Google Plus

I’ve put up an album on Google+ after some encouragement from some friends. I’m still dipping my toes and still a little clueless about this whole social networking stuff. What does impress me is the layout of the albums which is a whole lot more slick than facebook. Check out my selection of Paris black and white images here. What do you think of the presentation?

Palais du Louvre

I’ve added some panoramas to the Paris portfolio recently. These ones from the Louvre consist of around 10 vertical frames taken with a 16-35mm lens, stitched together in Photoshop CS5. No specialised equipment pano gear was used, just my Gitzo Traveller tripod and  the smallest Really Right Stuff ball head and L-plate combination.

It’s a format I’ve never had much love for previously but the city of Paris certainly lends itself to panoramas. I find the trick is to try to keep the ratio of elements (e.g. sky : buildings : foreground) the same through each frame and the focus locked in. The levels of detail is quite stunning. I’ve included a 100% zoom window from “The Pyramid Pool” which shows the smaller reflected glass pyramid and the statues behind it, barely visible in the blog image and even the 1680 pixel version on the website.

The Pyramid Pool

Pyramid Pool at 100%

Also check out the 1680 pixel versions of the panoramas on the website below.

Pyramid Pool

Palais du Louvre

Notre-Dame By Night

Last year I was able to attend the Diane Arbus exhibition at Jeu de Paume in Paris. While it was interesting and I admired many of the images, I must confess that it wasn’t really my cup of tea. Almost the entire collection was dedicated to portraits of the marginalized, transvestites, intellectually handicapped and deformed. By the time I reached what turned out to be a very lengthy exhibition it had all become a bit too much. There was a quote on printed on a wall which has stuck with me a while.

“A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know.” Diane Arbus 1971

I found this quote rather puzzling. Did she make up these words to perplex people? Or because it simply sounds kind of cool? The words have started to make more sense lately. Every photograph can tell truths or lies and sometimes both. The viewer won’t know the difference and it’s all part of the enigma of the art.

I don’t use composites and almost all my work consists of straight shots from a single RAW file processed through a workflow that takes 5-10 minutes. Even though my approach is somewhat more purist than most, I can easily manipulate a situation to tell the story I want.

Take this photo of a lady with her umbrella on a rainy night in front of Notre-Dame. She was talking on her mobile phone and spent about 15 minutes on the quay, mainly with her back turned to the river. She turned around to face the cathedral long enough for me to shoot a few frames. Does knowing this change how you initially felt about the photograph? When you see an image, you don’t really know about the event, the context or how the photographer decided to interpret it. I think this was what Diane Arbus was alluding to. Personally, I feel that sometimes we talk so much about what went on behind the scenes that it takes the intrigue out of our own photography.

Large version of Notre-Dame by Night

Monello the Jester

Today, Naturescapes.net announced their “Images of the Year”. This means that the two nature photography forums I am currently involved with have now made their selections from the photos submitted over the past year. Special congratulations to Paul Marcellini whose image “Frozen Tempest” took out the 1st place in the landscape category for both Naturescapes and Nature Photographers Network. Just click on the hyperlinks to check out the photos the respective moderating teams thought to be the stand-outs of the year.

I am of course delighted and honoured to have been named winner in the “Travel & Culture” category in the NSN awards. It’s the first time a portrait of mine has been recognised in this way. I don’t often talk about gear on this blog since these days, I find it difficult to get too excited about the newest and latest gadgets. The Canon 5DMkII provides more than enough resolution for my needs and my lenses do well enough to get the job done. My main gripes are the 5DMkII’s poor environmental sealing (it seems to stop working every time it rains) as well as the corner softness and distortion on my 16-35mm 2.8L. The one piece of gear I really love though is my portrait lens, the Canon 85mm 1.2LII. It’s a chunky nugget of a lens, focus is sluggish and it’s difficult to use wide open. But get it right and the images have pop, great contrast and the bokeh is beautiful. Being able to shoot at such wide apertures has allowed me to work without flash. It’s the lens I used to capture this portrait of Monello with the technical details handheld at ISO 400, f2, 1/500. I’ll certainly be packing it when I return to Venice for Carnevale in a couple of weeks.

Wired

“Wired” is an example of going out with the limitations of a fixed lens and seeing what you come back with. I shot this with the 85mm wide open at f1.2. Most monochrome photos of Paris celebrate nostalgia and “golden age”, however I wanted to show something of the city today. Perhaps I should have named this “Wireless” instead since many parks now offer internet connection through wifi. So here is a glimpse of Tuileries in the age of Facebook, Twitter and Lady Gaga.

Pont des Arts

Recently I have received a couple of requests for biographies to go with publications. I usually just send off a cut and paste job from the “About Me” page on my website. You may recall around the time I started this blog, I wrote an article “Writing a Photographer’s Bio”. It seems that each year, I prune off a few more sentences so decided I would just go the whole hog and the last bio I sent off just reads “Kah Kit Yoong (Photographer 2005-)”. I’m hoping that this approach will save me some time and a great deal of brain pain in the future.

Truth be told, how I came to become a photographer is not all that interesting. I used to spend a lot of time on my road bike and employed a point-and-shoot to record the places I cycled to. I’m sure most of us have asked ourselves the question “Why do I take photographs?” Answers to this question often involve some way of expressing stopping time. I think “Time Catcher”, a name coined by Patrick Di Fruscia was a particularly elegant way to put this.

A few weeks ago, while researching French photographers, I came across the work of Jeanloup Sieff and purchased his book “40 Years of Photography”. His talents covered the fields of landscape, fashion, street and portraits. Sieff’s first answer to the question was amusing yet probably true for many of us photographers. “Because someone gave me a camera”. Of course why we took photographs at the start of our journey may well be different to the reasons why we continue to take them now. Sieff’s final answer is simple – “sheer pleasure”.

Personally, there are many reasons why I take photographs. The most satisfying of these, is that my images allow me to go back in time. I can marvel at the way sunlight turned the raindrops into glittering diamonds at my leisure in “Paris is Most Beautiful in the Rain”. From the most trifling moments to the great dramatic memories, photos allow me to relive the moment. Sometimes they reveal aspects of the scene that may not be obvious in the frame. On other occasions, I might be delighted by a minor detail that I didn’t notice at the time.

St Germain Street Scene

In this street scene from St Germain des Pres, depicting the Parisian cafe life, there’s something interesting about every character in the scene. (You’ll need to see the large version to make out what each person is up to). Certainly there was more going on than I could take in while standing in the rain trying to blend in. I’m sure that without this record, it would be a memory which would disappear into the ether of everyday life.

Much less likely to be forgotten is my experience on the Cornwall coast a few weeks ago, being battered by storms and a gale force wind at sunset. With golden light illuminating the majestic cliffs and the strains of Peter Hurford’s towering performance of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor powering through my headphones, the occasion certainly made an impression. Nevertheless, all memories become dulled by the passage of time and photographs make great time machines.

King of the World

This morning, I engaged in my first landscape shoot of the year. Driving into Bude after a week of fine weather in Paris, I was reacquainted with my old Cornish friends : dense fog, driving rain, strong winds and a featureless overcast sky. Nothing had changed by the time I drove out to the beach the next morning. Fortunately this was one of those locations that has never failed to deliver a memorable experience, whether I came back empty handed or not. Even when blowing a gale, the conditions only add to the windswept ruggedness of the place. I was content to walk up and down the shoreline and marvel at the rusty cliffs, smooth rock formations, orange sand and the aquamarine water in the tidal pools. There was no hurry; whether I even made a single exposure was of no consequence.

At its most transcendental level, landscape photography becomes an almost spiritual pursuit. Watching the elements of earth, sea and sky interact, you are confronted by higher powers whether you believe in a higher entity or science. To take this analogy a step further, does a person pray because they have faith or because they expect results? Is the success of a morning outing dependent on whether the photographer bagged a shot or not? What is the best measure of how good a workshop is? The number of images added to a portfolio. How much you learned? Or perhaps how much you enjoyed it?

One aspect of landscape photography that I find increasingly tiresome, is the persistent trophy-hunting style of making images. It’s photography on steroids : more extreme angles, more intense colours, more post-processing and the rush to nail a shot at the most recent discovered location. Of course there are times when it is necessary to pursue an idea relentlessly, after all photos don’t take themselves. However when the hunt becomes an ingrained part of the art, it’s time to slow down. Instead of trying to score a great sunrise or sunset, with time I’ve become more concerned with listening to the story a place has to tell and what I have to say.

Caressing the Sea

So what happened this morning on my first landscape shoot of the year? I eventually settled on a composition that incorporated the features that I had found most striking during my stroll. While setting up, a small break opened in the sea mist and sky – too long after sunrise to produce any colours but it added luminosity to the subtle colours of the scene and a touch of mystery. It was the perfect expression of my mood this morning.

Of course the large version on the website is much nicer and can be found here.

Paris is Most Beautiful in the Rain

With 2011 just gone, it seems an appropriate time for many people to do a retrospective of their best shots of the year. The difficulty for me in doing the same is that I now tend to keep my very best work in the bag, to be released as publications, blog articles or competition entries when their time has arrived. The buzz I used to feel for immediately showing my latest and greatest has diminished with time. For me, travel and landscape photography is still a completely self-driven endeavour; I shoot only for myself. If I derive enjoyment from my results, then I am satisfied. If I don’t, no amount of accolades from the outside world will convince me otherwise. It is interesting to see how letting images stew for months or even years has on one’s perception of them. You grow more fond of the best ones. Unfortunately many others don’t fair so well over time.

For the first time in many years, my favourite image has nothing to do with nature photography. Instead it falls equally appropriately into the categories of either travel or street photography. The title “Paris is Most Beautiful in the Rain” comes from a line in Woody Allen’s latest movie “Midnight in Paris”. I actually watched the movie on my return to Australia, about a week after making this photo. There were many aspects of this film and its main character, Gil Pender which I identified with. It was a wonderful coincidence that the final scene of the film takes place on the same bridge as my photo, both in the rain.

This was one of those elusive ‘perfect moments’ that I have only experienced a handful of times as a photographer. It was captured on a day which I had not expected to take any photos. A friend had arrived from London and we were showing her around Paris for the day. During the afternoon, a thunderstorm very suddenly appeared over the city. The deluge that followed caught almost everyone unawares. Umbrellas were useless against the horizontal wall of water that had girls screaming and everyone running full pelt to find some shelter. We eventually found respite at a construction site where the workers kindly allowed many wet and soggy people to stand under the scaffolding. After several minutes, I asked myself why I wasn’t out there in the rain photographing people’s reaction to all this. I spent the next 20 minutes in the autumn shower, soaked to the bone with water in my shoes, thunder and lightning cracking above. This image depicts the moment after the sea of clouds had parted to reveal the sun, backlighting the raindrops so that they appeared like a shower of diamonds in the air. These details really do need to be seen in the large version on the website gallery found here. Many elements had to come together for this image and the result you see here is the full-frame image without any manipulations or cloning.

It is the imperfect moments which prepare the photographer for the perfect moment.

Otherwise how do we learn to anticipate its arrival, recognise the potential for it to occur and finally to make an adequate execution of the craft so that the moment doesn’t slip from one’s grasp? These perfect instances remain intangible until the photographer has completed his task. If the composition is not compelling or the technique poor, that moment will no longer be perceived as perfect.

Here’s hoping that everyone gets their perfect moment in 2012!

Sand Patterns at Uluru

There have been a number of thought-provoking articles in the last year regarding the issues of copying, imitation and the never ending-stream of iconic views appearing on photography websites. Although the issue has been on my mind, I have not felt compelled to participate in those discussions till now. A recent blog article by David Leland Hyde has brought these thoughts to the surface again and prompted me to give my perspective.

Let me start off by stating how I personally operate. I’m not interested in imitating the work of other photographers. The goal of online research is to see what has already been accomplished at each location so that I’m not repeating similar shots taken by others. I have never contacted another photographer to ask where he or she made a particular shot. If someone volunteers information about where I can find a ‘great shot’, this will make me less interested in the location. I don’t want to do what has been done by others before. My preference is to scout, explore and work locations on my own. Being resourceful and learning how to assess the photographic potential of a location using your own eyes is a skill in itself. Those who constantly ask others for coordinates hoping to shoot something similar do not develop these skills and will always follow in the footsteps of others, figuratively and literally.

I believe that these concerns about copying and iconic locations becoming tarnished by over-exposure are a response to being bombarded by the glut of competent but often uninspired landscape photography. These are not new sentiments specific to the explosion of interest in photography during the digital age. In my research of street photography in Paris, I found this rather disdainful comment about photographers shooting Place de la Concorde by Robert Doisneau in 1962 :  “Like moths, photographers are drawn to the lights of Place de la Concorde. They circle around the splashing fountains, trying to get the perfect shot. This they will then foist on dinner guests back home.”

Magic Hour Concorde

While I have more original interpretations of Place de la Concorde, I think the glorious sunrise does enough to make this a distinctive view of the icon. 

It is important to note that many of those sharing their views in blog articles are very experienced and accomplished photographers who are well advanced down their creative paths. On the other hand, just like Doisneau’s photographers, most people are not seeking to become the next Galen Rowell. They are are just aiming to make a few prints that they like enough to put up on their walls. Even for those who have loftier goals in photography, during those first years of photography, one is consumed with developing the technical aspects of one’s craft and making aesthetically pleasing images rather than being concerned with originality or sharpening one’s vision. I know that in my first couple of years as a photographer, I regarded making a technically perfect postcard standard image in nice light as an accomplishment. Nowadays, unless I have something new to say about Uluru, or the Twelve Apostles, those images will never see light of day on my website galleries. I’ve photographed enough iconic locations to know that sometimes you do luck out on some unique conditions. And being able to come up with something out of the ordinary or an original take of a classic view can be very satisfying – the equivalent of pulling the proverbial rabbit out of the hat. However, if the conditions are ordinary or I’m lacking in inspiration, it’s often more satisfying to enjoy the view than go through the motions of getting ‘the shot’ to complete the collection.

Supernatural

I used my car’s headlights to ‘light paint’ the grasses in the foreground to create a unique look to this Uluru photograph.

The Island Arch

This photo of the Island Arch was one of the most famous landmarks on the Great Ocean Road. I’ve only visited the location once and was blessed with a spectacular sunset. Given it’s popularity as a ‘standard view’, I was not too fond of the shot at the time. However, shortly after my visit, the arch collapsed and the fact that this view is no longer possible makes me treasure the photo a little more.

The question to ponder when you’re lining up that classic shot is whether imitation will be merely a stepping stone towards a more creative approach or the end of the road. If the latter is acceptable then there is no problem with shooting what thousands have done before and many more will do in the future. However, if you’re seeking to distinguish yourself as an artist, learning to harness your personal vision should become a priority.

Forest Echoes, Blue Mountains

A Beautiful End

The first email I received in 2012 was a piece of spam from a company claiming that they had been studying the MHT website and could offer their services in improving web traffic. Ironically, www.magichourtravelscapes.com’s Alexa ranking of 400,000 plus (not bad for a photography website) was higher than their own ranking of around 3,000,000. Even though web popularity is hardly an indicator of quality, it is nice to know that my photography and blog is being appreciated around the world. A big thank you to everyone who visited the galleries and particularly those who contributed to the blog discussions.

It was another successful year in terms of photography contests.

• The only honour roll  I missed out on was “Take a View” although two images made it to the shortlist.
• Making it to the Veolia Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition at the British Natural History Museum for the second year running was my highlight of 2011. This year I was recognized in the “Animals in Their Environment” section.
• “Dawn Stars” also made it to the commended list in the Nature’s Best Windland  Smith Rice Awards. I’m hoping that it will go on to be part of the 2012 exhibition at the Smithsonian in Washington DC.
• First place in the “Threatened Species” category with a bird image in ANZANG, Australia’s most prestigious nature photography competition, was particularly encouraging, reminding me to look beyond the landscape when in the field. I also was successful in the landscape and environmental sections of this competition.
• I closed out the year with a win in the extremely popular Digital Camera Magazine “Photographer of the Year” contest – 1st place for landscapes with “Symphony of the Thousands”. Thanks to Gustav Mahler for the title!

Rabbit Proof Fence on display at the South Australian Museum's ANZANG exhibition

Dawn Stars at the British Natural History Museum

The ANZANG exhibition is travels around Australia. The Veolia WPOTY 2011 exhibition recently opened at the Australian Museum in Sydney. I was blown away by the difference between seeing many of the photos in print at the museums compared to the yearbooks.

Veolia WPOTY Exhibition opening at the British Natural History Museum in London

MHT ran its first international workshop, a 19-day expedition around the south island of New Zealand. Some of the awesome locations we visited included : majestic Mount Cook, the wild west coast (where I photographed “Dawn Stars”), the lush rainforests and petrified shores of the Catlins, autumnal foliage around Queenstown and Lake Tekapo and the meeting of mountains and the ocean at Kaikoura. The workshop participant gallery will be up for a few more weeks here.

Shooting the Catlins during the NZ workshop

Some of you may have noticed that over the last year, I have shifted my focus towards the genre of travel which requires a more holistic approach to photographing destinations. Together with a diminishing reliance on magic hour light and more on composition as well as the recent emphasis on black and white, I may have to consider rebranding. How does KKYPhotography sound?

Overall there were not a lot of shooting days in 2011- less than 60, including the time spent running the New Zealand workshop. The only other landscape destination was Cornwall where I spent a few weeks scouting its impressive coastlines. Conditions were challenging overall but fortunately at the three most important locations, some good light turned up when it counted most.

Just Another Morning in Paris

Two weeks in Paris was a real shot in the arm for my travel photography. I took my work in architecture, street and portraits a new level and hope to expand my Paris portfolio further this year as part of a larger project. A couple of useful and unexpected developments came out of this last trip : a flirtation with the panoramic format and learning a great deal more about monochrome conversions.

The year kicked off with a quick trip to northern Italy. With Carnevale in Venice just around the corner now, I can only say that it’s always a fantastic experience, one that I hope to repeat each year if possible. Every year, many of the masks return and I look forward to seeing their new ‘characters’.

On a final note, I don’t have a lot planned for 2012. Since I will probably be working without an assistant this year, any workshops are likely to be shorter and with smaller groups. Those interested in a New Zealand, Australia, Paris or Cornwall should email me on the MHT website and we can discuss tailoring an itinerary to a small group. Look out for updates on the MHT gallery as some of my best stuff from Paris and Cornwall are still to come.

Last but not least, I would like to use my first blog in 2012 to introduce you to www.whytake.net the brainchild of Alister Benn, Juanli Sun, Anca Minican and Rafael Rojas. Many of my favourite nature photographers are involved in this global network and this ambitious project is already off to a great start. Seeing so many fantastic images on the one website from this impressive line-up of nature photographers cannot fail to inspire.

Happy New Year and excellent light to you all!

Wilderness Coast

In the final part of my series on black and white photography, I’m going to discuss some of the creative decisions involved in converting colour images.

The decision to go black and white was a bit of a no-brainer in this first example, “Wilderness Coast”. This seascape from the wonderful west coast was shot during my workshop in New Zealand this year. The overcast conditions at dawn imparted a blue cast to the scene and the limited colour palette made it a natural candidate for a conversion. While there are strong textural elements : sky, rocks and water, none of these rely on colour to give it shape or definition.

In colour, “Wilderness Coast” looks somewhat flat, but the extra headroom to increase contrast afforded by black and white allows a much more dramatic presentation. Cranking up the contrast in the same way in a colour photo would give it an over-processed unnatural look. A high resolution version of (my newly reworked in SEP2) Wilderness Coast is now available here. 

Lets contrast this with a photograph that relies on a wide variety of colours to help separate elements.  This is from a charming village on the Lizard peninsula of Cornwall. The orange lichen creates interest in what would otherwise be large slabs of drab dark coloured rocks. The aquamarine colour of the water also helps to separate visually the various land masses in the scene. Lastly the pink clouds naturally produce a visually pleasing contrast with the blue sky. On this occasion the black and white version is not nearly as effective.

Lizard Land

One of the locations that I have struggled with during my visits to Paris has been the Tuileries Gardens. The masters of French street photography have always had a fascination for the metal chairs that one finds in the parks and gardens, whether anyone is sitting in them or not. The spatial arrangements, the mystery as to who may have been sitting in the empty chairs and even the patterns that their legs leave in the gravel when dragged to other positions have provided inspiration to photographers for centuries. One afternoon I arrived to find an arrangement which compelled me to finally take out my camera. The most important aspect to this composition was the symmetry of the people and seats in the foreground. This gets a little lost in the colour version and converting the image to black and white removes many of the distractions in a busy scene.

Afternoon at Tuileries

An additional tweak I used to emphasise the symmetry in the arrangement of people and chairs was to process the majority of the scene in high-key, but leaving the foreground subjects dark enough to stand out from the rest of the frame.

One of the other subjects of Parisian street photography I was keen to add to my portfolio was the vibrant ‘cafe life’. Outside tables are well set up for people-watching. These chairs and benches are usually made from straw which take on a shiny appearance in the right light. The tables are always round.

Once again, there are many elements that distract when in shown colour. I wanted to distill the scene to its most basic elements in monochrome : the patterns of straw in the chairs and bench, the round shape of the tables, the lady in motion and the more distant figure who seems to be significant in the balance he brings to the composition. Taking this effort to simplify the scene even further, I have allowed the sky and building on the other side of the road to blow out in exposure so that the focus is firmly on the elements I want the viewer to concentrate on. Finally, the sense of nostalgia, timelessness and elegance of the sepia version is completely lacking in colour.

Take Five