To summarise the last 5 months’ Blogs: I’ve reviewed Alister Benn’s construct for impactful images - Luminosity; Contrast; Geometry: Colour; and Atmosphere. When I first discovered this, it resonated strongly with my intuitive approach - hence I adopted it as an invaluable checklist to integrate the key elements of any image both in the field and during processing. As he suggests, not all images contain all five, but aiming to combine at least two or three in any image potentially raises the level of impactfulness of one’s images considerably.
Sunkissed entrance…
However, when I initially used this approach in the field, and during processing, I increasingly felt there was something missing. After further reflection I concluded that, for me, when in the landscape, an additional and necessary ingredient for consistently creating quality images is what I’ve called Connection. While this is implicit in Benn’s philosophy, I needed to make it more explicit. For the past two years I’ve described myself as ‘… a landscape photographer, searching for the deeper meaning…’, explicitly seeking to understand the natural world around me and my connection with it, in spiritual as well as physical terms. Hence, if I don’t feel some connection with any location that I’m in, I can’t find a deeper meaning and therefore can’t do it justice artistically.
Giant among the ferns…
Having reviewed many definitions of ‘connection’, I realise that for me, at this stage in my life, the spiritual dimension is the most meaningful. I hesitate to expand too much here as I don’t want to seem too intense or evangelical. However, for me it simply means “an ability to intuitively understand something that impacts one’s soul and gives meaning to one’s life in some way.”
There is a part of us which is in closer contact with the divinities than our direct perceptions. (Javier Marias 2004: 22)
Bridging the heart…
So this Blog seeks to deconstruct this idea of Connection in the form of four questions:
What causes some kind of connection between me and the landscape when I’m in the field?
How do I seek to capture this within any image that I might create?
How can this sense of connection be enhanced by any of the other five elements of Luminosity; Contrast; Geometry: Colour; and Atmosphere - both in the field and when processsing?
Perhaps most importantly, how can this sense of connection be conveyed to others?
This month I’ve returned to four locations that in the past have made some kind of deep impression on me to aim to create specific images and explore the answer to these four questions.
What causes some kind of connection between me and the landscape when I’m in the field?
Misty moonset…
I’ve driven past this beautiful little churchyard off the beaten track many times in different seasons and at various times of the day - mainly at dawn. It’s always struck me as a potential composition and was one of the locations that came to mind for this Connection project, although I didn’t know whether any connection could be made as I’d not previously explored it. Three things were in my favour: it was a clear crisp dawn (would I have felt quite the same in pouring rain?); the full moon - symbolic for me in itself - was setting in just the right position (without this, the sky would have been less interesting); and the atmosphere of the churchyard captured my imagination, enhanced by a few misty wisps. However, I didn’t just set up my tripod and start shooting. I walked round the entire perimeter to get a feel for the history of the place, reading some of the tombstones to imagine the lives that had gone before. As I did so, I felt a growing synergy with this place: a peacefulness; a restfulness; past generations’ Christian beliefs; and even older ancestors’ influences. These then became the mental and emotional filters through which I set up what was for me the optimum compostion: the headstones in the foreground; the church wall-end framed by the branches; the setting moon in the distant sky; and the slight ground mist somehow evoking a sense of added mystery across the ages. So for me, this connection was real and could not just be created - I had to feel it. It was not just an “attractive place” - I embued it with deeper meaning which then guided the composition, the technical settings of the shots that I took, and how these were then enhanced during post-processing. I wonder if this has been conveyed to you? I also wonder if, without an explanation, this would have been conveyed so strongly?
How do I seek to capture this connection within any image that I might create?
Untrodden paths…
In past years, my photography was generally opportunistic, entailing very little planning or forethought. While I might have given some consideration to potential images, I hoped that my inutition would guide me to subjects and compositions that would please me and create memorable results. This sometimes worked but, more often than not, I felt dissatisfied with the overall results. It was partly this that encouraged me three years ago to take a more fundamentally considered approach to my whole photographic philosophy and activity. I would say that now when I go into the field I generally have a sense of what I’m searching for, or if it’s a new location, I may go scouting first, and sometimes even plan the potential location using maps, Google Earth, weather forecasts, sun, moon and tide timetables etc. I set the intention. All this reduces the risk of disappointment, although is still no guarantee of a successful ‘shoot’. Knowing that I was going to be writing this Blog meant that I had to be more explicitly aware of how I connect with any location. As a result, I’ve now devised a process, developed from my personal shamanic practice to be able to help me consciously connect with any location at a deeper level. I’m fully aware that this is highly personal and is not recommended for general use by others, but it illustrates one way in which it’s possible to consciously reach a deeper level of connection in any location. I now spend time on arrival somewhere intentionally going through this following meditation to ‘get into the zone’ - even if I’ve been there before:
Initiation: be open to mystery; be conscious of a higher realm; transcend to seek inner wisdom
Seek paths: pursue clarity of vision; see through any complexity; discern positive intuition
Courage: identify unrealised personal resources; face inward challenges; transform uncertainty into power
Destruction: eliminate fear, self-doubt or any low confidence; remove blockages and build belief
Family: be conscious of the deeper history of the place; sense past ancestors, kin and others
Reconciliation: restore shape and form to any broken perceptions; seek deeper insights and understanding
Having thus connected in this conscious, intentionally deeper perception, I’m then more able to discover further potential hidden meanings:
I’ve visited this Combe many times before, and already have a deep connection with it, although I’ve only ever walked the ridges either side. I’ve often wondered if it was posssible to walk along the stream bed to reach the foot of the waterfall at the head of the Combe, so on this misty October morning I set the intention to test my new approach. These are the best images I took that morning, conveying much of what I was trying to do. The acid test is whether any of this translated into your interpretation or impacted your consciousness in some way?
How can this sense of connection be enhanced by any of the other five elements of Luminosity; Contrast; Geometry: Colour; and Atmosphere - both in the field and when processsing?
This question can be relatively easily answered in the context of the last question. If I’ve taken time to find some connection with the place that I’m in, and am therefore more conscious of potentially more vaulable shots, I can keep in mind the core five elements when composing each shot that I take. For a long time now, rather than take many shots hoping that a few will be good enough, I’ve tended to take only a few, carefully considered compositions during a session, each with four or five different exposure settings. When processing, I can then select the most appropriate exposure as the basis for that composition, or where necessary create an HDR composite if this offers better results. Rather than using presets, I build each image individually, bearing in mind these five elements to achieve the optimum result
A remote spot on the Somerset Levels at dawn provides the power-full location for these three images, re-visited well over a year after my first time there for a particular ceremony as part of a course. I caught the dawn before the cloud set in and the vibrant reds and oranges amongst the reeds and underlighting the clouds evoke a powerful start to the day. The second, softer, image was taken just twenty minutes later which demonstrates how quickly the light can change at this time of day. A quieter, more peaceful scene helped by the blues and greys of the lake and distant clouds. And finally, the neolithic pathway, dating back to 3,800 years BC and the second oldest in the UK, discovered as recently as 1970, winding away into the distance and evoking mental images of our ancestors making their way across the swampy, flooded land between their settlements. For me, the soft colours complement this notion: brighter greens, browns and oranges would detract from the mystery of this ancient place. Do you agree?
Most importantly, how can this sense of connection be conveyed to others?
This is perhaps the most challenging question, and is something of a paradox. One of my mantras these days is to take images for myself and not for my audience: that way I can be my most authentic self: each in some way is an expression of how I view the world. If this is the case, then it could be argued that when I compose an image I shouldn’t be trying to convey my sense of connection to others but simply be happy with my own experience. And that is true. However, at another level, when processing an image and trying to re-live that moment, I’m als0 trying to convey that emotion, that sense, that feeling beyond my own comprehension: not to ‘please the audience’, get more likes on Instagram, or more comments on my blog because I know a particular style is more popular than another. I’m aiming to convey a deeper meaning, add greater value, or trigger an unconscious idea or memory that means something to the viewer as well.
This Neolithic long barrow burial mound, created about 5,500 years old almost automatically offers an ancestral connection for me. I waited for a weather forecast suggesting a changeable dawn, and was rewarded with not just a timely sunrise but also a rainbow in a rather auspicious position over the entrance. The strongest connection was in the deepest chamber of the barrow, sitting looking out at the sunrise, in the dark intense silence broken only by the occasional drip of water, my mind wandering to past millenia, knowing that human remains had been found here in the early 1800s. Hopefully this connection comes across in the post-processing of the dramatic sky in the black and white image, the potential symbolism of the rainbow over the entrance, and the view of the sunrise looking out from the deepest chamber. Can you sense any of this? Could any of these be improved in some way?
AND SO… for me Connection becomes the key that unlocks the potential of any location as a subject for my photography from hereon in. I invite any comments below or via email: mikepalmerpil@aol.com