The same old back hander.

“Oooh what a lovely photo, you must have a really good camera”

If I had a pound for every time I’ve heard that over the past eight years I would be enjoying a prolonged visit for myself and said equipment to some exotic location.

Imagine standing in front of a Monet or a Rembrandt and saying ‘how lovely, he must have had great brushes’ or better to a top chef ‘ that meal was fantastic, you must have a brilliant oven’. You wouldn’t dream of it but for some reason the camera gets the credit for a photographers work. The scouting for the perfect viewpoint, the choices around lens length, aperture, height from the ground, focal point, assessing tonal contrast, colour temperature and the perfect balance of these. The careful control of depth of field and understanding its effect on exposure time. The skilled use of neutral density filtration to balance light across the image. And then choosing the precise moment to press the shutter and record the scene pre-visualised in our minds eye. Skills developed over many months and years and practised whenever possible, just as a chef would spend thousands of hours in the kitchen developing a fine menu.

Give me the finest ingredients in the best kitchen and I wouldn’t be able to cook like Raymond Blanc. With the best paint brushes in the world I could do little more than doodle and handed my camera most people would produce the same quality of stuff they do now with their built in phone cameras.

Two image below taken within minutes of each other. One with an Ebony 45su Field Camera, 90mm Schneider Super Angulon lens, filters, tripod and Fuji Velvia film, the other with a Ricoh Caplio R4 6mp compact, handheld. The main difference is that one can be printed 8×6″ before the quality drops away while the other can go to 48×60″ and fill a sizeable wall space. My detailed research, reconnaissance, assessment of the prevailing weather conditions etc put me in the right place at the right time with the right skills to make these images work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tantrum over.

Getting back to basics.

Last Sunday, with limited time on my hands due to the imminent return of my children from a weekend break I decided to haul all my large format gear up the 1600ft (488m) to the minor top on the approach to Meall Garbh, itself a minor top on the approach to Beinn Sgulaird. NB, Meall Garbh provided me with my Earth shadow images back in the Winter.

Alpenglow, Rooftops of Argyll

Recently I have been suffering with some knee and hip pain while on the hill that I now attribute to the road running I started back in July (no mentioning my age now). Due to that I have been hill walking without all of my heavy gear but with the onset of Autumn, its weather and its colour, the time is right to start making wider landscapes again.

In fact on Sunday I had no intention of making an image. The walk was purely for the sake of exercise and to test my knees on the jarring descent back to my car beside Loch Creran. I’m pleased to report no problems and even more pleased to find that I had no trouble keeping up with and even overtaking some of the Munro baggers cluttering the slopes of a hill I’m used to having to myself.

Arriving at my top in just 45 minutes I perched on one of the many erratics scattered across its top and with the warm sun at my back and a gentle breeze tugging at my shirt sleeves enjoyed the wonderful views up Glen Creran and beyond. It has since struck me that this is what all my outdoor experiences were like before photography, the simple act of walking in remote places, exercising my navigation skills and pitting my wits against whatever nature could throw at me.

Photography has certainly changed that. On a practical level, carrying 22 kilo’s of camera kit plus food and drink has made long distance days a thing of the past. I regularly opt to leave behind what used to be essential hill walking gear in favour of that extra lens and with this on my mind perhaps I don’t commit to the more adventurous routes I used to take. Sitting on my boulder I could pick out in front of me all the hills I have previously climbed, Sgurr a Choise (663m) and Fraochaidh (879m) backing the glen, Sgurr Dhearg (1024m) above Ballachulish high on the left. Behind them and spot lit the Mamores above Glen Nevis and with its head well and truly in the boiling cloud, the Ben itself. All bring back fantastic memories of days spent with or without friends in all weathers, with or (especially) without a camera.

North over Glen Creran

I have come to realise that, to a certain extent, photography has actually disconnected me from the landscapes that I love. That sometimes just sitting and enjoying is more important for my soul than coming back with an image. That permanently hunting for images has perhaps meant that my other senses have been turned off while on the hill.   While I intend to crack on with photographing Scotland’s wonderful mountains I shall be carrying less film and less lenses to make sure that I can look back with fond memories of the whole experience.

A worrying trend

I’ve noticed over the last six months or so that all of my suppliers are regularly running out of those essentials items that I use to keep my business going. Even those that have been reliably providing me with food for my camera, printers and framing rooms for years are sometimes leaving me waiting for two to three weeks while they build up enough orders to buy in their next stock.

Camera Food

I can understand the need for businesses to keep their stock levels low to maintain cashflow in the current difficult climate but it can’t be only me whose workflow is getting regularly interrupted by a lack of raw materials. Even having increased my re-order levels to 80 sheets of film or 30% ink remaining I am getting caught out by waits of up to a month, film levels getting critical and inks actually running out.

My worry is that with the economy remaining flat the situation could be set to deteriorate further. Interruptions to my workflow ultimately effect my cashflow making it more difficult for me to buy in the necessary extra supplies to cover shortfalls from my suppliers and with a typical set of replacement inks for my printer costing £650 it’s easy to understand why I can’t afford to carry too much stock myself.

And it’s not just consumables either. Camera packages are still readily available online and on the high street but I am hearing from other photographers of a lead time increase on new lenses, tripods, camera bags and in my experience specific items of outdoor clothing too.

I hope that the time is not coming where I can’t fulfill my customer orders as they come in or worse still, find myself unable to immerse myself in the joys of large format film photography even for a week or so. Then you really would see me stressed out!

The story behind…..Passage of Light.

I thought it may be interesting to start a series on my blog giving some background history to some of my more well known images starting with this one, Passage of Light, Loch Broom.

Back in October 2007 I attended an Advanced Large Format course by Light and Land run by my good friends David Ward and Joe Cornish. Having used a LF camera for three years I had hoped to learn some more techniques to help speed up focussing etc but although the course was thoroughly enjoyable such topics weren’t actually covered. At the end of the four day workshop however Joe invited me to join him and a few others at a cottage in Culnacraig, a hamlet near Achiltibuie on the lower slopes of Ben More Coigach.

The idea was to use this as a comfortable base for the week and photograph the iconic hills of the Coigach peninsula and Inverpolly. Ken and Nicky, Joe’s climbing friends were there for half the week to accompany us on the hill climbs and Richard Holroyd, another LF photographer travelled up with Joe. Unfortunately our plans for a full weeks photography were thwarted by a spell of bad weather that kept us indoors, cooking, cleaning kit and drinking tea for the majority of the time with just a few excursions out with the camera, often frustratingly too late to get the shot.

On one such day we had been holed up all morning listening to endless squally showers of hail and rain lashing against the tin roof and windows. Richard H had just brewed up more tea when I sensed that there was a change in the light outside. I slid into my boots and wandered outside with low expectations to be met by this scene.

I rushed back into the cottage and grabbed my gear excitedly calling the others to join me. Heading out and setting up quickly I opted to employ the 6×12 rollfilm back as I was in no position to make use of any decent foreground. I shot two rolls of film (12 exposures with bracketing) of which this is the most successful.

But no-one else had joined me. Not even Joe who is usually the first out and last man standing when out photographing. They simply hadn’t believed me when I had rushed in and had been sat reading and drinking tea while I stood only ten metres away enjoying some of the best light of the week.

Two other images from the week that work for me;

West Otter Ferry, six years and the boat finally comes in.

 

  

Back in 2005 a friend of mine, traditional story teller Scot an Sgeulaiche told me of a little ruined pier tucked away on the shore of Loch Fyne at the end of a path through thick forest plantation. Within a matter of weeks I took the opportunity to drive the 45 miles to Port Ann and take the walk in. I took my cameras through the dark ranks of Fir trees punctuated by the odd contorted Oak tree which looked as though they had fought hard for the space they occupied.

On arrival I was struck by the potential of the location which once upon a time had been one side of the essential crossing that saved travellers from Cowal and Dunoon to Lochilphead and Mid-Argyll a forty mile circuit of the loch. The sweep of the crumbling pier continued on through to the small bay and finally to the headland beyond. On this occasion the light was wrong and so was the tide. I figured that the sea would need to meet the wall exactly to continue the S-shape I envisaged. So it was added to my ever growing list of images ‘to-do’ and an expectation that I would return within a month or two to get what I wanted.

In the intervening years I have visited on numerous occasions, mostly at dawn since I considered that it would work best at that time. However, the conditions I hoped for never coincided. I could time my visits to correspond with the right stage of the tide but the weather would not deliver. On other occasions the weather was right and if I was nearby I would walk the mile or so only to find that the tide was too far in or out.

Last Thursday evening I visited, an unscheduled trip dictated by bad weather at Rest And Be Thankful where I had intended to wild camp. Heavier and heavier showers forced a change of plan that had me heading South down Loch Fyne to find the edge of the weather system creating the storms in the mountains. Finally arriving at Port Ann at around 8pm I took a chance and headed for the pier. Having pitched my tent I watched the rising tide and realised that it was going to meet the base of the pier at around 9.45 pm, just fifteen minutes before sunset, perfect timing and great luck.

After all those years of planned visits I was finally in the right place at the right time by accident. While there are some things I know that could improve the image I made further ( enough to have me still planning future visits) I am nevertheless delighted to have finally made a worthwhile image from this fabulous and  little known location.

Three more images from the same evening.

Cowal Peninsula across Loch FyneRising tide, West Otter Ferry

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rising tide, late light

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As an aside the storm back at the end of May has affected the trees here on the West coast quite badly. Many are wind burned into full Autumn colour and are dropping their leaves. It’s a very interesting time to be out photographing because the seasons feel right out of sync.

What’s in my bag?

Firstly I have to say that I’m really not interested in gear, my cameras are tools of work. Since buying my first camera in 1999, a second hand Pentax P30T with a Vivitar zoom lens I have had as few cameras as possible. Changing only when it has been necessary to produce a higher quality of work or better my workflow. To bring you up to date my cameras have been;

Pentax P30T 35mm Slr, Nikon f65, Nikon F100 w 17-35 Sigma, 28-80 Nikon, 70-300 Nikon, 105 Macro (Sigma).    Pentax 67 with 105mm lens (a kind gift from a friend who no longer used it), 45mm and 200mm Pentax lenses.   Ebony RSW45 w Schneider 90mm Super Angulon. Then in 2005 everything got sold to buy my Ebony45su, keeping the 90mm lens but adding a Rodenstock 135mm lens, Schneider 180mm and Fujinon 300T. I also owned for a short while a Schneider Super Angulon 72XL. I also had a Nikon D70 for a short time which never got used.

So what’s in my bag today as I head out?

Ebony 45su field camera. Schneider 90mm lens. Rodenstock 135mm lens. Schneider 180mm lens. Fujinon 300mm lens. Panasonic Lumix GF1 with 14-45mm zoom lens. Pentax digital spot meter (Zone VI modified). Lee filter holder. 2xLee 0.3 grads, 1x 0.45 grad, 2x 0.6 grads, 1x 0.75 grad, 1x 0.9 grad, 1x 0.75/81b combination grad, 1x 0.45/81a combination grad (all grads hard or v hard), 81a, 81b, 85c, Heliopan circular polarizer/81b. 6x Fidelity Elite Double Darkslides, four with Fuji Velvia 50, two with Fuji Provia 100F. Gnassgear Darkcloth. Rodenstock 4xloupe. Cable release plus spare. Headtorch. Spare batteries for spotmeter, headtorch and watch. Midge net. Buff. Bottle of water. Meusli Bars. Gitzo or Benro three section carbon fibre tripod with Manfrotto 410 geared head.

On overnight sorties on the hill I ditch one lens to suit ( A Chamonix camera currently on order which is 1.5kgs lighter than my Ebony will avoid this sacrifice) and change the Manfrotto head for an Arca Swiss P0 head to save a further kilo. The double dark slides go too to be replaced with a quickload holder and just 12 sheets of film ( 8x Velvia50 and 4x Provia100F). Then I add extra water, dry food and a folding cup to drink from mountain streams, a Terra Nova Laser Competition tent, Thermarest Neoair 3/4 roll matt and Rab down sleeping bag (compresses down small) with silk liner if needed in cooler conditions. I do not take a stove as this adds unnessessary weight for just one or two nights away and that first cup of tea and hot meal when I get home is always a sensation.

I am still waiting to get a new camera bag to replace my ageing supertrekker but beyond that I have to plans to buy any more camera gear. Oh, except for that long lens. Oh, and the lighter tripod, and the new filters, the geared ball head, lens shade, Maxwell screen…………!!

 

 

Mull Tour 2011

Just a short follow up to my post on Mull earlier this month. 

We had an unseasonably stormy time on Mull having got onto the island a day late due to the 100 mile an hour winds that struck at mid-day on the Monday. Despite the weather we all had a great time and still got out to to visit and photograph at four to five locations every day. Some of the evening skies were truly epic but the wind speed made large format photography in the late light very difficult. Never the less I am very pleased with the images I made.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sadly, on Thursday one of the clients lost his camera and tripod when it blew off a sea cliff at Eas Fors on the West coast overlooking the spectacular island of Ulva. A salutary tale for all and a reminder to make sure that as wind speed increases so tripod legs need to be wider spread for stability. Fortunately I tend to have some spare cameras and while Val lost his images from that day and was forced to work the next day with a compact he was able to continue his photography using one of my Dslrs. Any visitors to Eas Fors for some time to come will probably see the tripod legs thrusting out about 10 feet below the cliff edge but do take care when having a look.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, all in all a great week with great food, accommodation, locations and company. I’m really looking forward to taking the next group out in 2012.

 

 

 

 

 

 

…and finally, the Spring gales weren’t the only winds we suffered last week……… you know who you are ;o)