BluePrintX

Gone to good Home

2007-03-06T13:28:00.000+13:00

Kia ora tatou:
In case you have been dropping in here from time to time, hoping something would happen, well it is.
Only not here.
The blog has been relocated inside my website and there is lots of stuff there for you too check out, and places for you to comment, should you so desire.
Just go to the site, click on Ezine, and voila!
Ka kite ano

Confession

2006-11-25T22:27:00.000+13:00

Kia ora tatou:
I have a confession to make.
I have been going behind your back.
I have been seeing another blog.
While you have been faithfully posting, I have been building another blog.

To bring you up-to-date....
James, my web designer, has had some major issues getting my website loaded to my server, so the upgrade is on hold until he gets it all sorted.

I have been wanting to do a lot of work on my blog, to give it a newer, fresher look and lose a lot of the negative space in the old one. My daughter talked me into a gmail account, which is only by invitation (Google have bought Blogger) and that gives me access to the new Blogger Beta, which is way more sophisticated. At sometime in the future I will be able to integrate Blueprintx and the new one.
So from now on, i will not be posting to BlueprintX.
You can reach the new one here
Or here
Or here
( they all go to the same place)
Please adjust you bookmarks/favourites etc.
I look forward to hearing your comments.
For the foreseeable future, BlueprintX will remain.

Ka kite ano

Shout out

2006-11-21T22:21:00.000+13:00

Salut:

After a couple of the last few comments, it has struck me that this blog is veering way off track and that what I am putting up is becoming way too esoteric to be of much use to you. So it is time to take stock.

I originally started it up so I could keep faith with those of you whom I care about (and there are lots of you), who had been friends and/or students of mine, and whom I was unable to help in the way I wanted to because of the insane pace of my (former) life. It was a way to be there for you and to conitinue to be of service without doing( a bad job of) AP3. After all, you had paid good money to put up with my diatribes and thoughts on photography, and I felt I owed you all( I still do). Your friendship did ( and still does) really matter to me.

Then my personal life went nuclear and it was difficult to keep faith and maintain perspective. But I have tried.
loking at few of the comments of late, it occurs to me that I may be in danger of disappearing up my intellectual .....maybe , like Iago, i think too much. Maybe I have become intellectually arrogant.

I want to hear about it.

So, to all of you out here, especially those of you who visit, and don't comment, I issue a challenge.

Tell me.

What do you need and what do you not need?

What is helpful and what is not?

What posts do you like and what do you wish there were more of?

What do you hate?

100 people a day hit this blog. I want to hear from all of you, wherever you are-and I would love to know where you are!

Help me out- I want to continue to be of service (and don't hold back!)

As an incentive, I will personally make and freight a signed, numbered image I have made
to the comment that contributes the most to the future direction of this community. To anywhere in the world!

Just add a comment to the bottom of this post.

muchas gracias.

spacibo

Vielen Dank

shishi

Exposing in digital

2006-11-19T09:12:00.000+13:00

Kia ora tatou:
I came across this article on one of my favourite sites,www.digitaljournalist.org, and rather than write it myself, I decided to rip it off and post it directly. Bill says it way better than I could.

Color slide film, the first color film used for photojournalism in the newsmagazines, was easy to edit but hard to expose correctly. Digital images are even easier to edit and even worse to expose correctly.

Both mediums capture only about a five-stop brightness range, a nightmare for those who have grown up on black-and-white or color negative film. More important, with transparency or digital, overexposure reduces highlights to clear, informationless cellophane or its digital equivalent.

A dark color transparency is often reclaimable, sometimes even more desirable, in reproduction. However, a "dark" or underexposed digital image shoves a great deal of the image into that region of the digital record that holds less information. Simply brightening it up in Photoshop makes it look like (I have looked for a word from the technical photo glossaries and found none that does the job) CRAP. If, as a journalist facing a deadline, you shoot JPEG instead of RAW, it looks even CRAPPIER.

Fortunately, every professional-level digital camera has a tool that can serve as the best possible exposure meter: the histogram.

Most of the information in a digital image is carried by that area represented by the right side of the histogram, what we think of as the "bright" side. We maximize our technical quality by keeping as much of the image information as possible in that area.

Here are the important things to look for in the histogram.

(1) Hold the highlight detail. Don't let important highlight detail slip off the right side of the histogram into "cellophane" land.

(2) Adjust your exposure so you are giving the maximum exposure that preserves this highlight detail. Absolutely, do not just protect the highlight detail by underexposing. Underexposure leads to increased noise when it is corrected. The image manipulation that follows is more likely to produce posterization in addition to the empty shadows and other problems that occur with any underexposed image.

(3) If the scene ends up using less than the full range of the sensor, taking up only a portion of the full histogram, still keep the brightness range of the image on the right side of the histogram. Achieve rich dark values in Photoshop or any other "after-the-shoot" image processing program. In this way you eliminate using that part of the image that is most likely to produce noise or posterization when you make image adjustments.

(4) Shoot RAW. Of course it's often wise to double shoot and produce a large JPEG at the same time, one that sets appropriate color, contrast and sharpening controls ahead of time. If it turns out you don't have to do post-production work to achieve an excellent image - hooray, don't. More than likely, however, the JPEG will simply save your tail when the editor unexpectedly moves up the deadline.

I certainly do not recommend checking your histograms while covering riots. Fortunately, with some riots you can auto-bracket your exposures and pick the frame with the histogram that doesn't show blown highlights and is filled on the right side.

On features, check the histogram.

You will certainly encounter situations with a brightness range that exceeds the capturing power of the digital sensor. The parallel to color transparency film can give us some clues as what to do.

(1) Let the shadows go black. Proclaim loudly that the image is dramatic and has impact.

(2) Use fill flash. Here automatic flashes which can be set to deliver less than a full flash exposure take what used to be a complicated task and reduce it to child's play or skilled professional photographer's play - your choice of phraseology. Try setting the flash to deliver two stops less than its normal intensity. Tweak the results to match your equipment and taste.

The exposure automation and TTL meter that we first used in film cameras now show up in a lot of high-end digitals. With latitude-rich negative films this combination yielded a high percentage of good exposures. If you were a little beyond the push-and-pray automation, you went manual and exposed for the shadows.

That would be a disaster with a digital sensor. However you choose to do it, when you move off automatic, expose for the highlights. Yes, in the last decade digital photography has moved forward to a degree unimaginable and is now right back to Kodachrome.

Rhythm of the Road

2006-11-18T14:13:00.000+13:00

There's so many different worlds
So many different suns
And we have just one world
But we live in different ones
-Dire Straits

The most important skill of the photographer is to know how to see. Yes, one sees through one's eyes, but the same world seen through different eyes is no longer the same world; it's the world seen through that individual's eye. With just one click, the lens captures the exterior world at the same time as it captures the photographer’s inner world.
-Germaine Krull (1897-1985)

Sifting through the thoughts that lead you on
Find the door that's open, now you're gone
We softly say to our-ourselves
If we could be anybody else..
-Mi-Sex

It had been one of those days. One of those frantically busy days where you have a lot to do, a lot to cram into a short space of time. But it was done and the road home was calling. Three days in Christchurch, three days of catching up with friends, three days of taking care of business. But it was done, and the clamour was behind me. I was looking forward to getting back to the open-armed welcome of the Maniototo.

I stopped for tea with some friends just north of Oamaru. Kathryn asked me which road into the valley I would be taking and naturally assumed I would cross over the Danseys pass. No, I replied, I'm going up the Pig Root. I really enjoy the surprises on that road.

I left just after 7 p.m., and by the time I turned off the main road at Palmerston, the shadows were beginning to claw their way east across the landscape, filling in the hollows in the landscape, putting day on the back foot. Night was on the advance, and the brazen bowl of the day was in full retreat. Changeover is a fascinating time for a photographer, a brief period when night and day seem to be in balance. I think being a Libran really makes me appreciate this time.

The road winds in and out of small river valleys, rising around 2000 feet over the 60 odd kilometres it takes to break into the Maniototo. It begins in the lower section of the Shag River and follows it, keeping a respectful distance and then dropping in from time to time to see what has become of it. The last glimpse, somewhere near the summit, shows a wide expansive trout stream that has shrunk to a nervous jittery creek. Every corner offers a new perspective, a new take, a new angle, a new surprise to be considered. It's a driver's road, with sweeping cambered corners that coil, that compress, that slingshot you on to the next, that allow you to dance with and build up a rhythm for the road.

It's a beautiful stretch of road at any time of the day, but in the early evening the pointing fingers of shadow give it a mystery, a magic that is quite unique. It's not one of those roads where you drive for hours and, somewhere near the end, realise you can't really remember any of it. It's a road with a vocabulary you have to learn, it's a road that builds upon itself and offers you something new you every time you drive it.

The road builds and builds and climbs towards the light towards the shadow end of day lying along the horizon, lying above the hills to the West. It rises to a crescendo then, offering another surprise, drifts softly and knowingly away. The Kakanuis off to the right reflect the tail-end of day, basking in the last fading remnants of daylight.

Now the hills, which have held me in for the last 40 minutes, which have made sure I kept my eyes on the road, fall back to either side as I slide down into the wide-open swoop of the plain. The diesel relaxes its shoulders and drops happily into overdrive as we murmur our way across the plain.

The long slow angle of the light is breaking up the landscape around me, disassembling it, showing me a component view of what is around me. I'm itching to make a photograph, because I have a new toy. Hayden, who cleans the sensors on my cameras, has given me a 50 mm Leica Summicron lens machined to fit on my Canon. As he hands it to me, he gives me a quiet smile and says, I'll be interested to know what you think of this. It's the end result of a series of discussions we've had about the resolving power of the L-series lenses I've used since I switched to Canon a few years ago.

One thing I've come to realise is that a digital sensor can resolve far more detail than film. At 100%, micro-detail is rendered far more precisely than film ever could. But there is a corollary to this. To get this detail requires rigorous picture-making technique. The old 1/focal length rule, where the slowest speed you should handhold is the next one above the focal length of the lens you're using, just doesn't hold true for digital. To get that super fine detail you need when you're making big enlargements, you should use 1/2x focal length. You need to use a heavy tripod and, where possible, mirror lock-up. Good filters, if you use them, are a must. Because I want to make very large works, I've had to get fussier and fussier about my technique.

But there's still not enough. Shooting in Raw and correcting my pictures, I've come to realise that the weak link in the system is the lenses. A 16-megapixel sensor is capable of resolving incredibly fine detail. Once you become aware of that, nothing less will do, but to get it you need the best optics possible. Ordinary optics just mush the microcontrast necessary to bring that detail out. The higher end Canon optics, to my mind, just don't do the sensor justice.

So call me anal.

For some time I've heard rumours about photographers who use Leica optics, generally accepted to be the finest glass in the world, on their higher end Canon DLR’s. I know of one leading New Zealand landscape photographer who does this very thing. And I wanted to find out for myself.

When I began in photography, every camera you bought came with a 50 mm lens. Of course, the first thing you did when you bought your camera was trade in the 50 mm lens for a zoom or a telephoto or a wide-angle. It took me some 25 years to realise that the 50 mm lens is actually one of the most useful focal lengths. You just have to know how to drive it. In the right hands it can look like a tele, or a wide-angle or something in-between. I have heard that it was Henri Cartier-Bresson’s favourite focal length, and a pretty much all the great photographer Ernst Haas ever used. Using a single focal length is also incredibly good discipline and helps you understand the unique personality it can give to your photograph.

Somewhere on the hill between Kyeburn and Ranfurly the opportunity came. The sun was just touching the old man range out to the West in the shadows for as long as they would ever be. If I was going to make some photographs I had little more than a couple of minutes in which to do them. As I came round the corner, off to my right light and shadow played against each other like interlocked fingers. The sky had that serene quality peculiar to this area. I made maybe 20 photographs my final images included the road sign; the very last of the sunlight, skimming the road, had picked up the sign and made it glow against the green fields in the blue sky.

It seemed fitting and somehow iconic end to a magic drive.

Oh yes, the answer to the question I can hear a number of you asking. When I processed the file in Lightroom I was somewhat stunned by the results. Yes, the ability of the Leica lens to resolve microfine detail is to my mind, at this stage, streets ahead of any Canon optics I've used so far. Frankly it's quite staggering-and I didn't have time to use a tripod. What I found distinctly interesting however, was the way that it renders colour. The processed image doesn't have anywhere near the saturation and contrast that my other lenses deliver, and I found myself reaching for the vibrancy and saturation controls and tweaking them up. What it does deliver is a smoothness of tonal transition that is quite analogue in its characteristics.

I'm impressed.

Exhibition Opening-an invitation

2006-11-17T11:58:00.000+13:00

Kia ora tatou:

As a number of you know, I have been working towards an exhibition( well, two in fact). The first opens on December 1 at the Selwyn Gallery in Darfield.

Those of you can make it( I know it's the party time of the year) are invited to come along and share the work, most of it from my travels this year, and have a glass of wine to celebrate. I am feeling pretty good about what is coming together.

If our only contact has been an E-friendship, I would love to meet you in person.Please make sure you introduce yourself.

If you are on my newsletter list, you will also be getting an e-invite.

Coming up soon, a technical post. I have to- Lost Pixel is on my back!

Ka kite ano

Letter to Ian

2006-11-14T21:57:00.000+13:00

The use of the term art medium is, to say the least, misleading, for it is the artist that creates a work of art not the medium. It is the artist in photography that gives form to content by a distillation of ideas, thought, experience, insight and understanding.
Edward Steichen

Photography would have been settled a fine art long ago if we had not, in more ways than one, gone so much into detail. We have always been too proud of the detail of our work and the ordinary detail of our processes.
-Henry Peach Robinson

Kia ora tatou:

If you read the comments in this blog, you will see that occasionally I push somebody’s buttons enough for them to post a comment. This one came in on my Roadmarks post, and it needs to be talked about. Ian (who should be thinking more about getting his passengers down safely, and less ruminating as he stares at the landscape sliding past underneath) wrote:

A question for you. I’ve got my name on the list for one of the Freeman workshops next year. I was discussing this matter recently with some other photographers and an opinion was related that a lot of what Freeman discusses in his books (and I assume his workshops) is primarily about design rather than art. I’ve got some of his books (I love them) and I can see where that viewpoint comes from. So my question is - what is the difference between design and art? Does good art require good design? Is good designing enough?.......... I haven’t really got this completely sorted but my answer is that art also has passion or story (or both).

Looking at Roadmarks before I read your post and I thought, "nicely balanced image. Interesting contrast between the snow and the almost summer baked grass in the foreground. Love the mono treatment." Technical/design thoughts??

Well, there are several issues here that all tie together. Yes, Freeman teaches visual design. He is quite unashamed about it. There are very few workshops where that is done. Most of them tend to be how-to workshops (everything you wanted to know about jpegs or your DLR and wish you’d never asked). Very few are why-to workshops. To the best of my knowledge Freeman has never used Art (art) and Design and photography in the same sentence, or indeed in the same workshop. I have taught with him 5 times and listened to him, both formally in lectures and informally (usually in the company of a fine pinot noir). He stresses the idea of design as a craft, or at least an aspect of the craft of photography.

It’s probably important here to talk about Craft and Art and to make the distinction. Craft is the skillset you develop as a photographer. At its most basic level, it is things like depth-of-field, exposure, lens choice (although that is not as basic as it seems) and lighting (which you never master). The gears, steering etc which you come to terms with when you are learning to drive; the clay, glazes and throwing techniques that the potter has to master.

Then there is the issue of composition. Frankly I hate the term. It reeks of the Rule-of-thirds, never centring your subject, and cups of tea after a C-grade competition. Composition is what you do when you want to get an honours in the Set Subject and you know the (judge?). Composition is what you do when you take a photograph.

Design is what you do when you are actively considering your subject. Design means you are actively weighing the importance of the elements in your picture space, and considering both their visual and spatial weight, not to mention their significance. Design is a higher form of Craft. Design is beyond Composition. It is the next plane beyond technique (a subset of Craft).

But it is Craft nonetheless. Because you can learn it. Craft is not to be dismissed, because you have to learn it. Ansel Adams said: the Way to Art is through Craft, not around it. Incidentally Ansel never considered himself an artist, rather a craftsman. He saw his work as being to depict the landscape the best way he could, to distil something of the magnificence he experienced into the images he made. He was as concerned with Process as he was with Content.

Art is another whole ball of wax (excuse the cliché), a product of feelings, ideas, prior knowledge and Weltaussicht. Art is about ideas. What those ideas may be is the domain of the artist. Art informs. Art makes us think, art seeks to engage us on a multiplicity of levels. It may be visceral, in the realm of feelings; it may be on a cerebral level. Or may be all of the above. But it seeks to inform.

Art is the concrete expression of the ethos of a society.

Let me unpack that. David Hockney, the celebrated English pop artist, had an 18-month affair with photography. In that time he made photographic work that had never been seen before (note: he didn’t take photos). His final image, Pear Blossom Highway, brings all those ideas together. F you study his work, and you have done a little Art History, you will see the connections. He was heavily influenced by cubism, by Picasso and Braques, by the nature of Representation and the depiction of Time and Space. Picasso questioned the concept of perspective and its depiction from a single point in Time and Space (remember those cubes you drew in Technical Drawing or Third Form Art). It’s worth noting that before the Italian architect Brunelleschi invented it in the Renaissance, all art was essentially two-dimensional. Hockney took Picasso’s ideas and added his own take to it, specifically a photographic one. Consider this: photography with a camera depicts time and space from a single point in that time and space; the human eye works quite differently. We gather a variety of different images from different points in space and from different times (or rather, over an extended period of time) and then our brain assembles them into a composite collage with a single meaning. It could therefore be said that Hockney’s images are truer to how the human eye/brain works than to the artificial representation of the camera. Human seeing is organic; the camera is a mechanical device able to function only from a single viewpoint. Hockney's oeuvre is really an essay on that difference.

The point I am trying to make here is that Hockney’s work is ideas-based, not representational. What he photographs is less important than the ideas behind the image.

Another example. If you have any interest in New Zealand art, you will at some time have seen the work of the great painter Colin McCahon. At first glance his works look huge but incomprehensible. His palette is essentially monochromatic; his subject matter is painted quite loosely and seems infested with letters and religious symbology. Look harder and you begin to see the landscape, or rather the forms of the landscape, represented in quite a symbolic way. To get a grip on McCahon’s work, you need to spend a little time looking at the life of the man himself. McCahon was a deeply spiritual but troubled man whose Roman Catholicism was a key factor in forming both his vision of the world and how he chose to depict it. In addition to this he was deeply sympathetic to maoritanga and Maori spiritual values. His painting, done as it was in essentially dark monochromatic tones, showed a strong awareness of the wairua of our landscape. He was a very complex man but a master craftsman, whose understanding of the craft of painting was profound. The questions he asked in his painting are still being uncovered. Ditto Picasso.

You will notice that in talking about these two great artists, I have made little reference to their technique. And yet, their technique is consummate. However, when we look at their work, we are faced with a wonderful puzzle that we want to unravel. We are faced with the world of ideas. Sometimes those ideas may appear simple, but they are present nonetheless. Sometimes they may seem so complex, presented in such a convoluted way that we can find no way into the maze. This is the trap that Fine Art often falls into; it becomes so self-absorbed and lives in such a rarefied place that only those who speak the language can understand it. How many exhibitions have we been to where we didn’t have a clue what the artist was on about, and so, mystified and perhaps feeling a little intellectually inferior, we left, completely dissatisfied? I know I have, and I still continue to.

To recap on a previous post: science’s job is to discover; art’s job is to explain. A great artist may show us the mundane from a totally new perspective; or equally may unpack something we may never before have considered. He/she may give us a completely new perspective on something we have taken for granted.

To return to the craft vs. art debate.

A potter who makes a teapot so perfect in its design that it doesn’t spill a single drop is, to my mind, a craftsman. Possibly a master craftsman. A ceramic artist may make the same teapot but in its design and its methods ask questions or draw comparisons with geomorphology. He might make that same teapot in a way that draws my attention to plate tectonics. Every time I break out the Dilmah, I get a mini lesson on the structure of the planet, and the earth from which the teapot was made. That is Art. It feeds me on a variety of levels. (Besides waking me up in the morning).

Ian, I sense a somewhat subtly stated question here. Do I consider my work art or craft? Am I a photographer or artist? And do I care?

Frankly, no.

I have a very close friend who has world-class status as a martial artist. He is three weeks younger than me but his reputation worldwide is phenomenal. His dedication is such that he turned down an invitation to the 1000-year birthday party of the Shaolin Temple in China because he preferred to spend the time training. A good friend to have when you go out clubbing. We have just spent some time talking about the nature of learning our individual arts, he has a level of understanding of martial arts that I will never have. Similarly while he loves photography, he acknowledges that my mastery is well ahead of his. What we do talk about is the nature of understanding, what lies beyond craft, the subtle levels of understanding that come past a certain point. In essence, the fascination lies not in the end product, it is about the journey itself and the discoveries made along the way. It is about the finer and finer, and yet increasingly significant, layers of understanding that come from constant practice of your craft and reflection upon it.

What drives me these days is a desire to see round the next corner, to discover that which I had never before considered. As I said in the post Roadmarks, I am still considering the picture made in Kyeburn. In terms of its craftsmanship (that is, exposure, technique and design), I am satisfied. For the moment. But something new has emerged for me, some layer of understanding that I am still trying to get a handle on. I am going to make a print of that image and stick it on the wall in the hall of my flat. That means I will have to pass it many times a day, and each time I go past, I will have a quick look out of the corner of my eye, in the hope that it drops its guard and gives itself away.

Today it is the best picture I have ever made. I know it’s the doorway to a room I’ve only just discovered, and one which I’m dying to explore in greater depth.

It’s just the Why of it that’s eluding me.

Ian, after having waded through all this, you possibly think I haven’t answered your question. You didn’t think I was going to do this in twenty-five-words-or-less. Did you?

Actually I have.

I have far too much respect for you to denigrate you with a cheap and facile response.
Arohanui e.

Roadmarks

2006-11-10T18:59:00.000+13:00

It is my intention…to present to the public, from time to time, my impressions of foreign lands, illustrated by photographic views -Francis Frith (1822-1898)

The physical object to me, is merely a stepping stone to an inner world where the object, with the help of subconscious drives and focused perceptions, becomes transmuted into a symbol whose life is beyond the life of objects we know and whose meaning is a truly human meaning - Clarence John Laughlin (1905-1985)

The storm sneaked into town around mid-morning on Wednesday behind the shirttails of the anticyclone that had been with us for a week now. It wasn't one of those summer storms, the ones that take a deep breath, draw themselves up to their full height, flex their biceps and tower imposingly before venting themselves. No, rather it was one of those furtive southerly storms that creep up on you, the sort where the first warning of its arrival is a tentative gust of wind and a few spots of rain. You look up somewhat surprised from your cappuccino, realise with a sinking feeling you're not dressed for it, and retreat for cover. Once it knows it has your attention, that you recognise it , it unloads itself upon you.

Within an hour the drops of rain head turned to sleet and then thickened out into softly drifting snow flakes. I retreated to my flat, wound up every heater I could find, and turned my back on it. Had it been one of those big-bosomed, buxom opera singer storms, I might have ventured out into it, to dance with that and the light. But it wasn't imposing, it was a Gollum storm, snivelling around in the background, causing trouble in a sneaky, underhanded sort of way. It didn't deserve to be noticed. Until the next morning.

All night it whined and wept, shook and wrestled with the town, doing its best to get under roofs and inside unwary spaces and looking to kick over anything not tied down. In the end, tired, I turned my light out and left it to its own devices, to do what it would. It didn't stay long; it wasn't a storm with guts, with any sort of perseverance. It soon tired of its spiteful game and went on its way.

I was out of bed and on the road early the next morning. I had to go down to town (in this case, a 1 1/2 hour trip to Dunedin) and then be back by midday, so I decided to leave my camera equipment behind. Big mistake. The air was settled and still, scrubbed squeaky-clean ,and the hills appeared as if they had been steadily closing in under cover of the storm. While my back had been turned, the rag-end of a spiteful winter had scattered itself across the hills along the horizon. The clearing cloud above the Kakanuis was still holding back the early morning sun but it was getting in nonetheless, along the gap above the Pig Root, and in the crawlspace above the Danseys Pass. For a moment or two, I wondered whether to go back for my cameras, then decided against it. I was running to a schedule and needed to get down to the coast. Perhaps later.

I got back around 2 p.m, and by now the snow was gone from the plains, retreating slowly back up the hill under the relentless thrust of the incoming warm front. I knew if I didn't get out amongst it, I would miss out on an opportunity to make something of the event that was moving on. I packed my equipment and headed east towards Kakanuis, knowing it was time to make their acquaintance.
Down towards Kyeburn then back up the Ridge Road towards Naseby, out towards the Danseys Pass. Then, on a whim, I decided to follow the somewhat tentative gravel road up towards the Kyeburn diggings. The road ahead obviously hadn't seen a grader in quite some time, and Hinemoa shivered and shook on its uneven surface. Ahead of me, off to the right, I saw the first of the clay cliffs that break so abruptly out of the landscape. Up behind them, the snowdraped Kakanuis shimmered and resonated in the early afternoon light. The contrast between the two were so visually surprising that I stopped to look, to take notes, to analyse. Like an insistent dog the scene was barking at me, demanding that I take notice, that I pay attention.

In the viewfinder the scene was even more surprising, and the results on my LCD only served to amplify and delineate what was in front of me. I must have made around 50 images working left to right, exploring, tuning, feeling my way to the Moment. And then it came.

My friend Freeman Patterson maintains that a great image has no less than two and no more than five significant compositional elements. I'm still thinking that one through. The iconoclast inside me, who rebels at any rule and looks for a way to beat it, feels that there may be a way round it. But I haven't found it yet. This image contains four distinct compositional elements, (if you include the gorse on top of the cliffs as part of the cliffs) ranging from the soft relatively featureless clouds at the top of the photograph to the textured grass along the bottom of the amateur. The smoothness of the snow-covered hills contrasts with the clay cliffs beneath. It's a composition that, 24 hours later, still satisfies me.

Over a glass of wine (or three), Freeman and I talked one night in Africa about how some images can be roadmarks, marker pegs like the small stone ones that used to line the Roman roads, that told you how far it was from and to the next town. These are points of significance, indicators on a journey. Londinium 24 miles (or whatever the Romans used to measure distance). From time to time, if we keep at it, we will all make roadmark images, photographs that tell us we've moved on, that we have come to a place we don't really recognise, and yet which we know is significant. Freeman maintains the subconscious is always three to five years ahead of the conscious, that the photographs we are making now are the result of a process that began that long ago.

I cannot help feeling that the image I made out on the Kyeburn Road is a Roadmark, a pointer to a process that has been underway for some time; that in some way it is trying to tell me something.

What that is I have no idea.

But it has my attention.

Wairua

2006-11-06T09:40:00.000+13:00

The urge to create, the urge to photograph, comes in part from the deep desire to live with more integrity; to live more in peace with the world, and possibly to help others do the same……
As I became aware that all things have unique spatial and temporal qualities which visually define and relate them, I began to perceive the things I was photographing not as objects but as events. Working to develop my skills of perceiving and symbolising these events qualities, I discovered the principle of opposites. When, for example, I photographed the smooth luminous body of a woman behind the dirty cobwebbed window, I found that the qualities of each event were enhanced and the universal forces which they manifested were more powerfully evoked. Out of these experiences, I embarked on some of my most productive years of working.
-Wynn Bullock (1902-1975)

I could feel the southerly storm coming. I could feel it lurking over the horizon, just beyond the Lammermoors. Like Kilroy, it was biding its time, waiting for the right moment. The norwest wind had been blowing for three days now, half-teasing half-bullying, pushing at the placid faces of the buildings and maliciously herding the clouds around the skies, but like a marathon runner nearing the end of the race, it was running out of energy, running on empty. Its pace was getting fitful, and it was taking longer and longer breathers. The grasses were grinning now, standing up in the strong and certain knowledge that they had beaten the wind yet again. Only the sky gave a clue to its stubborn attempts to make something of itself. But it knew it was beaten, and it was only a matter of time before it would be forced to hand over to the cold front that was coming.

I took a break from my work and, coffee and cigarette in hand, went out to have a look around, to see what was happening outside in the street. I could feel the tension in the air, that super-calm that seems to settle on the land when one front is about to hand the baton over to another. As I looked above the supermarket across the street, I saw the anticyclone's frustration written across the sky. Above me the clouds roiled and toiled in turmoil, a face screwed up in bitter disappointment at being beaten. My jaw dropped open, and the excitement hit me. Something was happening. I needed to be out amongst it.

I moved further out into the street and looked up at the sky to the north, at the twisted and bitter face above me. Then something made me turn and look to the south. Above the Rock and Pillar Range, above Waipiata, along the invisible dividing line between warm and cold fronts, an eerie cloud formation was taking shape. I threw the cigarette away, plonked the coffee cup down on the front doorstep, and ran inside to get my camera gear. I could feel the tension inside me, the handshaking nerves that often come when I know I'm close to something.

Hinemoa, my truck and faithful companion on my journeys around Aotearoa, kicked into life on the first wind of the key and together we threw ourselves at the hills to the south. It was only a matter of some 10 km but neither of us wanted to do miss out on what was happening. The emotions written across the face of the sky were changing constantly, and I wanted to be there to document it. Tawhirimatea and Tumutaenga were going at it again. The God of the Winds and the God of War were reliving the past, recreating their eternal struggle.

Just past Waipiata the road forked, and instinct made me take the oneto the left. It slithered across the low foothills at the base of the rock on pillars then came up to a corner, where I could see everything happening. In front of me the land lay, submissive and on its back like a beaten dog, beneath a sky that snarled and twisted and writhed in furious torment. Over the next 15 minutes I probably made around a hundred images, working hastily, lost in awe at what was happening for me, but still trying to keep a piece of my mind calm enough to make the right technical decisions. It isn't always easy to keep a grip on process when you're so involved with your subject. From time to time I trip up and get so lost in what I'm trying to say that I drop the technical ball.

Within 20 minutes the fight was over and the combatants had moved away to the east. The land breathed a sigh of relief and stood up brushing itself down. I, I was still shaking from the intensity of the events I'd been part of and it took me a good hour to come down.

Photography can be like that.

People often ask me what I see in the landscape, what it means to me, what the theme of my work is. For a long time I have felt that this country has a uniquely mystical side to it, a quality that is somehow other. Maori have a word that somehow sums it up.
Wairua.
Loosely translated, the word means spirit but, like so many words in Maori, contains layers of meaning and significance. It's the spirit of a place, but it's more than that. Sense of place can come from the things that are there, the buildings, people, structures, landforms and the interrelationship between them. That is the approach Robin Morrison took. Wairua contains more than that; it contains the idea of a mystical presence that dwells in the land and informs all, that affects the way people live and the way that they feel.

I have noticed that New Zealand film seems to have this unique darkness, a sense of something else. Vincent Ward’s Vigil is a case in point. All his movies, in fact, seem to have this quality. It is as if he is listening to a radio station unavailable to the rest of us. Snakeskin is another movie that springs to mind. Again that sense of a sinister supernatural infection. Even comedies like Goodbye Pork Pie and Came a Hot Friday have this same edginess. Sam Neill discusses this idea in his documentary Cinema of Unease. You might want to rent it and decide for yourself.

In my travels around New Zealand, working on White Cloud Silver Screen, I often wondered why this was (being on the road gives you a lot of time to think). I wondered what it was filmmakers saw that photographers did not. While the filmmakers seemed to have captured the essence (or inner sense) of our landscape, photographers are still heavily replicating an essentially European view of the landscape, a romantic pictorialism similar to that carried out by the English landscape artists of the 19th-century, who brought with them the watercolour aesthetic they had learned, and pasted it on the landscape in front of them. Bit by bit, day by day, as I considered this idea, I found it feeding into my photography and into the way I perceived the landscape and the feelings I began to have while being out in it.
Experiences in some of the forgotten, out-of-the-way corners of this country only served to reinforce it. Bad Blood, the story of Stan Graham, an ordinary man who went mad and shot a number of people, is a case in point. Down in the hills behind Hokitika, it was easy to imagine paranioa setting in as a result of being watched by a landscape that wore a perpetual scowl.

Out beyond the city limits, beyond the pressures of human existence, in the dark corners of this country (and they are there) are some very old stories waiting for listeners. Sometimes the stories are turbulent, sometimes serene. But they are there, if we are ready to listen.

Te Wairua o te whenua. The spirit of the land.

Wynn Bullock has always been a favourite photographer of mine. A technical master in his own right, he seemed to be able to see things in his landscapes, in his still lives or in his nudes that had the same quality of Other. In his writings, he talks about this very thing, the fact that he was not photographing objects but rather events, that the moments he recorded alluded to a greater mystery that he wanted to explore, to know more about.

Looking at his work, I get the feeling that, like Vincent Ward, he had his own radio station, that he was listening to music most of us miss.

Whaka ngarongaro he tangata, toitu te whenua
People disappear, but the land remains.

Ka kite ano

Of Prevert and Sudek

2006-11-03T16:07:00.000+13:00

DEJEUNER DU MATIN
-Jacques Prévert

Il a mis le café
Dans la tasse
Il a mis le lait
Dans la tasse de café
Il a mis le sucre
Dans le café au lait
Avec la petite cuiller
Il a tourné
Il a bu le café au lait
Et il a reposé la tasse
Sans me parler
Il a alluméUne cigarette
Il a fait des ronds
Avec la fumée
Il a mis les cendres
Dans le cendrier
Sans me parler
Sans me regarder
Il s'est levéIl a mis
Son chapeau sur sa tête
Il a mis
Son manteau de pluie
Parce qu'il pleuvait
Et il est parti
Sous la pluie
Sans une parole
Sans me regarder
Et moi j'ai pris
Ma tête dans ma main
Et j'ai pleuré.

He put the coffee
In the cup
He put the milk
In the coffee cup
He put the sugar
In the café au lait
With a small spoon
He stirred it
He drank the café au lait
And he put the cup back down
Without speaking to me
He lit a cigarette
He made circles
With the smoke
He put the ashes
In the ashtray
Without talking to me
Without looking at me
He got up
He put
His hat upon his head
He put on
His raincoat
Because it was raining
And he left
Beneath the rain
Without a word
Without looking at me
And I, I put
My head in my hands
And I wept.

I have no particular leaning toward…the all too-clearly defined; I prefer the living, the vital, and life is very different from geometry; simplified security has no place in life.
-Josef Sudek(1896-1976)

Kia ora tatou:

You’ve probably never heard of Czechoslovakian photographer Josef Sudek.
Neither had I, until one of my students loaned me a book of his work, one of those huge expensive tomes that you handle with care for fear of doing yourself a mischief. I took it home and began to read. About a fortnight later my student inconsiderately and somewhat agitatedly asked if I was done with it. It was a shame she asked, and I felt obliged to give it back. But I didn't want to. It was one of those books (no, don't ask me, I have long since forgotten the title) that get inside your head. Fortunately, it had a lot of biography on Sudek, so I was able to get some sort of grip on where he was coming from. Born in 1896, he lost his right hand in a battle in the First World War. The injury seems to have affected him quite badly in a psychological sense, and it must certainly have made the act of photographing with a large view camera quite difficult. He is often referred to as “the Poet of Prague,” a reference to the lyrical and often surrealistic nature of his photography. He is also, in many ways, regarded as the master of the still life, and he certainly acknowledged a connection with the great Dutch masters in this area.

As I said, his work really sank in; the simple nature of what he photographed, much of which was immediately around him in his home and garden, and the way in which he structured his picture space. His relationship with light also has to be seen to be believed. There is no doubt that he was a recluse, who never attended the openings of his exhibitions until his last one shortly before his death. During World War II, he rarely if ever left his home in German-occupied Prague. His walled garden protected him from the outside world, and his subject material during that time was the things around him; his garden, classes, ashtrays-all the domestic things in his life. His work, which was quite encyclopaedic, leaves a huge legacy that we can learn from.

As some of you know, my degree is in foreign languages and I majored in French, not the wisest choice from a career perspective, but enriching for all of that and now beginning to feed into my work. At some point we studied the great French poet, Jacques Prévert, who also lived and worked in a similar period. Prévert’s work is at once simple, at once exquisitely detailed, rather like Sudek's photography. I didn't make the connection until yesterday, when for a variety of reasons, Prevert's poem, which I have loved ever since I studied it at university, Déjeuner du Matin came into my head. Put simply, the poem concerns itself with a relationship break-up or possibly morning-after feelings (both ideas can be read into the title), and the last meeting the couple have or will have. I tracked a copy down on the Internet, dug out my rusty French skills and attempted a translation. As so often happens when attempting to translate from a foreign language, much of the subtlety and subtext gets lost, and this is even worse with a poem. Prévert’s style makes it even harder. While it is easy to translate the words and meaning, it does no justice whatsoever to the exquisite use of tone and sound, and the way Prévert plays with words.

So what does this have to do with photography? Well, somehow I knew I wanted to make an image that reflected my awareness of these two masters who probably never knew each other and the feelings their work has for me in this place and time.

I borrowed a cup and saucer and ashtray from the art deco shop down the street, waited for the light and made a series of photographs, using my 90mm shift lens. I wanted an image that had a degree of circularity to it, that in some way visually talked about the way in which life is circular, the idea that what goes around comes around but somehow referenced both Sudek and Prevert.

Download, edit, crop, greyscale (they didn’t have colour in those days). Then add some split toning; a little blue into the shadows to accent the feeling and brown into the highlights for further sombreness and crop it 1:1 to reflect the square format cameras they shot with back then( sic. Rolleiflex). I still wasn’t happy that it recorded what I was feeling and wanting to say, so I redid the crop (in Lightroom) and used the Antique Greyscale function to get that 30’s feeling and also the idea of a brown study. The finished image is, well, a start point.

I can see why Edward Steichen spent a year photographing the same cup and saucer.

Ka kite ano.

Letter to Chris

2006-11-02T12:22:00.000+13:00

Kia ora tatou:

As I have mentioned, my blog is about to go under the wing of my mostly-updated website. There are still a few bugs to iron out, which will happen hopefully in the next day or so. Then we will upload to my server, the site will go live, and I will email everyone on my newsletter list( and maybe a few that aren't!). There is a lot of new work on the site, including some stuff I found in the dusty recesses of my hard drives that I had forgotten about! So, as they say, watch this space.

My friend Bikerchris posted a comment last night that deserves an answer. Chris is the type of person who thinks deeply (except when he has been on the Lagavulin, then he becomes quite eloquent) and when he speaks, delivers something finely-honed and precise, like a fine wine, not to be taken lightly. Rather than bury my reply in the comment archives, I would like to make some sort of public response. You deserve the best answer I can give. It also seems like a good place to push the pause button while we make all the site changes.

Bikerchris said:
As you know, I am not great on the comments all the time. I watch out for your postings nearly every day. I do perceive a change in your postings now; I hear the wistful person who is reliving the good old days from years gone by. I hope sincerely you do find all that you left behind all those years ago. I hope you also can bring into your search all the wisdom gained after a lifetime away, and can apply that to what you will find. The wisdom gained will add a new dimension to the memories you are obviously reliving.
Keep up the postings, I really do enjoy them! I am seeing a side of you that I knew existed, but you kept well and truly under wraps!

Chris:
By way of a response...

Somebody once asked me where I got my gift for photography from. Well, the answer is my father. He loved photography, although it didn't have quite the quality of obsession for him that it does for me! It was a hobby, that he talked about and sometimes did. From time to time, when I am out in the landscape, when the wind pauses to draw breath, when I am surrounded by the glow of the first light of day, I could swear he is standing beside me, making helpful suggestions and passing comment.

I have also always enjoyed writing as well, and that derives from my mother, who was a bit of a literary star in her day (well, world-famous in Southland). She is 90 next year, and entertains herself by watching DVD's (she had a player long before me) and texting on her cell phone. (Maybe that is why I am a techno-junkie!) It is just that I have not had the time to really flex those particular muscles. Now I do. Indeed I need to.

Someone once said: Art is not something you do; it is something you have to do, and for me writing is another source of creativity, a way of expressing myself. I have a mentor in San Francisco, Alessandro Baccari, who believes I am really a writer; actually he has said in not so many words that he considers me more a writer than a photographer! Time will tell. It was he who set me out on my odyssey to produce a book on New Zealand. White Cloud Silver Screen kind of hijacked that trip. Only the Proof-Reader-from-Hell (you know who you are) has seen the text. Perhaps one day.

With Time and Alone-ness, the writing bacteria are multiplying, hence the reason for the change in the nature of the posts. I have written on and off for years, largely for myself, but got little traction, largely because of all the other things I have been trying to achieve (master photography, multiple jobs, attempt to be good parent, etc). I also haven't been able to put writing and photography into any sort of common context. Now that appears to be happening for me.

I love writing. It is a bit like making a Fine Print. You start with a raw idea, a kind of Idea negative, then polish it, and tune it and process it until either you or it say: enough! And it is done, or you can't/won't go any further (then you spend the next 10/20/30 years wishing you had done it differently!).

They say all photographers are frustrated painters. Perhaps. Maybe prose writers are frustrated poets? I know that I could not write a novel. I think I would get bored and want to kill off my characters just to get away from the story and bring things to an end. It is beyond me how Tolstoy could stay with War and Peace that long! I like the intensity of the short prose work, of crafting something where each word is precise and can have a multiplicity of interpretations. 2000 words is about my upper limit at the moment.

But wait, there is more.

As you know, I have spent time as a curriculum developer (once a teacher, always a teacher), and got an opportunity to put my somewhat unconventional ideas into practice (I can't believe they trusted me, the fools). The core of Creativity, as I see it, is that each of us is our own best resource, and that all creativity comes from the individual, from the Self. If we take the time (if we have the time) to reflect on what is important to us, what has meaning to us, and then we can make work that is both satisfying and personal. Who we are is the sum total of each and every step we have taken up to that point, and we can draw upon our individual life experience to inform our work.

As an example, whenever one of you who has his/her own blog posts, I always look up your profile (sic. Sammi2U). I want to know where you live, what films you like, what music you listen to. That gives me an idea what drives you. The core of your creativity. Then, should you take a workshop with me or ask for advice or just read my blog, I can be of more use to you.

More and more I find myself drawing upon my own life experiences as a way of informing what I do, both as a writer and photographer (or is that the other way around?). As I mentioned in a previous post, I like hearing stories about people and places. It all feeds into my work as a photographer- and as a writer. I try to read the story in a place, to analyse my feelings at the time and use that to inform my own work. Case in point:

I came home yesterday after a couple of days in Dunedin, and decided to take the short cut home across the Old Dunstan Road, which crosses along the back of the Rock and Pillar Range. It doesn’t look a great distance on the map, but it took me five hours (an hour to go round by road)! You wouldn’t want to take your 500SEC across this road, but it is OK in a car. It is a vast, rolling moor that goes on and on. I knew it was called that because it was the route for the early gold miners in the area.

It flummoxed me for a time. There was so little to grip on to visually. Then, standing out there, I began to imagine what it must have been like for them, laden with equipment, dreams and hope. I could smell the sweat of the horses, hear the creaking of saddle leather, could imagine what it must have been like to be caught out in a storm.

At the summit, 1041 m, (it said that on the sign), I saw a small track off to my right that headed up into the tussock. So I followed and within a couple of minutes found myself in Low 4, remembering all the 4x4 lessons I had taken earlier this year. The track climbed about 500m, and the view from the top allowed me to get a better take on the landscape. Again I seemed to see those weary travellers 140 years ago, straggling gamely across an unwilling landscape.
On the way back down the hill I saw a rock outcrop. I gave the HiLux a welcome break and headed over with my camera, those imaginary thoughts in my mind. From the other side of the rock, I could see back across the Loganburn and the road. How many travellers had this rock outcrop looked down upon? How much hope and despair had it silently witnessed, I asked myself? And the image above was made with that in mind/imagination.

A few minutes later, I made the image of the tyre tracks. They could well have been cartwheel indentations.

As I said, Chris, this is a time for me to expand personally, to really get work done, and to grow myself in all sorts of ways. And to share. My experiences with the willing victims who came to Okuru and with the workshops in Africa is that there is another way to teach photography, and that I need to think it all through, to lock down a new way of teaching that grows you as photographers and at the same time as individuals. The posts are a way for me to keep helping, to be of service. Your comments really help me to see the road ahead (I read and reflect on every one!) and to do better. Kia ora.

Chris, it isn’t easy, taking the wraps off. But I’m getting braver.

Many thanks.

Of Ruth and Zen

2006-10-31T19:15:00.000+13:00

A very receptive state of mind... not unlike a sheet of film itself - seemingly inert, yet so sensitive that a fraction of a second's exposure conceives a life in it.
-Minor White

It was one of those serene mornings that yawn and stretch into life on the West Coast. After a day of rain, the weather had come to a standstill while the high rolled gently onto the land. A sense of expectation and an eerie calm had settled over everything. It felt like the weather was holding its breath.

I had meant to be up before dawn to follow the transition from night to day but I overslept and wasn’t ready until after 7am. I went out anyway.

As often happens for me, I wasn’t sure quite where to start, so I stood there and looked around, waiting for the image to come to me. The great American photographer, Minor White, once said “Be still with yourself until the object of your attention affirms your presence.” Over time I have learned the truth of what he said. Sometimes an image has to come in its own time and we have to be willing to wait for it. Rushing around will only keep it at bay. So I waited.

I went and stood down by the water’s edge. Ruth, the elderly whitebaiter in the deerstalker hat and bushshirt who has been coming down there for many years and continues to do so after the death of her husband, looked sternly at me.
” You should have been here earlier,” she said. “The light was really nice then. You missed a good show.”
I got the point. But the photograph was still eluding me, even though I sensed its presence nearby. I didn’t even know which lens I would use. No clues at all.

Then, as if accepting my contrition, the image began to show itself. I looked up at the sky and the early-morning clouds dawned on me. A jetstream far above was drybrushing the clouds into koru-shaped wisps that tumbled and frolicked like carefree children across the sky. At my feet the sky checked itself in the mirror-calm estuary. I felt as if I was standing on the edge of eternity. Land and sky had become one. Now I began to understand why Tane and his siblings might have wanted to push apart their parents, Rangi and Papatuanuku. All that eternity could get to you. The view was huge and wide and all-encompassing, and I felt at once elated, at once diminished by it.

I wondered where to begin. Then the scene told me what to do. It was both intense and panoramic, wider than it was tall. It seemed to go on forever and draw me into some sort of limitless zenlike being, where sea and sky had become one, and the only link with reality was a thin line of darker-toned land forming the horizon.

I went back to my vehicle and got my camera, the 24mm shift lens and my tripod. I slopped through the mud to the water’s edge and set up my equipment. As so often happens, no matter how hard we work to narrow the gap between what our eye sees and what the camera exposes, the viewfinder will often reveal a different truth. (I learned a long time ago to always look through the lens when there was a story to be told; the hard part is knowing which lens will best tell it). I wanted to make a stitch panorama with enough information in the file to make a really big work, at least A0, so I made two overlapping images, shifting left for the first one, then right for the second, and using identical exposures for both.

After working for several minutes, I stepped back, and Ruth, who had been obviously watching me, commented on how much effort I seemed to be putting in, and how she could have done it in much less time. Helpful soul.

Taking a break, we talked about the whitebait season (bloody terrible) and the spring weather (also bloody terrible) and the sandflies( becoming bloody terrible).

Then I saw her net.

It floated there, a drawn-out piece of material reality lying contentedly between sea and sky. Its gossamer tail rested, ethereal, sublime and serene, in the translucent waters, while its glowing, skeletal head basked in the morning sunlight. I went back to The Zone. Lost in another Place and Time, I roamed, making more images, using the same laboriously technical but absorbing shift-lens-stitch method.

When I returned to the Now, I looked around, hoping to talk to Ruth, but she had lost interest. Her back was pointedly turned away from me, the tails of her bushirt, flapping disdainfully, and she was bent over, fiddling with her spare whitebaiting equipment.

One day I am going to find Ruth. I want her to see this image.

Feedback and feedforward

2006-10-29T15:25:00.001+13:00

Kia ora tatou:

As some of you may have noticed, the accent of my blog has shifted somewhat.... I am really interested in perceptions of what is currently happening and I would love you all to SAY SOMETHING! If you are hungry for gear stuff, I will do my best. If you want the latest Lotto results, well, go to the Lotto site! But some indication would be a big help! Just post a comment/give out you PIN numbers, whatever.

Blueprintx is about to move, probably some time in the next few days. I am currently hard at work rebuilding my website and James, the designer is putting a lot mre functionality into it to enable me to change images, edit text and generally be a lot more hands-on. He is also going to include an e-commerce function, so you can buy images if you wish( Christmas is almost here). When that happens I will send out a bulk email to all of you who have subscribed to the newsletter. If you haven't and want to be kept in the loop, go here and subscribe. I promise I will only do it if it is necessary. Whatever. There will be a notice here letting you now when the last post goes up.

I mentioned a project in which I am involved. You may or may not have heard of Project Hayes. Meridian are planning to build a 176-turbine windfarm down on the Lammermoors to the South of here along the edge of the Old Dunstan road and Rural Art Deco Maniototo, to whom I am contracted, have asked me to document the area before it happens, as a record for the district. If any of you would like to be involved in the project (a perfect excuse for a weekend down here), please let me know. I need a couple of people who might be interested. Could be good material for that APSNZ submission.....

Ka kite ano
Tony

On Maniototo Station Road.

2006-10-28T15:22:00.000+13:00

The Norwest wind has been buffeting the district all day, throwing its weight around, thumping the buildings like an out-of-sorts and grumpy bully, who, because he can't get his way, stomps scowling away down the street, knocking over all the rubbish tins as he goes. He has managed to do some damage. A friend, who lives just around the corner, shows me the sagging remains of a brand new tin garden shed, punched out by the strength of the wind. The cloud cows are back, ruminating their way across the sky, casting vast pools of shadow as they meander east.

As the day draws on I find myself getting increasingly itchy, moving outside to stare at the sky, to watch all the action and wonder how I can participate. In the end the day gets the better of me and I have to go. I pack my equipment and head out of town, moving up towards the light. The truck is lurching and shuddering in the wind, and when I stop by the Shoe Fence and get out for a look, it seems as if the whole landscape is on the move. To the south, the clouds are moving much more slowly across the Lammermoor Range, dragging their wispy, diaphanous rain skirts. The ones above the Old Man Range are much more impressive, big bloated pompous things with puffed out chests, while those off to the north linger, thin and anorexic. Around me the grasses are hissing angrily, furious at being treated in such a fashion. But it is still early and the sun hasn't sunk low enough for the shadows to bring texture to the land. So I drive on.

Then I am back at Wedderburn and this time I turn left onto Maniototo Station Road. It stretches emaciated and barren away to the South, a line of pale yellow splitting the landscape. I follow it down, my vehicle hardly raising any dust from its bony surface. The road lingers along for a bit then abruptly arises onto a small plateau, trickles a little further then abruptly splits in two. Ahead of me, shrinking into the distance is Maniototo Station Road, veering off to the right Highfield Road. Either way looks just as good, either way is full of possibilities.

At first I ponder which of these two roads I should take, especially since the light is now getting to the point of being critical. I know that whichever one I choose will dictate the pictures I am able to make: take the wrong road and the results could be disappointing. The secret then is to choose the correct one. I ponder this for a time as I look around myself at the landscape, the light, the weather and the day. It occurs to me that life is like that; a series of intersections or choices. Each decision we make will have ramifications for the rest of our lives. So I need to choose wisely. In the end I do neither and begin photographing the intersection itself. Somehow there is something iconic about this place, a kind of visual metaphor for Choice and Consequence.

Later, as I edit the image, I realise that colour does not suit it, that the binary nature of Choice dictates it should be black and white.

Art imitates life imitates art.

They say angels talk to a man when he walks

2006-10-26T14:04:00.000+13:00

I have been travelling across the tail end of the night, crossing from west to east, under a sky littered with stars and the untidy splash of the Milky Way. To left and right, the mountains loom up, ghostly and sepulchral, immobile stone trolls, noting my passage but making no comment.

I left the West Coast shortly before midnight, driven by a requirement to be back in time for a meeting in Ranfurly. Travelling in the dark can be a very personal and surreal experience. They say angels talk to a man when he walks, and I have come to realise that they do the same thing when he drives. It is a time to reflect and review. Perhaps it is something to do with being alone in a space that only extends to the limits of the headlights.

The truck and I know each other well, and we are attuned to the rhythm of this particular piece of road, but somewhere above Lake Hawea I know it is time to take a break. The road is becoming a little bit difficult to control, wrestling to get away from me.. I'm worried about the potential for having an accident, although I haven't seen a single car in two hours. So I pull up at a photo opportunity lay-by high above the lake, and sleep for a couple of hours.

I awake and push on. The road slips and slides and winds its way down to Alexandra. The needle has slid to near- empty and there are no gas stations until I get to Ranfurly, so I pull over again on the main street, and wait for the pumps to open. It's five o'clock now, and my best guess is they'll open around 6 a.m. There will probably be workers, contractors and farm people wanting to fill up. I drift off again, and wake just as the signs come on at the Caltex station across the road. Sure enough, as I pull on to the diesel pump, a guy in a Mitsubishi ute stops on the other side, and fills first his truck and then the petrol cans for the collection of chainsaws in the back. His pointed comments on the frost explain the sullen muttering of the helicopter I've been hearing in the distance since I got here. Frost on the vines. Of course.

The first glimmer of daybreak is throwing the hills to the east into relief as I head up the road towards Omakau. Off to the left, the brush of snow swept across the hills by the weekend southerly storm is beginning to light, pink and blue, as the light strengthens to the east and the sun begins to appear above the horizon. The contented murmur of the diesel plays almost a counterpoint to it. As I wind my way up a road I'm beginning to know well and which is beginning to know me well, I begin to reflect on the road my life has and is taking. There have been some hard lessons to learn, and some hard lessons I'm still learning.

They say angels talk to a man when he walks.

There has been a heavy frost (hardly unusual round here), and the semi-frozen water races and streams of water on the rocky ground squirm and shimmer in the early morning light. I pass an irrigator, one of those black circular ones like an oversized cowpat which has been left on all night. Around it a circle of white frost has built up in layers, ice upon ice upon ice like thick icing. A lone weed inside the circle has multiple coatings of hoar frost, and now points an ice-gloved bony finger towards the sky.

Then, as I climb up the past Becks onto the plateau by St. Bathans, I see the fog bank ahead of me. Oh great. It does nothing to lift my spirits, which have been hovering on the fine line between reflective and dour. It writhes and slithers and fidgets its way over the hill, picking at the landscape, pouring into the hills and gullies, shrouding the trees and buildings in a grey mystery. The just-out-of-reach sun, maybe a valley or two further east, has turned the upper edge of the fog bank a wild pink-magenta colour, which provides a line of contrast between the sullen grey beneath, and the dharmic yellow-blue gradation above. It makes me think of that Stephen King novella, the one where the people are locked in the supermarket while prehistoric creatures roam outside. As I drop down into the murk, I can almost imagine dinosaurs roaming, indistinct and shadowy in the fields to either side.

Passing the Wedderburn hotel and the railway goods shed brought back and restored after Grahame Sydney had painted it and made it famous, I see the old stone shearing shed off to my left, sitting solemn and somehow forlorn in the mist. The power pole beside it is adorned with birds, socialising along a single wire. There is a composition here, so I climb down from the artificial warmth of the truck. I zip my jacket up to my chin (wish I'd remember to bring that beanie) and break out my camera. By the time, I've made for or five exposures, the mist is starting to lift and the hills in the background are moving into the frame like uninvited guests. So I pack up, and drive further up the hill.

Then, as I am almost at the top of the hill, the light explodes in my face. Ahead of me, on the ridge line, a stand of old man pine. The mist is beginning to thin, breaking up into shreds, beginning to drift apart like friendships beyond their use-by date. The rising sun, much more confident now, is sitting just behind the trees and pouring light through them. Great shafts of light and shadow are spilling out of the trees, and from where I am parked, it’s as if they have exposed their heart for all to see. It is so dramatic that it blows away the goblins of melancholy and self-doubt that have been picking at me all night.

This time I manage somewhere between 20 and 30 exposures before the moment has gone.

Following the long curve of the road down into Ranfurly, I can feel the fire lit inside me again, the itching expectation of what will appear on my computer screen. I give thanks to my travelling companions.

What I have seen is, in a way I have yet to understand, an affirmation.

For the Memory of Trees

2006-10-20T17:26:00.000+13:00

The oaks and the pines, and their brethren of the wood, have seen so many suns rise and set, so many seasons come and go, and so many generations pass into silence, that we may well wonder what "the story of the trees" would be to us if they had tongues to tell it, or we ears fine enough to understand. ~Author Unknown, quoted in Quotations for Special Occasions by Maud van Buren, 1938

Us sing and dance, make faces and give flower bouquets, trying to be loved. You ever notice that trees do everything to git attention we do, except walk? ~Alice Walker, The Color Purple, 1982

And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything. ~William Shakespeare

Just up the road from Ranfurly, on the edge of the Nasby Forest, about 10kms away, there is a curiously named grove of ponderosa and douglas fir called the Black Forest. The sign pointing in is half-hidden, difficult to see, so it is easy to pass by and miss this treasure. It is almost as if the forest doesn’t want just any visitor. Its stories are for the sympathetic, for those who will pay attention.

I pull up, get out and listen. The nor-west wind is brushing its fingers through the treetops, tousling them playfully, teasing, an affectionate big brother with a ready but rough hand. It has been doing this for three days now, so a cold front can’t be too far away. The lenticular clouds rambling across the vast blue dome of the sky are pointing to a coming change.

These are old trees, planted over a century ago in a time when timber was a precious commodity, when the landscape was the home of solitary, aloof rock outcrops and gossiping grasses. They were foreigners back then, imported to see how they would adapt, whether they would learn the language, identify. They have. They are now so assimilated that is as if they have always been here. They speak the language, they know the customs. They have stories to tell.

The path twitches and turns among the trunks jinking its way deeper and deeper into the grove, and as it does so, takes me further and further way from the outside world. The occasional hum of a passing vehicle diminishes with each footstep until I am lost to civilisation. Willingly so. My feet whisper on the pine needles, the memories of past seasons strewn across the ground like discarded notepaper. Now there is silence and the trees are free to speak.

I am back in my childhood once more, a part of the forest, away beyond the demands of my family, beyond my responsibilities, integrated into a Time Before. The trees that have whispered each night outside my bedroom window, beckoning me to come and share, are all around me and in need of conversation.

So I find a place among them, where a small patch of sun with a look of utter surprise and joy on its face at having found a way in and down, is resting. I sit and listen, travelling back. I can hear my sister’s Peter Pan laughter echoing, bouncing from trunk to trunk, and running away into the distance. Occasional birds warble, magpies away up in the treetops somewhere. I can see myself wandering round, playing with fallen branches, some with a pine cone or two on them. A sword to help me defeat the pirate hordes come to find me, a club to hold the ravenous T-Rex at bay, perhaps a defence against the Monster-under-the-Bed that will surely be waiting for me when I get home. I am riding a camel across vast elephantine dunes; I am bringing order to the infidels. I am travelling many worlds, living simultaneous adventures, where I will never be defeated, never be killed, where victory is certain.. And I will come home with enormous mounds of glittering, exotic treasures.

The trees know. The trees know the secret heart of a boy, and they collude willingly and freely. They tell me stories passed by treetop and wind across the roof of the world. They talk of Yetis lurking in the rhododendron groves of the Himalayas, of jaguars prowling intently in the rainforest of the Amazon. I hear of the first waka arriving in New Zealand, and the misty, softly-rustling brown figures from my whakapapa slipping carefully through the pohutukawa groves, alert to any threats in this new land. I hear of famine and disease, of whole villages taking sanctuary in the forest to avoid the Evil King’s Men, and then quietly returning when danger has passed. I learn that Trees have befriended man since the very Beginning. It hasn't always been the other way around. But they patient and willing to wait. Their time will come again.

I can smell the heady tang of pine needles and feel the rough warmth of the bark comforting, protective but brusque. This is the incense and myrrh of the Three Kings I learned about in Sunday School; this is the feel and smell of tar and pitch and canvas and salt spray that Odysseus experienced on his way home to Ithaca. Past, Present and Future all meet in the crossroads of the forest. Reality and Imagination shake hands at this point. And I am here. Part of it. For an eternal Moment.

But Time and the sun-patch have moved on. In the distance I can hear my mother’s worried calls, along with my sister wondering where I am. They come steadily closer, circling around my now-cold sanctuary. It is time to emerge. It is time to go back to the outside world.

They needn’t be worried. They really shouldn’t be.

I am among friends.

Ranfurly-a first take

2006-10-17T09:34:00.000+13:00

In Ranfurly.

You know I’ve heard about people like me,
But I never made the connection.
They walk one road to set them free
And find they’ve gone the wrong direction.

But there’s no need for turning back
`cause all roads lead to where I stand.
And I believe I’ll walk them all
No matter what I may have planned.

-Don McLean

Well, I am here now.

In Ranfurly, 48 years after I left, maybe looking out the back window of our family’s trusty Humber 80, perched high upon blankets and pillows in a traveling cupboard with all the space squeezed out, and wondering whether I would ever return, remembering running round in gumboots on ground that squished; remembering the dancing shadows in the fireplace and the yellow of the house lights washing across the blue-black of the evening snow; remembering the washing frozen on the line and the lazy curl of my breath in the motionless air.

Well, as time has passed, as the years have clicked across the abacus of my life, I have circled around it like some sort of waterfowl, making passes through it more and more frequently, getting the feeling back, rubbing my mind across the weave of the place, checking the pond for snares, finally settling in to land, running in and flaring at the last moment, putting my feet tentatively to earth. And enjoying the fact that it stays pressed to my soles.

Somehow there is a timelessness about this place, a sort of pause-button-pressed feeling. Purposeful but self-absorbed. Maybe it didn’t look that different back when my parents would come down on Friday nights to buy the groceries for the week. I imagine the buildings were pretty much the same. Why waste money on unnecessary adornment?

I stand out on the street and look around; across the road before me is Foley and Jones, the butcher who cures his own bacon; his smokehouse snores contentedly all night, occasionally flicking the shirttail smell of curing bacon across my nose when I go outside for a cigarette. On another corner I see the Four Square store (are they still around?): restrained courtesy and sensible prices (let’s not give away too much here). Then the giveaway: I see the queue at the checkout backing up while the owner carries out an elderly woman’s groceries to the boot of her car. You don’t see that everyday.

Just down the road the light pours out of Forry’s, the establishment that can’t decide whether it’s a bar or a café or a bistro or an art gallery. So it does a bit of everything. Gotta cover all the bases. Oh, and the pub meals at the Red Lion? Plenty to eat, plates piled high. Value for money, money valued. The same friendly greetings, the same carefully-suppressed interest. Let’s not get too enthusiastic here. It might be rude. Good things take time.

Life here, well life here just is.

Ranfurly sits in the middle of the compass of the Maniototo, the axle for the district, the focal point, sensibly placed. All roads lead here, all roads lead away; across the hills arrayed in a protective circle along the edge of the sky. In the thin air the horizon draws close, and the bones of the land protrude through its spare, sufficient hide like the ribs of a malnourished dog. There is nothing effusive about this landscape. It is drawn in pen and ink, a Durer portrait where every line has a purpose. Only the skies give the lie to this deliberate moderateness; big brash skies with big brash attitudes and bipolar personalities; cloud-filled break-dance skies that swivel and gesture and overawe; big grand Wagnerian Valkyrie skyscapes with towering cumuli.

The poplars are green, shivering and leaning to the north. The southerly storm with its beetling grey-blue eyebrows blows up their Springskirt modesty, shaking their new-found sensibilities. The clouds to the south mope purposefully along the sides of the Old Man Range, shamble with heads down, dairy cattle coming in for milking, dropping their load in the watershed, then lifting their heads and spirits, ambling happily away across the Kakanui’s, relief on their faces. In the morning the hills will be frosted, draped in winter’s cocoon. But the cold is clear here, intense but bearable. The promise of warmth lies expectant in the soil. It is just a matter of time. The twilight is already beginning to linger, a guest hoping to overstay his welcome. When summer comes, he will remain behind; it will be an all-nighter.

As I turn my face into the wind I can feel the twitchiness beginning, the need to be out there with my camera. It’s all beginning to make sense now.

Damn, I’m starting to like this place.

What the Duck????

2006-10-15T14:15:00.000+13:00

Kia ora tatou:

After the drudgery of workaday tidal waves and reading my heavy-duty posts, may I present:
What the Duck, a series of comic strips for photographers.

Artist Aaron Johnson describes WTD as coming about as a blog filler, and says it has since continued at the demand of tens of people.

Whatever.
Check it out. Some wryly accurate observations on the trials and tribulations of being a photographer. Kind of like Larsen for photographers.

Ka kite ano

James Nachtwey

2006-10-14T09:16:00.000+13:00

"I have been a witness, and these pictures are my testimony. The events I have recorded should not be forgotten and must not be repeated."

-James Nachtwey-

In a comment to the previous post, Anonymous asked what we should “do with our phots”. I can’t answer that. It is different for each of us. But it begins with the idea that we can make a difference and extends from there. It begins with a willingness to try. It begins by asking ourselves why we photograph and using that knowledge to inform what we do.

A number of times I have mentioned people influential in my photography and how we can be informed by what the masters have done. In this post I would like to talk about one who has had a huge impact on me, on my photography and both coincidentally and consequentially, on how I feel about Life.

My acquaintance with his work began when a friend, Mark Racle, invited me to come and see a film called War Photographer, a biography of the work of James Nachtwey, nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. I knew of Jim’s work, had followed it at a distance but knew little else. There were a number of us there; including what seemed to be all the press photographers in town. We sat and the projector rolled. Some 96 minutes later we all filed out. Hardly a word was spoken. There was a sobriety amongst everybody that spoke volumes.

The film tracks him through a number of wars, including Kosovo, Indonesia and Palestine. The director has placed micro-cameras on top of the camera so we get a first-person view of him working. We can hear the burning houses, his shutter tripping, people grieving and we are brought literally face to face with what he photographs on a daily basis. The director, Christian Frei, has brought reality filming techniques to a new level.

Through a series of interviews with those he works with and for, we get a better insight into how he works and, more importantly, why he works. He discusses this quite frankly and openly.

In 1985, shortly before becoming a member of the famous photo agency Magnum, then 36 years old, he wrote the following text, a credo about the relevance of his work as a war photographer.

Why photograph war? There has always been war. War is raging throughout the world at the present moment. And there is little reason to believe that war will cease to exist in the future. As man has become increasingly civilized, his means of destroying his fellow man have become ever more efficient, cruel and devastating. Is it possible to put an end to a form of human behaviour which has existed throughout history by means of photography? The proportions of that notion seem ridiculously out of balance. Yet, that very idea has motivated me.

I think it was watching the film that I began to take a harder look at my own photography, to start asking myself why I photographed. Was it just a very expensive hobby for my own amusement or was there more to it than that? Was I merely a dilettante?
( def. dil·et·tante
n 1. somebody who is interested in an art or a specialized field of knowledge but who has only a superficial understanding of it 2. somebody who has a passionate interest in the fine arts (dated) ) adj typical of somebody who has only a superficial understanding of something

I started to look at my own photography, to question why I photographed, and what (if any) legacy I wanted to leave. Here was a man who had spent most of a working life in the hellholes of the world, trying to make a difference. How did reflecting on this inform what I was doing? Was I doing anything, or just chewing up the Earth’s resources?

I watched the film over and over, and each time his example inspired and stirred me, as have the lives of my other heroes, Te Whiti O Rongamai, Mahatma Ghandi and Nelson Mandela. It made me see what I was doing in a different light. And to look at my own work in a different light (no pun intended.)

His friend, Denis O’Neill says of him:

"The possibility of a normal life, that's the main conflict... and what he's had to sacrifice to live the life that he leads... He has given everything to the job."

A cynic could suggest that he is yet another Don Quixote, tilting at windmills, and to an extent they are probably right. The apparently natural human trend towards self-destruction seems a juggernaut impossible to slow, let alone reverse. Is it however a greater sin to try and get nowhere or not to try at all, I asked myself? I might achieve nothing concrete or I just might, minimally, move the Titanic away from the iceberg and make a difference.
Hey, it worked for Hine and Adams (see previous post).

Maybe, just maybe….

I find myself watching that film often, every time my commitment falters, every time hopelessness sets in.

Recommend it? Damn right. If your nearest arthouse video shop, doesn’t have it, you can get it here.

Ka kite ano

Missive

2006-10-09T07:58:00.000+13:00

Kia ora tatou:

I promised no more Shipping News posts for a while and a post that would take some nerve for me to put online. Well, here it is. I am going to put it up because I feel it is important. It is a work in progress and subject to revision as I ponder on it, and you comment. Think of it as discussion document and a start point for something. If there is something you think should be in there, write it in a comment and I will rework the document to include it. If it becomes a group statement, so much the better.
It came about from my travels, from seeing a world under stress and wondering what can be done about it. They say that evil only flourishes when good men turn away. Individually it may seem we can do little. Collectively much can be achieved. The roman fasces really sums up what we can achieve when we work together. If you disagree with this post, please comment. If you feel as I do, please email it to all the people you think might be interested. There is a small envelope symbol at the bottom right of the post that, when clicked, makes it easy to do so.

Imagine a world. Imagine a world without hatred and fear. Imagine a world where people lived together, working for the common good, in tune with and respectful of the planet, aware of the amazing biosphere on which we stand and determined to allow it to continue, to allow it to support us.

It is possible.

It is a Dream. Granted it is a dream, but the world needs dreams, especially now. Now, as the Earth’s resources become increasingly finite, and the dour self-absorption of the Industrial Revolution’s consumption-driven Age draws to a close. As the well of the planet begins to run dry and the pressures come on, we need to take a different direction. If we are to avoid extinction as a species, then we need to find a New Way.

For how much do we really need? Do we need as much Choice? Do we need supermarkets packed with different answers to the same question? Do we need chain stores filled with substandard answers to a need more imaginary than real? Do we really need price-driven solutions any more? How many different sets of clothes do we really need? Will another suit or a tenth pair of jeans really advance Humankind? All these perceived needs embrace Choice and worship at the Temple of Choice, the god of our age.

We have grown arrogant and disrespectful as a species. We have squandered the Earth’s resources and we have become blinded by perceptions of progress; we have confused Greed with Need and Need with Greed. And the account is about to be closed, unless we find another Way. We need to find a way through the Slough of our own Despond, to find a way to a state of Harmony with our environment.

It is there.

It begins with Education, the treasure only those without access appreciate. It begins with Understanding. It begins by recognising that Knowledge is the new Currency. We have all the pieces of the puzzle. Now it is time to bring them together, to weave the Old and the New into a tapestry for the Future of Humankind.

It is time to change the old model of learning. No longer can we sit in rows, being told what we need to know by people who were told what they needed to know by people who were told what they needed to know. The model must be rebuilt from the ground up, using the wisdom of the ages. Let us openly reconsider what has worked (and what has not), acknowledge what needs to change and move forward. Empowerment effects Change. We must empower people to learn for themselves, to acknowledge their own sovereignty and culture. We must move beyond the social strictures of an education model developed in and for the Industrial Age to one that acknowledges that education is the Right of All and the path to understanding and self-respect. That the learner is centric to the paradigm. From acknowledgement of the individual comes self-respect. From self-respect comes respect for those nearby and an awareness of their needs. We must change the model.

Before we destroy ourselves.

It begins with a willingness to acknowledge that our civilisation is under threat, because growth, the cornerstone of our economic system relies on limitless resources. And the Earth is a closed loop. The resources will not last forever. They need to be treasured, to be husbanded and used wisely, with a view to the needs of future generations.

Now is the Time for Art and Science to come together, to remarry and bear children for the Greater Good. For too long they have walked and lived separate lives. Now they must join hands and work together. Our survival depends on it.

Imagine if you will a community where the two work together, scientists alongside artists. Science explores and discovers. Art’s mission is to explain, to clarify. It is an old paradigm, but one which needs to be rediscovered to be brought back into the light.
It is time for a Community to form. And where better to begin than in New Zealand, the test bed of the world. Imagine a community where scientists and artists work together, sharing knowledge and understanding. Imagine a facility where Understanding and Acceptance are encouraged, explored and explained; where people are brought together to work for the Planet. For what is good for the planet is ultimately good for Humankind.

Our survival depends on it.

The facility must acknowledge that we are all one species, that we are one village. What were separate houses in the Darkness have joined together to form a large village. But the community must begin somewhere. And why not in New Zealand, one of the youngest countries in the world? We have the expertise, the knowledge and the skill base. We have a proud history of achievement. But we cannot ever claim ownership, for that is an Old Way.
The idea must not be limited to New Zealand. The community must be global. It must bring together people from different cultures, people with a different language paradigm, to share knowledge and vision. Artists and scientist working together. Bring discussion and debate to the table for the betterment of all. Let others see work in progress. Let others learn how things can be changed and want to effect change.

Before it is too late.

Then, as the facility becomes functional, it must be spread to the world. The model must be repeated in different countries so that the idea flourishes. The network must be global. What better way than online? Use the matrix of the Internet to disseminate ideas and understandings. Use a freely accessible network to spread information. Use Technology to change the model and you accord Technology the self-respect it deserves.
For the networks are there. As an example, consider the open-source community. People working together for a common purpose. Let us use what we have and improve on it, rather than going out to buy a new suit, because the old one bores us.

For the Earth is a finite entity. If we take, we must put back. If we use, we must use wisely and with an eye to the future, to the needs of those who will come after us. It is time (it is past time) for a new line in our economic balance sheet. Global responsibility. Those who have taken freely must be prepared to give back to those yet to receive. We must look beyond the short span of our individual lives, our personal balance sheets to the needs of our communities and those who will follow. A willingness to use wisely and, where possible, to put back benefits everybody.

As ye give, so shall ye receive.

As photographers, we use resources provided by the Earth to record our vision of the Earth. Photography can do more than that. We can use it to effect change. We can use it to bring to people’s consciousness what is happening. And what needs to be done. It is not a new idea. Ansel Adams’ images brought an end to the destruction of the wilderness areas in the United States. Lewis Wicks Hine used his talents to bring about the introduction of child labour laws and an end to the exploitation of the young in factories and mines. Both made a difference. Photography has the power to bring about a change.

Let us use it for that purpose.

In my workshops and travels I have met many of you who make truly beautiful images. I have also met and talked with photographers and artists looking to make images for a reason.

Here is one possibility.

Ka kite ano.

Tony Bridge.
Ranfurly, New Zealand
Saturday October 7, 2006

Shipping News volume 26

2006-10-04T22:11:00.000+13:00

Kia ora tatou:

The more observant among you may have noticed the shift in the profile details in the sidebar to the left. I am now ensconced (a painful surgical process..) in my Art Deco flat in Ranfurly. Again I extend a warm welcome to any of you passing by or who want to come for a couple of days.

I have hardly had time to breathe before a major project has come up. More about it as the dust settles... nice to see the snow retreating back along the eyebrows of the Hawkdun Mountains and those long languid G&T evenings beginning...

At the moment my website is undergoing a refit, a bit like Grandpa's axe or a RNZAF Hercules. When it is done, the dead pages will be gone, a gallery ( that I can edit) will be in, and Blueprintx will be brought into the site and blended with it. Please tell me if there is anything I should change/add/improve.

My apologies to those of you I have been tardy in getting back to-bandwidth has been a real issue for some time, but now I have made a (Faustian?) pact with Vodafone for their new Wunder3G broadband service, I should be able to reply a lot more promptly.

Enough of the plumbing news.

I promise a really serious post next time-if I have the nerve to post it!

Ka kite ano

Points of Information

2006-09-27T06:50:00.000+12:00

Kia ora tatou:

Some service notices here. I have made some adjustments to the way the blog works. Any comments you post should automatically go onto the blog rather than routing via me. This means the world can see your input straight away.

Chapter 206a in the Where is Wally saga:

It looks as if I am moving( this weekend) back to my hometown of Ranfurly. I have accepted an artist-in-residenceship in the district, which means I will be there for the next year or so. It feels good to be going back to my roots. For those of you offshore, try finding it on Google Earth! There isn't a bustling metropolis close by. It goes without saying that there is a bed/cuppa/welcome for any of you drifting past-or who want to come and stay.

I intend to offer more workshops and tuition once the dishes are done.

I also have 2 shows coming up, so earmark 1 December for a show at the Selwyn Gallery in Darfield. You will all get an invite!

Ka kite ano

Artist's Statement

2006-09-26T21:35:00.000+12:00

Kia Ora:

The following is a piece I wrote while in Africa, with time and aloneness to help me come to these realisations. I hope it speaks for itself.

What informs me?

Artists often talk about what informs them. By this they mean the influences that come to bear on their work and what they seek to say in it. Sometimes those influences are technical and process-oriented; sometimes they are to do with content. But they are always there. They inform an artist’s practice.

As a boy I was born and grew up in the country. My first memories were of the wind carrying stories and pinning them to the needles of the pines outside my bedroom window. Some nights there were many left there for me to mull over, at other times they were relatively few. My imagination was obliged to fill in the gaps. So I came to love trees for the stories they had to tell.

We lived in a house set up on a hill. I would often rise early, and go out to the kitchen to share breakfast with my father before he left for work. He would lift me onto the bench, and I would watch the sun rise away out to sea. I came to love watching the birth of a day, the transition from darkness to the white light of day. I still do.

Then we moved to the city, and these panoramas were denied me for many years. My substitute was the night sky, stars, and watching the passage of the moon across the sky. I leaned to see darkness as another side of light, that both light and shadow must coexist, in order for each to have any meaning.

Later, as I moved deeper and deeper into the arcane world of photography, I was informed by other things, or more correctly, by other artists. I remember the first time I discovered the work of Ansel Adams. It took my breath away. He understood light and darkness. I wanted to make images like him using my own country as a source. It has taken 15 years for me to find my way back to that point. The great painter Paul Klee once said:” Art does not reproduce what we see, it teaches us to see.” How true. It was when I read of Adams' contribution to the environment, how his photographs had helped to protect the wilderness, that a dim recognition began to dawn.

But there were other roads to travel. I moved through portraiture, documentary photography and commercial work, in each case informed by different artists. Costa Manos, Fay Godwin, Gary Winogrand, Arnold Newman, Robert Adams, Robin Morrison, Stephen Shore; all had something to teach me. I absorbed the lessons and moved on, in each case taking a small part of them with me.

Then a friend, who was lightening his load preparatory to turning nomadic, gave me one of his books, a series of landscapes by a Japanese photographer I had never heard of. Takashi Komatsu had travelled many miles through his country on a project to photograph his river across four seasons. The images were breathtakingly perfect and displayed a reverence that was quite moving. When I read his statement, in which he talked of his hope that it would in some way lead to them being protected, the wheel came full circle.

Photography can be many things. It originally came into being as a way of documenting the discoveries of the early European explorers and is by its very nature a documentary medium. Only later was it used for more expressive purposes. Komatsu was reaching back into a tradition as old as the medium itself. As was Adams. Their work thus tied into the very core of the medium, drew from its well. Now the light began to really glow for me.

Once more I found myself back on that kitchen bench, watching the light and shadow. Now I began to be able to decipher the notes pinned on the trees. All around me the world was changing. The beautiful, the pristine, the eternal was being ground down by the relentless mill of human intention. And I had found a photographic raison d’etre.

To photograph ugliness and despair is easy. Ugliness and despair want to be photographed; they jump up and down, their hands in the air, wanting to be acknowledged. For a reason. It is a strong photographer indeed who can take on this sort of work and not be infected by it. Beauty is so much harder to work with. It is easy to fall into the Slough of Cliché, to produce something that is decorative or derivative and half-perceived. To photograph the landscape in a way that is both reverential and influential is so much harder. A task fit for an aging knight on a rusting nag.

So there it is. If just one of my images makes a difference, if just one causes a viewer to stop and think about how precious and fragile the planet is, then do something about it, my journey will have been of value, of some use.

Tony Bridge
Namakwaland
Tuesday, August 22, 2006

In the townships

2006-09-23T17:21:00.000+12:00

In the townships

Kia ora:

Another African story.

I spent the last week of my stay in Africa in the town of Stellenbosch, about 30 minutes drive outside Cape Town. It is a very beautiful old town, sitting up under the brow of the Helderberg Mountains. The area is famous for its university, the wine grown in the vicinity (yes, I did sample the odd drop…or 20), and the old, old architecture. It is a wealthy district, with quite, tree-lined streets, grand old homes like Vergelegen and Boschendal, and a real sense of history.

The day I made this image, I had spent the early part of the morning photographing the doorways and buildings of Dorpstraat, the oldest street in the town. I was fascinated by the Cape Dutch architecture, which references both Holland and the idiom of the district, the ornateness of the end walls with their early colonial references and the heavy thatched roofs using local materials. Dennis Moss, my host and a significant architect, had taken me on a tour of the town, explaining the buildings and their features. So I made a few (for digital read few hundred) photographs.

Then his partner Geoff took me out to the township of Kayamundi, where they were working on an urban renewal project. Translated this means they were trying to replace all the shacks and lean-to’s with some form of affordable but useful housing. It was a total change of …everything.

We drove round for a bit while he filled me in on the background to the project, then we stopped to talk to a few of the locals. I asked if we could walk for a bit and took my camera with me.

I was struck at first by the nature of the housing: shacks made from bits of tin, corrugated iron, packing crates, timber scrounged from here and there; a woman running a hairdressing business from a shipping container; spaza (shops) set into walls, where people tried to make a living selling a few vegetables and fruit; shimbeni or pubs in people’s front living rooms, selling beer to the locals. And the number of people with mobile phones. Dirt and rubbish littered the streets but the people were all beautifully-dressed and taking pride in their appearance.

As I looked over and above the dwellings, I couldn’t help noticing the mountains and wealthier properties in the distance. Once again the oxymoron that is Africa struck me.

But it was the energy of the place that got to me. There was life and hope and laughter and passion here. It was hard not to be affected by it. And I was. It was the …colour that influenced me. I wanted to reflect the feelings I was having about the place.

When I edited the photographs in Lightroom I used a preset I have created that increases contrast and saturation and gives an image a more punchy and graphic look. It seemed to fit perfectly with what I saw and what I wanted to say.

Or what the place was saying to me.

Ka kite ano

Dedication

2006-09-15T21:14:00.000+12:00

Kia ora:

It can be a terrifying thing to come to a new land, not knowing anybody or anything. It was that way for me when I came to South Africa. I had no idea what to expect or how I would cope with a place I knew would be quite strange. I brought with me stories of a country beset by crime and economic difficulty, of political turmoil and racial confusion.

But the stories were wrong.

South Africa is a truly beautiful place. Granted it can be terrifying, for its sheer vastness can be overwhelming; the distances have however shrunk for me. And I have fallen in love with a country I have waited half a century to find.

I have come home.

For one reason.

South Africa’s people.

Wherever I went, in the wilderness or the townships, I was received with unbelievable warmth, hospitality and generosity. I met people of all races who were passionate about their country and determined to make it better. I was made to feel at home, taught the rudiments of the language and told stories about this land. I was shown impossibly-beautiful places and given transport. I was fed and cared for to a level I would not have believed possible.
I am deeply, deeply grateful.

This post is a small attempt to acknowledge those of you who have helped me. So to all my new South African friends, may I acknowledge a debt of gratitude I can never repay. I would like to especially thank the following people:

Di Lavies; Zephne, Reg and Andrei Botha; Michele and Dennis Moss; Elizma and Hildidge; Mick and Cheryl Winn; Hennie and Maryne; Colla Swart, Jurgen Fischer, Brian Preen, Karin Huyssen, Corinne Taylor, Henry Ulster, Francesca de Jager and Nicky Hanekom, and Tony Ferrie.

Mooi blei.

Bless you all.

Epiphany

2006-09-13T18:31:00.000+12:00

Kia ora tatou:

A long time ago, in a previous life, I loved photographing people and Life. Documentary photography was a passion for me. It still is. I also worked in black and white, making pictures in my darkroom, and was happy doing this, until one day I found I had become allergic to the chemistry. At the same time I had become fascinated by colour, so the two things, put together, took me into a different space. I thought I had moved on from that.

Until a week ago.

As part of the first Freeman Patterson workshop at Kamieskroon, a small town about 500km up the coast from Cape Town, we took the class to the small village of Nourivier (Afrikaans for narrow river). Nourivier is a small village of maybe 100 people. There is nothing there but kopjes and stunted foliage. The people live in cement-brick houses about the size of the average Kiwi’s woodshed, or in small tent-like structures made from woven reeds. There is a school, a council office and very little else. They survive by tending a few goats and growing vegetables. In summer water is a real issue. There is no work (South Africa has an unemployment rate of 34%).It all sounds pretty primitive, and you would think that there would be misery and despair. There is very little welfare here. But the reverse applies.
We went to photograph the children of Nourivier. When we arrived they had just finished their cross-country, which meant a 10km run around the mountain- in bare feet!

We arrived as the presentation was taking place. All the children who had completed it were receiving medals, and there was a packet of sweets for them, a really big deal. As they milled around, the boys scrapping happily in the dusty streets, as boys do, and the girls working on their social interaction skills, as girls do, I realised how much happiness was around me. The children, most of whom have only one set of clothes, were full of joy and warmth. Many of them came up to us and led us by the hand around the village, talking to us in their language, and sometimes riding on our shoulders. It was a special time that brought home to me the fragility and preciousness of Life. Africa reminds you of that every day.

I knew I wanted to photograph it, but how remained an issue until I got there. As we climbed out of the vehicles, I noticed that only 2 children were wearing shoes. I am informed that shoes are a luxury here. Somehow I wanted to get involved with what was going on, which meant getting close. There was so much warmth and energy here I wanted to reflect it in my images.
As you can tell, the place had got to me.

It still is.

Making photographs is about choices, and the first one as a photographer is to decide what you are feeling and what you want to say. All the decisions about exposure, equipment and approach follow from that. To do otherwise is be the slave of habit or peer pressure.
So I opted for getting involved and used my 16-35mm lens-at 16mm. In most of the photographs I was no more than 30cm from my subject. Working in this way was a kind of dance, in which I was a participant. Cartier-Bresson talks about this in his book The Decisive Moment. Thus the images are as much about the photographer as they are about the subject.

I elected to shoot them in colour, to use strong saturated colour, because that was how I saw the moment. Africa has no grey zones. The colour images reflected my perceptions that day.
Last week, as part of the second workshop, we went back. This time there was a different feeling, and I became aware of an underlying pathos to the place. I made only a few images, shooting jpegs. Later, when I was editing them, the colour seemed at odds with what I had felt. It just didn’t ring true, so I greyscaled them in Lightroom (the conversion process in this app is fantastic). Now the feeling I had experienced felt true. So I greyscaled the original set and found to my surprise that they were equally valid.

You see, colour adds a layer of meaning and psychological baggage that we often tend to overlook; it is a compositional element that we ignore at our (photographic) peril. Black and white reduces an image to its essentials and reinforces meaning. Which path you take depends on the content of the image and your feelings about the subject. Have a look at the different renditions of the image and decide for yourself.

Neither is better; only different.

Ka kite ano

Out of Africa (I always wanted to write that)

2006-09-12T05:38:00.000+12:00

Kia ora tatou:

This is my first post for some time. It comes courtesy of enough bandwidth to get it out.
Africa has been a revelation for me, a place of huge contrasts. There is terrible poverty and huge wealth. A friend describes it as a “yes but “ country. Make any statement about South Africa you want and the converse will be equally valid.

But what has struck me has been the vastness and the sheer terrifying beauty of the place. Everything here is bigger, and on steroids. The wildlife is(wild), and has huge attitude. Caterpillars 6” long, weird birds (hadeda) that look like ducks( they are actually ibis) but fly and sound like inebriated vampires; crows that turn on the edge of the wind like afterthoughts; flies with fluorescent heads that bite viciously. You name it- it’s probably here. Africa is tough: there is no welfare system to speak of. Apparently Thabo M'Beki, the president, does not want a welfare/dependance culture here.He wants his people to be able to satnd on their own 2 feet.
A new SA friend puts it this way: Africa is not for sissies.

Balanced against that is the incredible hospitality of the South Africans, their warmth, generosity and positive attitude. No tall-poppy syndrome here. If you have an idea, you are encouraged to go for it. 10 years after the end of apartheid, the economy is booming and things are on the move. I have yet to meet anyone so far who pines for the old days (but I don’t know where Eugene TerreBlanche lives).

As you might have gathered, I have fallen in love with the place.
Seriously and totally.

Before I left, SA expats in New Zealand gave me lengthy lectures on personal security, on how to avoid being mugged (they call it hijacking), and where not to be at certain times of the day and night. Yes, all the stories about houses with double alarms, razor wire, and electric fences are true- depending on where you live. And sometimes the signs by the road are a bit of a shock (see the attached image), but the extraordinary beauty of the place and the warmth of the people more than compensate. And while the landscape is startlingly beautiful, it is the people who have affected me, had an effect on my picture-making and led me back to some old roads. More about that in coming posts.

Thinking about the amazing sense of community here, I am reminded of a Maori proverb I was taught some time ago:

Hutia te rito o te harakeke
Mai wai te komako e ko?
E patai atu ahau ki a koe,
He aha te mea nui o te Ao?
He tangata, he tangata, he tangata.

When you slice open the heart of the flax plant
Where will the bellbird sing?
Let me ask you,
What is the most important thing in this world?
It is people, it is people, it is people.

Ka kite ano

Gotterdammerung. The time between.

2006-08-05T08:11:00.000+12:00

Kia ora tatou:

They say that all roads lead to Rome, and in the sense this applies to photographers. The images, we make on a given day, are, in a sense, the product of every image we've made before, and the results of every experience or awareness that has occurred before. Maori talk about facing the future, with both eyes on the past. Examine this concept, and you realise there is a lot of truth in it for we photographers. Our photographs are the product of everything we've been and seen, and have the capacity to show us the point we are at.

This is a fairly personal post, so you sensitive souls out there may want to stop at this point.

A long time ago, when I was at university, I remember studying a German poet (it was Schiller, I think), who used the phrase Gotterdammerung. Put loosely, it means twilight of the gods. It has another layer of meaning, namely, the idea that this is time when the old ways are done, when the gods will have their final conflict, and something new will be born. What does this have to do with the picture? Read on.

Some years ago, when I was coming up through the ranks in photography (yes, I still am), I met a photographer called Nan Gee. Her work totally blew me away. It was raw, visceral, and had a level of courage that was quite extraordinary. For a time, we became friends, and from her, I learned much about what photography could be. She was totally passionate about her work, committed, and prepared to forge on, no matter what. Alas, the wheel turned, and she stopped working.

Her pictures used multiple exposure and a working method that owed much to the gods of coincidence. She would often talk about "dreaming in" to an image. What she meant (and it took some time for me to grasp this) was the idea of being still within yourself and allowing the image to find you. It is very easy when you first get to a scene, to have a head full of clutter, and absolutely no idea of where to start. Minor White, the great American photographer, once said in reply to a student " be still within yourself, until the object of your interest of firms your presence". I guess that he is saying the same thing. Time and again, while on a workshop or field trip, I have watched students rush back and forth trying to lock onto something. It is really important to take time to allow your scene to come to you.

I was down at the Okuru estuary last night, just before sunset. I think this has to be one of my favourite places in the whole world. There is a real sense of the universe stretching away to…… somewhere. It is a place to dream, to lose yourself, a place where Possibility has the power to become Reality.

I fossicked around for a while, shooting a bit of this and a bit of that. Then I realised that I needed to step away, to allow the scene to talk to me.

I took the two-cigarette break. I really had to, in order to see what was unfolding before me. I made a few photographs to start with, then after a time, gave up and just stood there watching the light. As the day drew to a close, I was in that wonderful space between day and night, where the light is neither one nor the other. It is a space Between. I allowed myself to let go, and just experience the moment. I think that is really important. Often, when you do that, things will come to you.

The estuary stretched away to the horizon, and all the tones in the scene began to blend together. The purples and blues melded together into a moment that appeared somehow timeless and eternal. It seemed to me that the land lay open under the changing light, and that in a way this reflected where my life was at. Gotterdammerung.

I wanted to record it, to interpret the moment, to give myself something to reflect upon at a later time. So I made a series of images, and after downloading them, set for some time staring at this one. Naturally, the camera, and capturing all the data, had given me an image that was a lot lighter and brighter. It didn't really reflect what I was feeling at the time.

After thinking about it for some time, I reduced the exposure, flattened the tone curve, and slightly desaturated it. I allowed estuary and sky to blend together, to produce an image that was more of a question than a statement, which reflected the realm of possibility in which I seemed to be. And seem to be.

I allowed myself to dream in.

Gotterdammerung. The time between.

Ka kite ano

Freeman Down Under 2007

2006-08-03T09:43:00.000+12:00

Kia ora tatou:

If any of you missed the Freeman workshops last April, well there is good news and bad news.
The good news is that he is coming back to do 2 workshops on February –March next year.
The bad news is that it is in Martinborough, one of the country’s finest wine-growing regions, and a week doing the workshop can be hard on the liver. So much pinot noir, so little time! Curiously there is a boutique brewery right in the middle of the area, that makes stunning beer (stunned is what you will be if you have too much).

There are 2 workshops of a week each. I will be doing a 2-day digital intensive just before they begin, useful if you are a bit digitally… um… tender. I will be focusing on working with RAW and how to get the most out of the new Adobe Lightroom.

Interested? Then get in touch with Michael Anderson. You can email him here.

You can read about it in more detail on my workshops site.
Ka kite ano

It's about Time

2006-07-31T11:11:00.000+12:00

Kia ora tatou:
It has been quite some time since I made a post, and one or two subtle comments have made that quite clearly. Thank you.

I made the comment in a previous post about the transient nature of what we photograph. I think this is an idea that has been rattling around inside the Bridge head for some time.

One of the things we can do with our images( and should do) is to revisit them (assuming, of course, that we haven't suffered from a form of photographic self-mutilation and thrown them all out). Often it is the quiet pictures that can tell us the most, you know, the ones we tend to overlook, the images that sit politely in the background waiting for us to take notice, quietly confident, leaving it up to us to pay attention or pass by. Here is one such image, which has taken me some three months to come back to. May I extend my apologies to it.

I was walking on the beach at a place called Flat Point, which is in the Wairarapa, along with a friend and artist called Steve Lawrie. It is always fun to be out with a painter, because they see things you don't, and hopefully, you see things they don't. And here is an interesting point about the difference between painting and a photograph.

It's about Time, really.

A painter puts Time into his painting, both literally and figuratively. It takes Time for him to make the painting, and in doing so, he, consciously or unconsciously, puts an extended Time-Frame into his image. Because of that fact, and his awareness of it, it is very difficult for him to be really selective about a particular moment. Painters’ moments tend to be long, and tend to have a figurative nature that suggests things more universal than particular.

Consider this painting by the American artist Edward Hopper. The two people, a man and a woman, are sitting on a porch at night, having a discussion. They are illuminated by a light coming from the ceiling at center-left. The discussion is obviously serious. They might be talking about which McDonald's they will go to for tea, but somehow I don't think so. It seems to be one of those “relationship” discussions. It could be a photograph, a moment taken at a fraction of a second. But there is a sense of a wider Timeframe, and the sense that what we're seeing is the encapsulation of an event that somehow takes place over a longer Time period.

Of course it does.

Hopper may well have started from a photograph, or he may well have started from a simple memory.

Whatever.

The point here is that, in the process of making the painting, he must have thought about that relationship issue again and again and again. Every time he came to it, he might well have seen it in a different light, have seen a different interpretation of that moment. And of course consciously or unconsciously, he will have worked those ideas into the painting. Thus, the time taken to think about the moment has extended the moment, and the time taken to put paint on canvas has also lengthened the moment. It is the nature of painting.

Photography is radically and fundamentally opposed. Photography, by its very nature, is a documentary medium. We document moments in Time. Andre Cartier-Bresson, in his book The Decisive Moment, talks about this. Our selection of shutter speed dictates the slice of Time that will be recorded. Whether it is a fast or slow shutter speed, we're still really talking only about Moment. It has always been so for the photographer. A fast shutter speed slices the moment, very finely, while a slow shutter speed takes a bigger section. Either way, we do not have the opportunity to enlarge the timeframe post-capture in the same way that the painter does. Take this the next stage further and the crucial photographic issue we're really talking about is Time, and the exploration of Time.

Which brings me to the picture at the top of this post.

As I mentioned, Steve and I were walking along the beach, an untamed place, where southerly storms, still pumped up and ferocious, fresh from a wild ride up from the Antarctic, pound into the land. As we walked into the dunes, Steve pointed out these grasses. We stopped for a look, and there was a story writ small. In front of me was a narrative. The pattern in the sand told of wind, weather, and an event that had taken place over an extended period of time. The semi circular track in the sand resembled the face of a clock, the grasses the hands that described this event. As the grasses grew, the visual expression of this event would change. But the evidence was there, and no doubt had I chosen to look, I would have found its like repeated all over the beach. It is one of these wonderful times, when the part shows us the whole.

It wasn't a difficult picture to make, but it is taken me some three months to realise its significance.

Ka kite ano

Lightroom 1.0 for Windows

2006-07-19T19:28:00.000+12:00

Kia ora tatou:
It has finally happened. Adobe have released the Beta of Lightroom in Win. After listening to me foaming off about it for months, now you can get it here. I suggest you watch the video if you have broadband. It takes a little learning to drive, but once you get your head around it, nothing else will do..... Scott Kelby has released an EBook showing how to use it.
Be advised-theAdobe servers are running flat out, and downloading it may take some time!

BlueprintX Workshops

2006-07-19T08:33:00.000+12:00

Kia ora tatou:

The new blog, BlueprintXworkshops, is now up and running. You can read about the Okuru workshop and see images made by the participants by clicking here.

There are a couple of articles contributed by Ian Walls, one of the participants, describing his impressions of the week as a whole, and of his feelings, visiting the Pioneer Cemetery at Jacksons Bay. A sort of online evaluation, if you like.

In the next couple of days I will add images and comments made by the others. Where they don't supply, I will fabricate a litany of lies (I love mixing cliches.)

Feel free to comment on the work. I am sure they would enjoy your feedback.

Ka kite ano

Digital Intensive Workshop

2006-07-18T16:34:00.000+12:00

Kia Ora tatou:

Last week's Okuru workshop was full-on, rained out and a lot of fun. When it rains down here, it doesn't muck about( although there is usually a lot of muck about)! The group produced amazing images, given the circumstances. Actually they produced amazing images period! I am in the process of building a companion blog to showcase their work and thoughts. I should have it up in a few days, so keep an eye out for it.

For those of you who can't get away to spend time down here, I will be doing a 5-day workshop at the University of Canterbury focusing on developing your skills as a digital photographer. the emphasis is heavily on workflow, RAW, and getting the most from your digital camera.

I will be (of course) running a number of cafe crawls (oops, fieldtrips), and at least one of these will be a get-up-early fieldtrip. The rest of the time we will be in the MacLab at UC, working on building workflows, learning new techniques and getting to know Lightroom. We PC drivers are foaming to see it out on Beta, so we can get into it. Frankly it leaves every other RAW converter in the dust. Actually, it is the first app to be able to take you from download to print in one go so it is more than a RAw converter. At the end of the week you should be able to use it with confidence. Which nmeans that when Lightroom of Wuin is released, you will have a head start.

But we will be doing other stuff as well. If you want to know more then look on UC's website
here. You can book online, or phone them. Call (03) 364 2470 and ask for Shandley.

There are 14 places on the workshop, so if you want to come, be in.

Ka kite ano

Ideaflow

2006-07-12T18:51:00.000+12:00

Kia ora tatou:

Over the last few months, as I have travelled, I have spent time amongst Maori communities, including Ngati Whakaue, Tuhoe and Taranaki. I have come to realise that for them their treasures are not so much material as historical. Their stories are what they really treasure, for the histories that surround them connect them to Place and Time. They do not give these lightly. Well, why would they? How ready would we be to hand our Ming vases to a stranger? And I began to realise how much the stories of a particular place inform my own picture making. I realised whenever I show my own work, there is a story I want to share. Which means that some memory or story however half-heard has an effect on my workflow and my ideaflow. Case in point:
We were travelling on a particularly inclement day up the Haast River when a slip on the road ahead meant we had to wait. So we took the time to make some photographs at a creek with the curious name of Roaring Swine (I would love to know the story behind that name!). I had been telling the others about Julius von Haast and his adventures exploring the region. Being one for historical trivia, I remembered the story as him and his Maori companion(s) along with a diminishing number of dogs as the food ran out, and how they would light a fire and then stand around naked while their garments dried. I imagined the thoughts they must have had as they made their way up an alien and forbidding landscape. It must have been quite horrifying at times.
As I walked around the area looking at the landscape, I looked at the forbidding and inhospitable environment. The clouds slithered and slunk their way along the ridges. In some way it reminded me of those old photographs from the 19th Century, made using orthochromatic materials, where the skies are white and it looks as if it rained every day, the ones where they print the details into the image and then make sepia prints. You might be interested to know that sepia toning was not a cool artistic thing, but was done for a very practical reason, namely to improve the lifespan of finished images.
Somehow the story and the memory of those old photographs came together. I wanted to show the landscape as a dark, gloomy and forbidding place, and at the same time reference both Haast’s experience and those old historical photographs.
So I made a number of photographs, looking at the cloud as it shambled like an ill-kempt dog along the hillsides.
Later I opened one up in PhotoShop. I converted it to greyscale, using the Custom RGB to Greyscale action in the Productions tab. I made sure I kept the sky values high and the shadows low by adjusting the sliders in each channel. I wanted deep shadows and slightly overbright skies.
I the added a curves adjustment layer. I pinned the shadows and highlight by clicking on those values in the image, noting where they fell on the curve and clicking those points on the curve. I then tweaked the midtones, trending them down. I finally flattened the layer.
The next step was to convert the image to a duotone. I used a Pantone mid-brown and again tweaked the curve to give a non-linear result.
Finally I added a text layer, and added some descriptive text, trying to emulate the effect of a hand-printed label. I lowered the opacity so the background image showed through.
A final flatten and save.
The point I am trying to make here is that there is another way of working. We have all heard of workflow, the process of editing and working to a final result. I would like to suggest that there is another equally important process-ideaflow. To have a satisfying result that informs, you need to spend time thinking through all the parts that inform the whole. Ideaflow comes before and feeds into workflow.
To do otherwise is to be content to place your feet in the footsteps of others and follow their path.
To share the grey joys of plagiarism.

Ka kite ano

The Inexpressible Joy of Sadness

2006-06-28T17:56:00.000+12:00

Kia ora tatou:

In the comments on the last post, Peregrina talks of wabi sabi and quotes Edward Fowler in "One Hundred Things Japanese". Of sakura, Fowler writes: "
... the short-lived blossoms affirm most profoundly the Japanese aesthetic: that what is beautiful in nature and in human life rarely lasts, that evanescence itself is a thing of beauty, and that nostalgic memories of what has fallen at the height of glory are the most beautiful of all."

What a fabulous thing to share. Thank you so much. You see, yet another penny has dropped into place. (I feel a bit like a biological parking meter). Allow me to explain.

I mentioned Ansel Adams as one of my inspirations (Art teachers refer to this as the artist’s model). But there have been others. A long time ago, after I had passed the how-to phase in my self-education as a photographer, I found myself fascinated by the work of the Greats. Truly their number has been legion. Karsh, Newman, Manos, Godwin, Robin Morrison, Winogrand to name but a few. I would look at their work and study their biographies, looking for clues to my own direction. And all of them, for a time, would have their say in what I did, and how I came to my picture making. But there is one you have probably never heard of, about whom I would like to talk.

My good friend Gordon Roberts, whom I have known since boyhood, and whose passion for photographing the natural world got me into photography in the first place, was in the process of downsizing his assets to make it easier to cope with his frequent shifting around the country. As he left for his next adventure, he gave me a copy of a book called ‘Japanese Rivers in the Four Seasons’ by master photographer Takashi Komatsu. Komatsu had spent a year and 300 000km journeying the length and breadth of Japan, to create an exquisite essay on rivers. A long lonely journey, I suspect, using a 4x5 and transparency film. The nature of the images and his brief comments show a dedication and commitment that were quite astonishing.

But it was the images themselves that got to me. There was something infinitely beautiful and at the same time sad about the images. There was an exquisite distillation of his subject material, a simplicity and refinement of subject material into something so subtly pure that it was easy to skip over it and miss the nuances. Colour, form, time and intention all seemed to meet at a single point.
I read the book again and again, looking for a key to understand, to add to my photographic vocabulary. And I found many keys. I have continued to find them. Only lately have I come to realise that each key I found was the one appropriate of where I was at the time, that the keys metamorphosed each time I revisited the work. So I gained an understanding of colour composition at a time when I needed feeding in that area. I learned something of the Nature of Journey at a time when that was appropriate. But the true essence of his work eluded me. Until now.
Looking at the concept of wabi sabi, it is clear that what he sees is the inexpressible Joy of Sadness. And, artist that he is, Komatsu attempts to express what he sees. His perfection is a transient one, captured in halides and dyes. His awareness of the passing of things is, nonetheless captured for a moment. His artist’s statement reinforces this. He can see the beauty of his rivers being gradually eroded by ‘civilisation’ and industrialisation, and like Adams, he attempts to halt this by holding a mirror up for his society to see.

In my journeying around New Zealand, I have visited and photographed some extraordinary places. The image above was made in the Ruapehu District, just west of Waiouru. After being held by the snow in Turangi, I was heading south. I came up around a bend and this scene called to me. I stopped, got out and studied it.
I have always loved snow and its inherent transience. It falls, is strong for a time, flexes its muscles briefly, then fades away. Looking at snow is like looking at the Passing of Time. Everything passes. The simplicity and monochrome palette somehow added a poignance to my feelings. The fences and trees were only temporarily overwhelmed. In a day or two it would all be gone. And only this image would remain. for a little longer.

For me this is one of those images, the really significant ones, which ask as much as they give.

Mono no aware. The Inexpressible joy of Sadness.

Ka kite ano

Coming Out-why I photograph

2006-06-26T10:18:00.000+12:00

Kia ora tatou:

My gay friends use the phrase coming out, when you realise your sexual orientation, and are comfortable enough with it to go public, to stand by it and be what you are. What has this to do with photography? Read on.

My dear friend Denis La Touche recently asked me that question: Tony, why do you photograph? I confess that it is a question I have asked myself often during the 25 years or so I have been making photographs. Each time the question and its answer have informed what I was (or thought I was) trying to do with my picture making. As time has gone on, the answer has differed and changed. What was a valid response then is not necessarily relevant today. But if my growth as a photographer has been a journey both artistic and personal, then the statements at that time have in a sense been marker pegs on a road. When Denis asked me the question, I realised that while I have been asking all my students to think about this question, I hadn’t really done so for myself, or rather been prepared to put myself on the line. This post then, is an attempt to put my money where my mouth is.

It needs to be said that the answer I will give today is different to one I would have given 5 or 10 or 15 years ago. Ask me the same question in a year or two, and you may well get a different response. So here goes.

Firstly I photograph because I must. My friends who are painters paint because they must. It is not a question of doing it because they feel like it or because they have a little spare time. Something inside them (and me) drives them to do it. Is it a need to bring out some inner yearning? Possibly. Is it a need to leave footprints in the sands of Time? It may well be. Is it a need to explore ideas both personal and/or expressive? Highly likely. It may well be. Or it could be a combination of all of the above. At the moment I would have to answer: all of the above. But then I am a Libran, so all of the above suits my indecisive nature…

Yes, I am driven to make photographs. Those of you who know me would, I am sure, agree. I am not apologetic about that. It is who I am. Yes, I want to show my vision of the world (more about that later), and photography is the medium that allows me to do that. If I am honest, I would probably rather do it with paint. But there seems to be a hand/eye issue that makes any attempts to paint on canvas look something a 2-year old could do better. For some reason photography is a blend of Art and Science that works for me. Most of the time.

As for leaving footprints, that too. One of photography’s strengths is its ability to precisely define a moment. A photograph freezes a moment in time. In the case of a portrait, it captures who, where and when. In the case of a landscape, where and when. So when I press the shutter, I have defined a grouping of these pronouns. But it is more than that. Of course it is more than that. It give me a concrete opportunity to look back, to remember, and to keep records.

Much of my work has been ideas-driven. My street photography was an attempt to challenge Heisenberg’s Law of Uncertainty. He won, but I was the richer for having taken on the challenge, and from time to time I attempt, albeit in a desultory fashion, to have another go. Nd what I see post-shoot informs me still.

When I thought further about Denis’s question, I realised in a way he wanted to get inside my head about what was going on when I photographed. Perhaps the question was really: what are you trying to say? I hear a number of you grinning at my attempts to get you to do it without having done it for myself. So this is an attempt to right the balance (another Libran moment).

My first experiments were with the landscape. 15 years ago my idol was Ansel Adams. I was entranced by his ability to master the grand landscape, to arrange incredibly complex picture spaces and make them work. Recently I saw an exhibition of his work and many of those early beliefs were confirmed, particularly his technical mastery. After all, it was he who said: “the way to Art is through Craft, not around it.” As I looked at the work, I realised that his statement still held true for me. Craftsmanship is a cornerstone of my photography. It always has been.

But I realised that in my journeying through all the genres (documentary, portraiture et al) it was really landscape that held true for me, that is closest to my weltaussicht. I am now working extensively in this genre, and it was the one that I began with. It has been a circular journey. Aren’t they all? But I am happy.

I also realised that while his subject matter held truths for Ansel, it didn’t for me. It is rather like visiting someone else’s home. You can admire it and appreciate their taste in decorating without necessarily wanting to live in it or own it or emulate it yourself. And as I looked at the Great Man’s work, I was able to disengage myself from it, while at the same time using it as a light to re-evaluate my own. And a few pennies dropped into place.

Like Ansel, working with complex picture spaces fascinates me. That means the grand landscape or “busy” material. Trees in a forest, a bush, that sort of thing. Finding structure where there appears to be none is a challenge.

I have for a long time been conscious that there is something special about our landscape. No it is not a question of visual diversity. Rather there is an indefinable something, a wairua or spirit present in our landscape, a consciousness that is Other. Kiwi filmmakers have been aware of it for years. Just look at Vincent Ward’s Vigil. But so few landscape photographers have looked at it. Brian Brake seems to have been aware of it. His photograph of Milford has a brooding menace that is almost terrifying. My landscape photography is increasingly concerned with describing the river behind the wall.

There is a glorious melancholy in aspects of our landscape that intrigues me. I wonder what has happened in places like this: who has lived and died here, what dreams have been born, flourished and passed away, how the people (if any) who lived here interacted with their environment. For that reason I am interested in the visual relationships between the Natural World and the Hand of Man.

While discussing it with my friend Pete McGregor, he mentioned a Japanese concept called wabi sabi. I looked it up on Wikipedia. Here is what it says:

Wabi-sabi represents a comprehensive Japanese worldview or aesthetic centred on the acceptance of transience. The phrase comes from the two words wabi and sabi. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete" (according to Leonard Koren in his book "Wabi-Sabi: for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers"). It is a concept derived from the Buddhist assertion of the first noble truth -- Dukkha, or in Japanese, ñ≥èÌ (mujyou), impermanence.

According to Leonard Koren, wabi-sabi is the most conspicuous and characteristic feature of what we think of as traditional Japanese beauty and it "occupies roughly the same position in the Japanese pantheon of aesthetic values as do the Greek ideals of beauty and perfection in the West." Andrew Juniper claims, "if an object or expression can bring about, within us, a sense of serene melancholy and a spiritual longing, then that object could be said to be wabi-sabi." Richard R. Powell summarizes by saying "It (wabi-sabi) nurtures all that is authentic by acknowledging three simple realities: nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect."

I also found reference to a concept called mono no aware. A definition again:

Mono no aware is a Japanese term used to describe the awareness of the transience of things, and a gentle sadness at their passing. It is also referred to as the ahness of things/life/love. It was popularised by the Edo-period scholar Motoori Norinaga. It was originally an idea from literary criticism. In his criticism on The Tale of Genji, Motoori noted it as the crucial emotion that moves readers. Generally, its scope is not limited to Japanese literature but affects the Japanese view of the world in general.

Thanks Pete. They pretty much sum it up.

And there it is. My coming out, if you like.

Ka kite ano

Do you prefer Manual or Auto, Sir?

2006-06-18T13:32:00.000+12:00

Kia ora tatou:

Those of us old-timers who grew up on film will remember the small trailer-load of filters we use to carry round, especially when we were trying to balance the light or the colour of the light or worse still, work with mixed lighting sources. 80A, 85B, fluoros of different sorts, we used them all. Some of us even carried colour temperature meters so we could get things accurate. I used to look at the video dudes and their ability to do white balance and sigh…if only…

Now that digital is here, most of those are obsolete. After all, we have built-in white balance in our digital cameras. Who needs to even think about it? Just put the camera on AWB (Auto White Balance), and leave the camera to sort it out. It will do a fantastic job. Who wants to drive a manual, when an auto is easier?

I do, frankly.

There are a number of issues at stake here, a number of picture-making concepts to be worked through. Let me explain. But before I start, for those of you who don’t really understand White Balance or colour temperature, here is a good tutorial.

One of the joys of driving a manual car is that the driver has complete control of when gear changes occur. He controls the process of locomotion. Granted the auto gearbox may provide smoother changes, but it works according to the algorithms programmed in at the factory. In other words, it knows best. Or thinks it does.

With AWB, it is the same. The camera reads the temperature of the light and adjusts the colours of the image according to what has been programmed into it. Think about your exposure meter. It is programmed to average the light to a mean middle gray value.This means that it will get most things right most of the time, but not always. AWB is the same. It looks to give you an average reading of the colour temperatures in your scene. Thus it will take the blue out of a shot done in the bush by lowering the temperature. But what if you want to keep the cold blue-green of the forest (which , to my eye is what it is really like)? Then you need to take control, to pick your own gear?
And if you shoot jpegs, you had better have an unwavering faith in your camera (manufacturer) or be able to be happy with whatever you get. Because it is not easy to sort it out afterwards. OK, OK, shooting RAW is a Get-Out-of Jail card. And I shoot RAW 90% of the time.

But there are reasons I do not use AWB and times when I do.
The latter first.
When I am faced with a mixed lighting situation, where there may be tungsten, fluorescent and daylight in the shot, I will use AWB, or perform a Custom White Balance using a calibrated grey card, and fine-tune later in my RAW converter. My Canons to a great job of that as a rule.

For my personal work I set my camera to the daylight setting and pretty much leave it there. Here is why.

I grew up on film. I shot daylight film, balanced for 5500K. So I learned how an image would look when shot in the trees (excessive green), late in the day (low temperature-<4000k)>9000K, giving blue casts). Over time I became able to predict what the film would do, and how to adjust its response to the colour of the light reaching it. In other words, I could choose to the vocabulary I need to make the statement I wanted. I also liked film because it reproduced what was there in colour and temperature terms, not what my mind thought it saw. Over time I came to enjoy learning to see again. Colour slide film (manufacturer’s inbuilt bias aside) gave me a vision of the world rather more realistic than my learned awareness. Just to reiterate: your brain tells the eye what to see, not the other way around.

There is another reason I like using this setting. My aim is to photograph what is in my mind’s eye, rather than accurately duplicating what is in front of me. If I want to do that I will go and study the science of photography or join the Air Force, where they teach those things brilliantly. Thus if the dawn I watched had (to me) a particularly roseate glow, I want to bring that out in my image. If the trees or bushes I photographed by the Maungapohue Natural Bridge had a curiously cold green quality, I want that to show in my images.

Now I use a digital camera I can do that. Chimping (reviewing an image on the camera LCD) is a necessary part of my workflow. By leaving the WB setting on Daylight setting, I can see immediately what if any colour balance issues I may have, and note it for future adjustment when I am processing. It enhances my previsualisation of the final image, and gives me a vital tool for realising my vision.

There is a lot to be said for manual gearboxes.

Ka kite ano

Workshop Updates

2006-06-10T07:40:00.000+12:00

Kia ora tatou:

Well, the time has come. the Hell-Freezes-Over workshop is now dead due to insufficient numbers, but there a still a couple of places left on the Okuru workshop. To remind you, this one is about Seeing, about developing an approach to what you want to photograph, along with digital techniques. There will be a big emphasis on one-to-one time, since everybody's needs are different, and since this workshop is about Seeing and personal direction, it is important to have that time.

If you think you would like to come, get in touch. Give me a call or E me with what you would like to see on the workshop.

Ka kite ano

Making a panorama- a first attempt

2006-05-30T13:21:00.000+12:00

Kia ora tatou:

Some 12 years ago, I owned a view camera. The 18 months I spent with it were edifying… and frustrating. It was a painfully slow and fearsomely technical way of making photographs. But the discipline of using one has paid off in all sorts of ways. A fortnight ago some of those hard-won lessons came back to me.

Back in the archives I talked about panoramas and how to think about them. I received a comment from Barbara asking about stitching and how to get the exposures even. I have held off answering because these are early days and I have yet to find the right bit of software at the right price. I will get back to you when I have an answer to that. My first impression is that it is important to match the histograms on all the images you intend to stitch, so the highlights sit at around the same point. Using Manual mode is probably the easiest way to do this.

Until now I have made panoramas by cropping down my images. This is a good method, but one which tends to reduce the size of the image and therefore the scalability of the image. A 16Mp image from my Canon becomes a 12Mp image when I crop it, and as result scaling up becomes fraught. The whole point of a panorama is to make it big, so they eye takes time to traverse the image, in the same way that it did when the photographer made it. So there has to be another way.

Darren Leal of Wild Visions suggested a method that makes sense. He mentioned using a shift lens. He described the method as simple. Meter manually, rack the lens to one side, expose, then rack it to the other side and make another exposure. Then use PhotoMerge in CS2 to join the two together. Hmmm, I thought.
I had a contract at the time to do some architectural photography, so the expense of a tilt/shift lens was justified. And of course, I had ulterior motives.

Those of you who have had experience with a view camera know about tilt, shift and swing. It is perfect when you want to avoid keystoning, to get your perspectives and planes perpendicular. It works this way. Imagine you want to photograph a building. If you want to get everything parallel, horizontally and vertically, then you need to stand at right angles to what you are photographing. If not then the planes of the building will not be straight (parallel). Sometimes this means you need a cherry picker or a very tall ladder. A view camera user knows all about this. It is possible to correct the perspectives from the one place without these.
Note: You can fix these things in PhotoShop as well. Just go to Filter > Distort > Lens Correction.
Canon and Nikon and Mamiya, to name a few, all make shift lenses, which enable you to achieve a similar effect. The front lens elements move independent of the rear ones and allow you to displace the image circle on the film plane. The canon TSE lenses allow you to shift, either vertically or horizontally (and in-between), as well as tilting the lens, which allows you to employ the Scheimpflug effect. The what, you say? Put simply, it allows you to increase or decrease depth-of-field, i.e. to give you f64 DOF at f16. It is possible to have your cake and eat it too….sometimes. The TSE lenses allow you to use in-camera metering, but you have to focus manually (reaches into memory banks for hyperfocal distance knowledge..)
About a week and a half ago, I was travelling north to Auckland, and was just south of Te Kuiti when I saw this scene. Aha, he said. Time to have a go. The scene was wide and expansive, and the hills stepped away into the background. In the distance I could see Ruapehu.
I set up the tripod and levelled it as accurately as I could, using the Bubble-thingy. You can buy expensive levelling heads for this kind of work, but you would need to be doing a lot of this kind of thing to justify the expense. This is the first rule of making panoramas. You must get the tripod head level. Greater care at this point means you will have less to crop later on.
I framed the scene and then racked the shift left and right to check what I would get. I then made a trial exposure in RAW and checked the histogram to make sure it wasn’t clipping.
Then I made two images at the same exposure setting and again at a slightly different setting, ensuring that the exposures were the same for each pair. It would seem to me that this is critical. Stitching software, especially PhotoMerge, hates different tones when it comes to merging. I used Manual exposure to ensure that the exposures remained the same. This is one of the few occasions I have ever used it.
I also ensured that there was at least 25% overlap. Remember that software stitches by comparing pixels from different images and then uses these similarities to make the join.
To CS2, then. Open the image in Bridge, go to Tools>PhotoShop>PhotoMerge and wait while the processor howls. A small amount of Smart Sharpen, then back into Lightroom to tweak the colours.
The finished image is 8-bit, which I then converted to 16-bit tiff. Finished image size? 6688 x 3189 pixels @ 240ppi, 122Mb, or 27” X 13” before upsizing.

This is my first attempt. I suspect I have opened a can of possibilities, and a new way of doing things.

I invite questions and comments.

Ka kite ano

Making an image Part I

2006-05-27T16:53:00.000+12:00

Kia ora tatou:

A number of you sent in comments pointing out how you like looking at the images I make with one or two suggestions that I talk about how I go about doing so.
Blush. Gulp. Well OK.
Assuming that, I will put up a few of my own and talk about what went on in my head. If that enlightens, wonderful. If I get recommendations of how to contact a suitable psychologist, so be it.

As a number of you know, I like to photograph the street at night, to walk around shooting what comes to me or reflects what my picture-making concerns happen to be at the time.
I did a body of work (what a pompous description) on the Christchurch streets about 4 years ago for my PSNZ fellowship. Actually I did it for me- the fellow thing came to me only later. I was fascinated by a number of things;

How close I could get to the action without affecting it ( a variation on Heisenberg’s Law)
The effect on film of artificial lighting and the idea of recording what the eye sees before the brain filters it
Life as it happened
Social mores and interactions

I beavered away at it for about a year, until one night, I shot an image of some women on a Girls’-Night-Out. As I pressed the shutter, I knew that series was done. I rattled off the film and sent it in for processing. It sometimes happens that way. I remember David Hurn telling us that it was important to know when a project was over.
The issues I had worked with were settled to my own satisfaction. However unlikely it might appear in the finished image, it is impossible not to affect the image in some way. Heisenberg was right. Observation of an event changes both observer and observed.
And then I walked away.

But I kept going back. I was still drawn by the colours, the noise (music, traffic, voices) and the way in which Christchurch, a staid Jekyll by day, turns into an amoral Hyde by night. I became interested in how my digital cameras would see the scene.
And then I started looking in the shop windows. I noticed the mannequins looking out the windows, and the way in which the reflections enabled me to look simultaneously into and out of the scene. I began to imagine that they might be alive, constrained witnesses to the arcane ritual of the street, thinking their own thoughts, participants without a voice.
And the layers of light that spattered them, sometimes leading my eye away, sometimes adding extra chapters to a surreal story. A kind of metaphor for Life and all its apparently disparate threads.

To this image then.

Fast forward to one Friday night, around 10 pm. These 2 girls were in the window of J. Ballantyne & Co., a wonderfully blue-rinse shop in central Christchurch. I made the image almost subconsciously, along with about 20 variations. It was only when I was later editing it that began to nudge me. The supplicant positions of the mannequins somehow suggest a ritual or conversation.
What it is about I have no idea. But there is room in it for me to invent all sorts of stories, all manner of possibilities.
Its open-endedness makes me keep coming back to it.

Oh yes, the gory details:
Canon EOS 1Ds Mk II, 16-35/2.8 lens, RAW, ISO @ 1600, WB set to Daylight (I leave it there all the time since I shoot RAW and I want to see things as they are), Program mode ('Cause I want to make photographs, not fiddle around with my controls).

Ka kite ano

Sign of the Times?

2006-05-27T08:37:00.000+12:00

Kia ora tatou:

Prue, our correspondent in Japan, sent me this link, which I thought should be published in full

Following in the footsteps of camera giants Nikon Corp. and Konika Minolta Holdings Inc., Canon Inc. will stop developing new film-based camera products because of the shrinking analogue market and dramatically growing digital demand, the company's president said Thursday.

"It is difficult to develop new (film-based cameras)," Canon President Tsuneji Uchida told a news conference.

Uchida pledged, however, to continue Canon's film-based photo business as long as demand exists, the firm's public relations office said.

But Uchida also predicted that film-based cameras will soon only be the realm of enthusiasts and other select users, and will be unprofitable.

"In the future, demand will be limited only to special needs, and new (film-based cameras) won't be profitable," he reportedly said.

In January, Nikon Corp. surprised the industry and camera buffs by announcing plans to stop making new film cameras. It has since stopped shipping film-based cameras, except for the cheapest and most expensive models.

Later the same month, Konica Minolta Holdings Inc., another big name in the film-photo business, also announced it was quitting the camera and photo film business.

Konica Minolta Holdings Inc. was born in 2003 through the merger of 130-year-old Konica Corp. and Minolta Co., which in 1985 debuted the world's first practical auto-focus single-lens reflex camera.

Currently Canon has four film-based single-lens reflex camera models and five compact cameras. Those analogue cameras, together with interchangeable lenses, accounted for only 17 percent of all Canon camera sales in fiscal 2005.

"Digital cameras are better in such points as ease of printing. Scaling back the film camera (business) is a sign of the times," Uchida said.

Hmmm......anybody wanna buy a mint EOS 1v??

Ka kite ano

Open All Hours

2006-05-27T07:52:00.000+12:00

Kia ora tatou :

Somewhere deep in the archives I did a post on Garry Bull, who has been working on an body of work about Christchurch shopkeepers with a view to having an exhibition. Well he has made it.

For those of you in and/or close to Christchurch, the show opens this Monday night, 29 May, at around 1830, at Our Place Otautahi. That's the old Information Centre on the corner of Worcester St and Oxford Terrace, opposite Rydges.

Garry wants me to let you know you are all warmly invited, and he would love to see as many of you as possible there. So come, have a wine, munch some cheese and look at some fantastic work. If you can't wait or can't make it, check out his new website. I am continuously stunned at the quality and insight in his images. I know you will be too.

He would love to talk to you, so if you don't know what he looks like, he is ...um...economically built, with red hair.
Ka kite ano

The Art of Seeing Part IV-practising your scales

2006-05-21T12:48:00.000+12:00

Warning: yet another heavy-duty Post!!

Kia ora tatou:

A lot of years ago, my mother decided it would be good for me to learn the piano. So she sent me along to Mrs. X, a woman of (it seemed to me at the time) fearsomely advanced years. For a year or so we suffered each other. She would snarl at me, and I would wonder if she was on holiday from Dachau.
Each week I would (reluctantly) show up to demonstrate my (remarkable) lack of progress; each week she would admonish me for my bad hand position by giving me a clip over the knuckles with a brass-edged ruler. Then she would send me home to practice my scales, which I always avoided wherever possible. There was inevitably something much more important to do.
My sister, who was learning from her as well, practised assiduously each night. Curiously enough she got very good at playing the piano. And I did not. Playing Chopsticks was about my lot. After a year or so, my mother decided I should cut my losses and move onto show jumping…

You may be wondering about the point of this post. Well, read on.

Somewhere in The Art of Seeing Part III, I talked about Closing the Gap and the importance of scene analysis. I suggested ACE as an acronym to help you develop a methodology for approaching a photograph. This is a system that can produce a more systematic structure to the decision-making involved in every photograph. It is easier to do with landscape photography (although that requires as acute a sense of time and place as any other form of photography) than perhaps sports or documentary photography, both of which require split-second decisions. So this is a good place to develop the habit. Practice it enough and it will become second nature. As any martial artist will tell you, it takes at least 300 repetitions of a kata (a kind of ritualised pattern containing a variety of specific techniques and combinations) before it begins to reach the subconscious and become second nature.

As Bruce Lee once said:” if you think, you are dead.”
Nobody is suggesting that you should use your trusty 350D for hand-to-hand combat, but the principle is the same. The more you practise, the more instinctual everything will become. And great photographers are always practising. The more you do it, the better you will get. If you can discipline yourself to make at least 10 images every day, you will be amazed at how quickly you progress. If you play a musical instrument (I play a really mean car stereo), you know what I am talking about. If you ever took piano lessons and remember doing scales (a form of torture for me) then you understand. Photography is no different.

Q. What is the way to Carnegie Hall?
A. Practice, John, practice.

Now it is time to talk about the vexing question of composition, or design of a photograph. Remember that we have only two decisions to make in photography: where to stand, and when to push the button (David Hurn/Magnum). Essentially composition is about structure, and a natural follow-on from scene analysis. To start gripping onto this, it is important to remember what you are looking at:

A series of lines, patterns, forms, structures, etc. reflected onto a ground glass.

Take your eye slightly away from the viewfinder and defocus a little and you will see what I mean. By doing so you are able to become a little more objective and look dispassionately at what it is you are photographing. This is important if you are to develop a sense of design.

I can hear voices saying: but what about those people who seem to have a natural sense of design? True, but I wouldn’t mind betting it is something they have been doing since childhood, and a good sense of design comes from constant practice. If you spend every day looking at how things are designed and the design elements in what is in front of you because you love it and that is what you do, then of course you will become design-oriented.

Practice, John, practice.

I can hear one or two of you saying: so when is he going to tell us a few secrets of how to be better at composition? What about a few rules?

I wouldn’t be that disrespectful. And you are in the wrong place.
There are any number of books that will give you “the rules”. Better still; go to your local camera club. You will find plenty of people with firmly held views on where subject matter should be placed in a photograph…

What I can suggest is that you take images you like and analyse them. If you don’t think much of your own, then find ones you like by ‘Big Names’ and analyse them.
If you have taken the hint and got yourself a visual diary, then you may be wondering what to do with it. Here is a suggestion.

At the top of this post is my Homage to Alfred and Georgia photograph (taken incidentally in the Wairarapa!). At the top is the original.
Next down you will see where I have drawn (rather badly) over the top of it in PhotoShop. Hint: it’s a lot easier with a pen. I have broken it down into its composite primary shapes. The sky and hills form one significant rectangle. The grass and the fence down form a smaller but still significant rectangle. Because the sky was so dominant, I gave it greater weighting. It also contains less information, so it needs more space to compete.
Over the top of that is the rectangle formed by the pergola-thingy. As you will see, I have allowed it a little less than 50% of the horizontal picture space to give the eye a bit of a chance to hop round to the left.
The final significant shapes are the two downward-pointing triangles formed by the skulls. Although they occupy a small part of the picture space, they are dominant because they are well to the front of the photograph.
True, there are a lot of smaller secondary elements, which are important as well, but it is the arrangement of the primary elements that is of greatest significance.

Did I consciously think of all this at the time?

No, not really.

Because I practise my scales.

The point here is that post-analysis is a bit like practising your scales. Take your images, print them out, stick them in your visual diary, then do the analysis exercise I suggested above.

You may be amazed at how quickly this informs the way you apporioach a photograph out in the field.

Ka kite ano

Your Feedback Please!

2006-05-21T12:46:00.000+12:00

Kia ora tatou:

If you have been following this blog, you will have seen a variety of articles on different aspects of photography. I have tried to keep them as varied as possible and (hopefully) interesting. Well now I need some feedback.
Please let me know which ones work for you, which bore the c*#p out of you and what you would like to see in future.
Please give me your feedback as a comment, rather than emailing me direct. if you can, identify your expertise level, so those of you I do not personally know can be accommodated.

Ka kite ano

The Art of Seeing part III-Closing the gap

2006-05-21T12:20:00.000+12:00

Warning: another heavy-duty Post!!

Kia ora tatou:

Enough of the gear-involved posts. It is time to get serious again. I had the recent joy of spending some time with a student and going out photographing with him. At some point he asked me a question about what he should be looking for. A fair and valid question, since that uncertainty usually clouds our approach to making an image. If we don’t know what we are looking for, then the result will be confused at worst, derivative at best. I would like to take the opportunity to talk about this. For a time I would have said: “it’s all about design”.
Well it is and it isn’t.
And like all worthwhile journeys, the path to better photography(whatever that may mean) one comes with big, deep potholes which we can fall into. They are very hard to climb out of. So I would like to suggest some guidelines.

The first thing to realise about photography is the disparity between how our camera sees and how we see. Let’s recap: you see with your mind, not your eyes, which only feed raw data to the brain. We see what we want to see, or what we have learned to see.
Potholes. Habits. Visual laziness.
We focus on what is of interest to us, and our brain discards or reduces the significance, both visually and therefore psychologically, of what we are looking at. If we see our true love for the first time across a crowded room (barf), then our chemically altered perceptions immediately block out all the other people in the room. Our psychological zoom lens kicks in. We have edited the scene. We do this all the time.

Another example. Last week I was crossing on the back road from National Park to Turangi after a lovely dinner in Kakahi. It was around midnight, and a full moon. The southerly storms that had blown through had lowered the snow down to the bushline. In the moonlight Ruapehu, Tongariro and Ngaurahoe glowed with a ghostly purple-white intensity. The ski lodges with their low-Kelvin lighting marched up the sides of the mountain and made it seem as if I was staring at castles from some fairy-tale. It was ethereal and otherworldly.

My photographer’s acquisitive instinct told me to stop and make a photograph. So I pulled up and got out. Then I began to analyse the scene, the proportions of the subject matter in the scene, the potential design problems, which lens to use, exposure issues and whether it would work.
A.C.E. Analysis; Composition; Exposure.
Then I realised the foreground was wrong, that all I had was a thin band of subject matter, and that it couldn’t work. I was too far away. If I went closer, the left-to-right spread would be too far. It just wasn’t going to happen. The issue here was my mind, which was in Maximum Selective Edit mode. Only when I took the time to work through the issues did it become clear that the disparity between my brain and what my equipment had to offer was uncrossable.
Somebody once said that the trick is not knowing when to make the photograph; it is knowing when not to make the photograph. This was one of those times. So I made a photograph in my mind and drove on. I still have that image and I have replayed it almost daily.

You see, it seems to me that to make better photographs, you need to understand your camera fully. No, I am not talking about knowing which knobs, dials and buttons to push. I mean closing the gap between what the camera sees and what you do.

The fundamental thing to understand is that your camera sees impartially. It records all that is framed and accords it importance according to the proportion of the frame that it occupies. Thus, if that lone tree in the distance occupies 1.5% of the framed area, then it will occupy 1.5% of the finished picture space. That gives it minimal visual significance unless it has something to give it greater visual (sic: psychological) weight. A flock of psychotic vultures or a werewolf next to it could do that, especially if it is the only tree on a largely empty picture space. Then it assumes greater visual weight. This is why so many images that we thought would be fantastic often turn out to be disappointing. We haven’t yet learned to close the gap.
So how do we do this?
A.C.E. Analysis. Composition. Exposure.

Analyse your scene. Start by looking at it without the camera. Roam around it (visually), noting things of importance to you. Ask yourself what you want to keep, what you could live without. Is the space expansive or confined? Do you want the whole scene or just a part? If the latter, then you may be looking at a longer focal length to extract that portion of the scene. Do you want to accentuate space? Perhaps a wider angle would work here.

Now get out your camera, put on the lens you thought about and work the scene through the viewfinder. Preferably use a tripod. It slows you down and makes you think. When you decide you have it framed, step away and look at the scene.
Now come back to the viewfinder and run your eye around the frame, noting the relative size of the objects in it and whether the object that caught you attention has any visual competition. If so, you may need to reframe to make a clearer statement. If you have a grid screen facility, turn it on. This can be a big help for scene analysis. It forces you to see what is really there; a series of shapes, lines, patterns, shadows and other design elements on a piece of glass.
If you are digital, then shoot a frame and analyse it on the LCD. Does it look the same as what you are seeing through the viewfinder? Surprisingly it may appear quite different. The proportions may look other than what you are seeing in the viewfinder.

Closing the gap.

Change lens, change position, change whatever. But keep working at it, chimping as you go.

Great images all have to be worked for. And they demand your respect.
Shoot and change. Shoot and change.
If you keep working on that one idea, shooting a lot and moving in closer, you will begin to drill down to what really attracted you in the first place.

Take time and make lots of photographs.
And close the gap.

Ka kite ano

It's a Lensbaby, Baby

2006-05-15T20:55:00.000+12:00

Kia ora tatou:
Somewhere back in the pile of posts in this blog is one about the importance of play, of being willing to step outside the square and just try stuff. Easy to do with digital. There is no cost to speak of. It certainly worked for people like Picasso and Braques.
But sometimes as a photographer you need a bit of a helping hand. It is really easy to get inside the square and become walled up in it, and keep on churning out the same old, same old. Sometimes you need to be willing to have a play at something that is really challenging or just plain silly, to have fun (no, the two can be synonymous).
Enter the Lensbaby.

How to describe it? Well, it is a superb piece of ....um...er...post-coital design.. It flops all over the place; it looks ridiculous attached to the front of a 1-series Canon or high-end Nikon; it requires a certain prehensil-ity of technique to operate...

And it is fun. Essentially it is an infinitely flexible PC ( Perspective Correction) lens. You push it in and out to focus, and tilt/twist/tweak/ it to shift the point of focus. If you want to change apertures, you slip out the ring and pop in the one of your choice, up to f/8. The lens comes with instructions on how to use it, and a guide to calculating exposure,which requires a little experimentation to get the exposure right if you are using film. If you are digital, then it is easy. Shoot a test, read the histogram, then adjust accordingly.
Using a Lensbaby will attract instant ridicule from all your 400/2.8L-toting mates, until curiosity overcomes them, and they get their hands on it. Then they will go nuts, and laugh a lot while they play. You will probably not see it for days.

And be warned: getting it back WILL be difficult. Be prepared to have to prise it from their cold dead fingers.

As for price? Better than you would think. Around $NZ230 for the deluxe f2.0 version. It is well-made, and quite complete.

Many thanks to Mark Cosgrove for the image at the top of this post. Believe it or not, it is a shot of vegetables in his basket.
And yes, his fingers are warm and fully-functional.

Ka kite ano

Volker Speaks!

2006-05-15T20:27:00.000+12:00

Kia ora tatou:
I love it when people send in comments. ( Have confidence-make your comment attached to a post). I received this one from Volker, who has forgotten more about IT than I will ever know. There is only one thing about him I find quite insufferable-he is always right! So when he sent me this email, I thought it worth posting.
Enjoy.

Had a look at your blog again - always good reading. Some technical issues need updating though: formatting a memory card will most definitely not wipe everything off it. It will only mark the directories empty. It's equivalent to a quick format on your hard drive - wipes nothing, only puts an empty directory on. To really wipe the card, you have to overwrite each block with zeros. A one-liner in Linux, no fancy Lexar Image Rescue(TM) needed. Verbatim CDs are indeed among the best quality one can buy (unfortunately the better stuff went off-market years ago), and the cost is <$25 per 50 for the "plus" stuff. DVDs are <$40 per 50 (Verbatim, Sony, Imation). It doesn't matter where you buy them, but if you go to the Warehouse, it's your own fault. (I like tastech.co.nz) When naming files, it's a good idea to use the date (though I put it into the directories above). It is however essential to use a Japanese date format - YYYYMMDD. Why? When sorted alphabetically, bingo - sorted by time. I've been using Bibble heavily the last 2 weeks, doing up a wedding, our West Coast holiday, and a few things afterwards. Great program, a bit buggy in places though. And that "Perfectly Clear(TM)" is an absolut w*&k, as well as doing everything to destroy my images (Bibble 4.7). I'd buy it, but pity they don't want to talk to me - no contact email address, no bug reporting-Hey those wallies don't even collect suggestions. Well, nowhere to send them to. D'OH!
He went on to ask which RAW convereters I recommend. Well, ACR (Adobe Camera Raw) is excellent. Pixmantec RawShooter is outstanding. But Adobe Lightroom kicks them all into a cocked hat. I am itching to get the PC version when it is released!
Ka kite ano

Freeman Patterson Workshop 2006

2006-05-07T18:18:00.000+12:00

Kia ora tatou:
The workshop in Martinborough was a raging success. 6 days of working with a group of amazing photographers and led by a master teacher and photographer. Everybody moved their picture-making forward (myself and Sally included). The wonderful thing about workshops is that you live and work together with a group of like-minded individuals and you grow. If you ever get the chance to do one of Freeman's workshops, don't miss the opportunity. He has a very special teaching style, that focuses as much on developing the individual as their photography. Of course the two go together. It was great to see people stepping outside their comfort zones and trying new ways of making photographs. There was a lot of emotion at times, and a lot of aroha to the week.
Michael, the organiser, scored a masterstroke in the choice of venue. (A big shoutout to him for making the trip to Wellington every day to get film processed and organising it so well). Set in a vineyard in one of the country's premium winegrowing areas, it would have been churlish not to help the local economy by test-driving its products. Well, what else would you do?
Those of you who have done one know about the (drum roll) personal assignment.... participants are given a topic to interpret, a morning to shoot it, and then have to present it to the group. It's a way of pushing people and getting them to think outside the square.Some fabulous assignments, which I am still laughing at. If any of you know Bob Wilson from Napier, ask him to show you his take on "How Towels make Love".
For those of you thinking that maybe you want to be a part of a week like this, watch this space. Freeman is coming back early next year.
Ka kite ano

The ultimate camera tech?

2006-05-07T07:27:00.000+12:00

Kia ora tatou:
As the man said, it’s a hard road finding the perfect camera tech, son, especially when you need to get your sensor cleaned. But there is a solution at hand, especially if you live in Christchurch.
I have heard a lot of horror stories about sensor cleaning. People using tissues, spit, blower brushes (and using the brush bit). Well, in a word, don’t.
If you own a digital SLR, your sensor will need to be cleaned at some point- with one exception, the Olympus SLRs, which have an inbuilt ultrasonic cleaning device. The rest of us will need to do at some point. You can minimise dust build-up by switching the camera off when changing lenses, which discharges the sensor, and doing so with your back to the wind.
So how do you know when it is time to clean the sensor? Large areas of clear blue sky are classic areas where it is obvious. Enlarge your file to 100% and scroll around, looking for those telltale areas of blobby tone. There is a better way. Go outside; shoot an area of clear blue sky with the focus at infinity. Then open it and apply auto levels. Hey presto! (It’s not a bad way of seeing dead pixels either, and a good way of checking the sensor on that second-hand SLR you may be thinking of buying.)
If you are going to do it yourself, then a few guidelines are in order.
Use a proprietary sensor-cleaning device, such as a SensorBrush (available on the Net). You can read about them here. Do not use any old brush.
Before you begin, RTFM (read the friendly manual). Most digital SLRs have a special setting for cleaning. I am told that Nikons need a special accessory power adaptor. Nikonnnies help me out here. This opens the shutter and locks the mirror up. If you must use your battery pack, make sure it is fully-charged.
DO NOT USE ‘B’ or ‘T’. This is not the same thing. The sensor-cleaning setting desensitises the sensor and discharges it. Using B/T has been known to cause scarring on the sensor.
If this scares you, then don’t go there. I know I would rather have an expert in there, for the same reason I take my truck to a mechanic to be serviced. They know what they are doing. There is a reason why they spent 3 years learning to do it. So what is the answer?
Take your camera to a competent technician. And, curiously enough, I happen to know of one I highly recommend.
Enter Hayden Marshall. He used to be a camera technician for H.E Perry, the Olympus/Bronica/Bowens/ Ilford agents. Now he works in Papanui from his home.
And does he know his stuff! He showed me the ex-20D he has restored to fully functional, and the Canon FD (that’s manual focus) lenses he has converted to run in an EOS AF mount. He did this by turning custom mounts on a lathe and then mounting them on the base of the lens.
He has been servicing my gear for the last 6 months or so. He picked up a nasty little fault in my 24-70/2.8L, which would have made life difficult indeed. The focus was a little stiff and the lens barrel was catching a little. He spotted it, found the screws that had dropped into the guts of the lens, repaired, cleaned and reassembled the lens for a really reasonable price. That’s what I call service!
He does manual and AF cameras, studio flash, you name it. And he is really reasonable.
And he is a secret I am happy to spill. You can phone him on +64 3 352 6737 or +64 21 264 0633. You can even email him
Ka kite ano

Virginia

2006-05-01T06:36:00.000+12:00

Kia ora tatou:

The portrait is one of the oldest genres in photography. You may be interested to know that, while recording the landscape was the reason photography came into being as a technology, the portrait was the economic engine that drove its development. When people realised that they no longer had to find a (very expensive) professional painter to have their portrait done, that it was now affordable, they flocked in their droves to the nearest professional photographer, to have their likeness recorded. For the first time in human history, it was possible to have an accurate record of themselves and their lives. Needless to say, average portrait painters went out of business overnight.

The portrait is somewhat of a fraught area. It carries a lot of baggage, both social and historical. In addition, there is the issue of photographing another human being. An insensitive and are un-aware approach can do a lot of damage. When we make portraits, we have immense power; the power to make our subjects feel good about themselves, or the power to destroy. Portrait photography is not an area for the psychologically jackbooted.

No wonder so few of us like having our “photo taken”...

Which brings me to the point of this post.

I had the singular honour of mentoring Virginia, as she produced a body of work for an exhibition and later for her associateship. Virginia is one of those wonderful people who is interested in everything, but especially the human condition. Her life has been a road containing more than its fair share of potholes, but she remains deeply interested in people and the lives of those around her. She is one of those wonderful human beings who are able to see beyond her own difficulties, take life by the throat and give it a really good shake. She has a real concern for others and an intuitive understanding of what makes people tick, not to mention a ferocious intellect and a razor-sharp wit. In other words, all of the things needed to make a fine portrait photographer.

In our initial discussions, she expressed interest in making photographs of the women in a dragon boat team with which she was involved. The thing that makes this group of women so special is that they have all survived breast cancer, and the psychological trauma of the disfigurement that so often goes with it. She wanted to photograph the women and show their courage and nobility, and perhaps give them a new way of looking at what had happened.

Virginia is one of those wonderful photographers who are idea-driven, so I taught her the basics of studio photography and loaned her a Mamiya C330 6x6. We felt that the formality of using a twin-lens reflex would give her photographs the right feel. We both agreed it had to be black-and-white. We also talked about shooting angle and the importance of correct camera positioning. Because she wanted to show her respect for his subjects, she chose a fractionally lower camera angle to demonstrate this.

Then she went to work.

From time to time, she would get in touch, and we would look through what she had done. I would suggest ways in which she might refine her technique or make slight adjustments to the lighting. From the start, there was no way I could or would comment on the content of the pictures she was showing me. They were and are so extraordinarily powerful, that I was moved every time I saw them. I still am.

Needless to stay, she completed the project, and has produced a series of images which bear testament both to her own talent and commitment, but as importantly, to the extraordinary courage and fortitude of the women she has photographed.

Something special has happened here.

Ka kite ano

Tripod, isn't it?

2006-04-29T12:40:00.000+12:00

Kia ora tatou:

It’s time to talk about that photographic add-on that so many of us take for granted, that rather ugly accessory that most of us buy last, perhaps as an afterthought, maybe even with a touch of guilt, the contraption which often rattles around in the boot of the car gathering dust. Yes, you guessed it-the tripod.

I don’t know about you but tripods irritate me immensely. They are clumsy, awkward to put up, and frustrating to use. An ergonomic tripod is an oxymoron. I would frankly be happier if I never had to use one again. I bet a few of you feel the same way. I tried really hard to avoid using one.
That is until I “went digital”. However I confess to having had a bit of an epiphany on the subject. So herewith may I read from the Gospel according to St. Tripod the Microfine Resolver.

Tripods have their place. They are as the birds in the trees and the flowers in the meadow. In another words highly necessary. If you are going to shoot landscape, nature or similar, you need one.
Those who have taken the Digital Path need one even more. Here is why. Digital cameras are able to resolve such fine detail that the slightest shake will disturb your ability to capture those microfine contrasts like the texture in a bird’s feathers. Fine detail in a landscape or subtleties of texture in a subject’s hair require precision of technique and as rigid a support as possible. There are times when even the Mighty Image Stabiliser is not up to the task. Try it for yourself. Make an image with lots of detail in it. Aim for a slower shutter speed. Then make the same image, but this time, as it exposes, tap the end of the lens barrel. Enlarge both images to 100% and look at the fine detail. Note which one renders finer detail.
The sharpness of your images will be in direct proportion to the sturdiness of your tripod. As ye purchase, so shall ye reap. Those cute little things that look like a bunch of car aerials having a gossip session will not cut it, even with a point-and-shoot. Buy one that is as heavy as you need. Now buy one that is heavier again. If you are digital, you need all the tripod you can carry.
Note well that the Inverse Shutterspeed Rule does not apply with digital photography. The old rule about the slowest Shutterspeed being 1/focal length does not apply for digitals 6 Mp and above. For really Big Boys Toys, you should work on 1/2x focal length. That is, if you want to shoot with a 200mm lens handheld, then aim for a Shutterspeed of 1/400 or better. A rider to this; if you only make A5 prints, then disregard all of this. If you are in to A3 or larger printing, then you may want to go higher still. Again do some comparison tests.
Bridge’s First Law of Tripod Usefulness states that the value of the tripod is inversely proportional to the beauty of the scene and the prevailing weather. The more appealing the image the more likely a wind will come to shake your equipment and disturb that fine detail, restricting you to an A4-if you are lucky. Buy a tripod with the worst possible conditions in mind. Of course, if photographing arrangements of chocolates and fruit in the privacy of your boudoir is your thing, disregard all of this. No, we don’t want to hear any more!
Bridge’s Second Law of Tripod Usefulness states that the build quality of your tripod is proportional to the amount you are ready to spend and usually inversely proportional to the amount you have to spend/the balance left on your credit card. There is a truth here. You get what you pay for. Buy once, buy right. And there is a reason why so many pros buy Gitzos and Manfrottos. They last. There are plenty of people using Gitzos more than 20 years old. And not a lot using Sliks and Kamakuza brand tripods that old. Also you can get spares when things do wear out-and they do. By the way, did you know Manfrotto own Gitzo?

So they went forth and bought a quality tripod. And hid the actual price from their spouse/de facto/partner.
Then they went forth and made photographs. And the results were pleasing, even at A3+.

Ok. Ok. I haven't mentioned tripod heads. But I will. They are as important as the legs. More on the subject later.

Ka kite ano

Shout out

2006-04-07T12:49:00.000+12:00

Kia ora tatou:
Have a look at this photo. You are looking at tomorrow's graphic and web designers, film makers and photographers. Oh and did I mention animators. I have had the singular honour to work with these guys, an amazingly talented group. They have taught me at least as much as I have them.
Watch this space. These guys are the future.
But I am handing them over to a new teacher. So a big shoutout to you guys, to Megan,Hattie,Sammie, Noknok, Puk (aka Chickengirl), Mattie, Hamish, Amanda, Lambie, Stacey, Katie, Fishhead, Deborah and Ashleigh.
It has been great.
You all rock.
ka kite ano

The Art of Seeing part II-In the twilight zone between film and stills

2006-04-07T10:35:00.000+12:00

Warning: heavy-duty Post!!
Kia ora tatou:

It is time to revisit the question of how we see. This time I would like to talk about format, in particular the panorama. It is immensely popular today. Filmies can chose between the Hasselblad X-Pan, the Noblex, or the Fuji 617, to name a few. Digies can use stitching software to get a result. The options are all there.

You may be interested to know that the panorama is one of the oldest formats in photography. It has been popular since photography’s earliest days-since 1843 in fact, when Joseph Puchberger of Retz, Austria, patented a hand crank driven swing lens Panoramic camera that used Daguerreotype plates 19 to 24 inches long. Josef Sudek used it extensively in a series he did in Prague. Josef Koudelka worked with it some years ago. The list goes on. So why is it still popular? Here is my theory.

Think about the way we look the world around us. Assuming we are standing upright, it is easier to look from side to side. Our spine is designed to facilitate horizontal articulation. Looking up and down requires greater effort. Maybe our forbears were more worried about the sabre-tooth tiger lurking in the grass than the one about to drop out of a tree…

Looking laterally involves no change in perception of scale. Everything maintains its proportions. The only scale change involves near and far, and these are a function of distance. Perspective, a Renaissance invention in Western Art, seems quite natural. Compare this with the act of looking up and down. If we stand in one of those concrete canyons in a city and look up at the skyscrapers, we can get quite dizzy. We lose contact with the ground and the horizon, a vital point of visual self-reference. The buildings stretch up and seem to get thinner at the top. This is called keystoning. The ancient Greeks were well aware of this and made the columns on their temples a little wider at the top to compensate for this visual effect. While the perspective that occurs is the vertical equivalent of what happens with near/far, somehow it seems less…ordinary.
Again if we look down at our bodies, a real foreshortening effect occurs. Observation of our feet (assuming we can see them) occurs on the periphery of our vision. Looking down means looking around/past our nose. Looking up brings our eyebrows into the periphery. Note that our eyebrows project more into our vision than our cheeks. This might suggest that we are more naturally-evolved to perceive in horizontal rather than vertical planes. Lateral observation on the other hand means much less clutter on the edge of our vision.

And there is other historical evidence to support the durability of this way of seeing. The ancient Romans and Greeks made friezes, horizontal images that stretched for meters. Curiously enough, these involved extended stories that unravelled as a viewer moved along them. In a way these were the original forbears of the movie. The viewer moved with the story. In fact one of the very first westerns shot was made by putting the horse on a carousel, so that the background moved behind the rider. Thus the story unfolded, a bit like a (then) hi-tech frieze. However, unlike the frieze, the viewer remains static. Likewise with the panorama.
Note that friezes tend to unfold laterally, as does text. In the East there seem to be a large number of 2D artworks that unfold vertically. Curious then that eastern calligraphy moves vertically. Which raises the question of why Chinese writing is all about up and down.
Film on the other hand is like a kind of moving frieze over a kilometer long. What has film got to do with the panorama, you ask? Bear with me.
Because we only see one frame at a time, because it passes through the projector gate one frame at a time, we get the illusion of a single image. We all know that in reality film is a series of still images, each one different from the one before. As it moves past the gate, things appear to change, and thus a story unfolds. We are happy to go along with the illusion. The key element here is time.
The still photographer deals with fractions of a second. The filmmaker deals with multiples of this. A frieze (sic: panorama) sits somewhere in the middle of this, reflecting the passage of time.

I would suggest that the panorama is the closest a still photographer can get to the philosophy behind the moving image without reaching for a camcorder.
Here is why.
All photography is about storytelling. Whatever and whenever we photograph, we are telling stories. It is all about narrative. It may be as simple as a record of a time or place or person. It can be as complicated as telling a story about human life and expectations. We attempt to condense our story into a single moment in time, to abstract reality using an agreed codification. The still image uses a given format (6x6, 35mm, 8X10) and thus defines the nature of that codification. As an example, 8x10 encourages a considerable degree of formalism. You just can’t work spontaneously with one. 35mm, on the other hand, is a format that begs to be used in a spontaneous way. Look at Henri Cartier-Bresson’s work and you will see what I mean.
The panorama, with its enlarged picture space, encourages the exploration of time and telling a story with a longer timeline. The picture space is so expansive that you need to inject a narrative into it to make full use of its potential.
What got me travelling down this line of thinking? Looking at the image at the top of this post. I was experimenting with the cropping and found I liked a panorama format. But cropping off the top and bottom changed the nature of the narrative. The surfer walking past both added to and created a new narrative. Time elongated. A new line of enquiry?
Perhaps.

For the last couple of years I have given my students an assignment using the panorama as their format. They have to create a narrative about their life and self-perception. What makes it a little trickier is that they have to appear in it at least 3 times, each time doing something different. They can make it as long as they like, that is, choose the amount of time they will incorporate. Thus they become the actors in their own story. Unlike the conventional panorama, in which the camera is at the focal point of the image, it possible to use multiple viewpoints and still create a panorama.
They shoot it with their digicams, stitch it in Canon Photostitch, and print it across multiple pages. They then join and mount the images. The results can be amazing. They are part movie, part still. They break the boundaries of what constitutes a still image. Some, of course, do not go that far. But they have all begun to get a grip on the concept of narrative in the image, of telling stories. the example here is from Wendy. She has incorporated anime into her image, because it is part of who she is (see the section from the image)

Why not try it yourself? Email your attempts to me (72dpi, max of 600 pixels across) and I will publish them.
I look forward to publishing posts!
Ka kite ano

Cute little bubble thingy

2006-04-06T12:42:00.000+12:00

Kia ora tatou:

This is an old bite from my newsletter (now this blog). I came across the image this morning and it seemed worth putting it in again, especially given there are more of you out there reading this.

This is the gadget of choice for those of us with astigmatism and/or an inability to keep our horizons straight. It’s simple and effective. You plug it into your hotshoe and use the bubble to check everything is nice and level before you take the shot. It means you don’t have to invest in an expensive tripod head with inbuilt levels. Oh yes, with a little practice you can use it while shooting handheld. Just lift your eye off the viewfinder and have a quick peep before you press the shutter

Sometimes the best ideas are the most obvious.

Oh by the way, it’s manufactured by Hama, and most good photo stores should be able to get one for you.

Ka kite ano

Counting sheep-keeping track of your images

2006-04-02T10:14:00.000+12:00

Kia ora tatou:

Workflow. If you read digital photography sites, you will find it mentioned often. If you are experienced, you will know what it means. Everybody has their own ideas of how to go about it, and their own way of doing it. An explanation is in order.

With digital photography, you will almost certainly end up shooting a lot of images. Keeping track of them, keeping them protected and being able to retrieve them at a later date is critical. Unlike film, digital images can get lost, corrupted or be hard to track down later on. You need to develop a system that makes sense to you and one that ensures you can get to image X quickly and efficiently. This is known as workflow, and it requires a certain amount of discipline.

So here is a suggested way of going about it. This is the method I use and it works for me. Feel free to develop your own system.

Let’s begin with the camera. Format your card regularly. You might be interested to know that deleting doesn’t actually get rid of the file. It only removes the header tags. Provided you haven’t written over it, you can recover an accidentally deleted file with an application like Image Rescue. Formatting means you scrub the card clean ready for new images to be added. Some people format every time they shoot. I do- but only after all the images have been safely archived!
Coming in from a shoot, I will download the images to my hard drive, storing them into a suitably-named folder.
I will then examine them in a program like Adobe Bridge or Picasa. Any obvious duds, like accidental shots of my foot get deleted.
I will then batch rename the files, again using Bridge. I have evolved my own system of renaming that includes location or job, shoot date and finally the sequence number. So a file like X10E6157.CR2 becomes Backlit sheep_21082006_325.CR2. Retrieval then becomes a snip-usually.
I then add in my Copyright and contact details to the file metadata. If you have Bridge, this is relatively easy. Other apps allow this as well.
The next step is to archive. Since my cameras produce big files (and I have an eager shutter finger), I burn to good-quality DVD. 2 copies. Note: I have resisted the temptation to open and fiddle with any images. This is especially important if you are shooting jpegs. You want the archived files to be as pristine as possible. I use a CD marker pen to label each of the DVD’s. Each is labelled something like this: Backlit sheep Waihora 210806 1/2 or 2/2. The 1/2 label tells me that it is disc 1 of 2.
I then backup the data to a removable hard drive. My PC is fitted with a removable hard drive bay. The drives come in cassettes that slot into the bay. Insert, reboot and archive.
Both discs and drive are then stored in a fireproof safe.

Now I can play!

Oh yes, I absolutely did NOT shoot the image at the top of this post!

Ka kite ano

Never play Hopscotch in a Minefield- Digital basics Volume 33

2006-03-31T12:12:00.000+12:00

Kia ora tatou:
Herewith the second of my digital basics primers.

I recently had a conversation with an eager amateur photographer who had been into digital for a year and was happily saving her work to her hard drive. When I mentioned archiving/backing up, her comment went along the lines of ‘isn’t the hard drive enough? Why would I want to use a CD?”
Gulp.
Rule one of computing: it’s not a question of if your HDD will fail, but when. Storing your images only on an HDD is like playing hopscotch in a minefield. Sooner or later you will tread on one and get your leg blown off. If you value your images, you will need to archive them. So how do you back up? There are a number of options

An external hard drive. You can buy these cheaply enough. ATM you can get a 250 GB drive in a case for around $300. Check out Pricespy for the best prices. Advantages include portability, ease of access to data and simplicity of access. Get a USB2.0 or Firewire casing for it.

CD/DVD. You can buy blank CD’s for under $1.50 each and DVD’s for around $2.00. Cd’s store up to 700Mb of data and single-layer DVD’s around 4.3 Gb. On a dollar/byte basis, DVD has to be the way to go. You can get dual-layer DVD’s, but these are expensive, and by all accounts, fragile. Then there is the upcoming Blue Ray technology, which offers 30+ Gb/disc.

What counts here is the quality of the burner and the discs. You can buy cheap burners. It is a little harder to buy cheap reliable burners. Some commentators in this area suggest sticking to the Name brands (Sony, Pioneer etc). Avoid a $70 Kamakuza-no-name.

Likewise with your CD/DVD media. Those Warehouse 50-on-a-spindle deals for $45 plus a free romantic-weekend-for-2-in-the-Lubyanka are rarely archival. Again a name brand (Delkin, Sony, Verbatim, and Imation) is more likely to give you a reliable and archival result. Reason: the image is burned into a dye layer on the disc by a laser. Cheap media use poor-quality dyes which may lead to unreliable burns and, worse still, a short shelf life for your data. Remember once you have burned to go through your files and open a few, to check that the burn has worked properly. If possible, set your burning software to verify. That way it checks source data against recorded data to make sure the burn has gone successfully.
Make sure you store your discs in a cool dark dry place (that cuts out the beer fridge!) and in jewel cases.

What ever and however you do it, you need to have a safe place to store your data. Many pros back up to at least 3 different forms of media, e.g. dual DVD copies as well as HDD. While this may seem excessive, you will thank yourself, if you lose 2 and the 3rd is there to dig you out of the c&*p. If possible, store 1 copy off-site.

You need to develop a regime for reliable backup and storage. Everybody has their own idea of how to do it. The process from downloading to archiving is commonly referred to as a digital workflow. I will deal with that in the next post.

Ka kite ano

Coming out

2006-03-31T10:28:00.000+12:00

Kia ora tatou :
many thanks to those of you who have come out (of the woodwork, I mean) and put up suggestions for a replacement for PhotoShop. Keep 'em coming, people. If you have a piece of image editing software you really like, SHARE!
Ka kite ano

Digital Basics volume 32

2006-03-30T14:49:00.000+12:00

Kia Ora tatou:

Welcome to the second of my Digital-For-Beginners posts.

A common question, which is often asked by beginners, is the difference between a RAW file and JPEG. What they are often asking is whether JPEG is adequate, and whether it's worth putting the extra effort into mastering RAW files. Fair enough. Let's have a look at the difference.

JPEG is short for Joint Photographic Experts Group, a body originally established back in the 1990s to come up with a common standard for transmitting images across the Internet. Some of us will remember having a massive 14.4 K modems in our machines! These days a 56k is slow, and image transmission is so heavy that unless you've got broadband, you get to drink a lot of coffee waiting for something to happen.

If you've ever opened a JPEG, and compared the file size between closed and opened, you will probably have marveled at the sudden increase in size. It's a bit like having one of those suitcases that expands and expands and expands. What happens when you save as a JPEG, or when your camera writes a JPEG to the card, is that the software looks at areas where the pixels have common values, and writes a small algorithm (formula) for that area of the image. A JPEG is thus composed of a whole series of little formulae, a kind of shorthand for the original image. That explains why some JPEGs are at the same resolution are smaller or larger than others. When you select low compression, or high-quality, the algorithm is much tighter in the areas of pixels and defiance. That is, it will select pixels with a very similar RGB values. When you compress the image heavily, by selecting a low quality result, the algorithm extends further and includes pixels with more disparate values. The saved image is then composed of a number of formulae, a bit like an algebra exercise book, which imaging editing software is able to read. This means you can get more images on your memory card.

But there is a downside. The software you use to open the image and work with can make mistakes. The more you compress the image, the more likely you are to get some errors in reading the original files. We have probably all played the Chinese Whispers game, where everybody lines up, the messages begin at one end and pass through to the other, and then the beginning and end message are compared. Inevitably, they are different. Opening and closing a JPEG is a bit like this. The more you open and close it, the more likely it is that something will be misinterpreted. To avoid any change in the JPEG, it is critical that you archive as soon as possible after capture.

Burn, baby, burn!

If you are shooting JPEGs, when you press the shutter, the data is processed before being sent to the card. Things like saturation, white balance, exposure, sharpening, which are set on the camera by you, are all used by the camera’s in-house processor to develop the image. The camera does what you tell it to. If you get it wrong, then you live with the consequences. While much can be recovered in your image editing program, it is far better if you get it right at the point/time of capture. That means you have to be on top of your technique, and make the right decisions.
Before you shoot.
And often that isn't easy.

RAW files work by sending the data direct to the card without any production work being done by the cameras on-board processor. You then use image editing software to develop the image. This means that you can process the original data over and over again, making subtle but important tweaks. Until you are happy.

To use the film analogy: shooting a JPEG is like shooting a role of transparency, then sending it to the lab. If you get it right, that's fantastic. If you've made a mistake in exposure or filtration, rescuing it is a major effort. Sometimes an impossible one.

Shooting a RAW file as like being able to take your roll of film back to the lab time and time again until you get things the way you want. One of the joys of working in the darkroom has always been the ability to make decisions about how the film would be processed and printed. Admittedly, you only got one shot at it, but there is a far greater degree of control in the production of the final image-which is why most serious black-and-white photographers prefer to print their own. Just ask Ansel (well, you can’t, because he doesn’t say much these days).

It's no coincidence that most of the entry-level digital cameras shoot only JPEG. The people who use them, just want to make photographs, much the same as their predecessors did with their film point-and shoots. As long as it came out and looked relatively okay, everything was cool.

JPEG's offer simplicity, ease of storage, and predictability.

If you're serious, however, about making the best possible images, about having control over as much of the process as possible, and having the flexibility to make changes post-capture, then RAW has to be the way to go.

Who needs PhotoShop anyway?

2006-03-28T14:24:00.000+12:00

Kia ora tatou:
Good morning, everybody. Last night I had the singular good fortune to talk to a small photographic group in northwestern Christchurch. The group has only been going for a year now, but there is considerable enthusiasm and interest in photography.

One member of the group, who has been following Blueprintx for some time, commented that sometimes, what is discussed here is quite-goes over my head is the word he used, and that it would be nice if there were some simpler stuff. At the end of my talk, the discussion turned to working with digital. This lady has only just got a digital camera, and is having difficulty with the basics. For her, downloading, archiving and storage of images, let alone editing, are challenge enough. It is easy to be somewhat for us ‘experts’ to be superior/supercilious, when you meet a beginner at this level. She commented that it would be really nice to see some of the really basic stuff put there for people like her.

So for the lady at the for Burnside photographic group, whose name I never learned, here are some very important but often overlooked basics to digital photography. In fact, I can feel a wee series of posts coming on. A sort of digital primer, really. Let’s begin by stomping on a myth.

There seems to be some sort of preconception out there that unless you're using PhotoShop, you really haven't arrived as a digital photographer, that you must learn PhotoShop before you can do any sort of significant digital photography.

Bollocks.

PhotoShop is the 18-wheeler of image editing programs. If you've just got your learners license on a Nissan March,, being thrown the keys to a B-train, and then being told to drive to the other end of the country is a bit of an ask. Using a big rig to buy the groceries at the supermarket is pure overkill. The point I'm trying to make here, is that there are programs out there, that will do a similar job, as well, if not sometimes more efficiently.
Crystal ball time: II would predict that once Adobe Lightroom is released, sales of CS2 will slump. Remember that PhotoShop was never designed for photographers anyway. It was originally aimed at prepress people and designers. In a sense, it is becoming a piece of bloatware. Adobe, however, seem to have caught onto this, and are now developing a product specifically fo digital photographers. If you're thinking of buying CS2, or CS3, when it is released in late 2007, I would hold off, and consider Lightroom instead.

So what are the alternatives to Photoshop?

Try, Paintshop Pro-fraction of the price, and every bit as good. (In some cases, better).
Alternatively, download the GIMP. Heavy duty, but that the best possible price-free!
If you want a simple program for downloading and renaming, try Picasa. Again, a free download.
If you are Mac, use iPhoto. The latest versions are really good.
And why haven’t I mentioned the manufacturers’ software?
Approach with caution!
Some are really good and some simply awful (Camedia software has been bad for my PC- but the cameras are really good). the only manufacturer's software I have had any joy with is what came with my Sony R-1.
I am interested in software you have used and enjoyed. There are already a number of suggestions in the comments on this post. feel free to add to them.
Ka kite ano.

On a roll-working to a conclusion

2006-03-23T09:04:00.000+12:00

Kia ora tatou:
I would like to talk about another way of making photographs.
For a few years I taught Fine Art photography. It kind of fitted in with my working method and approach to picture-making. I had moved from being an opportunistic photographer happy to grab whatever popped up in front of his lens (landscapes, portraits, whatever), to preferring to work on a series. I learned this from a friend at the time, Nan Gee, who had pursued the same line of enquiry for some years. Looking through her work, I could see a progression, and a gradual development of understanding.
So I began to work this way.

About that time I began, as I said, to teach Art photography. That introduction was a revelation, for this is how Art is made. Over time I came to incorporate it into my own practice. Let me explain how it works.

Art students select a picture-making issue. (Note that all Art is concerned with picture-making problems. David Hockney was concerned with the documentation of time, the nature of perspective, and the question of viewpoint.). Examples might be the nature of near/far, or urban decay, or how a cockroach sees the world….

The student then does considerable research. He/she will look at the work of masters in the field, noting techniques, approaches, subject matter and philosophy. Excellence-level students will have upwards of 5 artist’s models. He will feed it into his own exploration.
There are 4 distinct stages to the process:

Exploration. Here the student does what we have talked about in the last paragraph. This is done by means of a visual diary, where he writes down ideas, sketches, brainstorms and develops possible lines of enquiry. Putting your thoughts out there helps to make them concrete and allow reinterpretation and revisiting. It is probably the single most useful way to advance your work. And it is fun.
Development. Here the student takes a number of those ideas and begins to work with them. A painter might do lots of drawings and mini-paintings. Look at the oeuvre of any significant artist and you will see swags of half-finished work. These are lines of enquiry that did not necessarily go anywhere but fed into the process. Years ago I had the rare opportunity to photograph the work of the famous New Zealand artist, Doris Lusk. Everywhere you looked there were sketchbooks and half-finished painting-lets. Skimming through a few I got a real insight into how she had worked. Photographers might well photograph around the subject. The more you do it, the greater insight you get into the nature of your subject.
Clarification. At this point the student has narrowed down the lines of enquiry into one or two. Work at this point is concerned with focusing on the issues associated with the problem and working them out. For me, a concern in my landscape work is the structure of the land and how it interacts in the picturespace with the sky. The land is, pictorially speaking, relatively static; the sky is constantly on the move. How to draw out that contrast is an idea I will often confront when I am out photographing. For me it is an ongoing concern that informs my work (Artspeak for: what I want to say in my photographs!)
Regeneration. At this point the student is producing work that incorporates this exploration into his/her own artistic view and which is both original and non-plagiaristic. A successful student will offer a personal viewpoint, one that references those who have gone before without directly appropriating (ripping off) what they have done. A weak student will do little development and any end-work will be little more than direct mimicry.

I have had the good fortune to teach with Freeman Patterson, and I will be away at the beginning of April doing so again. Freeman’s work is extraordinarily beautiful. But it is not the result of opportunism. He wears out his gear in constant exploration of his fascination with the natural world and the design elements in Nature. Over the years he has amassed huge numbers of images, and it is a real joy to look at his work and see the progression in it over the years, as he has refined his ideas and approaches.

If we take the time to think about what we are interested in photographically, to consider what it is that fascinates us, to write it down, then explore, explore, explore, the potential is there to grow our picture-making into something informed, original and us.

To make a statement that shows our view.

Sharpen up and use your eyes

2006-03-16T14:27:00.000+13:00

Kia ora tatou:
I promised a post on this subject and I shall deliver. I am not going into the ins and outs of doing this. There are plenty of links on the Net. Look here and here. I do want to talk about the whole issue however and offer some guidelines.

Digital cameras now offer us sharpness and microcontrast that we never had with film. And therein lies a trap. It is all too easy to overdo it. As I said in a previous post, it’s a bit like salt on your food. Enough improves the meal. Too much spoils it. The trick lies in understanding it so you can use it intelligently and with taste.

Sharpening doesn’t actually sharpen anything. It merely provides an illusion of sharpness. So let’s look at that.
Open an image that is inherently contrasty, taken say on a bright day. Zoom it to 200-300%. Find a line where there is contrast and a big difference in pixel values. See the example at right.
Now open it in your image-editing programme. I will refer to Photoshop for (my) convenience. Select the unsharp mask filter and find the same point in your image. Make sure the amount, radius and threshold sliders are set to zero. Now push the amount slider to about 50.

Next, adjust the radius slider to the right and watch what happens. You will see that the dark values get darker and the light values lighter. The more you push it right, the further out this increase extends. The threshold is a bit like a governor on a car. It sets the point at which it kicks in.

This is what sharpness is; an increase in light pixels and a decrease in dark values along an edge, where the two meet. This is why your images appear much sharper in contrasty light; the edge contrast is much greater.

Sharpness does not just occur along obvious edges however. Textural detail is comprised of microfine edges. Photograph a seagull’s wing, or a section of tar seal, enlarge to 200% and watch what happens when you work the radius. Texture (read microcontrast) is increased.
The sharpening tools therefore have 2 functions:

To increase edge contrast
To increase microcontrast

So what does this have to do with taste and how far do you go?
It is really easy to get intoxicated by this tool, and a real-vision check is in order. Look at a real edge and observe how sharp it really is. In bright light edge sharpness is quite defined. In dull light edges are much softer. Close objects are inherently sharper than objects in the distance. Over sharpening becomes really obvious when people attempt to sharpen that range of mountains 20 km away. The Hawkduns at sunset are not sharp. Only our brain tell us they are. Atmospheric haze and long-wavelength light prevent that.
Because we want to believe they are sharp, we go for the slider, and guess what happens?

Haloing, that ghastly ghost-edge effect that reminds me of watching I Love Lucy on an old B&W TV. See right.

When I see that, I know the photographer hasn’t thought it through.

And I better have a thing for salty food.

Ka kite ano.

After cataract surgery-seeing again for the first time

2006-03-15T12:57:00.000+13:00

Kia ora tatou:

As a few of you may know, I had cataract surgery on my right eye yesterday. The procedure was utterly painless and quite fascinating. It is all done under local and I was one of about 6 being done. A bit of a production line actually. I admit to a degree of dread at what the resiult might be. What if the difference was only minimal?

I spent last night with a patch over the eye, and I went down today to have it removed. I admit to considerable excitement ( and a little trepidation) at what I would see when I had it removed. I was not disappointed. The revelation was quite extraordinary. I have been told how wonderful the difference is. They were right. It is utterly astonishing.

Everything has got about 2 stops brighter
Colours are richer, especially yellows and reds
My perception of contrast has improved 1000-fold. Suddenly everyone has incredibly-textured skins, and wrinkles are highly evident, as is the microcontrast in fabrics and tar seal. I walked around in a daze for a half-hour, studying the roadway, leaves in gutters, and thinking how old some people looked. (Don't worry-I still love you all!)

How to show you all this…

I have made 2 images, a before- and after-shot. That might explain it.

The one above is before as my left eye, next in line for surgery, sees the world: the one below afterwards, as my right eye now sees.

My friend Mark showed me a webpage talking about Monet’s reaction and perceptions before and after having his eyes fixed.

You can read about it here.

Ka kite ano

Beyond the Literal

2006-03-15T12:18:00.000+13:00

Kia ora tatou ( Hi everybody):

There are two terms frequently used in the Art world, representation and interpretation. A question in the last post leads me to think this is something worth talking about.

When we first start to photograph, one of the joys is in the fact that we can freeze time, we can preserve a moment or a memory. Around 97% of all photographs fall into this category. Bar mitzvahs, family holidays, shots of the family cat (did you know photographing Felix/Fluffybum is the most popular type of photography?). In other words, memories. And memories are expected to be accurate. To accurately represent that person, that place, that time.

If we go to a favourite beach for a holiday, we might want to record an image of the place with our cameras so we can enjoy it at a later date. So we stand there, point our cameras, and shoot that. We make an accurate representation of a place and time. Now are you getting it?

If that was what we intended, then there is no problem. Most of the photos in family archives are of this type. And those people are perfectly happy with them. Remember that week in Okarito….?

All of us probably have a calendar we were given near Xmas, from one of those companies that sells bulldozers or power tools (No, not the sort you see on the walls of panel beaters’ smoko rooms!). Inevitably they prompt us to ask the question, where was that shot taken? Inevitably they are shot near midday and an accurate representation of what the place looks like. Hmmm, a wide shot looking down over Kerikeri.. In other words a photograph that is representational.

I am told that if you go to Yosemite, there are photo-opportunity spots where you can attempt to replicate Ansel Adams’ famous images. The image is in front of you. Along with little concrete tripod holders. I don’t know the truth of that, but I do know that there is an industry out there that serves the needs of those who want to follow in the great man’s footsteps. They wander around with wooden view cameras on wooden tripods looking for a shot of Half-Dome( actually, they should use 500-series Hasselblads, since Ansel was the main tester of these when they first came out). This type of approach is derivative. And here is the difference.

Representation is fine. Ansel did it to perfection. But there was a motive behind what he did. His aim was to portray the beauty of nature, so that others would come to appreciate the wilderness and thus want to preserve it intact. It worked. His images were instrumental in the development of national parks in the United States. He had a philosophy that drove his picturemaking. And you can see the personality of the author in the work.

Graeme Sydney is another case in point. While his work is quite representational ( read: photorealistic), it has a distinct style of its own. He has truly appropriated the Central Otago landscape, and captured the space and light that is so characteristic of it, to the point where anybody who attempts to do the same appears derivative. Note that he makes very big works, which add to the sense of vastness that is so much a part of that place. Somehow a small A4 print looks wrong. Even an A2 appears cramped.

Derivation comes when we approach a subject through another’s eyes, and this often comes because we want to tread in somebody else’s footsteps. In Western Art, imitation is not the sincerest form of flattery. It is plagiarism (curiously, Eastern Art forms have, until recently, taken the opposite approach). We look to see the psyche or philosophy of the author in the work, and preferably a new viewpoint.

All art relies on what has gone before, and all artists’ influences have their foundation in the past. What makes the difference is the extent to which the artist absorbs those influences and filters them through his/ her own beliefs and artistic concerns. Andy Warhol’s work can be referenced back to the Photo Montage movement of 1930’s Germany, but he ahs added his own terms of reference to it, to the point where it is distinctive, unique and easily recognised. He has made the idea his own.

So where does this leave we photographers? If we like making landscapes, we could take the time to think about why we like making them, about the aspects of the landscape that talk to us, and how we feel about this. We could take the time to write these down, including facets that we feel passionate about. Then we could well spend time looking at the works of the masters, including their raisons d’etre. (There is a reason why Fine art students all have to study Art History…..).

If we read widely, then think about our own attitudes and beliefs, we will be well on the way to making images that bear our own imprint. We begin to interpret our subject matter, putting our own authority on it, and to make photographs that offer more than mere documentation/representation.

Photographs which are not derivative.

Ka kite ano ( talk to you soon)

PSNZ Honours 2006

2006-03-12T18:21:00.000+13:00

Kia ora tatou:

As some of you know, I have been in Auckland for the annual PSNZ (Photographic Society of New Zealand) Honours Board awards. This year there were a massive 113 submissions, a new record!

I was elected to the Board last year, and ‘06 has been my first time on the panel. A few of you approached me to get help with your sets. I refused, since I really didn’t know the procedure, being the New Kid on the Block, and I was afraid I would put you wrong. I am glad I stuck to that, since the process has been a steep learning curve for me. I thought however, that I would share a few observations from the process that might be of help to those of you thinking of going for your letters in '07.

I am convinced that every attempt is made to do the right thing by people who submit for their letters (and yes, I do know who made it and I don’t know who didn’t. Please don’t ask-you will find out in due course….)

Let me explain the procedure.

There are 6 people on the panel. All are Fellows. All have a long involvement in photography. All are specialists in a particular area. They come from all over the country. The procedure goes something like this:

We start with Licentiateships in a particular area, say slides. We then do Associateships. Fellowships come last. Then we move on to Prints. After that AV’s. This year there were 113 submissions.
The session begins with a discussion on procedure and marking criteria. Then the work begins.
A few sets are put up so we can get ”our eye in.” These are then put aside and left until last. The title of the set is read out, along with any titles of individual works. Then the panel considers the work in silence. Each of us has two counters, a white one, showing we believe the work meets the required standard, and a red one to indicate it “falls below the bar.”
At the end of the consideration process, each of us casts our vote. The votes are counted and read out. 6 reds and the work is rejected. We then analyse the weak points and attempt to generate comments helpful to the candidate for a re-submission. We are never told the name of unsuccessful candidates.
If the candidate scores 6 whites, the work is accepted and the successful name is read out.
If 1 red or white is cast against the flow, the caster is invited to comment. He/she does not have to speak. The rest of the panel listen, and if the argument is convincing enough, there is a re-vote. The result is binding. Some of us occasionally cast a counter-vote, because we want to ensure that there is discussion. Sometimes the rest of the panel are convinced to change their minds. Sometimes they are not.
2 counter-votes and the dissenters are expected to defend their position. Occasionally their arguments are sufficient to convince the remainder of the panel to rethink and change the recommendation. Occasionally they are not, and the result stands.
If there is a tie, discussion is mandatory. At the conclusion there is usually a re-vote. The result is again binding. If the tie remains, the applicant is judged unsuccessful. There must be a majority for the submission to be accepted.
There is continual cross-referencing to other submissions. Consistency of marking is critical.

Some observations from 2006.

The standard of work submitted this year was generally mind-boggling and some of it wonderfully creative (especially the Fellows). If you want to see the best work in each category, take the time to get along and see the successful candidates at this year’s convention in Christchurch. If this is the standard of work being done in clubs, then amateur photography in Aotearoa is in fantastic heart.
The number of slide sets was quite low, relatively-speaking. I guess this is as a result of people moving to digital.
The base level of technical competence was really high. When exposure and depth-of-field errors occurred, they were quite obvious and intrusive. I wonder if digital and the ability to ”chimp” is responsible for this increased technical control.
A lot of people seem to be doing their own printing. In some cases that was really obvious. Their choice of paper, printer and control of the print process was shaky and, in some cases, let down really good work. It is really important to get this under control. Look for a future post.
In many cases the images were so oversharpened that they lost detail and had really noticeable halo-ing. Sharpening is a taste thing. It’s a bit like salt. Too much on your food and it is ruined (yes, I know it’s supposed to be bad for you!). Again watch this space.
There were almost no look-I-found-the-filters-menu-in-PhotoShop sets. There were few, if any, sets with clouds A superimposed over landscape B shots. Praise be. That was old hat in PhotoShop 3!
I didn’t see a single backlit-sheep photograph!
It is really important to be clear in your own mind what is you are trying to say. Photography is a form of communication. An individual image needs to have something to say, a bit like a sentence. A submission is a superset of this, a chapter if you like, that makes a similar statement, only on a larger scale.

Anyway, I know that a number of you are thinking of going for your letters. Let me know what you think. I will add more as I think of it, and attempt to respond to any comments.

Ka kite ano

Creativity and Play- Keeping loose

2006-03-06T16:06:00.000+13:00

Kai ora tatou:
Playing and development go hand in hand. We all know that. We just have to watch a small child playing to see the importance fo play. As they make stuff in the sandpit, or organise tea parties for their dolls or fiddle with that Lego set, there is a lot of learning and self-development going on. It’s how kids grow.

What is even more important is the fact that it is all un-self-conscious. Kids do it because they do it because well, it is fun. They don’t measure success in terms of self-development. They measure it by the fun they had, and whether they want to do it again.

So what happens when we become adults? Just have a look at the use of play in adult terms? We play up, we play around, we play down (something), we play for keeps. All of these meanings have some kind of motive attached to them. Rarely, if ever do we just play……

As adults, we tend to measure achievement using different markers; financial, career, status, competition success, our photographic letters perhaps. We begin to get get serious about our photography and become goal-oriented. As a consequence we can become increasingly narrow in our focus and the spontaneity may disappear from our work. Our creativity suffers. Our photographs may become stereotypical or same old same old, or may even get boring.

I want to suggest that playing is important. Being willing to be open to new subject material, to just explore and enjoy photography for its own sake is, I believe, a critical part of avoiding becoming predictable and stodgy. Photographing things we haven’t tried can be fun, can show us new things or ways of seeing, or even point us in new directions. We need to explore and play and try out things that may seem silly at the time.

We need to circle around our subjects, shooting from different angles and discovering with our cameras. Great artists know this: David Hockney explored photography for some 2 years, playing with the concept of how we look at things, created masterpieces, including the wonderfully complex Pear Blossom Highway, and then moved on. What started out as play became a photographic event that showed a new way of making images with a camera.
With a digital camera, we have no excuse for not doing lots of play( photographic, that is!)
We can do the same as Hockney; we can explore whatever takes our fancy.
Now I love the landscape. Being out there and working with light and the land is a supreme joy. But sometimes I need to walk away. It is all too easy to get in a groove and become formulaic.

The image above came one morning when I got out of bed (no, contrary to some opinions, I do not sleep suspended from the rafters!). As I climbed out of bed, I saw the way the light slid across the bed and created a domestic landscape. I grabbed my Sony, formatted a card and filled it with variations on essentially the same idea. I know it’s not a new idea (Imogen Cunningham did it a long time ago), but it was fun, it didn’t cost much, it has awoken my interest in photographing domestic objects, and it has tuned up my awareness of light.

Best of all, it may be the start of a whole new journey.
Ka kite ano

Colour-another perspective

2006-03-02T11:04:00.000+13:00

Kia ora tatou:
With all this discussion on colour, I thought it was time to call in the big guns, in this case my friend and colleague Mark Soltero. Mark is a painter, and therefore has a perspective on colour that I have only begun to acquire (largely because of him-many thanks, Mark!). So I have asked him to chip into this debate and contribute a post ( or 30). He writes:

"American Color" (spelling kindly noted) is a term in itself. As an "American" overseas it seems easier for me to 'see' the States. It was Robert Hughes' "American Visions" video series on the Art Historical perspective of 'home' that really opened my eyes.
But going back in time one can think of colour or color and it's uses - the book on the history of colour (out last year?) goes back in time tens of thousands of years and one realises or realizes the significance that colour has played in whole human drama. We now know we see 'so little' of what's available and yet we also know, on a totally different level, what a huge role colour plays in our lives.

Some facts (for me):
1. Colour never exists in isolation - even for the blind - it has a feeling, a taste, a sense, an association, and so much more
2. Colour is so often abused (due perhaps to our 'ability' to use it without having to think much and this of course has an effect on our experience or our 'un-education')
3. Our 'un-education' seems to have some common ground: we're taught there's no such thing as black and white (teachers and 'facts'?!) and that there are these things called 'primary colours' and so on and so on. On a simple level colour can divided into pigment and light – and the ‘truths’ we talk about can be discussed as belonging to one or the other or a partnership of the two as is often the case.
4. We tend to think of and talk of colours as if there was ‘one’ of each and perhaps slightly different versions of a given ‘one’. This is an indication of our misunderstanding of pigment vs. light and our ‘un-education’.

Take red for example: In oil paint there is the king; Cadmium Red. It’s scientific code is PR101. But there are so many different levels of quality. Cadmium is often replaced now with Barium (due probably to cost and safety) but one can still find the pure stuff. By looking into just one colour we can see there are even more than we could cover in several pages. Take commercial auto paints. There are several official reds for Porsche – one of which is called “Guards S” which is a kind of orange-y red. But have a look at the official manufacturer’s colour list for cars and you suddenly notice a list with literally thousands of names. No wonder they end up giving them strange descriptors like “pearl apple”.
There are literally 1000’s of new (commercial) colours developed each year. I can’t keep track of all the whites. But the commercial area is a good one to examine this. Because there is supply, so we can assume demand (?) These colours are often experienced outdoors unless you like to look at auto mags (come on – confess) and then we contend with light, reflective light, varnishes, dirt, waxes etc. It never exists without other things – so much so that we can hardly begin peeling back the layers until we become tangled-as I have in my little bit of writing here.

I’ll pick up a thread (perhaps green) next time and see where it gets me. Cheers.

Blue, Blue, my world is blue

2006-03-02T08:06:00.000+13:00

Kia ora tatou:
I've been thinking (to plagiarise Richard Prebble).....
I am fascinated by the debate stirred up by my post on colour. It is obviously one that needs to be held. Many thanks to Pete and Barbara for your thoughts. And no, the only thing I intend to moderate out is abuse/flaming, and personal comments such as..
" Was that you I saw coming out of that broth** last Saturday...?
So go for it, Pete.
I haven't and don't intend to let the colour debate rest. More is coming...

A number of people have commented to me that they are shy about posting comments. Don't be. All of you have valid viewpoints and they are valued.
SO PITCH IN!
Ka kite ano

Boys and their Toys

2006-03-02T07:57:00.000+13:00

Kia ora tatou:
If you are an early-adopter wannabe (like me), or simply someone who likes their toys, then you probably know about PMA, the trade show where all the new gadgets are released. Well, PMA has just been and there are new toys. Making sense of trends is what interests me (I am sure I was ther keeper of a crystal ball in another life!), because I am always interested in where the technology relating to my art is going. or maybe it's just a bloke thing....
Michael Reichmann also seems to have a crystal ball which he has been polishing, and he has some interesting comments to make about cameras, trends, etc. You can read his thoughts here.
Ka kite ano.

The Tyranny of Choice

2006-02-27T13:38:00.000+13:00

Kia ora tatou:

John W writes in a comment:
I remember a lecture you did on films and colours, Fuji, Kodak and Agfa all giving you different versions of tone of the same colour. Just wondering do you think you get the same thing with image sensors on the digitals... does the image sensor on a canon give you a nicer skin tone for example than a Nikon or a Pentax?... should these be things we're thinking about when we're working through our RAW conversions?

John, to my way of thinking, the answer is yes…and more. Let’s think about it.

The first thing that photon about to form your image runs into is your lens, and the intentions of the lens designers, namely the quality and chemical composition of the glass and the coatings. A few years ago, I switched from Nikon to Canon (I was using film then) and noticed a lack of contrast and a certain muddiness in the colours of the Ektachrome E100 I was using at the time. At first I thought it was the film stock, but a few tests resolved (pardon the pun) that it was the lenses. Switching to Fuji film made everything come right.
Lesson: the lens manufacturer’s design philosophy colours your image-literally.

Then there is the sensor. Again, it is like buying a roll of film. You are buying into the sensor (and software) designer’s philosophy. Some manufacturer’s use a CCD, others a CMOS sensor, while Fuji use the Super CCD. All are different, and each has its own personality. Try the same shot in RAW on the same subject and you will see what I mean.

Even the same sensor on a different camera will impart a certain feel to an image. (Which is why I am after a D30, if anyone knows the whereabouts of one for sale). As an example: I had a brief fling with a D70s between my EOS 10D and the ID Mk II I went on to own. Frankly I hated the colour off the sensor and the palette seemed to overaccentuate the blues. Not to mention the harshness ( read: noise/contrast combo) out of the sensor. However that probably comes from my preference for the Canon “look”. My friend Anthony McKee is getting stunning quality from his D70 and now D200.

Finally there is the Raw Converter you use. Have a look at one of my first posts in this blog. It has to be said: your final image is coloured by the RAW converter you use. Again you are inheriting a design philosophy foisted on you by a manufacturer's concept of what that should be.
Oh, and did I mention the choice of printer...and paper...and ink stocks???

Nothing is new under the sun. Ansel Adams had lenses he favoured because of their unique tonal qualities. He chose different developers to suit the image he was producing. He used a range of papers from different manufacturers to achieve what he wanted.
He called it previsualisation. In other words, having your process so down that a previsualised result become predictable and achievable. Experiment and practise. The more you do it, the quicker you will get on top of process. As he said:
the way to Art is through Craft, not around it.

The trick then becomes to mix-and-match the different components of your system until you get the look you are seeking.

Assuming, of course, that you have put the time into deciding what that is.
Ka kite ano

Formal announcement

2006-02-27T08:00:00.000+13:00

Kia ora tatou:
I guess it is time to come out...matrimonially speaking.
As many of you will probably know, my marriage has come to an end after some 30 years. Those of you who have been there, done that will know that it isn't easy, and that everything seems quite topsy-turvy. Actually, Hell is a better word.
For that reason I have decided to suspend my teaching at Canterbury University for the near future, while I consider future options. However, I still want to maintain contact with you all, and offer something in return for your friendship and for what photography has given me. Hence the blog. It is wonderful to see the comments that are coming through.
May I publicly thank those of you who were once students and have now become dear and cherished friends.
I am deeply, deeply grateful for your aroha, concern and support.

piki te ora
piki te marama
piki te kaha

ka kite ano

Musings in the Realm of Colour

2006-02-24T12:31:00.000+13:00

Kia ora tatou:
I thought I would pick up on a comment by Pete McGregor on the 2-cigarette method post
He writes:
I admit to an irritation with the hegemony of Velvia and similar ultrasaturated films, particularly when they're used for landscapes. They have an important function, but their mindless use (because that's what editors want and it's what we're now used to viewing) annoys me. Subtlety allows me the opportunity to think for myself rather than be shouted at.

Pete, I totally agree-mostly. Extracting subtle colour from an image is way more difficult than just using super-colour. It requires a much more considered approach and considerable searching.
That said, we have a choice of palette. Now I am going to stick my neck out and say this:

Too few photographers have given much thought about colour and what it means to them personally.
It shows in their images, in colour schemes that grate, or add nothing to an understanding of the image. Worse still the palette interferes with a reading of an image.

Because we all grow up with colour, we tend to take it for granted. Because colour has emotional power, it easy to try and inject extra power into an image, especially if we are trying to influence a competition judge. The result can be sickly, sentimentalist and/or in bad taste.
Understanding colour takes time, study and practice. Picasso did it for blue during his blue period. Matisse developed and passed on an understanding of red that was extraordinary. They focused on an aspect of colour and deepened their understanding and hence practice by working with it, digging deeper and deeper until…well, actually there is no until. The layers continue on.
You can do the same. Pick a colour and stay on its case, growing your understanding. Colour is music for the eyes and mind. If you see red as heavy metal, then yellow may be rock ’n’ roll. And blue?
My own palette varies. But I have made a choice. Let me explain.
It began with this image by Magnum photographer Costs Manos, lifted from his book American Color. The humour of the image appeals, as well as the cultural references to Back to The Future and Americana. But it is the strong palette with the intense reds and deep shadows playing off against the softer colours near the back. The lines of red soldiers suck you into the image, As I read through the book I realised how he uses colour in a larger-than-life-way to underscore the larger-than-lifeness of American culture.
Then I went for a drive. A nice sunny day, with hard-edged shadows, intense blues and a steely edge to the light. And I saw what my own palette should be. This is a country of strong contrasts and exquisite intensity. The colour range is somewhat limited however. So my palette has tended to reflect this. I want to replicate the intensity of my feeling for my country and the clarity of its light.
That was then. This is now, and I confess to a move to a softer palette. Rainy, grey days are a challenge and a side of the palette I personally want to explore.
Whatever you choose, at least make a choice. Colour is not something twee that has sensationalist value.
No, it is way more dangerous than that.
Ka kite ano.

Canon"s new Toy

2006-02-23T12:42:00.000+13:00

Kia ora tatou:
Well, the speculation is over.
If you were thinking of getting a 20D or moving up from your 300D or even that trusty K1000 film camera....DON"T!
The 20D is now officially obsolete and has been replaced by the 30D. No, it's not the 3MP D30 (remember them?) so you'll have to make sure you say the name correctly, if you don't want to confuse the staff at your local camera store!
By all accounts it will be cheaper than the 20D and better. Don't expect to see one much before September however.
Read about it here or here.
And no, you don't get the lens with it!
Ka kite

The Nature of Seeing Part 1

2006-02-21T13:52:00.000+13:00

Kia ora tatou
Ok. This is a rather heavy post. It concerns an issue that has become more apparent to me in recent times, namely perception and the nature of Seeing. It goes something like this:

When we look at a scene in front of us, we read it with our minds. That’s right, with our minds, not our eyes. Our eyes in fact deliver only raw data (coloured admittedly by factors like sunglasses, eye defects, excess alcohol, etc). But it is raw data. It is our minds that synthesise and draw meaning from it. So we see what we want to (sic. pheromones), what we have learned to (Why is red?) and what we are programmed to see.

You know the old saw; the camera never lies. Get over it. It has always lied-and always will. The tools for replicating and interpreting our vision have now become so sophisticated that truth is impossible. Or is it?

Let me take you back to the second paragraph? Absolute truth may be a bit difficult, but perceived truth is more accessible. To understand this we need to put time into thinking about the nature of visual truth or reality. If we look into the nature of our own visual truth, then we may begin to realise there is absolutely no need to fit some generic vision of it. We may choose a brighter palette than others because that fits how we see the world; we may prefer to work in black-and-white because tone is of greater significance to us; we may feel that using montage techniques better fits how we see. This latter technique certainly worked for David Hockney during his brief encounter with photography!

What is important is that we take the time to think about how we really see. Then we can develop a visual expression tha meshes with who we aare and how we view our own reality.
I thought I would give an example of what I mean.

I made the above image one day in The Mackenzie Country. What attracted me was the way the light sparkled on the water. I was attracted to the feeling of Space and Time.

It was when I got back to my computer and studied the image that I became aware of what had really attracted me. It was the horizon and the nature of Horizon.

We all know the horizon is curved. Blame Galileo (or was it Copernicus)? Yet we see it as flat. We need to see it as flat. Or do we?
The horizon about 3/4 of the way up the image had a curve on it brought about by the 16mm super-wide-angle I had used. It was that that interested me. How curved did I really want it? Should I straighten it? Would that be more personally truthful?

I opened the image in Photoshop and took to it with the lens correction filter (Filters>distort>lens correction).
I used the remove distortion tool to add curve to the horizon. Mmmm. Instant fisheye. But it doesn’t ring true.

I then went the other way and levelled the horizon. Something seemed to go out of the image, some visual truth that I could not accept. Somehow I had produced a truth that was not mine.

In the end I accentuated the horizon slightly. It felt right to me.
It felt true
I invite your thoughts.
Ka kite ano

Adobe Lightroom Beta 2

2006-02-16T09:07:00.000+13:00

Kia ora tatou

i have been trialling the new Lightroom on my Powerbook for the last couple of weeks and comments that it is a new generation of software are all true. This is a very powerful piece of software, that does many of the things you needed several apps for. Its Develop function is amazingly flexible and offers a huge range of ways of fine-tuning an image. A pity the beta is still MacOS only. I can't wait for the PC version!

One more reason to shoot RAW.

Underneath is a sunmmary lifted from Rob Galbraith's site:

Adobe today has posted Lightroom Beta 2 for Mac, the latest development release of its upcoming application for professional photographers. Beta 2 is a Universal Binary, which means it contains native code for both PowerPC and Intel processors. The release notes summarize the changes:

Now available as a Universal Binary for compatibility with Intel- based Apple hardware
Crop and Straighten tools included in the Develop module
Ability to add music to slideshows
White balance support for the Nikon D2X, D2Hs and D50
cameras
Ability to create hierarchical keyword sets
XMP Import and Export capabilities. (Please consult Known Issues list for details)
Improved Edit in Photoshop capabilities
Improved metadata handling

The software is a free download from the Adobe Labs web site. Ultimately, the software is expected to ship for both Windows and Mac platforms, and a beta version for Windows is also planned for release later in the extended public beta period. The PhotoshopNews web site has published additional information about Lightroom Beta 2.

Back to the Future

2006-02-14T08:04:00.000+13:00

Kia ora tatou:
I would like you to have a close look at the picture at right. You will notice the long Canon lens poking out of the cloth. You will notice the idiot with the white cloth over his head, a bit like like having to survive one of those Vicks Vaporub inhalation kits some of us were subjected to as children...you may even notice the cloth itself.
For those of us who have used a 4x5 view camera (and some still do), the cloth is an essential piece of kit. You put it over your head to be able to see the ground glass screen clearly. It is known as a dark cloth. Freely available from any supplier of this sort of camera equipment.
Using a digital camera is a pain when you want to chimp your shot. The screens are never bright enough.
I happened to be out with a group and one of the party had brought his monorail along.
Trying to review a shot, I had ,a brainwave, and asked if I could borrow the cloth. It worked brilliantly.
Every hi-tech digital photographer should have one, if for no other reason than to start a conversation....
Many thanks to Kevin Russell for the loan. Speaking of which, if you are looking for a mint Linhof kit.....
ka kite ano

The 2-cigarette method

2006-02-08T14:02:00.000+13:00

Kia ora tatou:
I thought I would share this image with you.
I made it last Saturday morning on North Beach, in Westport.
I got up early, wanting to get a dramatic shot of the sun rising over the mountains, and drove down to the beach.
My friend Geoff Schurr came with me. When he woke me up, his first words were:
"Pretty crap day-you want to go back to bed?"
"No, we'll go anyway," I replied. Things have a habit of being other than expected. Or maybe I didn't want to miss the chance to get something....
When we got there, a southerly was blowing, and everything was grey and cold. Why bother, you might ask? Geoff certainly did ask that question. All I could say was-we'll wait and see what happens.
Rewind a few years...
From time to time I would go out photographing with my fiend (sorry, friend) and mentor, Richard Poole, who has forgotten more about photography than I will ever know.
He would park the car, get out and light a cigarette while he looked around. The camera would still be in the car.
When he was done, he might get out the gear. I had no idea what he was up to. Finally, having set it up, he would light another cigarette. Sometime after that he would make an image. Or two. Inevitably he saw things in the scene that would surprise me when I saw the final print. While I would rush round, hopping from opportunity to opportunity, he would work slowly and methodically.
After a while I began to get the idea.

What I learned was that you have to get to know what is in front of you.
And that takes time.
Some years ago, both of us did a workshop with Faye Godwin, the famous English landscape photographer. She said the same thing. Take time to get to know your subject.
And that takes time.
Fast forward.
Last Saturday I was reminded of this. At first I could see nothing. Everything was a monotone, but, as the light shifted, things unfolded subtly. I became more aware of the nuances of tone and colour in the light. I explored with the camera, chimping as I went.
I shot about 135 images in a small area of the beach, then we went back for breakfast, and the chance for me to see what I had got.
This is one of the shy images. Sure, it is quiet, but it took time to see it.
Ka kite ano

Garry

2006-02-02T12:19:00.000+13:00

Kia ora tatou:
I want to share a story.
A few years ago I did a workshop in portraiture. Among the students was this guy called Garry. He got right into it and made some good images.
Over the next year or two he worked through my classes, getting better all the time. I remember one night when he confessed that he always had trouble sleeping after class because he couldn’t stop thinking about how to make his pictures. I told this was good thing.
I think it was Matisse who said” Art is not something you do, it’s something you have to do.
Anyway, he beavered on, getting better all the time until one day over a beer, he asked me what the next step was, where he should go with hiss photography. Why not have your own show? I suggested. He looked shocked and stunned and then a glimmer of joy crept over his face as he started to think.
Garry has been working away for the last year-and-a-half, photographing shopkeepers around Christchurch, where he lives. And the images have gone from very good to fantastic.
His show opens at Our City Otautahi on May 29 and continues to June 24
It’s a wonderful thing when the student overtakes the teacher.

Having your say

2006-02-02T07:50:00.000+13:00

Good morning,
I thought that maybe it was time to lay out a few guidelines about comments.
I love comments and the forum aspect to a blog. Please feel free to make lots of comments. I will publish them, but a few suggestions may be in order.

Let’s keep comments impersonal and related to the post in question, that is, along the lines of what you think about the topic, rather than “ I saw you in a bar in Taihape”( it wasn’t me-honest)

No abuse or flaming, but feel free to be contentious. Keep it general rather than going ad hominem.

I note that the blog design has no contact details for me, If you want to email me, you can get me here.
Ka kite

Do your soul a favour

2006-01-31T09:18:00.000+13:00

If you had a classic Kiwi upbringing, you will have spent time in a kiwi bach (you know, green walls and castoff furniture, along with a cutlery drawer full of remainders from different dinner sets). You will know all about being trapped there on a wet day, one of those days where you curl up and read… and think… and dream. You know what I mean. The sound of rain on the tin roof, maybe a sandwich and a Milo beside you. Time slows to a halt and you think freely and drift…
If you read any of the comments on Blueprintx, you will have seen a couple by somebody called pohanginapete. I was curious about the name. I mean what sort of person calls him/herself that?
(You may or may not know that I get to vet your comments before they go up to the blog. Well I do, so there!)
Anyway, I went searching to find out more about him/her. And what a find!
It turns out that pohanginapete is really Pete McGregor, who lives in the Pohangina Valley below the Ruahines in the North Island. Pete is a fascinating guy who has done a lot of things in his life (and is still doing them).
While it has some great photographs, it has truly inspiring observations on life. This is a densely-packed blog with a lot to offer, a sort of rainy-day-bach site, where you can take time to read, think and reflect.
Do your soul a favour. Check it out here.

The camera looks both ways

2006-01-27T10:13:00.000+13:00

Kia ora tatou:
Enough of the gear stuff. I want to share an image with you.
A good friend, Lindsay McLeod (or is that MacLeod), used to tell his students that” the camera looks both ways”. What he meant was that when we make a photograph, it says as much about us as it does about the subject and our feelings towards it.
Often when we photograph, something has moved us to do so. Ostensibly (I’ve been at that thesaurus again), it may have been the weather, the light or even a half-hidden memory from childhood. Or it may be something deeper. And reflecting on our own inner selves may lead to new directions in our photography.
I would like to suggest that one of the best ways to improve our picture-making is to keep this in mind.
Take time to look at the image. Minor White, one of photography’s great teachers, would make his students study an image for at least 3 minutes before he asked them what they thought. The point is, it takes time to understand what you have done and more importantly, why you did it.
When you have looked, ask yourself what attracted you to make that photograph. Was it light, the subject, your feelings, a memory from childhood. Note your thoughts. Better still, write them down.
Then ask yourself what the image tells you about yourself. This is the hard bit.
Money where my mouth is time.
I made this picture late one afternoon last November. I was walking back to the car after finishing a wedding in New Plymouth. I decided to make a few images for myself. As I was walking along the boardwalk I saw a group of unicyclists practicing on the seawall. I asked if I could photograph them. They carried on and I probably made about 20 photographs. This one took place near the end.
It was one of those moments when time, space and intention (the core artistic concerns of my work) all come together. I knew I had captured something significant.
It was only later, and in the months afterwards, that I have come to realize that I had made a photograph of my life as it has been for some time.
The unicyclist balancing on the knife edge of the universe is me.
A moment later he fell off.
Ka kite ano.

Mac-o-philes corner

2006-01-25T23:16:00.000+13:00

Ok enough of that whinging from all you Skoda-driving, cardigan-wearing Mac addicts who worship at the Temple of the great demigod Steve Jobs (and all you Wintel folks who wish they could afford a quad Mac with a 30” cinema display (are you listening, John W.?)).
Just for you (for a limited time until the Great Satan Bill Gates achieves victory), Adobe have released a beta of a new app. called Lightroom. Mac only at the moment, but Windows will ne released later on.
From what I can see it is Adobe Bridge on steroids. Again you can download the free beta from Adobe’s website. By all accounts the final version will be released later on in the year.
Again a more in-depth analysis can be found on Luminous Landscape.
Read about it here
Ka kite ano

Geek's Corner

2006-01-24T19:05:00.000+13:00

Danger, danger, Will Robinson!
Horn-rimmed glasses and pocket protector country!
For all you CS2 nerds who, like me, get frustrated at CS2’s apparent sluggishness, have a look here, There is a really excellent article by the folks at Extremetech on how to tweak PhotoShop to run faster on your machine. Some really useful tips and tricks.
It’s worth noting that if you have Creative Suite, you can use Adobe Updater to automatically get the latest updates. For example, Adobe Bridge improves immensely if you upgrade from 1.0.0 to 1.0.3. Just go to help and click on “updates’.
Happy downloading.

Cool new accessory #233a

2006-01-23T17:38:00.000+13:00

Kia ora tatou
I don’t know about you, but keeping track of memory cards can be a real issue. Apparently I am not alone- I have heard of one pro who has inadvertently put his through the wash several times with his trousers!( no, it isn't me-yet!)

For some time I have looked for something that was weatherproof, easy to use (those dumb cases they give you when you buy a card are a real pain to open, especially if you’re wearing gloves!), and could be seen easily in long grass.
If you have ever tried to find a card that has dropped out of your hand, you will know just what I mean.
At last there is a gizmo that deals with all those issues!

Enter (stage left) the Gepe Card Safe, Tough as, easy to open, waterproof, and (if you choose the lurid green or red one), easy to spot in the shrubbery.
It’s like a micro pelican case, really. At the end of the day, you can wrap up your cards in their nice cosy protection and kiss them goodnight.
And no, before you ask, I haven’t sent it for a test drive in the washing machine!
Yet.

Ka kite

Digital vs film (what, is that one still around?)

2006-01-20T09:38:00.000+13:00

Good Morning. I have been away on the South Island’s West Coast for the last ten days, working on my next book, hence the gap in postings. They should become a bit more regular now.
While I was away, I kept bumping into people who wanted to know whether it was true that film still beat digital, that you needed at least 30 megapixels to beat 35mm film. To them digital was still the poor cousin.

Is it bollocks!

I remember hearing this 10 years ago, when digital first came out. I actually believed it myself, until I got a Canon 10D last year. My exhibition prints were clearer, sharper and had much finer grain (sorry, noise) than I could ever have got from film.
I was convinced and jumped right in. Would I go back to film? Not a chance.
I am going to put my neck out and say this: A 6Mp Digital SLR will deliver better prints than scanned 35mm film. Do I detect the sound of incoming….?

But don’t take my word for it. Michael Reichmann, whose wonderful Luminous Landscap e site is in my bookmarks, has a brilliantly lucid explanation of why digital is better.
You can read about it here

Ka kite ano

Like rats' feet inside the head

2006-01-08T07:25:00.000+13:00

Kia ora tatou:

Every so often we need to feed our idea bank, to take fresh look at what we are doing, to put our picture-making concepts under the microscope. Books are a great way to do this. Some are old friends; they reinforce the path we are taking or add to our knowledge. Others are like rats's feet clawing the inside of our heads: they challenge us, ask us to look differently at our picture'making concepts....

For your edification may I present Taking Measures Across the American Landscape by JAmes Corner and Alex S. MacLean.

A reviewer describes it thus:
How we represent the land to ourselves affects the ways in which we value and act upon it, according to landscape architect Corner (Univ. of Pennsylvania). His text accompanies the beautifully suggestive aerial photographs of MacLean (whose previous book was Look at the Land), which document the ways in which we impose shape and meaning on our landscape: Irrigated fields contrast sharply with the surrounding desert; old homesteads, now abandoned, anchored people in an undifferentiated and dangerous landscape--their isolation from one another reflecting American individualism; and wheat fields follow the rolling contours of the land. ``Revealed is the absurd and magnificent ingenuity of American people,'' Corner writes, ``a people enmeshed with yet remote from their land.''

You can read about it here

Where now, O Photography?

2006-01-03T06:05:00.001+13:00

Kia Ora tatou:
The holidays are a great time to take a break, sit back and reassess all sorts of things.
Photography is no exception. There is no question that digital has matured as a technology. Just look at what is now available in camera stores (and what isn't). I remember about 12 years ago being invited to a Kodak trade show where we were introduced to a cutting-edge programme called Aldus PhotoStyler and its Mac rival, photoShop 1, as well as the latest 1+MP professional camera (it cost >$NZ 25 000!). They confidently assured us that digital would have completely replaced film by 1995!
Interestingly enough, the cameras we now use are developmental extensions of film-based technologies. We are part of a long tradition that stretches back into the 19th century. As such we are participants in a dance whose steps were formulated by our forbears. Any movements we make are in in one way or another dictated by the photographers who came before us. A kind of danse traditionelle, if you will. Developing a new approach is not easy (assuming we want to do so).
For those of you who wish to view your photographic direction in the rear-view mirror of photographic tradition, may I suggest this essay by Irwin Puts, a long-time Leica commentator and authority. Some of his thoughts are provocative but clearly argued. Leica fans will not enjoy aspects of it!
As a taste:
........Digitalization of photography means that the main expansion will occur in the consumer electronics domain where the prosumers and the instant snap-shooters with the mobile cam/phone will dominate. The true amateur photographer may become extinct unless we can focus on photographic quality as the result of a craft that is worth pursuing....

Winter Workshop (not for the faint-hearted)

2005-12-30T07:44:00.000+13:00

OK, Blatant plug time.
As one or two of you may know, I am involved in a couple of workshops this year. In April I will be working with Freeman Patterson and Sally Mason on a 1-week workshop in Martinborough, New Zealand (all you wine-lovers can stop sniggering now!). Unfortunately that one is full.
If you have a thing for beauty, gorgeous light and amazing landscape, then you might be interested in this one….
I am working with Darran Leal of Wild Visions in Australia. Darran has been doing highly successful tours for years now and is highly respected. You may even have been on one of his workshops yourselves. He asked me to come up with a dream workshop in New Zealand. So this is it…
We will be getting up really early, traveling to remote landscapes in Central Otago to photograph the early morning light, then working through the day. Home to base in the evening, food and a few drinks, then a lecture/practical session led by Darren or myself.
The workshop dates are July 11-15, 2006.
To find out more/book, contact Darren here and/or visit his website