When photographers go beyond copying the achievements of others, or repeating their own accidental successes, they learn that they do not know where in the world they will find pictures.  Nobody does.  Each photograph that works is a revelation to its creator – Robert Adams.

If you have been through a creative lull, a complete lack of ideas, a slump, and no knowledge of when you will start to create again – welcome to my world.

Of course, feeling unwell doesn’t help (I’m half way through a bout of Covid), but I’m sure that the inspiration will return in due course.    The thing you have to remember is that ‘all things will pass’, as George Harrison once said.

One of the traits you have to have as a photographer is perseverance – and the willingness to accept that things will happen to your creative flair from time to time.  At some point though, something will happen that will re-ignite your fire again, and you’ll be off on a new tack or journey.

One image can be all it takes to start you off – after all, dropping into doom and gloom because you can’t think of what to do next won’t help. 

You could of course keep on repeating what you did before – especially if it was successful, and was readily accepted by judges, social media, and friends.  

Repetition though is a lack of creativity all on its own.  On judging a competition some time ago, the same image cropped up at least 5 times.  Same person, same pose, same lighting – the first time you see it, it’s great, unique, different, the second, there’s an air of ‘haven’t I seen this before’? – but by the 5th time, you’re bored with it…. Where was the input from the artist?, where was the creativity, originality and thought process from the photographer(s).

Find a project, and guide yourself through it, the excitement can come from working through problems, watching tutorials, getting ideas, and then applying them to your own work.

Speaking of projects – the book I promised myself is now complete, and I’ve got the first (and probably only) copy.  

I published it on Blurb, and it’s expensive, but it was a project I set myself, and completed – it took a number of years, but the question is – does that matter?  The answer is no, it’s just done…. And that’s it.  I have the pleasure of rereading my blogs, and pearls of wisdom(?) .. It was worth the effort…..

My photography is not truthful. The images I make are the ones that I like, that make me smile, that allow memories, that remind me of friends and family. Why should photography be more ‘real’ than a song on the radio. It is always up to the photographer to decide how factually accurate an image will be.

Someone asked me why I’d picked particular images to go into the book. “They’re my favourites” I said. “We were rather hoping from something more insightful” they said. “Hard luck then” I thought……

“If you are out there shooting, things will happen for you. If you’re not out there, you’ll only hear about it”. – Jay Maisel

Three is the Number!

Three is the magic number – or so the song would have us believe. It’s one of only 9 single digits (discounting 0) – but is it a designers dream?  Does it drive photography, design and literature?

I ask myself sometimes why is two of anything boring, but three much more fun?

When people see two things written together, you can usually see a connection – for example solid and liquid, left and right, up and down. (See I used three examples there – so much more comfortable to read eh?)

Even if there isn’t an immediate connection we can find something that links them – Pride and Prejudice; Death in Venice; Heart of Darkness (three examples again)… so even if we can’t find a connection in the words, our brain fills in the relevant gaps.  Think big and small, one is dominant, and one isn’t.

You can always, ALWAYS, connect two dots with a straight line….. not so with three, not always.

Add another word and it becomes in English Language a Tricolon. 

(A series of three words, phrases or sentences that are parallel in structure, length and/or rhythm.)

It can be a good device for humour… for example “Three ……… walk into a bar”. Two elements get you going in one direction, but the third introduces something unexpected.

Think of these “Wine, Women and Song”, “Veni Vidi, Vici”, “Eat Drink and be Merry”.

With a tricolon you can set up a pattern and then break it… ‘Lies, damned lies, and statistics’ is a good example.  Two words send you in one direction, and the third breaks it.

Of course, that’s not always the case… in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, there’s the great question about ‘Life, the Universe, and Everything’.  You can’t stop half way through, there’s no meaning.  Two is company, three is a list….. (and the answer of course is always 42!)

And that’s the important bit, the ‘good, bad and ugly’ of it all, we’ll just have to ‘eat, drink and be merry’.

This whole sense of it is its completeness, an end to a list, a finish.  We’ve said it all, or we’ve photographed it all, and in the end analysis, three, just works……. 

Thoughts for the Day

1. Find freedom in your Photography
2. Keep your photography happy
3. Anyone can be an artist
4. Everyone can make a picture to hang on the wall
5. Make something that makes you happy
6. Make something to give you a great day
7. It’s not the finished photo that matters, it’s how you get there
8. Everything is better when you go shoot
9. All you have to do is grab your camera
10. You can do it – let it flow
11. It’s your world
12. Relax, have fun
13. We don’t make mistakes – we have happy accidents
14. Make a fantastic image just for you
15. Keep practicing
16. It doesn’t take long to get better

Painting the Night

Last Autumn I ran a light painting night at a camera club in Lincolnshire. We all took lots of images, and during the course of the session I sadly dropped my Pixelstick tool smack on the hard tarmac of a car park. Bits of plastic and glass exploded around me, and the memory card I was using skated away. Needless to say, it just stopped working – I was a bit upset……..

The colleague and friend whom I was with took it home with him, and effected a temporary repair, and though I knew these things were not being manufactured any more, I was lucky to obtain a replacement from a chap down in Kent.

A friend of mine who lives in Surrey, collected it for me, and duly delivered it up here a few months later.

In the meantime – I realised that though I’d used this tool many times at camera clubs up and down the county, I couldn’t remember when I’d last used it just for me… so with the nights still getting dark fairly early, I decided that I’d get myself a new wireless trigger, and at the very least go and play in the garden.

What the tool is, is a set of 200 LED lights arranged in a long stick. You are able to programme the lights to play in a set order, so that when the stick is moved in front of the camera, they play very much in the same way you would print a picture – one line at a time. The camera sensor sees the pattern or picture that you programme into the machine via an SD card. It’s clever technology.

Sadly the company that made them, seems to have vanished. The website is still there, but it’s not been updated for years.

We have been practicing in the back garden now for a week or so. Previously of course work has been done in clubrooms, or (disastrously) in a car park. So here I am, back in the garden trying to renew my acquaintance with the Pixelstick.

Fingers crossed we can get out some more in the coming weeks. Creating images to use takes some time, as images have to be a certain orientation, size and converted to BMP. Not a long process, but finding the right things turns out to be a bit tricky.

Just need to find the right location now….

An Identity Crisis

There’s been a turning point in my photographic life – and I can’t pin down exactly when that happened, but at some point in the last two years, for me, lots of things changed – albeit slowly.

The pandemic that has swept the world has made for some terrible tragedy – but at the same time, people have changed for the better – their attitudes, endeavours and the way they work.  More camera clubs are having virtual meetings, which allows people to join in from their homes, and from a clubroom at the same time.

As a result of this, we have all been able to view more high quality imagery than ever before, and selfishly, I don’t want that to stop. I booked the most amazing speakers for my own club over the last two years, and frankly I’m going to miss that intense and consistent impact it has had on my work.  

I know I’ve got to let go to some extent, and be myself, but it absolutely does no harm to continue to study the work of others, and listen to their points of view, so I hope that our ability to share talks and presentations with other camera clubs does not end here, as we approach some kind of ‘normality’ again.

I realise that in the process of finding your own photographic voice, you have to have that ‘identity crisis’ –  something will happen, or you will see or hear something that will influence the way you think, and take you in a totally different direction – and that trip can help define both what you are doing now, and where you are going in the future.

I asked a couple of people what sort of things had changed their photographic direction, and both said that it was by looking at work from other, more accomplished, photographers.  They have seen work they would not have been able to experience previously, as often the work was from photographers they had not heard of before.

As we open our eyes to what is out there, and view the work of others, we see possibilities not thought of in our own minds.  It can help us decide what we are going to do as we move forward, or even refine what we are doing now.

My turning point wasn’t an actual point, it was more of a long smooth curve which I hope will continue – but I absolutely don’t want to go full circle and end up where I started.

Cheating the Cheaters

I’ve not really written before about photographic cheats, so this is a first for me. 

Before I start – let’s think about the definition of cheat…..

1. To act dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage
2. To avoid (something undesirable) by luck or skill

Whether we talk about misleading images, or manipulative ‘photoshopping’ – all we need to think is “does this photograph meet the criteria set down” in a competition.

One of the most famous photographic hoaxes, is a series of images known as the Cottingley Fairies – and I’m sure most of you will have heard of these, and even seen the images.

The images were taken in 1917 by Elsie Wright, and Frances Griffiths, who were, at the time, mere children.

The photographs show them with the fairies, and for decades they were accepted as being perfectly genuine.  They even fooled Arthur Conan Doyle.

They were first published in 1920 in Strand Magazine,  and a newspaper article at the time said the following:-

“The developed negative showed the figures in the woods, and Sir A. Conan Doyle is enthusiastic over this vindication of the spirit world”……… “The original pictures are now being studied by professional photographers to see if they could have been faked”.

The cousins were both still alive in the 1980s, and finally Elsie confessed to the hoax, probably with some relief, in 1983. What had undoubtedly started out as a cleverly stage-managed bit of fun, suggested by Frances, had got seriously out of hand. The cousins themselves were astonished at how readily people of the calibre of Conan-Doyle had accepted the images

We might think that prestigious competitions such as the Wildlife Photographer of the Year would be safe from the cheaters….. but no……. You may remember the image of the wolf leaping over a closed gate by Jose Louis Rodriguez.  The photographer here did not manipulate the image (much as the Cottingley Fairies were not manipulated), it was a straight photograph. Rodriguez ‘wild’ wolf was actually a tame one, used to jumping over things, and was identified by other Spanish photographers.

You may also remember the controversy over the ‘stuffed’ anteater at a more recent Wildlife competition.

But what makes people cheat in the first place?  

It may be to gain benefit, or notoriety, or just because they think they can get away with it.  I’m sure in the case of the wildlife images it was for fame and fortune, but the only people they cheat are themselves.

At the other end of the scale are those who cheat because they can, and because they genuinely believe that they are doing nothing wrong.  For example, on Facebook at the moment there is a group running where a topic is set once a week, for the 52 weeks of the year.  Each participant must take an image that week on that theme.  You are not supposed to check your archives for past work that ‘might fit’.  The thing is, that who would know if you did find something that fitted and posted that – the answer is no-one.  Is there any satisfaction in that though?

Cheaters have convinced themselves that their actions are acceptable, and you won’t be able to convince them otherwise…. After all ‘it was only a bit of fun’….

Welcome to 2022….

I can’t quite believe that it’s 2022 – the year in which I will be officially of a ‘certain age’.  Definitely NOT old, not yet.

I also want to express my thanks to everyone who has supported this blog in the past year or so. Your comments, on here, and on Facebook have given me the enthusiasm to keep writing. Thank you.

The last few days have been those odd ones that happen between Christmas and New Year – you know, the time, when you actually have had no idea what day of the week it is.  We’re still eating ‘Christmas’ food, and my other half is busy making the last mince pies of the season.  The days are dark – and short, and for about a week, there has been virtually no sunshine, just looming clouds of grey.

Suddenly over the last week, the sun came out a bit, the sky (today) is blue and life seems somewhat ‘brighter’ again. (it’s bitter cold out today but lovely).

Over the dull days, I’ve been reading photography books.  Something every aspiring photographer should do.  Not just pretty picture ones either (though there’s everything good to be said about those).

Towards the end of last year, I watched a few talks on YouTube, one of which talked about a photographer I’d never heard of  – an American, Harry Callahan.  The talk itself cost me a fair amount of money, (not the talk), as I searched online for a book about him and his images, creatively called ‘Harry Callahan’.  I managed to get hold of a second hand copy, which, when it arrived looked like it had never been opened.  

Callahan had his first one person exhibition in November 1947 in Chicago. He asserted that ‘creativity can only be measured by the value of an individual’s whole photographic life from beginning to end’.  He did not set out to create photographic masterpieces, nor did he think his later works were better than the earlier ones. He decided, almost from the start, that his photographs would be a record of his life, so each image was just a piece in his growth as an image maker.  His ‘body of work’ was a continuous piece of his life.  Callahan wanted to make images that would grow and change with him, and also preserve photographic integrity and unity.

Interestingly, when Callahan joined a camera club (The Chrysler Camera Club), he said that he learned from the members that photography was important and ‘very serious’.  He was only a member for three years, and his membership defined exactly what he did NOT want to do with his photography.  Later, in his membership of the Detroit photo guild, he found members made highly manipulated, and ‘pretty’ pictures, but discussed work ideas that had been popular over 40 years earlier.

This was in complete contrast to his ideas, which were innovative and carefree.  He went on to say that camera club photography was laboured, analytical and rule bound.  In their quest to create important work they had lost the amateurs eye and joy of discovery.  Callahan thought the guild was ‘silly’ – and created nothing more than an enormous ‘block’ to his work. 

He went on to say that with more experience, you can photograph more freely, and you will go back and forth with your experimentation – and you will repeat the same things, only better.

Harry Callahan 1912 – 1994

“I think…… I want to express my life, and that’s also true in my old age. All your whole life is different.  So far I still look forward to going out and photographing” (Callahan 1994)

Find some of Callahan’s images by clicking the link below

https://www.lensculture.com/articles/harry-callahan-harry-callahan-the-photographer-at-work#slideshow

The Last Blog of the Year

Well, that’s 2021 nearly over……  Just as I thought we were starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Omicron comes along and we take two steps backwards again.

Still, visiting the vaccination centre yesterday, it seemed that all was going well… lots of folks around to direct, in and out quick jab, and the 15 minute wait after, and I’m too far away to overhear any other conversations going on….. shame…….

I’ve tried to be true to my own photography, and though I admit to being influenced by many others, I’ve tried hard to make my images my own.

Oscar Wild said “A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament. Its beauty comes from the fact that the author is what he is.  It has nothing to do with the fact that other people want what they want.  Indeed, the moment an artist takes notice of what other people want, and tries to supply the demand, he ceases to be an artist, and becomes a dull or amusing craftsman, an honest or dishonest tradesman.  He has no further claim to be considered an artist.”

I like to create using all the tools I have to hand.  Tools from Adobe, plug-ins, and anything the camera will do too.  I am not a purist in the sense the some photographers are.

I create for me first, and everyone else second.  

It’s funny isn’t it – we see the difference between creative writers, fiction writers, and journalism – we can all appreciate the difference in their styles, and we weave a fantasy in the books we read that we know are just a story.  We can adjust our mental attitudes and realise the difference between fantasy and fact.

We need to do this with photography too. Some images we make are fact, and some are fantasy. Both have a part to play.  

Remember though that the more personal your images are, the fewer people they will please.

Be yourself, and your style will follow.

As we approach the end of 2021, I look back and think of all the things I’ve learned, all the people I’ve met, and all the photographs I’ve taken – (not as many as in previous years I see)….  but there are still many things that I love..

Friends to go walks with (cake walks?) oh yes…… the wonderful zoom meetings, sharing my work, and also seeing some marvellous pictures created by photographers who are so brilliant. Friends who have driven me around from place to place, learning new things, finding my own creative voice.

Getting out with the dogs, enjoying the company of my lovely husband, whose patience knows no boundaries.

Christmas, tinsel, crackers, and books. Strictly Come Dancing, and sunshine and snow. Blue skies, trees, rain, grass, nature at its best, and all the rest that I can’t possibly put down here.

Take care over Christmas, enjoy the break, and hopefully we will meet again in the new year…..

Buxton

Shooting in the Dark…

There comes a point in every photographers life, that skill and technique with the camera begin to take a back seat, in favour of artistic merit.  It’s a time when using the camera becomes so second nature, so instinctive that thought almost stops, and focus is entirely on the subject matter in front of the lens.

Time stands still, as we look at what is there.  The photographer knows intuitively that they need f16, and that at an ISO of 200 there will be a shutter speed of 1/60th, they have learned to read the light  – they will know they can hand hold this comfortably – but may choose to use a tripod.

Emotion is expressed over technical prowess, and the photographer slows down – there’s no rush any more.

I talk a lot about this in my ‘Odd Things’ presentation to camera clubs.  I talk about learning to use the camera in the dark.  

Try this exercise – pick up your camera, close your eyes.  Envisage the camera as being part of yourself. Change the f-stop, the ISO, the shutter speed.  Learn how many clicks it takes to move from 1/30th to 1/2000 second.  How many clicks from ISO 100 to 1600.  Imagine how changing each of these is going to affect the picture you take.  

Was it easy?

Learn how to use your bulb setting (if the camera has one) – and here’s a thing – why not look up exactly WHY it’s called Bulb….. (let me know when you know the answer – it’s more interesting than you might think)…

We need to understand the why and how of our cameras, whether they be phones or DSLR, and anything in between.  Whatever you shoot with, you need to know how it works.  

The thing about cameras, and how they feel in your hands, is important.  I remember buying my first DSLR – in the shop, I held a Nikon in one hand, and a Canon in the other.  Even then, I knew that there was not going to be much difference in how the images would look.  What was important to me then (and is still important to me now) is how it felt in my hands – the Canon won the day by the way……. It just ‘felt’ right.

I shoot Fuji nowadays – smaller and lighter than the Canon 1DX I used to have – it’s been 11 months since I sold it.  The Fuji, ‘feels’ right in my hands – it’s light, and the buttons / dials are easy to find and it was no time at all before I didn’t need to ‘remember’ which side the ISO was on, as opposed to the shutter speed dial.

Once mastered, you can think about composition without worrying about the camera.  You can look at how a scene looks, and think about how it feels.  Remember that some images are ‘about’ things, and some are ‘of’ things.  Some images ‘look’ like things, and some ‘feel’ like things.

Sometimes when I’m judging, I’ll say that I know how that scene felt, how cold it must have been, or how hot.  Sometimes I see images of animals, and so well taken that I know how that fur would have felt under my fingers.  Fruit smells, and and it can drift off the page of a print…..  abstracts can make me curious, and movement can give the thrill of speed….. 

It’s all up to you – the photographer, the creator of that image.

It’s December 1st as I write this, and Christmas is coming….. I hope I can capture the flavour of the month – with any luck I’ll see some snow this year.  We get very little in this part of the country.

So, felicitations of the season – keep shooting, and keep learning….. and think of all the things you love.

Winter in the Peak District