fifty years of monochrome printing
Over the last fifty years since I started my quest for the perfect landscape I have amassed many thousands of images, few of which have ever become prints and even fewer have I been completely happy with. Happy with is perhaps an exaggeration, no mono printer I know is ever completely happy and if asked what their favourite image is, many will simply answer the next one. Over those fifty years I have only produced around one hundred and fifty shots that resonate with the ethos of my landscape photography, that number equates to a maximum of three images per year and from that number there are perhaps only twenty-five that mean something special to me.
"The Bothy, The Tree and The Mist" above is one such image. Why then does it fulfil that role, firstly it conveys to me exactly what I wanted to say and pre-visualised, so to ensure that feeling is produced I have always printed my own work, partly this stems from my darkroom days and a reluctance to part with any of my negatives, but mainly because the nuances of light, shade and contrast that I want in a finished print can only be produced by me. Secondly this image shouts to me Scotland and takes me back over many years, at first climbing then later walking its hills and glens.
Unusually I spent quite a lot of time at this location, something I rarely do. So why was that? Mainly because the real reason for my being there or at any location is the walk and usually that dictates the reason I just keep moving, anyway if the light isn't right it will be later somewhere else, and that philosophy has always served me well. Having said that, my walks are usually planned around visiting a specific location with the hope that when I get there it will produce an image, on this occasion Tomsleibhe Bothy on The Isle of Mull was that location and when we arrived conditions were changing so rapidly I lingered. Also it was lunch time and the bothy was there for shelter or maybe it is just my age catching up.
From a technical point of view I have to admit this shot was handheld as I haven't carried a tripod for many years. I find in many of the shots I like the fast moving light means tripods are just an encumbrance and even when one does becomes necessary there are always boulders, fenceposts or even a rucksack to rely on. Composition, well here I find myself at odds with most competition judges, there are no rules in landscape photography, if it looks right then it is right. Yes, a knowledge and understanding of composition is useful but once you try to please someone else you are lost.
Yes, like everyone I do shoot quite a few frames from different angles, both portrait and landscape, but the frames I select to use mostly comes from the first few I shoot. Once again, not on this occasion, here the first shots I took included a large boulder on the LHS creating a triangular composition with two of the main elements placed on thirds, all of which conformed neatly to the rules of composition but compressing Ben Tallaidh and pushing its summit to the very top of the frame. This really didn't say too much about the remoteness of the bothy, so for me the composition shown above coupled with the lone tree struggling against the element says much more about that remoteness.
“The heart and mind are the true lens of the Camera” - Yousuf Karsh
