SoFoBoMo: the preparations

As this idea has stemmed from the NaNoWriMo, an important aspect to bear in mind is the community feel. There is the notion of participants supporting one another in their efforts throughout the month. In that spirit, I'm going to post about my efforts along the way - comments & help are encouraged. Until April, it'll be a few posts on preparing but hopefully a lot of posts through the month to capture my process and thoughts.

First up is the whole idea of preparation. I reckon there are a few basics that I need to get straight before I start the whole thing.

Subject: I want to present something fairly cohesive along a theme. A novel rather than a collection of short stories. Obviously it also needs to be something that can be put together in a short space of time. I pretty sure now what i want to do based on an idea that came to me reading Dave Beckerman's recent posts on grain elevators (although my subject will have absolutely nothing in common with that). It's also an opportunity to experiment a little.

Place: this is tricky. I have no idea what work I'll be doing (day job) or what travel I may have to do so I need to have enough flexibility to shoot anywhere. Usually I play off this uncertainty to widen my thoughts but SoFoBoMo will need a little more certainty given the time pressure.

Publishing: I'm going to have to learn the mechanics of putting together a book in PDF format. that means finding some software that will allow me to do the job without forking out $500. No Adobe InDesign for me. The mechanics of this bit need to smooth so I don't need weeks of fighting the computer - that's against the whole spirit.

Medium: as I shoot in a variety of formats I need to nail it. I'll stick to the DSLR - I'm very comfortable with it and it gives me speed and flexibility. I envisage needing to take a lot of exposures to get 35 images together. I'm actually going to target 50 to make sure I do get 35. I think I'll abandon my initial thoughts of 1 roll, 1 afternoon as I did with my bicycles theme.

SoFoBoMo is go

What's that tongue twister? The Solo Photo Book Month. Read about the launch here. Kudos to Paul Butzi for putting this together, I think it's going to be a great project. Needless to say, I'm signed up.

Considered randomness

Thicket, Wiltshire, December 2007

Following on from the discussion at the Landscapist about apparently random photography, I've been looking at (and comparing) quite a number of landscape photographs. I've been looking at the distinctions between the traditionally composed images, especially "Grand Scenic", and more intimate work. Some of the latter has a distinctly composed feel, some has that air of randomness.

What this came to was thought on what made the seemingly random into good photography (there's also a lot of really random rubbish). For me it came down to a balance of elements with no distractions. let me explain. Often when I look at photographs, my own included, I see distracting elements, especially around the edges that draw the eye away from the subject. Removal of these is central to my cropping philosophy. The good shots have an even balance. there is also, though, a distribution of large and small elements, lines that lead this way and that and a depth to the subjects that passes beyond mere foreground-background or careful layers.

This balance of elements - the lack of distraction, the large and small and a sense of depth - are then, for me, the things that make the seemingly random into good photography. Of course, to produce such work consistently (I'm ignoring the luck shot) requires a good eye for detail and careful though about composition. Just like any other good photography.

This working of these elements into good images is what I have dubbed "considered randomness". It is, for me, one of the strongest yet hardest to create forms of photography.

Time I tried ColorNeg

Bratton Church from Combe Hill, Wiltshire, December 2007

After Colin Jago's positive experience, now Colin Griffiths has taken it up (along with large format photography). Looks like ColorNeg is something to try for colour negative scanning. I'm already getting good results for black and white with a scan as positive approach but colour is a little more resistant to simple workflow and I'm not entirely happy with the results from Silverfast AI in negative mode.
Even if the ultimate output will be monochrome (from colour film) a good colour conversion is needed to start with. It should help with my scanning of some of my old film, too, for which Silverfast doesn't have a profile anyway.

Portfolio updates

Having put together quite a lot of new material and reworked a few old images, I've updated my portfolio page. The main change is the addition of a new portfolio collection for my developing series on Wiltshire.

I've also corrected a few of those I had already posted for proper colour space and some sharpening tweaks.

A category for Lightzone

Having posted quite a bit about Lightzone, coupled with the fact that I get quite a few search hits, I've collated all of my Lightzone stuff into a new category (find it over on the right).

I'm also going to start an intermittent series on Lightzone suggestions based on handy processing techniques I've discovered. I'll try and make each post thematic. Where I know it, I'll be mentioning equivalents in Photoshop and software with similar workflow.

As I run Lightzone versions 2.4 and 3.2 I'll be referencing techniques in both.

Call for sense in the camera market

dpreview have posted their pre-PMA predictions, mainly as a placeholder for their page for PMA coverage.

The best part, for me, are the calls to manufacturers at the end of the list:

• Fewer pixels please (we care about image quality) - It's a straightforward
  prediction that we'll see fourteen megapixel compacts at PMA, which in our
  opinion will be yet another step back for image quality. Other than subtle
  improvements in image processing overall image quality in compact digital
  cameras hasn't improved since the six megapixel era, to make things worse the
  marketeers have decided that high sensitivity will sell compact cameras. There's
  simply no worse combination than tiny photosites and high gain. So we'd be happy
  to pat any manufacturer on the back who delivers improvements in overall image
  quality without the obvious step in megapixel count (great high ISO performance
  will be a natural consequence of larger photosites and/or larger sensors).
  
• Shelf stuffing - Lastly, please, lets move away from the practice of 'shelf
  stuffing'. That is producing four or five product variations on the exact same
  model with very subtle differences (such as LCD screen size) with the intention
  of getting more shelf space for the brand. It's counter productive as it only
  leads to confuse the consumer and in these days of online purchasing the gains
  of such practices must surely be questionable.

Yes, please. More of that.

Reworking old material (revisited)

After Kjell Harald's comments on my earlier post, here (hopefully) is a better demonstration of the improvements in the workflow. These are 100% crops from an 18" print file (about a 2:1 enlargement of the original). I've also tweaked the images so that they more closely resemble on the screen what would be seen in the print.

Images close to print (original on left, new on right):

100% crops from various areas (original on left, new on right):

The second set of crops I think shows the difference most clearly - more subtle colour, tone & detail.

All of the extra detail is noticeable in a print even at reasonable viewing distances.

Blog reaches 5000!

Sometime this afternoon my counter sauntered past the 5000 mark. It amazes me how a small blog in a crack at the edge of the interweb can reach so many people in so many places.

Thanks for reading and please, keep coming back.

Reworking old material

As I've been working through my Wiltshire series I've been working on a couple of improvements to my workflow. The first is about using black and white to work on tonal adjustments (as I mentioned here) the second is a more refined local enhancement. The latter is revealing more detail in images and yielding some that require no output sharpening at all. I'll probably go into more detail in this at another time.

As for now, I decided to go back to one of my favourite shots of the last 12 months but one that did not print well.

Fallen tree, Stourhead, April 2007

Here is the original I created. Too dark, a lot of detail lost and a really disappointing print. I do, however, really like the subject and composition.

So I decided to put my new workflow to the test, including more advanced sharpening. Here is the result.

Fallen tree, Stourhead, April 2007
This is now the 4th incarnation

This is much improved, it enlarges well, retains far more detail and should result in a great print even at 18".

Rapid autofocus: expectation too far?

With the birth of the new super-Nikon (the D3) and the problems reported with the competition (Canon's 1D mkIII) I was given to pausing for thought.

2 things sprang to mind. First up: will the Nikon be flogged through similar tests to see if it lives up to expectation? Or are no sports shooters going to touch it? That's really an aside.

The second point though relates to the expectations we now place on technology versus some of the practicalities of making that happen. it seems to me, in all the brouhaha that no-one stopped to think if it was even possible for the Canon's autofocus to work under the rapid fire conditions. I will use this as an example but there are more and more instances of this sort of thing. I'll explain what I mean.

So, the 1D mkIII can shoot at 10 fps (frames per second). It does this onto a 10MP sensor of 19x28mm. That's pretty small sensors allowing for some close pixel peeping. Meanwhile the autofocus is supposed to keep up. In 0.1s the camera must do the following (starting from previous shot):

• Lower the mirror
• Settle mirror in place
• Acquire target
• Focus lens
• Lock focus
• Determine exposure (assuming AE)Raise mirror
• Release shutter

The focus part is a tiny fraction of that tiny fraction of a second. It requires a control feedback loop to close (actual open loop on Canon cameras) and a mechanical device to move. This all takes time.

There is then the issue of accuracy. All autofocus systems work within a tolerance of acceptable focus. I believe for Canon this is defined as 1/3 the depth of focus range for the lens wide open. That translates to approximately 1/3 the depth of field for mid-range targets (not exactly, I know but I'm illustrating a point). With a 300mm f/2.8 lens at, say, 50m (DOF +/-1.5m) that's about 50cm tolerance. If the subject is moving slower that 5m/s (50cm/0.1s) then the AF may do nothing at all.

So we now have a situation where the entire system has to focus more accurately than before, on smaller increments of subject movement in an ever shorter time-frame. However, the manufacturing tolerances in the system haven't moved.

I've not even mentioned the issues surrounding getting the mirror back into place. That means any vibration or movement of the bumpers the mirror sits on, or expansion through heating has to be factored in.

I'm specifically trying to prove anything about the particular AF issue, just pointing out the many factors that go into determining if we might expect the results predicted/sold.

At some point we have to get realistic about our expectations. As an engineer part of my job is to try and determine if a solution is feasible or if we can work within the range of expectations in real-life conditions (not just in a controlled lab). That means thinking about some of the principles of the device and it's capabilities and figuring our if all the marketing hype approaches what might be expected. Claims for cameras are starting to quickly diverge from the bounds of feasibility, in my opinion and we need to look more critically at claims before even testing them.

It's all about viewpoint

Gathering Clouds, Wiltshire, December 2007

This appears to be a wide-open, deserted field. Great views for miles. this was taken as the sun fell and clouds rolled in from the West (right of picture). About half and hour later it was pouring with rain.

The shot below was taken about 20 yards away and about 2 minutes later looking in the same direction. Explains why it's so deserted.

You have been warned, Wiltshire, December 2007

This is actually a view over the MOD's Imber Ranges, part of the Salisbury Plain training grounds. The thump-thump of heavy artillery in the distance was a regular feature of growing-up for me.

What we photograph is all a matter of where we stand and which way we look.

Influence or natural choice?

Barns and trailer, Wiltshire, December 2007

Following on from my mention of the Ansel book & the tonality of the work, there was another aspect that struck me. It seems that quite a lot of my work has a similar composition to Adams', especially his "grand scenic" stuff. As I cannot claim to have either his talent or skill it got me thinking about how this might come to be. It's not just his work or my work, either: how might works in general come to seem similar?

The first, obvious, solution is to consider influence. Here I am taking this to be an aspect of conscious awareness: one knows what/who ones influence is. As to cultural or unconscious aspects, I'll come to that later.

There is one problem with this in relation to my own work - I had seen very few of Ansel's images before I got the book and none until a couple of years ago. Yet even my older work has similar compositional themes. It could be I am influenced indirectly but there again, it is only recently that I have been actively engaged in looking at photography. Other art forms could also be cited but personally I don't much are for landscape painting and couldn't state consious awarenes of any influence. The point I am trying to get to is that it seems entirely possible that several artists might come to similar results independently.

This then lead me to the next possible source of "convergence" - something that I will call "natural choice". The idea of natural choice is that there is a natural compositional form for a given subject. It then follows that if there is a natural choice, many will choose it independently. This would explain why "everything has been photographed before" and why I might produce work that looks like someone else's without ever having seen theirs before.

There is a potential second aspect to natural choice, that being the cultural influence that I mentioned before. It is entirely possible that in defining the natural choice of compostion for a given subject we need a cultural reference as the datum. Thus, the same subject might be realised differently in China, say, than France due to the different cultural references. This cultural aspect, however, might be entirely unconscious - our artistic sensibilities being the result of our accumulated exposure.

If it is the case that natural choice is the result of cultural reference, there is the implication that the natural choice may change should the references also change. This is where the pioneering or cross-over work comes to the fore. Those artists that choose to do things differently either by calling on other cultural influences or just shifting their personal reference are then the ones who are lauded for creativity. It might not be, however, that they are any more creative than all the convergent artists, it is just that their creative difference makes them more noticeable.

Back to Norway

Pining for the fjords, Norway, September 1997

In a couple of weeks I'm off on a business trip to Stavanger in Norway. It'll be nice to get back as I've not been back to Norway since I moved away 4 years ago.

I'm not sure I'll really get any time for photography. Normally I'd take an extra weekend but I don't really want to be driving in winter conditions and I don't really know the area around Stavanger too well. If I was back to Kristiansund (where I used to live) things would be different - I'd have the opportunity to shoot afresh a whole area that I know well. Maybe on another trip with this project.

I might just take some B&W film and shoot in the evenings around Stavanger harbour and old town.

Black and black photography

Country lane, Wiltshire, December 2007

For Christmas I received a copy of the book "Ansel Adams 400 Photographs". One thing that struck me about many of the photographs was the almost full tonal range of most if not all of the images and particularly the depth of black.

I was reminded of this when considering the first portfolio in LensWork 74 (Barry Wolf "Just Like Me"). In his images, Wolf has presented all in very dark tones, much of the image disappearing to "pure" black with only the key features in lighter tones.

In both cases, with very different subject matter, I was struck by the level of expression that was able to be achieved by allowing areas to disappear into the shadows in this way. It seems to help draw the critical parts of the images forward. Instead of highlighting the subject, the non-subject is low-lighted.

It's something I've always been wary of with my work but I might try some ideas along these lines to see what it brings, all part of the learning process.

Words to inspire

I was just listening to Moloko on my iPod on the way into work. I thought the lyrcs were rather appropriate for photographers:

Give up yourself unto the moment, the time is now
Give up yourself unto the moment, let's make this moment last.

Moloko, "The Time is Now" (from album Things to Make and Do)

First copy of LensWork

Winter stubble, Wiltshire, December 2007
I am liking more and more the black and white versions for this series

I got my first print copy of LensWork magazine delivered today. This is issue 74, with Doug Stockdale's "Bad Trip - Sad Trip" portfolio in it. This was the final motivation for me to buy a subscription (I'd been considering for a while) - it's nice to see the development of a body of work like this over time and then to a final print.

I must say I am impressed with the quality of LensWork overall. It is a little smaller that I had imagined but is produced like a small photobook, a high quality one at that. Compared to other magazines, this is a really tactile experience.

On first inspection the images look great too - I'll be spending quite a lot of time poring over them in the coming days.

Optimizing for the web - embedding & tagging

So after 2 pots on the subject (here and here) of colour profiles and web display, turns out I was still wide of the mark.

zeus' comment on my second post

"...am I reading You correctly in sofar that that You think the browser displays the images based on the info found in the EXIF data..."

led me to read even further. I came across this excellent article/series of posts on the subject. If you are new to colour profiles, or want a clear explanation I don't think you'll find a better place to start.

It seems that I was making a glaring assumption concerning colour profiles. I thought that the EXIF tag and the colour profile were inextricably linked. Turns out I was wrong. Each can exist without the other. And it turns out that virtually no applications actually read the tag anyway. I get the idea of the tag - you could use it without embedding the profile and reference a well-known standard profile which your application would already know.

So to my little problem and what I've learnt - I'm still not sure whether Blogger strips out the profile but I'd reckon not. I'm pretty sure EasyThumbnails strips the profile as well as the EXIF when converting from non-JPEG sources. Web pics without a profile will get garbled in some way which is browser dependent: most assume sRGB by default. Safari is currently the only colour aware browser but Firefox 3 is on the way. Embedding sRGB in your web photos is a good idea: it means the conversion has been done and the colours are going to be displayed less screwed-up (but I already knew that going into this little voyage of discovery).

It's about time all photo-image targeted software (including browsers, publishing etc) was properly colour managed then we wouldn't have all this problem.

An interesting way to process colour images

Cherhill Monument, Wiltshire, December 2007

As I work through the batch of shots for my Wiltshire series, I've been ruminating on whether I should present them in colour, black and white or a mixture. there are merits to each direction.

That's not the point I'm getting to here, however.

I worked up the image above as both a colour and black and white and discovered something interesting.

When I produce a black and white I always start from a finished or near-complete colour image. I find this gives me the best overall results. On this occasion I did the same: completed my colour work in Lightzone then completed the black and white. I then went back to convert to final TIFF output, starting with the black and white, then disabling the stack to convert the colour image.

The thing I found was that some of the local optimizations that I made in black and white also improved the colour, even though I hadn't thought to make the changes when working in colour. I think that maybe this has to do with working purely on tonal balance with the B&W, which is something that can get overlooked with colour. I think I might try this in future with colour images: apply a black and white conversion then check if there are local tonal adjustments required.

Here is the black and white version. I actually intend to hang a large print of this at home but I'm still undecided whether it is colour or black and white that belongs in the series.

Optimizing for the web - continued

After the last post, I spent some time examining different displays of the images, digging into the EXIF data, uploading, downloading and so on. It seems things aren't exactly as I supposed them at first. I also did some reading on Firefox image display.

Here is what I now know (I could still be wrong, though).

As I knew before, Firefox does not use embedded colour profiles when downloading web pages. I'm pretty specific about that part because it appears if I use Firefox as a viewer for files from my computer (using the File: Open File... menu) then it does appear to display using the colour profile. Odd. Can't find info on that part anywhere in Web land.

Oh for Firefox 3, which apparently will work with colour profiles.

The next thing I discovered is that Blogger actually leaves all image data intact, including the full EXIF. When I download the images back to my computer they are identical to the originals I uploaded. So any display problems are related to the browser interpreting the web page.

I also found out that the software I mainly use for generating web images (EasyThumbnails) only preserves EXIF data for JPEGs, not when converting TIFFs. This means most of my blog posts have images with "Unknown" in the colour profile slot (rather than Unencoded that you get when stripping the profile with Photoshop).

Looks like I'll be making some wholesale changes to my web image routine to ensure I get something that looks decent.

Optimizing for the web

A while back I looked at colour profiles for blog display, given the fact that browsers are generally profile-ignorant. while I don't rigidly stick to using sRGB, that seemed to be the way to go. Well maybe not.
zeus1 commented on Capturing the essence that the posted image appeared washed-out. It does on my browser as well. So I took the original posted image and ran it through a couple of tests in Photoshop. Below are the results.

with SRGB applied +10 saturation, -10 lightness

As posted originally

As posted originally with colour profile removed.

Colour profile removed, +10 saturation, -10 lightness

It turns out this is a Blogger problem. the original file looks great when loaded straight into the browser, and in all other viewers but on uploading something gets lost. The closest I can get quickly is the last of the 4, boosting saturation, darkening slightly and removing the colour profile. Probably needs a slight contrast enhancement, too.

In one way I'm glad it's not just down to my workflow, in another I'm annoyed that there is some sort of mutation happening between me hitting "Publish" and the image appearing in the blog.

Sharpening techniques compared

Fence and fields, Wiltshire, December 2007

I've been working on some of my Wiltshire photos the past couple of days. Most of them are tricky to sharpen, containing a mixture of fine detail, smooth skies and wood and foliage. I always find these kind of natural subjects difficult to sharpen satisfactorily, often resorting to a combination masks, noise reduction, sharpening and artefact removal.

For small prints and computer display, there isn't usually much problem but if I want to go up to larger prints then there are definite problems. Large expanses of sky can also be problematic.

As I had some time, and wanted to do some other evaluations, I decided to try 3 main methods head-to-head. I've been using Lightzone's Noise reduction & Sharpen tools, Photoshop USM together with Neat Image noise reduction and Picture Window Pro Advanced Sharpen. This last is part of an evaluation of PWP as a potential Photoshop replacement for specific tasks.

What do I want from sharpening?

First, an explanation of what I am searching for here. Obviously I want to sharpen images to ensure that the presented image (either in print or on screen) has crisp in-focus detail and doesn't look all muddy. that's just the basic reason images get sharpened. The tool needs to find the detail edges but miss out any noise or pixel speckling.

However, my ideal sharpening has 2 attributes - a visible improvement in the image at print/display size and yet still looks correct, without artefacts and spots when viewed on-screen at 100%. that may seem like pixel peeing but I find that such a result provides the best print results and enable more latitude for enlargement or compression. While it is generally recommended that enlargements are done for sharpening, I find that, in some cases, better enlargements can be done after ideal sharpening as the spots & edge artefacts are eliminated.

I'm also looking for a tool that is fast and easy to optimise (i.e. tweak for each image). It's all very well having a general preference but many images need their own settings and I want to get to that fast.

How did I do the tests?

I've kept this fair through-out, testing just the sharpening. I used a small section of the shot above which displays all of the elements of a tricky image.

First I converted the RAW using CaptureOne LE - no sharpening or noise reduction. Of the converters I have, C1 gives results with the least problems of noise, spots, speckling etc. I cropped a small area to work with.

The resultant 16-bit TIFF was then sharpened with the respective software. First was a contrast sharpening USM ART (amount, radius, threshold) of 20,50,0. This sort of contrast sharpening gets applied to nearly all images. Then I used the various sharpening tools.

For each output I was looking for the maximum sharpening possible without degrading the image with grain, spots, edge artefacts or detail loss. I tried with and without various noise reduction techniques in each case to see if I could reduce artefact problems. Noise reduction applied after sharpening - I want to remove only sharpening artefacts and this is easier once they've been enhanced by sharpening. This kind of NR before sharpening destroys too much detail.

Below are the results, click each to get the 100% views.

Take care in viewing these images: some things are visible in the original TIFFs that may be lost in the JPEG conversion. All JPEGs converted in Photoshop from the output sharpened TIFFs at quality 9.

Photoshop Elements

I've only used USM here. I have a couple of plug-ins but they only work on 8-bit images.

USM ART 300,0.5,5 was applied. this gave best overall visual results after some tweaking. Noise reduction using Neat Image and then Dust & Scratches (RT 1,40). the USM has left some speckling across the fields and the sky. Noise reduction has reduced the effect but also appears slightly softer.

Applying NR takes quite a bit of time - Neat Image has the control but thus needs more time for optimal results.

Lightzone 2.4

My everyday editing tool.

I used the Sharpen tool at ART 200,1,20. It works slightly differently than PSE, so different settings are required.

Lots of speckling introduced, especially in the sky - while I could mask it out, it isn't always practical and becomes hard to avoid a smooth/speckly interface zone.. Noise reduction helps but removes some detail too. I find Lightzone 2.4 OK for smaller prints and web display but not so good for larger stuff or finely detailed images.

Lightzone 3.2

This is the current version which I use for specific images (especially for shadow recovery).

As to sharpening, gain ART 200,1,20 but this time using a luminance mask (the Zone masking built in to the Sharpen tool). This way I could mask out the sky and the dark areas, especially on the fence post but keep the edges. A much better result than 2.4, far fewer artefacts. NR was then applied to just the fields in the lower left corner. Very good overall result, I think.

In both versions of Lightzone I use the Difference blend mode to control the masking.

Picture Window Pro 4

Current version and under evaluation by me.

I tried 2 sharpening methods - USM and the Advanced Sharpening. USM has much different range than PSE or Lightzone, here I use ART 75%,1,5. Very nice results, far better, I think, than PSE or Lightzone. Don't really need noise reduction.

For the Advanced Sharpen there are 3 parts to the tool. Noise reduction is a subtle grain removal tool (from what I can tell), I actually didn't use any here. There is then a Speck removal tool which takes out small speckles that might get sharpened otherwise (I would normally remove these after sharpening, here it is before). I use a very slight amount, reducing both light and dark specks.

Last is the sharpening but with very different controls. It has a sort of luminance masking similar to Lightzone 3.2 but also is far more effective at finding the edges (there is a mask preview available). There are then radius and amount sliders - I use R,A 1, 120%. The result I present here is somewhat over-sharpened but shows that PWP can go further in sharpening, leave detail intact and still not introduce extra problems. It is also fast and easy to use at this level of optimisation. Given that I've only been using it 2 days, I'm getting better results that PSE or Lightzone in a similar amount of time. I'd expect to get faster with practice.

I also like the level of control given and the ability to see the masking for each of the 3 steps of advanced sharpening.

With these results, it's almost worth buying PWP for the sharpening capabilities alone. Very impressive.

The essence of Wiltshire

Rolling fields, Avebury, December 2007

As I've mentioned before, I'm putting together a series on the landscape of Wiltshire, the area in which I grew up and still regard as home. It is a beautiful and historic area of the country but one that is too little known, I feel.

Wiltshire is associated most with 3 aspects:
1. Agriculture an the typically English rolling green countryside. Farming has been , and remains, a major part of the local economy. Farming has been taking place in this area pretty much since the birth of agriculture.
2. Historic sites, the really old stuff. Avebury and Stonehenge are the most well-known but the whole county is peppered with tumuli, long barrows and hill forts (e.g. Bratton Camp just a few minutes from my parents'). Stonehenge is modern architecture compared to some of the other sites, the stone circle being only 4000 years old.
3. The railways, notably Brunel's Great Western based from Swindon.

I am mainly concerned with the first two aspects, I've never really been a big fan of the railways, except to travel on.

The key is getting good images that reflect the beauty and age of the area without the distractions of modern development, major roads new houses etc. For example, one area I would have loved to include was the series of fields behind my parents' house. As a kid they seemed to go on forever, with the stream to jump, gates to scale and trees to climb. Unfortunately they are now the site of 1000 new homes.

Another drawback is the fickle weather - this is one of the wettest and windiest parts of the country.

I'll be posting my early attempts over the next few days but I'm really treating this as a scouting exercise to help guide me. In the end I hope to have about 20 finished images, including a few large format shots (so that I can print large and hang on my walls).

Capturing the essence

Footpath gates, Wiltshire, December 2007

Yesterday, I mentioned my disappointment with the photography I was able to do while I was home for the Christmas vacation. There were 2 main reasons for this.

First the weather. Typical of Christmas in the West of England it was dreary and overcast much of the time. When there was a slight clearing in the sky it was accompanied by high winds. These conditions do not lend themselves well to photography, I find. Flat skies, flatter light. Even in the middle of the day my autofocus was having trouble locking on due to the generally low contrast. I did try to make the best of the conditions, however.

Secondly is the problem of capturing the essence of my mind's eye. I want to put together a series on my home area, around the countryside of Wiltshire. I'll post more on what I'm trying to do with this series at another time but the problem I have is the landscape as I perceive it and remember it is not quite what the camera sees. Too many roads and cars and new buildings. I think i need to get out my walking boots and get further from civilization. It's not that I don't know these areas well, just that the mind has a tendency to block out the unsightly bits, which the camera sees all too well.

Happy New(ish) Year

OK, it's a few days into the New Year but I'm just back from my Christmas break.

I've come back physically and mentally refreshed. I'm currently reading through the backlog of blog posts from my favourites. Some interesting stuff already. Got a nice mention from Paul Butzi, too - it's good to know that someone out there appreciates your efforts. For my part, reading his blog also helps trigger the synapses, leading to quite a few of my posts.

As to photography while I was away, not so good. i got out for a couple of days but it was disappointing. I'll be posting more on that later - for now I have to upload the shots I did take and see if the results are as bad as I expect. The effort won't be wasted, however, as I can also view it as scouting for later efforts.

Celebrating tradition

Christmas tree, December 1987

Reading Ctein's post at T.O.P. put me in mind of Christmas at home. It's always a family time where we celebrate with our own set of rituals around decorations, gifts and food. It always starts with the Christmas tree. While decorations are fairly minimal around the house, the tree is a riot of colour. Every single piece of decoration gets used until it disintegrates or breaks. Tree dressing is a family event - one of the first things we do once everyone is home.

Christmas tree, December 2006
Not much changes, except the camera

For me it's a great time of year - the one guaranteed time we are all together in the same place at the same time.

I'm off shortly, so little, if any, posts from now until New Year. Until then, have a Merry Chrsitmas and I'll be back in a couple of weeks.

A target for the vacation

Avebury church, Wiltshire, January 2007

I liked Paul Butzi's idea about having a photobook-in-a-week event, similar to the NaNoWriMo. I've also been enjoying seeing his recent work centred around his home region and on those lines, Doug Stockdale's Transitional Seam work.

These things, together with some thinking I've been doing about what constitutes "home" to me (I lead a rather peripatetic life) has led me to an idea. I've got the opportunity while I'm home over the festive period to get out on a few days for some photography. I'm also likely to be travelling home a few times over the next few months. This has put me in mind to produce a series that reflects the things that I typically regard as my native spaces: the countryside and towns of Wiltshire. The trick is to present what I find engaging in way that engages others. Expect to see more of this from January.

Photography and connoisseurship

Gruppetto, Burgundy, France, June 2007
The team passing Chateauneuf, of wine producing fame

There has been discussion at T.O.P. and The Landscapist of this article on photography criticism. At the same time, Doug Stockdale and Paul Butzi have been ruminating over pricing photography for sale.

As I went off to buy the Christmas wine today, suddenly I realised that these subjects come together. First a diversion on wine, that will prove a point that I'll make later.

On my cycling trip to France earlier in the year, wine was quite an important part of the journey. We were riding through Burgundy, past the famous vineyards. Wine was on the table every evening. One afternoon we spent at a tasting lunch run by Leflaive. 15 wines over lunch, Villages to Grand Cru.

Of the 5 of us, I would consider 2 serious wine drinkers, 2 as "anything but vinegar" drinkers and myself somewhere in the middle.

The 2 serious wine drinkers could happily tell the difference between different vineyards & distinguish characteristics of a Grand versus premier Cru. Preference was then a matter of taste. Personally, I couldn't really tell a Grand from a Premier but saw some differences in the different sources. There were definitely wines I preferred. We are talking subtle differences in very fine wines. The last 2 could tell this was all good stuff but were quite happy drinking anything.

Outside of our little group there are the masses who are happy to order a "white wine" in a bar, with no thought to grape, source, age etc.

What has this to do with photography - everything. I believe that the problem photographers and fine printers have with the selling part is the difference in connoisseurship between "us" and "them". The vast majority of art (and by extension photography) consumers, I believe, can't really tell the difference between the finest work and mini-lab snaps. Just like the majority can't tell the difference between wine from a box and the finest vintage.

The photography community is busy trying to sell top end product to an audience that can't tell the difference except for the price tag. Therein lies a problem. How one solves it, I do not know. I think maybe painters get further because more people understand the differences. Museums & galleries are full of it and there are plenty of educational programmes (including school) that generate appreciation by distinction.

Maybe less effort needs to be spent on teaching photography to photographers and more on teaching it to the non-photographers, thus raising the levels of appreciation.

What do I want to achieve?

"This way, that way", France, June 2007

Now I have a clearer picture of what I'm doing and why, it's time to turn my attention to the destination.

Any journey has a start and an intended destination, so I need to articulate my intention. I'm not going to get myself into goal setting. I have enough of that in my daily work; I don't like to get too much into such things in my spare time. Instead, I'm going to think of this more as a direction in which I'd like to go and decide later whether that takes me places I want to go. If so, I'll keep going, otherwise I'll try another tack.

There are may things one might wish to achieve with art and photography but I figure if I'm going to get the most out of what I do, the direction I take has to relate to the fundamental reasons I pick up my camera in the first place.

In my post on why, I had 5 main reasons for doing photography:

1. Enjoyment

2. Personal documentary

3. Artistic expression

4. Capturing people's behaviour

5. Showing my love of nature

The first is self-evident, and ultimately bounds any direction I take: if I'm not enjoying it, I stop and find something I do enjoy. I don't want to turn photography into a chore and for this reason I don't think I could ever become a professional - there are too many non-photography things one needs to do to keep that up.

The second is simple - it's about having a camera wherever I go. I'm still looking at the perfect device for that. I quite liked Paul Butzi's approach to his trip to China. I'm certainly looking into having a decent small camera as I don't always want to lug my 20D around. This sort of travel photography is very much in the "friends and family" category - I'm not trying to create great art.

As to the artistic expression, a lot of this is personal. This is me doing the "art as verb" bit for my own satisfaction. I like to try new things, explore various ways of taking & processing photographs. Many of the results aren't worth much but it is a part of the learning process. It is this effort that enables me to create better work for showing to others and develop a more consistent vision and style. By knowing what I don't like & what doesn't work I can better develop that which does. This is an area that I need to develop, to look at other ways of doing things, ways of looking at things and developing images. One of the first things I shall be doing is attending a photographic workshop early next year - my first. If this proves successful, I may do more of them to help in my photographic development. I am tending to think that there are lots of little things I'm missing to getting really good results but then I may be completely over-estimating my abilities.

This leads nicely to the last point (I'll come back to the people) about showing my love of nature. this really has two sides - getting my work "out there" and having people appreciate it. I'm not really sure at the moment the best way to show my work. I've got the gallery but I'm thinking there are better places to show stuff. I would like to think that in the longer term I can produce work good enough for a proper show or publication - long way to go before that happens.
The second part is about having people appreciate the work. This isn't about me getting praise (although that's nice) but viewers getting something positive from seeing my work. I've got past the point of pleasing family and friends, I would like a wider audience (especially other photographers) to be getting something from it all. If I can properly develop some themes & style then I think these things will come. this blog is a start - there is a small but growing number of regular visitors and that helps give me impetus.

Finally is the people piece. I think I'm developing a sense of what makes good results in this arena. I need to be a bit bolder, I think, in getting closer and carrying my camera to more social occasions if only to practice. Looking over the wider range of shots I've taken, I see some themes developing which might come together in series. This stuff is really about having some fun. it also teaches me to react a little quick and spot scene intuitively which I think is helpful even when working slowly and contemplatively.

The verb/noun conundrum

Taking water, Canary Wharf, July 2007
Is he a nouner or verber?

While I regard art (particularly the visual arts) as a noun, there are instances when I definitely reflect on it as a verb. There is, in this sense, a difference between the work (as in work of art) and using art to reflect a skill.

Reading the etymology of the word is useful, I think:

c.1225, "skill as a result of learning or practice," from O.Fr. art, from L. artem.
In M.E. usually with sense of "skill in scholarship and learning" (c.1305), especially in the seven sciences, or liberal arts (divided into the trivium -- grammar, logic, rhetoric -- and the quadrivium --arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy). This sense remains in Bachelor of Arts, etc. Meaning "human workmanship" (as opposed to nature) is from 1386.

art. (n.d.). Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved December 09, 2007, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/art

I come across both these senses as an engineer. Despite being in an engineering subject, I have a Bachelor of Arts degree. The former sense presented here (skill) I come across, and use, to denote those things that cannot be done by knowledge alone. We often talk about certain practices being "an art" to reflect the fact that a measure of skill is required. I think the "art as verb" crowd are coming from this direction to art (although maybe not consciously).

It is interesting to read the more modern definitions that comes above the etymological reference, where art is strictly a noun in the sense we are talking here.

Thus the talk of Art as either verb or noun is conjuring up both the modern and ancient definitions in comparison with one another.

The death of photography?

Seeking Mozart, Salzburg, November 2007
Definitely what was there but certainly not real

So the talk of the town is Newsweek's article asking if photography is dead. Once more into the breech. Lively discussion at T.O.P. and more to come at the Landscapist. As Mark Hobson points out, it is really a discussion about whether "photography as reality" is dead. Here are some of my thoughts on the subject (sometimes repeating things I've said before - at least I'm consistent):

Why is it that photography needs to purely documentary (in that it depicts something that actual happened or exists as it was at the moment)? If we're talking about the medium from an artistic perspective it is just another means to an ends. If you are doing accurate reportage (e..g. journalism) then accuracy is important, but framing and cropping still come into play.

I love it when photographers talk about photography as being "real" and then present black and white images. they are not, and can never be, truly real in my opinion. The world is in colour. Sure they can show the actual objects in form, just not truly as they are/were. Black and white is as much an artistic choice as digital manipulation. Don't pretend it is anything else.

Don't try and pass-off manipulated images as being "as is". That's just fraud. I've no problem with digital (or darkroom) work to deliver a final product as the result of artistic vision. Just don't tell me it's accurate. In this sense "truth" is a wider issue than true representation, from an artistic point of view. Even if I take landscape photos the way in which I present them is my view of what I saw - this may not be yours. Heck, if it was a sunny day and we were both wearing shades we wouldn't have seen the same thing anyway.

One strength that photography has over other artistic media is that it can depict things as they are. It is also able to do so in a very short time. That is just one technical result, though. Doesn't mean that artistic expression with photography need be limited to reality.

Photography can go in 2 non-realism directions. Real form, unreal content: i.e. the picture is truly representational of what was in front of the camera, which just happened to be made-up (think Jeff Wall or Aaron Hobson). The other end is real content, unreal form: it is a picture of something actually there but developed in such a way as to look different than the reality (my view on B&W comes here, as well as soft-focus, colour manipulation etc).

A large part the discussion in the Newsweek article stems from the premise that proliferation is bad for Art. It's not - more art is good, in my opinion, for Art. It might make it harder to make serious money doing it but that's not supposed to be the point. If you want to make money, go take portraits - the time-honoured way for visual artists to support themselves or get an original vision. It is also reminiscent of the arguments put forth in the '50s about painting by numbers. I don't think painting is dead as a result and it might well have brought more people in touch with art than would have done otherwise. If you want to worry about the death of Art consider that one of the World's largest sellers of art is actually Ikea.

Technological regression

Technology marches on, unless you are making cameras.

Today I read the review for Fuji's new pocket camera, the f50fd, at dpreview. I could have singled out any other compact camera from the last few months for this comparison, however.

It seems that every new pocket camera is going backwards due to the drive of marketing over engineering sense. Ever more pixels, ever less image quality. The reviews are all stating that the new, high-count sensors (10MP+) are OK for smaller prints but no good for larger sizes. trouble is, this is exactly the opposite of the marketing intent: more pixels equals bigger prints. Actual image quality is only supporting print sizes that a 4MP camera could do.

Hello out there in camera marketing land. Wake up and see that this mega-pixel race will bite you, for sure. Buyers will keep their cameras longer or buy older, cheaper technology. They will get smarter and demand better quality results.

My advice to friends & family when buying a pocket camera - don't get any more than 6-8MP as image quality is rubbish for larger counts. Even that may be pushing it.

Lightbulbs: the measurement

When I wrote a post about new lightbulbs I've installed, paul asked a question about colour temperature.

The spec on the bulbs I bought (these) is 6500K but the shades they're in are slightly warmer. I guessed in the 5500-6000K range, based on the match I'm seeing with the daylight through the windows.

How wrong I can be. I measured by shooting direct at the lights through an Expodisk. Here are the exposure shots:

Capture One, 4600K, +12 (magenta) tint

Capture One, 4600K, 0 tint (from same file).
Yes, I know the sensor needs cleaning.

As you can see, the new bulbs have a strong green cast. These were long exposure (0.25") so flicker is not an issue. This is surprising given the very cool, neutral white colour that they appear to give off.

These are compact fluorescent lamps, which may have some bearing. however, as it happens, I did a similar test with incandescent in the same lamp shades yielding quite a green cast too. Odd, and not obvious to the eye.

Jeff Wall reviewed

Reclining, Salzburg, November 2007

The Daily Telegraph has an interview with Jeff Wall & slide show linked to a current exhibition of his work in London.

The interesting thing that I find from what he has to say is that he is not about content/meaning in his work but much more focused on form & execution. And yet he is lauded all around the art world.

I'm interested in this apparent contradiction: convention has it that Art is all about content and meaning. The great photographs will be remembered by that standard, not the execution. Even the humble snapshot is more valuable in posterity for its content & evocation of memory than its technical execution. And yet here is a photographer disowning that in his own work.

Hubris or humility? You be the judge.

A few link changes

I've just updated my links on the right. Main addition is that of Dave Beckerman's blog, picked up via Paul Butzi & Colin Jago. It's a really excellent site, focused on black and white photography but with lots of good writing.

I'm now getting to the point where I might have to start restricting the number of blogs I read regularly - it can be hard to keep up.

Lightzone 3.2: a brief look

After my review of Lightzone 3.1, I spent some time looking at the latest update, 3.2. Main reason for re-evaluating was the tidy discount for November. Plus a weak dollar means that upgrading was pretty cheap for me. Question was: was it worth upgrading, even at low cost?

I was really looking to test 2 related aspects memory management and speed. There are no documented new features and there wasn't any specific release mention of enhancements but I know that these things are constantly tweaked.

My major gripe with the memory management is that Lightzone loads a whole bunch of stuff into memory, eats its full allocation then slows to a grind. It doesn't use Windows virtual memory so is severely limited in available memory (I've cranked it to use the max memory which means about 890MB real and 870MB virtual in practice). If you've a lot of images (or just a few TIFFs) in the current directory, that gets eaten quickly. Memory is also not released well when changing modes (especially from Edit to Browse).

For Lightzone 3.2 things are better. Reading a folder with 40-50 images gets up to max memory use but edit mode seems to see some memory released. Running through a series of edits on images I was rarely getting full memory allocation and memory was getting released between modes. This certainly speeds things up. When all the allocated memory did get used, screen refreshes were noticeably quicker than before. This is all better - not outstanding but much more usable.

I've also found that large files (~200-300MB scanned MF & LF) get handled better than before. I'm being cautious, though, and editing them one-by-one from a dedicated folder (i.e. only one image in the folder at a time). As less memory seems to be used in general, things tick along nicely. Not super fast but workable.

Overall, then, some noticeable improvements in the right direction. I paid the money & upgraded (just need to get the license key working). I think 3.2 is a worthwhile upgrade, especially as it sits alongside v2.x. I'll still use 2.4 as my main version (.lzn files) and use 3.2 for the shadow recovery capability on under-exposed stuff.

Photographic rules

All the big workshop copy talks about getting away from the "rules" of photography and finding what really makes a good photograph.

For me, right now, I'm working with just 2 rules:

1. get the interesting stuff in the frame
2. crop the edges to remove distractions

Sometimes I do a slight clone to enhance 2.

Working by these rules has enhanced my output significantly. I'm also a bit quicker behind the lens, too.

Why do I photograph?

Mount Lorette, Alberta, September 2007

Having explored where I'm at, I got to thinking about the whole notion of "why?". I felt it was important to consider answers to this question to be able to properly formulate where I want to go in the future. There is no one answer to this question, instead it is a collection of factors that come together in different ways depending on mood, location, subject.

Firstly there is the whole process of photography - carrying camera, capturing scene, producing print. I enjoy this immensely, I find it a pleasurable activity to pick up a camera and turn what I see into photograph which ultimately becomes an image on paper. I think it is a very satisfying thing to be able to bring the world home in this way. Over the past few years I've also been driving towards printing and displaying more of my work at home.

My initial motivation all those years ago was about personal documentary - I like to have a visual record of places I've been and things I've seen as part of the memory process. This part is less about public consumption and more about personal satisfaction. This still continues, especially with respect to new places I visit.

A much bigger part of "why" today is bringing to others my view of the beauty of nature. Right now more focussed on the shape and form of natural objects than before but it is also about places that I love - which are not always well-known. This is all about images as representations of the feelings I have for certain sights (and sites). The reason I like them is they way they make me feel and I hope I can, in some small part, bring that to others through my photographs.

This, i suppose, leads to the artistic motivation. I have limited artistic talent. I can't play music. I have little feeling for paint & brush and my drawing skills are strictly engineering technical. Through photography I feel I can have some sort of artistic expression, however limited. I'm not constrained by coordination between hand and eye.

Finally, I am enjoying representing the behaviour of others. I have taken to showing things that interest and amuse me about other people. I'm not trying to judge them by this, just show how it is.

So, there it is. A series of reasons why I pick up a camera. If I wasn't enjoying the whole process, I wouldn't be doing it. And if I wasn't finding interesting subjects that I want to record then that, too, would stop me. Fortunately, I have an abundance of both.

In further posts in this series, I'll look at motivating/inspiring factors and where I want to go although (noting Colin Jago's post today in this arena) it won't really be about goal setting, more direction.

Fixed focal length and the all-day camera

Canon EOS500 with EF 28 f/2.8: my new "point and shoot" set-up

Michael Johston is running a poll over at Top Online Photographer about what fixed lens people might like on an all-day carry around camera. Clearly this is directed at the recent talk of the almost forthcoming Sigma DP-1.

This lines up nicely with this week's purchase - a Canon EF 28 f/2.8, bought as a fixed focal length for my old film camera. The intention is to continue using it as I've been doing the last few months - as a P&S black & white camera but a bit wider now than the 50mm I was previously using (although I may well carry that too). I would ideally have likes a small (no bigger than this 28mm) 35mm but they don't seem to be available.

My pocket camera, the Samsung A503 also has a 35mm-e lens. It's a focal length I get on well with.

It's not that I don't like 50mm. certainly for subjects at a distance it's excellent. But I'm more concerned about getting enough width close-up. Often I can't back up, or to do so would lose the spontaneity that I'm aiming for.

I think I understand why camera companies are going wider - you can always crop stuff out but never add it back in. Plus, all the pocket camera reviews bemoan lack of wide-angle if the widest they've got is 35mm. All the new kit zooms are 28mm-e.

Solitude in the internet age

Bare trees, Avebury, January 2007

Paul Butzi had a post about solitude recently where he says he was craving time alone after a long bout of travel and other people. I know how he feels. It's particularly bad when travelling to busy places: people everywhere and very little chance of being alone. It's just as well I'm by myself - at least I can escape to the quiet of my hotel room when I'm away.

Working in an environment where teamwork is a valued attribute can also be problematic - sometimes I just don't want to interact with other people.

There are 2 ways I do enjoy interacting with others: teaching people - the act of sharing knowledge, and engaging in considered conversation - actually talking about subjects of substance at length, intelligently.

This brings me onto the topic of the post - the internet and the interaction it promotes. For me, and I guess for those like Paul, the internet is a great invention. I can happily engage in good conversation, at a distance, with like-minded people but in my on time. Forums, blogs, email are all great ways for those who like to be alone to interact with others without them invading personal space. For my photography it's been really good - I've learnt loads, get to read a lot of thought-provoking writing and converse with people on my terms.

Suddenly the introverts are beginning to get the upper hand, long may it continue.