Photographic Book Covers

We have a large and eclectic collection of books in our house (despite the acquisition of a Kindle a couple of years ago), ranging through fiction, factual, learning and art, and it was fascinating hunting through looking for examples of each of the categories.  I noted that many of our older books had drawings or just text on the cover rather than photographs.  Of the categories listed in the course notes I found the minimalist landscape the easiest to find with still-life clos- up next followed by out of focus photograph.  I found an inverted photograph and historical archival photograph the most difficult.

Out-of-focus photograph

Joe Simpson is a mountaineer of world renown and his book, This Game of Ghosts follows Touching the Void which tells of an expedition to South America where he nearly lost his life.  This Game of Ghosts tells of his rehabilitation after the accident and how he coped with this near death experience.  He also talks fondly of friends who dice with death on a daily basis, many of whom have died in the mountains.  The publishers have chosen as the cover a slightly out-of-focus image of Joe after he and Ian Whittaker had spent  night hanging from ropes on an Alpine climb which nearly took their lives; the fear shows in his eyes.  I think this photograph was chosen to go with the title; the out of focus look portraying how close to a ghost he has come.  There is no photograph on the back cover.
Inverted Photograph

This is the nearest I could come to an inverted photograph, but, being a reflection, it is only half inverted.  Philip Ball is a science writer and Consultant Editor for Nature.  Branches is part of a trilogy on nature's patterns.  This book talks about the patterns in nature and tries to answer the question why those patterns exist; in this instance concentrating on branching patterns.  The publishers have obviously chosen this image as it is of a branch in water with it's inverted reflection.  Part of the cover image also forms the back cover  and this is just the inverted reflection.  It is not a wrap around cover photograph.
Historical archive photograph

Having failed in our own collection of books I found this book in Waterstones bookshop in the history section.  Using contemporary evidence it attempts to get behind the myth of Richard 111 and tell the true story.  The cover photograph is of a contemporary painting and has been cropped to leave negative space at the top for the text.

Another book I found in Waterstones history section, it tells the real story behind Hereward the Wake.  After the Norman Conquest William set about subjugating the people of this country.  Few gave any resistance but one such is Hereward.  The book cover features a complete wrap around photograph of the Bayeux Tapestry showing the link between Hereward and the Norman Conquest.  The image has been cropped to leave negative space at the top for the text.
Still-life close-up

 Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household is a novel in which the hero attempts but fails to assassinate Hitler and subsequently finds himself on the run from Nazi agents. He enters Europe on a hunting trip before the second world war and, therefore, has reason to be carrying a high powered rifle.  It is with this that he attemps the assassination. As part of the story he returns to southern England where he finds refuge in a long forgotten and hidden sunken lane, a hollow way.  On the cover the publishers have used an close-up still-life of a rifle with telescopic sights and an image of Hitler (look alike?) in the background.  A section of blurb on the front connects the two images.  There is no photograph on the back.

The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund De Waal is a biographical account of his family history by tracing the whereabouts of a family heirloom:264 netsuke; Japanese wood and ivory carvings that were used by Japanese men to hold a container of their belongings in place on their belt by tucking the netsuke under their kimono belt.  The story begins in fin de siecle Paris, when the netsuke were collected by Great Grand Uncle Charles Ephrussi and then passed through the hands of various family members in Vienna and Tokyo and finally to Edmund himself.  The family is Jewish and  began as wealthy but self-made traders in wheat in Odessa and then established an empire in Paris and Vienna.  Being Jewish and in Europe during the two world wars their fortunes declined dramatically.  It is a book I couldn't put down and I have sine begun a collection of more modern bone netsuke.  I first was made aware of the story when it and Edmund De Waal were featured on BB2's Imagine programme.  The image of one of the netsuke has been chose to perfectly illustrate the title.
Minimalist landscape

 Peter Robinson is the author of the well-known Inspector Banks detective novels that also feature on television.  This cover is typical of those of the latest Banks novels.  It only appears on the front cover; there is no image on the back.  It is a very minimalist landscape and the misty sky allows plenty of space to write the text without covering important parts of the image.  Apart from the fact that it features countryside typical of that in which Banks lives and works I can see no relevance to the contents of the story.

 This book again is a minimalist landscape with a large amount of plain sky to accommodate the text.  In this instance the photograph was taken by the author and features the boy in question.  This is a travel book about a father and son's epic backpacking expedition along the watershed of the Pyrenees from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean.  The image in this case particularly illustrates the book and makes a good cover image from that point of view.  Although not a complete wrap around the photo continues onto the spine of the book.

Another minimalist landscape image for this cover and this time being a complete wrap around.  Although it doesn't say so I suspect that the photograph is taken on the island of Lewis.  Lewis Man is a mystery detective story taking place on the island so the cover is particularly appropriate.  Although it doesn't specifically illustrate any particular event in the story, it does show the type of landscape in which the story takes place.  I particularly like this image and the way it has been partially desaturated.

Reading and Research 07: Designer Insights, Niall Benvie; Ourdoor Photography Magazine Issue 176, March 2014

Niall Benvie is a wildlife photographer who writes regularly for Outdoor Photography Magazine.  His article Designer Insights sits well with the section of this course dealing with designing a book cover.  Although the article deals more with images that may be used in magazine articles or to illustrate books, the principle is the same.  He discusses his earlier photography where his one aim was to get as close to a subject as possible and fill the image with it leaving little 'negative space' around it.  He now feels that whether an image is published or not depends more on fitting the criteria of editor and designer.  As a designer and editor, himself, now, for a variety of projects, he often questions why a photographer has framed an image so tightly and not left any room for cropping or including text.  He suggests that horizontal images should be shot rather than vertical as a vertical image will never be used for a double page spread and is only good for a cover, whereas a horizontal image  will fill a double page and can be cropped to vertical for a cover or single page.  I agree with this to a certain extent as I regularly submit images to our local paper to feature in their 'Camera Club' slot.  I now only submit horizontal images as only this format features as 'Picture of the Day' which runs across two pages.  Vertical images are only used as smaller additional club images.  I regularly give talks to groups on my wildlife, landscape and travel photography to groups ranging from church groups, through WI to Wild Life Trust, RSPB groups and camera clubs.  For these I need horizontal images to project onto a screen At these talks I sell greeting cards and for these I need vertical format images so always shoot both formats, especially if I am using my fixed focus 500mm lens and the image would be too close to crop to vertical.  Niall Benvie goes on to say that not only is it better to shoot horizontal but space needs to be left around the image for text and cropping.

I remember Pete Cairns (Northshots) telling us that you should always work a subject until you have everything you want and not to be satisfied with one shot.  Maybe there is a message here: if possible take images in horizontal and vertical formats, tightly cropped images and images with plenty of negative space around so that images for all uses are in the portfolio.

http://niallbenvie.photoshelter.com/

I have selected two images from my protfolio that have plenty of negative space around them for text, for use as double page spreads or for projection.  I have also cropped both to vertical format so they could be used as single page images or cover shots or would be suitable for card production.  Both images were taken on a Canon 7D; the crested tit with a Canon 500mm and the red squirrel with Canon 100-400 at 400mm.

To view large, click on an image.

Project: Choosing Type. Experiment with Layouts.

Again I completed this exercise using Photoshop Elements 7.  I first opened a new document and then dragged in my image and resized it.  Next I added the title using a text box, then the body text and finally the caption.  When I had completed each version I flattened the image, as I had been working in layers, and finally saved it as a JPEG before undoing the flatten image command and working on my next version.

 In this first version I selected Georgia font for the title in bold and at 18pt.  The body text is Arial regular at size 13 and the caption Arial italic at 14 point.  I like this version; the title is large and clear and contrasts with the simple ariel body text and the caption is differentiated by being in italics.

In my second version I kept all of the text the same but moved the image to the left hand side.  In this version the eye is immediately drawn to the image on the right hand side and then has to move from right to left to read the text.  This is counter-intuitive in our culture and for this reason I feel that version 1 is better.

For version 3 I selected a heading font of Kirsten ITC, again at 18pt and regular rather than bold.  The body text is arial italic at 13pt and the caption Arial regular at 14pt. Having the body text and caption the opposite way round doesn't seem to work for me and the Kirsten font doesn't seem very professional.

 Here I have used Bradley Hand font regular for the body text at 13 point with the caption Times New Roman italic at 14pt.  The headiong is Arial regular at 18pt.  I am happy with the heading and the caption but feel the body text is not clear enough; it would perhaps have been better in Bradley Hand bold.

 This version is the same as version 1 but I experimented with a smaller font for the title: 12 point.  I feel that this hasn't worked as the title is not dominant enough.

I next rotated the canvas so that it was in vertical format and placed the image at the bottom.  To do this I had to reduce the size of the image, giving it less impact.  I don't feel this works.

 I kept to the horizontal format for this version but replaced the blue tit with a horizontal format robin.  I feel this works better.

For this final version I rotated the document to the vertical format and replace the robin with the blue tit once more.  This works better if the image is going to be in a vertical format.

Overall I prefer version 1 but I don't think it would work with a horizontal format image, although it would, I think, with a square image.

Dale Mackie: Blackholes and Supernovas, Abbey Walk Gallery, Grimsby

Abbey Walk Gallery is my local independent gallery in Grimsby.  As well as featuring the work of local artists, artists of such renown as Picasso have been displayed.  Dale Mackie is a graduate in Visual Studies  and he has a studio at the gallery where he produces his work in charcoal and paint.  I have always been an admirer of his work and was recently particularly attracted to an exhibition of his latest body of work, Black Holes and Supernovas, inspired by images taken from the Hubble Telescope.  It is perhaps this which made me even more keen to see the work as I am fascinated by the night sky.  I have often photographed the moon using my 500mm lens, have acceptable images of Jupiter and some of it's moons and have experimented both with starscapes and star trail photography.(See my  Personal Photography Blogs 01 and 02).  I would love to become more involved with astrophotography.  So it was this background that I went along to see Dale's work.  Unlike much of his previous work which is of local scenes and of people at work on the docks, steelworks and at Whitby, Black Holes and Supernovas are abstracts; his first for 8 years.  They are all very large canvasses and are in bright colours with, often, geometric shapes.  With the interest I have in astrophotography and Dale's paintings it makes me wonder about experimenting with some abstract photography, perhaps using some of the effects in photoshop or by using the technique of Intentional Camera Movement.

http://www.dalemackie.com/

http://www.abbeywalkgallery.com/

Some examples of my ICM photography. To view large, click on an image.

Reading and Research: Joel Meyerowitz; Cape Light

For Assignment 1: My Neighbourhood I chose to photograph my home town Grimsby/Cleethorpes, concentrating on the seaside resort.  I found inspiration in a book that I read whilst studying for Photography 2: Landscape: Joel Meyerowitz's Cape Light and have continued to dip into it and have reread his interview with Bruce MacDonald.  At the time I recoded my thoughts in my blog and have reproduced that blog entry here.  I have also referred to the book in my self appraisal for Assignment 1:

http://mikespwdplearninglog.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Assignment%201

When I first looked through this book my initial impression that these were not my taste in photography.  At first they reminded me of a faded 70s look that I didn't appreciate.  However, the more I looked through them the more I came to appreciate them.  Not all have that faded look and many are in fact rich and saturated which is what I prefer.  Some are sharp right through in the Ansel Adams mode whereas others are soft and pastel with a painterly feel to them, perhaps more reminiscent of the portraitists from the early years of the 20th century.  When I visited Ansel Adams' exhibition in Greenwich 'Photography from the Mountains to the Sea' I was interested to see that a few of the images there were also taken at Cape Cod.  In fact 'Churches', taken in Truro, Cape Cod reminded me very much of some Meyerowitz's images of clapboard buildings.  In this book, I liked the way that he has taken several images of the same scene at different times of day and in different lighting.  It is amazing how the view changes.  One example of this is the Bay/Sky series taken on the beach at Provincetown.  I also like the way that he has used longer exposures to introduce movement into some images such as Cocktail Party taken at Wellfleet where most of the figures have sight movement blue but the girl who seems to be the main  focus of the shot has stood totally still and is pin sharp.  Another example is the picture of washing drying on a Clothes line in Provincetown.  It is obviously a windy day and, although everything else in the image is pin sharp the exposure was long enough to create movement blur in the washing.

In his forward to the book, Clifford S Ackley (associate curator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) tells us that many of the images have a frankly poetic or romantic flavour.  He goes on to say that Joel Meyerowitz explores the different light of Cape Cod and often took the same scene in different conditions.  He tells us that he successfully made the jump from monochrome street photography to early colour landscapes.  He also moved from 35mm to a large 8x10 field camera.

The book then moves on to record a conversation between Meyerowitz and Bruce MacDonald (Dean of the Museum School and a personal friend).  In his brief introduction to this conversation (a format chosen rather than a more formal introduction) MacDonald says that all of Joel's work is characterised by a balance of craft and feeling.  Craft includes deft manipulation of camera and darkroom equipment, interaction with subjects and aesthetic judgements about shape, colour, picture edge, sequencing and all the other aspects of seeing photographically.  Feeling is the emotional response to experience.  He says of Meyerowitz that he has the courage or fearlessness to allow the sensation of experience, especially visual experience, to flow through him at much higher amperage than most of us.  He has become so sensitive that vision itself is now his subject. 

At the beginning of the conversation between then, MacDonald explores Joel's early life and career.  We learn of his Bronx upbringing and how his father taught him to box in order to be able to look after himself on the streets.  He relates how this upbringing helped his early career as a street photographer.  The conversation moves on to why Meyerowitz is now using colour and 8x10 format.  He says that he wanted to see and experience more feelings from a photograph and he wanted larger images that would more fully describe things and with greater cohesion.  Slow-speed colour film provided that.  When asked what inspires him to take a photograph, he replies that it is instinctive.  He suggests that sometimes he can be standing in front of something so entranced that he almost forgets to press the shutter until he tries to tear himself away.  It's at that breakaway moment, when he wants to move with the camera that he realises; Stay!  You're being spoken to - answer!"

MacDonald asks him about the difference between black and white and colour.  Joel tells us that colour is responsive to the full spectrum of light, whereas black and white is sensitive to a much narrower wavelength, similar to the rods and cones in our eyes and why at night we only see in shades of black and grey but with a long enough exposure the camera will record all colours as seen in Project 27.  He goes on to say that black and white expresses light as a matter of intensity; there is no meaning attached to the light.  Colour makes everything more interesting and he even suggests that light itself is a subject.  He tells us that his work on Cape Cod is about light.  MacDonald suggests that compared to his monochrome work, these images have a simplicity.  "Less is more", he says.  The conversation regarding his inspiration continues and we learn that the images are all about colour, light and shapes and come from within.  This is comparable with Adams' comment in Examples that "Professional work depends on assignments from without, whereas creative work stems from assignments from within."  Another of Adams' comments concurs with Meyerowitz, when he says "I can only say that I photograph what appears aesthetically beautiful and what I can visualise as a photograph worth creating for myself and, I hope, for others."  In other words Ansel Adams' work also comes from within.  Joel also tells us that when he sees the image upside down on the ground glass focusing screen, he sees a different image and this inspires him to take the shot.

Meyerowitz is asked who influenced him.  His first influence and the man who made him resign as an art director, buy a camera and go out on the streets was Robert Frank.  He then mentions people he met on the streets of New York and worked alongside.  People such as Lee Friedlander, Dianne Arbus and especially Garry Winogrand.  He reserves special mention, though, for his meetings with Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Truly inspirational images and a fascinating read.

Assignment 1: Your Neighbourhood; Tutor's Coments

I received my Tutor's comments just before Christmas, so I have been somewhat tardy in getting back to work.  It is always a nerve wracking experience sending in a first assignment to a new tutor, but I was delighted with his comments.  Not that everything was perfect; far from it.  What I was so pleased about was the very thorough way that he had looked at both the assignment and my learning log/blog so far, and made many very constructive and helpful comments.  I was also delighted with the comments about the photographs: " This is a strong set of images.  As we have already discussed, the technical aspects of photography are something you are already comfortable with and have a clear enjoyment in......."  Where my areas for development lie are in the self appraisal of my work, research and aspects of my learning log.  I have taken these pointers on board and am beginning to address them.  I need to review and expand on my self appraisal for this assignment and also make some alterations to and expand on my learning log.

In the light of my Tutor's comments I have revised my self appraisal for this assignment and include it below.  My only concern is that I have now exceeded to recommended length:

I live in a small suburb of Grimsby/Cleethorpes which sits on the Humber Estuary.  As I spend a lot of my time at Cleethorpes and on the beaches and salt marshes that border the resort with both my landscape and wildlife photography I have decided to base this assignment on this location as it is my 'local patch'.  I also used Cleethorpes as a subject for the very similar assignment in Photography 1: People and Place.  Having decided to use the Cleethorpes area again, I began by looking through my work for P&P and was rather pleased to feel that my work has definitely improved.  I think that the technical quality of my photographs is significantly better in post processing and also composition and I think that I have developed a better 'eye' when looking for subjects to photograph.  I then put those images to one side and went out to take some fresh ones especially for this assignment.  As well as conveying a strong sense of place, I also wanted to display a range of styles of photography in order to show both my tutor and, eventually, the assessment team that have have a knowledge and command of a range of genres and techniques..

Cleethorpes is small seaside resort adjoining the port of Grimsby.  I wanted to show some evidence of its use as a resort, as this is perhaps how the majority of people from away view the town, but to me Cleethorpes and its environs mean wide and expansive beaches, salt marshes and huge skies.  The estuary is of international importance for wildlife, and hundreds of thousands of waders, geese and waterfowl migrate to spend the winter here.  I feel that it is important that my photographs also illustrate this aspect of the area.  The beach at the southern end of the resort is a well known and popular location for kite surfing and I wanted to make it the subject of some of my photographs.  It would also give me the opportunity to include some action shots.  The kite surfing takes place within sight of the Bull and Haille sand forts, part of the first world war coastal defences.  Another aspect of Cleethorpes that I wanted to photograph was the town at night looking from the beach towards the prom.  The aim of shooting from this location was to capture a reflection of the lights in either the water or wet sand.  One small claim to fame for Cleethorpes is that it is on the Greenwich Meridian and the town makes quite a feature of this, one example being the meridian itself as a strip of metal with a notice board and signpost indicating both the north and south poles and their distances as well as such destinations as London, New York and Tokyo.  Although a flat estuarine part of the coast, the area does have its wrecks which are revealed at the lowest tides and I wanted to include these.

I made several photographic visits to my location during the late summer and autumn in order to cover the various subjects and optimum times.  For the night shots I needed the lights to be on, which I discovered only happens at weekends; the tide also needed to be right.  For my wader images I needed high tide to bring the birds within camera range.  I chose a high tide which coincided with sunrise and used only a medium telephoto as the aim was to  include the flock rather than portraits of individual birds.  For my 'tourist' pictures I opted for a sunny late summer weekend when there would be a good chance of plenty of visitors being present.  For some of the landscape shots it was necessary to keep an eye on weather forecasts and visit at sunrise and sunset.  Many times the hoped for explosion of colour at this time of day just didn't happen.  In discussion with my tutor, he suggested that "If we try to make work to a preconceived idea, we may miss something new, something unexpected.  He referred me to an interview of Tod Papgeorge by Alec Sloth from July 2007 where Papageorge comments:

My argument against the set-up picture is that it leaves the matter of content

to the IMAGINATION of the photographer, a faculty that, in my experience,

is generally deficient compared to the mad swirling possibilities that our

dear common world kicks up at us on a regular basis.

http://alecsothblog.wordpress.com/category/papageorge/

It was also suggested I look at a conversation between Quentin Bajac and Philip Gefter where Bajac refers to a discussion with Paul Graham where Graham states:

This is what photography is about. It is about having an idea at first and

accepting that you’re going to be seduced, in the etymological sense of the

word, by the world you’re encountering. Some photographers remain really

stiff and rigid. They have the idea. They just want to illustrate the idea. And,

then you have the opposite: photographers who go out to shoot without any

preconceived idea and then, afterwards, try to put all the pieces of the puzzle

together and construct something from their images, which is what has

happened in photography since the beginning.

http://www.aperture.org/blog/view-judgment-seat-quentin-bajacconversation-

philip-gefter/

To an extent, I agree with this but at the same time I do try to 'previsualise' images in the way that Ansel Adams and Edward Weston did.  I usually go out with some idea of what I hope to capture, be it landscape, wildlife or any other genre, but, at the same time, I keep my eye open for any opportunities that present themselves otherwise many pictures would be lost.  The image below is an example:

 I was walking in Derbyshire at the beginning of 2012 and had in mind landscape images of the Dove Valley but the weather was cold wet and overcast.  As we left Pilsbury Castle I noticed a patch of sun sweeping down the valley and prepared to take a photograph when it was positioned perfectly.  Fortuitously a rainbow appeared just at that moment.  I pressed the shutter! 

In an interview for Outdoor Photgraphy magazine (issue 175), when asked the question about his new book 'Vision' " In the Vision you emphasise the imortance of preparation, but are there benefits to shooting spontaneously?", he answers:

Absolutely.  Some of my best photographs were taken in spontaneous moments, and The Vision is littered with them - including the cover image.  Opportunities for spontaneous creativity are more likely if we are out there in photographically promising situations in the first placed.  The final picture is often a radical departure from the original idea, due to nature delivering the unexpected - but I always need the starting point: an idea and a plan.

I feel that this is the approach I take myself.

I have chosen to present the assignment as a set of digital images on a DVD along with my  self-appraisal as a word document.  In this way it could later be easily presented for final assessment.  All parts of this assignment are also on my learning blog. I have presented the images in an order to represent one typical day from sunrise to after dark.  Although the brief doesn't as for a chronology, I am used to using my images to tell a story.  I use my wildlife, landscape and travel photographs as a basis for illustrated talks to a wide variety of groups and here the story format is important.  I envisaged that if the photographs were hung or used in a slide show format it would be better for them to be seen on a 'chronological' order to tell the story of a typical day in Cleethorpes. The image files are JPEGS at 1284 pixels longest side and 72 dpi to be suitable for viewing on screen.  When I print images I print straight from Lightroom at 300dpi using the appropriate ICC profile for the paper I use.  I have used Adobe RGB colour space as there is a wider range in the colour palette at this setting and therefore more vibrant colours.  I usually also have my camera set to Adobe RGB.

I do the minimum of post processing and like Ansel, Adams and Edward Weston, I try to' previsualise' an image and capture that image in camera. My workflow and post processing is similar for all of my photographs after capture:

·         import into Lightroom 5;

·         crop if needed;

·         adjust exposure/levels;

·         if necessary adjust the white balance/colour temperature;

·         if necessary employ the ND grad feature in Lightroom after using the highlight slider;

·         increase clarity and vibrance slightly and, depending if I have increased the colour temperature, slightly increase the saturation.

I tend not to use ND grads in the field as my cokin ones can give a magenta colour cast.  I use the ND grad facility in Lightroom 5 as I know that it is neutral.  By and large, although I will often bracket exposures ready for HDR, I do not make use of the technique preferring the effect of using one image and ND grad filters.  Having said that the monochrome shot of the wreck with Grimsby dock tower in the background is an HDR shot.

My final selection of images was made on the basis of technical quality, although to some extent this is personal and subjective; another person may well have chosen a totally different set from my shortlist.  I also selected images that helped to tell 'my story' of Cleethorpes and its varied aspects and represented a range of styles.

I feel that my portfolio matches my original aims: show a variety of genres and styles and the varied aspects of the town.  However, I feel that editing down to only 15 images perhaps didn't give enough scope to show everything I wanted.  In retrospect I may have been better sticking to one genre, in which case I would have opted for landscape. I have included the genres of landscape, wildlife, street photography, action and sports photography and night photography.  The majority, perhaps, fall into the landscape and street photography categories and, possibly, it would have been better to have gone for a more even spread.  I do feel that I have given a good picture of the resort and shown its varied aspects.  When thinking about and researching for this assignment, I gained inspiration from the work of Joel Meyerowitz in his book 'Cape Light'.  The first of my images of a Cleethorpes Sunrise reminds me of several from Cape Light such as Plate 24 Bay/Sky, Dusk, Provincetown and Plate 21 Bay/Sky, Provincetown.  My long exposure Pan image of the beach dunes and sky also reminds me of some of his more abstract work.  My street/social documentary shots remind me of some of the ones in Cape Light such as Plate 12 Ballston Beach, Truro and also Plate 8 with the same title.  

http://mikespwdplearninglog.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Reading%20and%20Research%2006

I have already mentioned the link to John Hinde's work at The Photographer's Gallery in my blog from my picture of the fairground ride. 

http://mikespwdplearninglog.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Reading%20and%20Research%2001

I have long been a fan of the work of Galen Rowell and often use his work as inspiration.  In his book, Mountain Light, he mentions that he rated his  Kodachrome 64 film at 80 and Kodachrome II (ASA 25) at 32 in order to achieve the rich saturated effect in his images that he preferred.  I too like to see well saturated rich images, but nowadays we have the benefit of being able to tweak this in post processing to achieve the same result.  Nevertheless, although I take not of the histogram when I am making exposures my default mode is to set my exposure compensation to - 1/3 or - 2/3 in the same way that Rowell uprated his Kodachrome film stock.

The Night Sky.

Inspired by Stargazing live on BBC2 and a good prediction, I decided to go out into the Lincolnshire Wolds Aurora hunting last night.  I had no luck so tried a couple of star shots.  From previous experience and research I knew that 30 seconds at f4 with my 10-22 lens set at 10mm and an ISO of 800 would give acceptable results.  I plced the camera on a very sturdy tripod and hung a heavy camera back from it to decrease the risk of camera movement.  I used a 2 sec self timer.  Apart form all this technical info, it was a stunning night (12.00 - 1.00 am).  I expected there to be less light pollution than the was out in the Wolds; it's amazing how a 30 sec exposure captures a glow even when there appears to be none.  It is possible to get rid of this by decreasing the colour temperature but I don't dislike the effect.

To view large, click on an image.

The car with The Plough above.

Jupiter top left and Orion.