Photographic Intensity

I ummed and aahed about what to title this post. Mainly because words like intensity tend to scare people away. And I certainly don't want to scare any of you away. Maybe determination would have been a better word? No intensity says what I want to say, which is this...

It seems to be a product of our modern age that we're all sold things based on how easy they're supposed to be. Become an expert photographer in 10 easy steps, start your own photography business over night, learn Photoshop in a day.

One thing they all tend to neglect is this word - intensity. They forget that one of the most important factors in really great photography is intensity. Intensity of purpose, intensity of desire (to create a great image) and intensity of will. Now I don't mean that when you're out photographing you'll be walking around with a scowl on your face because you're so serious! Hell I've usually got such a big smile on my dial because I'm having a ball. I'm exactly where I want to be.

But don't let the smile trick you into believing that I'm not intensely concentrated on what I'm trying to do. I am where I am because I want to capture a beautiful moment in time. And it's this moment in time bit that led to me writing this post.

I see quite a few amateur pictures through opportunities I have to judge competitions, people who when they know I'm a photographer show me their work and looking at lots of magazines. One thing I always notice is that often people settle for second best without pushing themselves that little bit farther to get a really fantastic image.

Now in this case I'm not talking about technique, composition or anything like that. I'm talking about waiting for the right time. I've spoken about light a lot on this blog because in travel photography it is possibly the most important element. You can photograph the most spectacular landscape in the world but if it's the wrong time of day it'll just be a snapshot.

Take this image above. Now it was shot on film so there's no metadata to be found, but if there was you'd see that it was taken at about 3:50 in the morning. If it could talk it would tell you that the photographer (that'd be little old me accompanied by my father-in-law!) got out of a nice warm bed at 2:30 in the morning and drove there. We then stood around in the freezing cold and waited until the sun started to come up.

That's an intensity of purpose. I had been there the afternoon before and gotten some nice shots but they were the same as everybody else's. The light was nice but nothing spectacular. And that's where a lot of people stop, satisfied for the moment until they take a look at their images later and wonder if they could have done better. What I'm saying is that if you really want to go the next step. If you really want to improve your photography, then you need a little intensity.

You need to realistically look at your images and decide if they are the best they can be. Putting issues of technique, composition etc aside, were they made at the best time of day? Would a different time of year be better? Would the scene look better at sunrise? Sunset? When it's raining? This harks back to what I've been talking this week about knowing the why of your images.

One of the most often heard phrases I hear is. "it's not as beautiful as I remember". And often it's got nothing to do with the technique or composition which are spot on. It has to do with the time of day. There is no right or wrong time of day but every photographic subject has a best time of day. If you really want to push the limits of your image making then I would encourage you to gather a little intensity and really set yourself a goal of capturing something as well as you possibly can, and to not stop until you are absolutely thrilled with the job.

Once you learn to do that you'll find yourself wanting to do it in everything you do photographically and before you know it you will be producing images that blow people away. Remember that it's not a race to see how many images you can make during your lifetime. It's a determined effort to produce a series of really knock-out images and that takes a different mindset.

Intensity. There it is, I've said it. Hope I didn't scare anybody away and I'll see you next week. Any and all comments greatly appreciated. :)

I don't have anything to say...

Sure you do, you just haven't worked out what it is yet. Yesterday I spoke a little bit about the why of photography - why you want to capture an image of something. Lately in travel photography there tends to be a trend towards images that tell us more about the computer skills of the photographer than they do the actual subject. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against computer manipulation and creating art in Photoshop. But it ain't me. I like my visuals to tell me something I don't already know about the subject, to make me feel something about what I'm seeing.

I guess I come from a traditional, story-telling style of photography and that's where I feel most comfortable both in the work I produce and the work I admire and buy (my house is a virtual photographic book library, not to mention a collection of thousands of National Geographics going back to 1918!)

The images I really admire, and the ones I try to emulate as much as possible, are the ones where it's pretty obvious what impressed the photographer. Seeing as I live surrounded by the rainforest let's take it from a rainforest point of view.

What do I want people to know about my experience in the rainforest, to feel when they look at my photographs? Well firstly, as I sit down beside this little stream I enjoy the sound of the water flowing over the rocks and the peaceful sound it brings. So I want to include some of the river. I love the rich, thick, green canopy that lies over everything so I definitely want to show that.

But I also love the fact that the wind can blow things into little nooks and crannies to create patterns on a tree trunk that wouldn't normally be there creating a peaceful little scene. So I guess the theme I'm going for is one of tranquility with a sense of the harmony of nature.

So now we know what we want to say we have to figure out how. Firstly our river. Knowing that a fast shutter speed freezes the motion of the water but a slow one gives it that lovely, peaceful cotton candy look I choose a slower shutter speed.

By showing some green at the top, but not showing where it finishes, I give a sense of it continuing on for a long way in all directions and really covering the landscape. And by focussing on my little leaf on the log in the foreground I give a sense of nature's natural compositions (no I didn't put it there you cynics!).

So composition taken care of I then have to think about how much I want in focus. Well considering everything in the viewfinder is important I need everything in focus - which calls for a small aperture. I also know that on a sunny day there would be too much contrast to capture all this detail so I need to time my visit for a cloudy day so that I can record the vision I have in my head.

So you can see that I've used what's in front of me to say what I want to say without the need for manipulating anything in the computer. What I have manipulated is the time of day I photographed the scene, the lens I used and the composition I used. But through all those choices the actual subject is what shines through. There's no looking at the image and thinking 'wow I wonder how the photographer did that?'. Instead I hope you think 'wow that's a lovely place, the photographer must have really liked it. It looks very peaceful, I'd like to sit down next to that stream and take it all in.'

So don't think that you need to get all Photoshop-heavy to put a personal touch to your images and show what you want to say. Your subject is quite adept at helping you take images that show your feelings towards your subject - all you have to do is have the image in your mind of why you want to photograph something, pick the applicable time to be there and rely on that old favourite - technique and technology.

The why of photography

Coming up at the end of next month I'm teaching a travel photography course here in Cairns. The one thing I love about teaching is discovering other people's reasons for loving photography and helping them overcome any learning hurdles they might have.

Because I run the classes with small numbers I really want to help each student and have them coming away having learnt what they want or felt they needed to improve.

At the start of the course I usually go around the room and ask the students what it is they hope to learn during our time together. 9 times out of 10 it's a new technique or something to do with the technology. There's something about the gadgetry in photography that either bamboozles the hell out of us or thrills us. Learning what a new button does, or how this gizmo works makes us feel like we're improving.

Unfortunately technical skill alone doesn't make a great image (c'mon deep in your hearts you all knew that). There's always been two parts to photography - the technical side and the artistic side. The problem is that you can't really have one without the other. You can have a great idea for a photograph but without the technical knowledge to transform that idea into a photograph you're out of luck.

But it's the other way that concerns me more, and is something I think a lot of photographers forget. You can be the most technically proficient photographer in the world, know the precise diameter of every aperture in your lens, the serial numbers of every filter you own and the perfect shutter speed to freeze any kind of motion. But why do you know this stuff? To what end?

I guess what I'm trying to say is that in order for all the technical knowledge to mean something, you have to know what you're trying to say. What you want your image to shout to the viewer. And for that to work you have to know in your heart the art you want to create.

A question I often get asked is 'what should I photograph?' Believe me, if you don't know the answer then there is no teacher in the world who can tell you. It has to come from within. So before you get stuck on what aperture or shutter speed you should be using spare a couple of seconds to think why you want to take a certain photograph. What it is you think is beautiful/astounding/amazing about your subject. Then when you have figured that you'll find that the technical stuff will come a lot easier.

I chose the image above because it illustrates everything that can go wrong technically. Because it was so dark in the polar bear exhibit at the Asahiyama Zoo in Hokkaido, Japan, I needed a really slow shutter speed. That meant that not only was the movement of the polar bear blurred, but I couldn't even handhold it steady enough to stop my son from blurring. This is an image that would get rejected on technical grounds for sure. But for some reason it works. You can see the look of extreme concentration on my little boy's face, the polar bear is entirely within the frame and the overall blue makes for a nice effect. Sometimes you can have all the wrong technique and it still works. Go figure.

Monday's Links

Hi everybody,

I thought today that I might post a few links to other travel photographers that I think have some really beautiful work you might like to check out.

The first one is Gavin Gough, a fellow Lonely Planet Images photographer who I just recently discovered. He has posted some beautiful stuff from Nepal that I think is really nice.

Another recent discovery is Matt Brandon over at the Digital Trekker. Based in South Asia he has a lot of stuff from the part of the world that I love. He recently interviewed the wonderful Bob Krist.

I've also recently discovered David duChemin who writes a blog called the Pixelated Image, and has just released a book on travel photography called Within The Frame. I've ordered my copy from Amazon and am looking forward to sitting down and having a read.

And of course I couldn't leave off without mentioning all-round nice guy and fantastic travel photographer Bob Krist. With his mixture of sardonic wit, incisive travel tips and amazing images this is the place to go.

Now I hope you're still going to drop by here every day for your fix of Paul Dymond-type travel photography but what kind of a blogger would I be if I didn't point you in the direction of some other great stuff out there. It's all about karma people, just passing it forward. :)

Why travel photography?

A rather nondescript door wouldn't you say? A simple Arabic design surrounded by a whitewashed wall. But an important milestone in my life. This was one of the first photographs I ever took overseas.

By the time I reached Africa I had already been to most of Western Europe with my parents, taking a year and a half off school to caravan it around. So I already had the travel bug but this was my first big trip away alone - a nine month adventure through 'the dark continent' from north to south.

Ever since I was a little kid I'd dreamed of visiting Africa. All I really knew of it was from David Attenborough documentaries and books on African wildlife. I still have memories of my parents waking me up in the middle of the night when I was a very small boy to watch a documentary on cheetahs in our little house in Norwich, England - at the start of our 18 month sojourn around Europe.

Now here I was with 145 rolls of Kodachrome slide film in my backpack (yes it was bloody heavy! but nice and cool in the middle of all my clothes) and my first town was Asilah in Morocco. I didn't end up taking many photos in Asilah as the day I arrived in Africa I phoned home to give my parents the good news, only to be told my beloved grandfather had just passed away. Excitement tinged with sadness, but happiness because I knew he would have been proud of me following my dreams.

Over the next nine months I saw so many incredible sights, ate so many incredible foods and discovered so much about not only Africa but myself as well that at the end of it I was a different person. The things I had captured on film (well hopefully - I didn't get them processed till I got home!), I was dying to show other people. To give them a sense of what I had seen, how amazing this planet really is.

I think at first my desire to travel and photograph was purely a selfish one. I wanted to see and do everything, meet everyone, photograph it all. But gradually as I came towards the end of my trip I changed. I wanted to share these images with as many people as possible. Maybe it was (and still is) idealistic of me but I really believe that the more we know about each other the more we break down those barriers of racism and misunderstanding.

So sitting on my parents loungeroom floor going through 145 rolls of film and sighing with relief when a lot of them turned out, (whether they were good or not is another matter mind you!) I resolved to show them to people. I had no intentions of being a pro at this stage so I organised the dreaded slide shows. I took my friends and family on trips to see the gorillas in Zaire, the Serengeti National Park, the top of Kilimanjaro and a little green doorway in Morocco. And that was, and still very much is, my motivation for being a travel photographer. To show a little bit of the world to other people and try and impress on them how amazing it all is, and how similar we all really are.

Why am I telling you all this? I had an experience a couple of weeks ago which really confirmed in my mind that I'm doing the right thing. As regular readers know I have two small boys, both of whom go to parties for their friends. I was at a party a few weeks back (it's taken me this long to calm down) where I was forced to sit for 30 minutes listening to a whole lot of bull&$%t about how bad this country was, how awful these people were and how our country was the best and couldn't be beaten blah, blah, blah. And try as I may, and protest as much as I could without ruining my son's friend's birthday party I couldn't get through to this person. And I thought if I could sit this person down for an hour or so and show them my images from all those countries he ridiculed maybe, just maybe, I could help change his mind.

And that, dear readers, is why I do what I do and why I would encourage you all to do the same. Rather than keep your travel pictures on your hard drives, offer to put on a slideshow for the local camera club, give a talk to a local retirement home or put on an exhibition. You don't need to be professional, have photographs that could win a Pulitzer or have taken them on the latest big megapixel beast. You need to be passionate about the things you have seen and be willing to share that passion with other people. And that's how we travel photographers can change the world one person at a time!

The most common question...

a travel photographer gets asked is without a doubt - what's your favourite country? Well how do you compare the vibrancy of India, with the spectacular scenery of Nepal or the exoticism of northern Thailand? I know I can't. I have good friends who go back to Borneo every year. They're infatuated with it. But for me my favourite country is always the one I'm going to next. That's just the wanderlust in me.

However, on those days when I don't really feel like explaining this permanent state of itchy feet I point to the little-known nation of Namibia. Formerly part of South Africa, this incredible country is home to some of the most spectacular scenery and wildlife I have ever seen.

And one of its more spectacular sights is the Fish River Canyon. The size beggars belief. Second only to the Grand Canyon it's about 160km long, up to 27km wide and 550 metres deep in places. And when we got there there were a total of zero tourists!

You can see the Fish River, from which the canyon gets its name, all the way at the bottom there. And you can see the path to the bottom in the foreground. By placing the path there I wanted to show that you can actually walk to the bottom. I used a wide-angle lens to give a sense of the incredible scale. Remember that the wide-angle increases the apparent distance between objects (making the far side appear a long, long way away) and the farther something is from the camera the smaller it appears - in this case the tiny bit of water at the bottom.

Ideally I would have liked a photo of someone going down the path, but only four people decided to go down and I was one of them. It was a very long, hard walk down but the swim in the water at the bottom was glorious, as was the view back up to the lip of the canyon. The walk back up was torture though.

The next morning when we got up for breakfast my good friend Gordon couldn't find his wallet. Thinking that he'd left it at the bottom of the canyon we drove out to the lip and he started his long hike all over again. Needless to say we gave him hell when he came back up a couple of hours later to find his wife holding said wallet after finding it in the corner of his tent! Come to think of it I could have taken a photo of him going down the path but I was too busy laughing!

Side Lighting

One of the most difficult things I find about writing my blog is matching words with the images. Matching something of photographic instruction with the picture. Because all my images were taken to show something about the subject, as opposed to illustrating a photographic technique, sometimes I find that my posts tend to drift towards pictures that I like, rather than ones that necessarily teach you all something.

So you'll have to forgive me the occasional digressions. As I mentioned yesterday, I've been listening to the wonderful Salif Keita quite a bit lately.

I first heard his music in his home country of Mali, West Africa. After travelling down through the Islamic nations of Morocco and Mauritania I finally felt like I'd arrived in the 'real' Africa. At least the Africa of my imagination.

One of my most rewarding travel experiences was the few days I spent in a Dogon village. The Dogons are an ancient people who, in order to escape invaders, built their houses farther and farther up the sides of very steep cliffs. Still living as they have for centuries, we spent a few days walking from village to village, camping on the rooves of houses as we went.

One of the art forms the Dogons are famous for are their intricately carved doors. Although they are often carved for the tourists, you can still walk through villages and find amazing examples of them on people's front doors. This was one such door. The attention to detail was incredible and I was mesmerized by it. When I first came across it the door was in shadow and I didn't feel the light really captured it at its best.

So I came back later in the afternoon to find the sun raking across the front of it. Side light is wonderful for really showing the texture in something. Texture is good because it really brings out the three dimensionality of objects, makes them almost so real you can touch them. In this case I felt that the side light really highlighted the grain and texture in the wood so you could get a feel for the age of the door as well as the shape of the statues.