High pressure haze

Met office chart - high pressure

We're in the middle of a high pressure weather system - a 'blocking high'. Stable high pressure is more common on continental land masses, low pressure with its weather fronts and instability comes to us from the Atlantic. Sometimes the high pressure stays still and blocks the weather from the sea, giving us warm temperatures and light wind. The high pressure sits like a cap, holding down any dust, smog or vapour, so it can usually give us quite hazy and indistinct visibility especially later in the day - which is not so good for photography. 
So as we found on Friday, we have to work with the conditions. Hazy visibility can allow us to use longer (telephoto) lenses that actually exaggerate the haze, which gives a sense of distance. Haze is a distance cue - it indicates that something is far away. More haze can suggest greater distance. Long lenses flatten the perspective, which makes foreground and backgrounds - such as mountain horizons - stack up on top of each other and appear to continue forever. The haziness can also give a soft, pastel single colour effect too, leaving you with simple colour shapes to arrange in your picture frame.

Telephoto shot in Glencoe in hazy mid-day light

Often the weather can be claggy, foggy and unpleasant, especially if north sea fog comes in, and this can  give us one of the most spectacular effects - the temperature inversion and its cloud sea. Cold damp air stays low, but on the hill tops it is actually warmer and you can emerge above the clouds. 
It is worth checking the met office, whose mountain forecasters seem to have an interest in photographic weather conditions, to see what's happening during a high, and if an inversion is forecast, get up as high as possible.

Cloud sea in the Cairngorms

A happy state of affairs

Photographs and reality

One of the conversations that occurred on Friday related to the question of whether Photoshop manipulation of pictures is acceptable or desirable. It's a common debate whenever photographers get together, and has been discussed in one form or another for over 150 years.

Yes, I did say 150 years, because the tension between reality and manipulation has existed since photography was invented.

Fox Talbot, one of the inventors, described photography as the "pencil of nature" and thought of the camera as a machine that created pictures by itself. The photographer was simply the operator.

Very quickly, early adopters of the new technology started to create an art form out of it  and began to adopt habits from its nearest neighbour - painting.

To establish themselves as unique and individual creators of images, they began to manipulate the image - lenses were deliberately softened to reduce their focus; the glass plates were scratched, smudged or painted on to create more painterly, less clearly descriptive pictures. 

Julia Margaret Cameron

The term for this is usually 'Pictorialism', and people like Steiglitz, Steichen and Julia Margaret Cameron are good examples. It was often romantic, and drew inspiration from paintings, myths and legends.

http://photography-now.net/alfred_stieglitz/

The Great War changed all that.

Steiglitz in particular helped developed photography beyond Pictorialism. As an aerial reconnaisance photographer he became aware of the impressive possibilities of good lenses to accurately describe reality and developed an idea that this quality was a legitimate form of artistic creativity.

In short, the idea of exploring the unique visual possibilities of purely photographic technique was an art in itself, without needing to mimic painting or to draw from myth. Modern reality, everyday subjects and a new technology was sufficient. This was a part of the art and cultural movement, Modernism, and was revolutionary - literally. It became part of the Russian revolutionary style - a new technology and way of seeing for a new political reality.

In America, a loose group of photographers including Imogen Cunningham, Edward Weston, Ansel Adams (I think) gathered together to produce pictures that were as sharp and clear as could be, with minimal or no painterly manipulation. They called themselves the F64 group, after the smallest aperture - and greatest depth of field - available.

Ansel Adams in particular developed the technique of extracting the maximum amount of tonal range from a scene and reproducing it in beautifully crafted prints - it is called the zone system. He wanted to record maximum detail and clarity, and also interpret the scene visually. This technique created pictures that were both closely related to the actual scene, but also a subtle enhancement of the visual drama of the scene.

http://photography-now.net/ansel_adams/

But adding colours or taking elements from one picture into another wasn't part of the purely photographic way of seeing, with its very close relationship to the real scene. Adams was capable of creating composite pictures, but did not. 

And that, basically, is the same conversation that is taking place today, but with computer technology and its limitless possibilities. We are able to manufacture pictures from many different sources, we can change colours and enhance and improve and exaggerate at will. 

It is a choice, a decision, and in some respects, it is an ethos.

We can tap into the tradition of romantic pictorialism by creating digital artworks which are nothing like the original scene. Or we can use the intrinsic qualities of the camera - light, lenses, shutter speed, aperture, point of view to make visually appealing or challenging photographs that have a connection to the reality. When we do this, we are tapping in to the Modernist tradition.

And then there's post-modernism - but that's a whole other story.

http://photography-now.net/immogen_cunningham/index.html

Glen Nevis map

Looking at the statistics for this blog, I notice that an online pharmacy in India, offering enhancing products, seem to be keen readers. 
So our Indian readers might like to see a map of Glen Nevis that I've prepared for my other blog and for the organisation Discovering Places.
The map shows some interesting locations in and around the Glen, with some pop-up pictures and comments. I'll do one of Skye soon, for Jenna's trip. 
To get the full experience (I'm talking about the map, not Indian pharmaceutical products) you might need to register with the Ordnance Survey. It's free. If it isn't working, try different web browsers.
The full link is: http://www.getamap.ordnancesurveyleisure.co.uk/?key=gNpDgwkqvgG04x5v1dkTsw2 

Smashing apps

Many interesting things here:


http://www.smashingapps.com/2011/03/02/45-totally-awesome-tutorials-and-techniques-to-become-a-master-of-photography.html


I know I will never, ever get round to looking through these, so you have to do it and then tell me what is worth looking at. Call it homework.

Everyday things

Irving Penn - Cigarette butts

So Jenna was mentioning that she likes to photograph unusual details, and seems to have her eyes on the ground as much as on the sky and the distant views. And why not? In doing so she's walking in good company, and Irving Penn springs to mind. He was a fine portrait photographer and did a lot of high (very high) fashion for Vogue.

He also produced a lot of anthropological pictures, and I think it's fair to say that he was transfixed the surfaces of things, and the way that a photograph can make beautiful even the most forgotten and mundane cast away items. Cigarette butts, for example, when looked at with great cate and attention, and photographed with craft, may become something beautiful.

More here:

http://alafoto.com/listing/displayimage.php?album=42&pid=6270#top_display_media

In a similar vein, Malcolm was looking at the Leith skyline from Arthur's Seat and struggling to see the photographic possibilities in it, compared to the views of the Old Town for example.

I didn't have much sensible to say at the time, but I have since been reminded of John Davies. He photographed some very mundane city landscapes, as well as rural ones. This is what he says he does: " I am not so much interested in entertaining an audience or providing vehicles for escape but in delivering a highly crafted detailed image conveying a sense of reality. A reality that shares a recognition of aspects of urban living. But importantly, making images of a landscape that attempts to question our acceptance and perception of the inevitable consequences of living in a post imperialist society and a post industrial landscape". 

He makes pictures of often quite everyday scenes that we are familiar with and that we might not consider a suitable subject for a camera, and he applies a very careful crafted photographic technique. He uses a large format camera and black and white printing to create pictures with incredible detail and visual interest, that make you look and look again at the everyday scenes around you. The pictures don't make a lot of sense on screen, they are prints or books - physical things. Have a look in the fine art section of Central Library for some of his books.

He makes huge landscape pictures of small British places, and the fascination is in the busy detail. He has some of the neutral, documentary style of the photographic movement known as New Topographics, which aimed to reduce the role of the photographer as author; but he also draws something of the grand drama of people like Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, and their very American taste for grand open vistas.

Bur Davies is British, and his pictures are about Britain.

http://www.johndavies.uk.com/

Couple of pics

Malcolm's skyline

Malcolm's Princes St after rain

A couple of photographs from Malcolm showing the effect of taking light readings from the bright part of the scene - the sky. The top one is a classic Edinburgh skyline silhouette, but the aeroplane trail lifts it out of the ordinary.  The Princes Street scene after the rain is interesting, because instead of a straightforward silhouette, Malcolm has also included some bright detail of the sky colours reflected in the puddle, breaking up the shadow with a splash of light. A travel photojournalist would perhaps have waited for a figure to cross that patch of light, ideally jumping, with a brolly.
And Alberto's been blurring people with long exposures against golden lit archways. Makes me think of early Josef Koudelka. Lovely.
These pictures do what photography can often do, which is to make the ordinary magical again. (I'm quoting someone, but can't remember who.)

Alberto's ghostly people

Early Josef Koudelka -http://www.magnumphotos.com

a

Friday March 9

Whinny Hill and Dunsapie Loch are indicated by starred markers

I would like to save Queensferry for another day, and pay a bit more attention to some hidden away parts of Arthur's Seat, as we didn't really get very far last week. I also think that it can be very effective to explore one area from different angles and directions.

I would like to meet at Dunsapie Loch at 2pm. You can get there quite easily by following the road from the Palace and Parliament, past St Margaret's Loch, turn right and follow it up and round the hill to Dunsapie on the east side of the hill.

Contact me - kbrame@blueyonder.co.uk if you are in doubt about finding Dunsapie Loch.

It's a bit tricky to judge the weather and light conditions. If the blue, cold weather front has passed through, as the chart says it should, we should have nice, cool, clear, fresh light again. Which would be great. Bring sturdy boots/shoes and waterproofs too.

I would especially like to explore the Whinny Hill area, and I have put a little marker on the map at point 178, just above Dunsapie Loch. We could also take in Dunsapie Fort, the main summit of Arthur's and Crow Hill.

If you look at the map, Whinny Hill shows lots of little contour rings. This means it has a varied mix of small summits - or knolls - and hollows. It's an interesting area that hides and then reveals the city in the distance. 

This very shapely terrain can allow us to try techniques that emphasise foreground to background focus, and try to convey a three-dimensional quality.

Detail of the map - the circular 'ring contours' near the market at point 178 show the shape of the land: hummocks and hollows.

So the visual idea for the day is to show depth from foreground to background. Tools that help with this are wide-angle lenses, small apertures, maximum depth of field, and (if you're in the mood) hyper-focal distance. You might want to bring a tripod.

View from Whinny Hill - the shape and textures in the foreground are dominant in a wide-angle lens picture. The city of Edinburgh is in the distance, but the foreground is also sharp, emphasising the light and texture of the grasses.

Critique

Golden hour on Golden Gate Bridge, Richard Misrach

I can make some (I hope) constructive remarks on your photographs if you send me a couple, or send links to where I can see them.
Alberto's been busy again. The first is a classic landscape shot, using the very still water for reflections and making use of the warm, directional light from the setting sun accentuating the warm tones of the crags. 
Perhaps surprisingly, warm light is in fact relatively cool in temperature. If you heat anything, it starts off yellow and gets bluer as it gets hotter before reaching an almost white heat. As the sun goes down and the temperature drops, the 'colour temperature' of the light drops too, creating colour that is rich in yellows and reds. This is why people call it the golden hour. We think of these colours as warm because we associate them with candles and cozy fireplaces.
Digital cameras allow you to set the colour temperature, so that the camera is calibrated to record colour more accurately - it's usually called white balance, because you are setting white to record as white and not with an unwanted colour cast. If you set the white balance for use indoors, in warm-toned candle light, your pictures would show the scene without much colour cast. If you then went out into the bright daylight without re-setting the white balance, the pictures would be blue, because daylight has a much hotter colour temperature, and this is bluer. 
The second is an experiment with slow shutter speeds to convey movement in the city. A very atmospheric result. This technique does benefit from a tripod, and these types of image can be more successful if some parts of the scene are sharp, as this gives the eye something familiar and understandable to hold onto. There is a strong diagonal in this picture, which is very suitable for a picture that is showing motion. In composition, diagonal lines are usually thought of as dynamic, and encourage the eye to move round the picture. Straight horizontal and vertical lines are often more static, and create images that are more still.
Another convention relates to how you hold the camera. Upright pictures like these are often known as portrait in format - because they suit portraits of people. Holding the camera horizontally is called landscape, because it is so useful for photographing places, where most of the points of interest occur horizontally. Most of Alberto's pictures are shot as portraits, and I would suggest he tries using the landscape orientation more, to convey space. And many of the motion and blur pictures contain straight horizontals and verticals, so try using the escalators to create diagonal lines that divide the picture in unequally - I say unequally because these shots are trying to show movement, motion and dynamism. Equal, balanced compositions with straight lines are quite still. Unequal, diagonal compositions convey movement, and rely on a dynamic equilibrium rather than static balance for their composition.

Dynamic diagonal composition by Rene Burri, a Magnum photojournalist who was fascinated by city architecture.

Alberto's pictures

Alberto sent me a link to some of his pictures on Flickr - http://www.flickr.com/photos/amartinchavez/
I hope you don't mind me discussing them here, Alberto? There are lots of interesting photographs here, and it seems obvious that you have a good visual sense some real technical control of the camera. I get the feeling that you are exploring visually and photographically. I wonder who you have been looking at - which photographers you like? There's a frequent set of experiments with motion, which I think is worth developing. It makes me think of Henri Cartier Bresson pictures of the sculptor Giacometti.

Giacometti, by Henri Cartier Bresson

 You might also appreciate the pictures taken in St Petersburg by Alexy Titarenko.

 There are also some very interesting pictures of street reflections, which might be real or might be Photoshopped? I don't know - I hope they are observed and real because I find that to be more elegant - observing and managing to photograph a scene in the city that makes it appear a bit magical and a little confusing. I think Lee Friedlander explored graffiti and signs in the city - 'Letters from the People' was the name of the book he created. 

You'll see that Bresson, Titarenko, Friedlander all had a visual style, and often had a series of specific subjects or projects that they worked on. Titarenko's iconography of post-Soviet cities, Friedlander's graffiti and signs, Bresson's 'decisive moment' - all ways of concentrating their focus and attention. Once you have got the control of the camera, and can use it, you can develop and deepen your photography by exploring an idea, a subject or a visual style. 

So in Alberto's case, (because you can clearly work the camera) you might want to start creating short bodies of work that are related in theme. Maybe consider making folios of prints of 10-15 of the best. Perhaps show them to people, for example the Stills camera club, or the Scottish Photographers' portfolio sessions. 

Alberto Martin

Alberto Martin