Picture taken this afternoon with an old Canon A570 Compact camera. I just went out to scout around for an evening trip and saw the clouds and light sit nicely. When I got back I thought there was an odd flaw in the picture giving a strange blemish to the upper left of the rock. On zooming in, it became clear that the 'blemish' was tens of thousands of sea-birds all lifting off at once.
This image was made yesterday during a brief visit to North Berwick. I've been trying to capture this picture for ages and finally got the combination of my availability, weather, light and tide all together at one point. I waited three hours on the beach and this was the very last exposure I made. It was taken on a Nikon D700 with a 50mm F1.8 lens. 4 minutes at f11 with Lee 0.6 ND Hard Grad and Lee Big Stopper. The structure is a children's paddling pool which in itself is not of any photographic significance. However the tight composition serves to remove most extraneous detail and the long exposure reduces the detail in the water to a flat shape. The result is simplified to the geometric shapes. The icing on the cake is of course the Bass Rock in the far distance. This is a fantastic part of Scotland for coastal photography. This location was first brought to me by Colin Homes, the Edinburgh based landscape photographer.
My new tripod head has arrived this week. I had identified three major features:
The obvious candidate and the one that most fellow photographers arrive at is the Really Right Stuff BH-55. This is the de-facto king of ball and socket heads. I was pretty much resigned to having to pay their high prices and accept having to order direct from the States when I came across an alternative The Induro BHL3 This is a little known head and I struggled to source it in this country but it deserves to be much, much better known. See my full review here.
This image was made three weeks ago. The revised workflow that I came back with has begun to change the nature of the output. The combination of CS5 and Silver Efex Pro has begun to allow me to produce the image that I had in my head.The initial RAW file came out of a Nikon D700, Nikon 16-35mm VR and Lee Big Stopper.
They say the proof of the pudding is in the eating and I suppose the saying holds true. I enjoyed my time with Colin Homes enormously and would recomend it without hesitation. However in good management speak, what has been the impact and what did I learn?
Some aspects were reassuring in terms of my existing practice and my general camera craft stood up reasonably well. I've not long been using the Lee Big Stopper so some aspects of handling that were brushed up. The first part that Colin addressed with us was exposure. This came as a bit of a surprise as I'm reasonably adept at getting well exposed images with a good range of tones. However whether it is due to growing up with colour transparency film or not I have always feared over exposure. Colin pushed us to get our histogram as far to the right as possible I've seen this expressed as ETTR (Exposure to the right). I've never worked that way in the past but seeing files produced have converted. He also taught me to make use of RAW files. I've never been that bothered but working in RAW was a revelation. The final part of the technique slot was given to using Photoshop CS5. I've never gone beyond Elements before but now it has converted me completely.
I took the plunge a couple of weeks ago and signed up for a Coastal Landscape photography course. There is an enormous industry out there of people offering to take your photography to a new level and in many cases with not that much to demonstrate that their photography is at any special level. I've always viewed such offerings with a degree of skepticism. Out of the blue, when visiting the delightful seaside town of North Berwick, I was literally stopped dead in my tracks while passing the local a
rt shop. In the window was a huge framed print of the image to the left. I just stood and stared. It was a Sunday and the shop was shut so i did what anyone would do, photographed it on the iPhone and took a note of his name to investigate further. The photographer is Colin Homes and when I discovered that he was running courses, I was hooked. Here was someone taking images I'd kill to have taken and ready and willing to show me how. The booking was made and I duely spent a fantastic day with him a couple of weeks ago.
The day began with an overview of his workflow, a little on photoshop and an insight into creating the best possible file from which to work. After that we headed off, just two of us on the course that day, to the coast not half an hour's walk from the town. The next four hours or so were spent taking photographs with exactly the right balance of guidance from Colin. Never pushy, never intrusive, just there when required. The input for me was balance between a little technique and a greater part of compositional suggestion. We're all different, but for me it was spot on.
We returned in time to base to have a look at our output and for each of us one file recived the Colin treatment using Photoshop CS5. Colin took us through the inital RAW import and manipulation then a whistlestop tour of using layer masks, particularly the use of multiple gradient masks. This gave each one of us a final file demonstrating all the taught elements.
This process illustrated a number of important points in the teaching and learning process. The teacher must for me have credibility, they must be able to pass on their knowledge ina way that enables me to learn and finally I need to enjoy the process. I had a superb day, thoroughly enjoyed myself and learned loads into the bargain. Almost more importantly, I have continued to learn from the day and my own process has changed forever. Can't wish for more than that
Time and tide, as they say, wait for no man. I’ve just made the effort to check times, got up early, made my way down to the sea to work on a particular image only to find I’ve made a mistake. Not only was the tide not high but it was virtually out and getting lower. I was there last night but ended up coming home after a very frustrating hour. The cold was so intense that the pain in my hands became unbearable. On top of this the wind was so strong that it was lifting the tripod (+D700, lens and bag hooked on below) to the extent that I had to hold on during the 2m45s exposures. One of those times when maybe the ultra thin, lightweight carbon fibre legs might have been better made of cast iron.There is a danger in pre-visualisation as today when I couldn’t make the image I had in my mind, nothing else would come and there was no flow.
Just back from a brief visit to North Berwick. I'd gone to visit some local beaches and with a picture of the tidal pool in mind. In my defence the tide was against me and the image I made was ok'ish. However I was brought up very short when I happened to look in the window of the art shop on the high street. I was stopped in my tracks by one of the most remarkable pictures I have ever seen. They are the ones that fall some way between inspiring and making me want to throw it all out and take up stamp collecting. The photograph was by Colin I Homes. I just stood and stared and wished it had been mine. On searching for his work I came across his website and discovered a huge body of marvellous images. I also discovered that he runs courses and am currently investigating.
Having snowed hard most of Sat the forecast for Sunday was thick mist. Time to take the camera up onto Sizergh Fell not far from our house. I set off to visit the boulders previously shown but caught the composition while looking around the area. Tree alone didn’t offer much, sheep alone were just, well- sheep. Together, for me, something works about this image. It almost seemed as though the two sheep had posed there deliberately to balance the image. I like this image a lot. The Fell is a very special place, full of ancient echoes and somehow this picture captures something of the mystery.
D700, 16-35mm, 0.6 Grad ND.
I’ve often wondered about adding one of the current crop of mirror-less cameras to my kit. I do have a theory that for many of us (perhaps of a certain age) when we see the offerings from Panasonic, Olympus, Nikon and Fuji etc we subconsciously see the Leica we can’t afford. Compact quiet body, minimal controls, small interchangeable lenses, high image quality it all harks back to that M3 we always wondered about. On the face of it a compact camera with high quality output and small interchangeable lenses offer the dream ticket for many scenarios. In many cases, particularly the newest Fuji offering this holds a real appeal. Being somewhat ‘brand loyal’ I was intrigued to see what Nikon would come up with. In the back of my mind I think I had something like a digital S3 . Naming it after a famous weapon of mass destruction was an early indicator that trouble lay ahead but nothing quite prepared me for the launch. There is one and only one word that describes the image to the left. UGLY. I know ugly cameras take just as good photographs as the more aesthetically pleasing but really. Since I don’t have to make my living from my camera why should I subject myself to picking up something quite so hideous? Its just awful, it looks like a Y1 design student made out of balsa wood before being advised to drop the course. Brand loyalty and technical proficiency only go so far. I want to enjoy using, holding and engaging with my camera not hate it. I expect it will sell well-ish but come on Nikon make something more appealing.
One of the places I like most in the Dales is the valley of Kingsdale. Given that the whole Yorkshire Dales is something of a honeypot it is a comparatively quiet place especially given it’s proximity to the A65. Kingsdale is well known to the caving world but far less often visited by those venturing above ground. This tree grows out of the limestone on the steep ascent from the valley bottom to the Turbary Road. Apart from a dramatic shape and a decent sky, what appealed is the echo of the shape of the tree in the clouds. This is a delicate area, too close an echo or an exact mirror and we are talking amusing images in Readers’ Digest. This has just the right degree of similarity for it to appeal rather than seem bizarre.
Visted Castlerigg stone circle today with a picture of the stones against the southern aspect. Couldn't find the view I had that captured the circle so decided to just go with a single stone. Doesn't give any sense of the circle but makes for a nice moody image anyway. I do like the way that the shape of Helvellyn behind is echoed in the top of the stone.
This weekend I finally took the plunge and tried to sort out keeping warm, dry and comfortable while waiting around for that shaft of sunlight. Courtesy of The Mountain Factor in Ambleside I now have a Paramo Halcon waterproof jacket. From the Keswick Boot Company I’ve ordered some neoprene lined wellies. I’m almost looking forward to a miserable weekend on the weather front to see if it all lives up to the hype and the price. Reviews on both will feature in the reviews section as soon as it’s all bedded in.
How many things can you change all at once? We’ve moved the hosting of the site to a new server. Completely re-written the whole of Mountaineye and also added this WordPress based blog. Some days the sun just shines - all the moves have gone without a glitch. The domain transfer took place and the DNS servers re-pointed all within 24 hrs. The new host Raamweb are spot on and already providing customer support of the highest order. This wasn’t rushed at without caution. My other websites have gradually been moving over the past 3 months and the reassurance I’ve had was sufficient to move the main site over.
They say, like with tree rings, that you can estimate the length of a photographic career by the number of bags. This seems to hold true and many of us have a cupboard like the one above. What stands out here is that this follows the ‘clear out to end all clear outs’ last year in which the pages of Ebay were littered with cast offs, mistaken buys and those that seemed perfect at the time but just never seemed to get used. I wondered if some form of retrospective might enable a rounded view of the current state of play. The cupboard isn’t even as full as it might be. there is a Think Tank holster in the car and a Lowepro Rover in the post. There is also of course the usual set of saved web pages listing what may be the next perfect bag or the next mistake. Some things hold true – buy cheap, buy twice is one. there really is no point messing about with cheap fall apart bags as you end up spending more in the end. There is also the very clear rule forgotten by many that there is no such thing as the perfect bag. The best we can ever get is perfect for that particular time, place, weather and equipment.This of course the golden rule that gives us licence to keep buying more and more as each day is different, each location specific and we of course also change our cameras. In episode two we’ll have a look at the current Baglist.
Thanks to exceptionally speedy dispatch and distribution from Park Cameras my new lens arrived this week. It had been part of the plan to partner the D700 with one of these. Have taken all expected photos of living room and back garden and now looking forward to taking it out to play for real.
Today I came across the website of Ted Leeming and Morag Patterson http://www.leemingpaterson.com/ and was struck by their approach to impressionist photographs. They reminded me very much of some I made on Tiree last May. The crucial elements of what attracts me to the place is the combination of light, the land, the sea, the sand and those places where the sea shows the most stunning colours where is sits over sand. Perhaps our search for fine detail and sharpness takes us away from those eleme we find most appealing. There seem to be three main routes to producing these effects: De-focus, camera movement during exposure and manipulation in Photoshop. Horses for courses seems to be the moral and whichever approach gives the image you have in your head.
The new body arrived today from Ffordes (www.ffordes.com). A nearly new (2900 actuations) Nikon D700 full frame camera body to replace the D300 that I sold recently. As always, it arrived well packed by Ffordes and in exactly the described condition. A full review will follow. Some would say it is an odd time to invest as the replacement model will be out soon. I’m going right out on a limb with a suggestion that when the new model hits the shops this one will still make just as good photographs…
The new website is finally up and running and beginning to be populated with content. The site can be found at www.mikeprince.org and has been conceived as a repository for my monochrome landscape work. I feel I've lacked clarity for some time, shooting and then deciding what to do with it. I hope that this departure may serve to focus my mind somewhat.