End of the course

We ended this course on a fresh sunny day at S. Queensferry, adding a coast location to our small selection of different environments that we have visited and explored photographically.
Alberto's still working away at those long exposure techniques with some interesting results. I like the use of this technique in the city, as it takes a popular landscape technique and applies it in a different location. If you haven't already found him, you might like Michael Kenna
Jenna's been using the camera almost like a notebook to record her trip. (I think she likes Edinburgh.) Putting pictures on photo sharing sites is good, but I think it's a good idea also to edit down your pictures to a tight selection and then turn them into something physical like a set of prints or a book. Blurb are good for putting your own books together and also have loads of examples of other people's projects for inspiration, including a lot on travel.
I liked the fact that Ali hadn't been to Swanston before, and I like to use photography as an excuse to find and explore places that I haven't been to before. I'd suggest that you stick to one camera for a while and get to know it - it takes a bit of time. When we were at the T Wood near Swanston you noticed how taking a picture based on a sky light-reading completely changed the appearance of the scene. That's one of the really important points of photography - by changing exposure, or lens, aperture or shutter speed, or going to black-and-white, you change the visual effect. These tools are worth playing with to see how they change the picture. In particular, spend time using the zoom lens in your X10 camera. Try shooting the same scene with wide angle settings and also telephoto. It changes the 'space' within the picture.
I would recommend books in the Basics photography series - David Prakel on Composition and also Michael Freeman's books, including The Photographer's Eye.
Malcolm has a few specific technical questions to do with transforming colour into mono, and also how photographers make their aesthetic decisions. Interesting stuff.  I think the Michael Freeman and David Prakel will interest you too. It's as much about developing judgement and tastes as about technical workflow, and looking at, talking about  and doing photography as much as possible is the way to get there. (You never arrive, by the way!) In particular though, you might like to look at Rolf Horn and especially his technique pages where he demonstrates how the print is an interpretation of the film negative. Yes, it's film, but with digital we're doing the same thing really and all of our techniques and tastes come from film, even if we don't realise it!
And of course, you are all welcome to visit my own blog - http://kbrame.blogspot.co.uk/, which discusses various ways of doing photography.
It's been a pleasure working with you and good luck with the photography.


Keith

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

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