Kilometre 1848 - Learning to see again

Kilometer 1848. Murray River, Barmah State Park, Victoria, 26/04/2008
Sinar F2, Sinar Symmar 150mm, f22, 1/15, Fuji Velvia 100
This is the first image made with the Sinar F2 over Anzac Weekend. The Kilometer 1848 sign on the opposite river bank is framed by a reclining Red Gum. The composition is loosley based on Sydneny Nolan's River Bend I & II series.

I've been reading George Barr's excellent Take Your Photography To The Next Level recently. It is written by a photographer who has mastrered technique and who isn't afraid to to tackle the softer rarely discussed, yet essential, aspects of photography such as creativty rather than fStops and Photoshop. It seems the hardest skill for a photographer to master is not exposure, but learning to see as an artist. While a photographer must use their logical left-brain to execute a memorable image, it is the right brain which he must engage to see creatively. Given the technical nature of the medium, harmonising the competing demands of the left and right brain are perhaps the photographer’s biggest challenge.

This is why I think Ansel Adams emphasised the need for a photographer to be a master of his craft. When he said that in the 1970’s, many of the younger generation of photographers shouted him down. Art in the 1970’s was all about letting it all hang out and blowing away the confines of technique and craft. But by mastering the craft of photography, the artist is then free to see and break the rules.

This ability to move from conscious decision making to instinct is what separates the novice from the master. An average driver drives on instinct with his mind on everything but the road ahead. When an emergency occurs, they have nothing left. A good driver is always thinking about the gears they need to change and how to steer the car around a corner, when an emergency occurs they are able to switch on their instinct to save the situation. The ability to move to a higher level through mastery of their craft is what makes Bechkam able to bend the ball and Adams to create “Moonrise, Hernandez.”

Another example of the mastery of craft freeing the creative instinct would be the way the Coen brother’s develop their movies. The Coen’s storyboard every shot so that they, the crew and the actors know exactly what is required every day on a shot. This allows for the possibility of random events, or actors inspired genius to lift the scene from good to great. John Turtorro’s mauve clad pederast Jesus Quintana in The Big Lebowski is one example of such inspired genius. By mastering the craft of photography, the photographer is then able to respond to rapid changes in light or compositional opportunities.

One of the benefits of using the view camera is that you are forced to understand and take control of exposure and focusing when capturing an image. Despite the advanced autofocus and exposure metering of the Nikon D200, manual exposure and focus is now my preferred mode even for digital photography. Of course, when I’m taking snapshots, where there is rapidly changing light, or action the auto modes come into their own. The two mediums, film and digital are not mutually exclusive.

By being conscious of the process through manual adjustments, my brain is switched on to the technical aspects of the image of the scene (focus) and the light (exposure) that make up the image. This conscious creation of the technical parts of the image once mastered, frees up my right brain to recognise the compositional aspects of the image that will hopefully give the image meaning, or inspire an emotional response from the viewer. For me the gains from acquiring view camera technique far outweigh the initial awkwardness and failure from the re-learning required.

On my earlier visits to the Barmah Forest, the composition required for the Kilometre Marker images were obvious. I’d spent most of my time putting into practice what I’d read about the process of using the view camera including focusing with tilts and setting manual exposures from my Nikon D200. The stretch of river around the K1848 marker is not exactly a chocolate box composition, due to the ravages of both deforestation and drought. I spent all afternoon and the previous evening moving from location to location without taking a shot. The evening before I’d missed the golden light while setting up the camera and now in the afternoon the overcast sky flattened both the reflections of the river and subdued the colours in the forest. Frustrated by the light and my own inability to see, I decided to plunge deeper into the forest in search of a suitable composition. I’d like to think that this final image is inspired by Sydney Nolan’s Riverbend I & II series, an insight gained through the conscious decision-making that large format photography enforces.

For a more experienced photographer the inconvenience of a view camera that forces this more methodical approach may outweighs it’s advantages. Indeed many expert large format photographers including George Barr have switched to digital. I would argue that George is able to compose masterful images with digital cameras through learning his craft with the view camera. If I’d been using a digital camera that afternoon, it would have been to easier to take a meaningless shot and convince myself that the location or the light was was the problem and not my seeing. I believe that the real value of view camera is for a photographer like myself who wants to take their photography to the next level as an artist, not for the beginner, or the more experienced photographer such as George.