Lens is More.....

I am often amazed at how good the images produced by 'hobbyist' photographers can be...(especially those who use the natural world as their subject, obviously)...and I genuinely enjoy viewing their results, and have the greatest of admiration and respect for their skill, application and creative talent.

I myself spent a little over ten years making my full-time living as a professional photographer and I'd like to think that I know one end of a camera from the other...and maybe understand what it takes to make what could generally be regarded as a 'good' photograph.

Digital photography with it's related computer application now gives us all almost infinite creative possibility at the touch of a button. The most ordinary of photographs, and even 'duffs',  can be altered, corrected, tweaked and generally manipulated to produce stunning images from pretty nondescript beginnings. Nothing wrong with that, I say.....and some would say that this digital manipulation is actually a creative art form in itself.

Yet, my good listeners, I wonder how many photographers who in their life-time through no fault of their own,  have only ever known 'Digi', can appreciate the art of getting it right in the camera, first time, one shot only, with no all improving  'post production' computer magic to utilise. I know it's a bit of a clichéd discussion now, but none the less interesting.

I assure you I am not an old-fart reactionary when it comes to photography.....I use all aspects of digital advantage myself as a matter of course...(no choice really for general purpose!)...I no longer ply my trade as a Pro. Phot. and in fact have turned full circle when it comes to picture taking.....becoming a fully paid up member of the point and press brigade (though I do get a smug sense of satisfaction that my casual snaps still tend to do the trick, thank you very much!)

 however, just out of interest......

It was not that long ago..........My camera of choice was a Bronica SQA medium format with various lenses, backs and assorted paraphanalia including a whole rack of filters and attachments. My camera case was made of industrial strength armour-plating, about the size of a small family hatchback, and held a warehouse stock of flashguns, light meters, spares and a whole array of impressive pieces of complicated hardware that to this day, I have no idea as to their purpose....

.

..and of course, a shedload of boxes of FILM.

Yes FILM. Boxes of foil-wrapped rolls of film. Film of different
ASA speeds for different purposes.
Each roll of film allowed twelve shots only. Kodak VPS III.
Twelve.
The fact that twelve shots was the limit on each roll of film was one of the many factors that determined the creative process of making each and every shot count. Every shot had to be got right.....in the camera.
The cost and process of producing a finished paper print was also an aspect that necessitated not making mistakes...either creatively or technically.
Every shot had to be visualised and considered.

Light measured, ambient and reflected.....
Focus, composition, exposure, depth of field, shutter speed, aperture all manually applied before every shutter release. Click....shot taken. Once.
Maybe if the occasion warranted, I would 'bracket' the shot, using different apertures and shutter speeds.
The precious unchecked, un-previewed intended pictures, were sent off, still unseen on their film-roll,  to the lab for processing.
About a week later, my negatives were returned with my 'proofs' in 5x5 inch paper print format, rough 'machine' prints, from which I could see for the first time the fruits of my pictorial labours.
If I had actually got it right in the camera, each print would be exactly as I had intended.....exposure/composition and the subject matter presented as originally envisaged..if not, ....tough.
I could then return my chosen negatives to the lab to have hand-printed enlargements made, cropped to format.
Usually took another week.
Of course, this was for commercial colour prints......

Black and white photography was a totally different ball-game all together....and in fact, in all honesty, was the more involving and interesting, and potentially creative process.

This was done in-house, up front and personal....
Hours spent in the dark-room juggling toxic chemicals in order to magically conjure up images.

Films/negatives unwrapped and loaded onto spools to be annointed and soaked in potions and odourous fluids....

Trays of Developer....Stop- Bath.....Fix...and Rinse.....washing lines of pegged up dripping prints...the constant gurgle of running water.....

Boxes of different 'grades' of photographic paper to produce different 'effects'.....

Mysterious light emitting machine....The Enlarger.....into which negatives were fed and the image projected onto your choice of paper......cropped/shaded and dodged by waving your hands in the projection beam to lighten/darken specific areas of the picture......timing test strips and experimentation to eventually produce a single 'one-off' print..never to be reproduced the same again.

Each print, from start to finish taking a lot of time/skill and creative effort to produce.     It was great.  I miss it.

Nowadays, all can be achieved literally at the touch of a button, instantly, in the comfort of your own armchair.

However, never mind the technicals, the process, the equipment or the technology.....they are just tools.
The image is still made in the eye of the photographer.

The only criteria by which a photograph can be judged 'successful' or not.....is by the emotional response it evokes in the person viewing it.
A technically poor image can be unbelievably effective, yet a technically perfect image can be pretty bland.

As ever, appreciation will always be entirely subjective, of both technical and creative aspects.

That poorly exposed, out of focus, un-composed grabbed snap of dear departed Auntie Florrie laughing, often has more worth than the perfectly formed character study portrait if indeed the snap causes more emotional response than the formal picture.

Yet, conversely,  the artistry of an intended and creatively worked image, whatever the subject, composed and knowingly executed  as a piece of art has immeasurable, and incomparable value.

All hobbyist photographers have the potential to produce valued images.....IF they have 'an eye'.....its easy, especially with the current technology.
They choose the subject, they choose the time, place, creative approach and the purpose of the photograph is their own....and have the tools to produce it....
The professional, however, more often than not, does not choose the subject, time, place, approach or purpose...........(try getting that first time in the camera!).......and then have that image objectively 'judged' on emotional response AND technical application.
It's different.

I have friends who are keen hobby photographers, especially nature photographers, some are pretty talented, some are taught formularics,  but it would be very interesting to see if they could produce results to order, and to an unfamiliar brief......and without the marvelous benefit and creative advantage of easily applied digital technology.

As I say, the stunning images that regularly appear from bloggers on this site are wonderful to see, and I enjoy every one of them......some are truly wonderful, and display not only a high level of skill and creativity but an impressive knowledge of their subject so as to capture the image in the first place......

Pointless to harp on as I have just done.....at some length!...really. I know.....
I suppose its a bit like saying a modern driver would be struggling with an old Model T Ford.....course they would....and anyway, why would they bother.......modern cars are so much better.....................but still......in the words of Deep Purple, it makes me wonder.....

Rabbity Larks at Minimal Altitude.

The Simonside Hills in Northumberland... aren't really.....hills that is....not not in Northumberland.

'They' are a geographical feature that has resulted in a line of raised ground, mostly no higher than approx 400m above the briny North sea (the coastline of which can vaguely be seen from the tops....on a clear day). Simonside is a sort of a warm up for the more extensively remote and marginally higher Cheviot range.
The area offers characteristics that are typically north Northumbrian.....wide open, rolling moorland......wind-swept and interesting.......carpets of plantation forest and broad acres of tussocky-rough grazing for the hardy sheep.....mostly always dampish (both the sheep and underfoot), Simonside has a lot of space for yours truly to have a bit of a wander in.....and its only 30 mins or so up the road.

After reaching the small country town of Rothbury that sits by the river in the wooded Coquet valley below the 'hills', I drive up the wiggly minor lane to park the jalopy roadside and set out to tramp up the steadily rising heathered slopes above.

There is that familiar, almost instant feeling of release as I walk away from the car and out onto the open fell-side.....breeze in my face, rough gradient beneath my boots and the sights and sounds of 'wild' Northumberland surrounding me.

The close-up quiet rustle of my walking, and the gentle clump of my footsteps, are the only discernible man-made sounds amongst the more distant weave of nature's voice, underscoring
the span of moorland hillside.

  

I hear the insistent caw of a couple of crows as they flap lazily into the breeze ahead of me, and at the same time, see a pheasant reluctantly, yet urgently, bustle over the nearby loosely wired fence, no call of alarm, but its inept startled wingbeat and flurry making a sound so recognisable.

As I rise a little higher up the slopes, the views open up behind me, and looking out across the valley I can just about make out the sound of the collective bleating of the sheep I see being harried across the opposite fields, white smudges being buzzed by a couple of smaller, darker circling dots......the baa and meh occasionally accompanied by a piercing series of whistles from an unseen farmer.....

Walking further along an airy, gradually steepening ridge, I tread my way along a rough path snaking narrowly through thickening heather to reach a small outcrop of browny-grey rock. As I pass, I disturb a couple of Grouse who in turn, startle me enough to actually make me jump. Their sudden rising clatter and barks causing me alarm, never mind them, as they speed away low over the heather like fleeing wing-fluttered cannon balls.

I pause a short while.....and as I sit on a convenient seat of lichened boulder, the flash of a soltary Wheatear flits passed. It perches momentarily on a nearby stone, looks quizzically towards me on my own perch, and darts off again, unimpressed with my presence.

 



Looking through my ever-at hand small binoculars I track a pair of air-dancing Skylarks high above my head, my sighting being led by their twittering song more than by any keen observation.

Presently, after sweeping the expansive views around me of fellside and valley, I swing my proudly worn retro Millican daysac over my shoulder, loving the look and feel of it....no space-age fabric and zips for me boyo, oh no.......its canvas and press-studs all the way,......I make off towards the slightly higher horizon.

I remember being brought here as a lad by my late Father, and have vague recall of it being winter, snow on the ground, and bloody freezing. My then friend Graham was with us, and I seem to remember being bizarrely envious of his absurdly pom-pommed woolly hat............anyway, many years later, as a father myself, I brought my young son and daughter here too.....and dragged them through deep snow precariously, at high speed, along the forest rides, towing their plastic sledge on a rope behind my newly acquired 4x4 jeep. Tut tut.......how irresponsible.
I can still hear their screams of laughter and delight.

Today, I continue along the broad ridge towards the general high point happily aware of the space and the vista of the surroundings widening around me.
The holy trinity of Curlew, Lapwing and Snipe, I would love to report were all seen and heard........but they weren't. Not a sausage. Still, in my mind's eye they were still definitely there, covertly going about their business as part of the tapestry of the area......just wisely remaining unobserved.

The undeniable call of cookie and fruit-cake obliges me to pause again after a while, and as I sit waist deep in heather scoffing their loose-crumbed delights, I notice faint movement in the mid distance below me, on the edge of a bank of pine and fir.  Looks like a trio of Deer are cautiously nosing about in the long scrubby grasses and reeds that form a boggy moat beside a track around the trees. They are beatifully hard to see so well do they merge naturally into their environment.
I get better sight of them through the binoculars just as they appear to freeze, twitching noses all pointed towards the corner of the plantation.

Quickly, as one, they hop sprightly into the woods behind them and are instantly gone........just before a pair of bright lycra'd bikelists trundle into the picture totally unaware of the now evaporated scene.

I start to meander back along the way I came, enjoying the ease of walking that comes with the descent of a gentle slope.
A single rabbit, clearly a maverick or an outcast....(thereby hangs a tail......ha ha)...panic-scampers away. In leporidae terms, obviously a high altitude Sherpa of a bunny.

I eventually return to the car several hours after first leaving it, no doubt each hour of my traipse relieving untold hours of accumulated everyday harry......no great wildlife safari encountered, no great mountaineering conquest achieved, no adrenaline pumping adventure experienced.......just an inestimable amount of pleasure obtained from simply being....out of doors, naturally.

(....apologies for use of some  'stock' photographs.....but hey, they're there to be used......and they are only used for illustrative purposes to alleviate my mundane words!)

Dark Side of the Spoon.

Well now....I have just returned from a shortish wander through my local woodland. Nothing special. Nothing seen. No sightings furred or feathered....nor flora noted.
It is currently 7.40am and pretty much still dark.

During my wander it was pretty much pitch black...... apart from a weak glow of clouded moon and a horizon hugging smear of watery thin haze.

Stars were vaguely visible at times when the cloud-cover cleared, but their distant pin-pricks of light just seemed to make it darker somehow.

Interesting experience to be walking within a night-time wood. No torchlight, nothing... reliant solely upon whatever 'night-vision' ones eyes can muster in almost total darkness.
Movement along paths you thought you knew well in daylight becomes a very different thing at night.
Ones ears and imagination combine to present an extremely vivid, yet totally un-seen vision of scene and activity.

To stand alone and silent for a while in a completely darkened wood ...what can I say.....
Try it.....a very different experience of being with 'naytcha'.

Anyway, back home, and just like Goldilocks, a bowl of porridge...just right.

Seen in Words....revisited.

At early hour the amber hint of winter sun, horizon low, seeps through a gentle morning mist to find, waiting, a silent stand of silver birch,

The mottled sheen of shining bark now edged in golden rim, each fluttered leaf and sleeping bud is met with warming touch.

(perfect pic borrowed from 'rambles with a camera'.....I have no shame).

The dew-wet grass lays witness to the waking day,
and in that morning yawn, the shadowed hedgerow lightens to outline twig and branch......

A fading line of footprint leads out across the frosted ground, an echoed tread of some risen farmer, early-huddled, eyes still veiled in weary glance.

Above in greyborn sky, a flight of steady rook pass silent overhead, black-feathered and intent toward a favoured tree-worn hill.......

Below, fielded in dawn-dampened fleece, sheep bow in constant graze, their hallowed breath, cold-sharpened, tastes the morning chill.

In quiet air the day unfolds, and rising from it's nightly shade, welcomes in the softened light that moves aside the darkened view.......

Wooded sleep is woken, the leaf-dimmed curtain drawn, still painted in pale pallette thin, yet with water-coloured promise of a deepened hue.

                      

The morning hours begin to sound, robin song and wren, the pigeon coo, the cawing crow, the fence-line flurry of flustered pheasant....startled jay....finch-twitter, tuned and calmed with blackbird call........

Each fabled voice is spent in solo song yet does not mar with any other, the rhyming rhythm of natures reason, an age-old descant known by all.

Words and Pollocks.

In golden-leafed promise the welcome murmur of autumn leads us wool-wrapped and willing towards winter's chilled embrace.

Beneath weighted sky with stiffened air all nature folds her collar-up; and in hinted-season and time-drawn apparel, makes ready for short and sharpened breath.

Afternoon-dimmed with leaf-softened tread,  the dampened woods draw close their quiet mantle. No stirring nor feathered chatter heard. The whispering air in silent branch brings gentle haze to blur the eye......the trees withdrawn, once more, stand ready.

Picture This.....Not.

"Don't waste words, jump to conclusions..."
That famously ambiguous, contentious and curious quote dubiously attributed to that longtime 'hero' of mine, Mr Millican Dalton.....

Those words can be seen roughly scratched into the rock wall of a cave that this pioneering gentleman of nature, freedom and adventure made his home for 50 odd (some would say very odd!) years in the English Lake District.
However....never judge a book by it's cover....etc etc...
A person's appearance,  manner and character can often be misleading......and you never know... underneath the grey suit, collar and tie there may be a free-thinking bohemian uni-cycling performance artist......or something......and anyway, that questionable jumper/hat/pair of trousers they are furnished in may not have actually been of their own choosing.
'They' say that looking at the books and/or music a person has on their shelves can often indicate a person's character....and intriguingly, what footwear they sport....I'm not so sure....I would hate to think that I ever be adjudged by what's on my shelves

....there is a hell of a lot of both noise and word there by accident, intrusion and by unwarranted gift......and my mode of foot furniture is, to say the least, somewhat haphazard according to activity....and more often than not, mildly inappropriate !
Anyway.......it got me thinking....
Over the years, I appear to have collected a fair number of pictures and paintings that happen to adorn the walls of my home. These pictures make an extremely eclectic (always feels good to use the word eclectic) mix of style, content, subject matter and yes.....subjectively rated artistic merit. In the same way that what sits on the bookshelf and inhabits the music collection of a person can be said to reflect the character of their owner, maybe the displayed choice of their wall adornments also gives insight into their 'inner persona'......perhaps even more directly. If so, I'm in trouble......call Social Services immediately.
A fair number of almost 'chocolate- boxy' landscapes ( I don't know why....I just like 'em) exist amongst a sprinkling of more worthy original nature paintings...Contemporary and classical  prints of various subjects jostle amongst drawings, photographic copies and home-mounted 'art' pieces of dubious and incongruous subjects from Kerouac to Dickens, from theatre props to guitar fretboard close-ups. From framed pages of Eagle comics to classical seascape water-colours. Postcards, drawings and personal ephemera of every kind from marbles to rocks, feathers and a rather fetching collection of hats....... and the rest.....

As I say.......it occurs to me also.....bearing in mind the above......Could the appearances of our furred and feathered friends in any way indicate/influence 'character'....or do they simply look like they do, and are what they are,  and do what they do, simply because of what they are... because of practical natural evolution.....
Because yer everage  bird of prey has the facial features that make it look cruel and fierce ......is it?
Because a fluffy bunny looks to us all cuddly and cute......is it?
Because a chicken by its general demeanour, looks less 'intelligent' than an owl......is it?
Does a well preened badger have more social status within badger society than a scruffy one?
Does a chaffinch actually know its sartorially 'lookin' good' when compared with a dunnock....
These are questions that need to be answered.....
I realize the matter of choice of appearance is not an aspect generally open to fauna, but does their appearance in any way influence their individual and/or collective character.....if indeed a species has such a thing.....*strokes chin whilst musing..
I think we can be forgiven for anthropomorphising a bit......what other way of assessing 'character' have we?
Are sparrows cheeky chappies?
Are weasels mean and nasty?......and so on....
Most animals I can think of seem to have been given a human characteristic according to their species, behaviour...... and perhaps....appearance?
Our domestic pets appear to develop 'characters' in our eyes, so do 'wild' creatures also develop individual characteristics........ and here is the rub.....are these characteristics determinable by their appearance?
Does a grumpy duck actually look grumpy?

Does a happy-go-lucky tortoise look any different from an introverted one?
Do animals and birds have individual characters and can you tell not just by their activity, but by their appearance?........and, reading back through this post............who the hell cares?
I need to get out more.
I was going to include an array of pictorial examples of my household 'art' collection....interspersed with examples of various animals and birds displaying imagined characteristics due to their appearance.......but frankly,  I can't now really be bothered.......maybe at a later date perhaps.......or!...the precious few who read this, could post illustration of their own ??!!....
Nah.....
I'm going for a walk. Autumn has well and truly arrived, and the local woods/river-bank and chilled misty air is calling for me to don those favourite items of warm 'winter' clothing and wander amongst it all......
Yet.........I do wonder what picture I may present to any highly-wicked Goretex-wrapped passer-by as I saunter along dressed in my beaten up old walking boots (with mismatched laces), co-ordinated duffle coat and battered fedora combo......?