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Hyperdifocusissia - the story behind a landscape photograph (and competition)
def'n - An enhanced state of mind where your eyes won't focus properly and you see only in colour, shape, texture and line. Cause by an exhausted mind and body (from long days in the fresh air with sunrise starts and sunset stops, and creative highs and lows) resulting in the conscious mind being too tired to get in the way of intuitive picture making.
Introduction
There are many ingredients that go into making a great landscape photograph. Great light, appropriate weather, fine landscape or landscape features (ie the subject), mood, being in the right creative frame of mind, good technique, the right camera (on a tripod!) but the story behind the photograph adds a whole new dimension to how I feel about the photographs I make. I've actually made photographs that were aesthetically and technically pleasing, but there was no story behind them. To me, that reduces their value to me as their maker and to the client. Each photograph I sell, or exhibit, is shown with it's story.
Napes Needle
I'm not talking about where it was made (although there might be a story or history to be written about the location), or the camera and it's settings or filters used. It might be about the pre-visualisation of that photograph or the message I am trying to convey with the photograph. In fact, I would argue, that having a story about the subject in the photograph is part of the pre-visulisation that all landscape photographers should perform. Unless it is a record shot, then the subject should inspire some sort of feeling in you, and focusing that feeling or the stream of consciousness released could help you to visualise a better photograph and it's print.
Two stones, Saltburn - I turned up, the sun came out, I made a photograph, I went home. No adventure, no story!
What I am talking about is probably a stream of consciousness. What were you thinking about when you made the photograph? What feelings did it invoke? Where did the subject take your mind, or where did your mind take the subject? Did you have to suffer to make the photograph? What universal truth or personal truth was revealed to you? How did you arrive at this point, or where is it going to take you? Maybe nothing immediately came to mind, but maybe all became clear when you hung the print on a wall! What were you thinking?
This is the story of the making of one of my photographs - Hyperdisfocusisia, Napes Needle, Lake District
Hyperdisfocusisia
To make landscape photographs that resonate with myself and others I need to suffer or have some sort of adventure whilst making the photograph. Suffering and risk help focus my mind. Overly dramatic? Maybe, but it is true, I get bored too easily, suffering and risk keep me awake and alive.
It's not enough to just turn up. I was sat at a famous viewpoint in the Lake District recently eating my pasta and watching the sun set. I'd been out earlier (actually making the photograph this article is about) and was happy to sit and watch the last light with food, rather than a camera, in my hand. I might have got the camera out, but I couldn't see anything worth photographing. Pretty view yes, worthy of being a famous viewpoint, yes, but I'm not sure there is a great photograph in there. (Maybe there is and I'm just not going to be the one to see it.) Half an hour before the sun goes over the horizon, a photographer turns up. Massive heavy camera bag in one hand, tripod in the other, he sprints from the car park to join me and the throngs of people and I watch intrigued, wondering what he will make of this viewpoint which has eluded me. How will a different eye see it? Procedding to open his camera bag, out comes a digital body and a long lens. Onto the lens goes a lens shade. Now I'm really intrigued, and possibly getting a little bitchy from this point as what use is a lens shade at 9pm shooting directly into the sun? Anyway, long lens in hand, he begins shooting. Like a machine gun! Camera on full continuous drive, 'snap snap snap snap snap snap', tripod discarded on the ground, check the screen, 'snap snap snap snap snap snap, check the screen! Sounded like 1/30sec, maybe even 1/60s so high ISO so lots of noise. Poor old tripod, it would have helped with sharpness, low ISO and focusing his mind. Shooting in all directions for half an hour, before rushing back to the car, probably heading for another viewpoint to catch the pink sky. Maybe he made one, or many great photographs that he liked or that sold well. Only he knows, but I do wonder. Maybe I'm wrong, I hope I'm wrong and I'm wrong to criticise, it was just so incongruous with the usual slow and thoughtful approach to landscape photography. More like being in the pit lane at the racetrack next to the sports shooters with their motor drives on full!!
And what about the experience, the story, the interaction with the landscape? So, whilst this is a personal thing, and a more commercially minded photographer might shoot with this sort of speed and coldness to the land and sky, it is not my way.
What about the suffering?
Summer landscape photography is full of suffering! In the North of England, sunrise is approximately 04:30 and the sun sets at approximately 22:00. Up early, walk to location (the joys of a camper van allowing a bit of a 'lie in' and avoiding an early morning drive can not be underestimated), find an interesting subject and get set up, wait for the right light and conditions to fulfill my vision, rejoice as it happens or feel suicidal when it, frequently, doesn't, skip or drag my feet back to camper, sleep for a couple of hours then have breakfast, wander around for the rest of the day researching new locations, have dinner, go out on evening shoot, return to van at 23:00 or later, sleep for a few hours, rinse, lather, repeat. Not that I'm complaining, but it is hard work! I love photographing, I love being outside, but it is hard, hard work.
After a while the days start to take on a dream like state. The state of hyper-dis-focus-isia. When I am so tired that my mind gets out of the way of my eye and creative spirit. When the peaks of enthusiasm from a great shoot and the lows from a disastrous rainy shoot, or even worse, a morning that starts of promising goes to full blue sky by the time the sun comes over the horizon with the sun going 'morning world' at full blast, drain me. 4 or 5 hours sleep a day. It is then I see only in terms of shape, line and colour. It's wonderful. I normally prefer morning shoots as I'm often still half asleep (in the dreamtime?), not thinking too much so the landscape has a chance to get in my head and inform me about the image that I should make. Evening shoots are often a disaster as I think too much. Too depressing as the day dies! But long trips away, the exhausted state is great. I just see in photographs all day, with the good ones that I should really make just composing themselves in my mind and in the viewfinder.
Napes Needle
It's in this state that I wander up to Napes Needle on the back of Great Gable for the second evening in a row. Two hours each way from the van, up hard uncompromising man made tracks. My one consellation is a regular one. As I head into the hills in the evening, most people are coming back down from their day of fun. Or vice versa in the morning. I get a marching song in my head "When they were up they were up, when they were down they were down and when they were only half way up, Mike is on his way down!". To have the hills to myself is a treat, especially in a busy place like the Lake District. Lonely too. And scary - no one to look out for me or help in the event of an accident. Being a Luddite I leave the mobile phone in the van consigned to phoning my wife when there is signal, but I've had no signal for days, so neither she, nor anyone else, knows where I am! What a delightful feeling, to be alone and totally self reliant. We are not talking Rob Roy here where I have to battle the English or catch my dinner, but all the same, it is reliant for our times.
The path up!
And the path to Napes Needle isn't the easiest, crossing steep broken ground contouring a sheep track round Great Gable. That's OK. The scramble to the bottom of Napes Needle up a steep, loose gully then a scramble up the steep rocks raises my pulse a little. I can see where I want to be. I want a photograph of the Needle looking across to Scafell Pike, balancing the statuesque pillar (I have other terms for it) against the bump of Scafell and the cleft of the Corridor Route. All very Fruedian! And so the problems, apart from my dirty little mind. To get to the required viewpoint, requires a bit of climbing (hard scrambling) onto a ledge.
On the first night I left my camera bag and tripod at the bottom of the gully to check out the ledge. And I bottled the climb, not making it to the ledge. No rope, alone, wet rock, I don't fancy having to wait for the Mountain Rescue. What to do, I want that photograph?
It's with rubber legs I begin the walk up to the Needle on the second night. The sky looks good and the day has been dry so the rock might be dry. But there is still that little climb, just a few moves, but this time with camera bag, tripod and dog! I don't even know if I can do the moves safely, or more importantly, get myself back down the moves. Hence the rubber legs, I was scared and no mistake. But I wanted that photograph. I could see it. The stories of the early climbing pioneers like OG Jones and W Haskett Smith photographed by early mountaineering photographers like the Fishers inspire me, set a standard of exploration to aspire to. So why are my legs shaking and my breathing shallow? I've climbed and mountaineered for years, I know what I can do, and equally what I can't. Trouble is, this is in between, courtesy of heavy camera gear on my back, tripod in one hand and a well trained climbing dog often in the other.
Round the corner into the final gully, feet flailing and sliding up the loose scree and mud. Decision time. Up the easier moves that I did last night. I know I can get back down these. Up to the hard move. It's only a few, but the rock is slippery. What happens if I do them and those interesting clouds that are going to play such a dramatic part in my photograph decide they will impart a little bit too much drama on me by raining and making the rock really slippery? The dog stays here where she will be safe. And I get out my secret weapon. A 2.4m nylon belay sling, it's been my friend on many an occasion. That big spike there, over goes the sling. Perfect handhold in place, hang the tripod on the bottom, do the moves and pull up tripod, leave sling over spike to help descent. Job done!
Well, it should be. But I'm stood on a tiny ledge trying to set up a tripod as the wind blows and the rain looks ever more likely. How big are my cahonjes? How long can I stay on this ledge not knowing if I can get back down or if the rain will make retreat impossible? Why won't my legs stop shaking? I can see Wasdale Head YHA, will they hear my whistle if I have been a total prat and got stuck requiring the embarrasment of a mountain rescue? I drop the lens cap down the gully below, I have never dropped a lens cap in 7 years of photography! Why won't my legs stop shaking? Stop this, it's OK. OK for what? What was lovely evening sunshine with great cloud formations is now solid grey and black. Will I get the shot? Will I get back down. My mind races. "Stop shaking legs."
Round in my head it goes. This entirely personal and self-indulged drama.
Camera's up. The view in the viewfinder matches the one in my head. Stately pillar thrusting to the heavens with deeply clefted Scafell underneath!
I owe it more than this. More than this fear. Will I be driven from the ledge in half an hour with a few snaps for my efforts? I sit down and breath. Watch. Wait. Wait. Take it in and wonder about the pioneering climbers, they were bolder than me. What are the clouds doing? Dark dark dark. Light drizzle on the rock. My stomach feels slightly empty and watery. Breath. Wait. Breath. About two hours till sunset. I can do the walk back in the dark, headtorch, map, compass and a clear path for most of it. How long should I stay? Do I want a night walk back? Will my nerves take it? They will take a bit, I'll give it till an hour before sunset, that way I can be off this climb and across the worst of the initial contouring path before dark. Breath. Wait. Breath. Slightly correct my composition as I understand the scene better. Breath. Wait. Breath.
I feel blessed sometimes, not necessarily for the things I see or experience, but for the fact that I know what matters to me and when to recognise that my wishes have been granted. Sometimes this is subtle. Love matters and I recognise that my marriage is full of love, despite the lows, I know my wishes have been fulfilled. And so, as the cloud deepens to very dark grey and with a full two hours until sunset, the clouds part for a moment. First lighting the Needle (click!) before darkening again. Wow. I could go home on that! Will it happen again? I watch as a ray of light hits the valley side of Wasdale and slowly, ever so slowly, makes its way up the valley towards Scafell and the Needle. And disappears, to reappear full on the Needle and the Corridor route (click!). It's never going to get better than that (click!). Really. Perfect. Even more than I saw in my head. Oh the dancing light. Click, light goes, sigh.
Down.
Walk.
Down.
It's a long way down to the camper and pasta at the tourist viewpoint, accessed by car and road. Sigh. To suffer and survive. Not in pursuit of survival, but in search of beauty and perfection. I wish all my days had an adventure like this.
Competition:
Would you like to win a framed limited edition print of Napes Needle? Send me a photograph and the story behind it and you could be the lucky winner. I will also publish the story and photograph on this site.
The photograph and story need to have a basis in the landscape, whether it is the urban or wild landscape is up to you. It could be a great adventure, a family holiday, a cathartic life changing moment, history of the landscape, a love story, the story behind making that photograph, a wild places conservation project ... It is up to you so long as it involves the landscape.
I will select the winner according to the image and story that I like the best and that I think work together the best. For example, it doesn't have to be a fantastic photograph if the story accompanying it gives life to your photograph.
Stories should be no more than 2000 words. Images submitted should be a jpeg no bigger than 1MB. Please send submissions to mike@mikemcfarlane.co.uk with the subject line 'Win a print competition'. Please include your name, address, postcode, a daytime contact telephone number, your email address and of course your story and image.
Deadline for entries Monday 31st May 2010.
Winner will be notified by email and announced on this site by Wednesday 30th June.
Please note this is the first time I have run a competition on this scale and so I have probably forgotten something, so I reserve the right to change or amend the rules as appropriate.
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