Under The Sea?

Film has so much range.

In the film days people used to complain about slide film, especially high-contrast slide film, for its unforgiving short exposure range. This is because the negative film that most people used had such an incredibly high usable range that people could be four or five stops off on their exposure and still walk out of the lab with a stack of beautiful prints.

Now that digital is mainstream everyone knows that you have to get the exposure perfect. Exposure is so unforgiving on digital that even high contrast slide film looks positively generous in its exposure range.

I underexposed this shot very badly. I'm not sure how much but to the eye this frame looked almost completely black. However, after about twenty minutes my scanner ate through that darkness to reveal an extremely usable and lovely image. Viva the revolution!

Colour And Mood

Colour and mood are all that are on show here and also all that are needed.

Look Back

When I visited Zubara fort I took a number of photographs that I thought were good. I then packed up my stuff and left. But I looked back. I stopped the car. I saw this and I took it.

Do look back.

Light And Shade

This photograph is something that caught my eye on my way to work. I was caught by the texture on the sail. However, developing the photograph to highlight that would have lost detail in a number of other places. To keep the detail in the shadows as well as the bright portions of this picture required a fair amount of work boosting and subduing the light at various levels. Does this sound unnatural? The picture doesn't look unnatural.

The reason is that when we look around a scene we adjust the "exposure level" of our eyes. We reduce our sensitivity to brightness when we look at something bright and we boost it when we look into somewhere dark. And we do all of this as we glance around a single scene.

What Is The Difference Between Film Grain And Digital Noise?

Film grain (even in colour film, even in extreme cases like this) doesn't suck. This looks more like an impressionist painting than a photograph.

Lest We Forget

We can buy the best equipment, learn the best technique and walk around the most beautiful areas. However, ultimately a good landscape photograph is a gift of grace to the photographer.

Defects

As a rule I am not one of those people who look after camera faults to create interest. Sometimes, however, a defect can add a certain something to a picture...

This is taken with a small pocket camera that seems to have worn out light seals.

Format and Composition

In a way that I have yet to really understand, different cameras incline you to different sorts of pictures. This is a scene in Education City I had often walked past which never really seemed to lend itself to photography by any of the SLRs I was ever carrying. One day I walked past with my new pocket camera and bingo.

When The Sun Finally Rose

Well, that was pretty special too. Same morning as the two below.

Home By The Sea

And another from the same morning.

Readiness

This is one of the more striking of a series of pictures I took early this year on a single trip out with the family. We went to Zubara Fort because we had been nearly seven years in Qatar and never seen it. We then camped at Fuwairait. That evening and morning saw some of the most amazing sky I have ever seen in Qatar. As it happened I was well placed to capture this divine gift as I had all of my camera along.

Did I know what was coming? No. Fortune favours the ready.

Banality

As photographers we all love the epic scene. The dazzling sunset or the moment frozen in time. However, some "snapshot" sorts of pictures can also carry power.

Firemen, Policemen, Soldiers and Outdoor Photographers

What do they have in common? This:

95% of the time there is nothing going on. The biggest enemy is boredom. Days will go by without any significant work being performed. The good ones spend this time honing their skills, equipment and reflexes.

5% of the time is why they do their job. In this fraction of their time they are matching their wits with their subject in face of rapid change. Often every last ounce of their ability, skill and equipment is required of them in the shortest space of time. There is usually no margin for error. What they pour out in this sliver of time is what keeps them going. When it is on, it is make or break. When it is on, there are no excuses.

The Master Painter

Here is one of his abstracts...

You Already Own It

What is the best camera? In a phrase popularised by Chase Jarvis, it is the one you have with you!

Good pictures (good landscape and outdoor pictures, that is) come from being in the right place at the right time and noticing where God is moving the lights. Light is everything in a photograph. Although we normally have the sun as our "key" light, God uses all sorts of modifiers. Different sorts of clouds, different arrangements of clouds, different amounts of atmospheric dispersion (more in morning and evening giving us those great colours), different amounts of suspended dust and water particles. He also provides all sorts of fill via reflectors (like seas, lakes, cliffs and buildings), the rest of the sky (whether blue or cloudy), and other sources.

When the lights are tuned to "magic" it's showtime! And you normally have only minutes to capture something before it changes. A pocket camera can save you some heartache when you suddenly realise, it's ON!

Free Telephoto

Did you ever wish your SLR had the same "digital zoom" option that your crummy pocket camera has. Well, it does!

All current DSLRs -- and any good film scan -- have enough and more resolution for most likely purposes. Don't feel like you can't crop. If only the middle of the image contains the picture you want, crop. You will have a weaker image if you DON'T throw away the stuff on the sides that is doing nothing.

This image is less than half the film image, and it is only 35mm. Yes, you can start to see a tiny hint of grain but it doesn't look bad. Even printed large on a wall this will be a good image.

And the free telephoto? This the exact same picture I would have gotten with a lens of twice the focal length.

Silhouettes

If the sun is behind a person or object and you expose for the ambient light you will get a silhouette. If you get a good shape, that can make an interesting image. If it is sunrise or sunset and the sky is also a nice colour you can make a very nice image.

What Do You Not See Often?

In Doha it is clouds. Hardly ever seen in summer. Still rare in winter. To see them dramatically on the horizon with this great colour going on is not to be missed.

Composition

Composition and selective focus. Pretty much the only two ingredients in this shot. Just keep your eyes open!

Some Things Are More Important Than Colour

It's just that, the way I shoot, I find not many things are. Colour, colour, colour!

Eyes Open Always

...and, camera with always! Saw this just as the sun was setting through the window of a Subway restaurant whilst in the middle of some hectic errands. The sky will not wait for you to go home and get your stuff. You are lucky if the sky will wait for you to set up a tripod.

It's (Almost) All About The Light

Ever see some wonderful light and WISH you had a good subject to shoot in this great light? Try shooting whatever crummy subject is in front of you at the time. This was taken out my rolled down car window at a red light.

Backgrounds

So, I wanted to document a modification I have made to my 35mm strip holder for my Nikon Coolscan 9000 ED scanner. I was standing in our family room and all around me was the junk of a busy family household. None of it would have made a good background. Then I saw the curtain we have hanging between the room and the passageway and how the morning sun was coming through.

Bingo!

It is a good discipline to try and make each shot good. Even if it is not intended as an "art" shot.

Rubbish!

Rubbish on the film, rubbish on the beach. Somehow, each reinforces the message of the other. And somehow, the picture still manages to paint a romantic picture of the seaside. Even soiled.

No, I don't understand it either.

You Pays Your Money You Takes Your Chances

The quality of processing at the photo lab I now use is often good. Sometimes, however, it's a little less than good. This is what this strip of film looked like AFTER the Nikon scanner had removed all the dirt and scratches it could. I shudder to think what a raw scan would look like. I suppose this is not Photo World's finest hour.

On the other hand, in a weird sort of way I think that the dust and lint and whatever does not detract from this particular shot. I take a lot of carefully composed pictures but when I shoot with the little Vivitar it's a much looser and more casual affair. After all, if I really wanted to take time with it I would get the camera bag and tripod out of the back of the car...

Yes, It Is Sharp

One of the first really successful pictures taken with my new pocket camera. It's a sunrise from a trip to the beach. Not a bad result from a camera with a fixed lens that will probably never see a tripod and has to live in my lint-filled pocket. I hope it lasts!

Local Architecture

While the Arabs that live in this part of the world have been using the same traditional tent design for many hundreds of years, there is a case to be made that the design was not original but copied. Of course, to copy this design would require rather keen eyesight!

The "tent" web of a local jumping spider on a wall. The entire "tent" is probably 1cm across. I took this by reversing my 24mm lens and then stacking closeup lenses in front of that.

Artist's Tools

What do you want in a pocket camera? Sixteen megapixels? HD video? A three inch LCD?

I was looking for a full frame sensor and an f2.8 lens.

I ended up with this. I'm still learning to drive with it but it suits me for now. It's nice to have something that is always in my pocket.

Yuk is Yum II

What is poignant about this picture is the brightness of the "clouds and sky" design in the window and the dinginess of what the place has fallen into.

In The Shadows

One of the wonderful things about cameras is the differences in how they see the world. They can freeze a raindrop. They can peer into fly's eye. They can turn a roaring surf into a mist of vapour. And they can see into the darkest shadows.

I think there is an in-built fascination with what lies in shadow.

Yuk is Yum

Ah, decay! Of course the splendor of God's creation in full burst of newness and perfection is wonderful material for photography. However, the slow return of the things made by man to the earth from whence it came can also be quite wonderful. There is something about the two ends of the life of a person, creature or thing that are more poignant than the boring middle bit. Much as the two ends of the day have more to offer than the middle.

Don't Be Afraid To Cut O-

I wanted to concentrate attention on this thrusting face of another of Doha's new towers. If I had included the other side of the building the emphasis would not be where I wanted it to be. Photography consists of two steps:

1. Noticing something that strikes you
2. Making a photograph that shows that something in an unambiguous way

Iconic Through Isolation

This is a very recogniseable building in Doha's new skyline. However, it gets a whole new look in this view because the buildings that normally surround it are out of frame. This illustrates the importance of having open eyes and an open mind. The things that really had to come together for this shot were:

1. The spotting of this angle
2. The lighting (position of the sun)
3. The sky

Studio photographers can make their own reality to some extent. The landscape photographer must learn to work with what God gives him!

What Do You Do When It All Goes Wrong?

The sun is one minute from setting. The car has just stopped and you have just broken your tripod. Improvise!

I borrowed a wobbly, flimsy $10 tripod and balanced the camera on it to take this.

Beautiful Portraits

They come from beautiful people. Like my friend, Reggie.

The Extraordinary Ordinary

Keep your eyes open!

The Importance of Beginnings

Beginnings are so important. Beginnings are a time for faith. Faith that what is begun will prosper. Only in the future can we look back and see the true import of what was begun.

I hope this picture will stand as a record of the beginning of my wife and daughters' business, Cupcakes. Along with their partners Aisha and Mahdi.

Smile!

I mostly point my camera at things rather than people. People photography is an entirely different undertaking. The technical aspects are important but must be mastered and almost forgotten. From the moment a portrait subject steps into the studio the most important aspect of achieving a usable photograph is the photographer's ability to put the subject at ease and catch the most flattering and representative moments. To my mind, a good portrait does not just show the subject in a flattering way, it also shows something of that person's unique character and personal beauty.

How To Make The Stars Align

This is probably my most worked for and storied image. It was taken about the time of the summer solstace. This was the full moon closest to the solstace. I had been scouting the Corniche area and I had been examining different views of the museum, especially views that aligned the various faceted faces of it. Using a planetarium app on my iPad I worked out that the moonrise would very nearly align with a view of the museum that lined up nicely. I realised I would need to be ready because I would have less than a minute after moonrise to get a shot with the museum and the moon.

If you click through to my Flickr you can read a more full account. The only way to get pictures that have something extra is to do something extra in the preparation stage. In this case it was knowing where the moon would be and when. Another example might be arriving when the right light should be ready and recognising the seasons and weather in which light is best. Another might be scouting out areas where new things are being built or old things destroyed.

High Impact

Simple is high impact. Red is high impact. Neon is high impact. This photo is high impact.

Be Bold

The colours were great with the late light on this huge yellow word by the Corniche. Showing the whole word was not the best picture. What made it a picture was the bold shapes and simple colour contrast. This picture shows that.

Accentuate the Positive

The Qatar Museum of Islamic Arts is positively bristling with solid geometric angles. For me, the best photographic statements of this are ones in which the geometric lines so formed are in harmony. Often this means a long telephoto and the correct alignment.

A nice contrast in this particular image is the turbulent sea and chaotic huddle of boats at the bottom of the frame.

The Epic in The Mundane

The right lighting and angle can trasform something as mundane as a cement decoration on a flyover interchange.

The Photogenic in Everyday Life

A typical Doha street scene. Perhaps not the same as your local street...

Cupcakes

Taken as a "storefront" shot of my wife and daughter's new business, Cupcakes. Site: http://www.cupcakes.com.qa

Overlap

Seen at an underpass.

The Gift of God

Let's face it, sometimes God just gives you a gift. This whole picture was a gift. I was actually traveling to work early on a road I had never been on. I saw the sun rising and I got out. I saw these trees and vehicles and managed to frame the picture but I had no idea if it would even come out sharp since I was shooting handheld with a long lens on medium format. It wasn't until I got the film back that I saw the bird on the branch in the centre that really just pulls the whole picture together.

Give thanks!

Previsualisation

This is a picture that I literally saw from a distance. I saw the arrangement of the buildings from this vantage point and set up the camera to take it. It was a month before I had finished the roll and gotten the film back but it was exactly what I wanted to achieve.

The experience and confidence to visualise pictures like this can only be earned by constant observation and daring to take a picture of each interesting thing you see that you think might work out.

Film Highlights

This shot was actually overexposed. If you look at the actual piece of film it doesn't look as nice as this, it looks a bit washed out. If this were a digital shot it would be pretty much ruined. I'd have funny colour halos as the individual colour channels started to clip. If I tried to recover highlights from a RAW shot I could probably hang on to some detail but most of the colour would be starting to go grey.

Film has compression in the way it handles extremes of light. Whilst it handles changes in light level in a linear manner (well, technically, logarithmically) over most of its range it doesn't cut off hard. At the extremes it compresses at an increasing rate which prevents individual colour channels going weird and keeps some level of detail even in extreme areas. Because of this, the overexposed slide I took of a morning skyline scene has yielded one of my most popular images.

What Hides In Shadows

This is just a shot from the last car show I was at before my car got smashed between two trucks. Often it doesn't matter too much what you take the picture with but here it was very helpful that I shot it on Fuji Velvia. Firstly, the film has handled the weird lighting in a way that still looks attractive. Secondly, with a good scanner a great deal can be pulled out of those rich Velvia shadows.