David Ward - Landscape Photography - Into The Light

Highlight this Comment Julian15/01/2009, 17:06

Hi David,

Given that we are close contemporaries (1960 was obviously a good year!), I have to say I share your need to rant every so often. It's rather satisfying, isn't it? :-)

I do recall seeing the work of a 'fine-art' photographer (whose name escapes me - another sign of age) a couple of years ago who went in for this sort of effect with images of New York City, I think. It was mildly interesting (well, for five minutes!) and original back then but, as with any technique where there is little depth to explore, the images quickly began to look samey and, as you say, trite.

As for recreating view-camera effects with Photoshop, well, 'focus-stacking' has been used for many years as a way of increasing apparent DoF without movements. It's a valuable tool when used properly - albeit time-consuming and fidly in practice - but when misused one has to ask oneself what the originator of the images is trying to say.

The only real answer that occurs to me is, 'this is what the world would like if it was a model'. Ermm, wow. So?

Highlight this Comment Jason15/01/2009, 19:29

If a photographer is unimaginative in the first place, then any kind of ‘effect’ won’t disguise the images flaws. I do however feel at odds with you that this process is nothing more than a “trite gimmick”. If there is genuine creativity applied, no matter how the effect originates, there is the potential to use even the post processing technique effectively. I seem to remember you saying that you were thinking of experimenting with your focusing in a previous post...and yes I know you will do it in camera, but does it really matter how it’s done, if the effect is realising the vision of the artist?

Granted this shot is a very poor example of what can be done with this process and I can see why even looking at this website is wasting all of our time, but I’m not sure the people who post these types of images would even put themselves on your level of image making, so why worry? Just let yourself laugh at the toy train on the website, go on David I bet you want to, it is very funny! (o:

Highlight this Comment Richard Childs15/01/2009, 20:36

Eureka! This is the answer to your recent problems David... get down to your local toy shop and buy up all the Hornby accessories needed to recreate landscape masterpieces. With clever use of tilt and shift you can make scale models look like the real thing? Do this out in your garden to gain use of real cloud ( and RAF Tornados) and you will get all the fresh air you need. Perhaps you could even make a papier mâché model of locations such as Glencoe and Rannoch Moor complete with Kingshouse Hotel and Blackrock Cottage (Hornby even make girder bridges)! I'm starting to get carried away now but I'm sure this would be more satisfying than blurring what already look like a bunch of less than average images. I guess that for some people photography means sitting at a computer for hours rather than mastering camera technique and developing vision.

Richard

Highlight this Comment Dav Thomas15/01/2009, 20:42

It's a fun enough technique, I saw some large prints at the Tate Modern a couple of years ago of a guy who's name escapes me that looked quite interesting, of sport stadiums and the like using this technique. But it is a gimmick you get really bored of quickly, I'd put it in the same box as HDR, 'Orton' and similar fads (actually I'm not sure HDR will be a fad, when will we see it built into dSLRs?).

I feel that creative movement with LF can work, particularly with portraiture, difficult with landscapes - Reeds and Fence is one of my favourite images of yours, a wonderful image.

Highlight this Comment Simon B16/01/2009, 10:02

Hey David,

I think that these really are models and the photographer is actually appealing for help in using swing and tilt as he quite obviously has no idea. Perhaps you could give him some mail order lessons?

Highlight this Comment adamp16/01/2009, 14:03

Hi All,

I don’t think any LF practitioner should worry as I suspect that this will be a passing fad – if it even gets that far. The thought of sitting in front of a monitor for hours on end “creating” such images fills me with dread.

Having said that, there may be occasions (at least with rigid-body cameras) where the limitations of optics prevent us from having the required DoF – we want less or more than available.

Case in point: a close up which requires max depth of field to ensure sharpness on the subject area might bring the background into too much focus. Digital post processing to blur the background would work in such a case. Other than that, I can see no point in turning reality into fiction.

On the other hand David, this may be the element of surprise you were looking for? Ooops nearly swallowed my tongue just now…

Have fun, Adam

Highlight this Comment Sandy Wilson16/01/2009, 14:49

Hello Richard,

The last sentence of your blog entry is very poignant and got me thinking about a question I was asked recently. The question was, how can I take a photograph using Photoshop? Well for a minute I was lost for words and asked the person to repeat the question. My reply was, "Well you need another piece of equipment to make photographs". To my astonishment the person then said, "What piece of equipment is that?" My reply was that the vital piece of equipment was called a camera.

The point of all this is that there is so much hype put out about Photoshop that this person really believed that you only needed Photoshop to take photographs. The mind boggles.

We all know that Photoshop is a very clever piece of photo editing software but not that clever.Of course, if Photoshop ever does make the camera obsolete, we will all save a great deal of money.

Yes, you are also correct that there are too many people that spend too much time in front of the computer Photoshoping bad images to death thinking that they will make better images.

It is the same old story, people think that if the image is not right at the taking stage it can be sorted out with photoshop. Where as in my mind the image should be correct at the making stage, as you have already stated. This can quite easily be done by using your vision, perception, intuition, and correct exposure. I am sure all contributing to this blog site will agree with the above.

Regards

Sandy

P.S. Don't get me wrong, I am not against using Photoshop per se – I use it myself to recreate the burn and dodge techniques I used when I had a darkroom. To me, seeing and viewpoint are the two most important tools in making great images, whatever the subject matter.

Highlight this Comment Paul M16/01/2009, 15:57

Hi David

I agree - the T&S images are naff, even as examples of a creative technique. Maybe the problem is that the examples are more 'creative' than they are 'artistic'.

Even so, I think its a bit hasty to completely dismiss the artistic application of movements to create effects that suggest the metaphor of the real world as a fake, a model or a toy. I'd be interested in your opinion of David Burnett's photography for the National geographic article on the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. I believe DB used a LF camera for this assignment, and although the collection falls more into the 'documentary' genre it seems to me that in several of the images he uses movements creatively (artistically?) to suggest the idea of our environment as nothing more that a cheaply-made scale model completely exposed to the forces of nature. I might even go so far as to say that several of his images tick all three of the BSM boxes, and that the 'mystery' component is amplified by the use of movements to de-focus parts of the image. Maybe there's a political dimension to this piece too, but it was the artistic/creative element of the collection that first caught my attention.

Like you, the idea of using movements to achieve artistic effects in landscape photography does appeal to me, but unlike you I have yet to put this ambition into action. Your image of the fence has re-ignited an interest originally sparked in me by Burnett's article. Judging by my apparent inability to correctly focus a LF camera to achieve front-to-back focus, I'm confidently expecting to quickly master the technical challenge of de-focusing most of the image!!

Incidentally, the introduction of Live View & higher resolution screens to DSLRs has made it much easier to use T&S lenses on the 35mm format (Canon produce 24mm, 45mm, and a very good 90mm T&S lens) - seems to me that we'll be seeing more of this kind of image produced in-camera (even if not LF) anyway - better prepare yourself for more ranting.

Cheers Paul M

Highlight this Comment EdR16/01/2009, 17:51

Let us usher these images towards inevitable Turner Prize glory and move on...

Ed

Highlight this Comment David O16/01/2009, 20:27

As I dislike the images for many reasons including an unwelcome reminder of the Thomas The Tank DVDs which I've watched with my 4 year old son a thousand times (I think the image that David uses in his blog entry is actually of Knapford Station!), I'll propose a swift "swing movement" towards further ranting... that is the unwelcome receipt of either unsolicited email (which started this blog off) or worse still, in US parlance, telemarketers. But hope is at hand and if you ever want to get your own back (and Moderator permitting), I attach one of my favourite clips from that well-known video website which literally had me corpsed (and this may well be the operative word)... Click here

Best viewed sitting down and breakables to one side.

Cheers

David

Highlight this Comment David17/01/2009, 10:43

Hi Paul,

I only vaguely remembered the Katrina images from National Geographic so thanks for bringing them to my attention again. I'm ambivalent about how successful they are. One image of a Mustang did hold my attention for a long time. But in the end I couldn't decide whether my reading of it being a man-made model didn't overpower the intended implication that mankind and all our works are no match for the awesome power of nature.

Perhaps this reading wouldn't be available to the current CGI generation who are used to almost perfect simulations of reality. They haven't grown up watching countless episodes of Thunderbirds – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbirds_(TV_series). For those of you who missed out on this cultural masterpiece, each episode contained countless superb models which, despite all the skill applied to their manufacture, largely failed in their ambition of verisimilitude simply because the depth of focus was too shallow – just like the plots in fact!

It seems to me that the point about the power of nature might have been more powerfully made by explicit reference to the sheer scale of nature's potential for destruction. For me, some of the most compelling images of the aftermath of Katrina were those that showed the destruction of entire neighbourhoods or the mass of refugees huddled in a football stadium. These aren't great images, they hold no pretension of art, but I feel their rawness is in some way more powerful than David Burnett's more measured and self conscious approach. Of course it's only a matter of opinion!

Highlight this Comment KK17/01/2009, 13:12

I must say that to me the tone of some parts of this thread is a little disturbing and reminds me somewhat of the plot of William Golding's "Lord of the Flies." After all what is the offense of the author of the cited web pages? He just put up a brief description of a certain take on photography making no great claims, it is refreshingly restrained and clear. What's more he kindly explains the technique used should others care to do likewise. Surely this is in the finest tradition of photography, e.g., during its early phase amateurs would exchange methods via magazines or letters. OK this method is not particularly original but to anybody not used to computers it is useful to have the explanation.

A fair bit has been made about achieving the effect in camera as though there is somehow an eleventh commandment about it. This is questionable on many levels. For a start not everybody can afford to use large format (it is expensive no matter what anybody says). Of course Photoshop isn't cheap but if somebody already has it or has access to it then why not use it? Even with all the relevant camera gear an obsession with doing everything in camera is misguided and will lead to wasted opportunities. Last Saturday I had the privilege of being entirely alone in some woods with strong winds and heavy rain. I kept looking up at the wonderful effect of the peak of a mountain under heavy moving clouds seen though the trees all gesturing inwards and upwards. Now I can just about manage to control two filters (warm up and grad for the sky) under these conditions but three is asking for trouble. It was clear that the foreground would be too light but crucially not burnt out. So no problem, Photoshop makes it a doddle to balance the foreground (and does a better job of burning in as compared to the crudity of grads). I went ahead. Yes I know this is a traditional darkroom control but so is tilting the easel to change focus (see "The Print" by Ansell Adams).

I think people are too ready to take some sort of moral high ground, never a pretty sight. A photograph is an image and unless it claims to record an event in documentary style I see no problem with manipulation. (Of course this readership is al too familiar with the fact that even "straight" photographs can manipulate events.) After all, combination printing was a standby of early photography with some practitioners such as Henry Peach Robinson arguing that it was the way to go if photography as to be an art form. There is a serious debate to be had about how far manipulations can go before the image can be called a photograph (naturally it always is an image) but this thread is not addressing that.

I don't find the images of the cited web site particularly engrossing though that might change if I saw original prints. In any case I have seen a lot of large format images, all done in camera, that leave me cold or worse (no I cannot or will not supply names). So at the end of the day the only sustainable objection is the spam email. This is unlikely to have been originated by the author of the web pages and is just part of the price we pay for all the benefits of modern communication (e.g., this blog). I detest spam but spam filters and the delete button are very handy and easy to use.

KK.

Highlight this Comment Charles Twist17/01/2009, 16:43

Hello David et al,

Why is this effect any more gimmicky than the very common effort to keep everything in focus (in LF-world)?

Why should it matter how the blurring of a picture is created? Is it any worse to spend 15min in front of a computer screen than a ground glass?

Isn't it healthy to see someone exploring the benefits of new technology? It's not because you don't like it, that it is bad: at least they're trying. The Landscape Photographer of the Year had very few film photos (any LF at all?) and a lot of digital, including some arresting HDR jobs. It's definitely not a fad, certainly no more than LF is currently, and it is well (better?) accepted by the hoi polloi (excuse my Greek, KK).

KK: From a commercial point of view, time is a greater cost than the production of a tranny (in the Western world). So depending on the desired effect, LF may actually be cheaper than spending a lot of time trying to recreate LF effects in silicon. Some things are best left to the computer (your example, arguably), but others aren't.

Best regards, Charles

Highlight this Comment David17/01/2009, 20:04

Hi KK and Charles,

Lord of the Flies? KK, surely that's overstating your case? Still, I'm hardly one to avoid hyperbole ;-)

I guess I should clarify my position... My ire was intended for the originator of the email not the creator of the website. My comments about feeling uninspired by the images were not meant as a personal attack on them. I also want to state categorically that I do not have a problem with this effect being achieved via Photoshop rather than using a view camera. Like you, I applaud the website author's decision to explain how the effect was achieved. I care naught for the origin of a technique, only for its effect. It doesn't matter whether a technique is digital or traditional only whether it enlightens, intrigues or touches the viewer emotionally. The use of such a technique simply for its own sake is pretty pointless. I intended the title of the blog entry to suggest that (like the chemists who made a poor adhesive that later became the ubiquitous Blu Tack) this technique represents something awaiting a worthwhile application.

As I've frequently stated before, I have no problem with image manipulation per se, only with people pretending that images are un-manipulated, and thus attempting to claim some deeper authenticity for their work. I believe that such purported objectivity is actually philosophically impossible. It's interesting to look at the history of photography and realise that it might, in a sense, be coming full circle and returning to its Pictorialist roots. When Stieglitz, Strand et al declared their mission to be "straight" photography they were reacting to what they saw as the dishonest, manipulated work of the Pictorialists. They wanted photography's supposed objectivity to be universally recognised as its raison d'être. But despite what some might like to believe there's really no such thing as an objective photograph. Now the digital age has made tools for manipulating photographs very widely available to photographers and photographers are understandably experimenting with them as tools of expression. Paul Marsch, in his earlier comment on this blog, has cited one instance where he believes that miniaturisation through drop focus has been used successfully as an expressive element.

My issues relating to the website (just a tiny proportion of the countless hundreds that I have with life in general!) revolve around two main points. Firstly, the website failed to reference the label "tilt-shift" either to view cameras or variable geometry lenses on rigid body cameras. I know that I'm being pedantic here (what's new!) but I feel that "tilt-shift" is meaningless without some explanation of where the term comes from. Now the author may have chosen not to overcomplicate his site or it may have been an accidental omission or he may have been unaware of the origin of the term. I cannot blame him if he was truly ignorant of its origin but I do wonder why he didn't take a moment to Google some relevant references. Secondly, I found the triteness of the effect's application a little depressing. I would find it equally so if the effect had been achieved using a view camera and applied in a similar way. The point is that in the examples I have seen it hasn't been used in a particularly illuminating way - that's not to say that it couldn't be!

I do realise that it's not the website author's fault that the email's author thinks "tilt-shift" is amazing and new. As Paul Marsch has pointed out, contemporary photographers such as David Burnett have been using other techniques with a similar effect for quite some time. Some have taken the term drop focus quite literally – but nevertheless used it reasonably effectively. I do get the distinct feeling that I've been here before. Back in the 1980's I assisted a number of food photographers working for advertising and editorial clients. Most were still using view cameras and a few started experimenting with selective focus in order to place emphasis upon some aspect of the dish being photographed. The technique is also widely used in flower photography and perhaps just as frequently in contemporary portraiture. But drop focus is a very long established technique. One example from the first half of the 20th Century is the work of August Sander, one of the finest and most interesting portrait photographers of the last century. Working in the 1930's, he set out to document the German people – and incidentally proved that the blond Aryan master race was a figment of the Nazi's vivid imagination. Something that didn't go down all that well with the government of the day. Like many other portraitists he often used a shallow depth of field. Sometimes this was forced upon him by low light levels, and sometimes it was an artistic decision in order to concentrate the viewers' attention on the subject's face. In either case the key point was to make sure that the subject's eyes were sharply in focus. He worked with a view camera but this use of shallow focus is by no means exclusive to this format. In both the examples I have given focus has been used as a tool of emphasis. I have to ask, what are the tilt-shift example images emphasising?

You're quite right Charles to point out that the current dominant aesthetic in landscape of front to back sharpness is equally as "gimmicky" as the drop-focus approach. Humans don't apprehend the world as being tack sharp throughout our field of vision. So, landscape images that portray the world in this way, on the pretext of mimicking the way we see, are actually being untruthful. Again, I wasn't criticising the effect on the basis of its novelty (as I've outlined above it isn't really novel, so that would be hard to do!) but rather the reason cited for using it. Once again I'm indebted to Paul Marsch for providing credible examples of why this might be an interesting approach.

Highlight this Comment Dav Thomas18/01/2009, 17:13

You may also be interested in the work of Olivo Barbieri who uses this technique combined with a helicopter - now that is an expensive photographic gadget!

Highlight this Comment Julian18/01/2009, 22:01

For me, the most interesting thing about this technique is why it appears so convincing in the first place. Nobody has disputed that these images resemble pictures of models so the illusion must be a pretty powerful one.

Why do we immediately think an image of reality must be a model if parts are blurred in such a way as to indicate shallow depth of field? I appreciate that this is not normally how we perceive the real world and it's also not normally how photographs of the real world appear but why should we immediately be put in mind of a model when our brains encounter these specific cues?

I could understand it if images of models, due to technical considerations, were always presented in this way but they are often not. How else would the many miniatures used in film-making be so convincing if limited DoF was the only way of photographing them? Why does an image taken from a helicopter appear like a model when selectively blurred but a model railway, say, can appear extremely lifelike when shot from a similar, scaled-down, viewpoint but without noticeable focus effects? Why do we expect photographs of models to exhibit these traits but pictures of reality to be pin-sharp?

Is this just one more example of photography dictating how we perceive and make sense of the world around us?

This, to my way of thinking, is actually a lot more intriguing than either the technique itself (whether achieved at the time of capture or later) or the pictures created using it.

Highlight this Comment adamp19/01/2009, 20:53

Interesting thoughts Julian – perhaps indeed we are “taught” that the camera cannot take a front-to-back sharp image of a small model but can easily cope with a real-life vista. After all, when we look at something our eyes constantly refocus on the point we are concentrating on at any given instant. The brain fuses all these individual images into one whole scene.

One thing puzzles me though and this probably shows my ignorance of the workings of LF cameras (though I thought I understood the general principle). Shooting from a helicopter essentially puts the whole landscape at infinity. So can it really be possible to tilt the lens sufficiently to blur out the mountains in the background but keep the rest of the image sharp – even though both are as near as dammit at infinity?

Highlight this Comment Charles Twist20/01/2009, 11:53

Hello Adam,

Not sure I should be answering this. The rules for focussing the LF camera are very well described on H.Merklinger's website. Contrary to popular belief the Scheimpflug rule is insufficient - but that's another story! - and the combination of Scheimplug and hinge rules give you an exact method for predicting the plane of focus (the rules are easily extended to planes, although I am little unclear what operation to apply when compound movements are used - some kind of averaging out: KK, do you know?). From this, you can see the plane of focus is extremely variable.

I think the real question you are asking, is about depth of field, which inevitably leads to circles of confusion. So the answer to your question is: how big do you want to print it? However, without having actually photographed from a helicopter, I know it is easy enough to have an A4 print of a mountain from the neighbouring peak, where the base of the mountain is in focus and the top out of focus even stopping down to f/16-22. So I would have thought it possible.

Julian: interesting post. Thanks. Writing about circles of confusion above, has made me realise that this effect is so severe it is noticeable on a computer screen image. This approach may gain in subtlety, although maybe not acceptability, by adapting the effect for A3 or A2 prints. Says something about the average consumer of these pics...

I hope that helps.

Best regards, Charles

Highlight this Comment Tim Parkin20/01/2009, 19:01

Hi Julian,

I just did a real world experiment and held my hand close to my eyes and found that we do indeed have small depth of field when focussing up close.. combine that with an aerial perspective gives sufficient hints to your brain to suggest what you are seeing is pretty small.. That is my guess anyway..

Highlight this Comment Chris Andrews22/01/2009, 17:03

One of the mantras for photography (to go alongside "match the subject to the light and the light to the subject") is "just because you can doesn't mean you should". The skill is in knowing both what you can do and when you should do it.

Chris

Highlight this Comment KK29/01/2009, 21:49

Hello Charles,

Sorry it has taken so long to get back to you regarding compound movements; too much to do. What follows is a description of one way to solve your basic question about compound movements; I have carried out the necessary manipulations (ideally I should check everything much more throughly but no time, in any case it does agree with what is claimed elsewhere).

You still have the three planes meeting in a common line (this is on the assumption that the somewhat idealized model of lenses holds, which is probably reasonable). One way to verify this is as follows: choose coordinate axes x, y, z so that your lens plane corresponds to the pane x=0 and the x axis goes thought the centre of the lens. Now consider your subject plane of focus to be in general position, i.e., it goes through three points (x1,y1,z1), (x2,y2,z2) and (x3,y3,z3); well this could be simplified a little. Suppose the focal length of the lens is f. Choose three convenient points on this plane, they must meet some simple conditions but (f+1,0,Z1), (f+2,0,Z2) and (f+1,Y,0) will do (the values of Z1, Z2 and Y are determined by the requirement that these points must be on the subject plane). The corresponding points to which these are focussed are now found easily (they can be traced in 2D because the chosen points lie on the plane y=0 for the first two and z=0 for the last). Now the three focused points determine a plane, the image plane. You can then check that the subject plane and the image plane meet on a line on the lens plane (i.e., the plane x=0). However don't try this by hand, a computer algebra system makes things pleasant and easy. I shan't give the equation for the common line, it really isn't particularly helpful.

Of course this condition is not enough to ensure focus (as pointed out on H. Merklinger's website that you cited). This is obvious: fix two planes with a common line, there are then infinitely many other planes going through the same line. Only one of them can be right for a given lens. Well, I could have gone on to determine the conditions for focus but I see absolutely no value in this for photography as practiced by the readers of this blog. The fact that the planes meet in a common line is a useful guide to what movements need to be employed and then a few successive approximations are enough. I suspect that one problem in many cases comes from trying to put more than one plane in focus or simply not bearing in mind the basic Scheimpflug condition (which as already stated is necessary but not sufficient).

KK.

Highlight this Comment Jason31/01/2009, 20:18

Well KK, that, err... that clears that on up!