Podcast Appearance: Let's Talk, Let's Create

It was great to recently chat with Mali Davies, a fantastic photographer and all round nice chap. For anyone who knows my history I’m not a stranger to podcasts having hosted and produced 100 episodes of ‘The Togcast’, but it was nice to be the guest rather than the host this time!

This was a chat rather than an interview per se, which is much more enjoyable and I think Mali and I covered a good number of topics. Of course there was quite a bit of discussion about my new book VAIA and I appreciated the chance to dive into some of the story and details a little further. But we also discussed creativity generally and the ups and downs that can come around.

I hope you can find some time to have a listen, I’ve embedded the episode below or you can find it here on Spotify.

Autumn Woodland

Ask any outdoor/landscape photographer for their favourite season and a large percentage would say Autumn. The rich colours and changing scenes offered in woodland are particularly popular. Although the ‘photography police’ might point the cliche finger at some of their peers I do think it’s interesting to consider WHY photographers and indeed the general public seem to find it such a visually engaging time of the year.

Why Do We Love Autumn?

Autumn itself is known to be a temporal landmark, this is a psychological concept that refers to well established markers and events in our lives. In general terms our brains interpret these markers as a meaningful signal to engage with. The strength of these signals are magnified when they appear regularly, such as the annual changing of the seasons. As such our minds and bodies attribute even more meaning to it.

Colour Psychology

There has been increasing amounts of research into the psychology of colours and how we interpret them. It’s widely accepted that certain colours do promote a variety of reactions from individuals.

The colours we associate with Autumn here in the UK combine to make quite the tantalising feast for our eyes. Orange is believed to enhance feelings of joy and fun, essentially it’s a very 'positive’ colour. Yellow is the most visible colour in the spectrum and research has shown it even generates optimism in people. Finally in Autumn comes Red which during this period and in nature offers feelings of cosiness and motivation. I suspect most photographers are also happy to see the end of endless weeks and months of green in the landscape!

Ashridge, Hertfordshire (UK)

New Forest, UK

Photography in Autumn

I personally try to get out as much as possible in Autumn, not only for woodland images but also to my local beaches and countryside. The low light at this time of year is very attractive on a variety of subjects. It’s often an interruption to my more long-form project based photography exploits but I do try to engage in the seasonal change to keep my ‘eye’ in so to speak! Autumnal Woodland images are popular with photographers (and viewers) and so it’s a busy time for workshops, making images, and indeed just enjoying being outside during this period.

One thing some photographers can struggle with is finding order in the chaos of woodland locations. It’s a topic I get into with people on workshops and during 1-2-1 sessions. There’s no single piece of advice here that will suddenly clarify your vision but I’d say the following quick tips might be useful:

• Try working with longer focal lengths such as 70-200mm lenses

• Direct your gaze above ground level, i.e seek out the mid-level foliage

• Look for graphical shapes (such as diagonal lines and curves) in branches and trunks

• Consider the colour contrasts between yellows, greens and oranges and how much percentage of the frame you dedicate to each

• Think carefully about which colours you put next to each other - seek separation and contrast

• Keep your eye on the weather and embrace cloudy days which offer a consistent source of flat light

The general challenge with creating effective woodland imagery is to unpack what you’re experiencing as the photographer into an appealing and graphically strong collection of elements in the final frame. Effective use of colours and the relationships between them will help the viewer engage more readily with the image.

Trentino, Italy

EMBRACE THE CHAOS?

Woodland locations can be quite visually chaotic, but there’s always some basic structure thanks to the verticality of tree trunks. When we position and space these carefully within the frame, it gives the foundation upon which you can let the colours unfold. During the early-mid part of Autumn you will commonly still find quite a lot of green in the foliage (depending on the tree variety of course!) and this can actually be very useful to ‘buffer’ or ‘support’ the yellows, oranges or reds. It’s the contrasting nature of the colours that is sometimes most appealing.

There are times when simplicity is more effective perhaps. Broad swathes of subtle colour variation (such as the below image) can be attractive and really assert what time of year we’re looking at.

Dorset, UK

Don’t Forget Black & White!

Despite all of the above talk about colour and how we react to it, I would also say that sometimes (especially when moisture lingers) that black & white can be an excellent option in the Autumnal period. The luminosity of shimmering leaves with some stunning light can be a recipe for compelling monochrome work.

Often when I’m out with people in Woodland I will get them to engage the B&W live view mode on their camera, even when composing a colour image. Changing to B&W temporarily allows you to better see the tonal variation and density throughout the frame. I promise you’ll learn something about the tonal values and the relationship between elements when you cross-check any composition in B&W.

Dorset, UK

Creative Freedom in Landscape Photography

The most powerful tool you have on any photography trip is your imagination. It’s also usually the biggest obstruction. Like any pursuit involving kit, many of us spend the first few years mastering the technical aspects. Here there can often be quick progression and that satisfies our human ‘need to succeed’ but it can also lead to repetition, and conscious craft over-shadowing creative instinct.

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Photography in its past was firmly rooted in documenting the scene in front of the lens, be it for historical posterity or factual accuracy, it was about capturing not creating. Nowadays, we can be masters of our own visual destiny, we can create the unseen. Be it through the use of filters, speciality lenses or techniques such as ICM (Intentional Camera Movement) or ME (Multiple Exposures) we can shape time and form, and the possibilities are endless. We can be proactive in sculpting and creating our own visual worlds and scenes.

However, whilst the equipment we use is only limited by our creative boundaries, the use of any technique should only ever be to service the aesthetic goal, it should not dictate it. For this work to be successful it must mean something. That can simply be in pursuit of an aesthetic vision in a single image or as part of a wider story-telling narrative, but it cannot just be a display of technique. 

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Try to be open minded in breaking your own mould. Use different approaches to the landscape, find one area to visit multiple times in differing conditions. Observe what’s in a location from the widest possible point of view down to the narrowest few centimetres of sand or stone.

Experiment with movement, both of the camera and of yourself. Learn to manipulate time by experimenting with shutter speeds, challenge your own compositional habits, physically touch and feel what the location is all about. Perhaps even read up on the local history be it 100, 1,000 or 1 Million years old – try and understand a location and then create a body of work which means something deeper and connects to it.

The possibilities are endless – go for it!

Queen Merisana - International Women's Day 2021

A little story about the Dolomites forest queen Merisana and her bridal-veil on #IWD2021...

Despite being the ruler of many lands, forests, lakes and rivers she could not feel happy because others within her realm still suffered. Whilst passing through her region, a travelling King (Rey de Rayes) caught site of her and was immediately transfixed by her beauty, so much so that he could not believe she was real in the passing glimpse he had.

A year passed and he could not shake that brief glimpse of Merisana so he headed back to find her again. Upon doing so he asked for her hand in marriage to which she replied "I cannot say no, but before we can marry every being must find happiness, obtain that for me and I will be yours".

Word soon spread amongst men and animals and they all consulted in how they could honour Merisana on her wedding day. To show their gratitude for this gift of happiness many brought huge bouquets of flowers and plants. Overwhelmed with bouquets, some hard working Dwarves decided to make a tree of them, this became the larch tree.

However, the tree soon began to wither so Merisana said she would sacrifice her bridal-veil which was made of fine green tissue. Immediately the larch began to sprout and flourish, the bridal-veil growing into it.

When the larch trees begin their awakening in spring, the 'bridal-veil' can clearly be seen on the tops of its branches. The veil of Merisana, forest queen of the Pale Mountains.

Thank you to ALL the amazing women who bring happiness, whether you are a forest queen or not :)

SEEING faces in strange places...

How often have you looked up and seen a face or shape in a passing cloud? Or perhaps done a double-take of a strangely familiar looking rock or the rather human looking twist and stance of a ‘dancing’ tree perhaps? Seeing shapes and human forms in the natural world is a fairly common experience, but how much of that can be consciously controlled or sought out? And what does it say about our connections to the natural world?

Ridgeline ‘Face’

Can you spot the face? The Ridgeline runs down the middle of the shadow and light, highlighting the nose with the eye off to the right catching the late afternoon light…

I recently posted this image from my ‘Aotearoa’ series to Instagram and was delighted when someone commented that they could see a face (can you see it in the Ridgeline? Once you see it, you can’t ‘un-see’ it!) Although I didn’t mention it in the post in this instance, I had spotted the face as well but not at the time of capture, that is to say not consciously at least.

Often I will be reviewing images and certain similarities to human forms will leap out at me, as in this instance. Had the face registered with my sub-conscious in the infinitesimal time our brain reacts to such obvious similarities? After all what we are seeing is shapes that mimic something so ingrained in our visual recognition systems (the layout of a face) that all sorts of things could be happening in the grey matter!

There are times I edit and curate the images, share them and someone pops up with something I simply hadn't seen. So what is this down to and what’s causing us to consciously or sub-consciously be aware of these similarities?

Pareidolia is the name of this phenomenon, or certainly of seeing faces in objects. There are all sorts of resources on the web about this and people far more qualified than I to discuss it. But, for the purposes of photography what’s interesting is whether we can actively seek these out, or whether it’s happening in our sub-conscious and only sometimes revealing itself later.

MESOZOIC ‘FACE’

After months of visiting the same location, on the very last morning this Reptile-like head leapt out at me from the rock below my feet.

The image above (from my MESOZOIC series) was actually the last image shot in the whole series. The images had been made in a very small area of a local beach over multiple visits. All the while I had this story about pre-history, evolution and the time of dinosaurs rumbling around my head. Then, on the very final day and on the way to packing up I just tilted my head and spotted this unmistakable reptilian head in the rock.

There’s no doubt in my mind that because that subject matter was already rooted in my mind I was ‘able’ to decode this shape and pattern into a form that my brain recognised immediately. Had I not been in the throws of that project I’m sure there’s no way it would have leapt out at me.

Alternative ways of seeing and creating imagery in the landscape to evoke similarities or anthropomorphic qualities is nothing new to photography. Both Alfred Stieglitz and Minor White wrote at length about “equivalence”. That is to say, instead of simply depicting the objective and known landscape in a documentary fashion, artists can play visually with non-human subjects (such as clouds, rocks, trees) to show human characteristics or analogies for actions and shapes we understand in the human world. Stuart Franklin writes about this far more coherently than I do in his books ‘Narcissus’ and ‘Analogies’ (Hatje Cantz Publishing) which I would strongly recommend you check out if you’re not familiar with them.

DIPLODOCUS

Even after months of shooting the work, editing it, curating it and printing it, I had never spotted this Diplodocus shape in the rock.

In the final example above I’ve circled the hidden subject just to help. And, I must admit this is one I hadn’t spotted, which is wonderful! Whilst giving a talk about this body of work someone in the audience pointed out that they saw a Diplodocus in the pattern on the rock. I’d been looking at this work on and off for 2 years, had shot it, edited it, curated it, made a book out of it and never spotted that at all! For me the image was based around that curved ‘wave’ of rock which I linked to the sea and water themes throughout the collection. I was in a sense blinded by my own obsession with that ‘wave’ that I couldn’t see what was right in front of me.

So, a couple of thoughts to end on:

1) I don’t think it’s possible to always go seeking out these shapes or similarities per se. It would be very easy to create a rather contrived body of work if you force it. Rather it often comes from a deeper and more long-term connection with a particular landscape that you grow to know more intimately. Visiting, re-visiting, recognising the changes and subtle differences through the seasons and of shape and form. Without being too much of a hippy about it, I suspect these things sometimes need to come to you when you are in a receptive frame of mind rather than being sought out.

2) Perhaps it’s good to remember that everyone brings their own eyes, thoughts, fears, hopes and visual baggage to each image. I personally think it’s great when viewers pull something different out that even the creator hasn’t spotted. After all, for every smell, taste or feeling we all experience as humans each is 100% unique to ourselves, and I think that’s rather splendid.