Homage to the Lost Frames

©National Geographic Society

There comes a moment when it is time to move on.  You could say that's what this picture is about. 

The sheep, in their browsing ways, moving down the shore on Iona, stopping here and there for a moment -- a nibble of grass, a bit of a laydown -- and then moving on.  The growing darkness forced me to use a shutter speed that stretched on into the evening, catching the sheep both in stillness and in their moving on.

After telling the tale of each of the photographs published in my Scottish Hebrides story for National Geographic,  I want to share with you few of  images that, regrettably, were left on the cutting room floor.  Why? Because I like them.  Because I poured hours of intensity into making them.  Because they deserve more than just a hidden corner of my hard drive.  Because they also represent the discoveries of other photographers with my own experiments layered on.  

But mostly I share them now because I think I owe them that.  Not only were they part of my life, these images particularly instructed me and helped me to see in new ways.  These new ways became part of my brain, part of the network of chemical reactions, part of my ongoing map in the ways of seeing.  In the future when I am lost again in the sights of our world, I might have a guide.

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©National Geographic Society

In some ways the technique I used in this picture is a trick.  But in another way, it represents a way of seeing.  

I didn't invent light painting, the technique used in this photograph of the majestic Callanish Stones.  Photography, as most endeavors, is built on mining the past, seeing what other have done, learning from them,  and honoring their contributions by expanding their revelations. 

One of the photographers I have learned from is Dave Black. I'd like to think of Dave as an old master except for the fact that he is younger than me. But he is the master of light painting, the art of using a flashlight (that would be a torch to my friends in the UK) while photographing in the dark.  Dave has plowed this field for a long time and what he has created is just amazing.  Take a look: http://www.daveblackphotography.com/lightpaintings/index.htm

Somewhere in my subconscious Dave's lessons were with me that night at the Callanish Stones. This image of mine reveals a pattern in life and makes it visible to our brain. In that way, the photograph is not a trick but, rather, a window into another frame of time. I loved the way a little flashlight could bring the stones to life, how tall and assertive the central stone became with a bit of highlighting, and how the myriad layers of stone popped into a living texture with just a bit of sidelight.  I'll carry that night with me for a very long time. 

©National Geographic Society

But then experimental fervor took over, and I wanted to see how far I could take the stones' symbolism.  So I set up a flash on the central stone and took the camera off the tripod.  After the flash went off I proceeded to shake the camera violently during the remainder of the exposure. Thus, the stone was sharp because of the short duration of the flash exposure but the rest of the frame took on a very dreamy, out-of-focus look.  It turns out that how you shake the camera makes a big difference in how the background looks.  It was a thrill.

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©National Geographic Society

This picture never survived the layout skirmishes, and there is a good reason for that. Ours was a landscape story and this simply focused on the inn, Baile na Cille.  But I found the photograph's veiled mystery appealing.  I need to pay more attention to the art of leaving something to the imagination. 

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©National Geographic Society

I also need to pay more attention to grasses in the future. While on the Isle of Lewis among the dunes on the south side of Uig Bay, I made this image of the grasses whipped to a frenzy by the howling winds coming off the Atlantic.  This picture came about because of work I had done a couple of years ago in the Flint Hills of Kansas.  It was probably the first time I had looked on grasses as subject matter, not just inconvenient stuff between me and the real subject of my pictures.  In the Flint Hills, grass covers rolling hills as far as the eye can see.  On Lewis, grasses are partners with the sand, keeping the dunes in place. Mostly I was intrigued that the image could be so turbulent and angry looking, not just another scene of serenity and order.

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©National Geographic Society

On the other extreme of the time equation was this image from the Isle of Skye.  I spent a wonderful two hours hunched over this water cascading down the rocks.  I had tied a flash onto a stick and extended it so that the flash's short exposure would stop the water's motion in all its intricate gyrations.  While on vacation in Cornwall the year before, I had experimented similarly, and it had reminded me of the incredible complexity of splashing water.  Sooner or later I'll find a story where this kind of picture works.

©National Geographic Society

And in this final image, I experience a melancholy that I cannot deny. I think of that pleasant day sitting up in the rocks on the Shiant Isles with the whole place to myself.  But not alone.  I was hunkered down, and it was only a few minutes until the puffins were landing four feet away, all funny-faced and curious in the way only puffins can manage. It was a enforced pleasure -- important that I do nothing, disturb nothing, just shoot and take it all in.  I don't know when I'll ever be there again on such a day. Mine is certainly not the greatest puffin picture ever taken, but it was a pretty good day by any standards.

- - -

These pictures and many more will now slip out of my everyday concern.  Some of the cutting room floor photographs will find a life for themselves in other projects; some may even find some measure of fame.  But some will never be looked at again.  I'll do my best to carry them with me, to learn the lesson and do better next time.

Thanks for following along

Jim

You can see pictures from the article and more on the National Geographic web site, here: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/01/hebrides/richardson-photography

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Comments

[RobG]

Jim, re your puffin picture. This is one of the most beautiful puffin portraits I have ever seen. It shows the bird in its habitat, being curious and cheeky, but it's not in your face, like so many are. This is perfect, I love it.

[RobG]

dang, meant to say - if you ever decide to print it up for sale, let me know - I'll be in there for at least 2 copies.

[Ross Blakey]

Thank you for sharing. Indeed, it was a pleasure to read your blogs on the different frames that were selected and your final one on those not selected. Wish you well on all your future endeavors.

[Vinay Nair]

I am fascinated with the photographing experience; probably more than the photographs themselves. Ever since I was introduced to the Geographic by Michael Nichol's work on the Megatransect, I have been painfully curious of what being in the field must do to the souls of photographers; those hours spent alone, something so primitive unfolding in front of your eyes; the photographs must surely not be enough to express your experience. Atleast not for the viewer, because though you may want to leave more to the imagination, these photographs are brimming with mystery and my overwhelming feeling is to want to go to this place.

And I second RobG, the puffin picture is great.

[Jim]

Vinay, thanks for your comments. You've gone deep into one of the questions that always lurks behind the photographs: is the photograph a reflection of the experience or is it a separate experience on its own. Certainly the two are tied together is some way, a "mysterious" way as you imply. I never want to pretend that the photograph can substitute for the experience of actually being there. And yet the photograph does something else, it reveals something, that just being there cannot. After all, if another photographer goes there, they will never come back with exactly the same picture. So the photograph is not a pure substitute for being there, it is always unique to the particular experience of who was there. Much must always be left to the imagination, which is a very powerful part of the photograph.

Thanks for helping me think about this. And I'm glad if one of my photographs actually makes someone like you want to go to one of these places.

Jim

[kepenk tamiri]

otomatik panjur ve otomatik kepenk tamiri