Saturday, March 14th, 2009

Pro - mo

As of the beginning of April I'll be in business - trading as DUNCAN IRELAND PHOTOGRAPHY. Please have a look at my new website.

Sunday, July 20th, 2008

Keep it local

I've recently been cutting back on my milage; as many people are finding soaring fuel costs are no joke; the cost of travel is starting to bite and is likely to continue to do so.

Result; I've been concentrating on local photographic subjects far more of late; how easy it is to overlook what's on the doorstep - this isn't a new observation, but as I've spent time thinking about this recently I've realized there are wider benefits:

Looking for the extraordinary among what I consider ordinary makes me work harder pushing my abilities, forcing me to squeeze the greatest potential out of a subject that otherwise I might take for granted. It can sometimes be too easy to 'throttle back' and let the subject alone provide the visual impact rather than me putting in maximum effort in the way I choose to photograph it.

Localising my efforts has actually forced me to dig deeper to get under the skin of the place that I live and I'm finding that this pay dividends when faced with more unfamiliar people and places giving me the ability to dig deeper than simply capturing a skin deep impression.

Achieving depth not breadth is the issue, and that's a transferable skill that once honed on familiar territory can be a great strength when faced with an unfamiliar challenge.

This calls for a re-evaluation of your familiar surroundings - looking at things in a different way, from a fresh perspective. With the huge global interest that there is in photography today and the myriad ways people can share their images across the world it's more than ever the case that one person's familiar surroundings can offer fascination to someone else, all the more so given the opportunities to really get under the skin of our local environments.

Taken in my home town, Moffat during the summer Gala celebrations (no driving required). Lighting torches prior to the torchlit parade, Moffat, South of Scotland

...this torch lit procession through my town during Gala week gave me some great photographic opportunities without traveling a mile.

Moffat torch lit parade during the Gala week celebrations

Moffat torch lit parade during the Gala week celebrations

Sunday, June 1st, 2008

Lucky..?

I've been catching up on my negative scanning recently - going over old negatives from the last ten years and producing digital files. While trawling through my back catalogue there were a lot of instances where I caught myself thinking "that was lucky". Equally there were a lot of frames where compositionally the image didn't work or exposure was off and it's all too easy to attribute these to "bad luck". Having thought about this (for the lengthy time that the film scanner has been grinding away) I've revised my opinion of the role of luck in photography.

Some of my favourite photographs are of fleeting moments, the fact that they've been captured in an image for all time is part of the appeal...but this isn't simply down to luck.

Opinions on the role of luck in photography must differ greatly and having thought about this a lot in the last few days I've reached the firm opinion that I belong to the "no such thing as..." camp. To me "luck" implies an outcome that's independent of skill or effort and in photography that's just not the case.

To me, in photography what people perceive as luck is simply a photographers ability to capitalise on chance. In order to do so consistently takes skill and the ability to apply that skill to capture a well composed, well exposed image of a fleeting moment in time.

So don't let luck take away from your achievements - but equally don't blame luck when you don't get the results. All too often it's easy to return from a potential subject without a great image and simply blame it on not getting the luck.

Take the credit when you take a good image; equally don't blame luck when you don't.

Is there more to a good image than luck alone..?

Sunday, May 11th, 2008

Opportunity Cost in photography...

Opportunity cost: the cost of choosing one option over an alternative that's equally desirable.

So if I spend money on something - say a camera; the opportunity cost is what I've foregone as a result (an alternative camera, lens or accessory). This concept applies not just to economics - every decision has an opportunity cost, buy one thing, can't afford another, position yourself in one viewpoint and miss another, get up to catch the sunrise and miss the chance of a hearty breakfast !

Just as any of the decisions we face has an opportunity cost so too do all the decisions we make in photography and I'm not just taking about purchases. This concept goes a lot wider and an appreciation of opportunity cost and identifying the alternative options to any decision can really help improve results particularly the variety of images.

Here's an example:

I was recently at the Jedburgh Handball and took a series of images documenting this old custom. At the start of each game a leather ball with brightly coloured ribbons is thrown to the players, the game then takes place throughout the town of Jedburgh until a goal is scored.

The beginning of each game was a great opportunity to capture the action because it's easy to anticipate where the ball's going to be thrown and all the players are pre-assembled to catch it. Before the game I'd anticipated trying to photograph the mass of clasping hands with the ball in frame as it's thrown up at the start of the game. This required standing back with a tele zoom; I'd several opportunities to capture this image, but each time I backed off with my telephoto attached I was aware of the alternative angles I was missing. During the day over a dozen games are played so there's lots of repeat chances to try alternative compositions.

By fitting a wide angle zoom, and choosing my position at the feet of the amassed players for the subsequent game I was able to get the silhouette image (below right); a far more risky and unconventional image. After the event I'd shot around 1000 images and from these I've produced a contact sheet (a pdf file of thumbnail images that I can use for reference if I return to the event in future years). In my notebook I've also got a record of what worked during the day and the opportunities that I identified and didn't get a chance to shoot or didn't pull off so that on a future visit I've got a list of potential subjects to take.

In summary - I've found that being aware of the opportunity cost of my decisions - identifying alternatives (compositions, positions, focal lengths, shutter speeds etc.) has allowed me exciting options to explore, giving me some unique images rather than the same old cliches.

The previsualised image I was after - but rather obvious...

...contrasted with the unconventional alternative.