Category: Photography comment

On Noticing

Posted on June 4, 2026 by dougchinnery - Photography comment, Photography Tips

There is a particular quality of light that arrives on Uist in the late afternoon of a clear day in autumn — low, slanting, the colour of weak whisky — that lasts perhaps eleven minutes before it shifts again. If you are inside the house when it comes, you miss it. If you are outside but engaged in tug of war with Eddie and his current favourite bit of stick, you miss it. If you are walking the machair with someone and deep in conversation, you miss it. The light does not announce itself. It does not wait. It simply arrives, holds for a breath, and is gone.

This, I have come to believe, is the whole business of being an artist. Not technique, not gear, not even ideas in the first instance. Noticing.

I know I talk a great deal about seeing — about learning to see abstractly, to see beyond the obvious subject, to see the shape inside the thing rather than the thing itself. But seeing is the second act. The first is noticing that there is something worth seeing in the first place. And noticing, I am increasingly convinced, is the rarest faculty most of us possess and the one we most rapidly lose. I am convinced because I realise I am guilty of this myself.

The faculty we are taught to lose

Children notice everything. A puddle is an event. A beetle on a stone holds them for half an hour. The way frost forms a feather on the inside of a window in winter is, to a child, plainly miraculous, because they have not yet been told it is ordinary. Somewhere between five and fifteen we are slowly taught that most things are not worth looking at, that the world has been catalogued already, that to stop and stare is faintly embarrassing. And so we walk through our days half-blind, sleepwalking past the small wonders, saving our attention for the screen, the schedule, the next thing.

The wonderful Scottish painter Joan Eardley, walking the cliffs at Catterline in all weathers, understood this. She would stand in a storm with her easel weighted down by stones, lashed by the same sea spray her neighbours were sheltering from, and paint what she saw. The villagers, kindly enough, thought her a little mad. She thought them, I suspect, a little asleep. Her work survives — those great heavy paintings of grey sea and grey sky — because she was willing to be the only one in the village still looking when everyone else had gone indoors.

To make abstract work that comes from somewhere true rather than somewhere borrowed, we have to undo this gradual closing-down of the eye. We have to become, again, the kind of person who stops on a wet pavement because a slick of oil from a passing car has bloomed into a small Helen Frankenthaler at our feet. The kind of person who notices that the rust on a harbour bollard has the exact ochre of a piece of Antoni Tàpies, and stays there long enough to photograph it badly nineteen times before getting the frame they wanted. The kind of person who sees that the shadow of a fence post on grass in March is not grey but a complicated, restless blue.

What the great noticers had in common

The photographers and artists whose work moves me most are not, on the whole, the ones with the most expensive cameras or the cleverest software. They are the ones who appear to have decided, quietly and without fuss, to pay closer attention than anyone else in the room.

Agnes Martin walked alone in the New Mexico desert for hours at a time, looking at the line of the horizon until she could draw it from the inside. Her grids, which to a casual eye look almost identical, are in fact the residue of a lifetime of looking at very small differences — the difference between one pale band of sky and the pale band beneath it, the difference between this morning and yesterday morning. The work is the noticing made visible.

Wilhelmina Barns-Graham went to Switzerland in 1949 and stood inside the Grindelwald glacier. She wrote afterwards of feeling its weight, its interior light, the way the ice held blue and green and white all at once. The drawings and paintings that followed — those marvellous ringed and folded forms — were not invented. They were noticed, and then translated.

Raymond Moore — that quiet English photographer of edges and margins, of caravan parks and harbour walls and the awkward joins between things — spent his life photographing what no one else thought worth photographing. He once said that the photographs he made were of “things found, not things sought”. The distinction is everything. A thing sought is a thing already imagined. A thing found is a thing that was waiting for someone awake enough to see it.

Or take Saul Leiter, who lived in the same few blocks of New York’s East Village for sixty years and never ran out of pictures. The same streets, the same windows, the same red and yellow umbrellas in the same falling snow. What he had was not novelty of subject but depth of attention. He looked harder than anyone else at the place he happened to be.

There is a thread running through all these artists, and it is not technique. It is patience of the eye.

The Hebridean education

Out here on North Uist, noticing is made easier by emptiness. There is less to distract you. A decaying old corrugated iron sheep shed dissolving into the Machir can hold your attention for the whole of a morning. The Atlantic does not move the way the North Sea moves, and once you have noticed that, you cannot unsee it. The sky changes character three or four times an hour, and after a year of living under it you begin to know its moods the way you know the moods of a person you live with.

The Gaelic-speaking poets of these islands understood noticing as a serious discipline, long before any of us came to it through cameras. There is a word in Gaelic, dùthchas, that has no clean English equivalent — it means something like a deep, inherited belonging to a particular place, a knowing of it in the bones. The Uist poet Aonghas MacNeacail and, before him, Sorley MacLean from Raasay, wrote out of that kind of knowing. Their poems are full of small, exact noticings — a particular stone, a particular angle of light on a particular slope, the way the wind comes off a specific stretch of water — that could only have been written by someone who had stood in that place long enough to be quiet inside it.

This is the lesson the island teaches, slowly, to anyone who will listen. That noticing is not a quick flick of the eye. It is a kind of staying. You have to be willing to remain in front of a thing long enough for it to begin to speak. The first thirty seconds tell you almost nothing. The first thirty seconds are mostly your own mind, still chattering, still labelling, still moving on. It is the second minute, and the third, and the thirtieth where the thing in front of you begins to come forward and reveal what it actually is.

The Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön talks about staying — staying with discomfort, staying with boredom, staying with whatever is in front of you instead of fleeing into the next thing. I think the artist’s version of staying is exactly this. To remain in front of an ordinary subject long enough for it to stop being ordinary. To outlast your own boredom. To let the world begin to disclose itself.

Noticing without an island

But you do not need an island. You need a willingness. Noticing is, in the end, a small daily act of disobedience. It is refusing the speed the world is asking of you.

It is standing in front of the kitchen sink in the morning and seeing that the water coming from the tap, lit by the window, holds within it every silver Hiroshi Sugimoto ever made. It is walking the same lane you have walked for ten years and finding, today, that the moss on the stone wall is a different green than it was last week, and wondering why. It is sitting in the car park outside the supermarket for a minute longer than you need to, because the puddle by the trolley bay has a sky in it. It is the bus shelter at dusk. The condensation on the windscreen. The way the strip light in the corridor at the dentist makes the carpet look like a Mark Rothko, if Rothko had ever painted carpet.

The Surrealists, for all their theatrical nonsense, were right about one thing: that the marvellous is hiding inside the ordinary, and that most of us walk past it because we have been trained to. André Breton’s idea of ‘le merveilleux quotidien’ — the everyday marvellous — is a phrase worth keeping. It is not that extraordinary things are happening in extraordinary places. It is that extraordinary things are happening everywhere, all the time, and our job is to be the one person on the street who saw it.

The American poet Mary Oliver, who built an entire body of work out of walking the same New England woods over and over, put it as plainly as anyone ever has. “Attention,” she wrote, “is the beginning of devotion.” Not a bad sentence to keep pinned somewhere in the studio.

Why the camera comes second

There is a danger, of course, in being an artist who works with a camera, which is that the camera can become a substitute for the eye. We can lift it before we have looked. We can begin clicking before we have noticed. We can produce a great quantity of images without ever having paid attention to anything.

This is the difference, I think, between a photograph made by someone who was barely there and a photograph made by someone who stopped, and breathed, and saw. The first kind is everywhere — Instagram is largely a vast warehouse of them. The second kind is rare, and you know it when you encounter it, because it carries something across to you that no amount of technique can fake. There is a person behind it. There is someone who was awake.

This is why I keep returning to the idea that the picture is only ever as deep as the looking that led to it. A photograph made in haste, by an eye that has not paused, will look like exactly that — no matter how perfectly exposed, no matter how cleverly processed. And a photograph made by someone who has noticed, deeply, before lifting the camera, will carry that depth into the print. Other people will feel it even if they cannot say why.

Robert Adams, the great American landscape photographer, wrote that “form is beauty made visible”. I would add to that, perhaps, that form is also noticing made visible. The form of a good photograph is the trace of an act of attention. You can read the quality of the looking in the bones of the picture.

A small practice

So I would offer, this week, a small assignment. More a habit than a task.

Once a day, for the next seven days, find one thing that you would normally walk past, and stand with it for a full minute. Do not photograph it. Do not write about it. Just look. See what happens to it, and to you, in that minute. See whether the first thing you noticed about it is still the most interesting thing about it after sixty seconds. (It almost never is.) Notice where your eye goes when you let it wander. Notice what you notice second, and third, and fourth, after the obvious thing has worn off. Notice what you feel. Notice what you remember.

If you want to extend it, do the same exercise in the second week, but this time choose somewhere you go often — your own kitchen, the path to your car, the view from your sitting room window — and treat it as if you had never seen it before. Pretend you have just arrived from somewhere else, and this is the first time. You will be astonished at what has been there all along, waiting.

Then, in the third week, take your camera out. But carry the same minute with you. Before you lift the camera, stand. Before you press the shutter, stay. Let the noticing come first, and let the photograph be the natural consequence of it, rather than a substitute for it.

You will find, I think, that the work changes. Not because you have learned anything new about exposure or intentional movement or layering, but because you have remembered something old. That the world is, and always has been, quietly extraordinary. That most people are not looking. And that the small, stubborn act of looking anyway — of being the one who notices the eleven minutes of whisky-coloured light, the oil slick on the pavement, the moss that has changed colour since last week — is, perhaps, the most important thing we do as artists.

Everything else, in the end, is only the work of carrying that noticing across to someone else.

If this is the kind of looking you have been hungry for, FYV is a small community of photographers who are quietly leaving the rules behind and finding their own way into more painterly, more abstract, more personal work. We would be very glad to have you. You can find out more here. You can use the code VISION15 to get 15% discount on the annual membership on top of the usual two free months, and two-week free trial period.

When the World Has Become Too Familiar.

Posted on May 29, 2026 by dougchinnery - Photography comment, Photography Tips, Uncategorized

A November Day… in Worksop

This morning I walked Eddie along the lane near the cottage in a thin, persistent mizzle.

May, apparently. The Scots have a wonderful word for such days. ‘Driech’.

North Uist had other ideas. The island had put on its November face: low cloud, wet grass, a pewter sky pressed down over the crofts, the road blackened by rain, the lochans half-erased, the distance withdrawn into itself. Somewhere beyond the fence line, a curlew called. That sound always seems to me less like birdsong than a question carried on cold air. An oystercatcher went over, sharp and indignant, stitching its cry across the grey.

There was no drama. No shaft of light. No grand Hebridean revelation. Just damp, sheep, road, wire, grass, breath, dog, weather.

And yet, because this is North Uist, I know how it can look from elsewhere.

It can look as though inspiration is simply lying about here. Empty beaches. Wild skies. Wind-torn machair. Black water. Bleached shells. Rusted gates. Ruined crofts. The cry of birds over land that still feels older than language. I can imagine someone looking at my life here and thinking, well, of course you can make work there. Of course you can feel moved there. Of course the place gives you images.

And yes, sometimes it does.

But not as simply as that.

A beautiful place does not make the work for us. A remote place does not guarantee depth. Weather is not a substitute for attention. A shoreline can become a cliché in your hands as easily as a shopping precinct. A mountain can be used lazily. A beach can become decorative. A big sky can become a way of avoiding the smaller truth at your feet.

I know this because I have made those mistakes.

I also know what it is to live somewhere that does not appear, on the surface, to offer much at all.

Before North Uist, I lived for more than twenty years in Worksop, an old ex-mining town in the Midlands of England. It was beyond ordinary in the way many English towns are so very ordinary. Brick, road, estate, bypass, park, supermarket, industrial edge, municipal planting, wet pavement, winter trees, tired verges, a particular kind of landlocked greyness. It was not a place people travelled to in search of the sublime. Worksop is blandness personified.

For years I struggled to see it.

That is not quite true. I saw it constantly. I drove through it, walked through it, shopped in it, queued in it, waited at its traffic lights, passed the same walls and corners and patches of grass until they sank beneath recognition. They became facts rather than presences. Named things. Known things. Finished things.

A hedge. A wall. A car park. A road. A field. Nothing.

Habit is a kind of weather. It settles over a place until the place disappears.

We tend to think mist hides the world, but familiarity can be far thicker. At least mist makes us aware that something is hidden. Habit does not. Habit convinces us there is nothing more to see.

This, I think, is where many of us become stuck.

Not because our surroundings are empty, but because we have emptied them by naming them too quickly.

The lane is just the lane. The town is just the town. The garden is just the garden. The walk is just the same old walk. The view from the window is just the view from the window. We have looked at these things so often that we no longer look. We recognise them instead.

Recognition is useful for daily life. It gets us through the world efficiently. But art asks something less efficient of us. It asks us to become slightly lost in what we thought we knew.

This morning, the lane near the cottage was hardly a subject at all. It was narrow, wet, familiar. Eddie nosed along the verge with great seriousness, as dogs do, reading a version of the world entirely unavailable to me. The sheep watched us with their usual mixture of suspicion and boredom. Rain gathered on the fence wire. The grasses leaned under the weight of water.

Nothing happened.

But the longer I walked, the less certain the lane became.

The wet road held a dull shine, not quite silver, not quite black. The verge was a tangle of old stems and new green, last year refusing to give way entirely to this year. The fence posts faded one by one into the mist, a broken rhythm. A gate hung limply, tied with straggling lengths of bright blue nylon rope using those unnamed knots only crofters tie. A ditch carried a thread of brown water. Fluttering flags of ragged torn black polythene, once wrapped around sileage, now snagged on barbed wire fencing proudly declared a boundary. Eddie’s paw prints appeared briefly on the tarmac, then vanished.

There was no picture, not in the obvious sense.

There were fragments.

And perhaps fragments are enough.

A great deal of our work begins there, I think. Not with the grand subject, not with the declaration, but with the small tug of attention. Something catches. A colour, a pressure, a rhythm, a surface, a silence. We do not yet know why it matters. It may not matter. But we feel the slightest resistance in the ordinary flow of seeing, and if we are wise, we stay with it.

That staying is difficult.

The world trains us to move on. Cameras can make this worse. We lift them too quickly, hoping they will solve the problem of attention for us. They rarely do. They record our haste with brutal accuracy.

To work with the ordinary, we may have to slow down until the thing in front of us stops being useful, stops being named, stops being background. A wall is no longer a wall. It becomes stain, repair, damp, abrasion, lichen, fracture, time. A puddle is no longer a puddle. It becomes skin, tremor, reflection, oil, sky, interruption. A hedge is no longer a hedge. It becomes density, line, concealment, cut growth, small darkness.

This is one of the reasons abstraction matters to me.

It loosens the grip of the named world.

It allows the hedge to stop being hedge and become edge, rhythm, weight, direction. It allows the road to become a field of greys. It allows the wet gate to become a note of cold light. It allows a neglected corner of a town to become colour, pressure, memory, and mark.

Abstraction does not require us to find extraordinary subjects. It asks us to let ordinary subjects become unstable.

I wish I had understood this better when I lived in Worksop.

I spent too long believing the place lacked poetry. Perhaps what it lacked was my patience. Or perhaps, more honestly, I lacked the courage to admit that the ordinary was worthy of sustained attention. It was easier to blame the town than to look harder. Easier to imagine that elsewhere would make me more alive.

Elsewhere can wake us, of course. Travel can do that. A new landscape can strike the eye clean. There is a gift in unfamiliarity. But there is also a danger. We can become dependent on novelty, always needing the next place to make us feel perceptive.

The deeper practice may be to remain where we are and let the familiar become strange again.

That is not a romantic idea. It can be uncomfortable. To look closely at the everyday is to meet our own boredom, our own impatience, our own dismissals. It is to realise how much of the world we have thrown away because it did not immediately offer itself as beautiful.

But the ordinary is not empty.

It is full of use. Full of weather. Full of human trace. Full of small failures and repairs. Full of repetition. Full of things becoming worn, stained, bent, softened, broken, overgrown. Full of time made visible.

The spectacular place often overwhelms us. The ordinary place waits.

It does not seduce. It does not perform. It asks for a quieter kind of fidelity.

The road you walk every day. The alley behind the shops. The wall beside the car park. The winter tree outside the bedroom window. The garden after rain. The bins, the weeds, the patched tarmac, the steam on glass, the plastic caught in the hedge, the pale rectangle where a sign once hung, the rust bloom around a screw. These things may not announce themselves as subjects, but they hold the world nevertheless.

And they hold us, too.

Because we have lived among them. We have passed them in grief, irritation, haste, tiredness, happiness, distraction. They have been there while our lives quietly happened. Their familiarity is not a weakness. It is a form of intimacy.

Perhaps that is why they are so hard to photograph. They are too close.

The place we know well does not give itself up through spectacle. It gives itself up through repeated attention. Through return. Through noticing the slight change in light, season, mood, surface, self. We do not conquer it with one good image. We enter into a conversation with it, and most of that conversation is silence.

This is why I think the mundane may be one of the richest territories we have.

Not because it is secretly dramatic. Not because every drain cover is a masterpiece waiting to happen. But because the mundane forces us to examine the quality of our attention. It strips away the easy alibi of subject matter. It will not carry us. We have to bring something to it: patience, curiosity, doubt, tenderness, maybe even a little humility.

If we can make work there, in the place we think we already know, then something important has shifted.

We have stopped waiting for the world to impress us.

The lane this morning did not impress me. It did something better. It resisted me. It stayed quiet. It made me work. It asked me to meet it on its own terms: wet grass, dull road, bird cry, mist, dog breath, old stems, wire, water, no drama.

And in that quiet resistance, I felt the beginning of something.

Not an image, perhaps. Not yet.

More like a loosening.

A reminder that seeing is not a matter of finding better things to look at. It is a matter of becoming less blind to what is already here.

So if your own world feels too familiar, too average, too suburban, too urban, too tidy, too messy, too flat, too dull, too known, I would not rush to contradict you. Perhaps it does feel that way. Perhaps it has felt that way for years.

But I would ask you to mistrust the word “just”.

Just a lane. Just a wall. Just a garden. Just a town. Just a wet pavement. Just the same old walk. Just Worksop…

There is a whole world hidden behind that word.

Go back to it. Not hungrily. Not demanding a photograph. Go back as if visiting something you have neglected. Walk it in poor weather. Walk it when the light is flat. Walk it when you are not in the mood. Walk it without the pressure of making anything good.

Look for the small disturbances.

Where does the surface break? Where does colour gather? Where does one thing press against another? Where is the wound, the repair, the rhythm, the stain, the silence? What repeats? What has changed? What have you stopped seeing because it has always been there?

You may come home with nothing.

Or with almost nothing.

A smear of colour. A line. A texture. A small dark shape. A feeling you cannot yet name.

That may be enough. It may be the beginning of the work.

The ordinary does not always yield quickly. It is not there to entertain us. It has no interest in our need for results. But if we return, if we pay attention, if we allow the familiar to become uncertain again, it may begin to open.

Not dramatically.

Not all at once.

More like mist lifting from a field you thought you knew. Slowly, unevenly, with parts still hidden.

And perhaps that is where the real work begins. Not when we find the extraordinary place, but when the ordinary place stops being ordinary in our hands.

If this is the kind of looking you have been hungry for, FYV is a small community of photographers who are quietly leaving the rules behind and finding their own way into more painterly, more abstract, more personal work. We would be very glad to have you with us. You can find out more here. And if you join soon (as I write in May 2026) you can use the code VISION15 to get 15% discount on the annual membership on top of the usual two free months, and two-week free trial period.

Using the Canon EOS R Mirrorless Camera for Multiple Exposure & ICM Photography

Posted on December 17, 2018 by dougchinnery - Gear Reviews, News, Photography comment, Photography Tips

Using the Canon EOS R Mirrorless Camera for Multiple Exposure & ICM Photography

The new Canon EOS R full frame mirrorless camera system was released recently with much fanfare. Valda and I were immediately keen to get our hands on one and Rob Cook at Canon UK very kindly provided us with loan bodies, lenses and adaptors to give us that chance. (I made all of the images in this article on one day with the EOS R).

Our hectic lives, as usual, meant that time with the camera was frustratingly limited, but over the few weeks we had them we did manage to clock up several hours of use. Enough to put them through their paces and get a real feel of how this system performs for those of us that are working with the creative use of multiple exposures and intentional camera movement (ICM).

If you also use your camera for more conventional image making, this blog, while not concentrating on those areas (you will find hundreds of others out there that do) should also give you a feel for its potential.

Firstly, I’ll deal with some of the fundamentals around your possible reasons for switching to this new system.

1. Saving weight – mirrorless cameras tend to be lighter (and less bulky) than DSLR’s. The ‘R’ is no exception. It is, roughly, 30% lighter than a 5D mk4, for example. If you use a Fuji or Olympus, it is heavier, but it has more the feel and build quality of a DSLR, along with the high quality weather and dust sealing of pro Canon DSLR’s. For those who found the Fuji’s and Olympus systems too small and fiddly in the hand, you shouldn’t find this an issue with the ‘R’. The 24-105mm f/4 lens is a high quality L glass lens so it adds weight. Noticeably so, but it is also very versatile with 4 stops of image stabilisation and very sharp results (if sharpness is your thing). The 35mm lens (which is also a macro) is far lighter. I haven’t tried the 50mm. The EF adaptor which allows you to use all your EF lenses with all functions (auto focus, metering etc) weigh very little. I tried using my EF 70-300mm L lens and found it well balanced and very comfortable. The weight added depends on the lens, obviously.

2. The electronic viewfinder (EVF) is a revelation. It is fast, responsive and very sharp. I found I soon forgot I was using an EVF. For the multiple exposure image maker, the EVF is a real gamechanger over other Canon DSLR’S that have the blending modes. This is because as you make each frame you can see the next one overlaying the previous in the viewfinder. This allows precise lining up of frames. The effect of the blend mode is not shown until after you fire the shutter (but you do get to see that through the EVF which is especially good in bright light when viewing the live view screen is difficult. The overlay of the image is subtle but good enough to position things carefully. For me this is a major reason to switch to this new camera, the benefit is so significant.

3. The EF Adaptor with built in variable ND filter. ( https://www.canon.co.uk/mount-adapters-ef-eos-r/ ) This is the other game changer for me and a really innovative idea from Canon. The adaptor not only allows us to use our EF or EFs lenses on the EOS R, but it also has a slot in it, into which fits a beautifully designed two to nine stop variable neutral density filter. The strength of the neutral density effect is applied by rotating a small wheel on the filter holder. This innovation is perfect for those of us who love ICM and ME photography. It obviates the need for a Lee Filter system hanging off the end of the lens, or having to screw filters onto the end of the lens. It is so much neater, compact and is permanently available. These adaptors will be available in the UK from February 2019. (there is also a polariser and UV filter which can be purchased to slot into the adaptor – only one filter can be used at a time). The above link will show you just how beautifully designed this option is.

4. The tilt and swivel touch screen. A more minor benefit to me, but a benefit nonetheless. The screen tilts and swivels. This is very useful for low and high level images. It also means the screen can be completely rotated when the camera is not in use so it is facing the camera and not exposed and thus prone to being scratched. Additionally, the screen is touch sensitive. This means lots of things can be adjusted by touch instead of scrolling through menus with wheels and switches. You can also touch focus and even fire the shutter by touch on the screen if you wish. I particularly found making major changes to white balance much faster by touch than using the scroll wheel as on my 5D mk4.

There is an issue with the camera that has been much debated since its release. It has only one SD card slot. Many people have flown into a rage about this. For the sake of balance I would just throw a few points out there. Yes, I agree, it should have had a second slot. It would allow backing up images while shooting (or shooting alternative formats to each card etc). I am sure the next model will have a second slot. However, I think the outrage is overdone. Firstly, many people I have worked with often don’t have a card in the second slot. Those that have often have no idea how their camera is set up to use the second card – whether it is backing up the first, or writing jpegs, or perhaps filling one card then the other. There is also the fact that it is also only relatively recently that cameras have had two slots. We managed quite well with one for years prior to that and I have to say in all my years of using digital cameras, I have only ever had one card failure. So yes, it should have two card slots, I wish it did, but it’s not going to stop me owning the camera.

Let’s talk now about usability. The first thing I found was using the ‘R’ slowed me down. I guess we all get a certain amount of ‘muscle memory’ in using a particular camera model. When we switch to a new one it takes a while to adjust to the new button positions, menu layouts and just the general feel of the camera. Everything on our old camera is set up just the way we like it for the way we use it. It takes a while to get the new camera set up just so. I found this quite irritating at first, I longed to go back to the mk4. However, after a few hours, the familiarity with the ‘R’ started to build and I was able to focus less on operating the camera and more on making images.

The camera has a ‘multi-function bar’ which is operated by sliding your finger along it or tapping each end. It has the potential to be a useful control, but if I am honest, I found it lacked responsiveness. I couldn’t get it to work in a consistent way. This led to me being frustrated with it and I very quickly deactivated it. It would be difficult, if not impossible to use wearing gloves. I am sure some will get the hang of it quickly and really love it. I, however, am not a fan, sorry Canon.

A new innovation which is useful, is an additional ring on the ‘R’ Lenses (and fitted to one of the EF adaptors to add the function to all of our older EF lenses). So you now have three on a zoom lens, the focus and zoom rings plus a third which can be programmed to alter several settings according to your preference. (On a prime lens you have two, a focus ring and the new one). You can set the new ring to change aperture, shutter speed, ISO, exposure compensation etc. I set mine for ISO. I just found I had to take care when the camera was to my eye and I was, say, changing the focal length, that I didn’t hold the wrong ring by mistake and inadvertently find my ISO 3200 without noticing. The surface texture of each ring is different to help and if you prefer not to use it, the rings function can be deactivated.

Many have asked me what is it like using EF lenses with the new body? I tried it with my EF 70-300 IS L and the EF adaptor. The first thing to say is, yes, it is heavier – naturally. ‘L’ lenses, because of their build quality are weighty. But you are still saving the 30% of weight over an average DSLR. I found the balance was good, supporting the lens with my left hand as I would with a DSLR. This camera is not as small and light as, say, a Fuji XT-3, but I prefer the size. It fits my hands better, the buttons and dials are spaced and placed in a more ergonomical way and suit my hands. I like the grip design and balance, and I am speaking as someone who absolutely loved my Fuji cameras so I don’t say this lightly.

If you are looking to make the camera into a very lightweight system, I would seriously consider some of Canons lighter, mid-priced EF lenses, which are cheaper and will save a great deal of weight over the ‘L’ lenses. Yes, some image quality will be sacrificed, but they are still excellent for classic photography and for multiple exposures and ICM images the quality of the lens is fairly irrelevant. Take Canons lowest price, lightest 50mm f/1.8 lens for example, which is available for a little over £50. It weighs almost nothing and is ideal for ME and ICM.

To use the camera for multiple exposure images, I found the fastest way to access all the menus I needed – the ME menu itself, ISO and White balance primarily – was to add them all to a custom menu. I was then able to access this with one button push and go into whatever setting I needed. Very quickly I was using the camera instinctively and concentrating on image making, as I mentioned earlier.

Some of you may be thinking about waiting for the next iteration of the ‘R’ before investing, perhaps wanting a higher resolution sensor, for example. If you are a multiple exposure image maker I would add a word of caution. Making multiple exposures on the 50mp 5Dr is a very slow process compared to the 5D mk4 (which has the same sensor as the EOS R – 30mp approx). It seems combining several 50mp files takes its toll on the processing power of the camera. If the next ‘R’ has an upgraded sensor (and it seems logical the sensor from the 5Dr could be slotted in without too much trouble) then, unless Canon really beef up the processing power, the camera will be much slower for us ME photographers. It will be fine for classic image makers, but not for us. I have taken the decision not to upgrade to the 5Dr for just this reason, the slowness of it would hamper my creativity and the extra 20mp are simply not worth it for me.

As for image quality, it is breath-taking. All the images in this article are made with it. The sensor is a tried and tested full frame 30mp sensor from Canons 5D mk4. This has fabulous resolution, with superb colour and contrast. The camera is fast and reliable. The raw files are full of detail and can be cropped and manipulated to your hearts content. The prints from the files are glorious. You will have no quality issues from this camera as regards images – unless you are some anal pixel peeping geek who is more interested in discussing the micro contrast in the shadows on relentlessly boring internet forums and barrel distortion tables on mindlessly obscure websites than in actually going out and making images. But that applies to most cameras these days – let’s face it, they are all pretty amazing. If I need to remind myself of this fact, I go back and look at images from my first 4mp digital camera. Case closed.

In conclusion, while I found it took me a few hours of using the camera intensively to get used to it and I had to customise the menus and controls to suit my way of working, I soon found it a very natural tool that felt comfortable in the hand and didn’t get in the way of my creativity. This is exactly what I want from a camera. I don’t really want to have to think to much about the camera at all, I want to think about the image. If I am having to fuss about too much with my equipment, if the gear is getting in my way or irritating me then I am using the wrong gear.

So once I was over the hurdle of unfamiliarity, and I was able to seriously concentrate on making images, I was able to enjoy the advantages that the EOS R has for me as a multiple exposure and ICM photographer. Being able to use the EVF to line up ME compositions was a dream and a major step forward in our genre of image making. Being able to see the blended image in the EVF straight after each frame is made was also hugely beneficial, not only in bright sunlight but in all conditions.

While I couldn’t try out the new EF adaptor with the variable ND filter, I have no doubts this will be a game changer for me. I am itching to get my hands on one in February when they arrive in the UK. I am expecting demand to be huge.

The weight and size saving is nice to have, but not a game changer for me. It will certainly help me as someone who travels the world constantly – but I am more interested in functions and usability than weight.

The big question, will I be changing to the EOS R as my system of choice? The answer? Yes, if I can. My big frustration is I bought a brand new 5D mk4 only a few weeks before the EOS R was released. I don’t think I can afford to lose what I have invested in the new body by trading it in so soon for the ‘R’. This breaks my heart but as a professional running a business I have to be pragmatic. These are tools of the trade for us and have to earn their keep. It might seem as though pros always have nice gear – and we most often do – but we have to work very hard to afford it and most of us can’t just keep jumping from one body to the next without thinking about the financial implications. So I may have to wait awhile before I can justify it. However, if you are able to afford it, I wouldn’t hesitate in recommending this very excellent new system to you. It is superb.

Now, a few final thoughts from Valda –

We decided to wait to put out this review until I had returned from Venice. When we led the three one-day EOS R Discovery Day workshops in London recently we had more people than cameras and it was me who drew the short straw and didn’t really get to use it.

I took one of the loan bodies to Venice recently – unfortunately once again, my time with it was limited. Partly because I was teaching but partly because there were no shortage of clients in the group wanting to try it out for themselves. It really has generated an enormous amount of interest.

I’m not sure I can add anything more to Doug’s lengthy and comprehensive review. I actually found the multi-function bar very useful for changing white balance but really couldn’t get to grips with the function ring on the front of the lens – I found myself grappling with the wrong wheel. Of course its use would no doubt become second nature after shooting with it for a lengthy period.

Like Doug, I found the newness of the camera got in the way of my creativity, but this cannot obviously be blamed on the equipment. Within an hour or so, it was all becoming very much easier. I love the EVF – the best I have ever used – and the overlay feature during multiple exposure made the building up of layers a lot more fun.

There was a slight hiccup when it appeared that the autofocus wasn’t working. Such is the complexity of modern cameras, it took me about four hours to realise that the last client had enabled the back button focus, thus disabling the button I usually use. Again, not the camera’s fault at all, but half a day lost in trying to figure out what might be the problem.

I too, have only recently invested in the 5D4 so I won’t be changing any time soon I don’t travel with a lot of gear anyway, so the weight issue is not a hindrance to me. I am very excited about the adaptor with the slot for a drop-in ND filter – I don’t get on well with accessories and other extraneous bits and bobs that can be sat on, broken, lost, smeared or cracked. So for me, the more streamlined the kit, the better.

My technical knowledge only extends as far as I need it to in order that I can make my images so I’m really not in a position to predict how this camera stacks up against the competition. However in terms of usability, and for what I would use it for, I think it is certainly a winner.

First thoughts on the Canon EOS R and Multiple Exposure Photography

Posted on October 28, 2018 by dougchinnery - Gear Reviews, News, Photography comment, Photography Tips

I had the chance this week to briefly test the brand new Canon EOS R mirrorless camera with the 24-105mm lens (and the EF adaptor along with my EF 70-300mm IS L lens). This was courtesy of my good friend Carl, who had pre-ordered the camera and was prepared to entrust it to me.

My reasons for wanting to try it revolved around the weight saving of a mirrorless body and the advantages of having an electronic viewfinder for multiple exposure photography (EVF). I have been, in the past an advocate of the Fuji mirrorless systems – both the X and GFX medium format body – loving the weight saving and EVF as well as the image quality. However, the lack of a serious multiple exposure mode coupled with having to carry two systems in order to have a proper ME system meant I recently abandoned Fuji for good and dedicated myself to Canon. As someone who travels a great deal I need one system that does all everything and so I currently use the superb 5D mk4 and only have one lens, the 70-300mm L.

Before I go further, some clarification. I am not sponsored by Canon. This review is entirely impartial. I will aim to tell it exactly as it is. It is based on just a couple of hours at most with the camera, using the 24-105mm R lens and barely 15 minutes with my 70-300mm lens and the EF adaptor. All of this time I was working in multiple exposure mode, so please don’t expect a review of using the camera for classic photography.

I would also add that I am not interested in this camera for shooting video. I may shoot some, but I am an art photographer and this review is written from that perspective. I am sure other reviews will guide you if you have interests in serious video work.

My final plea concerned the images – I was working quickly and just experimenting around my home – they aren’t meant to be serious work, just samples of the camera in action. Please don’t be too hard on me!

I am also aware of the near apoplectic rage there seems to be that the camera only has one SD card slot. My feelings about this? Yes, I would have liked two card slots (both SD, for me please Canon). But I do think we need some perspective. Yes, two slots has become the norm in cameras of this quality and I am sure the next iteration of this body will have them. If it is that big an issue for you I would just suggest waiting. However, in my experience, most photographers don’t know how their second slot is utilised – whether it is having a backup copy written to it, or if one card fills and then the second card fills – or if one card has raw files writing to it and the second has jpegs writing to it. Many cameras I have seen clients using don’t even have a card in the second slot. I have been using digital cameras for, I don’t know, 12 or 14 years and I have only had a card totally fail once in all that time. Once. I buy quality cards and I push my cameras hard in all weathers – I don’t wrap them in cotton wool (or polythene). Its not so long ago all cameras only had one card and prior to that, one roll of film. We managed somehow. My feeling is that the outrage is just a little over done – and I know that me just saying this will outrage some people. But I am just being honest (but please Canon – get another card slot in ASAP, I am pretty certain your design guys can make one fit).

Now that is death with let us get down to the nitty gritty. My first impressions about the camera. The build quality is excellent, as you would expect from Canon. I have big hands but ergonomically it is very comfortable in the hand. The balance is good and I liked the shaped grip. I work with one hand a lot of the time and this suited me well. I was surprised at how light it felt, even with the quality lens fitted. The EF adaptor is ridiculously light – this is because it is, in effect, just an extension tube. There is no glass in it. It just moves the EF lenses further away from the sensor and links up the electronics. So all of the lens functions still work as normal and everything still works in the EVF – you notice no difference in operating the camera. Even with a big lens like the 70-300mm attached it felt well balanced and lighter, obviously, than my 5D mk4. The weight saving is not huge but it is noticeable but it is also physically smaller so when travelling it takes up less bag space and it is less obtrusive in the hand, attracting less attention. Yes, using your L EF glass brings the weight right up, but you have the quality of the glass and it will be lighter than your DSLR. For some of you the weight saving while using your DSLR lenses will not be enough – but the R lenses are L glass quality and lighter. Canon will widen the range quite rapidly. I am happy to use the 24-105 for now along with my L 70-300 and the adaptor and cope with the weight – while benefitting from the physical size decrease (and it is lighter – noticeably so) while I wait for a lighter 70-300 R lens to be released.You will need to decide for yourself what you can cope with.

The 24-105mm lens was superb – the optics were brilliant as you would expect from Canon L glass. The image stabilisation was faultless as was the auto focus. Don’t ask me about frames per second and whether this would be a good camera for shooting wildlife on the Serengeti – that is above my pay grade. I am sure other blogs will help you with those questions.

What does the EOS R have to offer us as respects multiple exposure modes? This was a question we were really interested in. The answer is, it has all of the modes and functions of the 5D mk’s 3 and 4 (and other fully featured Canon DSLR’s). You will not lose anything by switching. But will you gain anything? The answer, I feel, is ‘yes’, which is why I would like to move to the ‘R’ myself.

Firstly, I want the size and weight saving. I am a traveller and I am always looking for savings in this area as long as functionality is not compromised. The EOS R gives me this. It has the same 30mp sensor as my current 5D mk4 so image quality is identical. I am guessing the next iteration of the body will have an ‘improved’ sensor but with this I give a warning. Valda had the 5Dr for some time which has the amazing 50mp sensor. Now, while this produces eye watering quality and huge files it brings with it a big issue to multiple exposure photographers. It becomes painfully slow. Stacking up several 50mp files and blending them in camera takes huge processing power and time. Valda found this really slowed her down in the field and, to an extent stifled her creativity so she switched ‘down’ to the 5D mk4 and is happier as a result. You may not find this to be an issue but we certainly did – so unless new bodies have significantly more processing power and speed, we would be reluctant to move to them. We have never had an issue as professionals with the 30mp files with our clients and galleries. The 30mp files for us still allow image cropping and manipulation to meet our needs. You need to decide what your needs are.

The second, and for me game changing improvement for multiple exposure work with the EOS R, is the EVF. This allows you to see the image ‘shadowed’ as you make each frame. You can’t see the effect of the blend mode being applied before you fire the shutter (but you do see, in the EVF the blended image after the next frame is added) however the big advantage is being able to line objects up. This helps hugely with composition. The next frame you see shadowed in the EVF is ‘brighter’ and so you need to look closely but it is sufficient to do what you need to do. The EVF also works seamlessly, I was not conscious it was an EVF, to be honest, it didn’t interfere it only assisted me. I like to have the camera to my eye when making ME images and previously I had to visualise in my mind where objects would be. You could use the live view screen, but this slowed the process down and meant holding the camera away at arms length which I found didn’t suit my way of working. I was blown away by the difference using the EVF made to my workflow. I am now finding using my 5D mk4 very frustrating indeed. I have opened Pandoras Box!

I have heard people expressing concerns about the controls on the camera – that there is only one control dial and so on. This is not the case. You have two control wheels so you can change aperture and shutter speed independently (or exposure compensation). The touch screen is a delight (but would be tricky with gloves in cold weather) However everything can be accessed through the quick menu and control buttons (no joystick on this camera) There is a slider bar which I didn’t have time to get to grips with.

The tilt screen also swivels – which would be a first for a camera I own. Exciting for me. Little things please me. I am also delighted to see Canon have used the same battery for the ‘R’ as used in the 5D range. This means all of the spare batteries I have acquired over the years will fit. How good to see a manufacturer doing this when so many use the release of a new model to change the battery shape in order to force us to buy more new batteries at exorbitant prices.

Another innovation which is interesting and useful is the addition of an extra ring on the R lenses. This ring can be programmed in a menu so that you can use it to change shutter speed, ISO or aperture – whichever is most useful to you. I didn’t get time to check, but it wouldn’t surprise me if you could program it to change something else too, if you prefer, like white balance etc. This may be very handy for working in cold weather or to save you accessing a menu for something you alter frequently.

My final comment is about the another adaptor Canon has issued. It is a very clever piece of kit, sitting between the body and lens into which you can drop either a polariser or a variety-ND filter so that these do not have to be fitted to the front of the lens. For me, this is a revelation. It is such a simple solution, so small and compact and will allow me to do ICM images with such ease. The ND filter goes from 2 to 9 stops – which is absolutely perfect for me. A stroke of genius from Canon and one I will definitely be adding to my kit bag.

So my verdict. For multiple exposure and ICM shooters, I think this camera is a game changer. I see no reason to stay with a DSLR any more. You can keep all of your EF lenses and slowly replace them if you with with R lenses – or not – the choice is yours. I see no real deal breaking disadvantages with the camera. I think if you have any other brand of mirrorless camera such as Fuji and you have a passion for multiple exposure photography, I would seriously consider switching. It is a big thing to do, but I don’t think you will be disappointed. This is a seriously good camera that for me and my work ticks all the boxes (just get a second card slot in the next one, please, Canon…. and maybe come up with some more, new, innovative blend modes that we can see being applied live in the viewfinder before we press the shutter – then you really do have something amazing).

Valda and I are running some one day workshops in November where every participant has a loan EOS R for the day courtesy of Canon UK – you can read full details and BOOK HERE

Review of Fotospeed Cotton Etching 305 Signature Paper

Posted on July 24, 2018 by dougchinnery - Gear Reviews, News, Photography comment, Photography Tips

Some things in life only come along once. The genius of Bob Dylan. Newcastle United winning something (still waiting). My mother in law being lost for words. (also still waiting). A phone call from Toby, the very nice boss at Fotospeed asking if I might possibly be interested in working with them to design my very own perfect ‘signature’ fine art paper. (actually happened – still pinching myself).

That call came almost two years ago now – making a new paper from scratch is not a quick process and it took me almost a nano second to accept the offer. Which photographer and printer wouldn’t? Here was a chance to work along with acknowledged experts in the field to come up with what is essentially my very own perfect paper for my art. A dream come true, because I had used many of the fine Fotospeed papers quite happily for years and loved them, but always there are those little tweaks I would like to make – a little more texture, a little whiter base, a little more weight and so on. Now I had my chance.

So how does it work, this paper designing business? Sadly, all visions I had of me donning a lab coat and goggles were soon put to bed. I wasn’t going to be allowed anywhere near chemicals, or big machines. I think the very nice folk at Fotospeed felt that was just a little too risky, especially when they saw the manic glint in my eyes. Rather, I was sat down in a darkened room, behind layers of security and…. well no, not that either. In fact, it all began with a very long and detailed cross examination about what I wanted from my paper. I was quizzed on my images, what I wanted to bring out of them, their characteristics, what I felt was missing from not only the Fotospeed range but also from fine art papers in general. I was basically asked what my dream paper would be. So what did my specification look like?

I had a vision along these lines;

1. It had to be a matt paper.
2. It had to be heavy. I wanted a paper with substance.
3. I wanted a heavy texture.
4. I preferred a pure white base colour. So that colours were rendered naturally.
5. I wanted it to make soft, gentle images to look soft and gentle.
6. When printing images full of texture and detail it needed to render them sharply.
8. I wanted it to have a high cotton content and to be of archival quality.
9. It needed to be acid free and be suitable for dye based and pigment inks.
10. I really wanted it to handle a very wide colour gamut and produce faithful colours.
11. Finally, for a matt paper it had to deliver sumptuous deep, rich blacks.

By this point, the nice people at Fotospeed were looking a little queasy. I understood why. To ask all of this from one paper, especially a high cotton content matt paper was a very tall order. They were in for a long night. It turned out to be a long year. I think they ate a lot of pizza and drank a lot of coffee.

I actually lost count of the iterations we went through, but I was sent, I think, seven batches of paper to test in all. It was the seventh – the paper which has now become the paper I use almost exclusively, Cotton Etching 305 – which I finally gave the approval for to bear my name. The one which met all of the criteria on my list. The only thing in the end I wanted to change, and where Toby had to call a halt, was with the surface texture. If you look very carefully at matt papers you will see a repetition in the texture. This is because it is made by a mechanical process. I asked if this could be randomised. Apparently it could. If the paper was handmade. As you can imagine this would have made it so expensive it wouldn’t have viable and so I had to concede on that one point (and I have to admit I was being very fussy as it is barely noticeable).

I have to applaud the team at Fotospeed and the people they work with for being able to achieve this. Technically it really is no mean feat. If you are used to printing on fine art matt papers you will know and understand just how tricky they can be at times. How occasionally getting the colours to sing can be difficult. You will also know how hard it can be to get really wonderful rich deep blacks from them is. They can have a tendency to ‘flatten’ our work and give it a milkiness, to almost suck some of the life out of it if we don’t know what we are doing. Even if we do know what we are doing with our printing, with many images getting the colour and contrast right sometimes is just impossible.

If this has been your experience, I would urge you to try some Cotton Etching 305. I continue to be amazed at how easy it is to print on. I am achieving blacks I have never been able to render on a matt paper before. The colours in my images really sing out like never before. Even with the generic profiles from the Fotospeed website you should get good results. If you use their free customers profile service this will get even better as your colour gamut will widen and the performance of the paper will increase. You may feel I am just over-hyping the paper because the box has my name on it. If so, I would urge you to take a look at THIS REVIEW in Photography News. (quick quote – “The paper’s all-round ability to handle such a wide range of subject matter, contrast range and different degrees of saturation and so capably was a nice surprise. Some textured fine art finishes are less good with rich images with deep blacks, but no such shortcomings here. Apologies if this is all rather gushy, but honestly there wasn’t a print that I was unhappy with so I had little to have a moan at.”)

As for handling of the paper, a couple of tips I can pass on. Firstly, store the boxes flat. This prevents curling on the leading edge which can cause ink to catch and mark the paper. I also use a ‘rocket blower’ to blow over the print surface of the paper to make sure there are no cotton fibres adhering. It is very frustrating to hold up your print to see these drop away leaving a small unprinted area beneath them. It is good to allow the print to cure for at least a few minutes or longer before any extensive handling after printing. Check the colours and contrast over by a window, preferably with bright overcast daylight, rather than side by side at your computer monitor. This is a better test for how beautiful your print is and how it will look when displayed in real life.

I hope you enjoy trying Cotton Etching 305. I now use it for almost every print I make. Valda Bailey and I also use it for virtually all the prints we make for clients in our bespoke printing service for photographers and artists who don’t have their own printer, or who want prints larger than their printer is capable of. (full details of our service HERE).

To help you if you would like to try it out, or if you already love it and would like to stock up, the very nice people at Fotospeed have given me a 15% discount code to pass on to you. PLEASE NOTE, this code is only valid for 30 days from Tuesday 24th July 2018 and it should apply not just to Cotton Etching 305 but to all their papers (but why would you want anything other than Cotton Etching now??). Just put your paper in your basket and apply the code on checkout. The discount will only be applied right at the end. DISCOUNT CODE – Doug15NL – I do hope you enjoy using the paper as much as I do. It has changed my printing forever.

And who knows, maybe this year is Newcastle’s year? Howay the lads!

Onwards and Upwards

Posted on May 12, 2018 by dougchinnery - Photography comment

This is difficult to write. Very difficult.

On Tuesday 10th April I had a nervous breakdown.

While that is a hard thing to admit. It was a terrible thing to experience.

On that Tuesday I was in the middle of leading a Light and Land tour in London with my good friend Terry Gibbins. It was also the opening night of my first group exhibition in London at the OXO Gallery on the South Bank. I was in the position of being in a very public situation with lots of people relying on me and I was expected to perform.

I had been feeling unwell for weeks, but didn’t realise what was brewing in my mind. I thought the anxiety building in my chest was simply over the opening night of the exhibition. Creative angst and all that, doubts about my work, of which I had many.

When I arrived at the private viewing I felt anxious in the extreme. I really didn’t want to talk to anyone. I couldn’t go and look at or stand by my images. I couldn’t engage with the visitors who were around them. I had to stay at the opposite end of the room. But I didn’t know why. People were being very kind, saying lovely things to me, especially Valda’s mum who seemed to sense I was struggling, but I didn’t know how to respond. The urge to run away was almost irresistible.

After the viewing I had to take my tour group out to do some more night photography but by now I was struggling to function. It felt like an out of body experience. Looking back, I don’t know how I got through the session.

It was back in the hotel room that It all went wrong. The room was terrible. A bleak nondescript cell. I was alone and an awful all encompassing blackness enveloped me. I was dry heaving, struggling to breath, the chest pains were extreme. I had hardly eaten for three days. The feeling of absolute bleakness is so hard to describe. The hours of the night stretched out endlessly. I couldn’t sleep, just pacing up and down the room. I daren’t leave the room because in my state of mind, while I didn’t think I would harm myself, I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t and I was worried that in not thinking clearly I could do something stupid.

I had never imagined I would be the type of person who would consider harming myself. I have always been a happy, outgoing, positive, optimistic person. For me, no matter how bad things are, I always see the positive side and make the best of any situation. I fight to make things better. I never give up. But this night I experienced a complete reversal of who I am. There was no light. Nothing positive. I had nothing to hold on to. I was falling into blackness and I didn’t know where the bottom was. I was terrified. I was losing my mind. But from then on each day has been a real struggle.

Since that initial breakdown I have had several repeat episodes along with panic attacks and constant anxiety accompanied with chest pains and other physical symptoms. My doctor, diagnosing the breakdown, has been very sympathetic and helpful. The medication has taken nearly four weeks to start to have a real impact on the symptoms, the dose having been doubled. I thought I would recover in a couple of weeks but it is dawning on me that this is not going to happen. As I look back, this has been a long time coming and it is going to take a while to get over. I have made progress, but there is a way to go yet.

I have had huge support from my wife. She has suffered with depression for years and so she really understands what this feels like. My teaching partner, Valda Bailey, has been a tower of strength listening to me and giving me good advice. She has been a rock in this storm. She also had to cover for me recently on a workshop when I had a ‘meltdown’ and was in no fit state to teach. I have to apologise to the group. Valda used a mythical, and as I learned later, extravagantly overstated case of ‘Montezumas Revenge’ as the excuse for my absence. It seems in her eagerness to make my situation seem serious enough for me not to be able to attend she gradually embellished the symptoms to such an extent that it sounded like I needed hospitalisation. So I must apologise to the group at Bosham that I asked Valda to deceive you, it was a hard decision for both of us, but at the time I was in a very bad way, but still didn’t feel able to reveal the real reason. I hope you understand. I have to thank her for coping with the group all on her own.

Other friends I have confided in, Terry, Chris, Carl, Gary and Martin as well as my sister, Lisa, have all been wonderful. I don’t know what I would have done without them and their genuine concern, patience, listening ears and wise advice. True friends at a time like this are life savers.

So why have I felt the need to write all this? While I am not entirely sure, I do have a real feeling that I don’t want to keep this hidden. I hated making an excuse when I was too ill to teach. I know that in future weeks there may be times I am with people and I won’t be myself. I don’t want to lie or mislead people. I’d rather be open about it. I’m ill, and it is affecting me in significant ways.

If I have been quiet, distant, seemingly ignored you, or just not been myself in recent weeks I hope I haven’t offended you. If I have, I want to apologise.

I feel stupid, weak, useless, silly and, to an extent, ashamed. I know I shouldn’t, but I do. I have always been someone who helps other people. Someone who sorts things out for others. A fixer, not someone who needs fixing. I am usually the strong one. To be in this position feels like failure. It feels like I am letting everyone down who relies on me. There is huge guilt associated with it.

The cause seems to be pressure. Too much pressure over too long a time. Pressure of work – not just the teaching and running the business but coping with keeping up with an overflowing in-box. Coping with all the myriad ways people can contact us these days – Phone, email, text, Whats App, Facebook Messenger, Twitter DM’s, Instagram Messages – it has become overwhelming keeping up with this. I also have some clients contacting me at all hours and so personal time and space has become almost non-existent. Then there is the pressure of caring for my mother in law – she is 94 now and has lived with us for nearly four years. She needs 24 hour care and so either my wife of I needs to be here all the time. We are, to all intents and purposes prisoners in our home. Caring for my Mum who is disabled and in hospital much of the time but in reality not doing enough for her and feeling guilty about that. Having responsibilities as secretary of my local congregation which was very time consuming.

So I have taken steps to prevent this happening again. I have reduced my workload considerably and will be reducing it further. I am only going to do as much work as we need to live. I have relinquished, reluctantly, many of my congregation responsibilities. I am simplifying my life as much as possible to reduce stress so that I am concentrating on the most important things. My goal is to get off of the medication as quickly as I can without relapsing.

I now have even more sympathy for any of you reading this that have had breakdowns, suffer with depression or anxiety. Having a wife who suffers I have understood a little what it involves, but now I have a much better understanding of just how bleak and all encompassing it is. I also understand how the medication affects you too. It is not a magic wand. I now feel neither happy nor sad. I feel nothing. Just dull and relatively emotionless. Cold. I lack motivation. I am sleeping too deeply and too long. I don’t like it, but it is better than the blackness, the lack of hope, the deep guilt and the feelings of total worthlessness of a couple of weeks ago. But I crave feelings. I want to feel emotions again. This is still not a good place to be and so I hope it is only temporary.

As a good friend keeps telling me, “onwards and upwards”. I just hope it is.

I can’t think of anything else to say.

Hyperborea – The Lands of the North.

Posted on October 13, 2017 by dougchinnery - News, Photography comment

©Chris Friel – From ‘After’

It is impossible to visit the Hebrides and not be affected by them at some deeply elemental level. A place of ever changing moods, sculpted and formed by the wind and sea over millennia, it carves itself into your soul. At times the white sands of the beaches, the teal and turquoise of the waves seduce and beguile. In a heartbeat, though, she transforms. The islands can become a place of deep and abiding melancholy, of exhilarating storms which purge and restore. No wonder artists, poets, musicians and now, laterly, photographers, have been drawn again and again to ‘Hyperborea’. This mythical location ‘beyond the north wind’, identified by some as the Isle of Lewis.

‘Hyperborea – The Lands of the North’ is the title given to a group exhibition currently on display on Harris & Lewis, at the An Lanntair arts centre in Stornoway, the capital of the Island. Curated by Alex Boyd, it features the work not only of Alex himself (a photographer working in antique processes, striving to capture the essence of the northern lands, his work in the exhibition is entitled ‘Dark Mountains|Silent Islands’) but also the epic, insightful and truly moving work of landscape and documentary photographer Ragnar Axelsson entitled ‘Faces of the North’ along with a moving collection of images by photographic artist Chris Friel.

His contribution to the exhibition, a project comprised of 49 images entitled ‘After’, is a truly heartfelt and moving response to the loss of his dear son, Joe, who took his own life in early 2016 following a struggle with mental illness. Joe loved the Hebrides and so it was to here that Chris returned to make images in just one day in the place they had shared together. Running in conjunction with the images in Chris’s part of the exhibition is a video of images made by Chris on Lewis in August 2017 entitled ‘Still’ accompanied by a piece of music composed in Joes memory by Matthew Herbert, entitled ‘Be Still’ and recorded at the North Sea Jazz Festival on 9 July 2017. You can see the images and listen to the piece HERE

I had the privilege of printing the 49 images which make up Chris Friel’s ‘After’ collection in the exhibition. To work closely with Chris throughout this creative process was an honour. The images are so personal to Chris and it was essential to me that I did my very best to interpret the work exactly as Chris wanted. To give you an insight of the creative process, of how I work with Chris, how we chose the paper we used for the exhibition (in the end, Fotospeed Platinum Baryta) and also how I prepare the images for print in Lightroom, I have created two short videos. These take you through the process from start to finish and I hope you find them both interesting and that you also might learn a few tips from them too to help you with printing your work.

One positive thing that has come from the awful tragedy of Joes death is the fund set up by Chris and his family through the Just Giving website which is dedicated to Joe and is raising funds for the Young Minds Trust, a very worthwhile cause which aims to help young people struggling with mental illness. The families goal was to raise £16000, a £1000 for every year of Joes life, but at the time of writing in October 2017 the generosity of family and friends has raised a wonderful £44,376. Please visit the web page HERE to see a video created by Chris about Joe and to donate to the charity. You can also see the book Chris created with the images in the exhibition along with his personal images from Joes life. Entitled ‘Joe’, and curated with the help of Joseph Wright, it was a beautiful testament to his son. View it HERE. The book is not available for purchase. You can also vote on the Just Giving site for Joes fundraising page to receive recognition with an award. Please vote for it HERE.

You can see the images for the book ‘Joe’, HERE on Chris’s website. The landscape images from the book were then used as the source by Chris as the basis for the exhibition but he did further work on them and you can view the finished work as collection HERE.

I would like to urge you, if you have any chance at all to visit the exhibition, you will not be disappointed. It is on now and runs until 4th November 2017. You can find full details HERE.

You can buy Chris Friel’s prints through my website from THIS PAGE

I would also like to thank the great team at Fotospeed for their help and support throughout preparing for this exhibition.

Being Interviewed on the Togcast

Posted on July 12, 2017 by dougchinnery - News, Photography Business, Photography comment, Photography Tips, Social Networking, Software Tips

Some time back I was surprised and humbled to be asked to an interviewee on the excellent ‘Togcast’ podcast which is run by two very capable and nice gentlemen, Sam Gregory and my fellow Light and Land leader, Paul Sanders. (I would highly recommend you use your podcast software on your smart phone to subscribe to the Togcast and listen weekly – it is interesting, entertaining and you get to know many photographers we know from social media so much better.)

You can find more information about the Togcast HERE you can subscribe via Apple podcasts HERE, and you can visit the Togcast website HERE

So it was a few weeks ago, Sam arrived at my home early one morning on a whistle stop tour of the North. He was cramming in several interviews with other far more worthy photographers than me on a marathon journey up ones side of the country and back down the other. Sam has a very engaging manner and I soon forgot I was being interviewed and we nattered away about photography for a couple of hours. I am very grateful to Sam for taking the time in his busy schedule to come and talk to me and I hope you find our chat interesting.

I have no recollection of what we spoke about and I am horrified to think what I must sound like or what I waffled on about. I am certainly not prepared to listen to myself back again. (After all, I have to listen to myself all the time, and that is quite enough, I can assure you).

He not only did an audio interview for the podcast, but he tried out doing a video session too, where we discussed three portfolios of my images in my Lightroom catalogue and he has released this as a separate video.

So, if you have nothing to do. And I mean absolutely nothing to do, if you have cleaned the oven out, sorted all your carpet tacs into jam jars by size, and organised your photo book collection alphabetically, then you might just want to have a watch and listen. But if you still haven’t got around to creosoting the fence, I would probably get that done first. Really.

Here is the video of our discussion of some of my images

And here is the audio Podcast

YŪBI – Truly a book of ‘Gentle Beauty’

Posted on May 23, 2017 by dougchinnery - Gear Reviews, News, Photography comment

There is a (pleasing) trend towards more photographers publishing collections of their work as photobooks. Some are choosing to approach specialist publishers such as Triplekite or Kozu Books. These publishers will work in close partnership with the photographer and use their expertise in desktop publishing and printing to help bring a project to fruition. They may also have access to distribution and sales channels to help the photographer with, what is often the most difficult part of the project, selling the books.

Others prefer to do things on a much smaller scale and self publish using a proprietary platform such as Blurb, Lulu or one of the many others available. These companies often allow ‘print on demand’ so there is no upfront investment in pallets of stock and even if the photographer just wants a handful of copies to sell or give as gifts to family and friends this is relatively affordable. Some of these organisations include electronic versions and allow selling through Amazon and other sales channels. The quality can be good. It can be rather poor, but it may meet the needs of some.

There is now another approach some photographers are taking to make their work available to an appreciative photo-book collecting audience. The hand made (or partially hand made) photo book. These are made in very limited numbers due to the intensive nature of putting them together. They are usually beautifully printed on fine art papers, hand bound and often presented in hand made slip cases. The printing is usually of the very highest quality and as such they become treasured art objects in their own right.

One such example I was very fortunate to add to my collection recently was ‘YŪBI’, a hand made photo-book by husband and wife landscape photographers Denis and Freda Hocking.

Freda came on a workshop I was running with Valda Bailey up in the Lake District and she had bought a copy of the book with her. As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to have a copy. It is unusual, though not unique, for a couple to work together so closely on photographic projects. If you visit the Hockings website (and I recommend you do) you will see they share it. The galleries display work from both of them. The galleries and images do not identify who has made them. This is truly a partnership at work. You will see images of the most wonderful quality throughout the website – and this is echoed in ‘YŪBI’. If you would like to listen to a great interview with Freda and Denis, I can highly recommend this one on the Togcast (I also recommend subscribing to the Togcast for great interviews with photographers on an almost weekly basis).

The book itself is a thing of great beauty. It goes without saying that the images within are stunning. Landscapes made world-wide on the Hockings global travels, that mesh with the meaning of the Japanese word ‘YŪBI’, which is ‘Gentle Beauty’. You will see images which reflect their individual styles (although no images are identified as to who took which – part of the fun is trying to second guess the originator). The whole book has a calmness, a serenity which aptly echoes the link with the principles of Haiku.

The couple had assistance from Eddie Ephraums at Envisage Books. He provided guidance on the format, sequencing, fonts, layout, paper choice, printing, binding and all the other areas where he has great expertise. His guiding hand is very evident in the quality of the book. But knowing Denis and Freda, it is also their incredible attention to detail, their striving for perfection and their intense love for the landscape and photography which completes this book. From the hand stitched Japanese binding (which must have taken many loving hours of work to complete, through to the perfect and beautifully printed slipcase complete with fine Japanese calligraphy (provided with help from the expert Yukiko Ayres) you can see this has been a real labour of love.

The first edition has been produced in just 100 copies, of which just a few remain. I can wholeheartedly recommend that anyone who loves the landscape and collects beautiful photo-books should invest in a copy of YŪBI. I am sure it will become a treasured addition to their collection, as mine has.

You can obtain your individually signed and embossed copy HERE.

Working with Fotospeeds New Square Fine Art Papers

Posted on March 2, 2017 by dougchinnery - Gear Reviews, News, Photography comment, Photography Tips, Software Tips

The new Fotospeed 12 x 12 inch square paper range

Many of us love making images in the square format. We either ‘see’ our photographs that way and compose for them in the field, often aided by the clever way many digital cameras these days allow us to display a square mask on the rear view screen. I love this feature and use it all the time on my Fuji X-Pro 2. Shooting in raw, I still have the option back in the studio to use the entire sensor area, but in the field it is so helpful to see the image on the screen cropped square. It makes composition so much easier. (If you shoot in jpeg, the file will be square and the data beyond the boundaries of the square is lost forever).

Sleeklens Landscape Plugin Review

Posted on February 15, 2017 by dougchinnery - Gear Reviews, News, Photography comment, Photography Tips, Software Tips

I was contacted recently by sleeklens.com who asked me to put one of their plugin packs for Adobe Photoshop through its paces. They make plugins for all types of photography, particularly portraiture and architecture but they also have a pack designed for landscape photographers so it seemed appropriate to give that a try. I opted for the Photoshop version, although they do a Lightroom version of all their plugins too for those who like to keep their workflows just within the Lightroom environment.

Trying a different approach to rucksacks

Posted on February 3, 2017 by dougchinnery - Gear Reviews, News, Photography comment, Photography Tips

Ask any photographer and they will tell you, you can never have enough camera bags. Or it might be that we can never find the perfect camera bag. I’m inclined to think that there is no single one bag that meets all our needs. I have different situations I go into with my camera and need a different bag for each. Recently, I found myself frustrated with a limitation placed upon us by camera bag manufacturers and so turned to a conventional rucksack manufacturer, Glasgow based company Trespass, for the solution.

‘april, may, june and then july’ by Roj Whitelock

Posted on June 21, 2016 by dougchinnery - News, Photography comment

I was felt very privileged some months ago when approached by photographer Roj Whitlock to write a foreword for his photo-essay entitled ‘april, may, june and then july’.

I had seen the images and Roj’s moving writing for the project some months earlier, following the death of his father to cancer, Cyril Henry Whitelock, who lived to be 101 years old. Roa had used walks with his camera in local woodlands as an escape, a diversion, as therapy, as solace during the last months of his fathers life. The images reflect the rollercoaster of emotions and feelings of such a time, which any of us who have supported a friend or loved one through cancer (whatever the outcome) will know all too well. His words add a deep poignancy to the photographs.

‘Fragile’ by Valda Bailey

Posted on June 20, 2016 by dougchinnery - Gear Reviews, News, Photography comment

Before I start writing my review of ‘Fragile’ by Valda Bailey, I need to declare an interest. Valda is a good friend of mine. We teach workshops on alternative photography techniques for Light & Land and so it is very unlikely this review will be entirely unbiased, but I will try my best.

It is with a sense of pride that I opened this book when it arrived in the post from Triplekite Publishing. You see, I first met Valda on the 15th of August 2011. I can be very precise about that because she had booked me for a one to one – to learn about ICM (intentional camera movement) techniques, and in showing her some of those techniques that day I made an image which has become very popular for me – hence my ease of knowing the date, I just have to look at the raw file metadata. So, here we are, almost five years on, and Valda has gone from student of mine to co-workshop leader and has far surpassed me in her abilities with the camera in creating wonderful images. Indeed, here she has had a book published long before I am even considering such a thing.

New Dropbox Style Cloud Service I Am Trying – Sync

Posted on March 13, 2016 by dougchinnery - Gear Reviews, News, Photography Business, Photography comment, Photography Tips, Software Tips

I have been looking for a more flexible and better priced service than Dropbox for a while. I think I have found it. It is called Sync. They give you 5GB of free cloud storage, which I am currently testing (and if you USE THIS LINK I think you will get an extra GB, so 6GB in total, and I will get 1GB for referring you – https://www.sync.com/?_sync_refer=de5f7b0 )

The paid service gives you 500GB for $49 a year and 2TB for $98 a year, which is very competitive and will allow me to store virtually all of my data, including all of my images on the service.

Edgelands – The Floods by Joseph Wright

Posted on September 25, 2015 by dougchinnery - Gear Reviews, News, Photography comment

Every now and then a photo book comes along which is a bit different, a bit special. Today was one of those days. I received my copy of Joseph Wrights ‘Edgelands – The Floods’.

The book is different in several ways. Yes, the images are beautiful, but not in a classic landscape photography way. Joe has chosen o venture into those areas that surround the places we live, the edges and margins of our towns, cities and villages, which most of us tend to ignore or dismiss as ugly, unkempt. The abandoned scrublands, the borderlands or neglect. Some were once used, now left to their own devices. Others are places which have never quite fitted the needs of developers, being the wrong shape, in the wrong place, too wet or perhaps difficult to build on. Nature has no such qualms about these places. Nature quietly gets on with colonising them, plants growing, animals living quiet lives while we rush by.

Joseph has ventured in and started to make sense of the chaos. He has discovered beauty in the confusion and documented this with his 10 x 8 large format camera. Then, he has taken the project in an interesting direction, printing the images at pretty much the same size as his film (8 x 10 inches) for this book. Imagine having a sensor in your camera that is 10 x 8 inches in size. Can you grasp the resolution and detail that would resolve? A 10 x 8 negative has to be seen to be believed and here they produce glorious prints. Joe has then gone on to learn, from none other than grand master John Blakemore, how to sequence the images and hand make them into a book. Joe has individually crafted and bound these books with his own hands. This is truly a craft process. Along the way he has had extensive mentoring from Eddie Ephramus who specialising in helping photographers who want to achieve their creative vision in print and it includes a foreword by Robbie Cowan which is an extract from a work of his based on these ‘edgelands’. The results are stunning.

I invested right at the beginning of the project (Joe ran this as a ‘Kickstarter’ style project to help raise the not inconsiderable funds required), in one of the very limited Collectors Editions, limited to just 30 copies. These came with a signed limited edition print from the project and the book itself enclosed in a beautiful linen covered hand made clam case with another inset image from the project. This inset image is unique to each clam case, so each collectors book becomes a unique item in itself. The collectors editions will never be released again. It is a beautiful thing to own. Seventy copies of the book alone are being made as a standard edition and some of these are still available (I am not sure at this time if any collectors editions are still available – if they are they will be in very short supply). You can read full details and purchase your copy HERE ON JOES WEBSITE.

I think the approach Joe has taken here, making a short run of a hand crafted photo book is a very interesting approach to self publishing. he had the pages produced commercially but hand crafted and assembled the book himself. I like the idea of the book being more of a craft object. It has a nice tactile feel and the hand made element ties in with the analogue approach of large format film photography. It provides another alternative to volume publishing for those looking to get their work before an audience, albeit a smaller one. I am drawn to the intimacy of it, to the deep involvement of the photographer, to the breadth of skills needed. I feel a greater engagement with the artist and the book becomes more of a treasure, an art object rather than being ‘just a book’ (although, never would I want to downplay just how valuable I feel books are). This becomes an object which bridges the gap between a fine wall print or painting and a volume run book. It takes a great investment of time, learning and passion from the photographer (and the team who has supported him) and this shows in the finished artefact. I am a big believer that art must have an artefact.

I have produced a brief video of my Collectors Edition to give you an idea of just how beautiful it is – please take a look.(and please forgive my very amateurish iPhone video skills).

How to Travel Light With Your Fuji Camera Gear

Posted on September 14, 2015 by dougchinnery - Gear Reviews, Photography comment, Photography Tips

Airlines seem to be making it increasingly difficult for us to travel with our camera gear these days, especially on budget flights. Most of us want to keep our precious cameras and lenses with us in our carry-on bags and yet the size permitted for those bags continues to decrease, as does the amount of weight we are allowed to pack into them.

Triplekite Books New Discovery Series

Posted on September 12, 2015 by dougchinnery - Gear Reviews, News, Photography comment

Its always a good day when a photography book is delivered at home. Today, three were delivered, making it a very good day. Triplekite Publishing have been hard at work producing the first three in what is planned to be an ongoing series of books under the ‘Discovery’ series.

The stated aim of this series from Triplekite is to produce a ‘cohesive representation of landscape photography’. The plan is to release three books a year, identical in size (240 x 240mm) and page count (48), each with 25 plates which, despite being smaller than Triplekite’s other photography books, will still be made to the same exacting production standards. The plan is to release a further three or four books in the series in 2016.

Integrity & Generosity in Photography – Become a ‘Photographic Philanthropist’

Posted on May 25, 2015 by dougchinnery - Photography comment, Social Networking

It’s late. I want to go to bed, but I feel I have to write this blog post. It is based on something that has been niggling at me a lot of late, and then a comment was posted on my Facebook page which finally moved me to write my thoughts down.

I was nominated for one of these ‘Facebook Challenges’ this week – I don’t usually take them up, but in this instance I was asked very nicely by a photographer who I admire a great deal if I minded being nominated and since I had already been nominated by another photographer who I also greatly admire, I guessed it was time to give in. The first post went okay (the ‘challenge involves posting an image a day for five days and nominating other photographers each day to do the same).

Autumn in Snowdonia – Trip Report

Posted on November 7, 2014 by dougchinnery - Photography comment, Photography Workshops

I have just returned from a three day trip to North Wales where I was running a workshop in the Snowdonia National Park. Our base was the fabulous Tan-Y-Foel guest house where we were cared for perfectly by owners Chris & Maria. (If you are planning a trip to Snowdonia I can highly recommend staying at Tan-Y-Foel, the location is breathtaking from its elevated position set away from the road in above a beech forested valley with views to the mountains. The rooms, food and service could not be better and being just outside of Betws-y-Coed it is in the perfect place to explore magnificent Snowdonia – have a look at their website, which will be updated in early 2015 – http://www.tyfhotel.co.uk ) Chris and Maria kindly reserved the whole property for us so we had it to ourselves and this meant we could choose breakfast time to fit with our sunrise shoots – perfection!

Visualisation, Pre-visualisation, Preparation and Pedantics

Posted on October 3, 2014 by dougchinnery - Photography comment, Photography Tips

This post is the result of an interesting and stimulating Twitter debate this week and I felt it needed exploring in more than 140 characters.

The question was raised “do you (or should you) ‘pre-visualise’ your images of a location before you visit?” or something along those lines. This is a big question and I would just like to tackle it from a number of different perspectives.

What is DACS? and Why you should claim

Posted on September 12, 2014 by dougchinnery - News, Photography Business, Photography comment, Photography Tips

There is a way for published photographers (and artists, poets and writers) to receive additional income from their work and I thought it might be useful to put a blog post together about it.

In the same way that the Performing Rights Society monitor radio stations, TV broadcasts, public events and music played in public places in order to make sure musicians are compensated when their work us played, there is a similar organisation in place for creatives whose work appears in print.

Seaworks 1998-2013 by Paul Kenny

Posted on September 12, 2014 by dougchinnery - Gear Reviews, Photography comment

I first became aware of a man, Paul Kenny, several years ago through an article in, I think, Outdoor Photography magazine. I read about a photographer who was visiting, annually, a small stone sheep pen by a beach on the west coast of Scotland. Here he camped for a week or two each year and photographed this sheep pen. The rocks, the lichen, the patterns, shapes and forms. The enclosure had been built no one really knows how many centuries or millennia previously, the rocks used were beautifully round, smooth and encrusted in lichen which grew painfully slowly over generations of mans existence, populating their own spherical worlds, forming continents and islands of life. I had never come across such devotion and application in a photographer before and he really made a deep impression on me.