Creative Process and Technical Info

Technical Info

All my images are printed using leading edge digital technology; the original image however is shot on film. For this I use a selection of large format panoramic cameras, mainly the Fuji 6 x 17. The 6x17 denotes the negative (positive actually) size in cm, 6cm high x 17cm long, that’s dramatically bigger than a standard 35mm negative, in fact 11 times the area. That greatly enlarged image area combined with a fine grain high colour saturation film (Fuji Velvia) creates an image of superb detail that can be enlarged to enormous proportions without going “fuzzy”.

So why Digital?… and is there a difference between digital printing and digital manipulation?

Digital printing

Digital printing, simply put, is making use of advancing technology. It now offers a quality surpassing older traditional techniques with many added advantages. The paper base used is still the same high archival quality RA process photographic paper used in non-digital photographs; it still goes through the same development and fixing processes. But rather than having the image “burned” onto the paper with a standard light source using an enlarger, the digital process transfers the image with a laser light.

With a traditional process the photographic image is projected onto the light sensitive paper by shining a light through the transparency and focusing it with a lens, in fact a camera in reverse. The printer, a highly skilled technician, then “adjusts” various aspects of the image such as contrast, colour balance and density using a combination of lens tuning, coloured filters and exposure time. He/She also lightens areas that are too dark and darkens highlights that are too bright to bring the image into balance, this is the “traditional” method remember, not digital. This is to compensate for the fact that film has a much shorter contrast scale than your eye and the printing paper has one even shorter still. I spent several years working in a printing lab doing exactly this so I know what I’m talking about.

The essential problem with this kind of printing is repeatability and the human factor. The result you get at the end is very much subject to how much sleep the technician had the night before, what kind of day they’re having and the mood they are in. The results can vary to such a degree that it’s sometimes difficult to pick them as the same photo!

The difference then with digital printing is adding a step in-between the film and the paper image by scanning the transparency into a very high-resolution digital file (980mb to begin with, a finished image will end up about 1.9Gb!). All colour balancing contrast and densities are then handled digitally. Essentially the same processes but done using Photoshop and a computer with a colour-calibrated screen. Once the file is complete it is then burned to a CD, which is used to output the final print through a specialised (and very expensive) digital printer at a professional photo lab. Contrary to a popular but misinformed belief, the process of colour correcting an image digitally is not “easy”, nor is it fake. The job of digital technician is easily as skilled and demanding as a darkroom technician. In fact I would say considerably more so, again speaking from the experience of having done both extensively.

I do ALL the digital colour correction of ALL my own images. When shooting photos I spend many hours, sometimes days, waiting for the perfect light. I spend many months every year getting to these beautiful places (somebody has to!) and I spend many hours and many miles of walking finding just the right spot that conveys just the right feel so that the final photo will carry just the right impact. When I get back I spend many more hours in front of the computer to ensure that what you see is exactly as it should be, every time.

Digital Manipulation?

So how then does this differ from digital manipulation? Essentially digital manipulation is the fundamental altering of a photographic image such that the final result does not truly reflect the original state. We’ve all seen it or read about it in one form or another. An easy example is the fashion industry where models can be made to look slimmer, curvier, longer legs, bigger breasts even different coloured eyes! Yes that is all possible, but is it necessary or even desirable?

Thankfully I need to do none of that, nature is amazing enough just as it is. You just have to stop and look sometimes, look a different way. Stick around a bit longer wait for that special time of day, take a deep breath and open your eyes a bit wider. Get up earlier when it’s still cold and a little bit dark. Or stay till after the sun has set for the magic of twilight, the magic of the pre-dawn. At these times of day the light is soft, it allows the subtle colours to come through, the colours that are normally swept away by the intensity of sunlight. Then all you have to do is stand in the right place, point the camera the right way – don’t forget to focus- and push the button. Let God do the rest, whatever God you believe in, you want to see proof, watch a sunrise in the Kimberley!

I don’t create the scenes you see here, I only record them. I couldn’t possibly take the credit for something so awesome, so overpoweringly amazing. Something that has been millions of years in the making… that would be ridiculous. The art of photography, my job, is to be able to see the infinite of nature and translate it to the finite of a photograph and still transmit the splendour of the original, to create a window out of a fragment that contains the essence of the whole.

Many of my images are created using long exposure photography. That is leaving the shutter open for long periods sometimes hours at a time. I’ve been told on several occasions that this in fact is image manipulation because the result doesn’t truly reflect the original! I would argue that this is not the case; in fact the opposite is true. Long exposure photography more truly reflects the reality than an instant snapshot. These are not still life images, bowls of fruit on a table. Nature is fundamentally dynamic, it is constantly moving. Wind blows through the branches of the trees rustling the leaves, clouds skate across the sky, water flows ever downwards, oceans are never still even on the most tranquil day. I would say that an image that stops all this is more of a manipulation than the one that allows the flow of nature to be visible. Perhaps it’s not the way you are used to seeing it? Take another look, if I can help you see things a different way, a new way then I’ve achieved my goal.