Photographic Style
Photographic Style
I'm not sure that I have a style, - maybe that's something you can decide once you've looked at my pictures. What I can share with you is the thought process that I go through when working with my camera, which maybe generates a style?
Rock Detail - White Pockets, Arizona
Irrespective of the subject matter I am shooting, whether it is in a busy city street, working on a beach, in a wood, or out in the countryside, the one thing I seek is simplicity. I try to achieve it by careful lens selection (focal length), viewpoint (camera position), composition (balance), and sympathetic light.
Natural or available light is not something that we can control, but I invariably allow the light that I have, on any particular day, to dictate what and where I photograph. I amused a friend when he took me out for the day, and down onto a beach. It was bright and sunny, (harsh and contrasty), and not really the sort of lighting I could use. So I walked to the back of the beach, into the shadow created by a cliff, and happily photographed the rock detail. Sometimes I'll wait for a cloud to pass over the sun, and thereby soften the light. If I need directional light then I'll wait for that too, or return when the conditions are right.
Yellow and Blue, Co. Galway
Simplicity is also achieved by getting rid of distractions. I only feel comfortable using an SLR camera, - it allows me to 'see' exactly what the film, or sensor, will see. (How users of little digital compacts cope by holding their cameras out in from of them, while squinting at a little screen defeats me!) The viewfinder allows me to really involve myself in an image, (in fact if I could climb into the viewfinder I probably would!) I examine a framed image acutely, checking for things on the edge of the scene that might draw the eye or distract, and work hard to exclude them. I look at the way the eye is led around an image, and endeavour to arrange and compose things so that it takes the viewer in the direction I want them to go.
Working on a tripod helps this method of working. It is a much slower, more deliberate, and considered way of photographing. I can't always use one of course, but it is my preference. A camera mounted tripod gives me the ability to frame a shot accurately, and if there is a distracting bright stone, or an annoying twig intruding, I can walk into the scene, move it, and return to fire the shutter.
The images I produce are a personal selection of the scene before me, an extraction of the part that interests me. They are taken to please no one, (except me), and to satisfy my own (selfish) creativity.
Rock Recession, Lee Bay, Devon
