Wounded

I have been reading about and looking at Andy Goldworthy's work in recent weeks. I have been inspired by his sense of connectedness with place in his work, and also the sense of layering, time and cycles of growth and decay that comes out in his installations. Last week all of this came to a sudden stop when a very close colleague and dear friend suddenly died last Sunday. The news of Richard's death was like a massive punch in the stomach. Shock and numbness dominated the whole week. As the week went by I felt an increasing desire to get out to Cape Roger Curtis where I am currently working on a book project. I wanted to be in nature, with nature and away from everyone with my camera and mourn my friend in some way. I had a vague idea of doing an installation at a particular tree the previous week when I walked the forest as he was dying on the other side of the world. That sense of disconnect you experience you find out someone died, and you think back on what you were doing while it happened and how you had no inkling of it was palpable for me on the Monday when I got the news. Maybe that was partly why I felt the need to go back to the forest. It just seemed like the right place to go. I took some japanese maple leaves from my garden with me when I left before sunrise on Saturday morning. I wasn't sure what it was going to be yet. I walked back to the tree I had in mind. It is an alder that stands at the edge of the forest next to the ocean. On the ocean side the bark has been damaged and it has left a large wound on the side of the tree that has grown with the tree. When I saw the wounded tree that still grows it reminded me of Richard's life and how he grew a business in spite of the wounds that he sustained when his dad died unexpectedly and he had to take over the family business. It spoke to me of how life is lived, how we all suffer wounds and how they become part of us and the scars become what define us. The japanese maple leaves reminded me of blood and life. It all came together in the work shown. Initially I thought I would attach the leaves with water, but quickly discovered that the water did not have enough surface tension. I ended up using spit. It gave a new layer of meaning because it left like licking a wound to clean it. The leaves were to stiff to bend so I discovered that I needed to tear the veins out. I needed to destroy the leaves to reveal the work. the piece developed its own rhythm as I made it and developed almost in spite of me, as if it was meant to be this way. After much thought about the work I decided to simply call it: Wounded I will never forget you Richard, the memory of you and the wound of your loss is now part me.

To be creative

I have been having various conversations with a young man who is interested in getting into photography. He owns an old film SLR. He is just starting out, and very keen to get his hands on a brand new shiny DSLR so he can get into the digital scene. But spending over $1000 on a decent mid level DSLR is not within his financial reach and so he is stuck.

I have spent quite a bit of time thinking about what the best way forward is for this young new photographer, and he has been willing to be open to my ideas. I think there were two problems with his approach. One is the assumption that you need a digital camera to get into photography and secondly that you need a high end camera to do photography.

There is an assumption among young photographers that digital photography is the only form of valid photography. In fact film photography does not even come into the realm of the possible for most new photographers. This is unfortunate. Firstly they will never experience the incredible magic of seeing a print appear on paper in the developer tray. That was the thing that hooked me forever on making pictures. Secondly they will likely never learn how exposure works unless they make a serious effort to learn their digital camera’s manual mode. This is essential, because learning to see and understand light is critical if you want to be a photographer. Doing black and white film is one of the single best ways to learn to see the light. In my view it is the most important fundamental skill that you need to know if you want to be a serious photographer. It is the photographic equivalent of having to learn classic music before you can play jazz.

I have been encouraging him to use that film SLR and to buy some black and film stock. Spending about $100 will get you everything you need to develop film in your bathroom. Once he has developed the negatives they can be scanned and converted to a digital work flow, which will allow him to still enter the digital online world with his images. I think this is an excellent route for a new photographer to learn the craft.

The second assumption of needing a high end camera may be true depending on what you use the images for. If you are shooting for commercial purposes then yes, you need the best possible camera you can afford. But the vast majority of young new photographers have to learn their art before they can sell their product. The two require separate skills and the second is impossible without the first.

To learn the art photography, or drawing with light, you only need a box with a hole and a light sensitive surface. Most of us have one in our cellphone, mp3 player, compact digital or an unused old film camera sitting on a forgotten shelf. Chase Jarvis recently did a talk about the consequences of creativity in Denver. It is worth listening to because it elegantly makes the point that we need to feed our creative habit for its own sake, and that the consequences of that process are far larger that we can anticipate when we do it.

The engaging in that process requires a personal commitment of energy from our side. A commitment to be carried along with the flow of ideas and acts which are mostly done for fun and often will fail but all add to our creative development as an artist.

I wanted to make this point as strongly as I can, so I put away my fancy DSLR with its prime lenses, took our five year old (which in digital terms is ancient) compact digital camera and kept it with me for a day, making images and short videos as I went about my daily business of earning a living. The end result is the short 2 minute video below. It was made for fun, to make the point that you can use any camera to be creative and hopefully also gives a glimpse into my own creative process, in terms of how I see and how that leads to the making of a photo.

See the video on youtube: http://bit.ly/Ri89V

First assignment completed

Today I helped a client hang my first photo assignment on the wall. It is a six foot wide (1.8m) by 2 foot high (0.6m) print on stretched canvas in black and white.

The photo is located in the reception area of an Interior Design firm named The CHIL design group in Vancouver. They specialize in Resorts, Hotels and high end residential design. The owner was looking for an image that gave a strong feel for the Pacific North West, and when he saw my book gave me a commission to produce a photo for the reception area.

I am very pleased with the results.

In the Beginning there was HDR

HDR today - From my current project about Cape Roger Curtis

Gustav Le Gray - HDR in the Beginning - The Brick in the moon

I discovered an interesting fact today. HDR was first used in the 1850's by a photographer called Gustav Le Gray who was frustrated by the fact that the sky was always rendered white in his photos.

His problem was that the light sensitive material he used was highly sensitive to blue and kept overexposing the sky when he got the exposure right for the foreground. His solution was simple and it turns out timeless.

He made two exposures, one for the foreground and one for the sky and then combined them in the darkroom on the final print. (see the example of his work in the image above). It was called combination printing at the time.

I do exactly the same with my digital camera today in my landscapes, making on average three exposures. One each for the foreground, middleground and sky. I do this because the dynamic range of a digital sensor is fairly limited and cannot get close to seeing a scene as the human eye does. So if the the sky is correctly exposed the foreground is black and if the foreground is correctly exposed then the sky is blown out. Afterwards I layer and combine the images in photoshop with masks. There are dedicated softwares out there that will combine the images for you into a single image. I do not use them because I enjoy the dodging and burning in photoshop with the creative control it gives me. It reminds me of the darkroom. I hate learning new software anyway.

Great photographs

I have been mulling over what makes a photograph great instead of just good.

Of course there are all the obvious things like composition, exposure, content etc that are obvious and present in all good photos. But a truly great photo has something else.

It has soul.

A great photo helps the viewer see what the photographer was feeling.

My First book publication

Lingering on t...

Fine art photograph...

By Riaan de Beer

Book Preview

Finally. My first book is published. Lingering on the Rock is a large 118 page coffee table book. It features fine art photographs of Bowen Island, also known as "the Rock" to locals, printed in rich colurs on premium paper.

This publication is the culmination of a project I started two years ago in June 2007. It captures the spirit of this place as it reveals itself in the ocean, forest and streams that create the landscape and geography of Bowen Island.

Lingering on the Rock can be ordered online in hard cover with dust jacket or image wrap, directly from the publisher and will soon be avaiable in local bookstores on and near Bowen Island.

The book measures 11" x 13" (27cm x 32cm) with 55 photos.

Exhibition update

On Wednesday the exhibit of my work at Blenz Horseshoe Bay opened successfully. There are eight images on the wall and they vary in size from 16"x20" to 20"x30".

The feedback has been very positive so far. The interesting thing about doing the exhibit is that it gave me a chance to stop and review my work at a specific time and place in it's development, and to take stock of where I have been moving with it, to some extent without having vebalized it properly.

The two personal questions I am now trying to clarify for myself from the feedback is firstly whether colour fine art photographs carry the same weight in people's minds as black and white, and secondly if the development of my personal style has gone far enough to set my work apart from the masses and if the direction the work is taking is one I feel passionate enoigh about to continue to develop for now.

So far there seems to be no clear preferance for either black and white or colour, which is surprising to me, since I half expected the Black and white to be preferred.

On the second point, the exhibit has already led to a commission to produce a 6' long print of one of my photos for the reception area of a local Interior Design firm. I think my increasing focus on capturing the "spirit of the place" here on the West Coast has probably been the reason for the commission. It is engouraging to see that my work is has developed a direction which in terms of purpose and theme seems to be clear enough that people want to buy it for that reason, and not just because it is an arbitrary pretty picture.

Exhibition news... and books

Great news. I am doing my first exhibition. For the months of April and May my photos will be on display in the Blenz in Horseshoe Bay in West Vancouver. For those who are not Canadian, Blenz is a local chain of coffee shops. a Few weeks ago I donated one of my photos to a silent auction that was collecting funds for cancer research. The photo caused quite a little bidding war and the owner of the local Blenz happened to be there. so he invited me to do an exhibit. After 20 odd years of pursuing this passion in private, I am about to go public. In addition I have just ordered the final proof for my coffee table book of Bowen Island.

HDR - The old new thing, only faster, well sometimes

The current hype in the digital world is HDR, or High dynamic range images. Basically it is the process of taking multiple images with bracketed exposure which are then combined by some clever algorithms in the software to create a single image.

For years film photographers have dodged and burned images to expand the dynamic range of their images. Of course it was also used simply to improve the impact of the image. We have also had graduated neutral density filters to adjust images in camera long before we left the world of cellulose for bits and bytes.

Granted there is a big issue with digital cameras in that their ability to capture tonal range is not near what film did, so that the tricks of the film days are now an essential requirement to get images that meet or exceed the standards of film.

Now it may come as a surprise to some people to find out that HDR is really nothing new, digital photographers have been layering multiple images with bracketing for as long as photoshop has been around, the real difference is that now it is so much easier and faster to do, well sometimes at least.

I shot the image above a few months ago at Tunstal Bay here on Bowen Island. the light conditions for this sunset ranged by about 3 f-stops. I bracket my landscape shots as a matter of course. It is partially a left-over from my film days and partially because digital cameras are in many ways less forgiving of lighting mistakes with their limited tonal range and noise issues.

So how did I get this exposure even between the vibrant sky and almost dark beach. I bracketed 5 shots from -2 to +2 F and selected the brightest image that did not clip the whites, by reviewing the histogram in lightroom. This is a critical point. Although you can "brighten" up a RAW file after the fact by almost 2 stops, it comes at a cost in terms of noise. However darkening the image does not add any noise at all. The secret to noise free images with deep tonal range is to shoot your exposures as bright as possible without loosing the highlights (a blown out white is always white, no matter how much you darken the image) and then to pull them back in whichever RAW converter is used to balance the exposure.

I applied an electronic graduated neutral density filter by using the lightroom tools to darken the sky by 2 f stops. and presto, done. It took all of 15 minutes from selection the image to printing a jpg for the web.

, no layering in photoshop and no complicated software processes. Something like this would have taken me half a day of trial and error in the darkroom to burn the sky under the enlarger. That is what I love most about the digital world, quick results that allows you more time for shooting and faster feedback which increase the learning curve.

That is also why I have not used the HDR buttons in photoshop or any of the other dedicated HDR programs. After frustrating myself with it for an hour and not seeing any decent results I gave up.

I would rather shoot pictures than sit behind the computer, and the old school tools can give you great fast results if you plan for it in your shooting and get the image exposed right in the camera.

Being prepared

This week it was brought home to me again about how important it is to always carry your camera.

I was on my way home from work. Part of my commute involves a ferry ride across Howe Sound to get to Bowen Island. As I stepped out of the terminal onto the gangplank, I looked up and saw the most amazing sunset happening. The light was changing fast and in a jiffy I had my camera out and put my wide angle lens on. I had enough time to get a few dozen hand held images in the fading light. I hoped one of them would be sharp enough to be of use.

The key thing was firstly that I had my camera, that the settings in the camera were all correct and there was space on the memory card in the body. I shoot in manual, usually at the lowest ISO so that I can use images for stock if it does not become a fine art image and if it is suitable for stock. That means that I often shoot on a tripod with the Pentax IR remote. However, I have gotten into the habit of adjusting the settings on the camera back to continuous shooting with the shake reduction on before I put the camera back into my bag. That way I am ready for hand held shooting if a sudden opportunity arises.

This is a handy little tip to keep in mind when you shoot hand held slow shutter speeds. Set the camera on continuous shooting and fire of bursts of 4 to 6 images on a row. You will often find that the images in the middle of the burst is far sharper than a single image, because one's body can move slightly at the beginning or end of the the shot and impact on the first or last image.