convey far more information, and with greater clarity and impact, than a wordy description. So, a new style of photojournalism emerged that relied on photographs to tell the stories of the day. It was this image-centric view that ultimately led to the dismissive attitude toward words that so many photographers have today.
Which brings us back to our pictures-versus-words debate.
Master landscape photographer Ansel Adams eloquently voiced one side of this debate: “A true photograph need not be explained, nor can it be contained in words.” There may be some question about precisely what he meant by a “true” photograph, but the general tenor of his message is that if a photograph is any good, it can stand on its own and requires no supplementary text in order to be understood and appreciated. What’s more, his statement suggests that an image’s expressive power surpasses that of words, and runs the risk of being constrained by them. Much food for thought in one short sentence! Let’s dig a little deeper.
Between the Lines asks the viewer to consider this picture, not as a documentary image of a snowy farm landscape, but in more abstract terms, as a complex graphic scene composed of lines and patterns. The title also implies reading between the lines to discover a deeper meaning, which gives the viewer something to ponder as he explores the picture.
First, I think we can all agree that a “bad” photograph cannot be rescued by words, any more than it can by Photoshop. So, we will assume throughout the following discussion that we are talking about “good” photographs – ones that are technically and compositionally well executed, and (at least for readers of On Landscape magazine) that express a photographer’s emotional, intellectual and/or aesthetic response to the landscape, rather than merely documenting it.
The kind of photograph that can “speak for itself” is as competently crafted from visual elements as an equivalent piece of writing is from verbal elements.
The kind of photograph that can “speak for itself” is as competently crafted from visual elements as an equivalent piece of writing is from verbal elements. Where the writer speaks to his readers using vocabulary and grammar to select and arrange words on a page, the photographer speaks to his viewers with visual elements that he frames and arranges using composition and camera/computer technique. Their tools are different, but the objective is the same: to convey ideas, evoke emotions, create moods, tell stories, elicit aesthetic pleasure, and so on. That is, they both aim to communicate effectively. So, it can be argued, if a photograph communicates effectively, it has no need for words. And a photographer can rightly claim that his skill as a visual artist absolves him from any need for wordsmithing.
The effectiveness of this communication depends as much on the visual literacy of the viewer as it does on the craftsmanship of the photographer. The viewer must be able to interpret the visual content of a picture and construct meaning from it. To do this he must abstract from the specific physical elements in the picture (what the picture is of) to the more universal concepts they represent (what the picture is about): from a single tree standing in a snowy field for instance, to the concept of solitude, or loneliness, or strength. The picture becomes metaphorical: The World represented by the snowy field, and the Tree personifying whoever or whatever the photographer or viewer wishes it to.
The Road Not Taken pairs my image with Robert Frost’s famous 1916 poem – a wistful narrative about choices and regrets in life. The image was made in New Brunswick’s Sackville Waterfowl Park in December, the drizzly weather entirely suited to the reflective nature of the poem. This park is across the road from Mount Allison University where the latest generation of young people is making similar life choices more than a hundred years later. The title’s poetic allusion resonates strongly with the general public (if sales of the print are any indication), and especially with people who recognise the location.
Of course, it is quite possible that the viewer’s interpretation may not be the one intended by the photographer; their interpretations may differ according to their individual experiences, personalities and cultures. But does this matter? Some would argue that once a picture is out there in the world, the maker’s intent is irrelevant and the viewer should be permitted to interpret the picture and ascribe to it whatever meaning he chooses. If so, a title or explanatory text can be seen as distracting, restrictive, or even misleading. Hence the decision of some visual artists to use Untitled in an attempt to liberate their artwork – and their viewers – from the shackles and potential pitfalls of words.
Words face another significant handicap not shared by pictures; they are dependent on the language in which they are written. A non-English speaker, like the illiterate peasant, cannot grasp the subtleties of irony or grandeur in an English text but will be at no such disadvantage when viewing Elliott Erwitt’s candid street photos or Ansel Adams’ grand landscapes. In short, the language of pictures is universal, at least within a broad cultural context, whereas the language of words is restricted to speakers of that language.
As we have now seen, the case for a pictures-only approach to visual art is compelling indeed. Therefore, photographers who can express in their images everything they wish to say, may not see any point in pairing them with words.
So, why bother? In a word: enrichment. When a photographer takes the trouble to thoughtfully combine an image with words, he enriches both the viewer’s experience of that image and his own in making it.
Fiddler’s Green alludes to an Irish legend (and by extension, several popular songs and literary works) about a mythical afterlife for mariners, where, following a lifetime of hardship on the sea, they can come ashore and enjoy limitless sunshine, gaiety, food, drink, and dancing to fiddle music. Although the title seems an obvious match for this moody scene (photographed at high tide in the fog at my local salt marsh), it took six months of thinking, researching, staring at the image and juggling word combinations before I finally hit on the “right” one (which, admittedly, may say more about my sluggish brain than about the title!)
When a photographer takes the trouble to thoughtfully combine an image with words, he enriches both the viewer’s experience of that image and his own in making it.
Without a Backward Glance uses a common expression to pair this intimate landscape with an anthropomorphic raven and evoke a very human theme. The picture’s visual design positions the raven close to the edge (creating tension), where he looks toward an unknown object outside the frame (suggesting a mysterious backstory). The bird’s posture ironically contradicts the title, but the high-key treatment and the title make this an optimistic image (“perhaps just a quick glance over my shoulder before l make a fresh start”). It illustrates how the story-telling power of an image can be enhanced with text.
How so?
First, words can be used to clarify visual content and guide the interpretation of images whose subject matter is unknown or ambiguous to the viewer. This happens when the viewer’s geographic, historical or cultural background differs from that of the photographer, so he perceives the subject matter differently or is completely mystified by it. An unusual rock formation, a clear-cut forest, or an abstract textural detail, are examples of potentially confusing landscape subjects that might benefit from clarification.
Even when clarity of content is not an issue, words can offer supplementary information that, whilst perhaps not necessary, can contribute a valuable backstory to the image. It might be details about the broader context or purpose for which the picture was made, or clues about the photographer’s ideological or emotional perspective when making it. Consider, for instance, a disturbing image that promotes environmental protection of a sensitive ecosystem. Or a minimalist snowscape that reflects a photographer’s yearning for solitude and space during a time of grief. In both cases, while the image may convey the story admirably on its own, the background information provided by a title or caption adds another layer of meaning that pulls a viewer deeper into that story and connects him more intimately with its message, even if the “message” is simply an appeal to stop and admire a beautiful curve.
Allusions to other artwork can be especially powerful in creating additional layers of meaning. A title that references a poem, a painting, a work of literature, a philosophy (yes, philosophy is an art), a song lyric, a dance step, a culinary dish or a musical style can draw on the significance already associated with that artwork – assuming, that is, the photographer and viewer share a common culture so that the referenced artwork is known to them both.
Border Lines was created for an exhibition to celebrate Canada’s sesquicentennial anniversary in 2017 on the theme of Canadian identity. The short text I wrote to accompany my image touched on the differences between Canadians and our neighbours to the south, especially relevant following the American presidential election the previous year and the protectionist, wall-building rhetoric that ensued. In response, I offered this rickety snow fence as our “wall”. The image generated a lively exchange with some New York visitors to the gallery one day, when a woman misinterpreted my text as an insult to Americans and stomped off in indignation, prompting other visitors to read it and chat with me about the image. If the purpose of expressive art is to spark communication, I should consider this unnerving incident a triumph!
Words, when paired imaginatively with pictures, can entertain or tease the viewer with a playful or ironic twist on image content. A church scene sparkling with ice after a winter storm might prompt a smile with the title Frosted Sunday or a picture of miserably congested traffic with the title Rush Hour.
Words can also shape a viewer’s perceptual experience of a photograph. Reading a title or explanatory text requires him to spend more time with the picture and offers both a visual and a verbal (right-brain and left-brain) approach to its content.
Words can also shape a viewer’s perceptual experience of a photograph. Reading a title or explanatory text requires him to spend more time with the picture and offers both a visual and a verbal (right-brain and left-brain) approach to its content. The result is a more immersive experience that is likely to leave a more enduring impression. (In a small way this is comparable to the photographer’s experience when moving slowly in the field, allowing not only the sights but also the sounds, smells and quality of the air to permeate his awareness.) Afterwards, the title gives the viewer a convenient “shorthand” for remembering and sharing his experience of the picture with others.
So far, we have considered the value of words primarily with respect to the viewer’s experience of an image. But the crafting of words can greatly benefit us as photographers too. Composing a title that truly complements an image, or writing an exhibition statement that eloquently summarizes a body of work, challenges us to examine our motivation for making the images and our intent in showing them. It forces us to ask ourselves: What inspired me about this landscape? Why exactly did I make this picture? What do I want to say? Who is my audience and why should they care? Answering these questions is not easy. It’s not supposed to be easy. If it were easy, it likely wouldn’t be worth doing! But it is worth doing because the answers can help us to refine our vision and make better technical and visual design choices as a result. It even elicits the kind of serious introspection that can lead to a more profound understanding of ourselves as artists, and as human beings.
Expressive pictures often suggest several choices of interpretation that can be offered to the viewer in the titles. If we want the viewer to treat this image as a study of colour and texture, we might title it November Tapestry. Or we could focus attention on the straggly old tree, still upright and beautiful amid the tangled undergrowth, in which case an anthropomorphic title like Forest Veteran or simply The Veteran might be suitable.
Of course, it is not always practical or advisable to do this with a camera in hand at the moment of capture. It never hurts to try, but often it’s wiser simply to go with the flow so we don’t become bogged down in self-analysis and miss a splendid photo opportunity. We can postpone the soul-searching until later when we are evaluating and processing our images back in our studio. In either case, the challenge is to think of a single word, or a brief phrase at most, that encapsulates the content and meaning of the scene before us.
Perhaps the best advice comes from another master photographer, Minor White: “One should not only photograph things for what they are but for what else they are.” It’s the “else” that elevates our landscape photographs from mere records of pretty scenery to meaningful and evocative works of art. This, after all, is our goal as expressive photographers. I hope I have convinced you that words can be a valuable tool in achieving it.
Crafting image titles can seem a daunting task. Indeed, it can take as much skill and effort to write an expressive title or exhibition statement as to make the image(s) it accompanies. What follows are some basic guidelines to get you started.
First, imagine an image-style continuum that ranges from strictly documentary at one end, to personally expressive in the middle, to purely abstract at the other end. Consider where your photograph lies on this continuum because its position influences the style of title that is most appropriate.
If the image lies closer to the documentary end, its focus is on the scenic content of the image. In this case, a suitable title might be informative or descriptive, naming the location (either the specific location or a more generic one) or a physical feature or type of terrain, perhaps with a date or time of year. Ben Nevis, October 2018 and Labrador Coastal Barrens are examples of this style – not very exciting, but a safe option until you feel more comfortable with the titling process.
In composing titles, I always consider the image’s intended purpose and choose words that create an appropriate mood and story to go with it. Left Behind or Fallen might suit this classic wide-angle landscape admirably, but the melancholy message may not be wise if my aim is to sell prints (a necessity if I am to make a living). Marketed to tourists or local residents, Fox Island, Lunenburg County would be a better choice but is too dull and documentary for my taste. So, a positive-sounding alternative like Clearing Storm or Reaching Out might work instead.
If your image is close to the continuum’s abstract end, it highlights the aesthetic enjoyment of line, shape, texture, pattern or colour. Since viewers are typically curious about subject matter and scale in an image, you have two choices: either satisfy their curiosity with a clue in the title about what they are looking at (e.g. Ripples in Sand), or indicate that the picture is intended to be viewed purely as an abstract by referring in the title only to formal graphic elements or broad artistic terms (e.g. Tapestry in Gold for autumn leaf reflections rippling in a pond, or Curvaceous for a shapely shadow falling across the snow).
Most of our expressive landscape photographs will lie somewhere in the middle of the continuum. Since expressive images emphasize meaning rather than content, their titles usually enhance, rather than merely identify or clarify, the visual elements in a scene. There is ample scope for titling expressive images, but the best titles point in subtle and imaginative ways to the metaphorical, narrative, poetic or playful nature of the picture. An effective title becomes a gateway for the viewer – a lens through which he perceives the image and infers meaning from its content.
To find appropriate words for an expressive image title, sit quietly in front of your photograph for a while (ideally a print or at least full-screen on your computer). Look closely, examine all the details, notice how they fit into the overall visual design. Remember the excitement you felt when making the picture, the experience of being out there, and all the other things going on in life that made that place and experience so significant. Identify the single most important element in the picture and consider what it represents to you, and why.
The first title that came to mind for this recent (January 2019) image was Infinity Pool because the words are an apt description of the scene and create a suitably reflective mood. However, this is a cautionary tale about titles with unfortunate associations – in this case, the expensive swimming pools with “vanishing edges” featured in luxury mansions, resorts and home improvement shows – that introduce unwelcome commercial, political or religious undercurrents (pun intended), or even cryptic-crossword-style word play into the story. So, I am still thinking about titles for this picture.
Then, sit farther back and try to look at your picture more dispassionately, as if you were a stranger visiting it for the first time at a gallery. Imagine what this stranger might see, think and feel about the picture. Will he understand its content and be drawn to the same important element that you are? Is he likely to appreciate its significance, or might he need some gentle guidance?
Then, squint at the picture until the details blur, leaving just an impression of structure and colour.
While you are looking at your photograph from all these perspectives, jot down, in a free-flowing way, any words that come to mind: names, locations, subjects and counter-subjects; the season, the time of day, weather and quality of light; lines, shapes, spaces, patterns and colours; ideas, emotions, metaphors and allusions; nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. Start simply, naming the specific visual elements, then broaden your frame of reference to include generic words and more universal concepts.
Try spending some time with a thesaurus to check your words for interesting synonyms. Do a web search for expressions, idioms and quotes related to your most important words. Consult glossaries of artistic, musical, scientific, culinary, geographical, philosophical or other terms that might complement your image.
Eventually, if you are diligent and patient – and lucky – there may be an Aha! moment when some of these words come together and the perfect title hits you like a thunderbolt. But if not, at least you will have generated a suitable pool of words to work with. Not every picture requires a brilliant title, but every title should be a thoughtful one.
This is a process that requires time and practice, but also restraint. Too little effort will yield a hackneyed or blindingly obvious title (the world probably doesn’t need another Abandoned or Golden Sunset, or a seascape titled Seascape). On the other hand, too much word-play easily escalates into flowery alliteration (Morning Majesty and Babbling Brook come to mind), or pretentious MFA art speak (there are plenty of silly online title-generators to entertain you with possibilities). Another peril is heavy-handed titling that explains too much or forces a particular interpretation on a viewer. Alas, this may betray a lack of clarity in you, rather than in the viewer, and it suggests you should revisit the image, or even the landscape itself, to examine it – and your response to it – more deeply. As Albert Einstein famously said: “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”
We may be visual artists, but surely, we cannot deny the power of words. Indeed, photographers who treat words carelessly run the risk of doing their images a grave disservice. Words can clarify ambiguity, shape perception, augment experience, spark curiosity, and point to that alluring something “else” that Minor White taught us is the heart and soul of all expressive photographs.
Most landscape photographers go out of their way to exclude humans from their photographs. But the landscape that we love is also a backdrop for some amazing sport and leisure activities. Nadir Khan, who you can read about in this issues Featured Photographer, specialises in photographing this interaction between the most intense of these individuals and our fabulous Scottish landscape.
It’s taken Nadir quite some time to put together all of the photographs for this book, to take a set of images created for discrete events - climbing, kayaking, mountain biking, etc - and then to find the right opportunities to round them out into a coherent book. The result is a fantastic cross-section of the best of Scottish adventure sports.
The book is organised around the seasons and as we’re in Scotland, Winter definitely comes first and quite rightly takes up over a third of the book. Nadir’s mini-editorial on “The Hurting XI, 11”, one of Scotland’s hardest mixed climbs (XI, 11 means bloody hard and bloody scary) shows just the sort of bad weather that Nadir ends up in - in this case hanging from a fixed line watching Ines Papert inch her way up a vertical frozen rock face on needle points of crampons and axes at -10 degrees in gale force winds.
Following this theme, we see wonderful images of Scottish outdoor types braving the elements in the vertical domain. It’s that harsh that when you see Blair Aitken skiing down the Nevis Range in blue skies you’re caught thinking “lightweight!” (unless you know the slope).
Interspersed with these images are little mood setting editorial pieces and poems, just a couple of pages of writing from various people about their idea of what Extreme Scotland means.
Spring follows Winter (late as usual) and mountaineering, mountain biking and skiing take over. Wonderful spring weather abounds with low sun and the occasional moody sky. Summer is a lot shorter, mostly images of people running (away from midges I presume) and hanging off cliffs (even more desperate anti-midge tactics). Nadir has a way of setting people against the landscape to the best of both parts of the images. The bouldering images in this section are some of my favourites, glimpses of mountains in the background, great use of off-camera flash to make the most of the climbers.
One of my favourite images of the book is of three sunlit mountain bikers riding a route on Beinn Fhada looking back toward Stobh Coire nan Lochan in the background. A perfect balance of human and landscape.
The final part of the book is a short Autumn section, making the most of the rich colour of the changing season.
This is obviously not your usual landscape photography book but I think it gives a wonderful idea of how people can be included in landscape photography to the benefit of both and a good reminder that for every possible mountain vista we take there are likely a whole bunch of people enjoying ‘our’ world in a completely different way.
A big congratulations to Nadir Khan to producing an excellent book on the denizens of the Scottish landscape.
Every photographer has an image that means a lot to them, even if it's not the most successful on social media or one that friends and family don't 'get'. Images that stretch the edges of compositional norms, that show well-known places in different ways or that reflect a moment that means so much personally in your progress as a photographer or just in life.
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I have a Daughter who lives with her family in Sydney; on a visit last year I was lucky enough to have a day out with Len Metcalf.
The day arrived, it was raining, and as we approached the Blue Mountains the fog was heavy and the air humid, the sort of weather that keeps the tourists indoors, for us – PERFECT! It was quiet in the dense air, the sort of fog that dulls all sounds and stirs the senses.
We had breakfast in a café, which was welcome, but I was itching to get going in case the fog lifted, but I needn’t have worried as it persisted all day. Over breakfast, Len explained what to expect and how to deal with it. Waterproofs on, tripods in hand we set off, there were areas where we would stop, wander off and then meet up again, both working independently, getting lost in our own thoughts, feelings, and emotions. For me it was so different to terrain I am familiar with, the tree ferns were giants, the other native trees had peeling barks all gently swaying, silently, in the gentle breeze. The bird sounds were alien; loud and mocking in comparison to British woodland birds that I am familiar with. There were teasing views of the Katoomba Falls forever present.
The descent was somewhat steep in places and a little muddy. There was an occasional rustling in the leaves on the ground and being a wimp I immediately thought of snakes, initially, I admit to feeling somewhat nervous but it was not long before the beauty of my surroundings dispelled all anxieties and I was lost in the beauty of the rain forest in all its glory.
As we descended into the valley below, the falls became more dramatic and we could feel the spray in the air. There were occasional clearings where we could get glimpses of the Three Sisters (an unusual rock formation), as the fog swirled around us there were times when the Three Sisters were completely hidden from view and the silence audible.
It took us around five hours to get to the bottom of the walk and it was with relief I saw we were returning by a train,
Waterproofs on, tripods in hand we set off, there were areas where we would stop, wander off and then meet up again, both working independently, getting lost in our own thoughts, feelings, and emotions.
I have say I was not expecting the speed at which we would return, it was after being harnessed in my seat and looking behind me I realised the drama, five exciting minutes to the top. In all the excitement I had not even noticed how wet I was, my hair soaked and clothes dripping, I arrived back at the car looking like a drowned rat.
Len then took me to a restaurant with superb views where we had lunch and discussed images, which I downloaded on to my laptop, I couldn’t wait to get home to process them, and it is rare I print 12 images from one day out most of which have been exhibited.
At the end of the day, photography is all about communication, I hope in this image ‘Fern and Falls’ with the fern blowing and the glimpse of the waterfalls you can feel just some of the wonderment I felt that memorable day.
Many thanks to Len, for driving, assisting me on difficult slopes, (a perfect gentleman), also for being such a wonderful guide and good company. I am back in Sydney at the end of February and hope we can meet up again.
Welcome to our 4x4 feature which is a set of four mini landscape photography portfolios submitted from our subscribers. Each portfolios consisting of four images related in some way.
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Interested in submitting your work? We're on the lookout for new portfolios for the next few issues, so please do get in touch!
