Featured Photographer, John Miskelly FRPS

John Miskelly FRPS

John believes that vision isn’t about sight, but rather, insight. It is what you see in your mind’s eye and, therefore, what you want to communicate through your images: The sense of finding your creative voice, which is simply about what you’re trying to say with your photographs. For John, it’s often more about what he feels when on location than what he actually sees at any particular moment.

Understanding Vision

As a photographer, it’s important to me to have a clear vision for what I’m trying to achieve with my images, yet vision is something that is rarely discussed by photographers. In this article, I’m going to consider what vision is, what it means to me and my photography and finally, I’ll discuss how this relates to some of my images. Anyone who has attended one of my talks or been to one of my workshops will know that I talk a lot about having a ‘vision’. So, why do I consider vision to be so important? Well, vision is the place we all begin, the road we travel on the way to our goal of creating compelling photographs that express something we’ve no other means of expressing but through the frame of the image. I imagine that we can all identify with this goal, even if we haven’t given it much thought in the past. It’s most commonly the reason that we picked up the camera in the first place. I believe that vision isn’t about sight, but rather, insight. It is not the thing that others see, but what you see in your mind’s eye and, therefore, what you want to communicate through your images: That sense of finding your creative voice, which is simply about what you’re trying to say with your photographs. For me, it’s often more about what I ‘feel’ when I’m at a location than what I actually see at any particular moment. Some call it the art of seeing the invisible.

In practical terms, my own vision involves capturing not just the ‘moment’, but a slice of time through my long exposure images, which are typically between 4 and 8 minutes in length. It’s where I aim to record what I felt whilst at the location; the actual sense of being there, the changes in the environment over the duration of my exposures. As such, my images aren’t based on realism as we tend to think of it, but rather, my own sense of being at a particular place at a specific time, to record the unique light and weather conditions that I experienced.

Fishing Hut, Gironde Estuary, Bordeaux, France

© John Miskelly FRPS

Portstewart Strand, Antrim Coast, Northern Ireland

© John Miskelly FRPS

My vision is also firmly rooted in my deep-seated love of being somewhere around the coast, listening to the sounds of the sea and watching the gradual change in the light as the sun comes up or sets: The constantly changing environment of sand, sea and sky, in all weathers and at various times of the year that I experience whilst at a location. It’s that sense of total freedom from the hustle and bustle of day-to-day living, being there to capture the unique mood of the day, because the exact combination of composition, light, tides and weather will never be repeated. Add to this my carefully considered, but simple, compositions and you will get a sense of my own personal vision that I aim to communicate through my images.

I’m also heavily influenced by the Japanese garden aesthetic where, at their heart, Japanese gardens honour our relationship with the elements of nature. Trees, stone, gravel and other elements are chosen carefully, for texture and colour, though mainly subdued. Any added ornaments are essential, rather than trivial, and it’s where every detail counts. The Japanese aesthetic brings elegance and serenity to any setting and this is a key element of how I compose my images, with simplicity and gentleness of tone being significant elements that form part of my personal vision.

Mussenden Temple at Downhill Beach, Northern Ireland

© John Miskelly FRPS

The Portstewart Strand Image on page 13 is a great example of this approach. It was a mild summer’s day, but there had been light rain for most of the morning along with soft grey skies and, as a result, there were very few people on the beach. The soft tones and ‘quietness’ of the image, along with the posts leading into the water, into infinity, represented these feelings, all accentuated by my choice of a four minute long exposure.

We so often forget that photography is not a technical pursuit, or at least it shouldn’t be; instead, it’s an art form, an aesthetic. When we discover this, this is when our photographs can become something of beauty and communicate to the viewer our own unique and special vision.

Now that we better understand the importance of vision, I’m going to consider how this translates to my particular style of photography and I’ll use some images as examples.

This above image was taken on Downhill Beach, a short distance from where I live. The sun was setting to the west, which was behind me. I rarely shoot directly into the sun, as I find the effect of using the indirect light gives a much more subtle effect and often gives beautiful, but delicate, tones in the clouds. I often see photographers producing images of sunrise or sunset with this bright ‘burned out’ sun that contains no detail and the resultant image is often harsh, with unpleasant contrast. Certainly, this approach rarely works for the more subtle type of landscape image that I’m aiming to create.

I derived my composition using the ripples in the sand as leading lines, along with the reflections in the wet sand left by the receding tide. It was important to ensure the headland was placed in a manner that left ‘room’ for the eye to go around it and up towards the sky. Once I had decided on my composition, it was simply a case

of waiting for the light. When the sun finally sets, there is often a great window of opportunity with the beautiful golden light that can last for around 30 minutes. This is a great time of day to capture the beautiful colours and soft light that we often get just before sunrise or after sunset.

While I normally shoot around the coast, there is one city which I love to photograph and that’s Venice. While I have, of course, photographed the classic scenes, I’m always looking for something a little bit different. The image below is a result of that, where several years ago I discovered that there were a number of fishing huts located further along the Venetian lagoon. After some research, I pinpointed their location and planned to make a visit there on my next trip. Again, it’s a long exposure of some 4 minutes and this gives a softness to both the water and the sky, while still retaining a sense of layering in the sky, all of which are compositional choices to allow the actual fishing hut to become the prominent part of the image, without any significant details to distract the viewer. The positioning of the posts is also very important and it’s these seemingly less significant details that are just as important in how I bring all of the elements together. It’s also worth noting that while I find the effect on the sky and water of long exposures aesthetically pleasing, it’s the compositional opportunities this provides that is of most interest to me and is a key aspect of how I remove details (such as ripples in the water) to express my vision of simplicity. I’m often asked about what work I do to my images in postproduction. The reality is that I tend to do fairly minimal processing in Photoshop or Lightroom, usually just removing any distracting elements such as a piece of seaweed or dust spots. I aim to get the image as ‘right’ as possible ‘in camera’, so I take the time to make sure my composition is carefully considered and I use my LEE filters to balance my exposure. I don’t want to spend large amounts of my time trying to merge separate exposures for the sky and the land in post-production afterwards or trying to fix problems with light or composition. If this is your thing, then that’s fine, but it’s just not for me.

Venetian Fishing Village, Venice, Italy

© John Miskelly FRPS

I will typically make any adjustments to my exposure, changes to colour temperature or the overall colour balance, as well as subtle changes to contrast and maybe add some sharpening if required. My process is quite the opposite of what I see many photographers doing, where they try and ‘improve’ the photograph by excessive contrast or saturation adjustments. The result is so often an image that doesn’t look natural, with the post-processing getting in the way of what the photographer was trying to say with their image in the first place. I normally know when I’m at the location whether I’ve captured the image that communicates what I’m feeling while I’m there. Sometimes I get nothing at all, but that’s fine, as it’s about being out in the landscape, experiencing the natural world. Getting a good image is really the icing on the cake.

Of course, there are occasions when luck plays a part in the process and the image below was a great example of where this was the case. I had been to this location at Flakstad on Lofoten a few days earlier, but the weather conditions were not really what I was looking for, with the light being particularly flat and uninteresting. However, on my last evening in Lofoten, I stopped off for one final shot of this beautiful location.

As I was setting up my camera, I noticed that there was a momentary break in the heavy cloud cover. Using the leading lines created by the foam left by the waves, along with the reflection in the wet sand, I was able to compose the image I was looking for with some beautiful golden light on the mountain, just as the sun was setting. I had to limit my exposure to a very short, one minute exposure, as with a longer exposure, the foam

Flakstad Beach, Lofoten, Norway

© John Miskelly FRPS

lines simply disappeared. It was a case of reacting to the conditions that nature provided. This light lasted for no more than 5 minutes, so sometimes we just have to be ready to move quickly.

While there are times when we do get great light, there are other occasions when we don’t get the light we might want. In fact, I can often be found shooting my landscapes in poor weather, as the softness in the light such conditions often provide works perfectly for my style of photography. The image below was a great example of this, taken at sunrise on a winter morning on the Isle of Harris in the Outer Hebrides. It had been raining heavily as I drove to this location in the dark and the rain certainly didn’t stop as I looked for a good composition.

The land in the background is the island of Taransay where, on this morning, the low cloud was just sitting on the top of the island. The sand dunes of Luskentyre can be seen in the distance, along with the largely obscured mountains of Lewis in the far distance. I found this pattern in the sand as the tide was receding and was able to have the rain on my back, so avoiding raindrops on my filters. An eight minute exposure provided precisely the feeling of isolation and moodiness that these islands off the coast of Scotland are famous for. In fact, these beaches are probably my favourite photographic location anywhere in the world as they perfectly illustrate how conditions can change, not just from season to season, but within minutes, as the weather moves in from the Atlantic and you can literally experience four seasons in the space of an hour.

Seilebost Beach, Isle of Harris, Outer Hebrides, Scotland

© John Miskelly FRPS

Groynes, Hunstanton Beach, Norfolk, England

© John Miskelly FRPS

The final image that I’m going to show to illustrate my own personal photographic vision was taken on a very recent trip to Norfolk, specifically to photograph the groynes at Hunstanton beach, somewhere I hadn’t been to before.

As is normally the case, I aim to achieve the right combination of tides, weather and the position of the sun. I don’t normally photograph much in summer, as often this doesn’t give me the interesting skies that I like, but this was one of those exceptions. The tides were a little higher than my ideal, but my window of opportunity at the location was limited, so I just recomposed a slightly different shot to allow for this. The sun had just dipped beyond the horizon, leaving some lovely delicate tones in the sky. Standing there in shorts and tee shirt while photographing these groynes was an unusual experience for me as a UK-based landscape photographer, so maybe the idea of photographing in summer isn’t such a bad idea after all!

By using the symmetry of the zigzag groynes, placing the top of the marker pole above the horizon and ensuring all the posts were separated and not merging into each other, while capturing the texture of the weathered wooden groynes and the smoothness of the water, I found that simplicity of composition I have already mentioned.

The reality of developing a clear photographic vision is that it’s something which is very personal to each and every one of us. What I intend to communicate through my images is my intimate connection with the landscape, particularly the seascapes I visit around our coastline.

I don’t take photographs to simply document the appearance of my subject matter, no matter how objectively appealing they may be. Instead, I photograph as a means of exploring and expressing things that I cannot express in any other way; what I have described as my feelings and experiences of a place in time and because it is how I communicate my own personal vision. It is my sincere hope that we can all find more meaning in the things we photograph and can use our visual experiences to communicate in a more mindful way with those who view our work.

John Miskelly FRPS, FBIPP, FIPF www.johnmiskelly.co.uk