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We live in a Digital World.
If we didn’t, you would be staring at a blank screen right now.
Photography emerged many years ago from a dark, chemical closet and challenged the art establishment so much that both art and photography were transfigured by it.
I make no claims to be an artist in the traditional sense, I don’t have the draughtsmanship skills for it, but I do call myself a photographer.
Some people would question that claim because I actually admit to manipulating my images.
Oddly enough these same critics were perfectly happy when I used to select my film, focus my lens, use a filter, set my aperture and shutter speed. Nobody said a word about the development I chose or the way I hand printed in the darkroom even when the pictures came out in black and white, looking nothing like the original scene. They seemed to positively love it if I chemically toned the images to change the colours even further.
Photographers have been manipulating their images since the very beginnings of photography’s history, the only difference now is that digital technology is catching up to our imaginations and opening new boundaries of possibility.
Intention is the important point here, as is integrity. My intention when I make an image is to show something of the landscape that matched my personal experience of the scene itself. To achieve that intention a single exposure may quite often be sufficient. On other occasions I may choose to use pictorial elements taken at the scene over a period of time or in some cases elements taken from another scene that renders something that I was unable to properly capture at the original location.
This is where integrity come in. It is not my intention to create fantasy landscapes, although that is certainly possible with modern digital technology. I have nothing against such fantasies or the people who create them, it is just not my style. These pictures represent my real impression of these locations, which may be formed over many different visits. For me, some of these images portray the spirit of these locations with more fidelity than a single fraction of a second exposure ever can.
Now that that’s off my chest lets talk technical.
I shoot in both film and digital although mostly in the later these days. The cameras I use are medium and large format for film and full frame 35 mm for digital. I still have a darkroom but it’s mostly filled with computer equipment these days.
I use an assortment of software solutions from a mixture of companies according to the tool needed to do the job I am working on. No one, to my knowledge, has yet created the perfect, one stop, software package but they’re certainly getting closer.
Printing I take very seriously, if I make a print for someone I want to know it is not going to fade in a month, a year or even fifty years time. For that reason I use only archival quality materials for my print output.
What this means is that such materials have been tested under conditions that simulate typical display for extended periods of time and remained stable. This does not mean they are indestructible, they will still need sensible care as any picture does, but it will mean a print bought now should survive long enough to be considered an heirloom.
Ten Golden Landscape Photography Tips.
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