Lewis and Harris, trying again, and again.

[Tim Tucker 2]

Of course I took the large camera with me. It was as windy as you would expect the Hebrides to be in September, so not really practical except indoors and in sheltered spots. I took four shots, three variations of one subject and a single shot of another, so really I was looking at two finished images. Both are shown here.


Sea Stacks near the Bridge to Nowhere

There is no more passive an observer that a photographer really. We press a shutter and capture that moment fully formed rather than form them from observation and the movement of hand. There are so many things out of our control that it’s almost a restriction, and consequently I fail most of the time. Not in pointing the camera and pressing the shutter, I’m quite good at that, I even manage to expose quite well. It’s the other part that I find a little more difficult, making a complete and cohesive image that, for want of a better word, works.


It’s an odd relationship. Most of the time the images I invest the most in fail. The ones I grab on a whim because I was near the right place at the right time end up being the one that stand out to me. It’s a weird dynamic and one I don’t really understand, how the strongest scenes and ideas fail to translate into images where something spontaneous can often succeed.


I was quite focussed on what I wanted with the Sea Stack image and was looking for locations and light to fulfil a need. I really wanted the rocks to stand as black masses against the sky, (as they do indeed appear on an overcast and slightly stormy day), so needed a separation in luminosity but well within the range of the film so I could push the development.


I wasn’t really that enthusiastic about how the negatives would turn out, and indeed they didn’t really work. But I previewed all three views and scanned the one above, “just to see.” Anyway I started working on it with a far more digital approach than I normally do with film and playing with a few ideas, really just making it up as I went along, when the image you see started forming. It was what I was after, but I’m still not sure how I got there from where I started or even where I should start if I want to return.


Abandoned Meeting House near Mangersta

It was a morning of heavy showers on a stiff Atlantic breeze. I’d just so nearly escaped Mangertsa Beach when a shower swept through and was now back in the campervan slightly damp and cold. I was just looking for a suitable spot to pull over on the single track road for some hot soup and a cup of tea. I pulled in on some hard standing that was in front of a disused building. I couldn’t resist and had a look inside, (the door was open as they often are, it’s down to you to be respectful and close it after you). Inside is what you see.


There was always something about the carved ends of the pews, the way they separate and define the areas. Almost like silent sentinels they stood passive guard and as a young boy I always felt you had to be passed the very last one before you’d truly recovered the full freedom of your Sunday. Perhaps the state of the place is a metaphor to the church I so readily abandoned all those years ago.


But the chances are that all anybody will ever see in it is an interesting abandonment with some nice tones. It’s also more than possible that the first is just an over-processed shot that lacks clarity and shadow detail.

 

[Derrel]

I enjoyed your narrative about as much as I enjoyed your photos… And I mean that in the most respectful of ways

 

[weepete]

I think some of it is just photographing in Scotland! Certainly with landscapes it seems easier to hit good conditions by chance than by planning. We were up there last year and got 1 day that was very nice where I couldn't photo as we had other stuff to do, 1 hour of really beautiful drifting sunlight that I missed as we were in the pub for a couple of games of pool and one spell of very inclement weather that had fog amd rainbows that I just couldn't get to translate. The rest of the time it was that photo sapping grey clouds and non directional light that just kills shots. The last few that I felt I had sucess with have been repeat visits waiting until conditions were right before venturing out.

Some scenes and ideas just don't translate to two dimensions well. I suppose that's where painting has an advantage over photography, you can just manipulate it to get the point across without feeling like you're cheating.

I've been doing a few experiments recently with intensional camera movement, inspired by Andy Gray which I think have a bit more leeway due to their natural break with reality that seems to afford more freedom in that area.

 

[Original katomi]

Nice pics, captures the mood

 

[Tim Tucker 2]

I suppose that's where painting has an advantage over photography, you can just manipulate it to get the point across without feeling like you're cheating.

Why? What stops you crossing that line, or more importantly why have you convinced yourself that there is a line there at all? Perhaps it is just you staying within your own boundary... Photographs do not all convey a sense of absolute truth, only those that declare visually that they are truth should really be governed by such ethics.

I've been doing a few experiments recently with intensional camera movement, inspired by Andy Gray which I think have a bit more leeway due to their natural break with reality that seems to afford more freedom in that area.

I think this is a very good idea. And excuse me if I get a little abstract here...

I've posted these on another forum where I know they will be largely ignored. Not because I don't think they are worthy of posting but because I understand that they contradict the logic that many hold to be fundamental truth, the logic that gives a sense of worth and meaning to their own images.

We generally try to fit what we see into a framework we understand, rather than try to form a new framework that fits what we see. If our framework is based on an understanding of how the camera works then our images are dictated by that. We tend to view things as though they have a visual reality that can only be captured by skilful control of a precision instrument. And we tend to judge images in that way, look for the noise, shutter and aperture (sweet spot and movement), precise focus, detail in the shadows. Pretty much everything apart from how the image moves us.

Then if some twat comes along with a 60 year old film camera loaded with pretty standard B&W film and rides roughshod through all those immutable truths you're not going to like him much, or his photos. (Though I do not suggest my images are going to threaten anybody, it's enough sometimes just to question beliefs ).

The big problem with technological photography is that we become bound by the truths of technology, as if they are the answer. Because more accurate focus and larger DR are better technical specifications for a camera nobody seems to question if they are *de-facto* better specifications for an image. We just assume that an image that is more accurately focussed and has more DR is a better image.

As photographers...

It's a big trap to be caught in, forming a logical framework based on an understanding of technology into which you try to fit every image you make or see. We want to believe we are correct and so comes the conformation bias and with it comes a failure to see anything other than what we wish to believe.

But generally viewers have no idea of most of this and fewer care. As long as the image looks like, or reminds us, of something in our memories or imaginations we will generally like it. And just as many photographers become completely blind to anything outside their technical understanding, so viewers are generally blind to anything outside their understanding which is generally the technical part of photography.

Bluter the detail, butcher the shadows, forget the precision. Anything that helps you gain a visual understanding of images rather than a technical one. Break out of it any way you can!

 

[smoke665]

Why? What stops you crossing that line, or more importantly why have you convinced yourself that there is a line there at all? Perhaps it is just you staying within your own boundary..

Having spent a lifetime creating in multiple mediums from wood, oil, watercolor, pencil and photography I think you're missing something. When I create a carving from wood, paint, sketch, sculpture, or even a piece of furniture it's of something that didn't exist in real life, before that point. It could be patterned after an object, a memory even a feeling, and sometimes I don't even know where it will take me as my brain is strange place. Yet no matter how far I stretch the boundaries of photography, I'm still recording an underlying image. Granted I can manipulate it to the point of being unrecognizable from it's original state. That doesn't mean I'm being critical of those who create using photography as their medium or value their art any less, it's just a different form of expression.

 

[Tim Tucker 2]

Having spent a lifetime creating in multiple mediums from wood, oil, watercolor, pencil and photography I think you're missing something. When I create a carving from wood, paint, sketch, sculpture, or even a piece of furniture it's of something that didn't exist in real life, before that point. It could be patterned after an object, a memory even a feeling, and sometimes I don't even know where it will take me as my brain is strange place. Yet no matter how far I stretch the boundaries of photography, I'm still recording an underlying image. Granted I can manipulate it to the point of being unrecognizable from it's original state. That doesn't mean I'm being critical of those who create using photography as their medium or value their art any less, it's just a different form of expression.

When I stand in a gallery and view a sculpture or painting or even a photograph, I use the same body of memory and experience to interpret and understand what I see as I do if I take a bus downtown. The way I see, feel, imagine, understand or relate to an object, sculpture or picture fundamentally doesn't change because it's made of wood instead of stone or is a photograph instead of a painting. Sure I understand the difference between an abstract and a photograph but that understanding is still based on my real world experience and memory. It is still the viewers experience and memory that illicit a reaction or an emotive response.

I know what you're trying to say, but the difference is in your own understanding of how each is created and not an understanding of how each is viewed with little or no understanding of their creation. It is you creating the distinction as we often do; to create an understanding we separate and label, draw distinctions and logical categories. Sure the limitations are different and so are the possibilities. But to say that it is a photograph and therefore has different boundaries is like saying that the medium dictates the outcome, which is only a whisper away from saying the camera technology dictates the outcome. A texture is still a memory of touch regardless of whether it is in a sculpture, painting or photograph. The trap we fall into is not recognising this but instead just assuming that a photograph is the real object and therefore contains the properties of the real object instead of realising that it just reminds us of our memory of that object. It is no more real than a painting and often less so than a sculpture, it is still only representational.

Most photos follow the same format, one we are familiar with. But that doesn't mean they have to, unless we want to sell lots of them when it is prudent to follow market trends and popular fashion, what the public expects a photo to be...

 

[smoke665]

own understanding of how each is created and not an understanding of how each is viewed with little or no understanding of their creation. It

May not have been clear, but I wasn't referring to how someone might interpret another's work.

 

[Tim Tucker 2]

May not have been clear, but I wasn't referring to how someone might interpret another's work.

I do understand what you mean. When drawing you observe and make marks on the paper by the movement of a human hand. Each mark is unique and in a way you respond to them as you make more marks and so the result is a far more human response.

With a camera the image is formed complete by largely mechanical means which these days is highly automated and generally programmed not only to be infinitely repeatable but assumes that certain *norms* are always aimed for, sharpness, colour, maximum detail, contrast, precise focus etc. Further to that most of the editing that we do follows pre-set paths or *norms* that are again mechanical and pre-programmed by somebody else. We move sliders, generally in one direction (but there is the option of the other though hardly an infinite choice ) to produce subtle variations of the same theme. Granted that in most photography this is exactly the direction you want to go but it is hardly art or your own individual response such as a drawing would produce.

What I'm saying is that often we fall into the trap of accepting this and the parameters or *norms* that others have programmed for us, we always follow the same mechanical path to the same mechanical result that that the programmers have assumed is our common goal.

If you're drawing you create marks and see how they work, you learn how to create different textures by experiment, how you interpret the different marks that you make. With photography we tend to assume that texture is an inherent property of the object that we photograph and is captured in it's *visual reality* when we press the shutter. Then by moving the same sliders in the same directions we *reveal* that texture by making visible detail and contrast. In the process we fail to notice how we abstract the image or how we often destroy that texture because we've stopped questioning the actions we take or the pre-programmed path we follow. We also fail to make a connection between the object we portray and the kind of texture or contrast and detail, we expect to see. That there is a relationship between our memory and experience that defines or influences how we interpret the marks. Hard contrast on a face is a rough or weathered texture full of detail and story, and harsh contrast and sharpness on a B&W of a flower destroys the delicacy, texture and sense of detail and just looks odd...

All I'm saying is that it doesn't have to be like this. We can introduce the *random movement of a human hand* rather than accept the assumptions of the programmers just to see what mark it makes and how it looks. ICM is one place but there are others. When we edit we can *paint* in effects and mask with a drawing tablet rather than automated selections, we can go in different directions just to see what the visual result is.

 

[weepete]

I suppose that's where painting has an advantage over photography, you can just manipulate it to get the point across without feeling like you're cheating.

Why? What stops you crossing that line, or more importantly why have you convinced yourself that there is a line there at all? Perhaps it is just you staying within your own boundary... Photographs do not all convey a sense of absolute truth, only those that declare visually that they are truth should really be governed by such ethics.

Yeah, but there's something in the ether right now about photography. Perhaps this will explain: one of the questions I'm asked a lot by non photographers is how much editing I do to my images. A lot of them wonder what the originals were like and how far things have been taken. There's a general acceptance that you can do amazing things nowadays with a computer, producing digital images which are pretty much indestingushable from "real" life. Even amongst photographers there's a weighting that gives more credence to shots that are percieved to be "real". Much like a magician revealing the trick, the method can deminish the effect to the point of dismissal.

For a lot of my own photography, I'm presenting our country in a manner that people don't normally associate with Scotland. I'm sure you know what I mean, talk to people about going up North and it's stories of cagools on Aberdeen beach with a windbreak, sideways rain and sand in the sandwiches! Show them a picture of Achmelvich on a balmy summer day with white sand an an auzure ocean and you can practically see the jaws hitting the floor. So it is important for a lot of my shots that they are not too far removed from reality.

I've been doing a few experiments recently with intensional camera movement, inspired by Andy Gray which I think have a bit more leeway due to their natural break with reality that seems to afford more freedom in that area.

I think this is a very good idea. And excuse me if I get a little abstract here...

I've posted these on another forum where I know they will be largely ignored. Not because I don't think they are worthy of posting but because I understand that they contradict the logic that many hold to be fundamental truth, the logic that gives a sense of worth and meaning to their own images.

We generally try to fit what we see into a framework we understand, rather than try to form a new framework that fits what we see. If our framework is based on an understanding of how the camera works then our images are dictated by that. We tend to view things as though they have a visual reality that can only be captured by skilful control of a precision instrument. And we tend to judge images in that way, look for the noise, shutter and aperture (sweet spot and movement), precise focus, detail in the shadows. Pretty much everything apart from how the image moves us.

Then if some twat comes along with a 60 year old film camera loaded with pretty standard B&W film and rides roughshod through all those immutable truths you're not going to like him much, or his photos. (Though I do not suggest my images are going to threaten anybody, it's enough sometimes just to question beliefs ).

The big problem with technological photography is that we become bound by the truths of technology, as if they are the answer. Because more accurate focus and larger DR are better technical specifications for a camera nobody seems to question if they are *de-facto* better specifications for an image. We just assume that an image that is more accurately focussed and has more DR is a better image.

As photographers...

It's a big trap to be caught in, forming a logical framework based on an understanding of technology into which you try to fit every image you make or see. We want to believe we are correct and so comes the conformation bias and with it comes a failure to see anything other than what we wish to believe.

But generally viewers have no idea of most of this and fewer care. As long as the image looks like, or reminds us, of something in our memories or imaginations we will generally like it. And just as many photographers become completely blind to anything outside their technical understanding, so viewers are generally blind to anything outside their understanding which is generally the technical part of photography.

Bluter the detail, butcher the shadows, forget the precision. Anything that helps you gain a visual understanding of images rather than a technical one. Break out of it any way you can!

I don't mind you being abstract at all, I usually quite like the diversion!

It's actually a really useful technique, and it does make me think more about the feel of a place and how that would be conveyed more (normally I feel quite in touch with the landscape anyway). But it can give me something to shoot in less than ideal conditions (very useful in Scotland!) where you are dealing with colour, light, shade, texture and shape a lot more. It's kinda good to get rid of a lot of the shackles and just let loose.

 

[Tim Tucker 2]

Yeah, but there's something in the ether right now about photography. Perhaps this will explain: one of the questions I'm asked a lot by non photographers is how much editing I do to my images. A lot of them wonder what the originals were like and how far things have been taken. There's a general acceptance that you can do amazing things nowadays with a computer, producing digital images which are pretty much indestingushable from "real" life. Even amongst photographers there's a weighting that gives more credence to shots that are percieved to be "real". Much like a magician revealing the trick, the method can deminish the effect to the point of dismissal.

I think I know what you mean. A friend of mine had family over from Canada recently, and though not a photographer she was apparently a really good pianist. Anyway she was taken by some of my photographs and wanted to take a copy of one home with her, and so came round one afternoon to flick through the prints and we were talking about this very point, (she took two images because she couldn't make up her mind ).

I call it *Digital WOW* and it really relates to the *look at me* approach where the photograph or skill with the camera is what you're showing rather than the subject. Couple this with the normal digital tools I was talking about that add an obvious but subtle fake aspect to images. There's something about the global and mechanical nature of modern digital process that strips variation and imposes a uniformity to colour and tone that's just enough to be unnatural.

I don't have your problem as you as in nobody ever asks me about how I created the images, they're not even interested as to which ones are digital and which are LF film. But I make it a deliberate approach of mine in that it is the subject that's the star and not any skill I may possess, alongside a process that very decidedly avoids the use or artefacts of global tools. I very much allow things to be decided by the movement of hand where possible. Our friend from Canada inflated my ego unnecessarily by coming straight out with this observation and saying that my images had an honesty to them, in that it was obvious that they were about the subject.

(this reply is getting towards an essay again... )

This is not to say that everyone really understands what they are looking at because I always remember the look on a good friends face when he discovered that one of his favourite images of mine was a photo, as he'd always assumed it was a painting!

So I don't think that's it's to do so much with people not understanding that a photograph can be representational rather than an exact reality as long as they can understand what they see in a way that relates to their experience and memory. I think it's the modern digital that has an air of mechanically fake whilst hiding behind a layer of hyper-reality that causes a confusion. I think the upshot of it is that people aren't really sure what they're looking at or how to interpret it, how to connect it to their own experience and memory. It's almost as though they need a reference point by which to understand it.

Talking of balmy Scottish beaches here is Berneray looking toward the South Harris hills. This is the image my pal mistook for a painting, the daughter of a friend requested a copy of it for a wedding present, honeymoon in The Outer Hebrides...

 

[smoke665]

All I'm saying is that it doesn't have to be like this. We can introduce the *random movement of a human hand* rather than accept the assumptions of the programmers just to see what mark it makes and how it looks. ICM is one place but there are others. When we edit we can *paint* in effects and mask with a drawing tablet rather than automated selections, we can go in different directions just to see what the visual result is.

Oh I agree, photography doesn't have to be limited to the purely technical aspect of focus, exposure or composition. Though it was one of my favorites and now hangs on my wall, it was never received very well, that may be because of your earlier comment "as long as they can understand what they see in a way that relates to their experience and memory". It uses everything from slow shutter, ICM, zoom and post editing to achieve an abstract.
Conception.jpg by William Raber, on Flickr

By comparison, this simple ICM received a lot of attention. As you mentioned earlier the appreciation of the viewer is the big unknown. In this one the viewer sees trees, they can relate.
Streaks Of Fall by William Raber, on Flickr