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As a year of photography draws to a close, and I spent some time thinking of my learnings over 2009.

For me this year has been far less focused on camera technique (the physicality of handling my equipment) and more the mental processes behind making images — which has a lot to do with having read David Ward.

Shoot less, get more

“Well, less is more, Lucrezia” – Robert Browning

Often time is always against us, I get 1 – 2 weeks annual leave for a photography vacation or a smattering of weekends each year. Add that to shooting in those precious times of day (sunrise or sunset) equates to some preciously short windows to capture something truly worthy (and shareable).

This can lead to cramming mode. Trying to fit several different locations in each day, with a new location each day.

But on shoots where I’ve planned 1 – 2 images across several days at a single location or area, the ability to return the next day to improve previous images or sample varying weather conditions has meant I’ve often achieved better images.

In the words of Alain Briot “to try and photograph everything is to end up photographing nothing well”.

Breaking convention

“Etonnez moi!” (Astonish Me!) – Alexei Brodovitch

Read most photography magazines, and they constantly teach (or regurgitate) the same photography mantra; the rule of thirds; framing; odd numbers; repeating patterns and deviations.

To rely solely on these rules is to create something contrived.

If everyone follows the same rules then only order and repitition reigns.

Only by breaking them (or bending) can we hope to create something unique — and commonly unseen.

Stop don’t shoot

“The camera doesn’t make a bit of difference. All of them can record what you are seeing. But, you have to SEE” - Ernst Haas

There’s an adage that you must travel everywhere with your camera. I’m not so sure.

Visiting a location without a camera offer a certain freedom of seeing without the confusion of trying to find images that comes with having a camera in your backpack.

You can step back and think (or rather see) with a clear head and a new perspective. There is more to see and discover than your first (distracted) visit with a camera will allow.

Breaking Conditioning

If only I could tear out my brain and use only my eyes – Pablo Picasso

Evolution has taught us to see in one way, to break down and understand the world fast.

The eyes are our first camera, the brain the director. But trying not too look without our eyes, but with the brain is the (hard) trick, as that means running your thinking effectively counter to evolution.

It’s like thinking yourself a movie Director, it’s he (or she) who determines how to frame a scene or compose a movie scene in their heads or paper first. The eyes and camera are merely the means to execute that thinking.

What are the lessons you’ll be taking from 2009 into 2010?

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When not behind the lens I work in the world of the web.

And at our agency we create lot of information design to convey complex web builds, systems, processes and information in a simple intuitive graphical form. Some of it (although not mine!) is practically art.

None of it has a place photography blog — until now! Whilst having a hour to kill and itching to experiment with some information design in my own time, I cobbled together a visual representation of my own photography workflow.

Here she is – click here to see a larger version.

An experiment with my photography workflow & information design.All rights reserved. Copyright Paul Marsden. Use only with permission. Contact paul@f29.co.uk

It details:

• Each sequential stage from cradle to grave
• Editing unique to each stage
• Color profile usage through the lifetime of an image
• Applications used
• exporting and archiving workflows

I subscribe to a lot of information design blogs, and haven’t seen any photography based information design yet, although this probably has no practical use what so ever I’m interested to see what others think of the photography workflow itself.

But I imagine it is fairly standard practice.

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The most critical piece of kit no landscape photographer can function without (aside from a camera) is a tripod.

Forgetting vision, filters and all else, you’ll get nothing but motion blur without this key ingredient. So why do so many landscaper photographers abuse this vital piece of their armoury?

Given it’s such a key thing, so many landscapers seem to forget about any technique in using their tripod.

Legs go up. Legs go Down

Tripods are not fixed in height. Legs go up, legs go down.

It’s not just their to balance your camera it’s a key compositional aid, I see so many people come to a location, set up fully extend the legs, plonk the camera on and shoot away, then leave.

Get low down. Get on your knees, or better even lower. Exaggerate some foreground. More dynamic and visually arresting compositions come from the angles that we don’t see the world through everyday. Not from the
perspective of standing up — that’s not to say that no interesting compositions can be had at this angle. Just not every shot you take!

Tripods = cable release

Landscape photography. Tripods. Peas in the pod aimed at minimising camera shake, and achieving pixel point sharpness. Surely?

So I can’t understand why you want to go to all the effort of erecting your tripod, mounting the camera, then hand pressing the shutter?!

You’re still transferring motion to the body of the camera — unless you use the timer. The fact it’s mounted will dampen the effect compared to handheld, but why not eliminate it all together with a cable release?

If you’re serious about landscapes, then surely you’d do everything feasible to maximise sharpness throughout your image?

Personally I go mirror lock up, I weigh my tripod down, and even stand to shield it against any prevailing wind. Basically, anything to make sure there’s no additional motion in that split second the shutter is open, and the
chip (or film) naked.

Walking tripods

I’ve posted about this poor tripod technique before, but what is achieved from walking around a landscape location holding a tripod at the neck from one viewpoint to another?

This way the tripod ends up determining the composition, not the other way around. It leads you, not your eye leading it.

Pre-visualise. Frame it in your camera. Then once you have a viewpoint in mind, bring the tripod to you, and maneuver it to support the camera at your chosen spot.

Tripods are heavy and cumbersome I’ll admit, and this may mean a longer set up. But it will force you to slow down and take more time evaluating what it is you’re about to commit to emulsion and that will mean better compositions.

In closing your honour …

I guess all of the above is about pace. I can only presume people commit these tripod crimes in haste.

Maybe we have 3 other locations to cram in before the light fades, so we hurry. But it’s like cramming for an exam. Sometimes we’re so eager to document what we see we cut corners and this does detriment to our photographic results.

A tripod should slow you down. Use that time to previsualise, address what you can see. Don’t fight it. And think of all the other “best practice” techniques we go through in using all your other equipment. Why should a tripod be treated any differently?

Happy shooting

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Recently I’ve been considering moving from digital to medium format film tempted by the significant increase in resolution, detail and possibility of significant print enlargement.

Begging Google what is the megapixel equivalent of medium format film resolution i found out that you need 100 megapixels to emulate the resolution offered by 6×7 colour film.

With my eye on upgrading to the Canon 5D Mark 2 I felt deflated.

That newest of digital chips falls a massive 80 megapixels short, with a comparatively pithy 21 megapixels. Why bother with 5 times less resolution than film?

Sure a few more years of Moore’s Law in digital chip development would align my hopes of medium format resolution. Or I could squander hours of my life in Photoshop stitching images together to achieve comparable levels of detail. Or embezzle $10,000 to acquire a Phase One back.

Size does not matter

And then it hit me. Why does megapixels and the size of my final print matter?

So what if i have 100 megapixel camera? Or a 6 megapixel camera?

What do those extra megapixels of resolution really mean for my photography? It certainly won’t enhance my creativity? It won’t aid composition, my choice of  location or lighting? That’s the myth perpetrated by the camera marketeers.

Years ago I visited a Salvador Dali retrospective exhibition. I’d studied his works in art books with beautiful scanned renditions of his works. It never occured to me the originals would be smaller than the printed versions.

On seeing the originals I was stunned that most of them were in fact tiny, some no bigger than A5 postcards.

It was the intent and skill of the artist not the physicality or final size of the canvas (or print in the case of a photograph) that created the beauty of the images.

An images qality or beauty is in it’s composition, the light, it’s mystery. That’s art. Not just because it’s 7 ft tall — Andreas Gursky style.

In-camera interpolation

Maybe the greatest megapixel myth I’ve read about is in-camera interpolation. Where the advertised native capture of the megapixel chip is actually smaller than the stated megapixel output.

For example, the digital chip in camera X captures say a 10 megapixel image, but on capture the chip interpolates that image in-camera to the advertised value of 21 megapixel.

This potential megapixel myth isn’t something widely documented, and I’ve found only a little documentation to support this, but it did get me thinking.

Moving beyond the megapixel myth

I must admit i do love huge prints, especially in a gallery setting. And I am the nose to frame kind of guy — aren’t all photographers?

But I don’t live in a mansion yet (sigh), so the realistic need to print 100cm wide prints in my life is relatively small.

Film is still very appealing to me right now though for the breadth of information it can hold comparatively to digital so I’m going to continue looking at a 6×7 and run them in parallel for a while — I’d miss the instant nature of digital.

Guess my days of geeky drooling at manufacturer megapixel statistics may be behind me though.

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We are photographers. Not martians (well not at all). But the analogy I’m weakly trying to build here is why are we obsessed with composing from our tripods?

Like some HG Wellsian creatures I see photographers manourve themselves around the landscape with camera super-glued to thier ballhead. Placing it down. Looking through the viewfinder from this high perch. Composing. Shooting. Picking their tripod up. Moving on. Stop. And repeat.

Martian tripod | War of the Worlds

Our eyes are trained to rapidly process images. To survive our the millennia our eyes have had to access, process and respond quickly. Food. Good. Eat. Lion. Bad. Run.

All of this detail we need to digest is lost in a sea of light colour and detail that surrounds us. Consequently our eyes easily process what they know, but gravitate to what we find visually unique or different. Our minds need time to catalogue it. Make sense of that which stands out side our normal frame of reference.

So viewers respond well to shots that are outside their normal perspective (i.e that world view we see via our eyes standing up), consequently those landscapes shot down low, close up, or actually on the ground work really well.

I find constantly having your camera on your tripod limits composition. You default to shots from standing eye level, and miss out on more intimate details in the landscape or more visually arresting angles.

Personally, I like to move around a location with my camera in hand first. Find a composition I like, then bring over my tripod and set it up to fit the angle / height of where I found that sweet spot.

The tripod should be for stabilising your camera, not a compositional aid. Keeping it bolted on there is just plain lazy.

Liberate your lens!

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