Winter Walking in Derbyshire

During the recent cold snap at the beginning of December, I enjoyed a day walking with my brother and a friend.  We walked along Derwent Edge above the Ladybower and Derwent Reservoirs.  It had snowed over night and we were blessed with wonderful conditions and stunning views.  I was also able to take some images for Project 35:using a polarising filter.

Water cascades over the Derwent Dam.  I was pleased to be able to include the crescent moon in the shot.

Looking towards Kinder Scout from Back Tor.  Thinking of Ansel Adams I have increased the contrast between the white clouds and the sky, darkening the blue sky.  I also used the shadows slider to give deep rich black shadows on the rocks.

The same view as above but with a walker in the shot to provide scale and perspective.

Back Tor from The Edge.

Looking along Derwent Edge against the light.

Looking back along the Edge towards White Tor.

The Wheelstones.

Assignment 4: a critical review; Ansel Adams

After much thought I have decided to use Ansel Adams as my subject for Assignment 4's critical review.  Of the suggested photographers I quickly dismissed Robert Adams.  Although socially important, perhaps of the same genre as John Kippin and Chris Wainright in' Furtureland' and 'Futureland Now' and certainly in tune with Henri Cartier-Bresson when he criticised Ansel Adams and Edward Weston for playing about photographing rocks and trees when the world was going to pieces, it is not a style of photography I enjoy.  I think that John Fowles would be approving of his work as he says in his introduction to Fay Godwin's 'Land' how he dislikes a lot of Landscape Photography as it portrays the world as a falsely beautiful place and the practitioners ignore the ugly in the world.  Fay certainly did not ignore the mundane and the ugly but she does manage to make it look beautiful at the same time.  I was tempted to use Fay as the subject of my essay for this reason and also as I am familiar of many of the landscapes she portrays.  She was also a walker and a president of the Ramblers Association.  I also really love the work of Galen Rowell who was also a mountaineer and visited many of the remote regions of the world.  I like his approach where he deliberately rated his film stock at a higher ISO than it actually was in order to achieve richly saturated colours.  I really enjoy the rich black and white images of Ansel Adams and Edward Weston.  I decided to choose Adams partly because I like his images but also because I have a fascination with Yosemite, although I have never been to America never mind Yosemite itself.  My fascination with the valley, though, began more years ago than I care to remember when I was a member of my college mountaineering society.  During that time Mick Burke (later killed on Everest) came to give a lecture on 'Big Wall Climbing' and showed many fabulous images of Yosemite Valley.  I was smitten and it wasn't long afterwards before I came across the work of Ansel Adams.  In his youth Adams was also a mountaineer and this, too, drew me to him.  I have thought about current landscape photographers such as Joe Cornish or David Noton but felt that Ansel Adams was more seminal.

I include here my first thoughts on my review.

Brief biography
Why I chose him
Influences, Early years and Yosemite/Pictorialsm v. Modernism
Other work - i.e. conservation, and letters
Group F64
Previsualisation and Equivalence
Zone system
Style of photography - Sharp focus through out, rich b&w, exposing/printing for the highlights and reducing shadows to nearly black, smooth papers
Colour work
His importance. In his lifetime often hard up for money and not really publicised until he was nearly in his 70s.
His lasting influence

Ansel Adams: Photography from the Mountains to the Sea. National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. December 14th 2012

This major exhibition of Ansel Adams work features images that I am familiar with but also many that were new to me.  It focuses on one of Adams' favourite subjects: water.  The exhibition explores water in all its forms, from turbulent views of rapids and waterfalls to quieter more restful scenes of rivers and lakes.  As the exhibition title suggests there are images of water in all stages of the water cycle: clouds, mountain steams and also ice and snow in the mountains, lowland lakes and rivers and finally the sea.  We also see images of geysers, notably 'Old Faithful' taken in Yellowstone National Park.  The exhibition is divided into sections which cover all of these areas and each begins with a delightful quote from the great man.  There are also excerpts from two documentary films which I have since found on You Tube and look forward to watching in full.  The size of the images displayed ranges from tiny prints of some of his very early work to huge prints that he produced for the American Trust Company building in San Francisco in the 1950s.  These were so large that the only way that he could print them he hung sheets of printing paper on the wall of his darkroom and then projected the image from his enlarger horizontally across the darkroom.  Because the final size of the images was to be larger than any paper available he printed them in sections and carefully joined them together.  If the prints are carefully observed the joins can still be seen.  Unusually the photographs are sepia toned with egg-yolk brown to complement the warmth of the ornate interior of the room in which they were to be hung.  All of the images in the exhibition are originals printed by Adams himself, with the exception of one.

We begin with his early forays into photography with his box brownie.  At first his photographs are influenced by the Pictorialists who made pictures that looked like paintings or drawings.  Edward Weston was to refer to the Pictorialists as those 'Fuzzy Wuzzies'.  Gradually, and particularly after the First World War, a harder-edged style of photography developed which became known as Photographic Modernism.  Adams was one of the leading figures in this new movement.  We hear later in the exhibition of the F64 Group formed by Adams, Weston and Imogen Cunningham.  The group took its name from f-stop 64, the smallest aperture available and which produced the sharpest images across the whole image.  This characterised Adams work, especially after 1932.

We learn that Adams liked to take and display sequences of images.  Examples of this in the exhibition are his Surf Sequence, Shipwreck series and a series of images of Old Faithful, the geyser in Yellowstone National Park. 

When photographing the turbulence of surf or mountain streams  Adams liked to use a fast shutter speed in order to freeze the spray.  The exhibition tells us that he 'Froze Motion in Time'.  Although he does use longer exposures to produce motion blur as in Early Morning Merced River, Yosemite Valley taken in 1950, he more often than not tires to freeze moving water, whether it be waterfalls, rapids or surf.  I wonder if today with the trend in ultra long exposures, often facilitated by Lee's 'Big Stopper' ND filter, some photographers hark back to Pictorialsm with their painterly images.  Personally I feel that both have a place and neither style should be adopted to the exclusion of the other in order to achieve variety.  An example of an image where he really captures 'water frozen in time' is 'Wave' taken on Pebble Beach, California in 1968.  The breaking surf is frozen beautifully and every drop can be seen; it sparkles against the light.  The water is also perfectly exposed whilst the background is dark, almost black.  We are told that he achieved this during the printing process, printing the shadows very dark so they are nearly back.  The initial exposure is also carefully calculated using his 'Zone System'.  In fact he frowned on exposure bracketing stating in the documentary that "Bracketing is a sign of insecurity.  You don't really know what you are doing!".
Sometimes even his fasted exposure were not quick enough to freeze all motion and we see some slight motion blur in shots such as those of Upper Yosemite Falls.  One quote says "In capturing bursting spray from rocks the photographer must be hair trigger alert for the moment."  We are reminded of Cartier-Bresson's 'decisive moment'.  Adams also says "A great photograph is one that fully expresses what one feels in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed.".

Adam's didn't always photograph expansive wide-angled views, often excluding the horizon and concentrating on the 'Intimate Landscape', reminiscent of Eliot Porter.  The images of Snow and Ice in the exhibition are richly black and white and largely feature no horizon.  There is even a section entitled Surface and Texture which, while not exactly macro shot, are very definitely close-ups.  All are incredibly detailed.  Another of his quotes in this section says, "We must remember that a photograph can hold just as much as we put into it, and no one has ever approached the full possibilities of the medium.

In the section on Waterfalls we read that Adams believes that we can express experience and feelings through photography.  He refers to this a s 'Equivalency', meaning that the image should express the photographer's emotional state at the time it was made.  He says, "When I see something I react to it and I state it, and that's the equivalent of what I felt. So I give it to you as a spectator, and you get it or you don't get it, but there's nothing on the back of the print that tells you what you should get!".  In Waterwheel Falls, Yosemite, c1948, Adams returns to the valley after an assignment in Hawaii which he didn't enjoy and disaffected with the art world.  The picture shows the fall in spate; 'a thunderous, pulsating torrent, with crosscurrents erupting in fountains of spray.  It conveys the elation he felt in the presence of nature and his delight at being back in Yosemite.'.

In the two documentary extracts we learn that Adams was one of the first people to realise that the environment would become a social issue.  Before him photographers such as Dorothea Lange were social documentary photographers concentrating on the social issues of the time such as homelessness and the Great Depression.  In fact Cartier-Bresson said, " While the world is going to pieces, Weston and Adams photograph rocks and trees.  We also learn in the documentaries about the fastidious way he worked in the darkroom in order to produce prints just as he visualised them.  He would often print the same negative several times with a different result each time.  He likened photography to music, referring to the negative as the musical score which is fixed and the print as the orchestral performance which is open to interpretation.  It is during the documentaries that we also learn that he prints for the highlights, especially in water, often reducing the shadow to nearly black.  We hear him looking to the future and predicting the digital revolution and being excited by the idea. 

Towards the end of the exhibition is one of my all time favourite Adams photographs is 'Clearing Winter Storm, Yosemite c1937.  One of his most famous images it is generally thought to be a dramatic image of Yosemite Valley.  It is, however, a wonderful example of a photograph of water in all its forms: massive storm clouds, rain sweeping in, ice and snow on the high ground and Bridalveil Fall.  Vapour, liquid, solid.

Edinburgh at Night

I recently spent the weekend in Edinburgh staying with my son who is also into photography.  We had been planning to indulge in some night photography around the city and, as it was the Christmas Market and Fair, it seemed  a good opportunity.  All of the images were taken using a tripod, mirror lock up and electronic release.

I took this image just about Grassmarket at sunset.  I deliberately exposed for the sky to show the rich colours and also to reduce the buildings to a silhouette.

The castle.  I exposed for the castle and then, in Lightroom 4, used an ND Grad to bring out some detail in the shy but used the shadows slider to recover a little detail in the foreground.

I liked the contrast in temperature here with the cool colours of the floodlit castle contrasting with the warm lighting on the fountain in the foreground.

A sunset shot of Victoria Street above Grassmarket.  Here I took 3 images exposing for sky, shadows and midtones and then blended them in post processing.

Again I liked the contrast between cool and warm colours.  The window of opportunity to get the deep blue in the sky at twilight was about 10 minutes.

Another image taken at the same location as above.  Here I converted it to monochrome and then sepia toned it and added a little grain.

Light trails from traffic in Victoria Street.

Again another image at the same location converted to black and white and sepia toned in Lightroom.

Christmas in Princess Street Gardens.  Perhaps a little distant and too many black areas.

I zoomed in somewhat to concentrate on the action.  I had to time the shot carefully to catch the decisive moment when the carousel and big wheel were both stationary.

A fun shot zooming during the exposure.

The casltle from Calton Hill.

Princess Street from Calton Hill.  This time I opted to expose while the big wheel was truning to poduce a circle of light.

Joel Meyerowitz: Cape Light

When I first looked through this book my initial impression that these were not my taste in photography.  At first they reminded me of a faded 70s look that I didn't appreciate.  However, the more I looked through them the more I came to appreciate them.  Not all have that faded look and many are in fact rich and saturated which is what I prefer.  Some are sharp right through in the Ansel Adams mode whereas others are soft and pastel with a painterly feel to them, perhaps more reminiscent of the portraitists from the early years of the 20th century.  When I visited Ansel Adams' exhibition in Greenwich 'Photography from the Mountains to the Sea' I was interested to see that a few of the images there were also taken at Cape Cod.  In fact 'Churches', taken in Truro, Cape Cod reminded me very much of some Meyerowitz's images of clapboard buildings.  In this book, I liked the way that he has taken several images of the same scene at different times of day and in different lighting.  It is amazing how the view changes.  One example of this is the Bay/Sky series taken on the beach at Provincetown.  I also like the way that he has used longer exposures to introduce movement into some images such as Cocktail Party taken at Wellfleet where most of the figures have sight movement blue but the girl who seems to be the main  focus of the shot has stood totally still and is pin sharp.  Another example is the picture of washing drying on a Clothes line in Provincetown.  It is obviously a windy day and, although everything else in the image is pin sharp the exposure was long enough to create movement blur in the washing.

In his forward to the book, Clifford S Ackley (associate curator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) tells us that many of the images have a frankly poetic or romantic flavour.  He goes on to say that Joel Meyerowitz explores the different light of Cape Cod and often took the same scene in different conditions.  He tells us that he successfully made the jump from monochrome street photography to early colour landscapes.  He also moved from 35mm to a large 8x10 field camera.

The book then moves on to record a conversation between Meyerowitz and Bruce MacDonald (Dean of the Museum School and a personal friend).  In his brief introduction to this conversation (a format chosen rather than a more formal introduction) MacDonald says that all of Joel's work is characterised by a balance of craft and feeling.  Craft includes deft manipulation of camera and darkroom equipment, interaction with subjects and aesthetic judgements about shape, colour, picture edge, sequencing and all the other aspects of seeing photographically.  Feeling is the emotional response to experience.  He says of Meyerowitz that he has the courage or fearlessness to allow the sensation of experience, especially visual experience, to flow through him at much higher amperage than most of us.  He has become so sensitive that vision itself is now his subject.

At the beginning of the conversation between then, MacDonald explores Joel's early life and career.  We learn of his Bronx upbringing and how his father taught him to box in order to be able to look after himself on the streets.  He relates how this upbringing helped his early career as a street photographer.  The conversation moves on to why Meyerowitz is now using colour and 8x10 format.  He says that he wanted to see and experience more feelings from a photograph and he wanted larger images that would more fully describe things and with greater cohesion.  Slow-speed colour film provided that.  When asked what inspires him to take a photograph, he replies that it is instinctive.  He suggests that sometimes he can be standing in front of something so entranced that he almost forgets to press the shutter until he tries to tear himself away.  It's at that breakaway moment, when he wants to move with the camera that he realises; 2Stay!  You're being spoken to - answer!"

MacDonald asks him about the difference between black and white and colour.  Joel tells us that colour is responsive to the full spectrum of light, whereas black and white is sensitive to a much narrower wavelength, similar to the rods and cones in our eyes and why at night we only see in shades of black and grey but with a long enough exposure the camera will record all colours as seen in Project 27.  He goes on to say that black and white expresses light as a matter of intensity; there is no meaning attached to the light.  Colour makes everything more interesting and he even suggests that light itself is a subject.  He tells us that his work on Cape Cod is about light.  MacDonald suggests that compared to his monochrome work, these images have a simplicity.  "Less is more", he says.  The conversation regarding his inspiration continues and we learn that the images are all about colour, light and shapes and come from within.  This is comparable with Adams' comment in Examples that "Professional work depends on assignments from without, whereas creative work stems from assignments from within."  Another of Adams' comments concurs with Meyerowitz, when he says "I can only say that I photograph what appears aesthetically beautiful and what I can visualise as a photograph worth creating for myself and, I hope, for others."  In other words Ansel Adams' work also comes from within.  Joel also tells us that when he sees the image upside down on the ground glass focusing screen, he sees a different image and this inspires him to take the shot.

Meyerowitz is asked who influenced him.  His first influence and the man who made him resign as an art director, buy a camera and go out on the streets was Robert Frank.  He then mentions people he met on the streets of New York and worked alongside.  People such as Lee Friedlander, Dianne Arbus and especially Garry Winogrand.  He reserves special mention, though, for his meetings with Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Truly inspirational images and a fascinating read.

Project 26: shooting the moon 4

As mentioned in my second post for this project, the Photographer's Ephemeris told me that the next occasion when I could shoot the full moon rising over the horizon at twilight was on 28th and 29th November.  Unfortunately nobody informed the weatherman and on both nights a large bank of cloud totally obscured the sky.  The moon did, however, appear later in the evening but too late and too high in the sky to include any foreground.  I did, however take the opportunity to take the image below.

Project 27: by the light of the moon

Although I am not especially pleased with the photograph, I am absolutely amazed at the result, although it was what I expected.  It looks just as if it was taken in daylight, even down to the shadows cast by the moon.  I chose a night of a full moon to do this project, in fact it was a full moon that rose just after the sun had set so I had hoped for some spectacular images for project 26 but, unfortunately the weather had different ideas and the sky was covered with cloud and it was raining.  By 8.00 pm, though the sky had cleared somewhat and I decided to attempt this project.  I drove out of town so that the picture would not be affected by the light pollution.  I placed the camera  on the tripod, set mirror lock-up and enabled noise reduction for long exposures.  Then using bulb and my electronic release took an exposure of 8 minutes at f4 having used the course notes as a guide.  The red dot on the right of the horizon is the aircraft warning light on to top of a nearby mast.

What have I learned?
Firstly I have learned that it is entirely feasible to take photographs in the darkness given a long enough exposure.  Our eyes have two different types of sensory cells: rods and cones.  Cones are responsive to bright light and provide us with our colour vision during the day.  Rods are very sensitive to light and allow us to see at night and under low light conditions but do not respond well to colour; hence a moonlit scene appears almost colourless and the sky black.  The camera film or sensor does not have this restriction, however, and given a long enough exposure will produce an image as if it were daylight.
I found focusing somewhat of a problem and, consequently, the picture is not as sharp as I would have liked.  Composing the shot was also a bit of guesswork.  Although there were clouds, it was quite breezy and they were moving quickly across the sky and so do not appear sharp.  I had hoped that I might have captured some star trails but there were very few stars present.
I am now intrigued by this procedure and shall certainly have another go.  It has always been an ambition to photograph star trails and I shall take the next opportunity.

Assignment 3: a linking theme; Water. Response to Tutor's comments.

Again I was absolutely delighted with my tutor's response to this assignment.  I presented 8 images and he was more than complimentary about 6 of them.  The second he felt that I could reduce the colour temperature slightly and increase the white slider a touch to give more sparkle to the sea spray.  This I have done as shown below and also printed out.  The sixth image was the only one not well received also he stresses that the comment is subjective.  It was felt that it has too much cyan (perhaps a colour cast caused by using an ND filter to achieve a long exposure)  and the long exposure, combined with too much cyan has produced a surreal effect that does not fit with the rest of the submission.  I have adjusted the image as suggested and reproduce it here and have also reprinted it.  Several of my alternative images were suggested as replacements and I have selected the one illustrated here.

In this image I have reduced the clour temperature a touch as suggested and also increased the whites to give some sparkle to the spray.

Here I have adjusted the white balance to auto as suggested.  I am not all sure about this and think I prefer my version.  Auto WB gives a colour temperature of 5100k whereas my original version I set a colour temperature of 4856k.  As it came out of the camera it was 4750k and definitely much more blue.  At the end of the day I shall replace this with the image below. 

This shot of Pollenca Bay in Mallorca was taken at dawn just before the sun rose above the horizon. The sky is suffused with orange and this is perfectly reflected in the waters of the bay. The masts of the yachts are also reflected. The image embodies feelings of peace and calm.  I also love the relationship of the complimentary colours of orange and blue particularly in the print.

I may now change the order of the sequence of images and include the sunset at the end.

Jitka Hanzlova, National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh. November 17th.

Jitka Hanzlova defected from the communist regime and settled in Essen, West Germany.  Her work is a constant pursuit of the relationship between the individual and the context in which he/she lives.  The exhibition begins with Rokytnik, the village where she grew up in Czech Eastern Bohemia.  She took the photographs between 1990 - 1994 after the fall of communism when she was able to return.  The village was still old-fashioned and living in the past.  The images evoke her childhood, a time long past and is a mixture of landscapes and portraits.

The second part of the exhibition is entitled Bewohner (German for inhabitants).  She took the pictures between 1994 and 1996.  They feature Berlin and Essen but also other european cities.  They are pale and old-fashioned photographs and again evoke a time long past.  They are a mix of portraits and cityscapes.

The exhibition moves on to Forest, produced between 2000 and 2005.  It continues the cycle of work about the village where she grew up; it is the forest of her childhood.  The pictures are largely landscapes and make the forest appear dark and gloomy, a place of dreams and nightmare.  I think that she looks back to her childhood nostalgically and refers to the experiences of her youth, but, she says that the forest has a powerful existential quality- as life source, as the darkness in which we sometimes find ourselves and from which we emerge into light.  Does she refer to a childhood and youth repressed by a communist regime?  For her the forest is critical to human survival, for the exchange of oxygen, the cultivation of flora and fauna and the growth of micro-organisms.

Flowers 2008 onwards are wonderful still lifes.  They are beautifully lit and reminiscent of the work of Robert Mapplethorpe.  I liked one, in particular, of a dying delicate flower in beautiful oranges set against  a velvety black background.  In this section she recalls the fleeting nature of existence and the inevitability of death.  It also relates to the influence of the renaissance portrait in which black backgrounds were used to intensify the luminosity of the subject.

Brixton 2002 comprises photographs of Afro-Caribbean women against the backdrop of the urban environment.

Section six of the exhibition is entitled "Here" and the pictures were taken in 1998 and from 2003 - 2010.  They are photographs of Essen and capture the detail of a western industrialized city being taken back by nature, seen in images of stunted vegetation, cracked walls and isolated buildings.  Again they are pale and nostalgic, like faded 1960s transparencies.

Horses, taken from 2007 onwards are unusual portraits of the subjects from strange angles and odd close-ups.  Not my style at all.

The final part of the exhibition is entitled "There is Something I Don't Know"  and the photographs are taken betyween 2000 and 2012.  They are all portraits inspired by the renaissance tradition of portraiture.  They are the product of an intimate rapport between the subject and the photographer.  They are brighter, more saturated than other images in the exhibition and for me more appealing.  Again, as with many other protraits, many are not making eye contact with the camera.  I mention this only as some protraits that I took for People and Place were criticised by my (then) tutor for not making eye contact.

Largely the pictures in this exhibition are not to my taste. Although often nostalgic I often find the ideas behing the images quite dark.  I am reminded to a degree of some of the work of William Egglestone, perhaps early Martin Parr and to some extent Joel Meyerowitz.  I am much more attracted to the rich colours and black and whites of Galen Rowell, Edward Weston and Ansel Adams.  Despite this I found the exhibition interesting.  It certainly worked from the perspective that it gor me thinking: did she have a dark childhood, are the images deliberately undersaturated to give a nostalgic feel, does she remember her youth with fondess or dislike.

What have I learned?
I suppose that I haven't learned that not all photography is to my taste and nor should it be, but it has reinforced this in my mind.  It also pointed out that photography, even landscape photograhy, can be used as a social commentary and as a form of autobiography.

Reflections 6

Just a quick noet to record the fact that I have now calibrated my monitor and successfully downloaded the printer profiles for the Permajet papers that I use.  I found downloading and installing the printer profiles extremely straightforward thanks to the very clear instuructions that I downloaded from the Imaging Warehouse website.  It was easy to copy them to the folder that both Lightroom 4 and Photoshop Elements can see.  I have printed on both Permajet Oyster and Portfolio papers and am delighted with the results.  The only slight technical hitch was that the Epson 2880 didn't immediatley recognise the change from the photoblack to matte black cartridge.  Hopefully this is not going to be too much of a problem.  The next stage is to download the Hahnemuhle profiles.

Project 32: a variety of images

Recently, whilst on a visit to the Cairngorm Mountains in Scotland, I took the opportunity to enjoy a walk above the Uath Lochans in Glen Feshie.  I was able to take a wide angle view from the ridge above the lochans and then zoomed in to take a series of telephoto shots from the same location.  In some I included the sky and in others not.  Some are portrait, others landscape format.

A wide angle view of the lochans and the Caringorm Mountains beyond.

Here I zoomed into the right hand lochan to show the reflections.  I took more reflection shots when I returned to the lochans.  They were amazing,

Telephoto view of the left hand lake.

A vertical shot concentrating on the nearby ancient Caledonian pines.

Another vertical shot.

A horizontal telephoto, this time including some sky.

On returning to the valley I enjoyed photographing the wonderful reflections in the lochans.

Reflection in Uath Lochan

Another reflection

What have I learned.
I have a tendency when photographing landscapes to use a wide angle with something near in the foreground and everything sharp from front to back.  I generally use a tripod and small aperture to achieve this.  I need to remember to use a telephoto from timeto time to look at more intimate detail in landscapes in the same way that both Eliot Porter and Ansel Adams did..  Both vertical and horizontal formats should be explored and the sky need not be included.

Project 26: Shooting the moon 3

Last weekend I was staying with my son in Edinburgh and we had gone up to Calton Hill to take a night scene over Edinburgh at twilight.  As we neared the observatory I noticed this crescent moon in just the right spot to include it and the observatory.  I had left my 100-400 lens behind but fortubately my son had his 70-210 with him.  I took the shot at the 210 setting which made the moon reasonably large in the frame but also allowed me to include some of the observatory.

A Week in the Cairngorms



 I have just returned from a very enjoyable and successful week of wildlife and landscape photography in Glen Feshie in the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland and have included a selection of my photographs below.

The main thrust of the week was wildlife photography as we were staying as the guests of Northshots and using their purpose built hides.

Although common it is hard to resist blue tits.  In bird photography it helps the shot to have an attractive perch and a clean uncluttered background is desirable.

Although related to the blue tit this crested tit is much more rare.  In the UK it is only found in the ancient Caledonian Pine forests of the Cairngorm Mountains.  Not only does it need ancient pine forest it requires rotten, but standing trees in order to dig its nest holes.  A very special bird.

Another target species was the red squirrel which is common in these northern forests.  They can be attracted for photography by providing hazelnuts.  The streaks in the image are caused by rain.

Like the Blue Tits, difficult to resist.

 Although the emaphasis was on wildlife photography, the wonderful landscape cannot be ignored.

Late autumn colour provided by larch and silver birch trees.

My attempt to be 'arty'.  A drag shot of pine trees with the colour temperature turned right down.

Beuatiful reflections in Uath Lochan

More Uath Lochan reflections.

I find the northern birch woods very attractive.  I was thinking of Ansel Adams and Eliot Porter here and concentrating on the 'intimate landscape'

A shot I will use as part of the project on shooting at night.  There is no light pollution at all in the upper reaches of Glen Feshie and one night was absolutely clear of clouds.  The night sky was stunning - there is no space for even one more star.

Ansel Adams: Examples - The Making of 40 Photographs

In this fascinating and inspirational book Ansel Adams explains in great detail his inspiration behind, the photographing and processing of 40 of his most famous images.  The book begins with an interesting introduction by Adams himself.  In the introduction he tells us that he cannot remember exactly when some of his photographs were taken and, in some cases only an approximate date is given.  He made notes of exposure details but neglected to keep them after developing the negative.  He does, however, recall in deep and fascinating detail the developing of the film and printing the negatives.  Although he says in the introduction that he has forgotten equipment details, he does seem to give a great insight into this in each commentary.  He compares himself to Edward Weston and Minor White, who kept meticulous  diaries and record of their images, even down to the time of day.

In his early, and self-confessed more active years  Ansell Adams often climbed precipitous mountain sides and cliff faces carrying a 61/2x81/2 Korona view camera, lenses, filters, a heavy wooden tripod and 12 plates.  No mean feat considering how easy it is to be tempted today to leave the tripod in the car when going mountain walking, or even just to take a compact.  He often remembers such fascinating details as how cold it was climbing a gulley with patches of snow and ice remaining.  When writing about Monolith, The Face of Half Dome in Yosemite, he recalls that this image was the first time he consciously previsualized the effect that he wanted.  Over the years he bacame increasingly aware of the importance of vizualisation.  This is a fabulously rich black and white image with the blue sky rendered almost black through the use of filtration.

In the commentary of his portrait of Alfred Stieglitz, we are reminded of the danger of taking many images in the hope that one will be good - a much greater danger in the digital age.  He says that in a sequence of exposures there is always one better than the others, but that doesn't mean it is a fine photograph.

The image of the Base of Upper Yosemite Fall taken c1950 is a close up photograph of the detail of falling water.  Adams suggests that, although the wider, inclusive view may be striking, the more intimate, close-up views reveal more.  The wider view, he says "-may not interpret the direct excitement and beauty of the mountain world as incisively as sections, fragments and close details."  This fits perfectly with project 28 from the course: The Intimate Landscape and he does, in fact refer to Eliot Porter.

Although I have never been to America, the Golden Gate Bridge is iconic for all.  It was fascinating then to see an image of The Golden Gate before the bridge.  He relates that when taking this shot he waited and waited for the cloud composition to be just right.  How often to we take the photograph and move on.  I once read an article that suggested that the most underused part of a landscape photographer's anatomy is his backside.

In the commentary for Boards and Thistles, taken in San Francisco, California c1932, we hear of the formation of the f64 group with a group of fellow photographers who shared a common photographic style characterized by sharp focus and carefully framed images as a foil to the Pictorialists.  He says, "For anyone trained in music or visual arts, the shallow sentimentalism of the 'fuzzy-wuzzies' (as Weston called them) was anathema, especially when they boasted of their importance in 'Art'"  He takes pride in Group F64's command of 'the craft' of photography in which they felt the Pictorialists were lacking.  By 'craft' I assume he means technical skills.  He says Pictorialists often printed in brown or sepia tones and Adams says that Group F64 sought purity of image - sharp optical qualities, in-depth focus and smooth papers.  At the time he didn't realise that they shared the same values as Alfred Stiegliitz.

I love the image Moonrise taken in Hernandez, New Mexico, 1941.  A beautiful photograph of the moon rising above a bank of gleaming white cloud topping a distant mountain range.  He says that this is his single most popular image.  I have been taking pictures of the moon for project 26; would that I had captured an image such as this.  Apart from the beauty of the picture, the thing that stands out for me is the patience and effort that he puts into printing, including dodging and burning and even, years later, the partial reprocessing of the negative.  Another moon image that would be perfect for Project 26 is Moon and Half Dome taken in Yosemite in 1960

El Capitan, Winter Sunrise, Yosemite, 1968 must rank as one of my favourite images of all time.  I remember back to my college days (1967-70) attending a lecture by Mick Burke (later killed on Everest) about climbing on El Capitan and being captivated by the images.  I have been inspired by Yosemite ever since.  Galen Rowell's images engender similar emotions.  Yet I have never been to America let alone Yosemite; still who knows!  This is a stunning and mysterious image with the 3000ft cliff wreathed in early morning mist.  How brilliantly Adams has controlled the dynamic range of the scene with techniques that today are reminiscent of alchemy.

Lodgepole Pines, an early 1921 image is an unusual soft focus one.  He says that one positive element was the impression of light suggested by the diffused image produced by a soft-focus lens.

In Early Morning Merced River Autumn I noted that again Adams has worked in quite close.  A reminder to me to use more close-ups in my own work rather than wide angle shots all of the time.  This is also an example of the value of working 'in the home patch'.  He knew this view well and just had to wait for the right lighting conditions.  Again a great deal of detail is given about the dark room process.  Maybe we shouldn't be so worried about post processing to get it right.  Again he refers to his 'Zone System' of exposure calculation.

In Sand Dunes Sunrise, 1948, we get the first intimation that Ansel Adams worked in colour as well as black and white.  He produced two images of this: the B&W shown and a colour version.  I would love to see the colour one.  This has beautiful detail as usual and is sharp from the ripples in the sand in the foreground to the mountains on the horizon.  Interestingly, as the sun is low in the sky, it (the sky) is unaffected by the yellow filter and so appears white.  Mention is made of technical advances; he predicts the advent of the electronic image, hoping that the 'creative eye will continue to function, whatever technological innovations may develop.

In the two images of Aspens, 1958, Adams has again closed in and excluded the sky.  In fact he has gone to great lengths to do so in order to avoid white patches from the very bright, and therefore ove-exposed sky.  Again he discusses the possibility of a colour photograph and the need to use filtration to compensate for the cool blue light.  Nowadays we would adjust the white balance, either in camera or in post-processing.  Again I was intrigued by the complex dark room procedures and the selection of a film developer with known effects on the emulsion.  This discussion of the deveolping and printing process is a recurrent theme in many of his examples and it makes me think that we are not demons in the digital age of post processing.  Although, having just read an interview of Charlie Waite, we must be cautious of overdoing it.

Mount Williamson, 1944, is a fabulous image of a boulder field in front of an imposing mountain range.  Again it is sharply focused from front to back.  The photograph is taken against the light with beautiful sunbeams lancing through the mountains.  Standing on the camera platform on the top of his car, he used  an 8x10 view camera tilted slightly forward to capture the low foreground boulders but was able to tilt the camera back to hold both foreground rocks and mountains in sharp focus.  Attention to detail.

Not only is Tenaya Creek, 1948 another detailed intimate landscape, it is also taken in the rain - a lesson to all and a reminder as well that if we work in colour we often get greater colour saturation in the wet.  A good time to take intimate landscapes.

In Farm Family, c1953, Adams was working on a professional assignment.  He describes the pressures of this: " Professional work depends on 'assignments from without'.  Creative work stems from 'assignments from within' "  He also says in the next featured image, Silverton, 1951: "I can only say that I photogrpah what appears aesthetically beautiful and what I can visualise as a photograph worth creating for myself and, I hope, for others'.  These are my sentiments exactly and I, personally. don't like photographs that focus on the ugly and make it look ugly.  This, perhaps, has a function in landscape photography when it is used as a social commentary but it is not what I appreciate.  In John Fowles introductory essay to Fay Godwin's book Land, he states that he disagrees with landscape photographers that paint a sentimental view of the countryside and pretend that the ugly doesn't exist.  Godwin manages to include the 'ugly' yet still make it appear beautiful.

Clearing Winter Storm taken in Yosemite in 1940 is another of my long time favourite images.  Adams says of it that it is often used for environmental purposes but that he has never consciously taken an environmental image.  I was fascinated by the care and attention that he took to position the camera and frame the image.  He gives this sort of detail in other shots too such as Arches taken in Tuscon, Arizona in 1968.

All in all this is a wonderfully inspiring book that has given me much pleasure.  I shall refer to it for inspiration again and again.  I look forward to going to the Ansel Adams exhibition at the Greewich Maritime Museum: Photography from the Mountains to the Sea in a few weeks time on December 14th.

Project 31: telephoto views-compressing planes

I rarely use a telephoto lens for landscape photography, so it was refreshing, whilst up in North Yorkshire this last weekend to explore opportunities for it's use.  I found fewer opportunities for  including a distant range of hills or ridges so I need to look for the chance more often.

I liked the shape and autumn oclours of this oak tree growing next to, but slightly apart from the wood on the left.  The focal length of 135mm has compressed the ridges in the fields and emphasised the crop lines.

The track here makes a good lead line towards the barn.  I liked its s-shape curve.  The longer focal length of 115mm has compressed the distance between the track bend and the barn.  Using the longer lens has empahasised the atmospheric haze in the distance.

Here I have included too much out of focus foreground.  The long lens has compressed the distance between the ridges.  210mm.

The same oak tree but from a slightly different angle.  A focal length of 105mm has compressed the distance between the tree and the wood.

I used 100mm here to focus on the autumn colour.

The focal length of 150mm has compressed the undulations in the track to make them appear closer together.

A 100mm focal length here has again compressed the undulations and the vertical format has perhaps emphasised this.

I placed this oak tree on the intersection of thirds.  The 100mm focal length has compressed the undulations in the field and emphasised the crop lines.  More emphahsis has been placed on the tree than would have been possible with a wider angle lens.

I took this shot at from Whitby west pier a couple of years ago.  The 400mm focal length has compressed the headlands.  It has also emphasised the haze from the sea sparay and made the image rather cool.

What have I learned? Telephoto lenses are excellent at picking out detail in the landscape that would be lost with a wide angle view.  It also allows a great deal of options from one location.  The compression of distance often gives a pleasing effect.  I need to look for more telephoto opportunities.  I think that one reason I don't use one often is that I only have the canon 100-400 which is a heavy beast to carry around.  Whilst the 100-400 is an excellent lens, I sometimes think of buying a lighter weight 100-200 to keep in my bag.