I came into 2020 wanting to migrate to Medium Format digital for most of my landscape work, and having just started to build up a system, was then almost immediately forced into lock-down like the rest of the world. So what happens when you plan to become more slow, methodical and deliberate in your landscape photography, but then are suddenly prevented from going outside for any recreational purpose at all, apart from exercise?
Learning & Development
One of the wonderful things about photography is there is always some new to learn or improve upon. Being in lockdown presents a massive opportunity to spend some time developing our knowledge and skills. It could be practical, like learning macro photography at home, or learning aspects of our favourite processing software that we have never tried or feel could be improved on. There are many resources online, from a variety of photographers and organisations who have reduced the cost or given away their online course and resources for free, at least temporarily.
I chose to watch some of my favourite photographers on YouTube, but also some online training for software and various webinars. I also took a paid academic course in Visual Literacy. That led me to read Secret Knowledge by David Hockney, a very interesting and thought-provoking book on the use of optics in the creation of paintings and drawings over the centuries.
My 1 week, 1 walk, 1 prime project
Restricted to one walk a day, which was of necessity walking the dog, I decided to use this as my daily photographic opportunity as well. To keep to the letter and the spirit of the law, as well as deal with the practicalities of having a dog in tow, I had to impose some further restrictions on my photography.
So, I came up with the idea that for each week I would take one prime lens on my lightest camera, no filter, no tripod, in fact nothing else other than a spare battery. I would be shooting handheld on-the-go and within ten minutes or so walk from home, early in the morning.
This was an almost complete reversal of how I saw my photographic approach going at the beginning of the year. After four weeks, just as the restrictions were about to be eased in my area, I realised I had learned a massive amount from this, and it’s probably something I am going to continue to do even after the restrictions are completely lifted. Carrying such light gear can be very liberating.
Kit evaluation & organisation
I had already sold a lot of gear to fund my move to medium format, but I took the time to take another look and pare-down or change-out further than I had before.
In particular, I realised that focal lengths in the ‘normal’ range I don’t really find that useful. I actually sold a lens as result of this process. Although it was a really good lens, I realised why I didn’t use it often and therefore I didn’t need to hang on to it.
I also spent some time organising my gear, so that I can now lay my hands on those stepping rings, tripod spares, filter adapter rings etc., that I would previously struggle to retrieve from various bags and cupboards. Now I have everything organised and labelled.
One minor but particularly beneficial thing was finding and using these labels to organise my 100mm square filters in two Mindshift pouches. Now I don’t have to go through the exercise of pulling out four grads in order to find the one that is actually needed!
Quick Edits
I also learned that just five minutes in Capture One working on an image could produce something significantly more satisfying than the out-of-camera jpegs. That’s not to say that there is anything wrong with those, just that a few quick edits, such as adding a subtle vignette, could really lift an image out of the ordinary. Thinking like this made me consider more the post-processing as I was taking the picture, for example it there was something distracting around the edge of the frame that I could not easily avoid or remove, like a blade of grass or a twig, I would consider whether I would clone this out later or simply mask it a little with a vignette. Although I shoot usually shoot RAW, in my normal way-of-working I typically don’t do ‘quick edits’ preferring to start with the image as ‘finished’ as possible in-camera and then refine it further in Capture One and Photoshop..
Other ISOs are available
Temporarily at least, I stopped being a base-ISO shooter. Of course, base-ISO is rarely an issue when shooting off a tripod, but handheld you have to raise the ISO to deal with camera shake, wind, gloomy woodlands or just dingy days.
Get on with it
Speed - as mentioned this was something I was doing whilst on a walk, so I felt that I could not spend too long composing/taking each image, so I was forcing myself to ‘see’ the image and execute it very quickly.
Intimate landscapes
I don’t live in a particular scenic area, although there is countryside all around, there are no sweeping vista or mountain ranges. But, over these few weeks I think I developed a bit of an eye for the ‘intimate’ landscape - a flower in a hedgerow, frosty leaves etc. I think taking a simpler approach, not being weighed down by equipment or expectations, helped me to see these things more clearly.
Rinse & Repeat
Of course often I often had the opportunity to repeat or try again with the same subject the next day. I also began to make a list of local subjects that are worth exploring further with a more deliberate approach, when I am able to. Some of these I know will be better at other times of the year, so I am effectively building a pipeline of ‘projects’ that I can tackle from home and when conditions are ideal.