I was pleasantly surprised to discover that one of my photographs achieved a bronze in the Architecture category of the Exposure One B&W Photography Awards. And, for the sake of completeness, here is the one that achieved a nomination in their Conceptual category:
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| At Shawlands Cross |
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| Uprooted |
Recently, I invested in an Urth Nikon F to Fuji X adapter. And the old lens has become a great addition to my (still small) collection of lenses for the XT-3. Now manual focusing is a doddle because the XT-3 has focus peaking.
In fact, my recent use of that lens on the XT-3 has tempted me to (a) stick to manual focus all the time and (b) build up my lens collection with prime lenses rather than zooms. On the latter point, using a prime lens means I have one less decision to make: I don’t have to choose a focal length; if I can’t frame what I want to photograph, I simply have to move.
An interesting quote from Alister Benn of Expressive Photography:
A camera, when used gently, pins the mind to the present moment. It interrupts the spiralling loop of past and future. It asks you to respond to sensation rather than narrative. Light on sand. Wind against skin. The temperature of shadow. Sensation becomes perception. Perception becomes memory. Memory becomes emotion. That sequence is always happening. Photography simply makes it visible.
I like the notion of using a camera gently. Perhaps that is why I increasingly use my camera’s touchscreen rather than its viewfinder. Looking through a viewfinder detaches me from my environment in a way that using a touchscreen doesn’t. Somehow photography with a viewfinder feels more aggressive – ‘shooting’ my subject; the camera as sniper rifle.
Over the past few months (and thanks largely to Simon Ellingworth’s Mono Vision Challenges), I have begun to discover the potential of intentional camera movement (ICM) for creating really interesting photographs. By using a relatively slow shutter speed and carefully controlled camera movement, it is possible to turn an ordinary looking scene into something much more expressionistic or create a dreamlike or nightmarish image.
I have just started experimenting with ICM and it is not nearly as easy as it sounds (though I find it easier on my Fuji X70 than on my Nikon D5500). It may not be easy, but it certainly feels more spontaneous than the effort involved in creating yet another pin-sharp image of Buachaille Etive Mòr!
Here is one of my early efforts:
As Doug Chinnery, one of the masters of ICM, puts it ‘Let go. Enjoy not being encumbered by a tripod. Free yourself from the 'rules' of photography and see where the images take you.’
It is a lovely little beast. I haven’t so much fun with a camera since the days when I was the happy owner of a Rollei 35S. The only problem is that I am now being tempted to upgrade my Nikon DSLR system to a Fujifilm mirrorless one (either the XT3 or the XT5).
I have recently finished reading Henri Cartier-Bresson’s The Mind’s Eye: Writings on Photography and Photographers (New York: aperture, 1996). It is full of thought-provoking ideas and quotable quotes, so here are some of his views on photographic technique (taken from his 1952 work The Decisive Moment):
Technique is important only insofar as you must master it in order to communicate what you see.
[O]nly the results count, and the conclusive evidence is the finished photographic print
It is enough if a photographer feels at ease with his camera, and if it is appropriate to the job he wants it to do. The actual handling of the camera, its stops, its exposure-speeds and all the rest of it are things which should be as automatic as the changing of gears in an automobile.
In other words, photographic technique is embodied knowledge. It is not something that can be learned from a book. It can only be learned by taking a camera out and practising.
I am constantly amused by the notion that some people have about photographic technique – a notion which reveals itself in an insatiable craving for sharpness of images. Is this the passion of an obsession? Or do these people hope, by this trompe l’oeil technique, to get to closer grips with reality? In either case, they are just as far away from the real problem as those of that other generation which used to endow all its photographic anecdotes with an intentional unsharpness such as was deemed to be ‘artistic.’
For Cartier-Bresson, the point of photography was to communicate what you see not to create a pin sharp 2D rendering of it. But try telling that to some of the judges at camera club competitions or to the photographic know-it-alls who will tell you that Ansel Adams, for example, was let down on this front by inadequate equipment.
I am interested in somehow capturing / encapsulating / representing the particularity (the this-ness, the haecceitas, the inscape if you want be theological about it) of my subjects. I don’t think I can do that by shots taken at decisive moments or by looking for the dramatic. I’ll know it when I see it. I’ll see it when I understand it. And understanding takes time.
But, given my concern for the environment, it is not surprising that I think his environmentalism was as important as his photography. With his wife Leila, he set up the Instituto Terra in 1998 with the purpose of restoring part of the Atlantic Forest in Minas Gerais, Brazil. Since then, it has restored 2,000 hectares of land and produced nearly 7 million seedlings. It has also become a major centre for environmental education.
In a recent Expressive Photography newsletter, Alister Benn makes the following comment:
If you don’t think about something at all, it has no value to you.
If all you do is think about something and then do nothing about it, you are of no value to it.
Alister was talking about photography, but I feel this has much wider application. For example, you cannot honestly say you value the natural world if you never give it a second thought. Conversely, if all you do is talk about caring for nature while continuing to live a typical modern Western lifestyle, you are certainly of no value to it.
Alexander Nevsky Cathedral,
Paris
I’ve just added a few more photos to my Flickr account. These were taken during a brief stay in Paris at the end of September 2019. We were there to celebrate the decision of the Archdiocese of Russian Orthodox Churches in Western Europe to re-establish relations with the Moscow Patriarchate. But it was also our first visit to Paris, and we discovered how very beautiful the city is.
I have already posted an initial tranche of photos. These are the contents of the portfolio I prepared for the OU course ‘Digital photography: creating and sharing better images’. I plan to add further images on a regular basis (up to the limit of 1000 allowed by Flickr’s entry level) and will post an entry here whenever I do so.
A random couple viewed through the Alban Berg monument in Vienna.
It began life as a fairly ordinary shot of the monument framed against the opera house. After cropping, I took it into Nik Silver Efex to emulate Kodak Tri-X film. Then I applied a motion blur in Nik Analog Efex.
I recently came across a manifesto by the documentary photographer Martin Parr. Some of the advice seemed helpful, so I thought I would share it:
If you want a copy, you can download a poster of the manifesto from WePresent. One caveat, it is subtitled ‘Ten rules of photography for emerging photographers’. But, as the street photographer Simon Ellingworth often points out, ‘Rules are for people who have yet to discover their artistic intent.’
Why? Because I really like the simplicity and degree of abstraction that black and white brings to a photograph. It is no coincidence that one of my photographic heroes is the great landscape photographer Ansel Adams.
But actually working out what might make a good black and white image is not straightforward when we see the world in ‘glorious technicolor’. So, I’ve come across a couple of tricks that might help train my eye for monochrome:
I found the following quote in an interview with the landscape photographer Andris Apse:
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Wind, Sand and Stars, chapter 3)
I like that. It seems to have all sorts of applications. Apse quotes it in relation to his search for perfection in photography, but it could equally well apply to writing. I can certainly think of any number of books that would have been improved by judicious use of the red pen.
Beyond the realm of the creative arts, it reminds me of the process of abstraction that is necessary in solving most physics problems. Back in the dim and distant past when I taught physics, it struck me that students most often got into difficulties because they didn’t simplify enough.
And, come to think of it, it could also be an expression of simplicity as a Christian discipline – that radical process of self-emptying which cuts away all the clutter, internal as well as external, until all that is left is the image of God.
