Experimenting with Polarisers

I’m a big fan and heavy user of polarisers, particularly when I’m around water or foliage to remove glare and reflections. Whilst I often love the effect of the polariser, there are times when it feels like a hindrance rather than a help to an image.

One such occasion was last week when I was photographing the rock ledges down at Lovers’ Point here in Yamba. There are lots of interesting rocks and cracks here, and numerous rock pools that are uncovered when the tide recedes.

My almost default reaction in this situation is to attach the polariser to cut the glare on rocks and reflections from the pools. However it’s always a good idea to make such decisions intentionally. Sure being able to see all the detail in the rock pools and extra colour in the rocks can be great. But sometimes, that extra detail can be a distraction from an otherwise simpler image. Beyond that, the reflection of the sky can give some luminous space around an object.

Take this pair of images by way of example. In this first image most of the reflection of the sky during early twilight has been removed by utilising the polariser to its full potential. We can see into the pool and see all the seaweed and shells living in there.

In this second image I have adjusted the polariser (with a 90 degree rotation) to allow the reflection to fully return. The weeds and shells are still there, but there’s a light blue sheen on the water that obscures those details for the most part.

What I’d like to highlight in this example is the difference in tonal separation between the rocks and the water in these images. What do I mean by tonal separation? As it sounds tonal separation is taking about the separation - difference in relative brightness - of the tones in the image.

In the polarised image the water and the rocks are pretty similar, with darker patches here and there from the dark weed. By comparison, the water in the unpolarised version is much brighter than the rocks. This provides a backdrop to the most prominent rock, something it can sit upon and stand out from, enhancing the contrast between the rock and the water. Where the tones are closer together as in the first image, the rock tends to blend into the background more, losing its immediate shape and impact.

As well as tonal separation, there is better colour separation. The polarised image brings out the yellows and oranges in the water which are similar to the colour of the rock. There is greater colour contrast in the polarised image, with the light blue water contrasting with the orange-grey rocks.

You might notice that the rocks in the polarised image are a touch bluer than those in the polarised version. This is where the polariser has cut the glare of that twilight blue sky from the slightly damp foreground rocks, returning their natural colour.

Which is better? Well neither version is likely to win any prizes but, as ever, it depends. For me it was the shape of the rocks against the water that caught my attention, that’s what I want to accentuate and so the unpolarised version works better for me. If instead the detail in the rock pool and the colour of the rocks was the main subject then the polarised version might work better.

You may prefer the warmer colour of the rocks and lack of glare in the distant rocks from the polarised version. In that case you could layer the two images in Photoshop and mask in the light blue water from the unpolarised version for a ‘best of both worlds’. This also works if you want to alter the strength of the polarising effect in post-processing - take one shot polarised, another shot unpolarised, and blend them together in Photoshop with a lower opacity for the desired effect.

The takeaway is that you shouldn't use a polariser just because you can. Instead consider all of the effects it has on the image. They can be a great help in minimising glare and distractions, but sometimes the reflections are an important part of the image so it’s well worth experimenting - and/or taking both shots - to get the best result.

If you're in the market for a polariser I've recently started using a Formatt-Hitech Firecrest 105mm polariser and can recommend it.

A Review of David DuChemin's Making the Image

I've just sat and read David DuChemin's new eBook Making the Image cover to cover in one sitting. My initial reaction is that this is a great book for outlining the thought process that goes into making photographs and will appear on my must-read list. My second reaction is that this is a book that I wish I had written, notwithstanding the fact that I'm not near as as eloquent, passionate and prolific a writer as David is!

So much of it resonates with how I work and the conversation that I have when I am photographing. Indeed, I have written several blog posts which I also titled "Making the Image" which outline how I go about making photographs whilst on location.

Some background

If you follow me here, on social media or - gasp! - know me in real life, you'll know that I'm a huge admirer of David DuChemin.

Whilst most point to the likes of Ansel Adams or Joe Cornish as their inspiration (for me too they were my encouragement to pick up the camera) I'd shout out David as one of my heroes for saving my photographic life. Like millions of others I'd fallen into the trap of thinking that it was my equipment that was letting me down. Daily visits to the likes of DPReview convinced me that a new camera or new lens was my photographic saviour.

I stumbled upon David's blog by chance years ago when it was much smaller than it is now. What he said clicked with me immediately "Gear is good, vision is better".

My lacking as a photographer had less to do with my (now very expensively assembled) gear and everything to do with me (and remains so to this day). His blog has always been full of passion, challenged my thinking, and focused on the mindgames of photography. It was never instructional in an absolute sense, he didn't say "do this" or "do that" as other blogs and books would do. It was always questioning and challenging. The answers - though admittedly heavily implied - were left to the reader to decide for themselves.

So it is with Making the Image. This book isn't about telling you how to take better photographs. More it outlines a process that you might go through to make better photographs. Focusing on the journey, rather than the destination as it were.

A Conversation

For a long time now I've considered photography to be a conversation, between the photographer, the camera and the landscape. It might sound silly to non-photographers, but I see it as an ongoing process of observation (listening), questioning, and personal interpretation (talking). The joy of digital technology is that the immediate feedback on the LCD allows that conversation to happen much more fluidly.

"How do I feel about this photograph?"

"How can I make it stronger?"

"What is distracting?"

"What's the light doing?"

"What if I...?"

And so on...

This ongoing interrogation results in a very iterative process, where I reach my best photograph step-by-step. Sometimes I'll take a wrong turn and go down a blind alley, but that's all in the name of trying something, failing, and learning. Sometimes the first image I make is the best, sometimes the last, and sometimes it's one somewhere in the middle. But each step (or image, whether I press the shutter or not) is taken in answer to a question I have posed myself.

I share this approach when teaching workshops, trying to encourage the questioning mind rather than relying on absolute truths. Those truths simply don't exist from one photograph to the next. There is no universally best exposure, composition, aperture, focus point, shutter speed, ISO, filter combination, focal length, position, and so on. It's all these variables and more that create an individual photograph and perhaps even an individual style. It's up to the photographer to put the jigsaw puzzle together that best represents what we have in our head.

Making the Image

Making the Image is laid out like the conversation that is so often going on in my head. It clearly outlines all of this thinking through a series of questions, each of which considers a different aspect of the photograph and how certain aspects might support or detract from the photograph we have in mind.

From "Why do I want to make this photograph?" to "Can I further simplify the image?" to "How is the image balanced?", it provides not so much a framework - you wouldn't sit down and go through these from start to end on every shot - but a pool of inspirational questions to draw on when you're not sure where to go next. Sometimes it well help to get unstuck, other times it will open up a new creative avenue that you hadn't considered. Better yet, if you use and practice the questions over time they will become ingrained in your own photographic routine. It even comes with a Quick Reference guide of just the questions so that you can keep them close at hand.

Rather than just dump the questions and run for the hills, for each question David talks through one or several of his own photographs and shows how he applied the questions in his own approach. This really helps ground the questions, taking them from a perhaps abstract idea to pragmatic advice you can relate to your own photography.

As I say, the book strongly resonates with how I approach my photography and my teaching. I think most photographers will find something to learn here, even if affirmation of your own approach (powerful in itself). For myself, with someone else presenting these ideas and questions back to me, it has helped me think further and more clearly on my own process. There's even a few extra questions which may have been in my subconcious that Making the Image has helped bring to the surface. I expect to hear David's voice on my future photographic adventures (which could get a bit weird at times).

The blurb for the book asks "Have you ever wanted an experienced photographer to look over your shoulder once in a while and ask you why you're doing this or that, and whether you'd considered trying something different?".

Normally I find there's an expectation gap between the marketing and a product's reality. On this occasion I think the marketing for Making the Image is good to it's word; that's exactly what this book feels and reads like. A good teacher won't just tell you the answers, they'll help you to understand the process for yourself. That, as I found on his blog all those years ago, is where David excels.

“A wise man doesn’t give the right answers, he poses the right questions.

~ Claude Levi-Strauss. This quote from the inside cover of the book gives a strong clue as to the book's contents.

Making the Image contains 35 questions over 158 beautifully illustrated pages, a quick reference guide for use in the field, and also contains a 45 minute video (if you really want to take David into the field with you!). You can get it for $20 discounted from $25 until August 12. As well as that, there's a tempting offer that goes with it. In David's words:

Everyone that picks up Making the Image before August 12 at 11:59 PM (PDT) also gets a chance to win one of three portfolio or image reviews with me. This gives me a chance to connect with a couple more of you, and gives three of you a chance to go a little deeper with your own images and process. No restrictions, no fine print. Everyone that gets Making the Image before August 12 at 11:59 PM (PDT) gets a great resource for 20% off what I hope is already a really great price, and a chance to win some time with me.

You can buy it here.

Disclaimer: note that I am a Craft & Vision affiliate. That reflects the fact that I strongly believe in the products David and the team produce rather than it will ever make me a rich man. If this review helped make your mind up then please do buy the book through my affiliate link for which I will receive a small commission. If you'd rather I didn't, you can visit Craft and Vision directly here.)

"Which is better?": Split Testing in Photography

Let me start by asking you a question. Which photograph is better?

Let me ask another question, how did you feel about me asking you how you felt about choosing my preference for a photograph? Go on, let it out.

Let me tell you how I feel when I see questions like this.

"Why are you asking me this?"

It doesn't just sow a seed of doubt in my mind as to the artist's intention, it blows it wide open.

If you don't know how you feel about your work, how am I supposed to know how I feel about your work.

Don't get me wrong, there's much to be gained from mindful and deliberate consultation with peers and respected artists. But the decision about "what's better?" isn't something we can defer to them alone, and certainly not to social media followers.

Instead we might ask a select audience, "Which of these interpretations do you think best reflects the feelings of hope/despair/solitude/energy I am hoping to convey in this photograph? And why?"

I'm a pretty honest and open guy but as an artist I don't think that's a question you broadcast. I think it's one that you discuss behind closed doors. In my head I picture a smoky backroom, a couple of glasses of whisky on the table, a game of pool beyond. Or maybe that's just my preferred arena.

But that's not how or when the question is usually phrased. More often it's on Facebook, asking for help selecting the best photograph from a pair. Sometimes the difference in editing between the two is barely decipherable.

The problem with the question "which is better?" is that it shows plainly that you don't know yourself. It shows that you don't really know what you were hoping to do with the photograph beyond the very superficial. Moreover, it demonstrates that you're basing the future of your photograph on the views of others.

If photography is an art, and art is personal expression, how can the question "which is better?", aimed at a wide audience , offer an answer that is of meaningful help? It might inform us of what some - or most - people like, but it doesn't help inform us of what we like.

And that's the whole point right? If we're making photographs for ourselves then there is totally zero value in trying to work out what the masses want and refine it to their taste.

I recognise the eager student, keen to understand the magic of photography and learn the visual language; the one that I feel I've only just begun learning and know will take a lifetime. I mean no harm, indeed I hope to encourage you to see differently. To not worry about the crowd and what is accepted. To follow your own path and what excites you. To believe in yourself, in your photographs and trust your instincts.

On the other hand, if your objective is to refine your work for mass consumption (and I more than most appreciate the desire to be liked) then I'd suggest you need to approach the problem differently. The question "which is better?" makes me think the photographer doesn't really know what they're doing or talking about.

If you really need feedback, ask someone you respect or perhaps try posting the different versions of the photographs separately at different times, rather than together. In A-B testing, you typically show different versions to different groups rather than offering both to everyone. You see if A or B gets the best feedback but your users/viewers don't recognise they were subject to a test. So try posting version A at one time/platform, and B at another time/platform, and welcome feedback on both.

If your aim is to be a respected photographer then seeking reassurance from your followers is probably something you need to stamp out pretty quickly anyway; your followers are looking to you as a role model, an exemplar, a voice of confidence, a signpost in a mixed-up, noisy world.

If you start asking them how they should feel about your photographs, your illusion is revealed and they're going to be launching life-rafts and looking for another Boat of Confidence long before you've made your mind up.

Don't get me wrong. A bit of humility is essential, and we're all human. Listen to feedback, encourage feedback, look for it.

But I strongly believe that when you share your work that people want - need - to believe in it. If you ask for opinions, comparisons, or otherwise belittle or apologise for your work then that has a detrimental impact on the viewer and how the viewer perceives you and your work.

On the humility front, most of the time I hate - hate's not just used for emphasis, it's real! - my work. I pity myself, I castigate myself, I wonder why what I'm doing isn't better, why it's not meeting my vision (aka what I had in mind). But I still think those questions are for me.

I have to decide which is better or worse, or dump it altogether. Only I really know what I'm getting at. "Which is better" can only touch on the very superficial, "where should I put that line, that rock, is it too bright, too dark?" The context, the intention, I feel is everything. Only you know what you want to achieve, what feeling you want to excite and how you want your work to look.

So yes, get feedback - from good sources, not from random internet people - consider feedback, change things, choose your favourite picture of two on the back of it, but please always remember that your photography is your photography. The aim isn't to appeal to everyone, not the masses, nor the cliques. Just to yourself, and hopefully those that might like or at least respect that.

Asking the question "which is better?" defers the crucial question in your photography. It suggests that you're not sure what you're trying to achieve, that the views of a wider circle are more important than your own, and that you don't have the confidence to stand behind your own work.

So I say again, make the decision for yourself - choose A or B based on the vision, the idea, the image that you had in your head. Welcome feedback yes, but don't give them both options. Because some people choosing B is no more right than other people choosing A.

What you choose is the only thing that matters, and people will recognise and gravitate to that. Such choices will define you and your photography. Such choices, by the way, is where originality is born.

The Disappointment of Photography Competitions

Last night I attended the opening night and award ceremony of a local but well established, well run and decent sized arts' exhibition. I wasn't going to enter but with some encouragement I decided, as a relative unknown here, that it would help me continue to build my profile in the area. I then set to work on five pieces. Some I had already printed. Others I soft proofed, hard proofed, tried different papers, made sure I was 100% happy with them. Then I made a grave error. I got my hopes up.

Being a local show I wasn't "competing" with tens of thousands of other photographers as I had previously in Landscape Photographer of the Year (LPOTY), etc and so thought I must have a decent chance. If I didn't win, I reassured myself that at least I would place. So when someone won 3rd, someone else won 2nd and yet another stepped up for the 1st prize I'm pretty sure the disappointment was etched on my face as I graciously clapped the winners. I wonder if they heard my ego popping at the back? What a fool I felt for letting my imagination run away with me. Misguided? Complacent? Arrogant? Yes, no, maybe.

I have no intention of talking about the competition itself. I could debate the result. Of course I loved my pictures more. But it's a pointless debate. It is after all down to the subjective decision of a judge(s). If art is about personal expression and the artist has the right to create art they love, so the viewer has the right to like what they like. Trying to boil a competition down to whose picture is sharpest, etc seems to me a very bland alternative. So no quibbles, and this post isn't about the judge's decision.

Rather I wanted to talk about the effect of competition on me. Perhaps, other people feel the same (selfishly I hope I'm not alone, sorry!). I've long regarded competitions with some scepticism. How can you judge art? How can one photograph be better than another photograph? They can only be different. As I've just said, it is for the most part a subjective judgement by one person or a small panel of people. It doesn't necessarily reflect the quality of your work.

Whilst it is incumbent on a judge to recognise great work outside of their particular tastes, genre and experience, they are ultimately humans viewing a piece of art through their own lens of personal preference and experience. It goes without saying that you're not going to win over every judge.

The goal with our photographs is not to be all things to all people. Indeed, the lust for likes on social media has perhaps reduced a lot of photography to its lowest common denominator, a style of photography which regurgitates iconic places, compositions and processing styles ad nauseam.

Rather I think the goal is to express something of yourself in a photograph. Hopefully make a meaningful impact on one other person. A photograph that makes someone stop, consider, reflect, engage their emotions. Contrast with a photograph that picks up 10,000 likes as people flick through their Facebook feed whilst eating their morning cornflakes? I'll take just that one emotionally engaged person all day long. Ideally it will be more than one, but it's not ever going to be everyone, even if you did play to the audience.

I shouldn't expect a judge to like my work. And knowing that, every competition should probably be approached with a healthy dose of humility. Expect nothing, hope for something. Except it's so easy for that hope to become expectation, or perhaps even entitlement. To assume that our work should be, will be lauded.

Having had a bad run of competition entries - nothing in LPOTY last year, nothing in OPOTY, and now nothing in the LCACA Jubilee Exhibition - I should be getting used to competition failures. But how do you get used to it?

(I should thank SLPOTY/Stuart Low for tweeting to tell me how well received my two commended images have been received in the touring exhibition - a shot in the arm this morning!)

Of course, every judge is different. But each competition failure compounds the previous, forming a consensus in your head about your work. Given that confidence in your work is a perpetual battle of ebb and flow, up and down, of doom and gloom punctuated by seemingly the briefest moments of euphoria, it's easy to get a bit down on yourself. Add the negative judgement of a competition into the mix and you might just throw in the towel!

For a while now I had thought that, so long as you weren't targeting competition success with your photographs then competitions were largely benign. Shoot what you love, how you want to, stick it in a competition on a whim, who cares what happens to it. It seemed healthy enough.

Yet I can't help but feel that the drip-drip-drip of rejection - or perhaps even success - has an impact on even the most thick skinned person. It simply has to get under your skin and have an effect on us at some level. In turn that surely has to pervade our work. Perhaps it's not obvious in an individual photograph, but it may come across in how we feel about our work, how we approach it and how we present it. How can you not feel crap about your work when it is brushed aside? Work that you made with care, love, in hardship and discomfort, that you're emotionally attached to?

I am always so quick to remind others not to take competitions to heart, that it in no way reflects on the quality of their excellent work. Don't change tack. Don't give up. Ignore it. But I find myself unable to take my own advice and wonder what this all means for me and my work. Am I a failure?

And so I think it's time to remind myself that I will be the judge of my own work, not competitions. I'll make photographs that move me first, and maybe even last. I shall reflect of course, and consider where I might be falling short but I can't turn the tanker around. I am me, and I can but make photographs my way. Indeed my reflection so far is that I need to make the them even more my way, not less.

My photographic ambitions are relatively modest. I have no interest in being a rock star photographer, I just need enough to keep doing what I love. I often think photography competitions don't seem to feature on the radar of my photography idols. I'm not sure why I should give them so much of my own attention (which is not much, certainly compared to some).

So at time when International Landscape Photographer of the Year scores have just been announced and LPOTY submissions are due to close, now might be a good time for you too to re-evaluate how healthy your relationship is with competitions.

Sound familiar? Think I have deep seated problems? I'd love to hear your thoughts on competitions and the effect, subtle or otherwise, it has on your photography. Perhaps we can set-up a support network? :D

(I'm aware I've just committed one of those social/artist faux pas. Talking about a competition result. You always sound so bitter when you lose. "Sour grapes", they may cry. My frustrations here are squarely with myself, not the or any competition(s). I see competitions for what they are. Knowing that, I despair - no - I'm pissed off with myself for getting swept up in them and getting ahead of myself.

I may also have just committed professional suicide :). If my photographs don't win competitions, I must suck right? Well, I'm grateful for the support and encouragement of my peers whom I respect. That and the knowledge that those looking for a competition winner probably aren't part of my audience anyway. After all, I can't be all things to all people.)

Shot Planning for the Strawberry Moon

Last month I missed the full moon by a day. The following evening I watched it rise an hour after sunset into darkness. It was quite magical. I determined I would go out on the next full moon, rising mere minutes before sunset in the hope of something interesting.

June's full moon is called the Strawberry Moon. Not, as it happens, because it turns pink as many are led to believe. Rather it's the name given by Native American Indians because it marks the start of the strawberry picking season (see here or here).

I've spent a lot of time back on the beach at Angourie since that night, mostly around Mara Creek. My first inclination was to return to there. I have  something in mind for a rising full moon with the creek rippling in the foreground. Yet I was concerned that with so much time spent there recently I might end up making something derivative of the rest. I almost felt like I'd gone too far down a tunnel and might be becoming blind to other possibilities.

Deciding that a change is as good as a break, I chose to go to a different location. I say different but it still a familiar location as I tend to revisit the same half dozen places local to me that I've developed an affinity for.

I thought back to an image I made in March that I titled Eternity. This was made just a bit further north, on the rocks by what are known as the Blue Pools. The shot then was of a near new moon just before sunrise, sitting above the channel through the rocks. I wondered if I could use these rocks and that channel in a similar composition with the full moon rising. The key question of course was would the moon be in the right position this time around?

I like to use The Photographer's Ephemeris (http://photoephemeris.com/) on web and iOS to help me plan my photographic outings. However on anything but a grand scale the maps lack the resolution to see a particular composition. Typically I use TPE to give myself a high-level understanding of where the sun and moon will be, and so how it might interact with the landscape of a location.

Normally I know the location, and can fuse the knowledge from TPE with my experience of a place to reassure me of its potential. I think of myself as a 'finder'. By that I mean I like to go out and find things for myself. I find it can be difficult to repeat shots I've made before as so many elements tend to be different - light, weather, tide, my mind - and so try to find fresh things each time.

But on this occasion I wondered if I could improve on or, more accurately, create a complement to Eternity. I decided to use TPE to reverse engineer the photograph to see if a recreation might be possible. The photograph's metadata in Lightroom told me that I made that photograph at 06.14 on 19th March. TPE lets you see the sun/moon position for any time & date in the past or future, so I rewound the TPE clock back to 19th March. This told me that the moon was 90.1 degrees. Fast forward to Tuesday 2nd June, and the moon would be rising at 109.7 degrees - almost 20 degrees difference which I knew meant the same shot wasn't possible.

[A less instinct led and more scientific based approach would probably consider the angle of view (Aov) of the lens I was using (Zeiss 21mm) to determine quite where the full moon would be in relation. But remember, I'm a finder!]

As another check, I opened up another photograph from this spot, this time looking further south. In TPE I dropped the secondary pin on Angourie Headland which is visible on the horizon. TPE told me this was at 137.8 degrees. So the moon was going to rise towards the left hand side of this photograph. With the channel still prominent in the foreground here I was reassured that even if my initial idea wasn't going to work that I could make something of it.

My final part of planning was checking the tide. Whilst there are many possibilities in the rocks at this spot, given I was after a 'certain look' I wasn't sure I could fulfil my own brief. More importantly, these rocks are prone to getting battered by the sea and rogue waves occasionally wash right up the rock slabs. Angourie translates to "Noisy Ocean" and is a surf reserve for good reason! If the sea didn't behave, I might not be able to get to the rocks in question and even if I could I might not be able to move freely on them.

Comparing the tide tables for 19th March and 2nd June I could see that the tide would be lower and that I should be ok. I packed the car and drove the mere 5km down the road to Angourie.

Upon arrival, I noted a layer of cloud on the horizon that would assuredly block the moon's initial rise. Despite clear skies forecast and above me it's always what's on the distant horizon that catches you out.

I managed to get onto the rocks I wanted without problems, and started setting up. I checked out the channel and there were a few potential compositions as well as confirming that my original composition wouldn't work (using TPE on my phone I could see the moon would be out of shot).  I don't tend to get too fixated on a certain composition, set-up and wait. When photographing by the sea possibilities come and go by the minute and you may even find your position swamped by the time the 'big moment' arrives. I tend to spend time looking about to find different possibilities rather than fixating on one shot.

Part of my finder instinct is that if something catches my eye I go for it. Quite often I go out with one idea of what I'll photograph and return with something quite different. So it was here as I watched the big waves rolling in, the light of the setting sun catching their spray as it filtered through the palm trees behind me. I pulled out my 100-400mm lens and started adding to my series of "Waveforms", a combination of "short long exposures", panned and ICM wave portraits.

As the moment of moonrise approached, I switched back to the 24-70mm and started to re-check compositions along the edge of the channel, paying particular attention to the sea. The tide may have been further out but with a bigger swell than in March the waves were still coming some way up the rocks, ruling out some shots I had sighted close to the rock's seaward edge.

As the moon breached the distant blue cloud and moved into the pink sky, I took a few telephoto snapshots with my Fuji XT1 before returning to my Canon set-up on the tripod. I made a series of shots as I worked up and down the channel, until the sea pushed me back and the colour faded from the sky. The resultant shots were not quite what I had originally envisioned, but made for a worthwhile trip. I've fallen in love with moonrise, it feels like a truly magical moment. Next month I shall probably try my luck down at Mara Creek.