The Quiet Picture

Usually when I’m bored out of my head, I entertain myself by browsing through pictures on the photo forums I normally don’t look at. I guess I’m less irritable when I’m bored… Anyway, today I came to think that it’s strange I hardly ever visit the macro forum although I love to take close-up pictures myself. But I guess that’s it – I do close-ups and very rarely go to genuine macro magnifications. Or maybe I don’t like macro because I just can’t do it (although, come to think of it, I’ve never tried). But generally speaking, extreme macro is a little bit like wideangles – you really need to know what you’re doing in order to create a good image. Otherwise it’s just a horrible mess. I should know… because I suck at wideangle photography. I’ve really tried to improve it, I’ve travelled to new places and found fantastic views – but never made a wideangle image I could really be proud of.I checked my portfolio images for the number of wideangle photos I have there. Not many. In fact, the average focal length of my portfolio images is 158mm. I have played with the thought of swapping my 17-85mm lens (that’s 28-135mm full frame) with the new Canon instead, 24-105mm f4L (38-168mm ff). The extra mm’s at the tele end would make this perfect as an all-round lens and the constant aperture is nice. So I had to find out if those missing wideangle millimeters would be a problem and according to my portfolio sample, I have used the wider view in 7% of the images. That’s not much. I’m sure that the percentage of wideangle images is bigger in my catalogue as a whole. That’s because I use the wideangle for documentation images – you know, the images you just want to take even though you realise beforehand that you will not get any keepers. Souvenirs, in other words. So the downside of going from 17-85mm to 24-105mm is that I will have less options for documentary images. I would say… it’s time for me to narrow my horizons.

It has been snowing all day. Disappointingly, it has been very light snowfall so we probably don’t have more than 1 cm new snow. But since the old snow didn’t all melt away during the warmer days, the snow cover is nice enough. I went for a long walk to enjoy the scenery and ended up taking a new trail. I wanted to get to a nearby forest lake and the direction of the trail was right, but I didn’t foresee the trail making a turn at the powerlines. Much to my dismay, I saw the trail follow the powerlines whereas I just wanted to get across. Which I did, and after a while I had to turn right back when the forest floor got wet and I thought it’s not worth trying go forward – I had no idea if I was anywhere near the lake.The strange thing about the powerlines is the noise they make. I have never noticed it before – I mean, I’ve heard them hum quietly but now it was a very loud, it was audible in the forest before I had visual contact with the lines and it got me to look around for rushing water until I realised where the sound was coming from. Does anyone have an explanation for this loud powerline hum? Does the weather have something to do it?

Anyway, having crossed under the lines again, I was able to get on the road via the waterworks. They are probably forbidden area for the public, but what can I do, I came from the back where they hadn’t put up any warning signs, LOL!

When I finally got to my destination and looked around, I saw the powerlines not very far. The wetland forest where I had turned back was right at the end of the lake.

I really should get that GPS receiver.

I’m selling my Cokin filters, ad on Fotosidan.

Just watched the weather forecast (which seems to be my favourite program these days). I was a bit amused when the meteorologist sounded apologetic when he predicted overcast skies for the coming days. We should also get a bit more snow, which is great, considering that right now it’s above zero and the snow is disappearing fast. So the weather for this weekend should be snowfall and overcast skies. As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing to apologise here – this is the best weather imaginable for me! Photographers usually call an overcast sky for a big diffuser, and indeed, it is. In the same way, snow for me is the big equaliser – it transforms the nature around you by hiding small detail and highlights other things you would otherwise not even notice.I don’t normally like black&white photography. But when the nature itself becomes b&w, I go wild with the camera. I am absolutely fascinated by snow and the way it changes the world around me. When the sun doesn’t appear even during those few hours of daylight we get, the last of the colour fades away as well. This is what I have waited for.

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The image is from last Saturday.

One of the benefits of having been there and done that is that I can look back at my photography and realise all the different stages I have gone through to get where I am today. When I look at other photographers’ images, the same story repeats all over – just about everyone goes through the same stages. I have attempted to describe them:

1. Beginner. Totally clueless about anything so you make all the mistakes and are blissfully unaware of them and think instead that you actually have some talent.
2. You are starting to realise that your pictures are missing something, so you spend more time in the digital darkroom than taking pictures, trying to improve them. Experimentation with PS plugins to lift up your images.
3. You get tired of the PS plugins and start to experiment with the camera instead. You go through all the usual gimmicks of moving the camera during exposure, zooming out during exposure, double exposures (if you’re using film) etc. You’re excited about the results, even if you settled with poor subjects in your enthusiasm to try the trick (although you don’t know this yourself, yet).
4. You begin to realise that maybe you’re not nearly as good as you thought you were, and start working on your compositions instead. You buy a lot of filters in hopes that they are the key to good images.
5. Finally reaching the advanced level. You know your camera and what you’re doing with it, all the photography jargon is making sense to you, and you start investing in better lenses to be able to concentrate on your favourite subject matter and style of photography. You throw away most of your filters and only keep the polarizer and ND because you’ve finally realised that these are the only ones you need. The only time you spend in post editing is fixing minor things like cloning off dust spots, and adjusting levels and saturation etc. The images that require more work are trashed. You look back your earlier work and want to trash all your old images, too.
6. Expert level. Composition is second nature to you and you know how to control every aspect your image creation process.
7. Trailblazer. You have finally discovered what your vision is and you are fully able to explore different styles. You no longer mimic others, but create new instead.

So where am I at the moment? Hopefully at level 6 but more realistically, between 5 and 6. In all likelyhood, I will never get to 7 and let’s face it, most photographers never do. I would be overjoyed to reach 6.5. I am on the verge of realising my vision, now it’s just a matter of keeping at it and see what happens.

For all you beginner photographers out there, and why not even the more advanced ones, I found a great link for composition on dPreview the other day. Please do yourself the favour of reading up. If I ever see another centrally composed photo, it will be too soon! Even if I know that I will see a bunch of them as soon as I log in to any photo forum…And yes, I will also be reading the articles. A photographer is never fully learned and I’m only in the beginning myself. I might know the basics of composition, but I can’t hold a candle to the masters of the art!

I finally got published! …and I paid for it myself. I think it’s so cool with these new photo print services these days, as soon as I had heard about the possibility of publishing/printing your own book, I started planning mine. With the Christmas coming up, I wanted to get one done as a pressie for my parents (they are not reading this blog anyway so it will be a surprise for them). I just got it delivered today and am I ever so pleased! The hardcover binding is probably the most impressive part of it – the content and layout is all mine, so that’s when it gets a bit iffy… but it’ll do just fine. I will definitely be creating more books and looking at the results now, I know what I should do differently the next time.

If you are at all interested in seeing your work in print (and no one wants to pay you for it), then I can warmly recommend putting in the effort for creating your own book! It’s a bit pricey but hopefully the prices will come down as the competition increases. But the way I see it, the result was well worth it.

So it did arrive today – winter. We got loadsa snow and it was tricky driving to work; I did 50-60 kph and it felt fast. By the time I got to Ljusdal, the snowfall had turned into sleet and there wasn’t much snow on the ground. So I’m definitely better off in Los! The good news is that it has kept cold, so we haven’t lost any of the snow we got here – even the trees are still covered. Since it’s dark when I drive to work and dark when I get back, I tried my hand at moonlight photography (assisted by a streetlamp). Below you have my house in all its un-painted glory, the foreground tree lit by the lamp and the background trees by almost-full moon light (observe the two shadows).

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I had to drive to Sundsvall to do my Notes Domino 6 update exam. I passed it, so now I’m a Certified Lotus Professional for both r5 & r6. How exciting.

Yawn.

Went for a walk in the forest yesterday. There are trails all over the place in Los but hardly any of them marked on the Green Map (1:50000) so I’m mostly just walking around and learning to know them. They come in all sizes – from wide trails cleared for snow mobiles to small paths that can suddenly disappear in the undergrowth. It’s just about impossible to get genuinely lost so as long as your feet carry you, it’s just a matter of exploring where the trail takes you. But I’m one of those people who like maps. Even if I can learn all the trails, I would still want to see them on a map so I got to thinking that maybe I should invest in a GPS unit. I don’t have a genuine need for it because I’m never deep in the wilderness and I hardly ever venture outside the trails in unknown environments, but the thought of being able to keep track of myself is appealing. It’s Christmas soon…

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They seem to have done some maintenance on the skiing track. Every lamp post has received a shiny new number tag, so if I find one of the lamps broken, it will be easy to tell the people which one it is. I found this rather optimistic though… because a skiing track without snow just doesn’t quite feel right. Sure, people use it currently for promenades. But a skiing track, by definition, is best for skiing. Duh.

So we got some snow this morning. It was gone by the afternoon. Maybe we will get some snow again tomorrow morning. Maybe it will not be gone right away. I’m losing faith in winter.

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And just in case you’re not totally bored out of your head yet reading this, I found a notice announcing that they will soon start cutting the forest nearby. Earlier I had admired the majestic pines and planned for some images, but naturally, as soon as a pine reaches majestic proportions, it is liable for being cut. It looks like the forest behind my house will soon be a little less forest-y.

It’s funny how those small things can make your day. Today was one of those days – a lot of small things happened.

It started with a doctor’s appointment. I’ve been hoping that my blood pressure has been low enough to try without the medication, and sure enough, it was. So now I’m officially in full health (but no, they didn’t check my head…)!

Then I took the car to the service and now I have winter tyres. It’s way too warm for the season, but I don’t want to be caught in winter conditions again so it’s better be safe than sorry. And during the same visit, I also had extra lights mounted on the car. The big beams sure make a difference, as I found out on my way home. It’s almost as good as driving in daylight… can’t believe I’ve waited this long! I got a big smile on my face every time the lights hit a traffic sign. The beams are so strong that sometimes it’s difficult to read the signs as the light gets reflected so bright. Cool! The big lamps probably look a bit funny on my small car, but who cares. It’s such a relief to drive without constantly feeling that it’s too dark.

And finally, although I got the router already yesterday, I’m still enjoying the novelty of wireless Internet. I’m writing this sitting comfortably in my lazy chair with the little PowerBook in my lap. Mobile computing… gotta love it!

P.S. Having mentioned the PowerBook. The text formatting options are not available on Safari so I can’t change the text alignment like I normally do (justified). But Safari support is apparently in the works, so I’ll keep patiently waiting.