Photographing The Landscape, Part 1

I thought I might tackle the whole concept of photographing the landscape from a creative, artistic and compositional viewpoint, in a series of articles, starting with:

Landscape As Subject

Why

Landscape has been a subject for painting long before photography came along - though even in painting it has been a development of the last couple of hundred years. Prior to that, most paintings were of people or religious themes or at least people in their surroundings. The idea of pure landscape is in fact relatively modern. That said, landscape was in full swing by the time photography came along around 1830 so it was no surprise that landscape became subject matter for cameras too. Of course there were technical reasons - like it tends to hold still and lighting is provided (often lots of it).

There are practical reasons for photographing the landscape - typically you don't need permission, you don't have to have people skills, it gets you out in the fresh air and usually involves getting some exercise, besides, it's pretty, and clean, and smells good. Of course, it can also be -40 or raining, muddy or stormy. It often involves travel which can be a mixed blessing - you get to go nice places, but can make doing landscape work near home frustrating if home doesn't look anything like the mountains or the seashore.

For the serious photographer, landscape offers many attractions. The mere challenge of taking beautiful scenery and somehow translating into a piece of paper inches across is significant. Typically you don't have the option of moving things around to arrange them so the challenge is to work with what you find to make an interesting composition which is both simpler and harder - simpler because complete freedom to put things anywhere you want means the huge responsibility of designing the composition instead of discovering it, yet the frustration when things don't quite work out and you wish that rock were three feet to the left.

Landscape being one of the classic themes and very popular, it is quite possible to compare your results to those of others, to gauge your progress and to know where you stand. You can easily visit galleries and see what really good prints look like, and there are many books of landscape photographs to study from.

Landscape is relatively generic - you can hardly give a picture of your girlfriend to your boss as a Christmas present (well, maybe you could if it's racy enough - but would she want you to?). Landscape works well as decoration and for the intelligent but uninformed, it is easy to relate to. The sales market is certainly larger and your spouse is more likely to give up wall space to your work when it's landscape.

Landscape photographs can be truly beautiful. I am particularly partial to black and white landscape but there are some really talented colour landscape photographers out there.

I find the challenge of deciding on the right position from which to photograph, the choice for the edges of the image (ie. the framing) and the process of translating the landscape into a fine art image very satisfying, if at times frustrating too. If it was too easy, it wouldn't be as much fun.

Next time I'm going to write about what to photograph. there are many inexperienced photographers who bemoan not being able to visit Yosemite or Big Sur as a huge limit to their photography or who feel that only travel can produce satisfactory work, discounting their own surroundings as being too mundane, or too flat for satisfactory landcscape images. I have some thoughts on those problems - and they don't involve a bigger travel budget.

On A Personal Note

Don't think I said, the publisher (Rockynook) is sending me to Photokina next month. I'll be giving a workshop Friday afternoon and doing a video taping for foto TV as well as bringing along my wife for a bit of holiday for a few days before and after. We're quite excited. We are catching an overnight train from Cologne to Prague and staying there two nights before doing the same back again.

I purchased a Canon 40D before doing the San Francisco workshop and it has been performing very well for me - providing excellent images at ei. 400 and entirely useable images at ei. 1600. With some reservations I purchased it with the 18-55 IS lens and it has been performing well for me - it's tiny and quite sharp once stopped down at the longer focal lengths and even without stopping down at the wider lengths.

On the basis of that experience, I picked up the new 55-250 lens. I have not formally tested it but so far it seems to be doing the job and is ideal for traveling - it's black, small, light, won't break the bank if stolen and is quite unobtrusive for what amounts to the equivalent of an 88-400 mm. lens. I'm carrying the kit in a tramrac across the shoulder bag which if a bit slow getting the camera in and out, at least will make it harder for someone to help themselves as happened to a friend on a bus in Prague.

I have debated about the value of a tripod on a trip like this but I have found shooting without a tripod frustrating when I can't stop down for depth of field or can't use a slow shutter speed. I have a sneaking suspicion my best shots are likely to be at sunrise and sunset and possibly even at night so a lightweight tripod looks to be the answer. I have a Manfrotto 925B which is quite light - despite being aluminium it's about the same weight as a 190 fibre tripod and ball head so that's likely what I'll take. The idea of dropping $750 for an even lighter Gitzo seems a bit much.

I am working on a second book, whose format is more or less locked down - it will be a modern day Examples, the making of 40 images - stealing from the very popular and useful book of Ansel Adams. it was a book I found useful and hope that a modern day equivalent will also serve, though I'm no Ansel Adams. Segments vary from 4 to 8 pages and include either interim steps in the editing of the images or in some cases other images entirely that illustrate a point.

The first book is available in German and soon Italian.

I'm trying to move from old industries to modern and have checked at a couple of places to see I can get access - fingers crossed. It could be very challenging.

More From The Back Alley

This is the inside of a metal garbage can - strange where you can find interesting subjects.

Snowplow

On call and unable to leave town, I popped over to Heritage Park for the afternoon, capturing this image of the blade of a snow plow. Similar units are still in use on Canadian track to clear the line.

Cabbage II

One advantage of still lifes is you can go back and do it again. I liked the first image but thought I could improve on it - thus version 2 you see above. I'm not convinced that I have it 100% yet, but I'm liking the direction I'm going.

Perhaps I'll have another go at it tomorrow, wind and weather permitting.

Gardening Problem Pays Off

This Spring, I planted ornamental cabbage (kale) in half barrels on our back deck. I had successfully grown them in the garden before and anticipated lovely cabbages well into October as they are quite frost hardy.

Well, something went wrong - too much water, doesn't like tubs - don't know. All I know is that they went through a terrific stage, then went to flower and the rosettes of leaves rotted off.

I gathered up the rotted leaves, leaving a pathetic centre stump still alive. Out of my usual laziness, I didn't drop the dead leaves into the compost, and two days later, I noted some interesting patterns in the piled leaves. Well, why not take advantage...

Hoodoos

I remember visiting this spot as a kid - it seemed both impressive and extensive. I visited it again last year and couldn't believe how small this particular feature in the badlands was and how few of the standing stones there were.

This year, I decided to check around the area to see if there was anything else to photograph but took one more walk through the display, and when I got above the display, looking back to the road, found some lovely lines worth exploring. I had to wait till well after sundown before the tourists thinned out and there are so many scuff marks on the rocks that they actually blend now and don't show as much as when there were only a few.

By isolating the features from the background road (even at the cost of losing a couple of features, and by doing extensive burning to darken shadows and increase the three dimensionality of the surfaces, I'm quite pleased with the result.

On the whole, I find it easier to add dimension in flat lighting than it is to try opening up shadows in harsh lighting.

Thoughts On Creating/Cheating/Modifying Images

I have the attitude that if you do a little cloning in Photoshop to clean up an image, that's just fine, and I have often removed an errant twig this way. I don't mind stretching an image to distort perspective and get the composition right. In my film days I even showed an image which stole a sky from another image - involving a little darkroom trickery.

For some reason I object to wholesale alteration of an image - moving a major object in the image to a different location, adding elements other than sky from another image.

I don't think my attitude makes any sense at all - why should one manipulation be any more acceptable than another.

I guess that I have a built-in meter for manipulation which says something along the lines of "if the image is fundamentally the same, then it's ok, if it is radically changed but still looks real it's not ok, and if it's radically changed to look unreal, well that's just fine again.

Not very logical, and I'd hate to have to defend my instinct in court. I have absolutely no feeling that your attitude should be the same or that I should somehow persuade you to mine, no desire to become evangelical = it's simply what I notice about myself.

Take the flower photographs/paintings of Huntington Witherill, which are clearly manipulated.

So, if I am not trying to force my opinions on you, what's the point of even raising the subject? Well, I suppose as a reminder that each of us has our own ideas of what is right, and it works for us, but we DON'T have the right to dictate to others what they should do, other than to not purchase prints if we don't like their attitudes. Just as there are people who only appreciate and purchase images made with film and printed on silver or platinum or whatever, you and I can vote with our wallets, but I don't think we have any business criticizing them.

I might think that it's silly to not remove a small pop can from a digital image being used for the cover of a book, but Stephen Johnson did it and I don't think he's silly and in fact one could argue that it says much about his character that he is a stickler for honesty and realism.

Work like Huntington's obviously blurs the line between photography and painting but so what. Rap music has more to do with poetry than music in my opinion - that doesn't create problems for me. It might for a cataloger or historian but too bad.

The Right Weather

Not a very original photograph but it does illustrate a point. When I left Calgary about 90 minutes before, there wasn't a cloud in the sky and I doubted I'd get much photography in before sundown, but weather often changes and staying home because the weather isn't right can be a mistake.



The second image is of a thunderstorm that blew in only 30 minutes after leaving Calgary.

What's The Point?

In these days of internet fame and exposure, we forget that in previous generations, people typically worked in isolation, rarely if ever sharing their work with anyone, yet they seemed to enjoy the hobby. Certainly they went to great efforts, building darkrooms, developing prints in less than ideal circumstances and living with the limitations of the wet darkroom, all apparently for nothing.

Let's look at that nothing, because I think it can teach us some things about our photography which might have become lost in the age of sharing our work.

So what could possibly entice someone to put all that effort into images which no one will ever see?

For some it is the satisfaction of solving a problem - whether it's to make clean negatives or large prints or a richly toned image. For others it's the need to create - the value lies in the prints made, even if in the end they sit in paper boxes, rarely if ever to see the light of day. Others did share their work with family, occasionally with friends and more often within camera clubs but with meetings once a month and limited exposure of your work, it typically could not be thought of as fame.

It's more than possible to be proud of the work you do without needing to receive affirmation from others. Many the serious amateur photographer worked away in isolation, producing bodies of work of significance and depth, knowing only that it was worth doing for itself.

Perhaps we need to remind ourselves now and again that while fame is nice, it's quite possible to feel good about your work without involving anyone else.

Landscapes In Photography Vs. Art

John had severals suggestions for topics and I thought this might be worth consideration.

In painting, the artist can place objects wherever he wants. The only option for a photographer is to use his position, left, right, to, fro, up and down to control placement of multiple objects in an image.

The painter adds only those details to the landscape necessary to the painting. The photographer struggles to simplify the composition so the viewer can concentrate on the important elements. This is a major cause of walking away from otherwise good images - just too much stuff, especially bushes and branches and so on.

The painter can (and usually does) soften the lighting, open the shadows hugely and choses the warmth of light to match the mood he wants to create. The photographer can do some of this in Photoshop but it often requires photographing in the early morning or evening light for best effect. Even HDR techniques can't turn mid day lighting into interesting landscape images.

The painter can add clouds as needed while the photographer must either wait or cheat - funny that it isn't cheating in painting.

Canvases come in all manner of sizes and length ratios though it's interesting that typically a painter will chose a canvas first, then paint to suit the canvas. You don't see cropped canvases. Of course, heights of trees and rocks and the width of rivers can be adjusted to suit, so perhaps it's more sensible for photographers to vary the ratios of their images to suit the particular subject, rather than to fit the paper they happen to print on or the sensor size of their camera.

Painters have complete control of the colour of objects - no yellow rocks next to pink ones, unless they want it. Of course, it's possible to do this in Photoshop and I have made subtle changes to fit in better, but in general photographers live with what nature provided. It does mean though, that we have to work extra hard to be selective in our compositions.

Painters have the choice of infinite or limited depth of field. Often backgrounds are hinted at with fairly large brush strokes which are themselves sharp where the photographer has a choice of blurred or not, and limitations within those. Helicon Focus has allowed us in some landscapes to increase depth of field - but it doesn't work in wind or with water that's moving.

Painters can control the sense of depth and distance through fading colours where photographers have to live with the light and atmosphere present. No wonder that photographic landscapes on a bright sunny day with little haze don't portray the sense of distance seen in paintings. We need weather and the right atmospheric conditions. On the other hand, cameras do great fog.

Perhaps most importantly, painters can paint the landscape as any degree of abstract they care to make it. Photographers rarely have that option with grand landscapes, though with close up details we can often approach abstract.

Photography And Painting

While I have no desire to carry on a philosophical discussion which doesn't lead to better photographing, I do think that taking some time to consider the world of painting can be useful.

The world of painting goes through phases, styles and techniques. Typically the first few who introduce a style become famous while those who follow don't. At the same time there are literally millions of hobbyist painters, some of them extremely talented, who pain in the styles of those who went before, typically the more conservative styles, usually literal or at most semi abstract paintings of an identifiable subject.

It is these painting which are affordable enough for the general public to be able to buy and attractive enough to use as decoration in a home.

Andy Warhol may be famous for his Campbell's Soup Can painting, but the number of people who want to display that artwork on their walls for months or years is pretty minimal.

Often there are huge public outcries when a local museum spends (sometimes millions) on a painting which looks like it could have been done by a six year old or just about anyone for that matter.

This is analogous to the rude comments I have repeatedly made about Camera Arts magazine. Truth is, it's the role of pioneers to shock us, to rock our foundations, change our understandings, redefine what is art or photography. Nowhere does it say that their role is to be appreciated by the masses, even the semi educated masses like myself, and certainly no one suggested it should be pretty or suitable for hanging over your newly recovered sofa.

On the other hand, every time I go to Swiss Chalet for chicken soup, I admire the Group Of Seven paintings they have throughout the restaurant. These paintings have meaning for me - firstly they are Canadian painters, second, they painted the Canadian Landscape that I can relate to. that they are very skillfully done and have a very definite style to them throughout is part of what I like about them. They aren't your simple Sunday afternoon dauber kind of paintings. These paintings are not the equivalent of calendar photographs - pretty scenes captured in standard ways and presented realistically. Instead they equate to photographs which interpret rather than illustrate the landscape.

Reproductions of these famous paintings are found decorating many the office and home across the land. Some are no doubt attracted more by the reputation of the painters than the actual quality of the painting but that's o.k. How many photographers have an Ansel Adams poster hanging somewhere, or a print purchased while at a workshop? These are usually pretty normal photographs, ones that the spouse would approve of for decoration.

So what does this mean for our photography? Well, if it is your goal to be cutting edge, leader of the pack, an instigator rather than a follower then either you are incredibly talented and you will pull it off, or you aren't, and you will fall flat on your face, to be forgotten in the dusts of time, remembered, if at all, as odd, weird, gimicky or quirky. They risk their motives being challenged - is it about money or artistic expression. Time will sort it all out. The number of people who will be successful in this arena are probably only a few in every generation so don't count on being one of them.

Picasso may have been the first cubist painter, actually I don't know. Certainly he was the most famous and if he built cubism on the shoulders of those who went before, well that's only natural. Should we discount all other cubist painters because they weren't first?

If we go back to impressionism, do we reject all but the first to use this style? What does that say about someone who paints in the impressionist style these days?

Georgia O'Keefe was famous for her exotic and erotic paintings of flowers. Many have since painted in the same style. Would I purchase a really gorgeous painting done in her style - darn right - I know I can't afford any of hers and if I found one I liked as much by a modern painter, for a fraction of the price, I'd hang it happily and wouldn't feel hard done by that I couldn't get the 'real' painting by O'Keefe.

If you could purchase a gorgeous black and white grand landscape image, with tones deep enough to dive into and highlight subtlety to make you weep, but it isn't an Ansel, would you refuse to hang it - I think not.

If you purchase a large and fairly comprehensive book on the history of art, you will find that for any period in painting, there are dozens if not hundreds of painters remembered for the quality of their work, and only a handful who are know for their innovation. It is interesting to look back from more than 100 years and to realize that fame for innovation is largely fleeting, that what people are remembered for is the quality of their work, not the uniqueness or the 'I was here first' status of their work.

Think of it this way, would you rather have the first painting of a particular style, or the best, Hmmm? So, should photography and photographers be any different?

More On Seeing Images

Probably the single biggest problem for photographers is seeing something interesting to photograph. I have written about this before. Much of my first book was dedicated to the problem, yet the problem persists and the following feedback to requests for ideas for topics is pretty common.

Frank E has left a new comment on your post "Suggestions for Future Topics?":

l have a suggestion, but just so you know "where it is coming from" let me talk about myself first:
-have been shooting seriously (as a hobbyist) for about three years now
-shoot with a Canon 20D with enough glass that takes me from 10mm to 400 but no fancy TSE equipment etc, but do have a macro
-use PS CS3 but am far from an expert
-am reasonably pleased with my progress (have won a number of camera club awards)
-but still get frustrated that I am not progressing more quickly
-try to look at other people's work, buy alot of books (including yours), and also take them out from the librarry

My question/suggestion for a topic is to talk more about how you "find" your images. I know that "text book" answer to the question. Look around for lines, texture, colours, shapes etc. Then simplify, simplify etc. But I still find that I walk around and the muse doesn't strike me. What are the techniques you use (mental conditioning, triggers you look for etc) for finding images. What helps your "seeing"

So what more can I say without repeating myself?

Perhaps telling the story of how I came to photograph the turbine might be helpful to some of you.

I was on the way to photograph Ghost Reservoir Dam (didn't see an image there). The turbine was sitting in a field, looking more like something you'd use to feed cattle than create electricity. The top part (the blades) was a uniform dark brown from the road and I passed it without much thought. After turning the car round to leave the dam site, I decided to at least take the trouble to look closely. I didn't even unpack the camera, but did walk over to find that it was a lot more interesting close up. Instead of an even brown rust, there were streaks and curves, varying tones and hues and those lovely curves of each blade. It mushroomed out at the top and had some spots that looked like welded repairs here and there.

Let's stop for a minute and think about what has happened.

I saw a subject and didn't see anything worth while.

I didn't find anything better to photograph so I looked at the subject again.

I decided that even though I couldn't see anything worth photographing from the car, it was at least worth the trouble to get out and investigate.

Upon investigation, it turned out to be a lot more interesting than anticipated.

What can we deduct from this experience?

Well, finding photographs is about possibilities, not probabilities. If you only ever explored the things you were fairly sure would make a good image, you'd be narrowing your choices severely.

"Check it out" could be your mantra.

O.K., so I have walked up to the old turbine and see better shapes and textures than expected and I'm thinking there's a good chance of an image here - in fact I'm quite excited by the possibilities. I go back to the camera and get my gear. I return to the same spot and it's time to work the scene.

I start with a straight horizontal shot of the turbine blades, including some distracting background at either side that I will likely crop out. I then start to work with the parts, moving in, replacing my long lens with a wide angle so I can get really close to the blades and accentuate the curves and capture texture.

I'm having trouble getting an image in which both left and right sides are strong so I start circling the turbine, looking for a better angle.

I decide that the original position was best and now it's time to make small refinements - up and down, to and fro, left and right. I'm using a zoom so I can adjust the focal length too - is it better to be wide and close or far and long - I try both because I'm not sure.

And another pause to reflect on what's happening.

This "intermediate" stage is about finding the most interesting part(s) of the subject and the best position from which to view said same.

And back to the search. What I haven't done is to "compose" the image. I haven't defined the boundaries of the image. This isn't just a matter of framing, I also have to reconsider position to best strengthen the composition, without moving to a position which compromises presentation of the main subject matter. If I move six inches to the left, I can use that other blade to frame the edges, but how will that affect the streaks which are my main focus?

So stage three is about fine tuning and framing.

For further help with the art of seeing, I recommend the books of Freeman Patterson. He includes a number of exercises.

Turbine Abstract

Takkakaw Falls

Near Field, B.C. on the TransCanada Highway, I have never before visited Takkakaw Falls. A real treat and more spectacular than I had been expecting. There was a tricky switchback on the way up (how the heck a full sized bus made it up I'll never know).

I had doubts about the image since, veiled by mist, there isn't anything darker than about middle gray, nor much lighter than light gray. I could easily have restored the full range of tones, totally destroying the dreamy effect of the original. Portraying atmosphere effectively is not easy, whether it be fog, snow storms, heavy rain or as in this case, spray. I don't have any answers for you - I'm learning as I go.

It's a bit like sculpture - take a rock and remove anything that isn't David (or whatever you aimed at). Here you adjust to produce a good print, while not taking away from the atmosphere.

Turbine

I've just spent two days in the mountains and the best image I found was this old turbine sitting in a field near a dam.

Friend and Fellow Photographer

You might wonder what the point is of taking a snapshot of the fellow you are out photographing with - I can't sell it, except possibly to Robin's wife - and I would give her a print, I am not likely to include it in a portfolio or exhibition, normally I'd not even put it on my blog, but it does make a point.

Any photograph you take is worth doing well, and if the photograph serves no more purpose than to please the spouse of a friend, well that's more than many photographs do. So why not shoot the cat, the kid, the friend. Robin was changing film (yes, he's one of those dinosaurs - and happily so - he's even into pyro). I couldn't quite get his eye enough for a good image, so I simply asked him to look up. I don't usually shoot portraits with a 300 mm. lens, but it worked very nicely to blur the background, and damn, that 300 mm. f4 L lens is sharp!

Suggestions for Future Topics?

I'm looking for some ideas for future blog entries, to continue on the theme of the ART of photography rather than technical stuff. Suggestions?

Thanks,

George

Siding

Fences

Don't often get a chance to use my 300 mm. lens, but with a bit of image blending for depth of field, it worked well with this scene on a local farm this morning. We'd left our primary site of shooting and with the sun high in the sky and not a cloud anywhere we weren't optimistic about finding anything suitable to photograph.

Still, if you don't try, you don't get, so...

On Not Seeing

I have been thinking about my experience in San Francisco, not so much about teaching the workshop but about the walk abouts we scheduled as part of the workshop. While spending much of the time helping others see, I was on the prowl for images too.

In hind sight, two things have become apparent.

1) I saw all sorts of images in this foreign city (to me) that I don't see at home, and

2) In San Francisco, I had absolutely no hesitation in asking anyone if I could take their picture, where here I'd feel foolish and shy.

It's all very well saying that San Francisco was full of lovely 1890's houses well preserved and beautifully painted - but I saw images in ordinary houses, like the one above, and in routine details. At home, I am so used to seeing these and accepting them as background to my life, I don't in fact see them as subject matter.

As a tourist, I had no issue with asking to take a picture of someone. I suppose it's that if I made a fool of myself I wouldn't be around for long - but that certainly isn't what I was thinking - it just seemed like as someone visiting the city, I could play the tourist and happily snap away.

Calgary has a population of 1 million, so it isn't likely I'd meet someone I know while out shooting, but somehow it feels more intrusive at home, turning on one's own.

Does anyone else find that being elsewhere changes the way you see and photograph?

Well Worn Truck

Steps Explained

I was asked about how I took and processed this image, so here goes.

To start, we see a set of stairs. But we know that wide angle lenses aimed up cause converging verticals and can make for some interesting shapes. I could see that the brick had both texture and sufficient reflective properties to shine a little in some places (eg. the top of the banister).

If you followed the blog you know I first shot it hand held, ei. 400 with the 40D and 18-55, and after seeing the crop that Chuck recommended, came up with my own crop based on keeping the point on the right by cloning out the distracting light fitting.

Back the next day with my 1Ds2 and more importantly, with a tripod, I was able to shoot multiple exposures to contain the huge dynamic range from reflected sky in the glass to darkest recesses of the stair well.

I found that I could capture this in two images, one for the dark areas, using Recovery in Camera Raw to keep the banister from blowing out (the brightest bricks in the image. I used the second exposure for the windows and reflected clouds. I did some individual colour adjustment (page 3 of Camera Raw) to darken the blue sky and increase saturation of the blue a little.

Once in Photoshop, I copied the sky exposure on top of the bricks exposure and using a black mask, I painted into it so the windows and sky and clouds would show up. At this point they were rather anaemic despite the camera raw adjustments. Once I had the exposures suitably blended I flattened the image and sharpened.

I converted the result to black and white using Photoshop CS3's black and white adjustment layer, lightening the bricks via the yellow and red sliders and darkening the blue via that slider.

I now had a black and white image in which the clouds were quite easily seen. There was too much light on some of the banister, not enough on other parts and it was necessary to use a couple of curves adjustment layers black masked and painted into to even things out.
I used a couple more curves to darken the sky while leaving the clouds light. Some additional work was done on the ceilings via more curves adjustment layers.

Once I had the image more or less where I wanted, I used Akvis Enhancer on a copy layer but then faded the enhancement back to about 25% effect. The image was again flattened.

Some final touch up was done on a copy of the image in a second layer with the dodge highlights (set at 5% opacity brush) and I was able to pop the clouds out even better.

And More Badlands

Back In The Badlands

Oriental Poppy

Do consider black and white for your flower pictures - green backgrounds are no longer distracting and you can see the shapes and tones and textures of the flower where in colour everything takes second place to that.

Steps Revisited

I liked Chuck's crop enough to consider reshooting, however, I was disturbed by the loss of the point made by the lower roof on the right. He'd cropped it to lose the light, and I decided that I wanted the point enough either to downplay the light or to Photoshop it out entirely - I did it both ways but preferred the lamp gone entirely. I used a two image blend to keep detail in the clouds while minimizing noise in the shadows - this after also trying image blend in Photomatix.

The Bad With The Good

The first image is the one I posted yesterday. The second is a crop that Chuck thought I might be interested in looking at. He sent it to me with some reluctance as he himself isn't overly fond of getting crops in the mail, but I guess he felt this was sufficiently interesting to warrant the intrusion. As I too have cropped other people's images, usually not bothering to send them but occasionally doing so, he was on solid ground.

I too was taken with the tightly cropped image and thought I'd write about it.

I don't think there is anything wrong with the original image, but Chuck has managed to pare down the image to its essentials while eliminating some distracting details.

There is less plain brick wall - after all - how much brick do you need? He managed to eliminate the lights, which certainly had bothered me in the original composition. He's taken a horizontal image and turned into a vertical one with a lot of energy in it. He's managed to emphasize the looming side of the steps, eliminated the odd angles of handrails that distracted and also the white marks at the edge of the steps.

In return he lost some good features of the original and it's a question of whether it's better to remove some good to eliminate some bad, and whether in the end the new composition is simply better.

I actually went down to reshoot these steps today (I'm on an extended long weekend) but unfortunately much of downtown wasn't - no parking, too many people. I'll go again tomorrow, Canada Day and reshoot the image with tripod and HDR and adequate depth of field and low ISO, probably with the 1Ds2 for best possible resolution.

Can you use this example to help your own compositional efforts?

Below is my effort at cropping in the way of Chuck- it's actually shot from a slightly different position - you don't get the loom of the brick top to the stairs in the bottom right corner, but you do get that other shape which goes to the corner - it's going to be fun reshooting it and I think I will have to give myself several options for composition since making a final decision based on the small viewfinder isn't the best from prior experience.

Downtown Walkabout

Unable to leave town (I was on call) and with no specific project in mind, I headed downtown and wandered around and the above images were what I found. Nothing momentous, nothing I'd put in a portfolio of this years best so what's the point?

Well, I got some exercise, enjoyed the sunshine, practiced my composing and seeing skills.


Did I learn anything - yes - take the damn tripod with you - despite the IS, there were times when it would have been helpful and although 400 is good, when you really open the shadows, it starts to get a bit noisy - 100 would in fact have been better.

Wandering Downtown

It's A Miracle

My 7600 has been sitting for the better part of a year, collecting dust. Tonight I thought I'd see if it was even possible to resurrect it after such a long time, fully anticipating hours of clean, test, clean cycles.

One clean, no tests (couldn't get the test to work), a quick reinstall of Quadtone Rip and a bit of a refresher on how to use it (I've been using the 5000 so hadn't used that either in months) and my first print looks to be perfect - I can't believe it. I'm making a print of the badlands image of the other day - 20X42 inches, 300 dpi (there was slight stretching of the image in the stitching and perspective correction process).

Actually that was a story in itself. With the base of the ball head perfectly leveled, I found that one end of the canyon wall was a bit higher than the other. I figured that if I tilted the base a bit then I could capture the canyon wall on the bias so to speak, and fix it later. What really happened was that the images when stitched came out in an arc. I didn't want to trim to get a rectangle so I brought the image into Photoshop, did a transform using warp and adjusted the warping to straighten the image. This resulted in a rectangular image but I noted later that in this image there are absolutely vertical lines of erosion in the image which could not be either curved or on the diagonal.

A second go with warp later in the editing process was able to fix that nicely without losing any of the image. I find it remarkable that I can warp an image twice and yet maintain the resolution and sharpness but that has been my experience on several occasions. I do try to avoid doing a transform twice but sometimes I miss something or there is a secondary adjustment to be made after the initial one.

The Backup Saga Continues

After four days, Retrospect had not yet backed up even half of my information - seeming to be quite a bit slower than Time Machine. Several readers pointed out that Time Machine does in fact back up other hard drives, though it seems it doesn't back up anything but Mac OS (journaled). Perhaps this is why the original attempt at using Time Machine failed. I won't know for a while yet. I am currently doing a backup of the two internal drives and will add an external drive when that is done. Two of my external drives aren't journaled and the Time Machine documentation makes it pretty plain this is a problem.

I suspect I will have to copy the files on those disks to drobo separately, reformat the drives and restore the files to them.

Rules

Ever wonder about rules in photography - rules of composition, focusing, choice of subject, lighting and whatnot.

Truth is, rules are a substitute for thinking. If you don't want to think about how best to frame your subject, you apply the rules of thirds. While a few rules are based on physics and properties of the real world (like hyperfocal distances, most are simply generalizations which work fairly well, most of the time, for most subjects. Is that really any way to treat an image that is important to you?

At the very most rules should be fall-back positions - failing a better idea, then I'll follow the rules but if you think about it, having no clue what to do with the composition doesn't say much for your involvement with the subject matter.

It's entirely different to not be able to decide which of two options is better - framing A or framing B - they may be equally attractive, all be it in different ways and difficulty deciding says more about your personality than either your intelligence or involvement.

Therefore, rules are not made to be broken, they are there to be replaced by careful consideration and should only be used when they explain the physical world or don't have any impact on the creation of the image.

Another Badlands Image

Badlands Stitch

Above isa 7 image stitch with the 1Ds2, making for approx. 6000C13000 pixels, 80 megapixels. It shows a lot of detail and should make for some nice large prints, say 2 feet by five.

You may note that this is similar to the single image I posted the other day, though no cropped as tightly. Time will tell whether this should be cropped a bit but I need to live with it for a while.

Remember to click on the image to see it in a larger size.

Backing Up - There's more to this!

I found out to my disgust that Time Machine on the Mac only backs up your main hard drive, not even a second internal drive according to the apple tech support person. It definitely doesn't back up external drives (upon sit most of my important images). Ouch! That makes it near worthless to me.

I checked with the Drobo people - they recommended Super Duper - as did my friend Bill. Only catch is, Super Duper can update changed files but does not do incremental backup - so if the file is corrupted and then backed up - too bad - if you want an older version before you stupidly shrunk the original file for the net (I have done this), then so sorry, it's gone - start all over with the raw file. As I spend hours editing images and sometimes haven't a clue what all I did in which sequence to an image, this is mighty frustrating.

I may be forced to purchase and use Retrospect - which does in fact handle multiple drives and incremental backups. The standard version isn't all that expensive at $129.

Old Truck

More Of Atlas Coal Tipple

Adventures In Backup

Well, I'm doing better when it comes to protecting my images.

1) I now have a Belkin UPS protecting my computer and various hard drives.

2) I have installed Leopard on my Mac and will be using Time Machine for efficient backups.

3) I purchased a Drobo after doing some reading, and loaded it with 4 one terabyte drives. As Drobo recommended, I made a single 4 terabyte virtual drive, then partitioned it into one 80% chunk, another 20%, this move so that Drobo never goes into 85+ territory which is I gather innefficient and the way that Time Machine works is when it runs out of space, it starts throwing things out. This will now happen before Drobo goes into overdrive.

4) I have backed up all my edited image folders and detached the drive after.

5) I have backed up all raw files and returned the hard drive to my office (ie. offsite).

It cost me about $1500 for the hardware - certainly in the past this was an amount I balked at spending but the time had come...

Alternatives would have been a 2 terabyte disk but it wasn't going to be that much cheaper and wouldn't have survived a single disk failure, which the system I have will do.

Are there cheaper ways? - sure - are they as simple? - probably not - do I regret spending the money? No, it needed to be done - like getting a new roof - you don't really get to enjoy it, it just protects you.

Top Of The Tipple

17 mm., 25 seconds at f16 with the 17-40 on 1Ds2
It's extremely dark in there - auto focus won't work, manual focus is difficult since you can't see the main objects in the view finder - you rely on focusing on specular highlights where you can find them. It's remarkable that the camera did as well as it did as regards the dynamic range - a bit of recovery in camera raw and some judicious darkening of the lightest boards and the results are quite remarkable given the difficulty of the subject.

One thing I can see that I want to change is to increase the contrast in the roof boards on the left so they better match the ones on the right. No doubt other changes will occur to me over time, some of which will prove ill advised, others important.

Back To The Badlands

My friend Robin and I headed for Drumheller today, planning to photograph at Atlas Coal Tipple, but we noticed this side canyon on the way and marked it for a visit after supper. Robin worked his way up a cliff which faced the sunny side of the canyon while I went up the sunny side wall to photograph into the shade. Time will tell which was the better plan. As Robin shoots film and doesn't 'do' digital, it may be some time before we find out. He's into medium and large format and pyro developer - remember develoers? I think he might have been a bit miffed when I showed my images on my Epson 2000 at supper - at least I agreed to turn it off so we could eat.

More On Who Is Going To Be Remembered

Do read the comments from the previous blog. A number of important points were raised.

1) with the advent of self publishing, being published perhaps doesn't mean as much as once it did.

2) there are so many good photographers now, what does it take to be remembered?

3) Perhaps the only way to be remembered is to be different just to stand out - I surely hope this isn't the case, but perhaps Camera Arts knows something I don't.

4) Perhaps the heyday of photography is past and no one is going to stand out and be remembered 50 years hence. I don't think this is the case, but maybe...

We tend to think of Edward Weston and Ansel Adams as pioneers but truth is photography had been around for 100 years when Ansel was in his heyday. People like Timothy Sullivan were capturing the grand landscape with huge view cameras long before Ansel. Edward wasn't the first to shoot vegetables and nudes.

Throughout history each of the arts has progressed from the established to the new, the latter becoming the established in time if it's good enough.

There is still plenty of room for sharp, fully toned, well composed images. Take for example the mining photographs of Louie Palu - refreshingly new, yet not relying on any tricks, techniques or antiquated processes.

On the issue of 'so many good photographers', while it's true, few show us anything about the world we didn't already know. I suspect that those who will be remembered are the ones who were able to do so.

One problem with photographers who photograph modern life is that we are so familiar with it (after all we are living it) that we tend to discount it. Mind you, living it and looking at it aren't the same and photographers like Stephen Shore and others are appreciated by those who realize that showing us ourselves is important now and even more important in the future.

Who Is Going To Be Remembered

Ever wonder who, of the modern crop of famous photographers (or perhaps not famous) is going to be revered 50 years hence?

Did the world know that Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange et al know that they were going to be in a similar position?

Oddly, I suspect the answer is yes. Edward was being collected when collecting photography was unheard of. He was writing articles for photography magazines. Margaret Bourke White was on the cover of Life at a time when that was about as big a deal as you could be in North America. It's my impression that virtually none of the greats now revered were unknown in their own time.

The implication is that we likely already know of the photographers and their work; who will be famous 50 years hence. Kinda makes you think.

Will the revered be the current crop of Ansel Adams followers - John Sexton, Bruce Barnbaum et al, or will it be the photographers who took colour and made it art - people like Joel Myerowitz? Could it be the photographers who push the envelop and scribble on their images, use alternative processes to photograph the dead and rotting - people like Joel Peter Witkin. It's interesting to me that he's famous, but I can't think of a single person who has continued along that line who's name I know or who's images repeatedly show up, suggesting that common sense has prevailed - the originator gets the fame, the followers wallow in obscurity.

Who do you think are the photographers now in their 30's and 40's who are going to be revered in 50 years?

Compulsory Figures

When craftsmen or even skaters are tested for their skills, they are often asked to make something standard - in the case of skaters, they have compulsory figures. In a way, it's too bad that the same is not required of hobby and amateur photographers. It is in photography school.

Think about it. Your assignment is to make another Pepper # 30. Sure the world doesn't need one, but think about it. First you need a suitably funky pepper, then some sort of setting for it, you need to light it or find the natural lighting that will give that pepper the roundness and the glow and the gorgeous highlights, and you need to compose the image suitably.

What has happened when I have tried that experiment in years past is a technically competent aesthetically horrible image, looking more like an illustration in a scientific text on breeding than a piece of art.

When you take on an assignment which has a 'gold standard' with which to compare your efforts, it is downright easy to see where you failed. You can then try again and keep doing it till you get quality that is at least similar to the 'master' image you chose to copy.

I think you will find it time well spent.

It's too bad that some of the 'art' photographers featured in Camera Arts didn't do this first, then we'd get to see their avant garde and alternative process images at their best.

What Do We Really Want From Photography?

I would suggest that "why we photograph" and "what we want from photography" are not the same and that further, a study of what we want from our photography and an analysis of other peoples goals and how practical ours are given our circumstances could be very useful.

A good answer to why we photograph might be one of the following:

a) a burning need to create

or

b) I like messing with cameras

or more likely a bit of both, in varying ratios to suit our personalities.


An honest look at what we want from photography might include any of the following:

1) to be recognized as a craftsman or artist, anyway a skilled photographer

2) money - money to justify expensive equipment (see above - playing with toys) or to actually supplement income (in which case forget the expensive toys).

3) to have some nice photographs, to look at

4) to improve our skills, at whatever level me might be now

5) fame - which isn't necessarily the same as recognition

6) to make some really great images, whether anyone else sees them or not.


And I dare say you can add your own suggested goals either observed or experienced.


I have a portfolio case of matted silver prints, probably about 35 of them, representing some of the best work I did BD (before digital). I doubt more than a dozen people in the world have ever seen them (except one workshop). The portfolio rarely sees the light of day, even to me. I suspect that a lot of photographers were the same before digital and the internet.

This can tell us quite a lot about both drive to photograph and goals achieved. There were a lot of happy photographers before the internet, who like me seemed to get satisfaction from photography without fame, money, recognition or even the social aspects of photography. While it is tempting to suggest that nowadays the main goals are fame and fortune, in fact I suspect that the vast majority of photographers might dream of same, but realistically aim for different, more realistic goals. It's a bit like being 58 and pot bellied (not to mention any names, but there's a mirror in our hall) and wishing you had some gorgeous model, star, stud or being of ultimate desire to your taste) at your beck and call. You know damn well you're lucky to have the aging spouse you have, and if you were honest with yourself, having to keep pace with someone like the above dream would be far more trouble than 99% of us would be willing to put out.

Fame and fortune in photography are no different - they are high maintenance, demanding, rude, all consuming and downright fickle. Most of us aren't willing to put up with high and mighty gallery owners, pushy clients, deadlines, marketing, more time spent matting and framing (because we can't make a profit if we get someone else to do it) than we do photographing. We become experts at packaging and mailing rather than composing.

Most of us have jobs which provide a steady income, and which in fact allow us to buy the lovely tools we use). We have houses that need maintained, families who need attention, and probably a life style which we aren't willing to sacrifice to achieve either fame or fortune.

It's a miracle of no small proportion that I, a busy family doctor; have had as much recognition as I have. Largely it's been luck, a certain amount of nerve to put myself forth to be judged, and no small coincidence that I happen to be able to write (even if I can't spell) and to explain things fairly clearly.

The vast majority of photographers are satisfied to produce some nice images, and if every so often someone else gets to appreciate them, so much the better.

A more realistic set of wants might be the following:

i) to always be improving

ii) to have some sense of this progress and where we are. It's not so much the recognition we desire as the assurance that we are doing good work, and how else do we achieve this other than to ask someone else for their opinion?

iii) to create a select few images images which in some small way add to the medium

Farmhouse Window

What Do You Need To Back Up?

I'm enjoying the new series on backup strategies at Outback Photo and it got me thinking.

I have three kinds of images.

a) those from film negatives

b) raw files which are then edited in Photoshop

c) stitching jobs which come from several raw files and are then edited in Photoshop.

If I have the negatives, then I only have to decide if the edited version took enough trouble to create and would be a great deal of trouble to recreate and is therefore worth the trouble preserving.

With images from a single raw file, the obvious thing is to back up the raw file and redo the editing. Now, Ansel Adams did exactly that with every print he made, and arguably styles of printing change, we get better at editing and so perhaps there are advantages to not having the edited version to recreate.

With stitched images, I'd need to remember which original raw files were used to create the stitch (currently that would be difficult for me), or I'd need to save the stitched image (which is the same size as the edited image) so I might as well save the edited image.

There are some edits which were so complex that recreating the edit would be next to impossible and there is enough about the edit that I would be lothe to lose it.

Lastly, since often disasters befall entire hard drives, not just one or two images, if I lost all my edits and had to start over, each edit taking hours of work, would I be willing to take that risk.

Given that hard disks fail and the issue is not if but when, it sounds like I need the following:

1) an absolutely reliable way of preserving the raw files since anything that took out both the edits and the raw files would mean total loss of images - NOT ACCEPTABLE.

2) a pretty reliable way to protect the edited images so that the odds of loss of many edited images is low. I would interpret this as a hard drive detached from the power between uses to store all edited images and two backups of raw files, one onsite, the other away (that could be with a relative or at the office or even online). Any really tricky edited images and stitches should perhaps be saved the same as raw files.

By raw files, I mean those raw files which have led to useful edited images. Whether there is a role for saving the hundreds if not thousands of raw files which never inspired you enough to do anything with them is a whole other matter. People sometimes quote the newspaper photographer who happened to capture a picture of someone completely unknown but who years later becomes famous or infamous and suddenly that old image becomes important. Frankly, if I haven't found a use for a raw file within a couple of years, it isn't very likely that I ever will, and the simple fairly reliable backup will be just fine thank you.

Risk Analysis

The risk of a hard disk failure should be considered 100%. It may well be that most times you buy a new computer before a hard disk fails, but frankly that's mostly luck, like seeing storm clouds and not taking your umbrella.

The risk of a power surge getting past your rudimentary power bar is basically the risk of a nearby lightning strike. While such risks vary with climate and power grids, you should plan that once in your life you are going to have a power surge that destroys any storage device currently hooked to the electrical grid.

The risk of losing both the computer and the hooked up backup drive and the disconnected backup drive isn't zero. All you'd need is something to go wrong in doing the backup which said problem gets propagated to the backup before it gets disconnected - not impossible, so you don't have to think house fire.

I'm a family doctor. My medical records are irreplaceable. My income depends on them staying intact. If your income depends on your images, then you need a pretty darn full-proof system to protect them and in that situation you probably won't have time to re-edit your images so all decent edited images need saved connected, disconnected and off site.

One issue I struggle with is whether it's easier to back up all raw files securely or to select out only those that pertain to important images for backup - all my edited images that come from a single raw file retain the raw file number so it wouldn't be impossible to search out those. My stitched images don't, and I have a lot of them - so this is a problem, meaning that saving all raw is certainly easier, if not as cheap. Easy beats cheap every time for me!

It's possible to break down backups another way.


Always backed up - basically we're talking a raid drive or similar, and while that will help in the future, won't deal with the 4 drives I have almost full already. I'd need a big expensive raid system to deal with those. But it's probably more important to start backing up continuously with new images and do intermittent backups of the old stuff.

Intermittent backups - if it's nightly, then I don't want to be plugging and unplugging a drive - as likely to cause problems as fix with all that wear and tear, shaking and static. So nightly backups need to be kept plugged in. A suitably big backup drive(s) is what's needed. If it has redundancy, so much the better, though arguably redundancy in a backup isn't needed.

Occasional backups - given the concerns of long term stability of dvd's, not to mention the hassles of burning a hundred of them, this really means an unpluggable hard drive. How often you do this comes down to how much time you are willing to commit to do it, and how much work you are willing to lose in case of a power surge sneaking past your protection.

How do I do it? Badly and not often enough, but at least I do have a system.

Raw files are offsite and backed up seldom - I should do this monthly.
Edited images are backed up and then unplugged - again it should be monthly

As for continuous backup - well it hasn't happened yet and sooner or later it's going to cost me. Raid systems are cheap enough that I will do something to correct continuous backups within the next month or so. As I'm running out of drive space, a new large raid system seems the way to go.

Nightly backups, well if I back up new work continuously, this isn't as needed but as I'm constantly editing old images, I guess I'm going to do a nightly backup of changed files on the existing drives.

Sure is a hell of a lot more complicated than throwing your negatives in a drawer - though the number of famous photographers who lost negatives to processing errors, floods and darkroom fires is pretty impressive, even after the days of nitrocellulose film stock. All my wedding pictures succumbed to a humid basement in Kentucky.

Bendy Trees

More On What Makes A Good Image

Seems to me that a photograph is like an ambassador, representing the thing or the idea that the photograph is about. Said representative can mumble and shuffle his feet, lie to the listener, not know his facts or refuse to be helpful. The print represents the idea in a somewhat similar way.

You might say that an image is about this particular piece of rust, but in fact it stands representative of all pieces of rust and more specifically the best pieces of rust, the rust that is really interesting in shape or colour, in composition, uniqueness and in it's surround.

If you photograph a winding path in the woods, it stands in for all winding paths and if it isn't twisting enough, or if the view is blocked by an unfortunate placing of a tree, or if there are distracting elements in the image, then it can't do a good job representing all winding paths. Oh sure, it can act as a representative of one particular path, and for someone contemplating hiking down it, they might want to see it, but for those enjoying the image, it isn't enough to represent only the one path. it needs to be the path of all paths, a path so well lit and presented that it makes a connection with lots of viewers.

Just because you take the best possible picture of a particular gorge, it doesn't necessarily mean you have the archetype image of a gorge - this one simply may be lacking, at least at the time that you photographed it.

Sometimes representing 'what it is' isn't good enough. The image needs to work in a different plane. I remember a Paul Caponigro image of an apple and it reminded me of an astronomical picture - stars, galaxies and clusters. The rust may not be the most famous, dramatic, wonderful rust around, but if it looks like John Lennon, then it's going to become famous. If it looks like Aunt Ruth, on a bad day, well maybe not.

What does this mean in choosing what to photograph? It means that we should be asking ourselves whether this particular scene from this position at this time, is capable of making an image which will stand representative of all similar scenes. If it can't - if you know you have seen better, and can't improve this one, then just maybe it isn't worth photographing, no matter how well you composed and exposed.

Mind you, if you are insecure, you could decide that none of your possible images is that good and so you don't take any pictures and end the day frustrated. If you know it's the best you can do and if the subject matter and it's presentation are the best you can find, then you have done all you can and since none of us can predict 100% the effectiveness of an image beforehand, why not shoot it anyway. In fact, usually the shooting is the fast part of the whole process. I'm just glad I'm not responsible for an 8X20 sheet of film (one of only a dozen I carry for an entire day's shooting).

Rock Abstract III

Rock Abstract II

Locomotive

I headed to Edmonton to visit my dad (age 86) and decided to make a weekend of it by taking the rural route to Edmonton, visiting Stettler, home of Alberta Prairie Railways
. I spent a pleasant hour photographing locomotive 41 and chatting with the fireman in the cab.

They offered to remove the rag for me but I insisted on leaving it in situ - there's a lot of cleaning and oiling of these beasts and it seemed appropriate.

What Makes An Interesting Photograph?

In the past I have written that in choosing a subject to photograph, first you must have an interest. Then I wrote that that interest could simply be in discovering interesting compositions and unique subjects or view points. Then I wrote that sometimes the interest comes from working on a project for a time and learning to appreciate the subject (as happened with my Independent Machinery series). After that I wrote about the worth of the individual image which isn't part of a project, or at least, is the only or one of a few images resulting from a project (like Pepper # 30).

Of course, all of the above relates to the viewpoint of the photographer. Given that we are the photographers, I felt this was entirely justified. However, should we wish to have an audience for our images, it doesn't hurt to talk about interesting from the point of view of the audience.

I have also written about the elements of great photographs but now I want to discuss in a more general way what makes a photograph interesting to viewers.

It's incredible the variety of images which are shown in galleries or sold or whose creator becomes famous.

Often photographers don't 'get' photographs of the mundane. We admire the work of Walker Evans, but when someone like Stephen Shore shows images of modern streets we can't understand the point of the image. Oh, we can see the images are well composed and so on, but in the end, it's just a picture of a street. We tend to discount the fact that this street image is representative of and illustrates modern society - life in the burbs or whatever and that images which show this especially well will be admired and appreciated in the future, and someone needs to take them now - before they change.

I remember years ago seeing an image by George Tice, of a gas station with a water tower in the the background, taken late in the evening. Sometimes photographers make their reputations based on capturing the quaint and disappearing before it's gone. This is what David Plowden has done. Is he any more clever than someone who has the foresight to capture similar images while they are still ordinary, when every street looks like that?

In my book in writing about levels of skill, I talked about the picture of your nephew which could be very ordinary, or catch him being uniquely himself or when he was especially cute, bad, mad or whatever, or catching him in a fashion which stands in for all the kids who ever had a temper tantrum. We admire the latter image but tend to discount the same when it's applied to other aspects of our lives like our gas stations, corner groceries, bingo parlors or whatever.

Since some people have become famous selling work of this type, clearly some people find it interesting and are willing to pay money for it. This would suggest that many of us photographers are very poor judges of what our audience might like. Editors already knew this and that's one reason why they usually insist on making the selections of images for publication.

Perhaps we should therefore not worry too much about what types of images would do well and simply photograph what catches our fancy. Maybe we should leave the externally imposed assignments to the professionals who when assigned to photograph toilets at least have the satisfaction of taking a pay cheque home at the end of the day and who's working reward comes in accepting the challenge and successfully tackling it.

If we make some assumptions.

1) you belong to the human race. If you don't then the following may not apply to you.
2. you are not insane, hugely perverted or a sociopath. (you might need help with this one)
3.your life is not totally unique and unprecedented, not to say freakish.

On that basis, it is reasonable to conclude that whatever you find interesting to photograph, someone, and likely several someones; share your interest or are at least curious about your interest or at least appreciate your interest and will enjoy whatever work you happen to think is significant.

I may not be interested in mud bogging, or even approve of it, but that doesn't mean that I couldn't appreciate a really good series of images about mud boggers and their lives.

So, go ahead and photograph cutlery, candle stick holders, weirdos, rocks or whatever and if you are technically competent and know a bit about composition and presenting your subject well and can make a half decent print, more than a few people are going to appreciate what you do.

It may not make you rich or famous, but that takes lots of luck, a huge ego, more luck, the right contacts, a politically correct subject matter, more luck, brass balls (or the female equivalent), a tad extra luck, and impeccable timing. Oh, and usually it takes all your time including that which would normally be given to your job or your family, all your energy, and did I say luck?

Live View

The combination of live view and a large and tilting LCD screen is a powerful combination and one I am looking forward to. It makes working low a lot more comfortable, not to say drier. It makes working overhead possible. It's not uncommon to find that the camera is at eye level, but it's aiming down so you still need a step stool to see in the view finder.

Likewise, there are awkward positions like a low camera looking up that need a contortionist to access the viewfinder, or at least someone younger, thinner, fitter and more flexible than me (that includes a lot of people to be fair).

This could be the return of the waist level finder for a different view point and less obvious photographing.

Initial presentations of live view have not been perfect, but it's clear that things will improve - autofocus while using live view for example, blackouts when taking the picture so following a subject is problematic.

Live view brings live histogram, what about live zones. Anyone interested in checking focus anywhere within the image. With my tilt/shift lens, this would be immensely valuable. As it happens, I haven't used that lens on my 40D, but sure will when my main camera has live view.

There are comments on the net about increased noise when the sensor is allowed to run hot because of using live view but I haven't come across any actual test - how long and how much - would be good to know.

Spot metering in live view would be a treat, being able to set one or more 'spots', each with a + or - X next to them indicating where they are placed relative to each other and to middle gray.

Mind you, I'm still predicting the demise of the optical viewfinder entirely - it's just a matter of quality and responsiveness - once those issues are taken care of, SLR's won't be SLR's any more - no mirror, no blackout, no pentaprism, tilting viewfinder. It wouldn't take much. The resolution on my Panasonic FZ50 electronic view finder isn't bad so double the resolution in both width and height would be downright awesome (4X as many pixels). Panning would have to be better and blackout during exposure would have to be minimized - I don't see these as difficult to achieve.