Posts
Article 2 of the series (still waiting on Michael Reichmann to publish at Luminous Landscape) discusses how to go about getting some outside hopefully unbiased advice on your skill levels.
Article 3 written in rough discusses what I think is the one thing that would be most productive to do to move beyond a given level, both technically and aesthetically. While completely subjective, and certainly not the only way to move on, I wanted people to get 'the biggest bang for their buck', both money and time wise.
If you are interested in seeing the second and third articles, perhaps you should let Michael know.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Need To Create
This is what I was doing for those several years I didn't photograph. The HO scale Kananaskis And Elbow River Railway, since destroyed to make room for more and bigger printers - oh well.
Kananaskis Country
Shot west of Calgary a couple of years ago, late Spring, lush growth, still plenty of water. All it needs is a moose.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Taking Your Photography To The Next Level Articles
I'm not sure when Michael Reichmann plans to publish the next article on Luminous Landscape. With his trip to Antarctica and then releasing his excellent Lightroom tutorial videos, I think he's been a tad busy. He had originally hoped around the Antarctica trip, but... I checked with him a couple of weeks ago - 'hopefully next week' was the answer, if I've not head in a few more weeks I'll gently remind him again.
By the way, I have been thoroughly enjoying the Luminous Landscape Lightroom Tutorials - a bargain for 10 hours of instruction - this is the first time I have a sense that I really understand what Lightroom is for and can see using it.
The third article is written in rough and I was simply waiting to see the response to the second before polishing it and sending it off.
If worse comes to worst, I'll publish them on my blog or my website.
By the way, I have been thoroughly enjoying the Luminous Landscape Lightroom Tutorials - a bargain for 10 hours of instruction - this is the first time I have a sense that I really understand what Lightroom is for and can see using it.
The third article is written in rough and I was simply waiting to see the response to the second before polishing it and sending it off.
If worse comes to worst, I'll publish them on my blog or my website.
How Perfect Does A Photograph Have To Be
Let me state outright that perfection and greatness have very little to do with each other. Dorothea Lange's 'Migrant Mother' image is miss-focused (the shirt is sharp and the face isn't) but it's not noticeable from normal viewing distances and small prints and is completely irrelevant to everything the image means anyway.
Perhaps this means that the greater the image, the more we are likely to forgive lack of perfection in the image. Maybe that explains why boring photographs need to be shot with a 4X5 - if they aren't very interesting, they'd darn well better be real close to perfect.
Could it be that we are spending too much time working on perfection, and perhaps not enough on greatness?
After the fact, what is the impact of flaws in working with images - are there flaws, damn flaws and fatal flaws?
Let's describe a theoretical picture - it's a rock formation that is rounded and smooth and sensual - the image makes you want to reach out and hug the rock, to stroke it and caress it. You are proud of the image, excited to be working on making a good print which will show off this image to it's best.
In working on the image in Photoshop at 100%, you notice that the top of the rock is out of focus - when you print, if you look carefully you can see that you didn't quite get the depth of field right. In every other way the image is gorgeous - when shown to non photographers, they think it's great. When you point out the lack of sharpness at the top of the rock they have no idea what you're even talking about.
When you show the image to other photographers, they like it. They can see the lack of sharpness if you point it out and may commiserate with you. Problem is, you know the rock is out of focus slightly and it bugs you. You think of it every time you look at the image.
So, do you reject this image from any submissions, portfolios and shows? Do you tell yourself to get over it and enjoy the image?
Seems to me there are flaws which are minor and don't weaken an image and while they might generate some wishfulness, don't detract from the enjoyment of the image, nor magnify in irritation the longer you spend with the image.
Other flaws could be small but they niggle - the irritation only gets worse the longer you try to persuade yourself the image is ok. It might be that a flaw that drives me batty doesn't bother you at all, and the other way round too.
Well, so perfection and greatness are not the same and perfection is relative and is pointless without greatness but the opposite is not true - you can have greatness without perfection. Hmmn...
Perhaps this means that the greater the image, the more we are likely to forgive lack of perfection in the image. Maybe that explains why boring photographs need to be shot with a 4X5 - if they aren't very interesting, they'd darn well better be real close to perfect.
Could it be that we are spending too much time working on perfection, and perhaps not enough on greatness?
After the fact, what is the impact of flaws in working with images - are there flaws, damn flaws and fatal flaws?
Let's describe a theoretical picture - it's a rock formation that is rounded and smooth and sensual - the image makes you want to reach out and hug the rock, to stroke it and caress it. You are proud of the image, excited to be working on making a good print which will show off this image to it's best.
In working on the image in Photoshop at 100%, you notice that the top of the rock is out of focus - when you print, if you look carefully you can see that you didn't quite get the depth of field right. In every other way the image is gorgeous - when shown to non photographers, they think it's great. When you point out the lack of sharpness at the top of the rock they have no idea what you're even talking about.
When you show the image to other photographers, they like it. They can see the lack of sharpness if you point it out and may commiserate with you. Problem is, you know the rock is out of focus slightly and it bugs you. You think of it every time you look at the image.
So, do you reject this image from any submissions, portfolios and shows? Do you tell yourself to get over it and enjoy the image?
Seems to me there are flaws which are minor and don't weaken an image and while they might generate some wishfulness, don't detract from the enjoyment of the image, nor magnify in irritation the longer you spend with the image.
Other flaws could be small but they niggle - the irritation only gets worse the longer you try to persuade yourself the image is ok. It might be that a flaw that drives me batty doesn't bother you at all, and the other way round too.
Well, so perfection and greatness are not the same and perfection is relative and is pointless without greatness but the opposite is not true - you can have greatness without perfection. Hmmn...
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Hornby Shore
I have shown this in colour, in this image I have cropped out (and cloned out) a log in the upper left and present it in black and white. I think this is the best image of my trip out there.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Big Shoot:Slow Develop
It's taken six months to make sense of the images I shot on Vancouver Island. In the last week I have found half a dozen images that were definitely worth working with, even if no masterpieces. This, despite numerous poring throughs of the thumbnails in the past.
I suspect that what happened was:
1) I photographed for 10 straight days and unless the images looked great on the camera LCD, there was no way to remember which should work out and which I didn't expect to yield anything.
2) I remember having difficulty finding images - too much pretty scenery - where I had to work hardest to find images, I generally remembered them, where there were a surfeit of scenes to capture, I was less sure of my composition.
3) Since I shot 1500 images, going through them all requires considerable time.
4) a number of images did not match the format of the camera (3:2) and so required cropping to look good, meaning that thumbing through the images they woudn't necessarily jump out.
5) there are a fairly high proportion that work best in black and white - further removing the thumbnails from good prints.
Tree
If you received a blogfeed without an image this afternoon, it was because I had inadvertantly published without uploading the image (pressed the wrong button). I immediately corrected the problem but I have a sneaking feeling that those of you using blogfeed (such as RSS) will have received the blank version. Anyway, the image will have shown up in the next feed.
In the mean time, here's another image from Vancouver Island - if I remember correctly this huge tree (12 feet across) was on an island just off the Tofino Harbour and accessed by water taxi. Shot with a 17-40 lens at 17 mm. I was only a few feet away from the trunk. Despite this, and the receding top of the tree perspective, it does give the impression of soaring height.
It might be tempting to burn down the leaves but I wanted the impression of strong light in the upper tree.
Too Complicated?
When I went to bed last night, I left the colour version of this image on screen and so it was the first thing that faced me this morning when I came downstairs to check my email. I was disturbed by the clash in colour between the rocks and the green reflections in the water, and decided it was time to see if it would work in black and white. I'd worked with a similar image and decided it was too cluttered in black and white - the blocks of colour which simplified things were missing, now it was just a mish mash of stuff - definitely fiting my 'complicated doesn't cut it' entry in my blog of a couple of days ago.
This time I'm not so sure - I can 'sort of' justify it all to myself, but am I pushing it? One of the problems of blogging is that in an attempt to produce new material for entries, images are often displayed before I have a chance to live with them - thus eliminating an important editing step - still, your feedback would be helpful. In the past you have provided excellent advice on cropping, on image worth, and other aspects of the image.
So Whadda ya think?
Friday, March 16, 2007
Cracked Rock
From our trip to the west coast, this image was on the outer side of a small semi-island - surrounded by water at high tide but accessable otherwise. The other rocks were all black with white 'crap' on them - completely unphotogenic, but I did find this one area...
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Mark Hobson - Recommended Photographer
I was asked to suggest photographers whose images impress me. Check out The Landscapist, Mark's blog. I love his images. Not sure of his technique and while curious, it doesn't really matter - quiet subjects, sublime colour, superbly composed, not a grand landscape to be seen, very ordinary subject matter, superb eye!
Photoshop Filter Use
This was a colour digital file. I used a combination of Photomatix Tone Mapping, Akvis Enhancer and conversion to black and white by Russell Brown, then used various curve layers with edited masking to produce this result.
The original file is below.
Complicated Doesn't Cut It
I've written about subtle photographs and how it can be difficult to separate those from almost good enough images. Today I'd like to point out some observations about the top images from the best photographers.
Almost invariably these are images which have a simple design - it doesn't take work to appreciate them - they may well have hidden depths but they are hidden under a bold simple design which is easy to recognize. Of course, one could argue that since more people are capable of understanding a simple image, it's obvious that these would be the most popular images - yet critics, museums, publishers and photographers themselves seem to consider these same images as the great ones.
Go to Masters Of Photography and look through a good number of the famous photographers represented and their classic images - I think you'll find that the designs of the images are elegant and simple, easy to understand at a glance, while offering more for the person who stays with an image.
This has implications for our own images. We may choose to balance half a dozen different image elements, but for the image to have widespread appeal, the image better have two or three main elements which are easily apparent and which aren't disguised by the other elements. Those three main elements better take up most of the picture unless they sit on an uncomplicated background.
For example:
last fall I was photographing a series of small falls and pools, carved rocks and reflections. An image which has three main elements (say three small reflecting pools) better have them balanced throughout the picture - if the bottom right part of the image is a bunch of jumbled rocks, then i's going to distract from the three pools. If an image has six features going for it - that gorgeous curve on the left, the light stone half out of the pool on the right, the fall of water in the top, the shadow on the bottom, the reflection in the other pool... well you get the idea - with that much clutter, the odds of making something out of it is poor.
I think many photographs fail because they aren't simple enough. You'd think it would be easy to make images simple, but it isn't!
Almost invariably these are images which have a simple design - it doesn't take work to appreciate them - they may well have hidden depths but they are hidden under a bold simple design which is easy to recognize. Of course, one could argue that since more people are capable of understanding a simple image, it's obvious that these would be the most popular images - yet critics, museums, publishers and photographers themselves seem to consider these same images as the great ones.
Go to Masters Of Photography and look through a good number of the famous photographers represented and their classic images - I think you'll find that the designs of the images are elegant and simple, easy to understand at a glance, while offering more for the person who stays with an image.
This has implications for our own images. We may choose to balance half a dozen different image elements, but for the image to have widespread appeal, the image better have two or three main elements which are easily apparent and which aren't disguised by the other elements. Those three main elements better take up most of the picture unless they sit on an uncomplicated background.
For example:
last fall I was photographing a series of small falls and pools, carved rocks and reflections. An image which has three main elements (say three small reflecting pools) better have them balanced throughout the picture - if the bottom right part of the image is a bunch of jumbled rocks, then i's going to distract from the three pools. If an image has six features going for it - that gorgeous curve on the left, the light stone half out of the pool on the right, the fall of water in the top, the shadow on the bottom, the reflection in the other pool... well you get the idea - with that much clutter, the odds of making something out of it is poor.
I think many photographs fail because they aren't simple enough. You'd think it would be easy to make images simple, but it isn't!
George Lange Photography
Reading The Online Photographer and linked over to The Strobist and found this link to a flash slideshow of George Lange's work - thought you might enjoy it.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Commments on 'Nothing To Photograph'
I particularly want to draw your attention to the three comments made. Kjell talks about assigning himself an exercise to photograph a limited area, Julie talks about photographing with others and realizing they can see things she can't (and visa versa) and Paul talking about finding nothing because it doesn't match preconceived ideas of what a good image from this location would look like - all excellent points and well worth reading in the original.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
There's Nothing Here (To Photograph)
I suspect it's universal to sometimes go out photographing and in a particular location find nothing to move us (except to a different location). Nothing photogenic, nothing inspiring, nothing interesting. We pack up our bags and head off somewhere else.
Many times this is exactly the right thing to do, but what about when you know there should be something to photograph, you just can't see it.
You might know because it looks photogenic or because you've had success here before, or someone else has.
Oh, sure, you might fire off some images, with little hope of getting anything (you know you wouldn't even have bothered unpacking a 4X5, but with digital, perhaps a miracle will happen and the pixels will magically align.
So, the question is: if a spot should or could make good photographs and you can't find them, is there anything that can be done to salvage the situation and before you pack up your gear and move on?
The answer to this question could turn into an entire course on photography, but; here's some questions to ask yourself before you pack away your gear.
- have I explored the scene from every angle, including low and high? Recently I shot a tiny ice covered waterfall - don't suppose it was even two feet high. From front on it didn't amount to much, but when I waded through the snow to get above the fall, lovely arcs of ice appeared - the difference been failure and success. My friend, who photographed the scene 10 minutes after me, didn't think to check above.
- did I show up with a wide angle frame of mind and miss the telephoto shot, or the other way round? Preconceived ideas of what will work best for a scene can hurt you.
- if there are issues which prevent the scene from being workable at this time specifically - light, wind, clouds, could I either take advantage of what I thought was a problem or simply work around it. So the sky is boring - who says the picture has to include the sky? Photographing at noon with harsh shadows - what about actually making the shadows part of the picture - noon shadows on flatland are short, but on vertical surfaces they are long, hmmm...
- if there's material there, and you just can't see how to put it together. Stop searching for a few minutes and think about what makes the scene pretty or interesting or moving? Ask yourself how you might go about showing that within the limitations of what's available. So often we run around without much thought, looking for things to fall into place, when if we gave some thought to why we are here, we might better make use of it.
- consider treating the location as an assignment - you HAVE to get the best possible photograph in this 'bad' situation. Sometimes just simply starting to photograph will break you out of a slump and the first pictures which really are poor will lead to better pictures not very many minutes later.
- try and treat the scene in an abstract way - instead of photographing the rocks and trees, try photographing a mood or emotion
- make a picture of the light rather than what is lit.
If this doesn't do it for you, probably time to move on.
Many times this is exactly the right thing to do, but what about when you know there should be something to photograph, you just can't see it.
You might know because it looks photogenic or because you've had success here before, or someone else has.
Oh, sure, you might fire off some images, with little hope of getting anything (you know you wouldn't even have bothered unpacking a 4X5, but with digital, perhaps a miracle will happen and the pixels will magically align.
So, the question is: if a spot should or could make good photographs and you can't find them, is there anything that can be done to salvage the situation and before you pack up your gear and move on?
The answer to this question could turn into an entire course on photography, but; here's some questions to ask yourself before you pack away your gear.
- have I explored the scene from every angle, including low and high? Recently I shot a tiny ice covered waterfall - don't suppose it was even two feet high. From front on it didn't amount to much, but when I waded through the snow to get above the fall, lovely arcs of ice appeared - the difference been failure and success. My friend, who photographed the scene 10 minutes after me, didn't think to check above.
- did I show up with a wide angle frame of mind and miss the telephoto shot, or the other way round? Preconceived ideas of what will work best for a scene can hurt you.
- if there are issues which prevent the scene from being workable at this time specifically - light, wind, clouds, could I either take advantage of what I thought was a problem or simply work around it. So the sky is boring - who says the picture has to include the sky? Photographing at noon with harsh shadows - what about actually making the shadows part of the picture - noon shadows on flatland are short, but on vertical surfaces they are long, hmmm...
- if there's material there, and you just can't see how to put it together. Stop searching for a few minutes and think about what makes the scene pretty or interesting or moving? Ask yourself how you might go about showing that within the limitations of what's available. So often we run around without much thought, looking for things to fall into place, when if we gave some thought to why we are here, we might better make use of it.
- consider treating the location as an assignment - you HAVE to get the best possible photograph in this 'bad' situation. Sometimes just simply starting to photograph will break you out of a slump and the first pictures which really are poor will lead to better pictures not very many minutes later.
- try and treat the scene in an abstract way - instead of photographing the rocks and trees, try photographing a mood or emotion
- make a picture of the light rather than what is lit.
If this doesn't do it for you, probably time to move on.
For Whom Do We Photograph?
If we truly photograph for ourselves - then we have no need to show anyone our prints, we don't have to please anyone else, we can choose what to photograph with no thoughts of market or gallery owners etc. If I were one of these photographers, I wouldn't be writing this blog, displaying my pictures, submitting them for publication and generally getting my images out there.
A commercial photographer has only one goal in mind - pleasing the client - the photographer's own desires, goals, and interests matter not a hoot other than how they affect his creativity and presenting ideas to the client.
Somewhere in between lie most of us - choosing subjects to photograph based on personal interest while being aware that if we want fame and fortune we are going to have to show photographs people want to buy or publish. The market for messy basement pictures is probably fairly narrow, that for cute cats is huge, yet we are not prepared to sacrifice our own identity to accommodate the neighbor's pets - even though it is far more likely to bring us fame and fortune than whatever else we do like to photograph might do for us.
I want to submit for publication - I know that the editor will want lots of images to choose from and should I be lucky enough to be accepted, will ask for even more images. This means I have to make an effort to go back to this project and make more photographs 'whether I want to or not'. Being 'forced' to go take more photographs of a subject I find interesting is hardly punishment, but perhaps I have moved on to other interests now.
Bottom line is that few of us are completely free from outside influence or pressure, and that if we want to get our work out there, we have to accept that this puts both demands and constraints on our work - demands to do more, to do particular types of work, to get into production mode re making prints, to delay easier or more attractive projects or simply to put off relaxing.
The willingness we have to work hard and to put up with these demands and constraints will largely determine our success in getting work out there.
A commercial photographer has only one goal in mind - pleasing the client - the photographer's own desires, goals, and interests matter not a hoot other than how they affect his creativity and presenting ideas to the client.
Somewhere in between lie most of us - choosing subjects to photograph based on personal interest while being aware that if we want fame and fortune we are going to have to show photographs people want to buy or publish. The market for messy basement pictures is probably fairly narrow, that for cute cats is huge, yet we are not prepared to sacrifice our own identity to accommodate the neighbor's pets - even though it is far more likely to bring us fame and fortune than whatever else we do like to photograph might do for us.
I want to submit for publication - I know that the editor will want lots of images to choose from and should I be lucky enough to be accepted, will ask for even more images. This means I have to make an effort to go back to this project and make more photographs 'whether I want to or not'. Being 'forced' to go take more photographs of a subject I find interesting is hardly punishment, but perhaps I have moved on to other interests now.
Bottom line is that few of us are completely free from outside influence or pressure, and that if we want to get our work out there, we have to accept that this puts both demands and constraints on our work - demands to do more, to do particular types of work, to get into production mode re making prints, to delay easier or more attractive projects or simply to put off relaxing.
The willingness we have to work hard and to put up with these demands and constraints will largely determine our success in getting work out there.
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