Improve Your Photography #9

I M P R O V E YO U R P H OTO G R A P HY

IMPROVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY ISSUE 9

BLACK & WHITE FROM THE MAKERS OF

ISSUE 9 B L AC K & W H I T E

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● Advice and tips

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IMPROVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY

Welcome We live in a colourful world, and we have had the ability to capture those colours in a photograph for over 100 years. So why do black & white photos still exist? It isn’t an easier or a cheaper option. In fact, since almost all digital cameras capture images in colour, making a black & white photo involves the additional step of removing the colour afterwards, which is more hassle, not less.

The reason for the continuing popularity of the monochrome image is simple, and immediately apparent: black & white images have a purity and a graphic power that colour photos can only look upon with envy. They exude class, and they don’t date like colour images do, giving them a timeless quality.

With digital cameras and smartphones, any photograph can be turned into a monochrome one in seconds, but the best black & white photography is not done after the fact, but visualised that way from the outset. To be really good at B&W requires the brain to think in tones rather than colours, and compose accordingly.

This guide features the expertise of a wide variety of skilled B&W shooters working in a variety of genres. It covers both film and digital photography, and looks at the photographic process as a whole, from conception to shooting through to editing and printing. We also aim to inspire you by showcasing the work of a selection of great photographers working in black & white.

All of the features in this guide were originally published in Amateur Photographer magazine, so if you enjoy it, why not take out a subscription and have more great content delivered to your door or your email inbox every week?

You’ll find the details on page 69.

Nigel Atherton, Editor

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Kelsey Media, The Granary, Downs Court, Yalding Hill, Yalding, Maidstone, Kent ME18 6AL. Email ap.ed@kelsey.co.uk Group Editor Nigel Atherton l Head of Market Liz Reid l Production Editor Ailsa McWhinnie Chief Executive Steve Wright l Chief Operating Officer Phil Weeden l Managing Director Kevin McCormick l Print Production Controller Anne Meader Distribution in Great Britain Marketforce UK Limited, 121-141 Westbourne Terrace, London W2 6JR. Telephone 0330 390 6555 l Distribution in Northern Ireland and the Republic Of Ireland Newspread. Telephone +353 23 886 3850 Printed by Pensord Kelsey Media 2022 © all rights reserved. Kelsey Media is a trading name of Kelsey Publishing Ltd. Reproduction in whole or in part is forbidden except with permission in writing from the publishers.

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© JAMES PATERSON

© MATT WALKLEY

Contents 6 Black and Right

36 Pilgrim’s Progress

10 Summer B&W

38 Fine art focus

16 Winter Wonderland

42 Playing the Long Game

22 Courage and Conviction

48 Seeing Another Light

26 St Michael

52 Lensless Landscapes

32 Shoot striking b&w portraits

54 Black & White Film Essentials

Nine tips to help improve your monochrome photographyr Set yourself a challenge by shooting summer in B&W Inspiring tips for capturing stunning winter landscapes Jack Lowe’s project to capture every lifeboat station in the UK Printing master Michael Kenna reflects on his stellar career Peter Müller reveals the secrets behind his strong style

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Alys Tomlinson’s powerful and WPA-winning project ‘Ex Voto’ Rika Nyari talks of her fine-art photography of powerful women How to create successful long-exposure images Exploring infrared for a new approach to your B&W work Go back to basics and experiment with a pinhole camera What you need to shoot and develop B&W film www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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60 Stretching Yourself Creatively

Francesco Mastalia’s fascinating wet collodion project

64 Story of the Blues

Get creative with with the historic cyanotype process

70 Print Perfection

How Matt Walkley blends digital and analogue techniques

76 Extreme black & white

Martin Evening shows how to make your conversions sing

80 Craft stunning B&W photos with ease

Take control in Photoshop CC, Lightroom and Elements

84 Stylish B&W

How to use the powerful Silver Efex Pro 2 Photoshop plug-in Transform your digital images into analog classics

94 Cosmetic surgery

Revitalise old prints using simple Photoshop techniques

www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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© JAMES PATERSON

88 Get the B&W Film Look

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IMPROVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY Kingsley Singleton

Kingsley Singleton is an experienced photographer, tutor and writer, with decades of experience in shooting technique and image editing. Specialising in landscapes, nature and travel subjects, he lives in Lincolnshire but likes to travel to hillier places. See @kingsley.photo

Black & right Kingsley Singleton shares nine simple tips, tricks and ideas to help improve your monochrome photography

W

hile much success comes from how you process black & white images, you can certainly give yourself a helping hand from a shooting perspective, too. For starters, while black & white has gone from a restriction to a creative choice, like any choice, it should be made carefully. Picking the right moments to use it should be key. It’s a treatment that should emphasise and enhance what you want to show in the subject, never disguise the shortcomings of a scene.

Simplicity should be a driving force, too.

Without colour to distract attention, the viewer’s focus will immediately be concentrated on the shape and contrast in an image, so in many ways composition becomes even more demanding.

As with any technique or subject, experience will help you ‘see’ subjects that’ll work in black & white more quickly – the more you do it, the better you’ll get. So, from that point of view, if you want to get better at it, it’s a good idea to really immerse yourself in black & white imagery.

Look at the work of other photographers or go outside the realm of stills into illustration and black & white movies or TV. See how it’s used as a style, what effects you like and what inspires you to create something yourself.

Once you’re inspired, there are plenty of things you can do to improve your black & white images, so check out these tips to get started.

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This simple long exposure becomes an effective image due to the natural contrast in the scene

Pentax K-5, 16-50mm, 10sec at f/16, ISO 20

Seek out contrast for monochrome subjects Whether you find it out in the wilderness, in nature, in the man-made world, or you create it yourself in the studio with portraits or still-life compositions, heavy contrast is a natural fit when working in monochrome. But rather than a sort of textured contrast with disparate tones spread across the frame, which can be confusing and challenging for the viewer, it can be far more successful to concentrate on a simple juxtaposition of tones. A light subject against a dominant dark background, or a dark subject against a broadly light backdrop gives lots of impact but retains a simplicity that can be more aesthetically pleasing. www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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Start a black & white project Here’s the thing: black & white photography is best mastered like anything else, with practice and repeated attention to the subject.

Dipping in and out with fleeting forays into monochrome when you feel like it won’t get you creating great images anywhere near as fast.

That’s why devoting yourself to a black & white project is a really good idea, and will get you both thinking and seeing in monochrome.

Of course, this doesn’t mean you should just pile together a rather random selection of photographs. Instead, pick a theme that you think will work in mono.

Sequences of images can work more effectively when toned in a particular way, so all manner of projects you pair with a black & white approach can look tighter and more coherent in this way.

Work the contrast with the right exposure Even if you find subjects with an attractive contrast, without the right approach in camera they might not look as you’d imagine. Why? Well, set to its most general metering mode, your camera will try to make the best balance it can between highlights and shadows, which can result in quite a bland-looking scene.

To fix this, try under or overexposing the metered settings using either a manual adjustment to the shutter speed or your camera’s exposure compensation setting. If you’re using a camera with an EVF or live view you can assess this on screen or using an exposure histogram to check that the shadows and highlights are strong enough.

See better in black & white For generations, photographers have known the need to ‘see’ in black & white, essentially being able to tell which sorts of compositions and subjects work without colour and which don’t.

This instinct is especially useful when using film. After all, you can only fully grasp whether a monochrome composition is successful after it’s been processed. But as with so many other things, digital cameras make it easier.

If your camera has a monochrome mode, which the lion’s share do, you can see in real time what works and what doesn’t. Find the camera’s picture mode and you’ll be able to switch to monochrome and literally see what

you’re about to get through the viewfinder – or on the screen if you’re using a DSLR. Many cameras will also let you use different monochrome looks, like setting higher or lower contrast settings. For instance, Fujifilm’s X-series cameras have black & white Film Simulation modes including Monochrome and ACROS that can also replicate the use of red, yellow or green filters, as well as applying warm or cool toning effects.

Set to a picture mode like this, any JPEG will be monochrome, but if you shoot raw, you’ll still get full-colour files. Therefore, it’s best to set image quality to Raw+JPEG if you want the best of both worlds.

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IMPROVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY Shoot in poor light and bad weather

Make multiple exposures Another in-camera effect that works beautifully with the monochrome treatment is multiple exposures.

Bringing a strong subject together with textures and framing elements can be a tricky balancing act, but it’s made much simpler without colour to get in the way. With monochrome, you can keep attention on the subject, because there’ll be no clash between coloured elements within the scene to throw off the viewer’s eye, so you can look to exploit textures and shapes with greater freedom. Most modern cameras have a multiple-exposure mode, and some helpfully let you preview the results ‘live’ as you’re framing to aid composition.

You’ll find that lighting conditions and weather that wouldn’t be great for colour can work much more effectively in black & white.

Naturally monochrome scenes such as those in mist and fog are a great fit, and can produce beautifully subtle images, but so are rainy days, where you can make the most of leaden skies. But high-contrast, sunny conditions like those around midday can also work wonders, especially if you get a bold mixture of sunlight and shade creating a balance in the frame. In these conditions you can look for shadows making interesting shapes, or striking silhouettes, while heavy shadow also adds definition to architectural subjects, making towns and cities a good option to shoot in.

The simplicity of very long exposures is made all the more effective when created in mono

Nikon D800, 16-35mm, 30sec at f/16, ISO 100

Mix mono with ultra-long exposures The black & white approach is a natural fit with longexposure photography for several reasons. For starters, if you’re making your long exposure using a very strong ND filter, it’ll likely come with a colour cast, often shifting towards magenta or green and looking unnatural. Sure, this can be corrected in post, but it’s not always successful and the simplest and easiest option is to bin the colour entirely and enjoy the image in monochrome.

Which brings us to the second and main reason to approach your long exposures in black & white: simplicity.

Long-exposure images, especially those that include the blurred motion of clouds, water, or people, have an intrinsic calm to them, and removing colour is allied to this.

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Make striking infrared mono

Silhouettes, especially those shot in natural light around midday, suit the monochrome approach

Nikon D800, 16-35mm, 1/250sec at f/16, ISO 400

Some of the most striking monochrome shots you’ll see are infrared exposures. In these images, only infrared light is captured, which works a bit like a traditional colour filter you’d use when shooting with black & white film. Tones are shifted to look unnatural, for instance, producing darker blue skies and brighter foliage. You can use an infrared filter on your lens, which blocks natural light, but this will mean using a long exposure. If you’re into the subject, it’s much better to take the plunge on an infrared-converted camera. A quick look on websites such as eBay or MPB should turn up plenty of affordable converted DSLRs or mirrorless bodies, and the latter are most useful, as you can see the effect in action. Alternatively, for a few hundred pounds you can get one of your old bodies converted, which is a great application for unused kit.

Embrace the grain We all know that shooting at very high ISOs causes noise in a digital image. But this has always been part of photography – we just used to call it film grain. Shooting at high ISOs in colour can look quite unsightly. In monochrome on the other hand, it has a whole different appeal. Grainy black & white images remind us of classic fast film stocks such as Kodak Tri-X 400 or Ilford HP5 Plus used for low-light, street and documentary work. And that’s a clue as to how you might like to use it, letting the grain combine with a monotone setting and strong vignettes to give a classic look to those subjects.

You’ll find that many cameras now offer a grain setting in their picture controls, which allows you to add grain, change the size or intensity. If you can, save these settings as a preset, so that you can apply them consistently across a series of shots.

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IMPROVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY KIT LIST

▲

Lens cover

Lenses are designed to be used with a shade – the number of people I see without one always amazes me. It eliminates flare in strong sunlight and helps protect our expensive glass from sea spray and dust.

▲ Cloth and puffer brush

It’s always a good idea to carry a soft lint-free cloth. During summer, there may be sand, salt water or suntan lotion around. If possible, take a little puffer brush along with you as well.

Smartphone ▲

Easy, simple and always with you.

There is one proviso when using a smartphone: give it the respect you’d give a camera. Pick one processing app and learn how to use it properly.

A clean sensor ▲ You will be shooting a lot with your lens stopped down in the bright light of summer, so any dust on your sensor will be easily apparent. Either get a DIY cleaning kit or get your sensor cleaned professionally at regular intervals.

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If you want to attempt a dappled background for your summer portraits, use a diffuser to soften the harsh light on your subject’s face.

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ALL PICTURES © TIM CLINCH

A diffuser

Early morning light filtering through pine trees at Cabo de Roche, Spain

Fujifilm X-Pro1, 18mm, 1/50sec at f/8, ISO 200

www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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Tim Clinch

Tim Clinch is an award-winning professional photographer with over 40 years’ experience. Over the years Tim has worked in most areas of the profession, has had his work published in magazines worldwide and has had more than 30 books published featuring subjects as varied as interiors, travel, food and portraits. See www.timclinchphotography.com

Black & white summer While moody monochrome scenes aren’t usually associated with summer, Tim Clinch suggests setting yourself a challenge by shooting in black & white

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nstead of the blue skies and warm tones we normally associate with shooting in summer, why not shake things up a bit this year and try something different. Your challenge is to shoot the summer in black & white. It’s a great exercise in thinking more carefully about the form, shape and content in your images rather than relying on those summer colours.

When I was first approached with the idea to write an article about shooting in black & white in summer, my immediate impression was that the whole article could be done in one word. The more I have thought about it and the more I have written, I am convinced that my first idea was correct. That word is ‘shadows’. So, to begin thinking about why we would shoot the summer in black & white, instead of glorious colour, we need to begin by thinking about photography itself. Photography began in black & white; many of the truly great pictures from the history of photography are black & white, and www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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to a certain extent, photography, or at least its history, is black & white.

Using monochrome to manipulate reality

In many ways it is the great manipulation. We hear so much about images being manipulated in Photoshop, as if this in some way diminishes them. But we never for one second look at a black & white image and think it is in some way false. We never look at an old picture that was shot on black & white film and say to ourselves, ‘I bet that picture has been “manipulated” in the darkroom.’ Yet black & white photography has one massive elephant in the room, and I feel like shouting it at anyone who bangs on about manipulation. The world is in colour! The very act of shooting in black & white is a manipulation of reality. You could almost call it ‘fake news’, and yet it is something we accept without question. Why? Well, to find out let’s think about the title of a rather wonderful book that David Bailey published in the early 11

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IMPROVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY TIM’S TOP TIPS FOR MONOCHROME What subjects to look out for when shooting for black & white

1980s, called Black and White Memories, which, for me, perfectly sums up the allure of monochrome photography.

A black & white history

We all have ‘black & white memories’. Many of us have some black & white snaps of ourselves on a beach somewhere wearing a rather dated swimsuit and dodgy sandals.

And the young among us will have seen pictures of parents or grandparents in black & white, so the concept of ‘seeing’ without colour comes naturally to us all.

Despite my brief history lesson, and I don’t want you to think that I am suggesting shooting black & white in the summer solely for nostalgic reasons, let’s get back to why we should think about shooting this summer in black & white.

Break the rules

Don’t forget interiors

Don’t forget to observe what’s happening indoors. The sunlight streaming through the windows in this picture plants us squarely in the summer. The textures on the tiled floor and the tonal range offer a strong black & white image.

More forgiving than colour

Black & white can be a lot more forgiving than colour, so don’t be afraid to shoot in conditions that you wouldn’t normally. This picture of my friend and his son surfing looked far too harsh in colour, but works well once converted.

We all know that rules are made to be broken, so let’s start with a big one. I always tell people who attend my workshops about the importance of soft light. Beautifully mellow, sitting by a window on an overcast day with the light subtly blending the grey tones of a portrait. But let’s throw all that away and get out into the sun. Bring on the harsh shadows and the strong, raking sunlight. The two important words here are black & white. Forget about your greys and take advantage of the strong shadows. Check out Aleksander Rodchenko (1891-1956), a Russian artist/photographer and graphic designer and one of the founders of constructivism. His photographs are wonderfully strong statements, often shot in strong sunlight to emphasise the shapes and form of his subject.

Diagonals and dappling

Shapes and silhouettes

The shapes that remind us of our summer holidays can look fantastic as silhouettes.

Meter from the brightest part of your scene to throw your subject into shadow.

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Look for details

My favourite trick, which is always evocative, is when you look through a glass with liquid in it – whatever is behind the liquid turns upside down… magic!

This brings me to diagonals. We’ve all seen the lines and shapes the sun makes at times of the day normally considered inappropriate for photography, but they are great to play with and can be used to achieve incredible graphic effect. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that summertime only means pastoral meadows, flowers, and beaches; get out into the big gritty city at midday and see what you can come up with.

Third, the dappling. This is lovely stuff, especially useful as a background to summer portraits. Whether it’s the light www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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Neon sign on a 1950s hotel near Nice

Canon EOS 5D Mark III, 24-105mm, 1/200sec at f/8, ISO 1250

10 simple steps

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One of the most important bits of advice for any photographer, but especially so in summer, is to wake up and get out early. This article’s opening picture of light coming through the pine trees (pages 10-11) was taken at 5.45 on a July morning.

Don’t be afraid of white tones and blacks. Let the shadows fill in and let the highlights blow out.

Be bold and you’ll capture some superbly graphic images.

Think of the shapes of things that remind you of summer: palm trees, beach umbrellas, wine glasses and stripy T-shirts.

And once you’ve thought about those shapes, think about the silhouettes. And once you’ve done that, let them go black.

Don’t look at your histograms.

Let your eye be the judge of your image. Be bold in your pictures and be ruthless in your editing.

Think about architecture and strong shapes against the sky, and never be afraid to darken the sky.

I always shoot in colour, convert to monochrome and adjust the tones by using the colour sliders in Lightroom.

Remember that black & white can be pushed further than colour, so when you think you’ve over-processed, try going a bit further. This is the exact opposite to the advice I offer when using colour.

Think nostalgia and romance; use filters to age your pictures.

I’m particularly fond of Alien Skin’s Exposure plug-in, which has a lovely array of vintage-inspired filters.

Another great source of filters is the app VSCO. Don’t forget that monochrome can also mean sepia, cyanotype or other tones, so experiment in post-production to see how you can change the feel of an image.

Don’t get sunburnt; remember to take a hat with you.

2 3 Strong midday light shining on some modern architecture, Spain

Fujifilm X-Pro1, 18mm, 1/640sec at f/5.6, ISO 200

Why it works This monochrome picture contains all the elements essential for a strong picture: the diagonals, the shadows, the reflections through the glasses, the dappled highlights and the sense of a holiday. For me, the whole image screams summer. We’d all like to be sitting at that table with someone we love, waiting for some ice-cold rosé to be poured into those glasses, wouldn’t we?

But why does this picture work so well in black & white? Well, for me the monochrome takes away any distractions. For example, the chair was bright yellow, which took my eye away from the glasses. The image effortlessly conveys a sense of heat, holiday and summer. I have a simple rule as to whether a picture has ‘worked’ and that is to ask myself whether I could live with it on the wall. With this image, I’m on my way to the printers right now. www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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IMPROVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY Strong shadows on a Spanish balcony make this scene ideal for monochrome

Canon EOS 5D Mark III, 24-105mm, 1/1000sec at f/11, ISO 200

falling through the leaves of a tree or the slats of a parasol.

And don’t be afraid of letting the dapples blow out – leave those highlights as highlights and stop worrying. After all, that’s what they look like.

Plum trees in blossom at Easter time in the Sierra de Aracena, Spain

Apple iPhone 7 Plus, 1/1500sec at f/1.8, ISO 20

Thinking in black & white

Perhaps the best example of this is the work of Jacques-Henri Lartigue (1894-1986), and in particular the wonderful book Lartigue’s Riviera (published in 1997 by Flammarion).

Through his life, Lartigue was a regular visitor to the Côte d’Azur towns of Nice, Cannes and Antibes.

The romantic monochrome pictures in this book showcase exactly what summer looks like and are an inspiration when it comes to capturing the ‘feel’ of summer.

Sadly, not all of us can spend our summers in the villas of the rich and famous, driving along the Corniche in open-topped cars. But by using tried-and-tested summery subjects, be they palm trees in the south of France or ice cream cones on the Torquay seafront, and shooting them in black & white, we can instantly transport ourselves back to the glorious summers of our youth.

To sum up, think in black & white, and learn which images will work well and which won’t. Don’t force it, but concentrate on shape and form – and above all, be bold.

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Experiment with infrared It’s a strange look, and infrared film is hard to find these days, but sometimes it can work very well. You have to be careful when using it as everything you do, including loading your camera, has to be done in complete darkness – so you’ll need a changing bag or a darkroom.

If you shoot digitally then you’ll need a specially adapted camera where the infrared filter has been removed. Filters are also available but like

many special effects filters, can produce gimmicky results.

The infrared ‘look’ can be achieved using Photoshop, which is a much cheaper option.

There are many tutorials online, but I would recommend the easy-to-understand lesson on www.lightstalking.com. I used Lightroom to convert this image to black & white, then adjusted the colour channels accordingly. www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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Shooting in dappled light screams summer. Use a reflector to soften the light on your subject’s face

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IMPROVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY Paul Sanders Paul Sanders has over 30 years’ experience as a professional photographer and picture editor. He began photographing landscapes to escape the pressure of his previous job, and uses mindfulness techniques to draw inspiration. He works mainly in black & white as he finds colour distracting. Find out more at www.discoverstill.com

Winter

wonderland

Three of the UK’s top landscape photographers deliver their most useful and inspiring tips for capturing stunning black & white winter landscapes ALL PICTURES ON PAGES 16 AND 17 © PAUL SANDERS

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1 Footprints

Nothing destroys a potentially beautiful photograph like a set of footprints – usually those of the photographer as they try to decide the best composition.

I always work towards something and tread lightly, perhaps walking the long way around the edge of a field. I spend time thinking my shots through before I even venture into an area of pristine snow.

2 Light

There is no such thing as bad light – light is what it is and we should be grateful we can see it. Flat light works better for me than the wonderful golden light I see in others’ work. Flat light is just as valuable as golden light because it lowers contrast and loses shadows, which can be useful when shooting in snow that’s been walked on.

www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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5 Get up, get out

Whatever the weather, get out of bed and go. Pictures don’t take themselves and the biggest barrier to successful winter shots is our comfy cosy bed. Get out of bed an hour earlier than you think you need and get on the road. Prep your kit the night before so you don’t leave anything behind.

With any luck you’ll be back before breakfast!

3 Wrap up

This almost goes without saying, but dress sensibly. When walking to a location, you might get warm so pack spare layers that you can wrap up in when you stop. Standing still will create snowy masterpieces but will cause your body temperature to drop, especially in your hands and toes.

4 Patience

6 Weather

Patience is the biggest break you can give yourself. I often turn up at my chosen location to find things looking good but not quite feeling the power of the place. Waiting, watching and enjoying the experience will yield a better connection and deeper vision of a location.

Be patient in all things.

The uncertainty of winter weather is something we should embrace.

If it’s cloudy one minute, the sun will burst through and deliver spotlight illumination, or the rain will be backlit as it tumbles from the heavens.

Adapt to the changes and enjoy the opportunities they present, and you won’t be disappointed.

7 Simplify

We all try to cram too many elements into our work. I prefer to compose from the inside out, starting with my main subject and expanding my view. I use this so that I don’t become obsessed with certain elements that in the end detract from the story I’m telling rather than add value.

IN MY KIT BAG I ALWAYS HAVE ▲ Coffee

and cake

It’s important to wrap up warm but your body uses energy so I always take a flask of hot milky coffee and cake – lemon drizzle is a favourite. www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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▲ LEE Filter

system

I always use filters in the winter, especially graduated filters. When it is snowy or frosty, I usually invert the filter to tone down the foreground of the shot.

▲ Blunt

umbrella

It shields the wind, rain and snow off my camera. The Blunt umbrellas are pretty much indestructible, which makes them a good investment.

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IMPROVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY Neil Burnell

Neil Burnell is a multi award-winning photographer (including Amateur Photographer of the Year 2018) from Devon in the south-west of England. Shooting the dramatic coast and moorland on his doorstep, Neil is an expert when it comes to cold and dramatic weather conditions. Find out more at www.neilburnell.com

Photographer Neil Burnell shares his top tips for taking monochrome images in the freezing depths of winter

1 Flat light

ALL PICTURES ON PAGES 18 AND 19 © NEIL BIURNELL

People seem to avoid going out in dull winter conditions, but this is when I head out to shoot minimal long-exposure seascapes. I’ll often wander to my local river looking for small scenes of driftwood or fallen trees. I tend to shoot towards the soft light, which makes the water brighter and helps isolate the subject.

3 Shoot local

Last year I went for a walk locally when I couldn’t get to work in my car, and I was happy to find a few scenes that Muted were completely transformed by the blanket of snow, which Sometimes I’ll work with muted colours. I thought this shot would be better certainly translates well as a monochrome image. I’m lucky in mono because I didnt like the greens in the raw file. Once I started to process to live close to this scene, but it’s somewhere I wouldn’t it, I decided to mute the colours considerably and lose the harsh greens. have tried if I had been able to go further afield.

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www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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7 Ray of light 4Plan ahead

Nun’s Cross Farm is a place I’ve shot a few times during the year, but it’s somewhere I’ve always wanted to shoot as a winter scene and one I had planned with a friend for some time. There are some places that just work better in the snow and nine times out of ten they work even better in black & white.

Woodland is not an easy subject, and it’s especially hard to pick out compositions that work in black & white.

I tend to look for a natural pathway through a woodland and pockets of light that help lead the viewer into the image, as this can work well for monochrome images in a woodland scene, particularly when there is a lot of chaos.

5 Noise

I’m going through a phase where I’m shooting more handheld images at higher ISO in certain scenes. Sometimes I feel you don’t have to pick out every detail so the grain rendered by shooting high ISO does not detract from the scene and can actually help create an atmosphere. In this shot I’ve actually added grain and contrast to create a more atmospheric image.

6 Mood

Fog, mist and stormy weather are among my favourite conditions to shoot in and it’s why I prefer the colder months, because this is when these conditions are more frequent. Such conditions often translate really well to black & white, and this style of atmospheric shot are my favourite images to shoot. I’ll often look to the coast when I know there will be slightly rougher seas and just have fun playing with various exposures.

8 Shifting sands

I’ll often shoot the same areas throughout the year and it amazes me how the environment can change throughout the seasons. This image of Westcombe Bay was taken in winter after heavy rain and rough seas.

As a result, the sands had shifted and the rainfall had created a stream that was running to the ocean.

IN MY KIT BAG I ALWAYS HAVE ▲ Shutter

release

To avoid nudging the camera during those long exposure times, Neil uses a remote shutter release.

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▲ Lens cloth

There’s nothing like a big raindrop running down the front of your lens to ruin your image. A lens cloth is essential.

▲ Umbrella

To keep the water and snow off your lens and camera, an umbrella can come in handy.

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IMPROVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY David Clapp

David Clapp is a landscape, architectural and travel photographer. A jack of all trades, he works for Canon UK, is a stock photographer for Getty Images and leads popular photographic tours across the world. David recently received a direct fellowship from the RPS. Visit www.davidclapp.co.uk

David Clapp shares his top tips for achieving perfect winter landscapes

2 Don’t overdo the plug-ins

I have found that black & white plug-ins can be one of the worst places to process your images. The push-button stylised results can be destructive on image quality. Learn to use subtle approaches, and explore the image’s colours through the corresponding black & white sliders.

3 Texture and form

By removing colour from an image, you give the viewer the opportunity to explore texture. Fine details, whether jagged or smooth, become a sensuous experience when the colour is removed. Sometimes this can be an overload, but at other times a delight, especially with rocks, trees and other natural surfaces.

1 Study and learn to see

Black & white is not a resting place for uneventful colour imagery.

This medium requires light and magic, but many photographers make the classic mistake of simply converting a flat colour image in an attempt to rescue an image for their efforts. It is imperative that the image is studied for its colour content. Conflicting or unharmonious colours can make an image unbalanced, so learn to spot these clashes. Do not fall into a boring black & white trap just because there’s simply no light.

ALL PICTURES ON PAGES 20 AND 21 © DAVID CLAPP

4 Experiment… a lot

When reviewing an image, it’s a great idea to hit the ‘Black and White’ option in raw or Photoshop, to see how the image responds.

This early step can push the image to success, or indeed double the success when you realise the image works in both monochrome and colour. Making fundamental decisions at an early point can help you understand the power of black & white landscapes.

5 Inky darkroom effects

One fabulous way to get an inky darkroom effect is to use the Colour Balance adjustment layer in Photoshop. This subtle tool gives a cross-processed effect in colour, but also tones black & white images, by adding colour into your shadows, midtones or highlights. Play very carefully with the settings (just +3 or -3 is enough per channel), adding subtle amounts of cyan or blue to the shadows, as well as red and yellow into the highlights.

IN MY KIT BAG I ALWAYS HAVE ▲ Ski goggles

Believe it or not these work brilliantly in the snow! When you get into blizzards they can save your sanity.

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▲ Paint brush

If you get snow in your lenses/camera kit you can literally brush it all out of the buttons and dials with a brush.

▲ Refuse sack Always keep a refuse sack in your camera bag to put over your tripodmounted camera.

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IMPROVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY

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Courage and

conviction Working on a project to capture every lifeboat station in Britain and Ireland in an ambrotype, Jack Lowe tells Ailsa McWhinnie why he’s a man on a mission

G

reat Britain is a small island. But with its diminutive size comes great privilege, because here we’re never more than 70 miles from the sea. And the morethan 7,500 miles of coastline that surround us are varied, enchanting and exhilarating. Why else would so many photographers gravitate to it in order to fulfil their desire to make images? With the coastline’s beauty, however, also comes risk – both for those who make their livings from the sea and for those who head there to make the most of their time off.

In 2016 alone, the RNLI made more than 8,800 launches and saved the lives of 558 people. It’s for this reason that the service – which has volunteers at its core – is respected so entirely by British people, and holds such an important place in the heart of photographer Jack

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Lowe. Since 2015, Jack has been on a mission to photograph each of the 238 lifeboat stations around the coast of Britain and Ireland. And it really has been a mission – one that has pushed him to his limits, both psychologically and financially.

However, it was a necessary step for him to take.

Having spent the previous 10 years as a digital retoucher and printer he’d lost, as he says, his ‘adventurous side’. He continues, ‘I was feeling sterile. There was one moment in particular when I was in my studio at 3am, tweaking the colour of a washing-up liquid bottle for an ad. I put down my stylus and thought, “What am I doing?”’

Despite the stable income afforded by his work as a digital printer, it wasn’t enough, so he looked to his past for things that had sparked a child-like energy in

Top left: Jack Lowe at work with his 12x10in Thornton Pickard plate camera, which dates from 1905

him. One of those was lifeboats, which had held a special significance for him ever since visiting his first RNLI station when he was 10 years old. Then, one day, he happened to be looking at the RNLI tea towel that’s a fixture in so many kitchens, including his own, and the penny dropped. His initial idea was simply to photograph the views from every lifeboat station around the country.

He presented it to the RNLI in 2012, www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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ALL PICTURES © JACK LOWE

and it was rejected. ‘I was gutted,’ he recalls. ‘My great idea, blown out of the water. But in hindsight, I realise I was looking for an easy ticket out of my previous chapter as a printer.’

The plan was set on the back burner, but he continued to think about ways in which he could reconnect with the craft of photography – and so it was he found himself watching a video on the wet-plate process by American www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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Above: Margate RNLI lifeboat volunteers. The group portrait of the station crew is the main event of the shoot, and often attracts a crowd of onlookers

photographer Ian Ruhter, and the penny dropped again.

‘I wanted to get in touch with making photographs again, but I didn’t want a two-stage process – I didn’t want to shoot film and go back into a darkroom. I realised that wet plate was the kind of process I needed. I looked into it, read a lot, watched YouTube videos, and gradually started to collect the paraphernalia I needed.’

That ‘paraphernalia’ includes a 1905 12x10in mahogany Thornton Pickard camera, and just one lens – a 12in Emil Busch aplanat which, at 300mm, equates to just wider than standard.

He made his first wet plate in December 2013, and honed his craft making landscapes and portraits of those around him. ‘One of my flaws – or strengths – is even if I don’t have any money behind 23

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IMPROVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY me, if I see a new path, I will move on to it. And that can be quite costly, both financially and emotionally, for those around me.’

Second attempt

It wasn’t until early 2014, however, that he had the idea to link his two passions – the RNLI and the wet-plate process. Also, far more significantly, he realised that if he was to pursue this idea, it would have to place those who make up the organisation at its centre. ‘For a man who says he’s passionate about the RNLI, I realised it had been ridiculous not to include the people in my initial idea,’ he says.

‘It’s not an organisation of seascapes – it’s an organisation of people. It would be an insult to go to the stations, meet the crews, and then not photograph them.’

Ignoring the fact that he’d been rejected once, Jack proposed the new idea to the RNLI, and was given their blessing. The Lifeboat Station Project was born. He wasn’t sure how he’d

finance it, but that was secondary to the drive he had to produce the work. ‘No one has ever gone from station to station and photographed the RNLI family as a unified body of work in its 200-year history,’ he explains. ‘I’m so grateful that I landed on that simple idea. I then knew it was my job to make it mine.’

In that first year he, as he puts it, ‘hammered it’, photographing 42 stations in just 52 weeks. He started at Southwold, moving north via Lowestoft, Great Yarmouth and Happisburgh, with the hope that by the time he reached Cromer – famous for Henry Blogg (1876-1954), the most-decorated lifeboatman in RNLI history – the project would start getting some press coverage.

The approach worked, with both local papers and ITV sending reporters to cover the shoot. There was also a sense of momentum within the lifeboat stations themselves, as the volunteers began to get a sense of the immensity of what Jack was attempting.

‘At first, I was just another photographer that they were being nice to,’ he recalls. ‘In the early days, I wouldn’t always manage to get a shot of the whole crew and I’d have to go back to some stations. But after that first year, I didn’t have to go back to any stations to complete the set of images.’

The sequence in which he works remains the same, wherever he is.

He’ll have arrived the previous evening, so will already have met some of the crew. It takes him an hour or so to set up Neena (his converted ambulance), and the first plate he exposes takes him back to his original concept for the project – the view from the lifeboat station.

This is useful, as it allows him to check everything is in order before he moves on to the portraits. He makes individual portraits of the coxswains and helms, the mechanics, any women volunteers.

‘It’s quite full-on,’ he says. ‘Say you’re somewhere like Bembridge, where the pier is 250m long, that

Above right: Clovelly village and lifeboat station, Devon Clockwise from left: Roy Abrahamsson, Dunmore East RNLI mechanic, County Waterford; Trevor Bryant, Rye Harbour RNLI helm, East Sussex; Tony Hawkins, Dover RNLI station manager and retired coxswain; Aoife Dinan, Jenna O’Shea and Georgia Keating, Crosshaven RNLI crew, County Cork. Portraits of women volunteers are an important part of the project 24

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means for every plate you make you’re having to walk 500-600m.’

The final plate of each day – and the main event – is the crew photograph. Jack always puts the word out on social media, and often attracts an audience. Needless to say, however, with members of the public, as well as friends and family of the crew, comes distraction. ‘I can tune out of the background noise,’ he says. ‘You can control a big space by bringing it in and creating a bubble. I’ll walk up to the crew and speak quietly to them. I’m glad the public is there, but I have utter confidence in what I’m doing, so can zone out and make it about just the crew, me and the camera.’

Under pressure

Unsurprisingly, the pressure of such an intense timetable took its toll and, in March of 2018, Jack posted a 25-second video on his Instagram account, at the end of which he chokes with a sob, laying bare the www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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strain he was under. ‘In hindsight, I nearly had a breakdown,’ he reveals. ‘The financial stresses were huge. Sometimes I’ve literally gone to the next town without enough money for a B&B or to put fuel in Neena. I’ve had to rely on a donation coming through the Jack Lowe is a website, or a print sale.’ photographer and In two minds about whether to printer based in open up about the extent of the the north-east of England. After a two-year pressure, he sought advice. ‘I didn’t hiatus because of Covid, trust my opinion at the time, but my colleagues and loved ones had he recently restarted reached the same stage with me, and his travels. Visit www. they agreed I had to show people lifeboatstationproject. how difficult it had been.’ com to find out which What stopped him giving up at RNLI station he’s taking that stage? ‘I’d gone too far to go his plate camera to next back,’ he says. ‘I was immersed in it – what else could I do?’

However, as these things so often can be, it proved to be a turning point, and the support from those who had been following the project spurred him on. At first, he launched a Patreon account, which allowed

people to donate sums of money each month to help support the project, but supporters can now donate directly at his website www. lifeboatstationproject.com, or become a Friend of the Project.

‘Some people buy me a tank of fuel for Neena,’ he explains. ‘That’s £85.

Others buy me a night in a B&B, while someone else might buy me 250ml of collodion, which is enough for one lifeboat station.’

As someone who has chosen to sacrifice so much, does Jack feel the Lifeboat Station Project has been worth it? There’s no hesitation in his response. ‘I wanted this to be accessible,’ he states. ‘If it’s transcending the lifeboat arena and people are writing to me with moving stories because they’re engaged by my photography, then that’s the ultimate compliment.

It’s a legacy for me – but, more importantly, it’s a legacy for the RNLI and for the coast. It’s an important slice of island life.’

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St Michael Minimalism and printing master Michael Kenna reflects on his stellar career, spirituality, the film revival and much more with Geoff Harris

M

ichael Kenna is one of the most celebrated and respected black & white photographers working today, and a hugely influential one. His peaceful, minimalist approach has been widely emulated, but never bettered. He’s now well into his sixties, but shows no sign of slowing down, never mind retiring. Despite a punishing travel schedule linked to various book projects and exhibitions taking place all over the world, Michael found time to give AP a far-reaching and revealing interview.

A good lockdown

We began by asking Michael about his experience of the various lockdowns and restrictions, and how it has all affected him.

‘I suppose, as with many people, I found this lockdown period to be something of a double-edged sword. I wasn’t able to travel, which certainly put a dampener on things.

Galleries and museums were forced to close, and so all my scheduled exhibitions were postponed or cancelled. Very fortunately, my family and I stayed safe, happy and healthy through it all, so I really have no complaints. I tried to make the most of the downtime by having much-needed kneereplacement surgery! It didn’t work so well the first time around and I had to have it redone. Sadly, I’m not very confident that it has improved much this second time around, either. Anyway, there were 26

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certainly times when my activities were curtailed somewhat. But, work-wise, I have 48 years of negatives in my archive, so there was always going to be something to do.’

Michael published three new books between 2020 and 2021, which were probably the most visible manifestations of being in the studio and printing, rather than out on the road photographing. All three of these books used existing work: Buddha (Prestel, Germany 2020), Northern England, 1983-1986 (Nazraeli Press, USA 2021), and St Joseph’s College, Upholland (Prestel, Germany, 2021). Michael has also just finished the prints for a fourth ‘pandemic’ book, Flesh of Stone, which will be released by Editions Noir, France, in spring 2022.

Looking back

‘I’m a bit of an old dog and not so interested in learning new tricks,’ he says, ‘so instead, I printed in the darkroom quite consistently, and also began to write my life story. The Upholland book contains a 5,000word essay of my early seminary school experiences (Michael originally trained to be a Catholic priest). It was a fascinating experience to recreate those early, pre-photography, days and think about how that curious upbringing helped to shape my career. I hope to continue with my memories before I forget everything.’

The lockdown also gave Michael a chance to clear out his camera cupboards. ‘I sorted, gave away and/or sold most of my older www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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Above: School Yard, Heptonstall, West Yorkshire, 1983

Left: Smokestack, Slaithewaite, West Yorkshire, 1984 www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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equipment that I don’t use any more. I’m really not interested in acquiring new equipment.’

One of the biggest exhibitions of recent years concerns Michael’s Northern England book. How, we wondered, did it feel looking at a lot of these images, 40 years on?

Was he still happy with them, or did he wince?

‘It’s always a bit of both, isn’t it?,’ he replies. ‘Sure, some images could have been better, stronger, more interesting – but for me it was a time of exploration, revisiting my roots, experimenting with night photography and documenting a changing landscape. I was quite surprised to find I had so much unprinted material from those days.

‘Looking back, I bought my first medium-format camera in 1986, right after this series, and I made my first visit to Japan in 1987, which profoundly influenced my future work. So, this series was 27

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IMPROVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY something of a time-capsule milestone on my way, and it contains many seeds of creativity which I would explore later.

‘For example, it has my first power station photos and seaside studies. It was my return home after spending some years in the USA, and to the subject of industry. It confirmed my interest in the presence of absence.

Frankly, it is difficult for me to be objective about this work as it is literally close to home, full of nostalgia and personal connections.

I really hope that at some point it might be exhibited close to my birthplace in Widnes.’

I can stand the rain

Then there is the Confessional project, where Michael photographed confessional boxes in various Catholic churches. You can read all about his intentions to become a priest in Upholland, but to cut a long story short, the Confessional project came about because of… rain.

‘Some of my best work has been the result of jet lag, bad weather, getting lost and/or having accidents.

I like to go with the flow and see what develops. I was commissioned to photograph the Reggio Emilia area in Italy in 2006 by Sandro Parmiggiani, the erstwhile curator

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of the Palazzo Magnani Museum, and I predictably concentrated primarily on the landscape of the region. While photographing in the winter months, I often get rained out and need to seek shelter. My cameras are not waterproofed!

‘In Reggio Emilia, I would shelter in the many open churches around the area. I began to photograph what I saw in these churches and soon developed an interest in the confessional boxes. These places used to terrify me as a child. I would have to go into one each week, kneel down, and confess my “sins” to a metal grate and disembodied voice.

I now realise it was a bit farcical, as I’d often have to make up my childhood sins. But, as I got older, I began to think about how these repositories of people’s thoughts, feelings and actions worked.

‘As a photographer,’ he continues, ‘I have long been interested in the vestiges of time and memory, the presence of absence, and memories, traces and lingering atmospheres that are left behind. I like to think that each of these confessional boxes have experienced endless shared secrets. The outer wooden boxes, all uniquely carved, are the repositories of intimate stories. I like to believe that history lives on and pervades the present. So, in these

Below left: Confessional, Study 6, Chiesa di Sant’Andrea, Gualtieri, Reggio Emilia, Italy, 2008

Below: Confessional, Study 3, Chiesa di Sant’Andrea, Gualtieri, Reggio Emilia, Italy, 2008

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Westwood Power Station, Study 1, Wigan, Greater Manchester, 1984 photographs, I try to both respect the visible aesthetics of the exterior while inviting an appreciation of the unseen, emotional resonance of the interior.’

Finding your own voice

Michael’s beautiful minimalist black & white landscape style has been widely copied – something he is very gracious about. This particular style is also popular with photographers who push the ‘mental health’ benefits of this calm, mindful approach to photography. Was Michael thinking about the therapeutic benefits of this kind of photography when he started developing his style?

‘If anybody could benefit from my images or working practices I would be absolutely delighted,’ he says.

‘We all live in a fast-paced, chaotic, unpredictable and uncontrollable world. Stress and anxiety are common health hazards these days. Back in the old days, I didn’t consciously consider that my work might be therapeutic to others.

Later, over the years, after the work was done, exhibited and published, I have had that feedback, which www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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everything that goes into a finished silver gelatin print, along with all the subtle nuances that make each print unique. It is truly a labour of love that takes a massive amount of time and patience. I have nothing against other forms of print making; we all make our own subjective choices.

But, I have yet to fall in love with a digital print. I’m sure that says more about me than the printmaking process…’

So what are the biggest benefits that purely digital photographers can gain from returning to shooting film (or discovering it for the first time) and working on their darkroom and printing technique?

‘I suspect it might be a bit frustrating for fully digital photographers to attempt the silver process,’ he suggests. ‘It takes some getting used to and there is a steep learning curve. The slow journey to a final finished print is filled with unexpected twists and turns which I have found to be enormously conducive to creativity and enlightenment. It is definitely not everybody’s cup of tea!

‘I cannot say that I feel any burning motivation to make

has been extremely satisfying and rewarding. I have long regarded the very process of traditional silver gelatin photography to be highly therapeutic.

‘On a personal level, it slows me down, makes me consider, observe and concentrate. I have managed to make a decent living for almost five decades, based on my photographic work. Seriously, I feel that if I had no film in my camera while photographing, I would still be highly satisfied. It is not always the results which are most rewarding. The journey itself is a form of beneficial meditation.’

God is in the print

There is a big film revival at the moment, with more and more people becoming interested in darkroom technique and printing too. According to Michael, he’s delighted that the skills and traditions of darkroom printing can be passed on. ‘Selfishly, I’d be pleased if the film and paper manufacturers were able to stay in business, so that I could too! It think it must be difficult for the uninitiated to truly appreciate

Michael’s Holgas One of Michael’s most engaging books is Holga (2017), full of wonderful images taken on the eponymous, lo-fi cameras (the book, published by Prestel, has completely sold out). ‘I still use Holgas from time to time and have one packed alongside my Hasselblads on most trips,’ Michael explains. ‘They continue to offer unpredictable and unexpected results. After the film is processed, I look for hidden treasures. Admittedly, they are few and far between, but therefore even more highly appreciated.’

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converts from digital to analogue,’ he continues, ‘and I don’t think I can make a particularly good case for changing allegiances.

There is no right or wrong, better or worse. To describe analogue photography, I might use the example of the decision-making process of getting from one location A to a second location B. There could be fast and easy ways to do it. For example, one might be able to get into a car and follow GPS on a smartphone for optimum efficiency.

Just a few days ago, I drove my teenage daughter, Anika, to her high school and left the car close to the school so that she could drive herself home at the end of the day. I deliberately walked back on roads that I don’t usually take when driving. I didn’t look at my phone or GPS, and found that I discovered and rediscovered some wonderful nooks 30

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and crannies in my own city and neighbourhood. It took me a good few hours to get home – much longer than if I’d stayed on familiar, direct roads. I wandered around, took some detours, got slightly lost, and hit a few cul-de-sacs, but the journey was wonderful. I looked at leaves on the ground, light in windows, clouds in the sky, and didn’t make a single picture. I like to think that might be considered an analogue approach – unpredictable, time-consuming, completely inefficient and enormously satisfying!’

Work of the spirit

Returning to the spiritual side of Michael’s work, he’s also written eloquently about Buddhism. We wondered if he was planning to do any more work with a religious or spiritual theme, or was this always in the background anyway?

Above left: Railway Lines and Entry Building, Birkenau, Poland, 1992 Above right: Sand Mounds, Kamigamojinja, Kyoto, Japan, 1987

‘If we are engaged in a selfexpressive creative medium, I believe that our personal proclivities are bound to show through,’ he says.

‘I have always been interested in religion, spirituality and ritual.

I naturally gravitate to places of worship, reverence and respect, in the form of churches, mosques, shrines, temples, synagogues, mountains, oceans and forests.

‘As mentioned, my most recent book, published by Prestel/Random House/Penguin, is titled St Joseph’s College, Upholland. It is about my early aspirations to become a Catholic priest, and my seven-year journey through a seminary boarding school. It includes my own writing and is the most autobiographically intimate book that has so far been published on my work. I have future plans to work on a book about an 88-Buddhist-temple www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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‘But, I feel, the very act of striving to reach our highest potential is essentially what life is all about.

We can sit on the shoulders of giants to help us along the way, but eventually, we have to look to ourselves.’

The past is always there

pilgrimage which I undertook in Shikoku, Japan for my 50th birthday in 2003. It often takes me some decades to conclude projects, but they remain in my mind until the time is right.’

Michael is now 68 and is working on multiple projects, with the next six books already scheduled, but he is relucant to discuss the specifics of future projects. ‘I always prefer to chat about what has been accomplished rather than what is planned,’ he explains. ‘I must be superstitious or something!’

Developing a voice

He is more forthcoming when it comes to advice for photographers who are drawn to his unique black & white style, but want to develop their own voice – rather than ending up a Michael Kenna tribute act.

‘It’s quite simple, at least in my www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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mind,’ he says. ‘I believe that any person worth their salt, engaged in photography, painting, poetry, music or any other creative expression, should strive to find their own voice and vision. It’s perfectly fine, normal and healthy to imitate and learn from others.

However, imitation only goes so far and can get a bit tedious and unsatisfying after some time. We are all unique. Each of us has something important to say.

Figuring out what that is, and how to say it, is not so easy. The journey of discovery, to find ourselves, will most surely be filled with difficult and unsatisfactory periods. It is not an easy task and, realistically, we might never attain the highest level of creativity we are capable of. Ironically, we probably wouldn’t know it if we ever did get there!

Born in Widnes in 1953 but now living in Seattle, Michael Kenna is known for his atmospheric images, which study the interaction between the natural landscape and man-made structures.

His prints have been shown in over 450 one-person exhibitions throughout the world.

See more at www.michaelkenna.com

We concluded our interview by asking Michael which body of work he was most proud of, and why.

‘There have been so many moments and experiences along my photographic journey,’ he reveals.

‘I think we often choose projects, but occasionally the project chooses us. Looking back, I would include the photographs I made in the Nazi concentration camps between 1988-2000 as being among those I am most proud of.

‘During the late 1980s, the division between east and west in Europe was crumbling. For various logistical reasons, at that time I travelled to Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Latvia and Poland, which were previously very difficult to reach. The concentration camps I found in these countries were potent with atmosphere and remnants of the past. I knew that I had to photograph all that I could find before they changed. I felt that I was in the right place at the right time with the appropriate training and vision. Not being Jewish and having no immediate connection to the camps, this drive to document was at first very puzzling to me. However, I had little time to question and proceeded, albeit initially with some hesitation. It was a profoundly emotional subject matter which I undertook with humility, respect and a fierce determination to do the best I could.

‘I knew that I didn’t want to profit in any way from this work and made the decision to give it all away, which gave me a lot of freedom to photograph. For 12 years, I searched out and explored all the concentration camps I could find.

Eventually, I donated about 1,000 prints and 7,000 negatives, along with all their copyright interests, to various institutions in France and the USA. A book was published and exhibitions of the images arranged. This project became my personal contribution to the Holocaust memory. ’ 31

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IMPROVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY RIM & FILL LIGHTS ON A PORTRAIT

1 Without Rotolights

Peter’s studio has large windows, with walls in between, giving him plenty of ambient light to work with in his shooting set-up. This image shows what the model looks like purely shot with ambient light, without the use of any additional lighting from his Rotolight set-up.

He later deployed two Rotolights to add in both rim lighting from the side and fill lighting to the front left. This eliminated any shadows that might be caused by the walls between the windows.

3 Head and body, seated portrait 2 Head and shoulders portrait

With two Rotolight Anova PRO 2 lights in place for rim and fill lighting, Peter shot the model looking to the left. Peter explains, ‘I try to use the Rotolights to mix the lights. You can see that there is not too much difference between the shots without and with light because it’s always my main concern that you don’t initially see that there was additional light to the ambient light. That’s part of my style.’ The settings were Nikon D5 and focal length was 160mm, 1/800sec at f/2.8, ISO 1000.

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This head-on portrait again uses rim lighting to the left of the model and fill lighting from an Anova PRO 2 to the front left. As with many of Peter’s portraits, the idea is to set up the lighting and be happy with it for the duration of the shoot without adjusting it regularly. He reveals, ‘Rotolights are really easy to work with and it doesn’t give you this artificial look of flash and so on.’

The shooting settings were Nikon D5 and focal length 170mm, 1/800sec at f/2.8, ISO 1000. www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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Shoot striking B&W portraits ALL PICTURES © PETER MÜLLER

Photographer Peter Müller reveals the secrets behind how he shoots superb mono portraits using Rotolight’s system Peter Müller

Peter Müller is a photographer and co-owner of NOIRStudio in Frankfurt, Germany, in partnership with Jean Noir. He is known for his emotive black & white portraits that are shot in-camera and require little retouching. He holds workshops around the world that explain how he conveys emotion and tells stories in his images. You can discover more of his work at www.500px.com/petermuller

4 Body length portrait

This longer-length body portrait demonstrates Peter’s subtle mix of ambient and artificial light. He reveals, ‘If you see the full set, my main light was from the window and between the windows there are walls. I used one light to give a rim light from the back, so it’s not too dark, and the other one was positioned where shadows might hit her because she was moving back and forth – that acted like a fill light to extend the window light.’ Shooting settings were Nikon D5 and focal length 150mm, 1/1600sec, f/2.8, ISO 1000.

The studio set-up featuring two Rotolight Anova PRO 2 units for rim and fill lighting

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he powerful black & white portraits shot by Peter Müller combine a sense of emotion with conveying the essence of his subjects. What is almost unique about Peter’s work is that he likes to get it right in-camera, first time, without any need to retouch his images later on. Peter has built a reputation as one of Europe’s finest portrait photographers and cites his main influences as the late Peter Lindbergh and fellow Rotolight ‘Master of Light’ Greg Gorman.

To help to creatively light his portraits Peter regularly deploys the range of Rotolight LED lights, all of which also offer High Speed Sync (HSS) flash capabilities. For his studio work he tends to rely on either the Anova PRO 2 or the AEOS units. In order to supplement natural light

for his location shoots, he will tend to turn to the NEO 2 unit, which has the benefit of being lightweight, easy to carry and yet flexible in both light and HSS flash capabilities. Yet he tends to only deploy flash for his commercial work, relying on combinations of ambient light and Rotolights for his other work.

Peter’s go-to camera system is Nikon and his black & white work is primarily shot on the Nikon D5 DSLR. His occasional colour fashion work is usually shot on a Nikon D810 camera. He estimates that ‘about 89%’ of his pictures are shot with a Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 zoom lens, which he uses ‘only with open apertures, so f/2.8 or f/3.2’, and he tends to shoot at ISO values from 640 up to around 3200.

Getting it right in-camera

Peter explains: ‘I try to shoot as perfectly as possible in-camera. I try to create and give myself, and the model, a space in which the light is perfect.

I try to create a light setting in which if she gets two steps in front of me, two steps back, if she turns right or left… it’s fine. That allows me to have the confidence that if she stays in my space I don’t have to work on my pictures later on because the light in all this part of the square is good enough for my final picture.’

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IMPROVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY ‘OVER-LIGHTING’ A LOCATION PORTRAIT subjects and reveals he sometimes shoots up to 150 images in a just a two-minute period.

He says, ‘I never look at the back of my camera; I just shoot. I trust that my camera is doing what it has to do and that my focus is where it has to be. I rely 100% on the quality of my camera. I trust my camera to be sharp more than my eyes, and it’s always the case.’

Discussing his shooting approach of RAW+JPEG, Peter reveals, ‘The JPEG in my camera is a monochrome, so with RAW+JPEG the JPEG is always a monochrome. In the Nikon I can go on to the monochrome setting and what I do is I have a very soft contrast, almost no contrast. The contrast setting in the Nikon could be from zero to -5 to ++5 and mine is on -1. I don’t want any contrast. In post-production I can add contrast or more sharpness to my picture but I cannot delete it if it is already there.

So, I shoot very soft.’

He adds, ‘More or less the only things I do in post-production are crop the frame, straighten the frame and then I add contrast or light or both or clarity, what’s needed to give the picture exactly the look I want to see. But I do all that in the JPEG. I only convert the raw file to black & white if my JPEG is so rotten – the whites are gone or the blacks are gone, whatever – that I can’t use it any more. Then I try to bring down the raw [file] to the level where I need it and then convert it to black & white.’

Peter deploys combinations of the Anova PRO 2, NEO 2 and AEOS Rotolights for his shoots, sometimes to fill in backlit subjects from the front or side and often as rim lights.

He sometimes even ‘over-lights’ set-ups to darken the background and concentrate attention on the subject’s face.

‘Over-lighting’ technique

The lighting set-up

Peter Müller explains, ‘What we have here is the famous German photographer Katrin Schöning and you can see the Rotolight Anova PRO 2 in shot. She asked me to take a picture of her. What you see is the set-up where I need this one Rotolight to light. It’s not totally in front of her, more from the left side. You can see all this ugly ambient light, pictures on the wall and there’s another car out – it was shot in the garage of a vintage car dealer.’

Peter reveals, ‘I shot this frame through the open car door. I put the Anova PRO 2 on 63%, but I normally wouldn’t need it to be that bright. I set it to that strength so I could then turn my camera to a lower speed or a higher speed to get only her face lit and all the surroundings as dark as possible. I used this technique because I don’t want to see all of this crap – the frames, other cars and ugly walls. It’s a technique I often use; I highlight the subject with more light than I need so that all of the ambient light around gets darker. The reason why we put the Rotolight on 63% is that it was a good combination for still seeing a little bit of the car. If I’d put it on 100% you wouldn’t see any of the car. I just wanted to keep the information that she might be in a car and that it was shot through a window.’

PETER’S TOP TIPS Know your camera well

Get the light right

The moment anyone is in front of my camera they are the most important person in my life. They have 100% of my concentration and attention. If, after every second shot, you’re looking at the back of your camera to find out if the model’s eye is sharp or whatever, you can imagine that the model doesn’t trust you and will think, ‘Does the guy know what he’s doing? He’s always checking the camera’. Most people don’t even talk to the models; they just look at the camera.

The model doesn’t know if it’s good, bad or that you like what they’re doing. So, know and trust your camera. It should be an extension of your eye and your arm, nothing more.

Put the effort in so you have the right light for the way you want to shoot the portrait – then you don’t have make adjustments during the session. Create one lighting set-up in which you believe that you can have a left shot, a right shot, you have the shadows where you want them etc. Before you start, place the model, your assistant or your make-up artist in the set and play around a little bit, so you know you’ve got everything right before you start shooting. The person in front of the camera knows it’s not a shooting session yet; I’m testing and finding out the best light. If you really want to shoot well, trust the light and don’t change it.

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KIT LIST

▲ Anova PRO 2

An LED light and High Speed Sync (HSS) flash unit that combines continuous light with HSS wireless flash. It offers a 10,7000m lux output at 3 feet with a 72W power consumption.

▲ AEOS

Offers both powerful constant LED illumination and HSS flash with up to two hours’ runtime on a 95w/h battery.

Ideal as a location light, it weighs just 1.4kg and has integrated handles.

▲ NEO 2

Offers a combination of bright, constant LED illumination and High S peed Sync (HSS) flash.

It comes in at under £200 and with no recycling time you never miss a shot.

FILL-IN LIGHTS ON A STRONGLY BACKLIT SCENE Peter says, ‘The circular highlight in the top left corner is a 2000W HMI light. Behind it is the window light. The sun is out and the HMI light goes on her shoulder and into the top of her hair. So this is where all these reflections in the picture come from. To go against all of this light I used three Rotolights – two Anova PRO 2s and one NEO 2. I just wanted a flat light, so I put one at one metre, the second was on 120 and the next one was on 140 like they were square, very close together. She was more or less looking in one Anova but on a face level. The second one was beside her on a similar level but a little www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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higher and more to the right. The last one was more or less on her hair level. All lights were at 100%.’

He adds, ‘It’s a combination of ambient light, Rotolights and other lights. I wanted a harsh rim light on her and to see the cigarette smoke. There was a lot of flare, and I needed more light from the front so I could work against this HMI. Even so, I had to use Lightroom to bring a little more light to her body.

In situations like this I always try to compromise.

I underlit her body on purpose to enable me to highlight it in Lightroom, but that way I had a good combination of the front and the back information.’

▲ Nikon D5

This pro DSLR incorporates a 153-point AF system and an FX-format CMOS image sensor and a 180K-pixel RGB metering system to aid accurate subject recognition and image detail.

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IMPROVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY Photo Stories

Pilgrim’s progress Alys Tomlinson’s powerful project ‘Ex Voto’ won the main prize at the 2018 Sony WPA. She talks to Amy Davies about her life since the win

Images in the book are presented in a simple fashion, without captions or information

n 2018, British photographer Alys Tomlinson was named as the winner of the Sony World Photography Awards (WPA).

A first-time entrant, she won for her project ‘Ex Voto’, which documented pilgrims to the famous holy site at Lourdes. Her work combines portraiture with landscape photography to document the annual pilgrimages made

by Christians. The name comes from the ex votos – small trinkets or mementos – left at the sites as signs of the pilgrims’ faith and devotion.

Unsurprisingly, since winning the prize, Alys has been very busy. Not only did she return to Lourdes to take additional images, but she also visited Ballyvourney and Grabarka, in Ireland and Poland, respectively, all of which resulted in the book Ex Voto (GOST Books).

What is perhaps a little more surprising is that Alys herself does not come from a religious background. As she explains, ‘I come from a liberal, atheist background, so documenting pilgrims wasn’t an obvious choice for me, but I have always been a very curious person.

Living in an urban, busy city, I wanted to escape for a while and explore these locations of great contemplation and spirituality. I was also struck, from my research, by how many pilgrims still look out of time and set apart from the modern-day world.’

For the next stage of the project, Alys wanted to find smaller, more hidden pilgrimage sites. Logistically, it was simple, but she says that finding a ‘look’ was a little more tricky. She says, ‘It took me a while to work out what I was trying to say and how I was trying to say it.

Once that was clearer, things fell into place. Access wasn’t a problem as the sites are all public places, although some people were certainly puzzled by me, especially when I got out my huge, cumbersome camera.’

All the images are tied together by the theme of religion or spirituality

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Simplicity

Alys is the first to admit that these images aren’t bold or flashy, and are made very simply – there’s no post-production or manipulation, either. Perhaps this approach is what made them stand out to the judging panel at the Sony WPA. Either way, winning came as a bit of a shock. ‘I didn’t dream of winning the whole thing. It’s had a huge impact on my career, opening up opportunities and giving me international exposure.

I have gallery representation and my book published by GOST – both would probably have taken a lot longer without the award.’

From the early days of the project, Alys knew that she wanted to create a book of ‘Ex Voto’. ‘It felt like the right medium for the project, allowing me to sequence the work and create a narrative,’ she says.

The images in the book are displayed in a minimalistic fashion. ‘I didn’t feel it was necessary to have captions as I wanted each image to speak for itself and the images are all connected through the overarching theme of faith,’ she explains.

However, the prize didn’t mean she was done with the project. At the following Sony NPA, she showed a short film called Vera, based on the life of a nun from the series and filmed in Belarus.

ALL IMAGES © ALYS TOMLINSON

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Partly because that camera (see kit box, opposite) is more complicated than your average digital model, there was a process that the portrait shoots typically followed. ‘I would spot people at the pilgrimage sites and approach them individually,’ Alys explains. ‘It could be because of an interesting face, or the way they dressed. As the camera takes a long time to set up and I was quite specific about the backgrounds to the portraits, we would often arrange a time to take the picture later that day. Most of those who I photographed had something compelling about them, and many had a very strong presence.’

Alys was mindful to present the portraits of the pilgrims in a respectful and sensitive manner www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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he

Vera – an orthodox nun. On seeing the portrait, she said, ‘I don’t know why you’ve chosen me, other people have much nicer faces!’

ALYS’S KIT

Most of those featured in the book have seen their images www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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Pilgrims often look ‘out of time’ with the modern world

Unusually for a modern project, ‘Ex Voto’ was shot entirely on film, using a large-format camera. Alys uses the Sinar F1 5x4in camera and a Schneider 150mm lens. She says, ‘I chose to shoot the project on large format as it allows for a much more considered approach.’ Initially, she shot in colour, but found it didn’t work. ‘Once I changed to black & white, it mirrored the purity of the people and place, giving the images a mysterious quality,’ she concludes.

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IMPROVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY

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Fine art

fter growing up in Finland and Hungary – the countries her parents came from – at the tender age of 17 Reka Nyari moved to New York to attend art school and study painting. Following her graduation she admits that it was ‘harsh reality time’ in New York where high rents necessitated earning a reasonable income. Thanks to her striking looks, Reka got picked up by a modelling agency, which led to her developing a love for photography.

She explains, ‘I was travelling all the time. I’d take photographs that I thought I’d paint later on. I always loved photography – I was shooting throughout art school but I never thought of myself as a photographer; I thought I was a painter.’

On her return from modelling assignments she began shooting self-portraits with a view to painting the results. ‘I showed them to a friend and she said, “Why would you paint them? These are amazing; they don’t need to be painted.” That was like a switch. The photos are art in themselves; they don’t need to be translated into oil paint.’

focus

Photographer Reka Nyari is rapidly gaining a reputation worldwide for her striking fine-art imagery, often of powerful women. Steve Fairclough spoke to her about her career thus far

Breaking into the industry

Canon EOS 5D Mark III, Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8, 1/125sec at f/6.3, ISO 100

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ALL IMAGES © REKA NYARI

Inked in Tokyo from Geisha Ink series

To meet her rent, yet leave her time to pursue creative projects, Reka began waitressing at nightclubs, but admits it was a tiring lifestyle.

However, the upside was making great contacts and gaining some of her first commissions. She reveals, ‘My first clients were people I’d known for years. I told them I was getting into photography and they said, “OK, you’re hired for a shoot.”

It was an amazing opportunity. I was hanging out with models, musicians and artists, so it was pretty easy for me to start building my book. I worked in between going out, building my book and learning Photoshop, lighting and studio photography. My first paid client was DC Comics and I was doing campaigns for [watch company] Rado a year after that.’

She adds, ‘When I was a painter, I always felt it wasn’t 100% me because it was so solitary. Once I got into shooting images I just loved the instant gratification, the social aspect, collaborating with creative people on-set – and I’ve always loved fashion. It was really a great fit for my personality; there’s nothing else I’d want 39

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IMPROVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY Nude York Four

Canon EOS 5D Mark II, Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8, 1/160sec at f/2.8, ISO 250

Poseidon for REVS magazine

Canon EOS 5D Mark III, Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8, 1/100sec at f/6.3, ISO 100

to do in the world than what I’m doing.’

Now in her late 30s, Reka is a fan of the work of photographers Cindy Sherman, Helmut Newton and Guy Bourdain, but also says she took inspiration from film directors such as Roman Polanski and David Lynch. She reveals, ‘I love to do things that are a bit eerie, edgy, sexy and suggestive; things with a hint of darkness. The worst thing when someone looks at my work is if they don’t feel anything. If they dislike it it’s much better than them saying, “Oh, OK, it’s a picture of a face.”’

Her work often focuses on the nude female form with projects such as Nude York (nudes shot on location across New York City), and her Geisha Ink and Valkyrie Ink projects that document the elaborate tattoos that women have chosen to have inked on their bodies for various reasons. Reka’s work spans the fashion, beauty, commercial and fine-art genres.

She reveals, ‘I think I’m a fine-art photographer first and my fine-art sentimentality also goes into my fashion [photography]. My ideas come from life, from people on the street in New York, from movies, from looking at what other artists are doing and not doing, including video, music, fashion and fine art.’

Reka Nyari is known for her fine art, fashion, and commercial work. Her images have been exhibited in North America, Asia and Europe and have appeared in numerous magazines. Instagram @RekaNyariPhotography

The ‘Ink’ projects

Her Geisha Ink project is now in a self-published, limited-edition book that showcases over 80 of her images, many more than she would usually display at an exhibition. As well as that tome, her Valkyrie Ink work featured in exhibitions in New York and Toronto during the first half of 2017.

Reka admits, ‘I’ve always been fascinated by the way our bodies tell stories; even things like scars. I’ve always wanted to get tattoos but didn’t want to make a mistake on my body in case I’d regret it. When meeting very heavily tattooed men or women they had a completely different mindset. It was, “This is the time of my life: this is when I was listening to rock music, this is when my dog died, this is 30 years ago when I had horrible taste or tribal tattoos were in.” It’s this really interesting visual patchwork of writing or symbols on a person’s body, that tell an obviously visual life story.’

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Reka’s self-published, limited-edition, fine-art photo book Geisha Ink is available with an RRP of US$200. To order a copy, visit www. geishainkbook.com

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of relationship. A lot of times when I’m shooting women, and we have a good vibe on set, a woman isn’t trying to look stereotypically sexy, posing or anything else. It’s more about being naked, being good in your own skin versus that kind of being in a situation with a man where you’re trying to look sexy for the opposite sex.’

Cameras and equipment

Reka has been a long-term user of the Canon EOS 5D series of DSLRs and now predominantly shoots with the 5D Mark III and Mark IV. For location shoots she deploys a ProFoto Air lighting kit and maintains a more substantial ProFoto kit in her New York studio. She notes, ‘I have a collection of lenses and I would say my ‘go-to’ are the 70-200mm f/2.8 and the 85mm f/1.2. Those two are pretty much on all my shoots.’

She still shoots with film on occasion and plans to branch outmore into video. ‘I have a videographer I work with. I creative direct it and he does the camera work. There are a lot of shoots in New York where I can bring him in, but when I head to Europe I won’t have him around, so I want to get a Sony body. I’ll probably incorporate that in my kit soon and will shoot video with that.’

Fine art focus

Freydis from Valkyrie Ink series

Canon EOS 5D Mark IV, Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8, 1/125sec at f/6.3, ISO 100

‘I love to do things that are a bit eerie, edgy, sexy and suggestive with a hint of darkness’

Reka manages to combine the sensuality of women with a feeling of empowerment in her images. She explains, ‘I like people to see strength in women. I shoot a lot of women who are sexy, nude or edgy, but I always feel like I’m shooting the woman for women. I think it’s up to us to choose to show our bodies the way we want to; it’s not like being a kind

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of a sex-object type of situation. If there’s anything I’d like people to see in my pictures it’s strength and self-control.’

So is it an advantage being a woman shooting nude women?

Reka replies, ‘I think men have a different advantage because when you’re shooting a woman and you’re a man – I know this from being a model – it’s a different kind

Following a 2017 exhibition, Reka was invited to show her work at the 2019 Biennale in Venice, so clearly her fine art photography is gaining more recognition. ‘I would say I’m 90% fine art and 10% commercial at this time, so it’s really taken off,’ she notes. ‘I’ve had select commercial clients. For example, I did a shoot with human rights activists and Vogue did a big piece on them. So my commercial work is becoming more intertwined with my human rights and women’s rights type of work.’

She ponders, ‘I feel like each year I’m growing and there are more interesting opportunities. Every time I’m showing my work, something else comes out of it.

It’s not that I’m not interested in shooting commercial; it just kind of went in this direction. It’s been an ideal situation where, instead of selling a product, I’m kind of selling ideas that I find interesting.

It’s all a bit like a dream come true for me.’

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IMPROVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY Vassilis Tangoulis

Fine art photographer and scientist Vassilis is well known for his award-winning black & white long-exposure work.

He’s drawn to the technique because it enables him to add a fourth dimension, time, to a three-dimensional object. To see more of his work visit www.vassilistangoulis.com or Instagram @vassilis.tangoulis and @tango.colors.

Playing the long game Successful long-exposure work requires patience, previsualisation and confident processing, says Vassilis Tangoulis. He talks to Tracy Calder about his personal vision

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orking as a professor of Inorganic Chemistry in the chemistry department of the University of Patras in Greece, Vassilis Tangoulis is rather fond of experiments. Around 15 years ago, he developed a passion for black & white photography, and started playing around with long exposures to add a fourth dimension, time, to his work. Vassilis was born in the Greek town of Karpenisi, surrounded by pine-clad mountains and wide, busy rivers. He left the settlement at the age of 11, but what he experienced in those formative years helped to shape his understanding of the natural world. For more than two decades now he’s lived in Patras, a picturesque city at the foot of Mount Panachaikon. Here he finds plenty of subject matter to satisfy his hunger for minimalist landscapes and manmade (often ramshackle) structures.

Start close to home

While Vassilis describes himself as a ‘hobbyist’ photographer, his work expertly treads a line between reality and imagination. ‘I play with two words: clarity and confusion,’ he reveals. ‘I take an ordinary subject such as a tree, a sheep or the sea and present it in such a way that it confuses the viewer.’ To achieve this, he uses neutral-density filters to increase exposure times and record moving objects such as clouds and water as a blurry wash. ‘All of this results in a kind of non-realistic environment,’ he proposes.

Living so close to the water, it’s no surprise that Vassilis has a penchant for jetties, bridges, lighthouses, shipwrecks and seascapes – subjects that lend themselves particularly well to 42

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KIT LIST

Canon 17-40mm f/4L USM lens Vassilis likes to use this popular lens for long exposures.

It offers excellent optical performance and is also highly resistant to dust and moisture.

Manfrotto 055 tripod

Paired with a Manfrotto MHXPRO-BHQ2 Ball Head, this gives Vassilis maximum stability and flexibility. The head can support a 10kg load, capable of handling his Canon EOS 5D Mark III and lens.

Blackstone ND filters

These ND filters from Wine Country Camera use the latest technology to ensure that they are completely colour neutral. Vassilis regularly uses the 6-stop and the 10-stop versions.

Google Maps

It’s a good idea to research a location beforehand, and Google Maps can provide you with satellite imagery and aerial photography at the touch of a button.

Canon EOS 5D Mk III

Blurring Movements – a scene created from two exposures

Canon EOS 5D Mark III, 17-40mm, (birds) 15sec at f/14, (sea/clouds) 210sec at f/14, Blackstone 10 and 6-stop ND filters, tripod

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Vassilis is a big Canon fan and uses both an EOS 7D and an EOS 5D Mark III. Having said that, he considers a camera just a tool for creating a raw image, which he then develops during the post processing stage.

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IMPROVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY long-exposure photography. ‘I like minimal things, so I guess you could say I’m a minimalist,’ he suggests. ‘Even if something isn’t minimal I use post processing to play down elements I don’t like – I get rid of anything that detracts from the main subject.’

Over the years, Vassilis has explored much of the area surrounding his home, and for a time thought he had exhausted its photographic potential. ‘After a while I had photographed everything in an area 1,200km around my hometown,’ he laughs, ‘and then I started going to the Greek islands and photographing all of the shipwrecks.’ While these trips proved fruitful, Vassilis decided to look at what was on his doorstep with fresh eyes. In time, he found that the same subject, when photographed under different weather conditions, could lead to totally different results. ‘Now I go back and re-photograph things,’ he reveals. ‘I’ve made a lot of collections by experimenting in this way.’

Learn to previsualise

According to Vassilis, one characteristic of successful fine-art photographers is their ability to previsualise.

It’s a skill that develops gradually, getting stronger with every image you create and process. ‘In the beginning it was like an experiment, and I was curious to see the outcome,’ he explains. However, having been photographing in this way for 15 years, his approach has changed. ‘Now, when I start taking a photograph I already know what is going to be the outcome; I’ve already configured and visualised the final, unrealistic, result.’

There’s no shortcut to this previsualisation stage, but Vassilis suggests that, in time, you might find that you have developed your own style

From The Gathering collection – collaboration with a ceramic artist

Canon EOS 5D Mark III, 17-40mm, 430sec at f/14, Blackstone 10 and 6-stop ND filters, tripod

VASSILIS’S TOP TIPS

Do your research

If the location you’re planning to shoot at is unfamiliar to you, carry out some research.

Studying Google Maps, for example, helps trigger ideas and encourage you to previsualise the end result. ‘This is usually enough for me to take the ingredients and create my own vision with it,’ says Vassilis.

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Add some human interest

More recently, Vassilis has been experimenting with including human elements in his long-exposure photographs. His background as a scientist means that he’s not afraid to experiment with new ideas. In the beginning he was just playing, and this sense of delight and discovery remains.

Try to be original

When we mimic the work of others for too long we are in danger of preventing our own creative vision from shining through. It took Vassilis years to develop his vision, but now he can visualise the end result before he releases the shutter. Shooting long exposures requires patience – in every sense. www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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Lonely Tree

Canon EOS 5D Mark III, 17-40mm, 420sec at f/14, Blackstone 10 and 6-stop ND filters, tripod

Get in the Zone

An understanding of the Zone System isn’t essential when working in black & white, but it certainly helps. Vassilis enjoys using the full tonal range to add three-dimensionality to his photographs. It all starts with an accurate exposure, and then ends with expert post processing. www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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Add a fourth dimension

Long-exposure photography enables Vassilis to add a fourth dimension to his pictures: time. A five-minute exposure will record movement in the sea or sky as a blur, giving a suggestion of time passing. It can also serve to simplify the elements, giving the image a minimalist feel.

Take it slow

This style of photography can’t be rushed.

Vassilis can sometimes be out for five or six hours and come back with only a handful of photographs. On location it can take a few minutes to set up the camera, and then each exposure can between five and eight minutes.

Take your time.

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From the Frozen Scapes collection

Canon EOS 5D Mark III, 17-40mm, 920sec at f/14, Blackstone 10 and 6-stop ND filters, tripod

From the Dark Moments collection

Canon EOS 5D Mark III, 17-40mm, 360sec at f/16, Blackstone 10 and 6-stop ND filters, tripod or ‘vision’. This style is not something that can be created in Photoshop; it has to come from somewhere deeper, somewhere within. ‘This is actually a problem I have with my students,’ he admits. ‘Many of them say that if you’re very good at processing and working with Photoshop it’s enough, but it’s far from enough. Yes, you might have the tools to create a photo, but to visualise it and give it fine art characteristics is quite different.’

For Vassilis, the ability to previsualise, and develop a personal style, starts inside.

‘It has to do with your inner self,’ he urges.

‘You should know yourself, and know what you want to express in your pictures.

You need to feel it, to sense it.’ Then, and only then, can you truly translate your vision into a successful photograph.

Consider the tones

While Vassilis occasionally shoots colour, about 80% of his work is black & white.

(He shoots raw, and then converts the files later in Photoshop.) ‘To my mind, a black & white photograph is more colourful than the same scene shot in colour,’ he suggests. ‘If you consider the Zone System, there are many shades of grey – what I’m trying to do is include deep blacks, pure whites and then play around with this wonderful palette of greys.’ When these tonal separations are well balanced, the end result has a satisfying three-dimensional feel.

Often, the balancing of tones requires significant time in front of a computer.

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‘I spend a lot of time processing my work,’ he confirms. ‘Some call it manipulating, but all I’m actually doing is bringing out presence and depth that’s already there – you need to process the photo in order to reveal it.’ Unsurprisingly, it can take Vassilis anything between two and five hours to process a single file. In the early days, he took multiple pictures, each with a different exposure, then combined elements of them with editing software.

Now, however, he usually achieves what he desires with one exposure.

Don’t follow the crowd

Long-exposure photography presents various technical challenges, but Vassilis believes that the greatest hurdle is actually mimicry. ‘It’s much easier to create something you’ve already seen than to create something entirely from scratch,’ he says. In the beginning, of course, imitating others can help you to learn the basics, but if you do it for too long it can prevent you from developing your own personal style.

‘Once my students understand the technique, and how to process their files, I tell them to stop looking at photos from other people,’ advises Vassilis. ‘You need to create photos you like, not worry about whether other people like what you do.

You might create work that doesn’t follow the rule of thirds, or any other classical photographic treatment, but if this is what you really like and what you really have to show everyone, then do it because it’s the first step to creating your vision.’ www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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IMPROVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY Long exposure step-by-step

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Walk around your subject to determine the best vantage point.

Attach a wideangle lens to your DSLR and secure everything to a tripod.

With the camera secure, refine your composition.

Switch to manual focus and refine your focus.

Find the unfiltered exposure time.

To do this, select aperture priority, set the desired f-stop, and take a test shot.

Make a mental note of the shutter speed.

Attach your chosen neutraldensity (ND) filter.

Switch the camera to Bulb mode.

The length of time that the shutter needs to stay open will depend on the strength of the ND filter, and the effect you desire. Use the shutter speed from your test shot as a guide.

If you’re struggling to compensate for the filter, download a conversion table or app.

Release the shutter! If it’s a very bright day and the sun is behind you, cover the viewfinder to prevent stray light from entering the camera.

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Photographing on overcast days reduces the hard tones and contrast

Nikon D700, 70-200mm, 1/60sec at f/14, ISO 200

Seeing another S

ome years ago, Advanced Camera Services contacted me to tell me they were converting DSLRs into infrared cameras. The basic process involved removing the infrared blocking filter and replacing it with an infrared narrow-pass filter that allows certain wavelengths of light through to the sensor. I was interested to see the results, but when the camera arrived all I could picture were the hard blacks and bleached whites of the infrared photographs I had made as a photography student many years ago. The camera they sent me was the Nikon D70 with a little 6MP sensor.

Having agreed to do this, I decided to visit a location I often went to as a student, Formby Point in Merseyside, with the sole intention of exploring infrared again. It was spring time and sunny, with plenty of fresh leaves on the trees and blue skies with white fluffy clouds, which in general terms is regarded as good for infrared photography. I arrived home and uploaded the files to my computer and got exactly

what I expected. The tones were very hard and high in contrast, and I was not particularly impressed or inspired to take the camera out again.

Alternative approach

Later that year, I headed up to the north-west coast of Scotland. I was still carrying around the little D70 IR-converted camera. I had had plenty of time to consider the results from my earlier trip to Formby Point and had concluded that if I could subdue the contrast of the infrared image then possibly it would produce photographs that were more pleasing to me.

The problem was the light. As ridiculous as that sounds, that was all it was. The brighter the day and the more prevalent the sunlight, the brighter the highlights. The other aspect of infrared that fascinated me was because of the narrow bandwidth of light that the camera captured, the histogram was narrow, which led me to consider the flexibility of such a file if exposed in subtler conditions. One

ALL PICTURES © PAUL GALLAGHER

light

If you’ve ever had the urge to try a new discipline, such as infrared photography, grab yourself a second-hand bargain and get it converted, says Paul Gallagher

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Paul Gallagher

Paul Gallagher is a professional landscape photographer, lecturer and speaker based in northern England. He’s an advocate of both film and digital photographic processes, and runs photography field workshops in the UK and around the world. Visit www.paulgallagher.co.uk and www.aspect2i.co.uk

KIT LIST

▲ IR-converted camera

It goes without saying you need one of these! There are many different infrared filters you can get fitted during a conversion.

Check out www. advancedcameraservices. co.uk.

Subtle light creates beautiful luminosity in the highlights

Nikon D700, 24-70mm, 1/2sec at f/14, ISO 200

www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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▲ A good loupe I find this essential in all conditions, to closely check the screen on my camera and also check for correct depth of field.

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afternoon in Scotland a storm was building across the Inner Sound, and the Isles of Rona and Skye were slowly vanishing in the approaching cloud.

Although I had decided that if I were to explore infrared again it would have to be in ‘quieter’ light, this seemed to be taking things a little too far, but I was wrong – the results were fantastic.

I started heading out in what a lot of infrared photographers consider the poorest conditions – overcast days with hardly any direct sun. In fact, I learned that virtually no sun at all gave me the tones I wanted. I also soon discovered that the use of filters became almost redundant. Because of the narrow histogram and the way the camera records a narrow bandwidth of light, there were hardly any situations in which I felt the need to fit a graduated filter as the highlights were recorded beautifully.

histogram of the camera, working in this type of environment proved to be ideal.

Working with an IR-converted camera that essentially sees what we cannot, poseschallenges when you are trying to standardise your approach. I soon learned that the slightest introduction of sunlight, even soft sunlight, would throw the exposure to the right instantly, even if this was not apparent to the naked eye.

Subtle light is slightly exaggerated by

infrared, resulting in an image that displays beautiful luminosity in the highlights, without the overbearing shadows associated with strong light.

Therefore, if you can understand these subtleties, and learn to ‘see’ them, you can capture fleeting moments of light that infrared will render as sparkling and retain shadows with rich luminosity.

Now infrared has become a large part of what I do.

PAUL’S TOP TIPS

Seeing the wood for the trees

One of the frequent challenges to photographing trees is the dynamic range of the subject. Woodland and forests create dark shadowed areas and if there is any directional sunlight, this creates a greater dynamic range between the shadows and highlights. Because of the narrow 50

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Expose to the left

This goes against the rules, but if you expose to the right you will struggle to separate the highlights in the image later in post-processing.

Avoid sunshine

Avoid bright, sunny days with green foliage.

Instead, head out on a cloudy day when the results you’ll achieve are far gentler. www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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IMPROVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY

Converting an older model to infrared PROCESSED IR IMAGE

After converting to black & white and adjusting the levels, you can achieve results like this

RAW FILE

Above: Direct light in woodlands creates greater dynamic range between shadows and highlights

Nikon D700, 70-200mm, 1/60sec at f/14, ISO 200

Owing to the infrared blocking filter being removed, raw files take on a dull pink/red tone

I WOULD consider black & white infrared photography to be another way of enjoying landscape photography and completely separate from when I go out with the intention of making colour photographs.

Many photographers nowadays have updated their DSLR cameras and have their old one gathering dust in the cupboard. Most of these old cameras can be put to good use, as virtually all can be converted to infrared.

The average cost of getting a camera converted to infrared is approximately £350, which is a small price to pay for a camera that is dedicated to one type of photography and an exciting new challenge. There are many different infrared filters that can be fitted during infrared conversion. The filter I recommend is the 720nm filter, as it produces files with |less contrast than other filters and the camera records some visible light as well as infrared light, producing lovely mid-tones.

MONO CONVERSION LEVELS ADJUSTMENT

Narrower apertures

Try not to stop your lens down too much.

If you do you may get ‘hot spots’, which is a pale circle in the centre of your image. www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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Check your histogram

The slightest increase in sunlight will send your highlights to the right of the histogram. Check your histogram after every exposure.

Easy on the contrast

After converting the brown raw file to mono, only a subtle adjustment of the levels is required as the histogram will be narrow.

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IMPROVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY Steve Gosling © MURRAY MCMILLAN

Steve specialises in producing contemporary landscape and travel images and has been running workshops for nearly 20 years. His work has been widely published and exhibited in the UK and overseas. Steve is an Ambassador for Olympus, Gitzo and Permajet inkjet papers and works closely with Phase One and Lee Filters. See more of his work at www.stevegoslingphotography.co.uk.

Lensless landscapes Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day takes place on the last Sunday of April each year. Hollie Latham Hucker talks to Steve Gosling about his passion for the art

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Steve Gosling’s book, Lensless Landscapes, can be purchased from his website at www.stevegosling photography.co.uk

© STEVE GOSLING

s a photographer who continually strives to push the creative boundaries in his work, Steve Gosling set himself a new challenge that allowed him to approach landscape scenes in a fresh and unique way. This image of the iconic Durdle Door arch in Dorset is one of many landscapes taken on a Zero 2000 pinhole camera. What initially started out as a bit of fun, quickly resulted in articles, interviews, exhibitions and his book, Lensless Landscapes. He tells us, ‘It wasn’t driven by any commercial considerations; it was motivated simply by my interest in exploring different creative approaches to keep my vision fresh.’

So without an exposure mode or LCD in sight, it was back to basics with a vengeance. When it came to choosing his new tool, Steve opted for a ready-built camera so he could start shooting immediately. ‘I’ve met photographers who have made pinhole cameras from table-tennis balls, matchboxes and trash cans, but I’ve never been one for the DIY approach.’ Steve chose the camera owing to its simple picture-making process. It has a device to enable a standard cable release to be fitted, a tripod mounting thread, built-in spirit level and an exposure calculator. ‘All of these features help me to concentrate on the image, not the mechanics of taking it,’ says Steve. ‘As a landscape photographer, I also wanted to avoid loading and unloading film in a darkroom or on location in a changing bag, so another reason for choosing it was it takes 120 roll film that can be loaded in daylight.’

This new tool not only presented Steve with the challenge of shooting manually, a stark contrast from

the auto digital machines he’d grown accustomed to, but also his approach to capturing scenes. As expected, the early shoots were a case of trial and error until he became more familiar with the camera. ‘For someone who works with cameras that have 100% viewfinders, I found it frustrating to just point the camera and shoot in hope.’ The extreme wide angle of view also played havoc with Steve’s compositions, but with practice he learnt to adapt. www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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The handmade wooden and brass Zero 2000 pinhole camera that Steve bought from a manufacturer in Hong Kong (visit www.zeroimage.com)

‘Time and Motion’ – the iconic Durdle Door arch in Dorset

Zero 2000 pinhole camera, Ilford PAN-F

Steve was soon thriving from this new way of shooting. ‘Working with a simple wooden box allowed me to put the camera in situations that might prove damaging to a modern electronic marvel.’ At this popular location, Steve was able to approach it with a new vision. ‘As I stood on the beach, I was struck by how the elements had shaped the landscape – the wind and sea had combined www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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over time to carve out the arch. It was a windy day and I felt that this raw, elemental scene contained energy and a dynamism that I wanted to capture in a single frame.’ With the wide angle of view in mind, he positioned himself on the edge of the incoming water.

‘I knew that the resulting exposure of several seconds would give a sense of the sea rushing towards me and reveal the movement of the

windblown clouds in the sky.

My hope was the image would communicate the restless nature of this amazing landscape.’

The combination of the wide angle of view, infinite depth of field and the softness produced from long exposures that record not one but a succession of decisive moments made a lasting impact on Steve’s approach. ‘My experience with pinhole has led me to apply many characteristics of this style to my other work.

I now regularly shoot with wideangle lenses on my Phase One and Olympus cameras and use ND filters for long exposures.’

Steve has tried to experiment with pinhole adapters on digital cameras to combine the aspects of lensless image-making with the convenience and flexibility of digital photography. He tells us, ‘One of the advantages of using mirrorless cameras is that the adapters can be recessed into the body of the camera – placing the pinhole closer to the sensor in this way gives the more extreme wideangle view I was used to with my film pinhole camera. This enables me to best photograph the dramatic nature of the landscape – making the most of bold foregrounds and an infinite depth of field.’

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IMPROVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY

Black & white film essentials Whether you are new to 35mm film photography or want to get back into it, Matt Parry explains the key considerations for shooting and developing mono

A compact 35mm camera is a cheap and fun way to document your home town and reintroduce yourself to film Middlewich, UK

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Matt Parry

Matt Parry is an award-winning travel photographer and a regular contributor to magazines and blogs. He is also the marketing manager for Harman Technology Limited (Ilford Photo), a role that reignited his love for film photography. See more of Matt’s pictures at www.mattparryphotography.com

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n the heyday of film, there were large manufacturers operating all across the globe.

When digital photography appeared on the scene at the outset of the new millennium, the sales of film declined, resulting in some established manufacturers going out of business while others drastically changed their business model. Fast forward to 2018, however, and film has bounced back in a big way. This ‘awakening’ has been taking place over several years and all over the globe. Perhaps spurred on by the curiosity of a younger generation raised on digital, we are seeing an increasing number of people discovering or rediscovering this fabulous format.

Scanned film shots are appearing with increasing regularity on social media – all of which means there are a growing number of people shooting on film, with black & white film particularly enjoying a real surge in popularity.

Thinking in black & white

Shooting black & white film is essentially a creative and artistic choice. It requires a certain mindset: the ability to visualise how

ALL PICTURES © MATT PARRY

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Pair a film SLR with a 50mm prime for beautiful bokeh

Canon EOS 3000V, Ilford HP5 Plus 55

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IMPROVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY

Specialist black & white films C-41 black & white film

Lab-processing options are more limited for black & white film than for colour. One exception is the Ilford XP2 Super, an ISO 400 chromogenic film that can make use of the wide network of C-41 colourprocessing labs. It also has the unique ability to be shot at different speeds between ISO 50 and 800 on the same roll and still be processed as standard.

It can utilise Digital ICE technology, making it perfect for scanning. It can be purchased from numerous UK dealers (www. ilfordphoto.com/storelocator) or via the ilfordphoto.com website.

Infrared film

The infrared effect is particularly popular with black & white landscape photographers, because the skies become a deep black and green vegetation becomes a snow-like white. Options include the Rollei Infrared 400 and Ilford SFX 200. Both films can be used with colour filters to adjust the infrared effect.

Rollei infrared film can be purchased via a number of UK stockists or by visiting www.macodirect.de/en.

Washi Film

A niche option is the ISO 25 ‘W’ film by Film Washi – ‘the world’s smallest film company’. This black & white film is handcrafted on traditional Japanese Kozo paper for a very unique look. For a list of retailers visit: filmwashi.com/en/order.

High ISO film Most black & white film speeds sit between ISO 50 (slow) and 400 (fast). If you shoot handheld in low light where flash is not practical or if you shoot sport and need to freeze the action, then ISO 400 will not cut it. In 2018, Kodak reintroduced its T-Max P3200, so this and Ilford Delta Professional 3200 are the only true ultra-fast black & white films on the market. The alternative is to ‘push’ your film. This is when you shoot the film at a different speed than its rated ISO value. For example, HP5 Plus can be comfortably pushed beyond 3200.

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the scene or subject will look absent of colour. Unlike a digital image, the decision to shoot in black & white has to be a conscious, upfront commitment – one that cannot be reversed.

Without colour in an image, it is easier to strip a scene back to its basic elements to showcase and capture light. Photographers therefore have the opportunity to utilise composition, space, shapes, lines and objects in a raw and powerful manner – not how they are in truth, but how they are visualised, interpreted and controlled. The choice of film, filters, processing techniques and paper all then play their part in turning that vision into reality.

Exposure choices

So how does shooting black & white film influence your exposure decisions? The dynamic range of black & white film is excellent and is sufficient to achieve incredible images with tremendous detail, while the metering capabilities of 35mm cameras are perfectly capable of reading the light to accurately expose an image. Add in

the exposure latitude of the film (how much you can over or underexpose the film and still get a decent image) and you are well on your way to taking images you can be proud of.

A number of 35mm film cameras have a built-in through-the-lens (TTL) lightmeter that allows you to set your aperture or shutter speed to give a correct exposure based on the ISO of the film and the available light. While this can get challenged in more extreme bright, low-light or high-contrast scenes it will generally give you an accurate exposure.

Some older 35mm cameras may not include a lightmeter. In these cases, you can use a handheld meter to take a reading of the scene and adjust your camera settings to compensate. If you have no light meter then the classic ‘sunny 16 rule’ should help give you a reasonably accurate exposure. As the name suggests, on a sunny day use an f-stop of f/16 while setting your shutter speed to the equivalent of your film’s ISO speed, that is, an FP4 ISO 125 film would use a shutter www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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The dreamy quality of black & white film, enhanced by the grain. Northwich, UK

Canon EOS 5, Ilford Delta 400

speed of 1/125sec. Don’t worry, though, because there are also equivalent rules for light conditions more applicable to our British weather!

Think about film and filter choice, too.

Film stocks can respond differently to light and as such will manage exposure differently. Some may produce flat, evenly toned images while others offer more contrast and tonal range. The developer and development times used can also affect the exposure, contrast and tones of the negative.

The sky on a sunny or flat overcast day can sacrifice detail to the rest of the image as it is reproduced in lighter tones of grey. Using a yellow, orange or red filter can darken the sky, help the clouds pop and introduce more detail to create a better-balanced and exposed image. An ND grad can also be used to hold back light from the sky.

Black & white film brands

‘If you have no lightmeter then the classic “sunny 16 rule” should help give you a reasonably accurate exposure’

Ilford: Despite some ups and downs, Ilford remains the only manufacturer of film in the UK and continues to offer the broadest range of black & white options on the market, with eight different Ilford 35mm black & white films including the hugely popular HP5 Plus. Harman technology also manufactures two Kentmere black & white films.

Kodak: When Eastman Kodak famously filed for bankruptcy in 2012, partly owing to declining sales of film, the film business was taken over by Kodak Alaris, a company owned by the UK Kodak Pension Plan.

Kodak Alaris retains close ties with Kodak in Rochester, USA, where the film is still manufactured alongside the latter’s motion picture film. Kodak Alaris offers four popular black & white

Black & white film brings out the details in the landscape

Canon EOS 3000V, Ilford Delta 400

Black & white film is suitable for many genres

Canon EOS 3000V, Ilford HP5 Plus www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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films: T-Max 100, T-Max 400, T-Max P3200 and Tri-X 400.

Fujifilm: Japan’s big manufacturer of film has embraced digital and, thanks to having its fingers in other pies, was never dependent on film sales. Fujifilm is still heavily involved in analogue photography, through its hugely successful Instax line, and continues to produce some of its popular film emulsions, including Neopan 100 Acros II black & white film. However, the company is rumoured to be reducing its range of film stocks as it plans to focus its business elsewhere.

In addition, there are a number of other film brands offering black & white film including Adox, Bergger, Foma, Kentmere, Lomography and Rollei. Moreover, indicative of the growth in film, the past couple of years has seen more recent options released or announced by CineStill, Ferrania, Film Washi, Japan Camera Hunter, Kosmo Foto and Lucky.

Choosing a film

All this choice is a good thing, but it can be daunting when faced with many options.

How do you know which one is right for you, and what are the differences between them? When it comes to photography many things boil down to personal preference. Film is no different and attributes such as speed, brand, grain structure and exposure latitude can all influence your decision.

Speed: Most commonly measured as ISO (or ASA, EI, DIN), this is the film’s sensitivity to light. The lower the ISO number, the slower the film – ISO 100 is a slower film than ISO 400. What and where you shoot will determine the film speed you need – that is, the amount of available light combined with the subject matter. As a general rule, if the light is good then a low ISO film should be sufficient, while low light will generally

The dynamic range of 35mm black & white film can match most modern digital cameras.

Liverpool, UK

Olympus XA3, Ilford HP5 Plus

A compact film camera is perfect for street photography.

Liverpool, UK

Olympus XA3, Ilford HP5 Plus

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require a fast (high ISO) film. Most black & white films fall into the ISO 50 to 400 range, with ISO 400 being the most common speed and ideal for the majority of applications and genres.

Brand: Much like camera choice, photographers often have a preference when it comes to film brands. This is partly due to familiarity, but there is also a practical reason. If you are shooting a long-term project or prefer the look of a certain film then you want the consistency and reassurance of that film stock. Many enjoy experimenting with different films as well as alternate film based on shooting conditions, price or availability.

Grain structure: Grain is an inherent feature of film photography. www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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IMPROVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY Colourful cars are reproduced as various shades of grey

Nikon F55, Ilford Delta 400

As a general rule, slower speed films have a finer grain structure (when shot at their recommended ISO), while visible grain is increased as a film is pushed. There are a number of fine grain black & white film options available such as Ilford’s Pan F Plus, Delta 100 and 400, Fujifilm’s Acros 100 II, or Kodak’s T-Max 100 or 400. The most popular black & white films, Ilford HP5 Plus and Kodak Tri-X, are renowned for their grain. Both these long-established films have beautiful

grain structures, punchy contrast and superb tonal ranges.

Exposure latitude: A film with good exposure latitude offers a greater margin of exposure error within which a good or even great image is still produced. As they are more forgiving, these films are perfect for beginners, but they are equally used by seasoned professionals for their many other qualities.

Push/Pull: Films can often be pushed or pulled – in other words, exposed at a

different speed to their nominal ISO rating.

For example, an ISO 400 film can be made faster by shooting at ISO 1600. When pushing or pulling a film it also needs to be processed for the speed at which it is shot, that is, if pushed it will need a longer development time. After shooting a pulled/pushed film always note the speed on the film cassette as a reminder, and remember it can only be processed based on one speed, so the whole roll should be shot at that speed.

Processing film Your options Lab processing

Black & white and colour films are not processed in the same way. While most high-street processing services will know this, your film will be ruined if it is processed using a C-41 colour process (with the exception of the Ilford XP2 Super). Most services will send your film to a specialist black & white processing lab, many of which are directly available, including harmanlab.com. You can search for labs in Ilford Photo’s locator: www. ilfordphoto.com/storelocator. Alternatively you can search Emulsive’s lab locator: emulsive. org/articles/global-film-lab-map. www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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Home processing

For those with access to a darkroom, black & white film is far easier to develop than colour, and offers a quicker and more economical option than lab processing. There is a range of developers, stop baths and fixers, and many online guides available to the beginner to the process. Powder developers tend to be the most economical, while liquid developers are the easiest to start with. When removing a film from its cassette and loading it onto a spiral prior to development, you have to be in complete darkness, so you’ll need a light-tight space or a changing tent.

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Stretching yourself

creatively Yoga masters have been shot before, but not in such numbers using the wet collodion process. The man behind this fascinating project, Francesco Mastalia, talks to Geoff Harris

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ALL PICTURES © FRANCESCO MASTALIA

P receives a steady stream of books for review, so it takes something special to stop us in our tracks. Yoga: The Secret of Life by US photographer Francesco Mastalia is

one such book, being a collection of portraits of yoga masters taken using the Victorian wet collodion process.

The images are stunningly beautiful.

Compared to digital photography, wet collodion is mind bogglingly

Above: David Life, one of the most famous yoga teachers in the USA and cofounder of the Jivamukti Yoga method

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time-consuming and fiddly, so we caught up with Francesco to find out why (and how) he used a 19thcentury process to document 21stcentury yoga masters.

Francesco lives and works in the Hudson valley in New York State, and cut his photographic teeth in New York City as assistant to commercial photographers. ‘I knew from an early age that I wanted to be a photographer and when I got out of high school I asked myself, why should I work for a living when I can just take pictures? So I attended photography school in New York City and went on to assist for over 30 big-name advertising, portrait, fashion, food and architectural photographers. I’ve been a freelance photographer since the late 1970s and now mainly do corporate work, particularly portraits.’

When Francesco started work on the book, he didn’t practise yoga, but soon became a convert. ‘What got me started was seeing these practitioners, or yogis, in these extraordinary poses. I started to see the potential of human body as a thing of beauty, so the book was really about capturing its strength and grace.’ His original goal was to photograph 108 yogis in different postures, but this approach had to change. www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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Jared McCann, a self-confessed former drug addict turned yogi, famous for his incredible flexibility. ‘Yoga definitely changed my life,’ he says www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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What you need for wet collodion THE WET collodion process was invented by Frederick Scott Archer in 1851. Put simply, the process involves adding a soluble iodide to a solution of collodion (cellulose nitrate) and coating a glass plate with the mixture to create an image. The photographic material needs to be coated, sensitised, exposed and developed in less than 15 minutes, so exponents need a darkroom, either fixed or portable.

Francesco used a custom-made camera, which was built for him in 2005, and an 1870 Petzval 85100mm lens. ‘It has a very shallow depth of field. The sharpness of the subject and the shallowness of the background is one thing, and then there is the relative sharpness of the subject and the movement of the background. I love the contrast of stillness and movement.’

Do a workshop

Wet collodion shouldn’t be undertaken lightly. ‘There are so many steps and chemicals involved, so I recommend that anyone interested in the process attends a workshop,’ says Francesco.

‘Wet collodion is a very labourintensive craft, and you have to be dedicated. I reckon it’s the longest route possible to taking a photo, and when people see how much work is involved they often lose interest. As mentioned, I use a digital camera for a lot of my commercial work but however tricky it is, I’d rather spend my time mixing chemicals and doing wet collodion. It is addictive.’

As Google reveals, there are lots of workshops in the UK. We would recommend starting with one run by a photo society, e.g. the RPS, or gallery.

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and you need a darkroom, so the expense would be prohibitive.’

Wet, wet, wet

‘One of my first subjects, who has been practising since the 1970s, said, “I don’t want to be photographed in a yoga posture, I’d prefer a meditation pose.” I started to hear this emphasis on yoga as a spiritual practice from other subjects too, so I asked them to think of this as a self-portrait, a photograph that represents them and their practice. In other words, I let them decide how they wanted to be photographed.’

Francesco also reckons it was an advantage that he didn’t practise yoga at the start of the project, as he might have been biased towards yogis from a particular style.

At first glance, it seems as if the yogis in the book were shot in a peaceful Indian forest, but their portraits were all taken near Francesco’s home in Rhinebeck, two hours north of New York City.

‘The Omega Institute for Holistic Studies is near me, and it attracts a lot of yoga practitioners from all over the world. They were on board from day one, enabling me to select some world-class yogis from their teaching catalogue.

There are teachers from India, Sweden, Canada and all over the US. I prefer to work fairly close to home as it’s hard to use the wet collodion process on the road – there are the chemicals to transport

Above: Shiv Mirabito, who describes himself as a Tantric Buddhist-Hindu yogi. He is also a poet and photographer

The next question is obvious – why did Francesco decide to use the wet collodion process at all? ‘I’ve been a devotee since 2005. My roots are in film photography and what I loved most about it was the darkroom.

It was in here that I felt I was a photographer. When digital came along, it was supposed to make life easier for me but I said, hold on, I love using chemicals! I do now use a digital camera for commercial jobs, but I was the last of my photographer friends to own one.

‘What I love about wet collodion is that every step is done by hand.

Making my own film, making my own emulsion, mixing my developer, using silver nitrate – you really are connected to the process.

It’s so unpredictable, too. It presents all of these unknowns, which I find to be beautiful compared to the precision and predictability of digital photography. I like to work with a process which is challenging.’

Another big attraction, according to Francesco, is that it’s not possible to take the same photograph twice.

‘There are so many elements which come into play. First, there’s the sensitivity to ultraviolet light; I really don’t know what the final image will look like. The

Chelsea Jackson Roberts, yoga master and academic. She runs numerous courses and workshops to encourage community building through yoga

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process is also sensitive to the temperature, the humidity, and the age of the collodion.’

You can forget any histograms, autofocus or sophisticated modern metering systems, either. ‘There is no lightmeter to guide the exposure as there is no way to calculate all these variables in seconds. I have to work it out as I go along, based on past experience. I am not trying to freeze time, but to use time to capture the energy of light. The exposures range from 5-15 seconds and my shutter is taking in so much information, so nature plays a big role – the camera records wind, movement in the background, stuff that the eyes can’t see. The process is full of beautiful surprises.’

So there were lots of challenges, but Francesco reckons that wet collodion photographers need to jettison any notions of technical perfection. ‘People ask me, “Do you shoot any bad ones before you get a perfect one?” But I don’t strive for perfection in this process as I don’t know how to define it. Each plate I develop gives me information for the next one, and I embrace the way the chemicals or developers react. All these unknown elements appear, and for me art is what we decide to do with the unknown. I love seeing all these surprises when the image comes out.’

The eyes have it

There are lot of portraits in the book, but Francesco does have his

Francesco Mastalia is a US photographer and passionate exponent of the wet collodion process for his book projects. See his work at www.francescomastalia. com. Yoga: The Secret of Life, published by powerHouse books (ISBN 978-157687-8569) is on sale now

Right: Dharma Mittra, another world-famous yogi.

Francesco was keen to capture the power of his gaze

favourites. ‘I love the image of Jared McCann [page 61] who does the most amazing things with his body.

I also like the close-ups of the yogis.

I thought it would be great to look Below: Amanbir, into their eyes as there are plenty a herbalist, massage therapist of pictures of Dharma Mittra, for and acupuncturist, example, standing on his head with no hands. He is now 77 but when as well as a top yogi he was in his 40s, he photographed himself in over 1,000 different yoga postures as a sign of devotion to his guru. I told him this book shoot would be a lot easier as I just wanted to capture his eyes! I also got some great close-ups of David Life [page 60]. The exposures on these portraits are about 5-10 seconds, so you really feel you are looking into the eyes of these masters and can feel their energy penetrating you. One of the most powerful things we can do is to look into eyes of another human being.’

Francesco may revel in the arcane Victorian wet collodion process, but he had to embrace modern realities when getting the book ready.

‘I work on making black glass (ambrotypes) and underneath light

they look amazing, with beautiful gradation. Once you scan the plates, they turn into something else.

While I can’t match the plate exactly, I approach the process from a darkroom perspective, adjusting density or contrast while trying to stay close to the original.’

While a lot of photographers would have to turn to crowdfunding to get such a niche book project off the ground, Francesco already had a relationship with publisher, powerHouse Books, and he gave them first refusal.

‘PowerHouse has been fantastic,’ he says. ‘It does a lot of photography books and did a great job with the printing.’ His next project is going to be a book on celebrities who practise Buddhism, again using the wet collodion process.

‘I am starting next spring and it’s also going to be based in the US. Another book on Buddhist monks wouldn’t get much attention, but by focusing on the many well-known people who practise Buddhism, I hope the book will get noticed more.’

‘Each plate I develop gives me information for the next one; I embrace the way the chemicals react’

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IMPROVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY Angela Chalmers

Working with an alternative process enables you to be more experimental and creative

Angela Chalmers is a photographer and painter with a first-class honours degree in Fine Art. Her working methods range from expressive watercolours to painterly camera-less cyanotypes. Angela has exhibited internationally and her work is held in many private collections. See www.angelachalmers.com.

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KIT LIST

Safety equipment

Cyanotype chemicals must be handled with care. The most hazardous practice is mixing raw chemicals to make stock solution.

For basic protection you need protective glasses, mask and gloves.

Chemicals

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The cyanotype solution is made from two chemicals: Ferric ammonium citrate (green) and Potassium ferricyanide. These solutions are generally labelled A and B. Mix equal measures of A + B to make the working solution.

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Exposure

Coating

Handcrafted coating allows you to be free and give painterly edges, while a sponge gives a harder edge to the emulsion.

Do not use a brush with a metal ferrule, as this may react with the cyanotype chemistry and corrode.

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Working outdoors you will need a board, glass and clips. I use plywood or stiff cardboard to clip the glass in position while making exposures.

This is particularly useful in windy conditions as it holds everything in place.

UV light source

The summer sun works beautifully. A good south-facing window ledge can work surprisingly well.

For total control an ultraviolet (UV) lamp can be used effectively. I use an Osram Ultra-vitalux 300W bulb plugged into a 13 Amp plug socket.

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ALL PICTURES © ANGELA CHALMERS

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Angela loves working with nature and using the sun as her light source

Story of the

blues

Keen to get more creative? Angela Chalmers reveals how working with the historic cyanotype process can generate really eye-catching images

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hile many photographers make decisions about which lens, aperture or shutter speed is required to capture a moment of creativity, my photographic images are made without using a camera, and use the traditional cyanotype formula that was invented in 1842.

The British botanist Anna Atkins, who has been described as the first woman to produce a photographic book, used the process to illustrate specimens of algae in Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions in 1843, while famous artists such as Man Ray and László Moholy-Nagy rediscovered photograms during the avant-garde movements of the early 20th century.

The biggest joy of working with an alternative process is the impressive results you can achieve when you experiment and break rules. There are no boundaries with making photograms. In fact it is such a liberating way to make images that even if your first attempts are not masterpieces the creative experience of producing a simple photographic image without a camera is something that I feel all photographers should try at least once in their life.

I would compare the sacred act of making black & white www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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IMPROVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY prints in the darkroom to making cyanotype prints – a simple yet satisfying photographic experience with unlimited possibilities. Indeed William Henry Fox Talbot, one of the pioneers of photography in the 1830s, continued to experiment with camera-less images for many years after he discovered how to produce photographic negatives.

The aesthetics of a photogram are somewhat mysterious, which is what grabbed my attention when I first saw the works of surrealist artist Man Ray. Almost any object that blocks the light can be used to cast shadows on a support. I have worked with feathers and birdcages, wedding dresses and veils, and even people. There are infinite options to make unique photographic prints.

Whatever the subject matter, they are quite intriguing and in some way ethereal. I always tell participants of my workshops that semi-transparent objects create the best effects. A solid

object will block the light leaving a white silhouette, and translucent items allow the light to pass through and around. This can be interesting and creates fluctuating tones of blue. When working with nature, I prefer to choose flowers that are delicate, such as poppies, sweet pea and dandelion seed heads. The soft translucency of their petals and form create beautiful tones. Obviously, digital negatives or traditional large-format film negatives can be used to produce cyanotype prints. I am currently working with both digital negatives and 3D objects together on a series called ‘The Flower Collector’.

diffused sunlight creates softer edges. The best time to expose outside in the UK is between March and September when the sun is higher in the sky; a couple of hours each side of noon is usually best.

When travelling, I often carry a basic kit to process my prints outdoors.

These prints are mostly on smaller sheets of paper, which are easier to carry around. The experience of working on location becomes one of a physical engagement with my environment. You could call it multisensory. It is wandering, seeing, smelling, feeling, gathering and printing.

It is important to look closely at plants in their natural environment; this will be a useful practice to enhance your compositions back in the darkroom. While gathering foliage I make a mental note about the way certain flowers

‘Almost any object that blocks the light can be used to cast shadows on a support’

Observe nature

I love to go into the landscape and work directly with nature using sunshine as my light source. Direct sunshine will yield harder shadows, and

and grasses sit harmoniously side by side. A field and hedgerow full of bracken and hogweed is chaotic and wild; an elegantly designed parkland is much more orderly. When I am back in the studio with a collection of plant life, I create my own landscapes through considered composition. I might remove flower heads from their stalks to allow them to be placed flat on the paper.

Controlled UV

It is best to print in bright sunshine. The summer months are best for shorter exposures and stronger blues. However, working outside under the rays of the sun leaves very little time to fiddle or move anything. If you do, your image may end up blurred. You don’t have time to be indecisive when your paper is fast exposing. If a precise composition is more essential to your final print this needs to be done under a controlled light source. UV lamps are essential for all-year-round

TOP TIPS AND TECHNIQUES

Change the background

I often move objects during a long exposure.

I compose knowing I will remove a flower head or add another leaf. This adds depth and can be done at any time during exposure.

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Be experimental

For extra tone and texture, I spray the dry, unexposed paper with water before I arrange the plants. Also try coating your paper for a second time and double expose.

Be creative

Painterly brush strokes are very much a big part of my work, or I might coat the entire sheet of paper leaving no border, or use sheets of card to create a mask. www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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Why it works THERE are many ways of creating depth with a camera, using various apertures and focal lengths. Photographers can also see what their final image will look like. Using the photogram technique offers an element of surprise, and the final outcome often reveals an unusual visual element.

Why does this hogweed image work? When working with nature, it is difficult to predict how the final picture will emerge. I often let the creative process go, and allow chance to play a part in my image-making process. In this case I was pleased with the way the overlapping forms created a sense of depth in the composition. I had no preconceived plan of what to expect with this print apart from my decision to document a wild verge on the North Yorkshire moors.

The exposure time was 10 minutes on a bright, sunny day.

After arranging a few items of plant life on the unexposed paper, I allowed for space to make additions nearer the end of the session and added new elements throughout the exposure. This affected the density of the Prussian blue. It also helped yield delicate gradations of tone that I feel give this photogram its magic and strength.

The beauty of creating photograms outdoors is not knowing what the final outcome will look like

Create more depth

It’s not always necessary to flatten plants under glass. Delicate flowers, such as dandelions, work best when they sit on the paper. This creates soft edges and shadows. www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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Enhance the blues

Prints don’t reach their full density until they are dry (usually overnight). To achieve an immediate oxidation, rinse the print for one minute in dilute hydrogen peroxide.

Tea toning

A short immersion in tannic acid (a strong, inexpensive tea), will transform the Prussian blue to a navy. The tannic acid does not affect the print’s archival qualities.

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The combination of using a digital negative and a real object overlaid during the same exposure makes for some interesting results

printing. Exposure units and even facial tanning lamps can be used.

My set-up is basic. I have a simple UV lighting system on an adjustable stand that can be moved up and down to accommodate a range of paper sizes. This gives me plenty of time to organise my composition under safe light.

The downside is that exposure times are longer; large papers require 2-3 hours under my system. I use a 300W Osram lamp, which is designed to be a UV light source for amphibian cages. I made a basic lamp housing that I just plug into a 13 Amp socket. Get a qualified electrician to make this for you.

Be experimental

My favourite read is Shadow Catchers: Camera-less Photography by Martin Barnes. It’s full of work by contemporary artists who extend the creative possibilities of camera-less imagery.

Cyanotypes sound terribly toxic, but are quite safe if used with care. They can be printed on paper, textiles, wood, ceramics and even glass.

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10 simple steps Angela Chalmers’ top tips for creating successful cyanotypes

1

My chosen cyanotype formula is: solution A – 25gm dissolved in 100ml water, solution B – 10gm and 100ml water. The two solutions are then blended together in equal parts to produce solution C. Remember to use safety equipment, especially when mixing chemicals. Gloves should be worn during coating and washing.

Don’t forget to consider your clothes.

Coat your paper in low-level tungsten light using a sponge or brush. My favourite tools are Japanese Hake brushes. They soak up the fluid and coat beautifully.

Allow the papers to dry in a dark place, such as a cupboard or drawer. Keep in mind that cyanotypes are only affected by UV light.

Place objects on the paper and if necessary hold them in place using glass. Remember that the parts that cover the surface are not exposed to light and will remain white.

Achieving good results depends a great deal on how you compose and arrange objects. However, despite this importance, I often embrace playfulness and randomness to allow for an element of chance.

You can make a simple test strip for exposure times. A properly exposed print will turn a dark blue/green, while the shadows look slightly solarised.

2 3

4 5

The set-up is simple but you should always take safety precautions when working with chemicals

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Once the print has been exposed, process your print by rinsing it in cold water for at least five minutes and until the water runs clear. This thorough washing process will remove any unexposed chemical.

The final print can now be hung to dry.

Once dry, they may be prone to wrinkling due to extensive washing. I use heavy boards and weights to flatten the prints.

You don’t need a hot sunny day to make cyanotypes. Even on a cloudy day there will be enough UV for an exposure.

Alternatively, you can use a UV lamp.

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08/12/2021 15:35

IMPROVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY Matt Walkley

Matt Walkley is a self-taught amateur photographer and printer, based in the south-west of England. He splits his time between his business, his family and his photography.

He regularly updates his website, where you can find details about his work, darkroom and more besides. Visit mattwalkley.photography to discover more.

Print perfection With a blend of digital and analogue techniques, amateur photographer Matt Walkley is creating a compelling body of work. Here, he tells Amy Davies all about it

I

t was as an enthusiastic member of the Fujiholics (later rebranded as Fotoholics) group that I first came across the work of Matt Walkley, a dedicated and talented photographer, who is particularly skilled at landscape work.

He would later go on to become the runner-up in our inaugural Rising Star Bursary Award. I caught up with Matt via video call to hear more about his impressive body of work to date and find out more about his intriguing processes.

Like many before him, Matt was initially inspired by arguably the grandfather of landscape photography, Ansel Adams, whom Matt read about one day in a bookshop. Realising photography would be an easier way to express his creativity than drawing, he started going out with a camera with the specific intention of making photographs, rather than it being just about snapshots and family pictures. Considering the skill-level which is demonstrated in his work, I’m surprised to discover that this took place relatively recently, with Matt only fervently pursuing his hobby since 2014.

Initially, he was worried it might 70

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turn into one of his passing fads, but so far it’s stuck, and doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. He tells me, ‘It’s just part of life now, and I don’t ever see myself not being with the camera.

It wasn’t until I saw this book and I started taking a serious interest in it, and studying things like composition and light in different photographic techniques, but because that first inspiration was Ansel Adams, I became intrigued by what he used to do in the darkroom.’

It was always the end-goal to create prints from his work, Matt explains.

That has evolved from a simple household inkjet printer to the process he uses now, which mainly involves creating a negative from digital files. First of all he experimented with shooting film and setting up a darkroom at home, to get an idea of what he wanted to do. Although still using film occasionally now, his current set-up is very much digital focused at the point of capture, switching to analogue to create a silver gelatin print.

‘I’d like to say the process is straightforward,’ he says, ‘but it has taken me a couple of years to get it to the point where it is.’ Having spent so long perfecting his www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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Hartland Quay, North Devon

Leica M10 Monochrom, 28mm Elmarit

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IMPROVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY printing process, he doesn’t want to divulge the exact details, but tells me the essence of it. A digital file is inverted and flipped, then printed to create an internegative. When it’s placed on the photographic paper, a positive image is created, the right way up.

It’s not quite as simple as that though – with different contrast curves needing to be utilised to create the look which Matt is after.

‘It’s been trial and error – poking this, prodding that,’ he explains.

‘I’ve now got to the stage where I can take a positive image and edited file, apply the adjustments that I found works, and then make a print from what is essentially a giant negative.’

For Matt, it’s the act of printing his work out which has had one of the biggest impacts on the quality of his work. ‘I think that I’ve learned to notice things more once it’s in a printed image. Whether that’s composition, or even in the way that it has been edited. All of that helps to give you a better understanding of your own photography. I think photography is quite a slow learning curve to start off with, which gradually goes up and you get to a point where you can start making decisions that affect your work more.’

As a busy father-of-two and business owner, much of Matt’s photography is dictated by how much time he has to spare. ‘Most of the time, I look out the window – if

the clouds are dark and threatening and it suits my sort of style – and if I’ve got time – then I’ll nip out and take photographs.’ Living in Weston-superMare, he’s close to some excellent landscape locations, such as the Mendip Hills, which are just a 40-minute drive away. Further afield, favoured locations include the North Devon coast, and Scotland. He loves rugged coastlines, and changeable weather, of which both locations have an abundance – he says he’s not really a sunrise/sunset photographer, and is pleased if it’s dark, cold and damp.

Crucially, as an amateur who is doing this only for fun and the love of photography, he’s in no rush to produce anything. ‘I’ve seen people go out and spend six months photographing, then they make a book. That’s not going to happen for me. I’ll look back in maybe 20 years’ time and pick out images that are good enough to go into a book. As I’m not financially driven, it’s all just about being able to go out, have a little bit of time to myself.

‘I don’t have any hopes or aspirations of becoming a famous photographer or anything like that,’ he continues. ‘I do it because I love photography, and I love making prints. If when I’m dead and gone, people see my photographs and think, oh he was quite a good photographer, then wonderful, but it’s not what drives me.’

Shooting primarily with Leica M cameras – both film and digital – Matt is attracted to the simple, yet tactile, nature of using such a

Christmas Eve walk, 2020

Leica M10 Monochrom, 50mm Summicron

A tree that is the subject of a long-term project

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Loch Elvie, Scotland. Minutes before wind and hail forced a hasty retreat

Portland Bill Lighthouse, Dorset, in the early hours of the morning www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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IMPROVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY system. Such is his love for black & white that his main camera is the Leica M10 Monochrom, a digital rangefinder only capable of recording images without colour.

‘It’s a beautiful camera,’ he says. ‘The images that come from it are just incredible, they really are.’ Although he has a set of lenses for the M system – a 28mm, 35mm, 50mm and 135mm – he says it’s the 50mm which he uses for around 90% of his imagery. ‘I don’t tend to shoot with wideangle lenses very often, 50mm just seems to fit the way that I see things,’ he explains.

The darkroom he’s talking to me from is a recently completed project, a by-product of extra time – and a lack of space – during lockdown. His first darkroom was set up inside the house, but with his wife needing the space for working from home, his long-held ambition to set up a proper space in the garage was finally fully realised in September 2020.

‘Having a darkroom has been a blessing during lockdown; I think the only thing I’ve found is that I’ve spent more time in here than going out taking photographs – even when such opportunities have arisen, I’ve thought no, I’ll make some prints instead.’

Behind his desk, I can see a wall which is lined by black & white prints from some of the biggest names in photography – Martin Parr, Tom Stoddart, John Downing, Brian Griffin, to name but a few. Interestingly however, there are no landscape photographers on display. For somebody who has built up an excellent collection of landscape work, it’s interesting to note that it’s people shots which he admires and finds inspirational.

‘I think it takes more skill,’ he admits, ‘plus a lot more sensitivity to be able to

photograph people well. While we were busy and life was normal – pre-lockdown – it was nice for me to get out and away from everybody in the landscape. But I think because of the situation, it’s made me appreciate people more, and realise how much I do like being around people, watching life go on as it does. I think things are therefore shifting a bit with my photography, and I’m certainly becoming more interested in the street and documentary side of things.’

It’s actually a well-known street photographer – and original founder of the Fotoholics group – Matt Hart, that Matt cites as arguably his biggest inspiration.

‘I met him when I’d been photographing for about three years, when he was doing a workshop in Bristol. We got on really well and have since built up a really good friendship to the point where we probably talk on a daily basis. He’s given me a huge amount of guidance, we share a lot of the same views on photography and how important it can be. It’s been nice to have somebody with his knowledge of photography, but also his connections with the industry – if I hadn’t met Matt then I probably wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you today.’

As the world is opening up again post-Covid, Matt is thinking ahead to future travel plans, which should mean he is able to add some new work to his portfolio. Further ahead than that, he says he’d also like to have an exhibition.

‘I’m not afraid to do something like that,’ he explains, ‘but I don’t think I’ve got a strong enough selection of images and prints to be able to do that. It might be me being overly self-critical, but I think when I know the time is right, then I’ll do it.’

Marine Lake, Weston-super-Mare

Leica M10 Monochrom, 50mm Summicron

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IMPROVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY

Overlooking the Somerset Levels shortly before sunset.

Leica M10 Monochrom, 135mm Elmar

Beautiful light near Bruton in Somerset

Leica M10 Monochrom, 50mm Summicron

Matt’s darkroom at home in Somerset www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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IMPROVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY

Extreme

black & white Want a bolder b&w look, including infrared effects? Martin Evening shows how to make your conversions sing using Photoshop’s Camera Raw 76

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here is much to be said for deferring the black & white conversion process to the imageediting stage. While it is possible to shoot in black & white mode directly and have the camera do the conversion, this normally produces a fixed JPEG image, which leaves you with no further options to modify the black & white result. I therefore recommend you shoot in raw mode. This means your options are left completely open as to how you interpret an image using Adobe Camera Raw. Now, a default black & white conversion using Camera Raw applies a fixed formula, which mostly takes the green channel information followed by the red channel www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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Martin Evening

Martin is a photographer with a commercial background in beauty photography. He is known for his knowledge of Photoshop and Lightroom. His books include The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic CC Book and Adobe Photoshop CC for Photographers 2018. Visit www.photoshop forphotographers.com

sliders can be used to manually adjust the luminance for specific colours.

Therefore, for instance, if you want to make the grass appear lighter, you simply lighten by dragging the greens slider to the right. However, the B&W sliders can only take you so far. If you want to create more extreme adjustments you can use the Calibration panel’s Red, Green and Blue Primary Hue and Saturation sliders to push the boundaries even further.

A standard black & white conversion won’t let you adjust the Vibrance and Saturation sliders (which can also enhance a conversion). But I have included a workaround you can use to overcome this and again extend the controls when making a black & white conversion.

Dealing with halo edges

plus a small amount of the blue to produce a black & white image. This balance is more or less the same as that of panchromatic black & white film emulsions and generally produces pleasing results. However, if you wish to experiment there are a number of controls you can play around with at the black & white conversion stage in Camera Raw. This can happen by converting to black & white at the initial raw-editing stage, which is useful if you intend to do all your editing in Camera Raw. If you intend to take a photo into the main Photoshop editor, then you can always apply Camera Raw as a filter via the Filter menu. Either way the instructions described in this www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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article will work more or less the same in both the photo-editing software.

Basic conversion

The first thing you can do is adjust the Basic panel White Balance settings. After converting to black & white, as you drag the Temp or Tint sliders the image preview will dynamically update to show the effect this has on the image. Another easy option is to open the Profile Browser from the Basic panel and try selecting different black & white profiles, which I describe in more detail later. Essentially, anything you do to modify the underlying colours will affect a black & white conversion. When you are in black & white mode the B&W panel

ALL PICTURES © MARTIN EVENING

Shoot in raw and make your black & white conversion in Adobe Camera Raw

While it is seemingly great that you can do so much in Camera Raw, you do need to watch out for halo edges that may sometimes appear where there is a high contrast between two different colours. For example, this may be most noticeable as you dramatically darken a blue sky. The reason for this is that as you edit a black & white conversion you are essentially adjusting the exposure and contrast of three distinct red, green and blue channels. Now, you could say this makes a good argument for the superiority of black & white film and photographing using deep colour filters. In Camera Raw at least, there is no smooth blending between the three channels. But I have noticed that with Capture One, extreme black & white conversions tend to suffer less from edge artefacts. This may be because Capture One adds some kind of special blending that is missing in Camera Raw. Anyway, it’s something to watch out for as you edit the sliders.

Nonetheless I don’t think you should be over-obsessed when such artefacts are visible close-up. What matters usually is how a photo will appear in print, which means you can mostly get away with seeing minor edge halos. To start with though let’s look at how a colour image can be edited in Camera Raw to create a faux black & white infrared look.

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HOW TO SIMULATE AN INFRARED LOOK The following B&W infrared technique is just one of the ways you can achieve a creative black & white conversion in Lightroom. The adjustments here may need to be fine-tuned depending on the image

1 Suitable images

2 Conversion

3 Infrared treatment

4 Reduce highlights

5 Add grain

6 Split tone

Here is a colour photograph shot in Cathedral grove on Vancouver Island. This was an ideal image with which to demonstrate how to apply a faux infrared effect as the photo contains a lot of green foliage.

I also adjusted some of the Basic panel settings. In particular, I set the Highlights slider to -100, which helped preserve some of the delicate tone information in the leaves. I also set the Clarity slider to -35 to apply a diffused printing effect that added a nice, soft glow to the photograph.

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To create a black & white infrared look, I first applied the B&W 10 profile to convert the photo to black & white.

I followed this by applying a full negative Tint adjustment to the white balance. This made all the green colours (i.e. the leaf foliage) as bright as possible.

In this step I went to the Effects panel, where I wanted to add some grain to the image. I set the Amount slider to +100 and then adjusted the Size slider to apply a fine size, but a noticeably strong grain effect.

To get the full infrared look, I went to the Black & White Mix panel. Here, I adjusted both the Yellow and Green sliders, setting these both to +50. Alternatively, try selecting the Target Adjustment Tool. Click on any area of green foliage and drag upwards.

Finally, I used the Split Toning panel to add a split-tone colouring effect. The settings shown here worked well for this particular image. If you want to apply this black & white infrared effect to other photographs, I advise saving the combined settings as a custom preset. www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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IMPROVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY

Black & white profiles in Camera Raw

HSL black & white adjustments There are more tools at your disposal in Camera Raw than just the Black & White Mix sliders. Don’t forget to adjust the White Balance sliders, too. Try selecting different White Balance presets from the Basic panel, or simply drag the Temp and Tint sliders to see what happens. Then there is the Camera Calibration panel.

This is mainly kept in Camera Raw for legacy reasons.

However, adjusting the Red, Green or Blue Primary sliders can make quite a difference to the outcome of a black & white conversion The conventional method of converting an image to black & white in Camera Raw is somewhat limited by the fact that the Saturation and Vibrance sliders are disabled. This is a shame because these two slider controls can act as either an amplifier or limiter to tweak the outcome of a black & white conversion. The workaround I use is to not convert to black & white.

Instead, keep the image in colour and set all the Saturation sliders in the HSL Adjustments panel to -100.

Having done that, you can then adjust the Saturation and Vibrance sliders to fine-tune the conversion.

Profiles have now been given centre stage in Camera Raw and Lightroom, making the available profiles more obvious. There are 18 specific black & white profiles for you to work with. Clicking on the Black & White radio button at the top of the Basic panel converts the image to black & white and applies the Adobe Monochrome profile by default. If you then click on the four little squares in the Profile section this opens the Profile Browser with the profiles filtered so you just see the black & white profile options. Click to select a different profile and this becomes the new default if you toggle between the colour and black & white modes. Adobe monochrome is based around the new Adobe Color default profile to provide a pleasing, standard, black & white look.

But if you want to explore more, try selecting one of the other B&W profiles.

Here you will notice that when you select one of these profiles an Amount slider becomes active. This allows you to adjust the effective strength of the profile conversion, where dragging the Amount slider to the right intensifies the black & white conversion. Therefore, if you select, say, the B&W 06 profile and set the Amount slider to +200, this applies a conversion in which the blue sky colours are substantially darkened.

BEFORE You can adjust the strength of each profile conversion

‘There are 18 specific black & white profiles for you to work with’

AFTER

Adjust the Red, Green or Blue Primary sliders to adjust the outcome of a black & white conversion www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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Craft stunning black & white photos with ease Discover how to convert to monochrome with ultimate control in Photoshop CC, Lightroom and Elements. James Paterson explains all you need to know

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hen it comes to converting images to black & white, there are lots of options available to you. Over the next few pages, we’ll explore some of the best tools for black & white in Adobe’s photography range. Whether you use Lightroom, Photoshop or Elements, here you’ll find advice not just on how to convert, but also how to fine-tune the look of your monochrome images. Often this is more than just about removing the colour, it’s also about tweaking the conversion, controlling the contrast, adjusting the shadows and highlights, and selectively dodging and burning. These tools are not difficult to master, and even an image-editing novice can make stunning monochrome photos in minutes.

BEFORE

AFTER Converting your colour images to monochrome is just the start of the process.

Fine-tuning will transform a scene into a stunning vista

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Use Black and White Profiles

Available both in Lightroom and in Camera Raw, the Profile Browser is a great way to kick-start your image editing. It offers a range of one-click treatments and effects for your photos, including a useful set of monochrome profiles. These profiles give you different black & white looks that alter the luminance of colour ranges in a variety of ways, just as if you were experimenting with the B&W mixer options. Each profile (excluding the raw profiles) also has a handy Amount slider that lets you fine-tune the strength of the treatment.

One of the best things about using Profiles is that, unlike Presets, they work independently of all the other settings in Camera Raw/Lightroom.

So you can begin your black & white workflow by choosing a profile, then go on to fine-tune things using the B&W Mixer settings or any other tools you like. What’s more, if you hit upon a new black & white recipe that you like then you can save it as a new profile in Camera Raw – simply go to the Preset panel and Alt-click the New Preset icon to open the New Profile dialog, then work through the settings to create your own custom profiles. Any custom profiles will automatically sync with Lightroom the next time you open. www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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IMPROVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY ‘The B&W Mixer panel controls let you alter the luminance of different colours’

Converting to mono during raw processing gives you greater control

Get to grips with Lightroom’s B&W panel If you shoot in raw then, as a general rule, it’s best to convert to mono during the raw processing rather than once an image has been saved as a JPEG or TIFF, as this way you make use of the greater colour information that raws hold. We can utilise this colour information during the conversion by fine-tuning the brightness of different colour ranges as we remove the colour. This is where the Lightroom/Camera Raw B&W Mixer panel comes in. You can either begin your conversion here, or start by choosing a black and white Profile and then use these sliders to fine-tune the conversion.

The B&W Mixer panel controls let you alter the luminance of different colours. You can simply drag the eight sliders to alter the colours, or click the target icon in the panel then drag up or down over parts of the image to alter the brightness of the colour ranges within. The on-image target tool is usually a better choice as it can alter more than several colour ranges at once, which tends to lead to more natural tonal shifts. Here dragging down over the sky darkens the blues, which makes the sky look more dramatic and increases the contrast with the white fluffy clouds.

TOP 5 PHOTOSHOP BLACK & WHITE TOOLS

1 B&W Mixer

This panel in Camera Raw offers more control over your black & white conversion than any other in Photoshop. It works in much the same way as the near-identical Black & White panel in Lightroom by giving you on-image control over the luminance of eight colour ranges.

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2 B&W Adjustment Layer

Available in Photoshop as a direct adjustment (under Adjustment menu) or for more control as an Adjustment Layer (go to Layer> Adjustment Layer). As with the B&W Mixer in Camera Raw, this also lets you control the brightness of colour ranges, but there are six here compared to eight in Camera Raw.

3 Channel Mixer

Apply the Channel Mixer as an Adjustment Layer in Photoshop for a range of black & white effects. You can either check Monochrome and adjust the sliders to fine-tune your conversion, or simply choose one of the excellent black & white presets from the dropdown at the top of the settings. www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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10 top tips for black & white photo editing 1

Make presets or profiles of your favourite black & white recipes so that you can easily apply them to other images.

2

Download black & white Lightroom presets from sites such as presetsheaven.com, presetlove.com, presetpond.com and on1.com.

AFTER

BEFORE

3

Once you’ve converted to mono, use the Dodge and Burn tools in Photoshop CC or Elements to selectively lighten or darken areas.

Convert in Photoshop Elements Photoshop Elements offers a useful array of black & white tools that are perfect for beginners. While the learning curve may be gentle, they can still be used to create stunning monochrome images. If you’re just getting started with monochrome conversions then you’ll find several useful Guided Edits in the Elements Guide workspace. The best of these is the simple Black & White conversion edit, which lets you remove colour then go on to add a glow and increase contrast. If you’re after effects like colour pop and high-key treatments, you can try guided edits for these as well. If you’re comfortable using the Elements Expert workspace then you’ll find a more advanced black & white tool.

4

When you’re shooting for mono, switch your camera picture style to monochrome – and then replicate it afterwards with the Profile Browser’s Camera Matching set.

5

You can often get away with stronger Clarity and Contrast settings with black & white images, so don’t be afraid to push these further than normal.

Go to Enhance>Convert to Black & White for a range of black & white treatments such as Portrait, Infrared and Vivid Landscapes.

Photoshop Elements offers a number of mono conversion methods

6

After converting to black & white in Camera Raw/ Lightroom, you can tweak the look of the image with the Temperature and Tint controls.

7

If you want a quick, roughand-ready black & white effect in Photoshop then you can hit Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+U to desaturate the image.

8

Black & white photos can often benefit from heavy vignettes to darken the edges of the frame. Try using the Radial Filter in Camera Raw/Lightroom to add one.

9 4 Gradient Map

A Gradient Map lets you add one tint to the shadows and another to the highlights, so it’s great for tinting. You’ll find a great set of analogue treatments hidden in the settings.

Add a gradient map, click the gradient preview, then click the cog icon in the settings and load the ‘Photographic Toning’ set. www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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5 Curves

It’s not just for black & white photos, but Curves works brilliantly on them. After converting to mono, images can look flat. An S-shaped curve like this boosts contrast and adds much-needed punch to monochrome conversions. The more pronounced the S-shape, the greater the contrast.

Shooting in raw results in images with more colour information than JPEGs, and this can give you extra headroom and smoother gradations when editing your black & whites.

10

After converting to mono, try painting selective Clarity with the Adjustment Brush in Camera Raw/Lightroom to enhance textures and details.

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Stylish black & white Create high-quality mono conversions using the powerful Silver Efex Pro 2 Photoshop plug-in. James Abbott outlines the key features and presets

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one are the days of sloshing chemicals around in a darkroom lit by the dim red glow of a safelight. Black & white photography in the digital age is quick and easy in comparison to the days of film, with almost endless possibilities available with a single raw file. And while Lightroom, Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop offer excellent controls for converting images to monochrome, the Silver Efex Pro 2 Photoshop plug-in has been a firm favourite with amateur and professional photographers for decades.

Silver Efex Pro 2 is one of eight plug-ins that make up Nik Collection 3 by DxO, which is arguably the best Photoshop plug-in suite available. Without going into a huge amount of detail, the plug-in suite offers both basic preset-based and advanced manual control over image colour effects, lens corrections, noise control, sharpening, HDR, black & white and more. Many photographers purchase the software for Silver Efex Pro 2 alone because the mono conversions are so good, but it has so much more to offer.

015 Full Dynamic (harsh)

There are a number of presets for stylish mono conversions 84

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This preset compresses tones using shadows and highlights to reveal detail throughout the image, as well as boosting Structure which accentuates detail. The result is a silver-looking image that’s reminiscent of black & white fibre paper and is one of the most popular preset styles available in Silver Efex. www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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Nik Collection 3 by DxO Price £129/Upgrade £69 Website nikcollection.dxo.com Compatible editing software DxO PhotoLab 2 Essential and above, Photoshop CS5 64-bit and later, Photoshop Elements 12 and later, Lightroom 3 and later (Classic) and Affinity Photo 1.8 and later System requirements MacOS: Intel Core i5 or higher, 4GB of RAM (8GB recommended), 4GB or more of available hard disk space, MacOS 10.13 (High Sierra), 10.14 (Mojave), 10.15 (Catalina) Windows Intel Core 2 or AMD Athlon 64 X2 or higher (Intel Core i5 or higher recommended), 4GB of RAM (8GB recommended), 4GB or more of available hard disk space, Microsoft Windows 8.1 (64-bit), or Microsoft Windows 10 (64-bit).

000 Neutral

The default conversion preset in Silver Efex is 000 Neutral, and it provides a similar result to an unaltered Black & White Adjustment Layer in Photoshop. This can act as what you might call the purest starting point for making manual adjustments using the controls on the right of the interface.

037 Pinhole

The 037 Pinhole preset is what you might call one of the more creative effects, and this one aims to mimic the effect of a pinhole camera. The effect here looks like what you get with a box or tin pinhole camera loaded with black & white photographic paper. The result is harsh but reasonably faithful. www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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010 Low Key 2

010 Low Key 2 is a preset that lowers brightness using both the Brightness sliders and the Tone Curve. The result is a moody and gritty look that maintains a high degree of detail despite the overall darkening of images. This is not a preset for simply darkening overexposed images, it’s a stylish look in itself.

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How to use Silver Efex Pro 2 Silver Efex Pro 2 is the best black & white Photoshop plug-in available, and thanks to 58 presets and full manual control it makes it possible to create stylish black & white images in a matter of minutes. This tutorial is broken down into numbered sections because all controls are optional depending on the black & white result you’re aiming for. So, once you’ve selected a preset you can apply any of the manual controls you wish. To get started, open an image in Photoshop and click on the Silver Efex icon on the Selective Tool or go to Filter>Nik Collection>Silver Efex Pro 2.

BEFORE

1 Preset Library The preset library is the first part of the interface you’ll need to use and by default, images open with the 000 Neutral preset applied. There are 58 black & white presets that can be used as either a starting point for manual editing or as an end in themselves. Within the library, you can refine the list from All into subcategories based on style, plus you can add presets to a Favourites list by clicking on the star next to the preset name, as well as being able to access Recently Used presets by clicking on the relevant category. This image was set to 024 Full Contrast and Structure.

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2 Global Adjustments

As the name suggests, Global Adjustments affect the entire image and the main settings are Brightness, Contrast, Structure and Tonality Protection, which is basically shadow and highlight recovery. The Brightness, Contrast and Structure settings can be applied using a single slider at a basic level but can also be expanded to provide more targeted control over their application. Depending on the preset chosen, these sliders will have different amounts input. For this image, manual adjustments were made to Brightness, Contrast, Structure and the shadows and highlights.

4 Colour Filter This option allows you to apply colour filters that mimic the effects of colour filters attached to lenses when shooting black & white film. Simply click on the coloured circle to select the relevant filter – grey on the left is for no effect. You can further control the exact colour with the Hue slider, and adjust the overall effect using the Strength slider.

3 Selective Adjustments

Selective Adjustments are a way of applying localised adjustments to circular areas where they’re placed. Once a control point is placed it can be resized, repositioned or deleted and provides control over Brightness, Contrast, Structure, Amplify Whites, Amplify Blacks, Fine Structure and Selective Colourisation. And despite the control points looking crude, they work exceptionally well. Points can be Grouped, Ungrouped, Duplicated and Deleted on the Selective Adjustments panel. This image uses three adjustments – one to lighten the bothy and two to darken the foreground. www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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5 Film Types There are 58 presets on offer, plus a whole host of manual controls

In this section, you can use a dropdown menu to set one of 20 film presets that mimic the look of popular black & white films. The menu is set to Neutral by default, so you can either leave it like this and add grain manually and control how colours convert to greyscale using the Sensitivity sliders.

Alternatively, you can set a film preset and manually adjust Grain and Sensitivity if you wish. For this image, the film type was left at Neutral, Grain per pixel was set to 370 for a medium grain while the Yellow slider was set to 15% to lighten, and the Cyan and Blue set to -10% and -20% respectively to darken.

6 Finishing Adjustments

The Finishing Adjustments are arguably the most Marmite adjustments in the plug-in – you’ll either love them or hate them – but like all the presets available, you can’t fault the quality of the effects they create. Toning allows you to add toning effects, Vignette applies a variety of different vignettes, Burn Edges darkens the edges of images and Image Borders adds a variety of edge and border effects.

These can all be applied at a basic level or expanded for more control over the constituent elements of the effects.

‘You can further control the exact colour with the Hue slider’

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AFTER

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Alien Skin Exposure offers a variety of film presets – this one is Ilford Delta 3200

Nikon D800, 80-400mm, 1/500sec at f/14, ISO 640

FIVE OF THE BEST TOOLS FOR EMULATING BLACK & WHITE FILM

1 Silver Efex

The gold standard of B&W apps, this comes as part of the Nik Collection. There’s an array of useful presets, film stocks and contrast controls, plus the excellent Control Point system for making selective adjustments. The grain and vintage effects are excellent, too.

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2 Alien Skin Exposure

This is a full-blown raw editor that features a huge variety of film presets. After selecting a preset from the library of 500+ famous old films, you can go on to customise it to suit your image. It’s available as a standalone app and as a plug-in for Photoshop and Lightroom.

3 Free Lightroom presets

You can find tons of free Lightroom presets available online, many of which let you emulate different black & white films. Take a look at presetsheaven.com, presetlove.com and presetpond.com. There are also several excellent sets available at on1.com. www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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James Paterson

James is as skilled a photo editor as he is a photographer. His work has appeared in countless magazines and books, and in 2014, he was appointed editor of Practical Photoshop.

Visit www.patersonphotos.com

Get the black & white film look Transform your digital images into black & white analog classics by using simple tools.

James Paterson gives you a masterclass

A ALL PICTURES © JAMES PATERSON

s a medium, black & white photography is as strong today as it’s ever been. But things do change. These days there are lots of tools and techniques for achieving that classic black & white film look, from Lightroom tools to in-camera tricks and plug-ins that replicate particular film stocks, right down to the specific grain structure. Over the next few pages, we’ll explore some of the best options.

When it comes to image editing, the term ‘effect’ is sometimes seen as a dirty word.

But an effect is exactly what a black & white conversion is. Granted, it’s probably the most universally accepted of all image effects, but in the digital age it’s an aesthetic choice rather than the practical necessity it was in the early days of photography. As such, if we want to replicate the characteristics of black & white film then it’s helpful to think of it as a combination of three image-editing tricks. First there’s the removal of colour; then there’s the control of contrast and tonality; and finally there’s the addition of monochrome tropes like film grain, vignettes or split toning.

Why go mono?

4 Topaz B&W Effects

As the name suggests, this plug-in offers a useful array of B&W toning effects, many of which replicate traditional processes and techniques such as cyanotype and pinhole.

As with all other apps mentioned here, you can download a free trial before you buy. www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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5 DxO Filmpack

For a genuine film look, this set of presets emulates the tonality, contrast and grain of most famous film stocks. The boffins at DxO laboriously analysed film stocks to come up with these presets. There are also options to fine-tune the conversion.

Of course, there are lots of apps and plug-ins available that can apply many of these effects for you (a few of which are listed here), but you can also do it manually in Photoshop, Lightroom or any competent image-editing app.

However, before we delve into how to make an image black & white, perhaps we should first consider why. Some images just seem to work better in monochrome.

But which ones? There are no firm rules, but there are a few factors to look out for. Removing colour draws attention to form, shapes, textures and patterns.

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IMPROVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY

You can create a seminegative effect easily in Photoshop with Curves

Nikon D7000, 50mm, 4sec at f/9, ISO 100 landscapes, and photos with a strong shape or an interesting balance between light and shade.

‘Seeing’ the world in black & white takes practice, but it can help to set your camera to a monochrome picture style to give you a better idea of how the finished image will look. Be sure to shoot in raw quality, otherwise the colour information will be stripped out of the file – and that colour information is very useful for controlling the look of the black & white image.

The conversion

The HSL/Black and White panel in Photoshop and Lightroom is an excellent tool for monochrome conversions

As anyone who has ever experimented with lens-mounted colour filters will know, colour is very important in black & white photography. We can use the colour

5 TIPS TO GET THE VINTAGE LOOK IN PHOTOSHOP

1 Messy borders

A messy border gives a vintage look. We used a wet plate border, created with a scan of an old photograph found on Wikimedia commons.

Search for wet plate, then erase the middle of the frame and drop on top of your image.

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2 Washed-out shadows

For a retro-toning effect, add a Curves layer, and drag the bottom left point on the curve line upwards to wash out the shadows, and the top right point downwards to dull the highlights.

3 Hidden toning tools

Try the toning presets in Photoshop’s Gradient Map. Add a Gradient Map layer (Layer>New Adjustment Layer). Click the gradient preview to open the gradient editor, click the cog icon and choose ‘Photographic Toning’. www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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While colour is wonderfully descriptive in portraits, black & white can reveal more Silver Efex offers a whole host of presets, film stocks and contrast controls

Nikon D800, 105mm, 1/200sec at f/3, ISO 2800

information in our original digital image to control brightness as we convert to black & white. Lightroom and Photoshop both offer an excellent tool for this: the HSL/ Black and White Panel. It gives us eight sliders that control the luminance of different colour ranges (we can also drag within the image to adjust the sliders).

These let us control the tonality of our black & white photo by, for example, darkening the blues to make a sky more dramatic, or lifting the oranges to give skin tones a bright, airy feel.

Contrast and tonality

Traditionally, different film stocks would display characteristic levels of contrast, and that contrast would increase if the film was pushed during processing. When our

4 Infrared BW

The infrared look typically results in very bright foliage and dark skies. There are presets in Photoshop that give you this, but if you want to get true infrared you’ll need a converted camera like the one used for this shot. www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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digital images are first converted to mono they can often look disappointingly flat, so a quick boost in contrast is usually necessary. There are a number of tools for boosting contrast, but the most intuitive has to be Curves. Available in Photoshop, Lightroom and numerous other editors, Curves lets you alter brightness by affecting different parts of the tonal range. By plotting two or three points on the curve line to form an S-shape we can boost contrast by lightening the highlights and darkening the shadows. What’s more, we can control the brightness of the black & white points by dragging the top and bottom points of the curve line up or down, inwards or outwards. It’s an essential skill to learn – not just for black & white, but all image-editing.

5 Solarisation

This classic darkroom trick can be done in Photoshop with Curves. Convert the image to B&W, add a Curves layer and plot points to invert half of it. A V-shape inverts the shadows, and an upside-down V inverts the highlights.

Which one do you prefer?

Portraits are a classic choice for monochrome treatment. Colour can sometimes be a distraction in a portrait, especially in close-ups. By stripping it out, we can draw attention to an expression or emphasise the texture of a person’s skin.

Here, for example, while the colour version is certainly vibrant and eye-catching, the black & white treatment arguably reveals more about the subject. Besides, with portraits we already know what skin colour looks like, so the presence of colour isn’t always necessary. You could argue that the necklace and beads here are stronger in colour, but the lack of colour highlights the patterns and textures instead.

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Apply a Selenium look using Photoshop’s Gradient Map tool

AFTER

The power of vignettes

Gorgeous grain

These days, we refer to noise in our images, but in the days of film we would instead have to consider the film grain.

Just as a high-ISO digital image displays greater noise, a high-ISO film stock (and with film, anything above 400 was considered as such) would display noticeable film grain. Both result in a loss of detail, but while the former is considered to be unsightly, film grain is often thought to add character.

If you want to get the look of black & white film then the biggest challenge is achieving a realistic grain. It’s complicated by the fact that different film stocks display varying grain, and it would be more prominent if the film was pushed in processing to gain an extra stop or two. The apps and plug-ins mentioned here let you add grain to your black & 92

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white photos. In Lightroom, head to the Develop Module’s FX panel and adjust the grain sliders. Keep in mind that the appearance of the grain will be dependent on the resolution of the image, so if you intend to print it then resize to the proper print resolution first before adding a grain effect.

Heavy vignetting often occurred in old film cameras because early lenses struggled to draw in as much light around the edges of the frame as they could in the centre, resulting in darker corners. So by adding a vignette, we can give our black & white treatment a vintage feel. Aside from this, a vignette can be a powerful way to draw attention to our subject and away from the edges of the frame. The viewer’s eye is naturally drawn to the lighter areas of an image, so by darkening the edges we can guide the eye towards the more important areas nearer the centre of the frame. To add a vignette in Lightroom, use the Radial Filter tool and drag a circular adjustment

BEFORE

In-camera grain

Grain lovers might also try emphasising grain in-camera by intentionally using a high ISO, even if the conditions don’t demand it. To take it even further, you can try intentionally underexposing the image so that it appears very dark, then recover it in post. This leads to increased noise to give your photos a lovely textured look if you find the right sweet spot between underexposure and recovery. www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

24/03/2022 12:42

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IMPROVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY James Paterson

Cosmetic surgery

ALL PICTURES © JAMES PATERSON

James is as skilled a photo editor as he is a photographer.

His work has appeared in countless magazines and books, and in 2014, he was appointed editor of Practical Photoshop magazine. To see more of his work visit www.patersonphotos.com.

Revitalise old prints by using these simple Photoshop techniques, says James Paterson

F

ew Photoshop tasks are as rewarding as restoring an old photo. There’s something deeply satisfying about breathing new life into damaged prints, so that they can be cherished for years to come. Whether you’re restoring snaps from your own family album or as a favour for someone else, it leaves you with a glow as warm as the gorgeous sepia tones in these treasured old mementos.

For users of Photoshop Elements, there are a host of powerful restoration tools on offer. Retouching tools such as the Healing brushes and Clone tool are ideal for fixing marks and scratches, and the tonal commands make it easy to enhance and sharpen faded old details.

Even heavy-duty restoration work such as repairing ripped prints is possible with simple layer and masking skills. Over the next few pages we’ll explore a few typical problems and how to fix them.

Miraculous restorations

Even very badly damaged prints can be restored.

As long as enough detail remains, it doesn’t matter if that detail is in several pieces. We begin by selecting each individual piece with the Quick Selection tool, then copy each to a new layer (Cmd/Ctrl+J). Once done, the Move tool and Transform command (Cmd/Ctrl+T) can be used 94

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to reposition the broken pieces, shifting them back into place like a jigsaw. When all the pieces are lined up, finish off by retouching the seams using the Spot Healing Brush and Clone tool. To do so, make a new layer and set both tools to ‘Sample All Layers’ so that they sample from the combined details; then paint to fill in the gaps. www.amateurphotographer.co.uk www.amateurphotographer.c

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AFTER

Master the Healing and Clone tools

The Clone Stamp tool and Healing brushes are the go-to tools for much restoration work – or indeed all kinds of retouching tasks. There are two healing tools to choose from: the Spot Healing Brush and Healing brush. The Spot Healing Brush is usually the one to start with. It works by automatically sampling from the surrounding image in order to fix the area being painted. As such, it’s brilliant for removing the little spots, marks, dirt, scratches and wrinkles that inevitably appear in old prints. Simply paint over them and let the tool do the work (for long scratches, shift-click between two points to paint a straight line).

As with all automated tools, the Spot Healing Brush can occasionally go wrong, but this is when you can switch to either the Clone tool or Healing Brush to tidy up. Both of these other tools require you to Alt-click to sample a source – usually a clean area nearby. The Clone tool simply copies pixels from the source area to the painted area. It’s often most effective when used at a low opacity, as this allows you to gradually smooth out rough areas (to set a brush opacity quickly hit 1 for 10%, 2 for 20% and so on).

All these tools can be set to ‘Sample All Layers’. This is handy, as it means we can create a new empty layer above our original image then retouch on this layer, thereby preserving the original image on the layer below if we ever need to go back to it.

The Spot Healing Brush is ideal for removing little scratches and marks quickly

www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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BEFORE

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IMPROVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY Tips for digitising your prints

Get the handpainted look

The first task is to transform your old prints into ones and zeros. If the photo is in a frame then take care removing it, as the emulsion may stick to the glass and come away when it’s pulled out. It’s best to use a flatbed scanner to digitise the print – set the scanning resolution to 300 pixels per inch or more. If you can’t use a scanner then a camera will do the job. The key thing is to light the print evenly with two lamps (you can use either flashes or constant lighting) on either side of the print. It can be helpful to stick the print to a wall, as it makes it easier to position the lights on either side, each angled at 45°. As for camera settings, it’s best to use ISO 100 for maximum image quality, and set a mid-range aperture like f/5.6 or f/8, as this is typically the sweet spot where most lenses are at their sharpest.

Why not add colour to old photos to give them a hand-painted treatment? The technique is very easy. Simply go to the Layers panel and make a new empty layer, then change the Blend Mode to Color. The Color Blend Mode allows you to apply the colour while still keeping the details visible from below. Next grab the Brush tool, choose a colour and begin painting. Once done, make other layers for different colours. Often the colour can initially look too strong, but it’s easy enough to tone it down by lowering the layer opacity. And if it doesn’t look like the right shade, you can always tweak the colour afterwards by adjusting the Hue (hit Cmd/Ctrl+U for the Hue/ Saturation command).

Use the ‘Restore Old Photos’ Guided Edit

The Guided workspace in Elements offers a wide range of techniques, each laid out like a tutorial with all the tools you’ll need at hand. Found under ‘Special Edits’, the dedicated ‘Restore Old Photos’ guided edit is a great place to start, especially if you’re a beginner. It guides you through cropping and retouching the print, then gives you the option to apply the Dust and Scratches filter and sharpening, as well as auto tonal fixes or a black & white conversion. It doesn’t give you the same control as doing things manually in the Expert Mode, but it’s quick and easy.

FIVE COMMANDS TO SPEED UP YOUR RESTORATION

1 Auto-haze removal

This automatically boosts washed-out blacks and enhances detail. Go to Enhance>Auto Haze Removal to apply.

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2 Remove a colour cast

For colour prints go to Enhance>Adjust Color >Remove Color Cast then click on a point that should be neutral, like the headscarf here.

3 Dust and Scratches filter

Found in Filter>Noise, this applies an automatic fix across the image to remove small dust spots and can halve your retouching time. www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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Get creative

Instead of doing a straightforward restoration, why not use old photos as material for creative artwork? There’s something about the authenticity of vintage prints that makes them ripe material for a surreal makeover like this. You can create all kinds of wonderful collage effects using selections, layer and masks. Here (below) – after removing the facial features – we’ve duplicated our original layer several times, making each one slightly smaller, then used a layer mask to hide the central portion of the face, revealing the smaller head on the layer below.

Replace missing details If part of a photo is missing or badly damaged so as to be unrecognisable, you might be able to mirror the details from elsewhere to fix the problem. To do this, make a loose selection of the area you want to copy using the Lasso tool, then hit Cmd/Ctrl+J to copy it to a new layer and Cmd/Ctrl+T to transform. Right-click and choose Flip Horizontal to flip it and drag it into position to fill in the missing details. Once done, we usually need to soften the edges of the piece so that it blends in with everything else. To do this, we add a layer mask, grab the Brush tool and – using a soft-edged brush tip – paint with black around the edges for a smoother transition.

4 Content-Aware Fill

This fills in missing areas. Select the problem area with the Lasso tool then go to Edit>Fill Selection and choose Use: Content-Aware. www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

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5 Unsharp Mask

Use Enhance>Unsharp Mask to sharpen soft details. Adjusting the Threshold will exclude grain from the effects of the sharpening.

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