Flinders Ranges

August 14, 2018 in Landscapes, Flowers, Environmentalism, Monochrome

“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods

There is a rapture on the lonely shore

There is a society, where none intrudes

By the deep sea, and music in its roar

I love not man the less, but Nature more“

~ Lord Byron

Dove Lake

June 03, 2018 in Landscapes, Mist, Monochrome

“You can look at a picture for a week and never think of it again. You can also look at the picture for a second and think of it all your life.”

~ Joan Miró

I am really looking forward to the Cradle Mountain workshop at the end of winter. I am hoping for fresh snow, daily frosts and some thick mist to play with. September 2018.

It is my first workshop in Tasmania in the past I have run tours. Cradle Mountain is a special place and it deserves the attention it gets from all the tourists. Cyan (my son) and I are going to walk from there to LakevSt Clair in the middle of winter next year. Can’t wait for that either.

http://www.lensschool.com/workshops-tours/cradle-mountain-photography-workshop

Kalgan River

May 16, 2018 in Landscapes, Monochrome

“You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

- J R R Tolkien

thanks Ben

Albert Namatjira

April 07, 2018 in Landscapes, Monochrome, Composition

Colour palettes need to be considered and settled on. Many photographers don’t stop to consider their palette and rely on the one their camera gives them. In the past our colour palette was mostly the function of the film we chose and used.

Masterful photographers take control of their colour palettes and use this as part of the creative process.

Now to illustrate colour palettes I recommend looking at how painters paint and the colours they choose. Albert Namatjira was a masterful watercolour painter in the MacDonnell Ranges in central Australia. Having visited the area I was struck by the reds and oranges in the rocks and earth. The gorgeous sunsets that bring out purples and mauves. Uluru is a common example that exhibits many different colours in photographs. The colour range is outstanding and breathtaking.

If you haven’t looked at his work, I suggest you do. His paintings are exquisite. His choice of colours and the way he balances them harmoniously is exquisite. Study his colour palettes. My favourite colourist is Rothko, but I will leave him for another day.

Lightroom was updated this week. The way colour palettes are handled have seen a major overhaul for the better. Colour profiles were hidden at the end, and were rather limited. Now they are up front and centre. They have added many more and by there placement you will be encouraged to experiment with them.

This will be the most major change in the way most photographers handle colour and take control of colour palettes.

Each colour profile is a different colour palette. They use look up tables to convert the camera colours recorded in the raw file to a palette with a certain look. It won’t be long before these will be offered by third party vendors and designers and we will have a bewildering range of colour looks to choose from.

Dive in and experiment. I know I will be. There are even monochrome profiles there too. One new feature is that these colour profiles and even the older presets will now load on the full photograph when you mouse your curser over them.

Personally, I think this new change will bridge the colour gaps between Capture One and Lightroom / Camera Raw. Well, that’s my hope.

Love and....

March 21, 2018 in Landscapes, Monochrome

"All you need is love, but a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt."

— Charles Schulz

Frames

February 22, 2018 in Minimalism, Landscapes, Monochrome

"Photography is the art of frozen time. The ability to store emotion and feelings within a frame."

- Anonymous

Design quickly. Decide slowly

February 06, 2018 in Creativity, Monochrome, Landscapes

These were very hard and long lessons to learn and bring into my working practice. The huge cost of film and working with a large format camera for so many years in some ways hindered these lessons, but also in the end taught them to me.

I would spend all day wandering around with my camera, scared to take it out and use it, being fearful of wasting precious money on film. Yet, when the conditions and feelings for a photograph were right, I went straight to work and photographed quickly. Once I had the shot I moved on. So there was a lot of time searching and waiting for the feeling to arrive, yet once it was there I created very quickly.

Afterwards, I would pile up the films until I had a decent amount before processing them. Sometimes it would be six months worth before I started to see them. It might even take another year before printing them. I still have a back log of films to process and an even larger backlog of ones to print.

Fast forward to today. I have managed to go back to a similar process, which for me works very well.

I spend an inordinate amount of time searching for that feeling of beauty. Once it’s there, is strong and I am in tune with it, I start with abandon. I work fast and free. Now I take as many photos as I need to feel satisfied. Working fast gives me a closer relationship with my emotions rather than my cognitive thoughts.

By working fast I am trying to skip the thinking that often stifles my creativity. My thoughts don’t get much of a say while I am working. Feelings are the goal and head state I am aiming for.

When I have finished I let my work sit. Often it sits in the camera for days. Then onto the computer. If there is no pressing need I leave them for months and even a year before I really evaluate them. I am trying to forget the taking and what I was doing.

I want to experience my work as new again and not judge it on what I was trying to achieve. I will explore this idea deeper at another time.

For now. Try working faster. Create fast. Evaluate slowly with time. Design quickly and decide slowly is an old creative adage that is really worth following. It may take years but I hope you get there. It makes a huge difference.

What you leave out

January 29, 2018 in Landscapes, Monochrome

I can remember taking this photograph. We were on our way back from Luderitz heading towards South Africa. We had two vehicles and we were bunny hopping each other along the road. Stopping where ever we liked. This spot we waited until they drove past again. We may even have started back after the other car.

There are lots of power lines in this area. Not just one set cutting through the landscape but multiple ones coming and going in various directions.

The wind blown sand reminds me of snow and the play between the hot desert and the cold snow covered mountains rings here for me.

They say it’s what you leave out of a photograph that counts. It is a good way to frame your thinking. Only include the necessary. Exclude the distractions.

I cant wait to get back to Namibia. Not long now. Less than two months. It is going to be wonderful. A slow trip. Lots of time to wander and pause. Well that is how we planned it. We will probably be so enthusiastic we won’t be able to put our cameras down.

Giving your art time

January 22, 2018 in Landscapes, Abstracts, Monochrome

When I first looked at this photo on the computer I was unsure. So I printed out a ten inch square print and blue taced it to the wall above my computer where it continued to live right up until I moved.

Sometimes when I do this I take the photo down in a fit of dispair and ceremiously rip it up and dispose of it. At that moment when I can’t stand it any more.

This photograph grew on me, almost daily. It kept getting stronger each day I stared at it. Something about it keeps sucking me in. It quickly takes me back to a favourite place. Thick in mist. Full of mystery and romance.

Anne and Kay were with me that early morning. It was the day after another serious session of abstract photography. Perhaps that set me up with a bit of practice in preparation for this one?

Last year this photograph popped up in one of my presentations at a camera club and someone in the audience tells me exactly where it is. Yesterday Sue did that as well. Photographic artists who have been there recognise the shapes of the hills and the river.

When this happens I am quietly reminded that this is a special photograph for me. Yet at first I really doubted that. Time gave me the confirmation that I was looking for and now it quietly continues to remind me of its beauty.

I encourage you to give your art time to mature. Time to grow on you. Time to remind you of its own beauty.

I am hoping to go back there this year. You could join me if you like. The tour around the Tarkine follows a week long photography workshop at Cradle Mountain.

Walking

January 20, 2018 in Creativity, Trees, Monochrome, Landscapes

I believe that walking is one of the great things you can do as a creative. It helps relax you, it helps you think clearly and with creative zeal. This isn't just an activity for photographers. It is for all creative people, well, everyone really.

Do you know walking reduces anxiety and stress? Not only are there physical benefits of your 10,000 steps per day, but there are psychological ones as well. These should all be obvious to you I hope. When I worked with youth at risk, it was a known counselling technique to walk your clients while you talk to them. They talk more freely and honestly when doing. Actually, any physical activity that engages the movement parts of your body is beneficial. Art therapists use this with sand trays. The physical activity, walking, engages the cognitive, thinking part of your brain, and allows your creative and intuitive parts to work unhindered. It is amazingly effective. It settles me, it makes me feel alive with creative ideas, it clarifies, it clears... It is a pure joy.

I am prescribing two long walks per week as an exercise in receptivity to your creativity. Walk for at least twenty minutes... Wander freely, and try to go somewhere natural and quiet. I do enjoy walking the city at night, though hardly a safe thing to be prescribing.

So when you walk, no music, no phone, no friend, no dog.... just you alone... Give yourself time to think, to explore your mental ideas. Listen to your thoughts. See where they take you.

What gives you Inspiration?

January 07, 2018 in Landscapes, Monochrome

“After it’s finished, sometimes I can trace a path that goes back to the possible source of inspiration.”

– Tracy Chapman

I actively try to forget my original inspiration. This is so I don’t judge my work against it. Being a visual thinker with a vivid imagination I have to be careful that it doesn’t get in the way of making art. For me, I prefer a much more organic approach. One where letting go of the original inspiration sets me free to judge my work purely for what it is. I try. But I don’t always succeed.

I remember so much about taking this photograph. Even who was with me, Thea and Sandra. Where we were. We had left Luderitz that morning. I pulled our 4WD off the road in Namibia. I shot from the drivers seat. I was totally mesmerised by the depth enhanced by the wind blown sand. Depth is one of the secrets to capturing attention. This beautiful moonscape enchanted me.

So when I judge this photograph, am I judging the memories and my inspiration? Is it now just a vivid reminder of that moment in time and that place. If it is, then I really have to decide if I think it’s good because it reminds me so well or because it stands up on its own two feet. How do I let go of the reminder of the memories. I can’t. So judging its quality is always flawed for me.

I try so hard to be in the moment, enjoy the moment and to let go.

I will be back in Namibia in March this year with a very lucky small group of photographers. I say lucky as there is only a few of us. So we can be highly mobile and very responsive. If you want to join us you should book now before it’s too late.

Namibian Sands

January 04, 2018 in Landscapes, Monochrome

“There is a considerable amount of manipulation in the printmaking from the straight photograph to the finished print. If I do my job correctly that shouldn’t be visible at all, it should be transparent.” ~ John Sexton

Actually I don't want to see any technique in my photographs or of others. For me if I can see tricks and processing, manipulations and technique I find it distracting. When these manipulations become the subject you have lost me as a viewer. As soon as I discover you have dropped a sky in you have lost me. If I can see your graduated neutral density filter in the final print it's over.

My best work arrives easily. Unexpectedly. It just turns up. It's there. I know it's good. Sometimes it grows on me. Sometimes I doubt it's worth. Sometimes I fall out of favour with it. But in the very clear majority of my work I know. I can feel it. Sense it's worth.

But when I go to print my work. One of my favourite things about photography is the photographic print. I spend the time to get the print right. Sharpening, mid tone contrast, the black and white points. They all need to be just right in the print. Adjusted to my taste. But my goal is for them to be transparent so they don't detract from the photographic print. Ever.

Cyan

January 03, 2018 in Landscapes, Monochrome, Trees

Art is a line around your thoughts. ”

- Gustav Klimt

Last year my son rings me from Cradle Mountain and asks if we can walk the Overland Track together. My heart melts as this is a walk I have wanted to do for ages but had never really found someone to do it with. I check to make sure he realises what's involved in such a walk. 5-6 days of pack carrying bushwalking. Yes dad, I know.

So last week we do our first little walk. A short overnight to Deep Pass. To practice and start the long process of building up to a longer walk. Deep pass is less than an hours walk with plenty of caves and canyons to entertain my 11 year old son.

We even found a soccer ball there and spend time kicking it to each other. But, his main fascination is in sharing photography time with dad. We climb into the deep sandstone slots and photograph in the rain of the first afternoon and in the morning we wander up the canyon and photograph for hours together. He is currently using my old EM-1.

It's heart warming to find such companionship with my son within my loves. Lisa reminds me, it's who you wander with that matters.

Today's photograph was from that trip.

What should you leave out?

January 02, 2018 in Monochrome, Landscapes

"Art is the elimination of the unnecessary."

~ Pablo Picasso

As photographers we tend to think about what we are putting into our photographs. Questions run through our heads like 'What is the main subject?' Or 'What is the story I am trying to tell?'

It's really interesting to watch people cropping in tighter to improve their work. Removing the unnecessary. I remember watching a Micheal Richman video where he kept recropping as he continued to process the image. Each time getting in closer to the subject. I have thought about the photojournalists need to get right to the point as quickly as possible.

Personally, I prefer to work harder at the taking end and try to get it right then.

The question I ask is 'Does it help and support the photograph or detract and distract me?'

Listening

January 01, 2018 in Landscapes, Monochrome, Trees

What do you listen too?

"The earth has music for those who listen."

- George Santayana.

Furber Steps is that place I have been having a love affair with over the past few years. My first photograph there was about twenty years ago, and in my youthful haste I walked past most of it to get to what I thought was the 'money shot'. The one with the name, Katoomba Falls. I was working on all of the local landmarks trying to take an arty iconic photograph without taking something already seen before. I visited three landmarks on that first day. Wentworth Falls, Katoomba Falls and Narrow Neck, and at each shop I exposed a single sheet of colour transparency film.

It was Greg Farmer and Tony Hewitt who took me back there on A Blue Mountains Camera Club excursion, some twenty years later and my heart opened, my ears started to hear the music and I slowly started to see. Twenty or thirty visits latter I can confirm it is love, and its the most beautiful music one can listen too.

It's when I stop and have time to connect. Time to really listen to nature. Time to actually hear what is being said. To engage. To let go. This is when the photographs flow.

December 29, 2017 in Monochrome, Landscapes

"Instinct tells us what to do long before our minds even understand....."

~ Brande Lane

How do you get to the state where your mind is a blank slate and you can truely listen to your inner self? How do you listen to instinct? A question I believe you need to find the answer too. This is because our rational logical minds take over all to readily. It can take me over a year for me to understand the art I am creating today, if I am truely working from my inner self. Letting go of logic is very important and getting to that state. So to ask again, how do you get there?

December 28, 2017 in Landscapes, Monochrome

"Sometimes you've got to choose the aesthetic over the narrative."

—President Barack Obama,

The last morning at the Lake District, after two full weeks of photography. This trip to the UK was life changing. It was on this trip that my heros became my peers. I was welcomed into their community of landscape photographers with open arms. Friendships deepened and were cemented. English light gently cradled Mother Nature in a way incomparable with the Australian light I was used too. The memories of this trip etched firmly into my brain. Memories that don't match the photographs, for while taking them I was somewhere else. The photographs have to stand on their own aesthetic.

December 21, 2017 in Landscapes, Monochrome, Trees

"Whoever wants to know something about me, they should look attentively at my pictures and there seek to recognise what I am and what I want."

~ Gustav Klimt

Hopewell, Marlborough Sounds, New Zealand . Taken on an invigorating afternoon stroll in the rain during a Freeman Paterson and Sally Mason Workshop. We had some free time and I wandered up this gully. The rain gently fell and I was deeply connected with Mother Nature. An incredibly productive afternoon.

For me, photography is about the photographer. The more I understand photography the more I believe this. So I seek to understand myself through my photography. I photograph for me. The audience isn't on my mind at all. For my own joy.

December 20, 2017 in Landscapes, Monochrome, Trees

“I think that it is a sensual pleasure – image making. It’s not just the finished print which is sensual in terms of the tactile qualities of the materials that I use. I’m seduced by the light, all the time.”

– Elizabeth Opalenik

Frost burning off in the morning sun at Cradle Mountain in Tasmania. Taken during our Cradle Mountain Photography Tour many years ago. We were driving back to the Lodge for Breakfast and we saw the mist rising out the van window. We pulled off and stood by the edge of the road photographing the spectacle unfolding in front of us. Hopefully going next year. It will be a workshop run from the Cradle Mountain Lodge.

October 11, 2017 in Landscapes

‘When you go out there, you don’t get away from it all. You get back to it all. You come home to what’s important. You come home to yourself.’

–Peter Dombrovskis