Am I a bad person?

I have a confession to make. I have been carrying a guilty secret around with me for the past few years but I think it is time I got it out there so I can move on with my life with some degree of normality.

I don't use the histogram.

There, I've said it. I don't feel any different right now but I am almost sure it will help to have got that great weight off my shoulders. But the question remains; does this make me a bad person?

I say this because I read quite a lot about photography and it seems that every description of someone making a picture requires them to pay great attention to the histogram in order to get an accurately exposed image. I've never done this. I do refer to the histogram when applying relatively minimal tweaks during post processing but I can't recall ever having done so at the time of making the exposure.

Now, clearly, I have my tongue firmly in my cheek right now but I honestly do wonder whether I am missing a trick by ignoring what appears to be commonly held best practice for digital photography. Alternatively, is the value of doing this overstated somewhat? To answer that, I will tell you what my approach is: For general landscape photography (i.e. fairly straightforward lighting conditions), I generally use aperture priority (I can almost hear the sound of mouths dropping as I write - that is, assuming anyone ever reads this) because the aperture is typically what I need to control. If the camera is on a tripod (almost always the case for landscapes), I obviously don't care how slow the shutter speed is and I trust the very advanced metering to cope with such lighting conditions.For trickier lighting conditions (for instance, sunrise or sunset), I usually switch to using manual exposure and employ my trusty, handheld spot meter - very old school I know but also very accurate.Wedding and street photography are a different matter. I still tend to use aperture priority but if the lighting is contrasty I find it easier to switch to the highlight view on the display; this means a very quick glance at the back of the camera gives me instant feedback (in the form of flashing) of any burnt out areas and I can quickly determine whether I need to re-shoot with, maybe, some exposure compensation. I certainly don't have the time to study the histogram in such circumstances.

So, in my opinion, reviewing the histogram isn't really as crucial as some would make out. I don't even think it is necessarily the best way of checking exposure. However, everyone out there in printed media land seems to think it is crucial so perhaps it is just pure, dumb luck when I do get something correctly exposed.


Prints are available from my website : www.landscapeandlight.co.uk

Featured Photograph for May

My featured photograph this month is from May 2012. Although late May, it gives an ideal of just how late spring has been this year. Here we are in May and the blossom is only just appearing while a couple of weeks later than this last year, the laburnum was in full flower.

The photograph was taken at the Dorothy Clive garden in Staffordshire. I wrote about it at the time and don't propose to repeat myself but you can see more of it here. I do recommend you go if you enjoy peace, quiet and a beautiful garden.


Prints available from my website : www.landscapeandlight.co.uk

Featured Photograph for April

The photograph I've selected for this month was made just last week. We spent a few days in Anglesey over Easter and were blessed with some wonderful weather; very cold but bright and sunny - hardly a cloud in the sky. Of course, that's not always what I am looking for when it comes to landscape photography (much to J's annoyance) but it does make for a good few days away.

On this evening I set out with the intention of reproducing an image I made of Ynys y Fydlyn a couple of years back. Then, the setting sun had bathed the cliffs in a beautiful, rich glow but a very strong wind and spitting rain made for very difficult conditions and I was frustrated to find an otherwise very nice image spoiled by rain drops on the filter. A bit of judicious cloning was called for but the picture was just not as good as it might have been.

So, with that in mind, we made the short drive to the west coast of the island only to discover that the sun was clearly going to sink into a veil of cloud that seemed to have settled on just that bit of the horizon. Undeterred, we made our way down to the shore but I never quite made it. When I looked across to the Skerries from the path I realised this was the spot I wanted to be. The framing is very deliberate but I have retained more detail in the cliffs than originally envisaged; I had visualised them being in silhouette but when I tried that in post production, they became too black and dominant.

I ended up making only half a dozen exposures from two positions, one a few feet lower on the path than the other. The light changed quite a bit during that 45 minute period but was never better than this, only the second exposure I made. Not at all what I had planned but I'm very happy with the result.

Prints available from my website : www.landscapeandlight.co.uk

Standing in the Rain

A couple of weeks back my good friend G mentioned a plan he had to spend a day making photographs along the North Wales coast; specifically with the aim of experimenting some more with long exposures using his Big Stopper filter. This seemed like such a good idea to me I asked if I could tag along; a request he generously agreed to. I say generously because to do so was quite likely to put the mockers on his plans - you see, we have an almost unblemished record of awful weather when we go on a photographic expedition together. It looked to be fitting then when the forecast for last Friday looked to be a rainy full stop to a week of unbroken, bright, dry, cold weather. However, we were committed and reasoned that the kind of photography we had in mind might actually be helped by overcast conditions.

We decided to head for our farthest point, Llandudno, and work our way back but, sadly, the forecast was right and the morning was very wet. Undeterred, we stoically headed for Costa where we spent some time in a deep, philosophical discussion about photography over a cappuccino and an over sized custard cream each (at least, that's how I remember the conversation). The rain continued but was forecast to ease off at midday so we made our way to the end of the pier where we split up; G took the high road up towards Happy Valley for a view down to the pier while I took the low road, down the steps to the shore which was already covered by the rising tide.

I stood there for quite some time waiting for the promised passing of the rain, even getting my camera out to size up compositions before quickly putting it away again. The rain got so heavy I even put the waterproof cover on my camera bag. After about 45 minutes, it did start to ease and I was able to set up my camera using an old rucsac cover I carry around as a cover to work under. Even so, I got rain drops on the filter which had to be cloned out of the final image (above). This first picture was made while still raining. It is a 30 second exposure and was taken with one of my Mamiya lenses on the D800 (because I could, ok!). It's quite nice and very serene but G got a better one from where he was.

As the rain did start to clear away, the effects of a 30 minute exposure began to create a more dynamic feel.


 
When we had done with the pier, we drove down the coast road, essentially, just looking for anything else that took our fancy. A brief stop was made at Rhos where the derelict pier caught our eye. Unfortunately, there was a lot of work going on surrounding the pier and we couldn't really get close enough to make much of it.

So, off to the next stop at Llandullas where G wanted to investigate a pier used for loading ships with stone from the nearby quarry. A ship was moored when we got there so we ate lunch and then killed some time photographing other things while waiting to see if it left (we assumed it had to leave fairly soon as, by now, the tide had turned). G concentrated on more long exposures using some groynes as his focal point while I entertained myself with the textures of the rotting sea defences.

We then made our way over to the pier but discovered there was no very obvious composition, particularly with the ship still moored to it. It may be worth another visit but we couldn't be bothered going back when we saw the ship pull away as we walked back to the car.

Our final stop for the day was Talacre and the Point of Ayr lighthouse. By now the tide was well out so the long exposure work was over but there was the promise of some nice light if the big dark cloud would just head away from us. Sadly, it didn't. It came right at us and a downpour of hail and then rain forced us back to the shelter of the car. I just managed one last effort before it arrived; the patterns in this weathered stone were fascinating. This is the best of several exposures I made.

Although we did get wet as usual, it was by no means a wash out. Some useful experimentation, a couple of pleasing photographs and, most of all, excellent company. That's a good way to spend a day!

Wirral Art & Photography Exhibition 2013

Good news in the post yesterday (a rare event) - I discovered that not only has my picture been accepted to the annual Wirral Art &Photography Exhibition, it has also been chosen as the prize winner in the photography category.

The print is one of the stitched panoramas I made during our trip to the Trossachs last October. This was dawn on the first morning of the holiday and, although there was plenty of cloud around, the muted colours and stillness of Loch Achray made for a beautiful and tranquil scene. This was the first panorama I had attempted with the D800 and stitching five images from 36 mp camera certainly made my computer work hard - I am sure I smelt the CPUs burning. The result was an incredibly detailed, huge file which I just had to see printed big. The trouble is, what can you do with a large print; unprotected, it would only get damaged so I decided it had to be mounted and framed. Sheila Gee at Cheshire Frames kindly did a wonderful job of framing this and another picture for me a very short notice so that I could submit them to the exhibition only for me to discover that this year there is a maximum of one entry per category. A choice had to be made and I chose this image, mainly because there was no room for it on our walls. I'm very glad I did now.

The exhibition runs from 23rd March to 5th May at the Williamson Art Gallery in Birkenhead.


Prints available from my website : www.landscapeandlight.co.uk

Featured Photograph for March

The photograph I have chosen for this month is not new but has been recently 're-worked' - I will explain more later. Despite having been made a few years ago, it remains one of my personal favourites; partly because it is a beautiful scene but also because this is my spiritual home - the Lake District and, specifically, the area around Keswick. I genuinely feel my spirit soar as I near the northern Lakes. This, then, is one of my favourite viewpoints; the top of Walla Crag offers such superb views for such modest effort that it it would be mad to overlook it.

On this morning, the forecast for cold, clear weather promised much and I was not disappointed. I had Walla Crag all to myself for a couple of hours and enjoyed the most peaceful time watching the mist burn away as the sun grew in strength. I then had the enormous, if slightly mean, pleasure of meeting another photographer on his way up as I headed down, aware of what he had missed out on by having his breakfast beforehand (if you tell me you wouldn't get some pleasure from that, I don't believe you).

The photograph was taken on Velvia 50 film using my Mamiya Pro TL and has only been printed once, direct from transparency. Until a couple of days ago, I thought that I had lost the transparency but I eventually found it (I really need to sort out my storage system) and decided to get a high resolution scan before I misplaced it again. The beauty of having a decent digitised version is that I have been able to lighten the fells a little - something I was unable to do with scans from my own flatbed. This now better resembles the original.

There is one other thing that makes this picture special to me: It won the Wainwright Society Photographic Competition a few years back. Now I don't kid myself that this competition had a huge entry but the judge was one of my photography 'heros', Derry Brabbs. Derry produced the photographs for all but one of the 'coffee table' Wainwright books and was instrumental in kick starting my passion for landscape photography as well as inspiring me to my first ever, very modest, published work. The knowledge that he liked this enough to select it as his winner is a source of great satisfaction.


Prints available from my website : www.landscapeandlight.co.uk

Love Is .......

I could start by saying that 'love is' my new camera (the wonderful little Fujifilm XE-1) but that's likely to get me in trouble and, besides, is a subject for another blog. What I will say about the camera here is that it is genuinely small enough and light enough to take anywhere - including on shopping trips.

Street photography is a new departure for me and I'm sure many opportunities for good photographs pass me by either because I don't see them, am not quick enough or too cowardly. However, it would have been hard even for me to miss these giant, heart shaped balloons in Liverpool One and fail to see the potential.

While the women were in Zara, I positioned myself with the viewpoint below. The hope was that I would get an affectionate couple in just the right position on the escalator but it was always going to be a long shot. The two pictures below are the closest I got despite standing there for quite some time. There were too many factors I couldn't control even when I got a suitable subject in my sights; crowded escalator, too many people in front of me, prominent coloured clothing and people stopping to have a fag as they come out of the shop. How I longed to have my eldest daughter and her boyfriend with me - they love being photographed, make a good looking couple and I could have orchestrated their movements. I know that's not exactly in the spirit of street photography but I can't help thinking it would have made for a great image.

Eventually, I had to accept that it wasn't going to happen and, as it was primarily a shopping trip and there were others with me, I gave up and moved on. The women wanted to go into a shop on the upper level next so that did give me another opportunity and this time I struck lucky, getting a perfect couple, holding hands walking into the frame - she even had a red coat on. Selective colour is not a technique I use very often, it's a little 'gimmicky' for me but, in this instance, I felt it was crying out for such a treatment to put all the emphasis on the main subjects. Too much? Possibly. I will let you decide.

Finally, without moving, I looked up and saw another take on the 'one' theme. This time, I have simply desaturated everything except the reds. Looking at it from a male bias, I would have preferred to have had an attractive women standing alone on the walkway but it wasn't to be.

One thing I am sure of is that I would have attracted a lot more attention and possibly bothered people had I been standing there with a great big DSLR and lens. With the discrete little, retro looking 'rangefinder', barely anyone paid any attention to me.