Talking to peers and students, I’ve added extra rationalisation excuses about the single-malt-whiskey-dwarfing price of archival printer ink and the matte and glossy black art of colour management. “It makes more sense to outsource,” I’d opine. And I really believed it for volume printing.

But those of us that know—we know that If you or your image buyer can afford the time and care of printing the image yourself—after you begin to know what you are doing—finishing your own individual images is immensely satisfying.

In the next phase of my photography, I am looking forward to reacquainting myself with the fastidiousness of it all.

Entertaining irony today, then, when I read on my Getty Images’ monthly statement that Epson Europe has licensed the image below. Amusing, too, that my royalty payment will fund half a pack of  Epson UltraSmooth Fine Art Paper.

I am breaking a couple of month’s blogging, tweeting, Flickring and Google-plussing silence to announce that I am about to do a bit of a Tony Benn.

That formally infamous, lately celebritied ex-cabinet minister, hereditary peerage refusenik and “national treasure” famously said he was leaving parliament to spend more time on politics. A number of times, I’ve photographed him entertainingly—sometimes inspiringly—keeping that faith.

Me? Nothing so ideologically correct. I am leaving the professional photography part of my work-life imbalance to, yes, spend more time and less money on photography. I’ve found the courage and resources to turn amateur! My wife’s on board. Only Warehouse Express, Speed Graphic and a few other online camera stores will be very marginally disappointed.

Here’s why and how:

Ironically, the most lucrative only half-decent money I’ve made out of photography has been from leading landscape workshops. And, as my guests’ testimonials demonstrate, I put 150 percent of myself into other people’s photography. That’s the way it should have been, of course.

My adult education photography classes began as a loss leader but became a de facto convivial camera club with the bonus that I would learn something new every time I was asked something I wasn’t sure about. I’ll miss that. I’ll miss them.

I have had some exhilarating times photographing a number of weddings; created joyful images that continue to make me and the happy couples smile or shed a tear. I’ve covered some of my tangible wedding photography costs. But, in the midst of a post-film, everyone’s-a-photographer, price-erosive free-for-all, I’ve decided to stop squandering my daughter’s potential inheritance and concentrate more on properly paid work.

So, weekdays, it’s back to the “real world” of PR, marketing and corporate communications for me. Spare time back to photography as a therapeutic and wonderful distraction.

But not back to the Yorkshire Dales and Lake District landscape. Forward to Australia’s Victoria; to Melbourne where my talented wife has accepted a sustainable day job; where I am looking forward to the same. Looking forward to less-is-more spare time photography.

After I figure out which way round are the sunrise and sunsets, I may still offer a small number of  landscape photography workshops. But they will either be free or very expensive. Anything in between seems undervalued.

If you have any comments, it’d be nice to hear from you. If you make it to Melbourne, it would be great to see you.

Attermire Scar

Since the tilt-shift lens arrived—Nikon PC-E 24mm—I’ve had a frustrating wait to get the time to use it. I set off for Scalebar Force today because I figured I’d be sheltered from forecast strong winds and heavy rain/hail. It turned out that location was a perfect wind funnel, so I gave up after all my microfibre cloths and a camping towel were spent.

On the way home (I had to be back in Sedbergh to collect our three-year-old on time), conditions improved so I was able to deploy shift and tilt to capture image of nearby Attermire Scar. I am looking forward to the novelty of the new lens wearing off so I can choose to use it when it’ll be the best tool for the job rather than have it nagging at me. Having said that, the fact that I could level the camera and shift the lens to get low enough (without having to lie on damp ground and worse) and then tilt the lens for plenty of DOF at a middling aperture all seemed to me to be how my camera should have always worked.

I went out last evening and produced some technically very good images. But my, er, focus was far too much concentrated on the technical rather than the aesthetic. So, while I wait for the tools and the muse and the technology to come into balance, here’s an image from the same area that I made before my photographic life became that bit more complex.

This one is about light and emotion. It is taken from Seat Knott on the western edge of the Howgill Fells looking over the Lune Valley.

Did the lens move for you?

After wandering up and down the bay and the adjacent headland for the best part of an hour, I still hadn’t found a foreground that wouldn’t just be there for convention’s sake. I was, I told myself, certainly not in the mood to add yet another image to the Lake District fence-into-water lead-in canon.

The lake itself wasn’t on the best of form either. It over-brightly reflected the near greyness of the 95 percent cloud cover. That was when I noticed the, yes, Bog Mrytle. Past its best-by date foliage-wise, its spindly structure looked like it might provide something more meaningful and contextual to hold together the bottom of a composition, as well as preventing the fence-into-the-water cliche from stealing the show. A few more minutes of careful bog negotiation and I had found what I didn’t know I was looking for.

The clouds began to break up a little and I was increasingly pleased with the composition. I was just about to pack up when the wake from an around-the-headland and out of shot Keswick Launch began lapping progressively around the bay. For about ten seconds the small waves added interest and texture to half of the water in the mid-”ground” of the shot: the perfect foil for that fence-in-the-water, and, working with the latter to draw the eye towards Skiddaw and its companions on the horizon.

Eponymous foreground

For the technically minded: 1/10 second at f16, Lee 0.6 ND grad hard and 0.3 soft. Nikon D700 with 24-70 mm lens at 24 mm.

You know the kind of thing: lots of  ”great capture”, “wow!” etc. Now there’s value in treating such pithy praise for what it is. Nice to hear (we don’t delete them do we?) but not very useful for professional/amatuer development.

As I’ve spent more time with Flickr, especially in the company of a diverse but discrete community of landscape photographers, I’ve noticed people asking for, receiving and giving much more substantial critique.

Here’s a small example:

Yesterday, here on the blog, and to an inevitably wider audience over on my Flickr photosteam, I posted two images and asked which one people preferred and why. As well as the usual supportive encouragement, I’ve received some very useful feedback and suggestions. The image below is now a square crop because of this. (I should say that, when I processed it originally, I tried it square but parked that virtual copy because I was too attached to all of the, arguably, boring sky. (And thanks to Bill for couching that particular piece feedback in such a self-esteem maintaining way!)

With a little distance from the day that I set out to capture these images, I now realise that my pre-visualisation of a big sky above the Howgills from Fox’s Pulpit clouded (yes, clouded!) my judgement when it came to cropping in Lightroom. I kept it very DSLR 2×3-skinny because I was over-committed to my plan. (There’s another blog post in there about why pre-visualisation may not always be such a Good Thing, even though, since I started practicing and then preaching it, it has mostly been a Very Good Thing.)

Now, I happen to think that the somewhat darker sky that I’ve left above those golden clouds enhance the image below because they draw the eye to the main attraction; they prevent energy leaking out of the top of the frame. But there’s always the risk that I still haven’t shaken that big sky pre-visualisation. Feedback welcomed, of course!

All square now

But it has a certain mood.

So, without the aid of recently acquired Lee Big Stopper, here’s a 132-second exposure I made as the residents of Howgill were turning on their lights.

Camera on bulb as the lights come on in Howgill

Here’s an example: two treatments of an image I made before the midsummer sun rose over Wasdale in the Lake District. When I started writing this I was thinking I preferred the black and white because of how it cuts through the coloured haze. On the other hand, I also think that coloured haze is splendidly atmospheric and that’s broadly how visualised it and why I wanted to photograph it. So, in the space of one short paragraph, I am back on the colour side of the fence.

What do you think?

Dawn colours without the colour

Wasdale Dawn

A wedge of evening light slices into the Lune Valley below the Howgill Fells (B&W version below)

It seems like longer, but my Lee Filters’ Big Stopper 10-stop filter was delivered just short of six months after I placed my online order with Speed Graphic. Lee aficionados will know that such a wait for these expensive squares of glass is par for the course due to demand far outstripping supply and, I was told, to quality issues.

I did become impatient during the wait, but never enough to pay the nearly double retail price that Big Stoppers were/are fetching on eBay. At one point I wrote an email to Lee asking if they knew why there was constant supply these otherwise scarce filters available at inflated prices on the auction site. I didn’t’ get a reply.

Never mind.

Today was my first short trip out armed with the BS. The previous evening I had, as recommended by Lee, done some test shots to establish how close to 10-stops my ten-stopper really is. Ten and a third apparently. So all that is necessary until I make myself or Google for a ten-and-third-stop ready reckoner is convert the conventional shutter speed to a decimal and multiply that by 1365. I was pleased to find a calculator in the “Extras” menu on my steam-powered not an iPhone. Yes, I expect there’s an iPhone app.

The image above is my first little starter with the Big Stopper. Nothing spectacular. Rather too chocolate box but fun.

The technical

Above: 25 seconds at f16. Nikon D700 with 24 – 70 lens at 24 mm. Lee 0.3 grad and, finally, Lee Big Stopper. Curves adjustments in Photoshop.

Below: 47 seconds at f16. Nikon D700 with 24 – 70 lens at 42 mm. Lee 0.6 grad and, Lee Big Stopper. Curves adjustments in Photoshop.

Bottom: Silver Efex Pro 2 conversion.

Lingering Howgills exposure

And in black and white