Photostory: Recent Episodes
Des Clark
A space to discover, reflect and engage with the world of photography and the story behind its images. Photostory.
Search for “Vintage Eterna” and AI Overview (!) will come up with -
The "Vintage Eterna" film simulation is a custom recipe based on the Eterna base film simulation in Fujifilm cameras. It's not a specific film stock from the past but aims to evoke a vintage look and feel, reminiscent of older color films. This recipe often features a softer, more muted color palette and a slightly muted contrast, giving images a vintage aesthetic.
Whilst I use Fujifilm cameras, they are both old enough not to feature Eterna as a JPEG simulation (X-E3 and X-T3). That being said, there are some occasions that I like dabbling in something other than B&W and/or Split Tone.
And a few days ago was one of them!
The Grand St Bernard pass re-opened up again after the winter last weekend. One of my favourite ways of crossing the Alps en-route to/from A Little Cabin in the Alps.
Combined with a memory of my father, who if he was still alive, would be 100 years this July. It was he who introduced me to photography. To B&W prints in the homemade darkroom in the attic. To slides. To colour prints.
Yet looking through some of his early slides before the arrival of the saturated Fujichrome, the muted colours reminded me of what many Fujifilm users these days call Vintage Eterna.
With that in mind, I set about trying to create a vintage muted look using the RAW files in Lightroom from some of the images I took last weekend.
And these are the results. I have to say I’m quite happy with them.
Of course nothing beats getting the old projector out, finding enough books to raise it to the correct height for the screen, trays of slides and a screen that never stays exactly horizontal.
Digital is, for sure, easier. Yet we still hark back to those days…
Enjoy!
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of one of my favourite wild flowers.
Beautiful in colour. Fragile in nature. Resilient in thriving.
The red poppy worn around the world in remembrance of battlefield deaths has nothing to do with the blood shed in the brutal clashes of World War I - as I once thought. Instead, it symbolises the wild flowers that were the first plants to grow in the churned-up soil of soldiers' graves in Flanders, Belgium. Little else could grow in the blasted soil that became rich in lime from the rubble.
A colour of…
*Love* for family, for home, for the land.
Passion for justice, peace and liberty.
Blood spilt by the innocent.
Whatever way it’s framed, innocents have lost their lives in Gaza by a nation seeking retribution after the October 7, 2023 attack.
How many poppies can we expect to see rising from the graves of the innocents, the thousands of children, mothers and fathers killed?
And how long more do we wait for them to start flowering?
*This is the season of poppies…*
My recent visit to A Little Cabin in the Alps reinforced to me, that although there are no 4000m peaks in the immediate vicinity of the cabin, that doesn’t mean it’s not in the Alps! I wrote about this a while ago over on the blog for the cabin itself - head over to it if you’d like to read a short piece, simply entitled, The Alps.
Anyway, what reminded me of the Alps as a subject, was a visit to a photographic exhibition down the road in the provincial city of Biella. The exhibition was largely featuring the mountain landscape works of the Italian photographer, Vittorio Besso (1828-1895).
Whilst I recognised many of the areas that Besso had taken his photographs with a huge plate camera, it was the significant retreat of the glaciers since his time that struck me in many of his images. Scenes that I “recognised” I barely did now, such is the demise of these rivers of ice that Victorian-age mountaineers crossed en-route to many of the first ascents of the Alps.
One photograph (around 1870) that was taken at the Col du Grand St Bernard featured the Hospice du Grand St Bernard, the lake and Mont Vélan in the background. The image reminded me of a photo that I had taken last July (2024) from a similar position to Besso. Compare Mont Vélan…
A couple of posts ago, I wrote about the 65:24 (XPan) format. As outlined in that piece, there are a few ways to achieve this format without owning an actual (film) Hasselblad or Fuji TX-1. One of these ways is to stitch multiple images and then crop in post. However, it’s all very well doing this and then sharing on-line but the real impact of the size is seeing it in print. I’ve written about my printing journey in previous posts, and investing in a Canon ImagePROGRAF PRO-300. The printer is great, prints up to A3+, as well as roll paper up to a maximum size (13” x 39” or 329mm x 990.60mm). However from an economic viewpoint, it is cheaper - although less satisfactory from a creative pov - to send off to a lab to get printed if it’s only a single image that you’re looking to get printed as a roll of 13” paper is costly.
I was also considering the humidity levels in the cabin (which is where I wanted the print to hang) and so opted for a Dibond with Acrylglas print with WhiteWall which I think will stand the test of time better than a print… The size of the print is 111cm long which again is really outside the capabilities of my printer.
The image is one that I’ve talked about at some length in an Instagram post. The south face of the Monte Rosa massif after a late winter snowfall in March 2024. The entire massif has more than a handful of 4000m peaks, the highest of which (Dufourspitze 4634m) is the second highest peak (after Mont Blanc) of the western Alps.
To describe Monte Rosa as a mountain is underplaying it given its enormity. Think of it as a sort of mini range all by itself given the number of 4000m peaks, the number of valleys radiating from the tops and the number of cultures and languages living in its shadows. Indeed, to walk around the massif, will see you covering more than 160 kms.
The finished photo comprises of 6 stitched images and, in the end, cropped to a slightly larger size than pure XPan dimensions due to the size of the wall that I wanted to hang the print.
Thanks for reading - until next time...
The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam are currently hosting a special exhibition simply entitled “American Photography” [Unforgettable images of the beauty and brutality of a nation]. I went there recently with my daughter for a viewing.
I had no clue as to what this exhibition would include or what it was about before I went. I just thought it could be vaguely interesting and a good Daddy / Daughter gig!
Turns out that the 200 some images on display are, combined, a visual history of America over the past 150 years or so. As in the film title - the good, the bad and the ugly.
The New York Times described the exhibition as explore[ing] the tension between how the United States would like to see itself, and how it really looks.
Given what is happening in the USA these days, the following posters of what encapsulates the American dream spoke to me.
I don’t think there’s much more to say there…
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The photographs on display are a mix of the historical, the trivial, the powerful and the informative. Some of Robert Frank’s “The Americans” are featured and add powerfully to the narrative of a country that was - and still is - grappling with racism, loneliness and consumer culture.
If you’re in Amsterdam before June 9th, wholly recommend a visit. You won’t regret it!
XPan cameras were a joint collaboration between Fujifilm and Hasselblad back in the late 90’s. Hasselblad called their camera the XPan whilst Fuji called theirs the TX-1. The thing with this format camera was that apart from shooting a regular 35mm frame (36x24), they were really made for taking a wide panoramic 65x24mm negative. This size roughly equals the width of two standard 35mm frames side by side.
If you want to do a deep(er) dive into the legacy and technicalities of XPan, 65:24 and in particular the TX-1, then I suggest you pop over to Jonas Rask who is passionate about this format.
Anyway, legacy is one thing. Current application is another. How to get images in this format?
The most obvious maybe would be to go off and buy a second-hand XPan or TX-1. Pricy - and of course - analogue…
Next up - and one which Ritchie Roesch has used - is to buy a medium format (digital) camera like the Fuji GFX100S II. Apart from having a 100MP sensor, this camera (as well as the GFX50S II) has an in-built cropping mode of 65:24 (JPEG only - the RAW files still have the entire frame data). One of the advantages of this is to have a straight out of camera (SOOC) image without the need to post-process and crop to 2.7:1, as well of course as still having a large file without losing too many megabytes in the cropping process.
A third option is to stitch images together and then crop in post. This method retains a large file size suitable for large prints - but does mean some time in front of a computer screen.
Finally, to achieve the same equivalent field of view as with the standard 45mm lens on the XPan, shoot with a 16mm lens (APSC format) or a 24mm full-frame. I have a Fujifilm XT-3 and a 16-55mm F2.8 lens. The XT-3 also has gridlines in the EVF which are a pretty good framing guideline for what will ultimately be the cropped image in Lightroom. The downside to this method is that the file sizes are not huge (10mb for my JPEG) but, certainly, still good enough for medium size prints (A3+ on the long side). And prints really is what you’re after here to fully appreciate this format size.
I’m sharing six images below. Two of them were shot using the final option - i.e. 16mm lens on APSC and using the gridlines in the viewfinder to give you the area to focus on before doing an exact 2.7:1 crop in post. One of the six images was stitched and then cropped in post, whilst the remaining three were shot at a narrower field of view than 16mm but still cropped at the 2.7:1 (65:24) ratio.
16mm (APSC) using EVF gridlines to give approx area, and then cropping exactly 2.7:1 in Lightroom
Stitched multiple images and then cropped in post to 65:24 format
Shot with 55mm lens (APSC) and then cropped in post
Shot with 25mm lens (APSC) and then cropped in post
Shot with 55mm lens (APSC) and then cropped in post
The Dom tower in Utrecht
Vertically shot at 16mm (APSC) using EVF gridlines to give approx area, and then cropping exactly 2.7:1 in Lightroom
Whilst I think the vertical 24:65 format of the Dom in Utrecht shows its true size well in comparison to the houses in front of it, it’s the landscapes that really do it for me. Capturing the breath of the mountain panoramas, whilst at the same time reducing distraction, demonstrate to me the value of the XPan format.
The format won’t suit every shot in my library but, as a specialism, it’s one that I’m looking forward to exploring more.
No matter how many YouTubes I've looked at - and despite my background growing up having a father who had his own homemade darkroom in the attic developing and printing B&W's - I've just never got around to printing my own work - until recently that is.
Apart from the joy of holding a tangible print and looking at the image anew thinking back to when I actually took the photo, what has really struck me is the all the different textures in the paper now. Wow. And how this makes such a difference to each print. Some you don't want to feel much, if any texture, such is the image. Others - like my Window Shutter one - just demand having a textured paper!
After quite a lot of experimentation, testing and buying different papers, I've narrowed my selection of choice down to 4. For the moment...
I also decided to (finally) get my act together and share my prints with others.
The images I’m sharing here are not just randomly chosen photos that I’m happy with and that I think will complement each other. They all hold a story for me and within a particular context of my life over the past few years. By sharing them, I’m also sharing part of myself, full of hopes, fears and dreams.
The story behind each photo can be read when you click on any of the images.
The photographer James Wilson has said “In the world of photography, you get to share a captured moment with other people.”
These photos then are my sharing my moments with you. And I feel a long overdue legacy to my father.
Mission
To have some of my images hanging on a (currently) blank wall in the house!
I certainly have photos! Check. But virtually all of them gathering digital dust sitting on hard drives. I have few tangible physical prints of images that I think could look well hanging on the wall above.
Which started me on a journey…
Truth be told, I started on this journey months ago.
I’m not usually this slow on making decisions but there were many to be made.
The primary one - who was going to do the printing here? I could easily walk down the main street in town and come back an hour later with “speedy print” images under my arm from the local photo shop.
But given that I’ve gone to quite some length in investing in cameras, lens, some knowhow, never mind time spent editing the images in Lightroom - it seemed a bit “quick and dirty” to commit the final process to an anonymous machine in some street shop and still be proud of the result hanging on my wall.
The other alternative of course would be to provide print-ready TIFF’s to a specialist print place (of which there are many great ones around) and ask for these images to be printed on specific fine-art paper. This is the route I have gone down previously when supplying prints purchased from my Store.
I remember well, however, sitting alongside my father in his home-made darkroom in the attic. Watching the whole process of transforming film negatives to images where they magically appeared on white sheets of paper in a tray of chemicals. Disengaging from the final print process by handing it off to a specialist lab always jarred me as being a poor testimony and memory of this treasured time with my father.
And so I decided to go down the road of investing in a printer, discovering different paper types, and to be in control of the entire process from the taking of the initial photograph, to post processing, and to finally printing.
Far too many YouTube videos later, I decided to invest in a Canon ImagePROGRAF PRO-300 (as the PRO-1000 was outside my budget and would take up just too much room in my tiny office studio!).
This printer takes 10 pigment inks giving up to A3+ size professional and archival prints. Ultimately it was a toss-up between it and the Epson P700 but my experience with Canon products over time won the day!
So I now have a printer. Check.
But what types of paper to print my images on? Again, some more YouTube videos, swayed however by my already leaning to Hahnemühle FineArt ones for their variety, environmental sensitivities and local availability.
I finally decided to buy A3+ 308gsm Hahnemühle Photo Rag; the heavily textured 308 gsm William Turner at A4; and the Natural Line 290 gsm Agave (again A4). All of these FineArt papers are certified by independent institutes to be highly resistant to ageing (over 100 years), vegan, OBA free etc etc.
Paper - check.
The reality is though, it’s not just a matter of inserting the paper into the tray and pressing “print”. Paper profiles (ICC) need to be downloaded from the website of the paper manufacturer / supplier and uploaded so your photo editing software (Lightroom e.g.) can recognise which types of paper you are intending to print on. Additionally Canon Prograf series printers allow for the addition of "custom media types" into the printer's firmware and driver. For specialty media such as the papers I bought, using AM1X files provide important information to the printer such as platen gap and feed adjustments for optimal quality. Hahnemühle make all these files available for each paper type they produce.
Slowly, slowly, I’m getting there - some test runs looking good…
And back to my mission where it all began!
I chose 10 images to start with. Some of these may well not make the “Final Cut” but it’s a good place to begin.
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I printed the mountain landscapes on A3+ Photo Rag. They look great! Hahnemühle say their Photo Rag is one of the world’s most popular papers and the valued all-rounder for high-quality FineArt inkjet printing. I can see why.
I printed the moving scooter (scene from Hanoi, Vietnam) and the train tracks images on the beautiful “Natural Line” Agave paper - slightly textured and rendering gorgeous colours.
What really blew me away, however, were the images I printed on the William Turner paper. I chose the icm (intentional camera movement) sand dune scene and autumnal leaves images as well as the fading glory window shutters for this textured paper. There is “texture” in all these images to start with but physically feeling this in the printed paper is just amazing. My favourite of the three is the one of the wooden shutters. This was taken in some lonely Italian village I was passing through a while back - but without my camera. Thankfully my iPhone came to the rescue (shush…!).
A close up of this image printed on the heavily textured Hahnemühle William Turner 310 gsm, 100% cotton Fine Art paper
A close up of the sand dune image showing the heavily textured Hahnemühle William Turner paper
A screenshot showing the texture of the William Turner paper, taken from the Hahnemühle website
And no, I’m not on a commission from Hahnemühle! But given my printing journey, I just wanted to take this opportunity of sharing my experiences to date.
The last thing now is to choose which images will best suit this wall and arrange for them to be framed. Not me - I have limits! More on that soon.
In the meantime, if any of you have questions or comments about my printing journey as described, I’d love to hear from you. Thanks for reading.
Every so often I look at photos that I’ve picked out and shared on social.
And wonder - what was all that about?…
Some of them I’ll print (more on that journey shortly), but many of them will just sit on hard drives gathering digital dust.
So - inspired by the Czech photographer, Ondrej Vachek- I’m sharing my year to date “flagged” photos.
Dumping really - although I don’t really like that word as it suggests “trash”. Which I am not regarding my photos as!
I prefer the word “share”.
It’s a whole hotch-potch.
Street. Landscape. Travel.
Some of them I’ve already put on Instagram - fwiw. But many others have not seen the (virtual) light of day until now.
The images are in roughly chronologically order starting with the beginning of the year bottom right.
Vietnam. Amsterdam. The Alps before being back in Amsterdam. And one of my dog of course!
The mountain landscape and Vietnam shots were taken on my ageing trusted Fuji X-T3 whilst the Amsterdam ones are from a newer (to me) X-E3 which has a slightly smaller APS-C sensor to the X-T3 but which fits beautifully in my shoulder bag without me noticing it.
Reminding me that there is no excuse for not capturing more scenes in what remains of this year…
Enjoy - and see you soon, Des
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Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of travelling to a number of different places around the world.
Near and far.
Peaceful and in conflict.
Cities and countryside.
Alone and with groups.
Mountains and the Netherlands. (OK - that’s where I live - but you get the idea!)
Often I plan things well in advance but other times less so…
On some of the trips I now go on, it’s possible for others to join me. These can range from research trips, photography trips, retreats and the like.
If you’d like to know what’s coming up next in terms of trips that you could possibly join me on, then just follow this link to send me your email.
The
Stage is set.
Lights are low.
Curtains closed.
I hear the
Wind section of the unseen orchestra
Playing. Pushing. Pulling
the clouds into shapes never to be repeated.
New acts revealing
New vistas.
New valleys
with their sinuous lines leading the eye upwards
to glimpses of lonely peaks from where the eagle soars.
Over the past weeks, I’ve been working on developing a website that combines overseas trips and photography. Not workshops. Nor tuition. But more as a way of allowing people (including myself!) to Re-discover. Re-create. Re-imagine.
Within a context of providing opportunities for exploring fresh perspectives and not settling for something safe. Not mainstream.
John O'Donohue, the Irish poet and philosopher wrote a great line that I often refer to - “may you have the courage to listen to the voice of desire that disturbs you when you have settled for something safe”.
Whether we spend a lot of our time in airports, driving on busy motorways or simply walking the dog - we’re all on a journey.
A journey that impacts the way we feel about life, relationships, work and creativity.
So often we crave environments and stimuli that will help re-focus that journey.
Journeys Reimagined is the concept and website that I’ve been working on to allow us to do just that.
The journeys that I’ve been developing are designed to challenge the way we see ourselves and the world around us. All this through combining a number of different elements such as ancient and modern cultures, photography, adventure, history, vegan cuisine, religion, nature and more…
And ultimately, I’m hoping, they will bring us to a place where we are excited about re-imagining all that we are and offer to ourselves and those around us.
I invite you to have a look at the website. If you like what you see and read, do me a favour by sharing it with others. If it doesn’t resonate with you, still do me a favour! Tell others that you think may be interested.
Thank you - appreciate it. And see you next time.
Finally - if you like what you see and read here, you can support me at Buy Me A Coffee. Thank you!
As you may know, I’ve spent a considerable amount of my life in mountains. If not through guiding (which seems a lifetime ago now!), then spending time at my A Little Cabin in the Alps.
Even when I was working in Iraq, I loved being able to get out into the mountains of Kurdistan and, more latterly, *flying over the Hindu Kush in Afghanistan in a small single-engined plane* to visit some remote offices for the humanitarian organisation I was working with.
You get the drift! A couple of weeks ago, I was in my cabin in the mountains of north-west Italy, and although doing some housekeeping there, I was also spending quite some time just “re-connecting” with the mountains and nature at this time of the year.
I was also drawn to spending time thinking of the way we humans have settled - or tried to - in the mountains, particularly in the Cervo Valley.
Living in the mountains can sometimes sound idyllic (for those of us that don’t live there year round!) but a remote rural lifestyle isn’t for everyone.
What I wanted to try to portray through photos, was the magnitude and permanence of the mountains compared to the, often, temporary and fragile nature of human settlement and presence.
I recently came across a beautiful YouTube channel “All This Was Fields”.
If you like, you can play the track A Place in the Mountainswhilst looking at the images (difficult to do on a mobile!) as the melancholy nature of of the music fits perfectly with the mood I was trying to portray!
(This track has been made freely available under the Creative Commons CC-BY licence.)
*Self Contained*
At the time I took many of the photos, the cloud was clinging to the mountains. The mist swirling through the trees. Light was low. Moody to the point of being sombre. To reflect this as well as the “mood” I felt at the time, I adopted the Fujifilm Classic Chrome simulation.
*Overshadowed*
*Overgrown*
*Overlooked*
*Upwards*
*Isolated*
*With Potential*
*Occupied*
I hope these images resonated with you. Thank you for taking the time to view.
If you liked this post and would like to read more (or listen to any new podcast), just drop your email address at the top of this page.
Finally - if you like what you see and read here, you can support me at Buy Me A Coffee. Thank you!
Anyone looking through the history of this blog may observe a pattern. Sort of…
Kicking off when the world was still trying to throw off a global pandemic, we had time to ruminate. To clear out the attic, if that hadn’t been done already. To journal. And in this case to start a blog.
Six months later, it was like nothing had happened. In fact it was worse. We were all trying to catch-up on what we had missed out on over the past couple of years. And despite my best efforts, things slipped. Less traction. Certainly less focus.
Once in a while I’d remember to post something. And here we are in 2024.
Already one post written. And now another. What’s happening?
Today I did a major clean-up of the website. Reduced the size of many images to load better, and to keep search-engines happy. Re-ordered galleries (now called Collections!) and tweaked the navigation bar to try to make things clearer.
And in the same vein, I’ve “decided” to really try to be regular here. I’d love to say once a week but definitely twice a month. I may regret writing this, so please don’t judge. Just have a read of the last post Ebb and Flow before you even think of it!
In the course of tidying up, reducing image sizes and uploading my more recent photos into the relevant collections, it showed me that I still take some images which don’t really fall into any of the eight Collections I’ve made.
Take for example these two. If it’s one thing the Netherlands, where I live, doesn't have is mountains! Hardly any upland in fact save for the extreme south on the Belgian border.
That said, it does have wide open spaces. Polders and wetlands abound. So here are two photos I took in January during the few days the sun was actually allowed break through the clouds.
*And the metaphor here is, keep believing even though you can’t see it. Could be anything. The job you’re looking for. A sickness to end. Your dream to come to fruition.*
Wide horizons offer many possibilities. Already six weeks into this year, let’s make the remaining forty-six count.
And I’ll do my best to show up here!
Ebb and Flow
Up and Down
Wax and Wane
Summer and Winter
There are many idioms to describe seasons in our lives.
Seasons that can impact creatives, both in terms of quantity and qaulity. Whatever both of those terms really mean for creatives.
Watching a short Instagram Live from Paul Sanders this morning confirmed to me I'm not the only one feeling flat. Many people take on New Year resolutions only to find them unrealistic and exhausting.
The New Year is a time that many of us feel we should decide new avenues, new energies and new creativity.
However, living in the middle of the winter and observing nature just surviving and lying fallow, doesn't often encourage me to find a fresh creativity. Fresh energy. Fresh vision.
There are times in my life for that. Days, weeks, can go by with me really struggling to find that energy. As can be partially evidenced by the months and months passing that there is no sign of life on this channel!
Then there are times I'm in the flow. The groove. I'm photographing, writing and thinking without, seemingly, any effort.
That's what seasons are like. The tide. The moon.
Don't beat yourself up when you are ebbing, waning or wintering!
The flowering season will come. The tide will turn. And whilst waiting for that, you can prepare. Set the groundwork. Make plans.
And be kind to yourself..
If you want to put my photographic journey into context, you can read more About me here.
Looking back to where I am now, I recognise some specific steps along the way.
*Mountains have taken (up) a large part of my life, particularly when guiding and leading groups in high mountain environments was my job. Even though this is now in the past, just being in, and breathing mountain air brings out the positive in me!*
The first is the age I grew up in (yes I’m a late Baby Boomer!) where I’m reminded of joining my father in his homemade darkroom in the attic. Filled with chemicals, trays, rolls of negative film and an enlarger. All lit of course by a dim red light! It’s probably no surprise therefore that my preference for processing mountain landscape photos is mainly black & white and split-tone. Developing black & white as well as split-tone are both classic photography styles that bring out the natural contrast within the frame and draw the eye to the features of the subject.
Mountains of course have taken (up) a large part of my life, particularly when guiding and leading groups in high mountain environments was my job. Even though this is now in the past, just being in, and breathing mountain air brings out the positive in me!
When I left working in the NGO world full-time, I felt mentally spent. Then a global pandemic restricted the ability to get out into wilderness areas. When eventually we were allowed out and about again, one of the most significant healers for me and a way of reconnecting was through photography.
I believe photography should be primarily about being in the moment. Allowing ourselves to see things from a different perspective and ultimately taking the time to just “be”. Whether our subject is landscape, street, nature or abstract, looking through a viewfinder should allow us to focus on what we see immediately in front of us and for the distractions, busyness and noise of the world to fade away.
It’s in this vein that I’m currently working on creating some retreats with a photographic emphasis. Keep an eye out for these - and if you’d like some advance notice, just Message me here.
Het glas wijn or The Glass of Wine by Johannes Vermeer c. 1660
I was privileged to view the Vermeer exhibition in the Dutch Rijksmuseum recently. Many things struck me. Apart from the incredible mastery and quality of the paintings on view (the Rijks have gathered 28 of his surviving 34 paintings together - Vermeer is credited with painting around 35 images in all), the amount of visitors that have made this exhibition a total sell-out and the time that each visitor studies all 28 paintings is testament to The Guardian’s review of the exhibition:
Vermeer is a camera, a human eye looking at the world with the clarity of the lenses he learned about from scientific pioneers. He has a special place in the modern, camera-addled imagination, for he fabricated the world’s greatest photographs with eye and brush. But he is also like the woman in his The Lacemaker, who doesn’t take her eyes off her detailed work as she melds strands of brilliant colour – threads of flaming red and pearl white.
Indeed, I noticed myself spending a long time in front of particular paintings - such as the Glass of Wine above - and appreciating the depth of field and angles of view that Vermeer was able to portray on a single flat canvas. Viewing this image on a backlit computer screen does little justice to the subject. If you want to view the real deal, then book yourself a visit to the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin after the end of the Rijks exhibition in June.
The main point of this blog article though, is to consider the question of quantity. Vermeer painted ~ 35, 36 paintings. Van Gogh on the other hand produced over 2000 artworks. Renoir 4000. However Taco Dibbits, the General Director of the Rijksmuseum, commenting on Vermeer's paintings, said “Their impact is unforgettable. In a world making constant demands upon us, the calm and intimacy of his work brings time to a standstill".
So we don’t need to produce work en-masse to garner attention.
Or do we?
Whilst the average length of time visitors spend on Instagram is just over 30 minutes per day, the actual view time per image is mere seconds. Seconds viewing but that possibly takes hours (researching the view & lighting, capturing the image and post-processing) in producing. Hours in a digital age. Days in an analogue world. And for this to be just scrolled past, possibly a “like” on Insta or other social media and then forgotten about.
This isn’t a judgement article btw - I’m also culpable as a viewer to scrolling past images that have been proudly presented by the photographer who took a number of painstaking hours in getting this photo to where (s)he wanted it.
I think sometime just before or during Covid and the various lockdowns and chaos over those two years of 2020 and 2021, a photographer that I have a lot of respect for, David duChemin, announced he was withdrawing from social. Arguably he was in a position to do that, having already a serious mailing list, on-line course subscribers and many books to his name. People just starting on their journey, or not as far along it as him, felt it was impossible for them to adopt such a stance. How would people hear of them? See them? Hear them?
Leaving the Vermeer exhibition, I felt myself asking the question as to how active he would have been on Insta, TikTok etc. Looking at the production figures above, I think there is a good argument to be made that the likes of Van Gogh and Renoir would have lived on social whereas Vermeer may not even have opened an account - never mind being an irregular poster.
With so many voices and far better talents “out there”, why should I bother? I saw a post from a friend and colleague on LinkedIn recently which went along the lines of “For each person that gets value from your LinkedIn content, there's 2.5 Million people who couldn't care less, and another 4.5 Million people who didn't see it.”
I think I’ve better things to do - like spend time in actual photography…
If you want to get to know me, I’d be delighted for you to spend some time here. This is my home and you’re welcome. You don’t need to find me on social too often.
Talk to you soon. And yes - I love a Glass of Wine!
Revamping your office in the New Year?
How big can you go with your photos?
Somehow that guy, Pythagoras of Samos, always seems to crop up in your life. I thought he'd left mine on the final day I walked out of high school a looooong time back, but - no - he's still around. And even interfering in my photography! Before I go any further, in case any of you suffer from high-school amnesia, let me remind you - Pythagoras' theorem is a² + b² = c²
OK - and?
Well, ever look at an advertising billboard or display photograph from a long way off and say something on the lines of "they must have a great camera / lens / they're a professional photographer" etc etc...." Well, believe it or not, next time you look through your photo library, you may be looking at a 20 metre wide image ready to be hung up on your office wall.
Now just before you all go off rushing to the nearest print shop, let's drag our friend Pythagoras back into the room. As a general rule of thumb, the distance you will view your display photo is approximately twice the diagonal measurement of the image in question. Let's say for the sake of argument, you have a 30 x 20cm square photo you want to hang up. So the diagonal, as per Pythagoras, is 30² + 20² which is 900 + 400 = 1300 but as 1300 is the squared amount, the square root of 1300 is 36cm approx. And as we've already said the viewing distance is approx twice this amount, then we're talking around 75cm from which you should view your photo.
So that's the easy bit!
But unfortunately - or maybe fortunately as goodness knows what theories he'd have come up with - Pythagoras lived before the digital era. So he wasn't thinking of printing digital photos when he was sunbathing on Samos.
The next factor to consider doesn't have an easy mathematical formula - that is, what resolution your image has to be when viewed from a specific distance. The photography industry has us all bombarded with the MP (megapixel) capacity of your phone. Mobile or otherwise. Not wanting to go down this particular rabbit hole, let's confirm that my current iPhone 13 is boasting a 12MP camera. And that my trusted, and ageing, Fujifilm X-T2 has double this, 24MP
Even a 12MP camera will give you an image of 4000 x 3000 pixels which believe it or not, is good for a 6.75 metre print! But not at full resolution which is usually quoted at 300dpi (dots per inch). Again there are many rabbit holes here but, successfully avoiding them again, take the fact that most billboards are printed at 15dpi, which - again trust me(!) - is the equivalent of just over a 2MP camera! In other words, far and below what your mobile phone camera is giving you.
The secret here is that as your print size increases, so does the viewing distance. Walk - or climb(!) - up to a billboard and you'd see that the print resolution is terrible. But nobody ever stands this close to a billboard - no matter what they're advertising.
***In summary***
If you want your photo to be printed at full 300dpi resolution, then your friend Pythagoras will come knocking with his calculations above. But if you're prepared to print larger sizes at a lower resolution, then really, the skies your limit. Provided you don't want to come up close and personal to your photo.
We've avoided many rabbit holes in this short read, but this really all relates to not necessarily being restricted by thinking you need a professional print.
Think more about how far away you will look at your image from before you press Cmd + P.
If you're talking just a a couple of metres or less, then engage Pythagoras. Print at full resolution (300dpi) and restrict yourself to a print size calculating that the distance you will view your display photo is approximately twice the diagonal measurement of the image in question.
But if you're looking to mount an image in your conference room, then think outside the 300dpi box and realise you can print at 15dpi and view from 15 metres easily.
Hope this helps your next decorating phase!
In this episode 3 of PhotoStory, Des Clark talks with Kentucky born and raised, photographer, visual creator and businessman, Justin Thomas.
Justin describes his journey from developing rolls of film in his university darkroom to the camera world quickly becoming digital and leaving cash-poor students like him, side-lined essentially because of the cost of investing in fast-changing digital equipment. However when he moved into working in real-estate, he had both income to buy and an opportunity to develop, his photographic skills as a real-estate photographer.
Justin became known in his community as someone who “did” photography and, as a result, was asked to photograph weddings, family portraits and gradually built up his portfolio.
Justin and his family moved over to Liverpool, UK in 2020 in the middle of the Covid pandemic, to work alongside some people that were (and still are) running an international language school and community hub, both for international businesspeople as well as for refugees and asylum seekers. His time in the UK has allowed him to travel to Europe easily and relatively cheaply and it is during these travels that Justin has been able to expand his print portfolio.
PhotoStory is all about discovering, reflecting, and engaging by means of hearing the backstory of particular images that mightn’t otherwise be told. Justin describes the image Episode 3 of PhotoStory is featuring, where he was, what led up to it, the conditions the shot was taken and his success in finding the couple he was photographing to give them copies of his images.
LINK to Image: https://tinyurl.com/yc352vt8
Justin Thomas Photography:
justinthomasphotography.com
Rather than take a personality test, such as the Enneagram, why not choose three photos you’ve taken yourself that speak of who you are? How do they describe what motivates you? What inspires you or makes you dream? Like a business card, you could give them to others and say, “hey, this is me”.
In the second episode of Photostory, Des Clark looks at the idea of self-identification through photography - illustrating this with three personal examples. In doing so, he challenges others to do the same and hopes they, too, can relish the results.
Welcome to the first episode podcast of Photostory where we will be discussing the backstory of particular images shot by photographers, sometimes including myself. So often we see an image which draws us in, but we know little about the context or what led up to that particular image being captured.
We look what was behind the image with the man holding a cigar behind his hands - the cover art for Photostory.
I mention Thomas Crauwels in the blog who records the fragility of the European Alps in black and white images.
Essentially, split toning is adding at least 2 colours to a (traditionally) black and white photograph. One to the shadows area and another colour to the highlights area. Usually the shadows get a cooler colour than the highlights area, which usually get a warmer colour.
Unlike single toning or e.g. sepia, the added interest of working with split toning is that, as there are always at least two colors added, contrast is accentuated as well as giving a focal point or a symbolic meaning to the image.
Seasons - or in Bob Dylan’s words, “The Times” - are changing quickly now. Or at least, I feel it. After a long, hot, dry summer in Europe where river levels fell to record lows, green grass became an illusion - unless you played golf, and glaciers in Switzerland were covered by white tarpaulins to stem them from melting into thin air, I’m now writing this wearing a body warmer and hearing the rain outside my window.
When it comes to defining words such as "success" and "failure" - what do these mean in the context of mountaineering? Reaching the summit may seem the obvious "success" definition - but what about coming back down alive regardless of whether the summit was reached? Surely that could be a success, as dying on the mountain, would, in most people's eyes, be seen as a tragic failure…
There’s a lot of scientific research papers written on the chemical structure, shape and rock origin of the stones used on traditional Italian Alpine roofs. I have to say I only realised that when I searched for photographs that others had taken of the roofs.
After a number of false starts, I’ve decided to bring PhotoStory.photos into the fold if you like. No longer out there fending for itself, it now auto-forwards any visitors to this blog page. It also provides me with a reason to create a first blog post on this recently revamped website. Why all the changes…?