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Hindsight – Scotland
A shot that is a bit different from Richard's usual modus operandi - taken with a medium format camera at the start of setting up his business in Scotland more
Harry Callahan
Harry Callahan, born 1912, was a photographer many of us could relate to. He wasn’t a graduate of any particular art school or a rich family who could support a creative life. Harry, an engineer by training, worked for Chrysler during the Great Depression and only started photography as a hobby during a ‘mid life crisis’ in 1938 (sounds like an early life crisis to me). He was going to buy a movie camera but couldn’t afford one so more
Which ‘Self’ do you Take Pictures for?
When asked ‘who do you make photographs for’, a very common answer is ‘myself’. However, given recent discussion, I started to think about what this means. When I started my photography, I didn’t know who I was doing it for. I did know that I wanted to show people what I was doing though; I wanted to share the buzz that I got from seeing these scenes with other people my wife and family seemed to bear the brunt of more
Tilt / Shift Photography
As people quest for more resolution and sharper pictures, they invariably encounter someone singing the praises of tilt-shift lenses. Most commonly used in close up product or architectural photography, these lenses allow the photographer to choose where the plane of sharp focus lies and also choose to correct or to manipulate perspective (to a limited extent). It is the ability to control where the plane of focus lies that we will cover in this article (we will come back more
Colin Campbell
In most photographers lives there are 'epiphanic’ moments where things become clear, or new directions are formed. What were your two main moments and how did they change your photography? The idea of a narrative existing within a photograph intrigues me. A successful image can be as much about atmosphere and storytelling as about the subject and the composition. The novels of Neil Gunn, a Highland author best known more
Sunsets?
Joe Cornish, Flow of Light I've just read an article in a popular outdoor photography magazine that was written in defense of shooting sunsets that I can't help but write a reaction to. He does say in the article that he knows many photographers who think that "capturing a sunset as a creative end in itself is a waste of time". Well I think I probably fit more
Hindsight – Family Holidays
A bit of a departure for Joe here as he takes his family off to New Mexico for a holiday more
John Blakemore
Unlike many of the photographers we have discussed in our ongoing Masters section, John wasn’t a photographer from childhood, being more obsessed with drawing wildlife. His passion for photography was inspired when his mother sent him an issue of Picture Post when he was in Africa when serving in the RAF as a nurse. This edition had some extracts from ‘The Family of Man’, a pivotal photographic exhibition that was put together by Edward Steichen which featured the work more
Spirit of Simplicity
Dark and threatening clouds hang over Great Gable's impressive southern flank. Representations of landscapes throughout western art history have taken a back seat to works depicting the dramas of human existence. In many cases landscapes were reduced to a stage set in a historical painting or a stylised backdrop for a portrait. This is unsurprising as for much of our history the more
Black and White Photographers Workshop – John Blakemore
John Blakemore has taught photography for over two decades and has worked as a fine art photographer for that period also. This book tries to distil his teaching into a single tome, covering technical and artistic bases along the way. The fact that this isn't just a technical tome or an art philosophy tome works very well in my opinion and reflects the fact that these two aspects of photography cannot really be separated (however much many photographers would more
Hidden Depths
From Beinn Maol Challum Ok, I admit it. I'm a bagger, a list ticker, a trophy collector. I've accepted what I am and I'm not going to change. Over the years I've collected lots of different things from Matchbox cars, tin soldiers and beer mats as a youngster to sea-washed bricks, mountain tops and footpaths as an adult. I love nothing more than pouring more
The Photographer’s Place
A couple of weeks ago I went on a workshop, a workshop that continues a series that started in the early 1980s more
Tools of the Trade
The obvious problem facing landscape photographers is weather and most particularly rain. more
Composition – A New Approach
The majority of people will have bought books that profess to offer a series of rules of composition and this ‘rule’ based education, a very western way of teaching, dominates nearly all literature of composition. more
Iain Sarjeant
Birch Frost I first saw Iain's work on flickr about two years ago, just as he was posting some of his old Velvia slides and some of his current work and was very impressed at his sense to composition and use of texture/pattern in nature. We chatted on the phone last week and he told me a little about himself, an ex-print designer who lives just north more