Shutter Scouts

The Photographic Pyramid

Often, the things people think are important in photography, are not; and the things which are important are often forgotten or ignored. However, understanding the relative importance of different aspects of photography is essential to your development as a photographer (and your wallet!). I'm almost 100% sure that this hierarchy (or some variation) is a well-known concept but I can't seem to find a reference online (do let me know if you find one!). Here's my take on it:

Camera and Lens
Obviously, without a camera we can't take a picture so that's the first thing that most people think of when you mention photography. It's also the first piece of equipment that a photographer has to buy. The next item we encounter is the lens: It's through this that we focus and frame our image, control depth-of-field and so on. Since many people use an SLR, the ability to change lenses has encouraged a habit of collecting one of every conceivable variation of type, quality, focal length and aperture. For some photographers, cameras and lenses are what photography is about (particularly those coming to photography as just another gadget-collecting hobby). They're happy to spend huge amounts of money to buy the best lenses and update their cameras to the latest models.

Subject
Now we come to the tricky stuff. What you choose to photograph, makes an enormous contribution to the impact of your image. I strongly believe that photography is about showing the viewer an image they haven't seen before. Sometimes you can show a mundane subject in a new way, but the easiest path is to show a rarely seen subject: The flooded green fields of Ireland might amaze an African whilst images of Big Cats are sure to delight those not used to seeing them. "Subject" lies in the middle of the pyramid because although you can't acquire them as easily as other equipment, it is possible to buy access to them (perhaps a ticket to the zoo or an expensive holiday). Likewise, good subjects can also be found close to home if you take the time to look and think about it (perhaps there's a photogenic relative or small patch of woodland).

Light
Without light there wouldn't be a photograph to take; so there might be justification for placing light at the bottom of the pyramid, but we live in a universe filled with light so I don't feel this is terribly realistic. There's always some light available. More often, we talk about light in terms of its quality, colour, temperature, direction and intensity. I'm more of a natural light sort of guy, so mastering light is especially difficult when you're not is control! Landscape photographers have the challenge of predicting and waiting for (or getting up for!) the perfect light. However, portrait photographers will often create their own light and the infinite variations in how this is setup provides its own challenges (if, perhaps, more sociable hours).

Skill
Skill (and experience, effort, determination and commitment etc) trumps everything else. A great photographer with the worst equipment and most mundane subject is still going to trump the clueless wannabe with the latest-and-greatest camera. Skill is the hardest thing to talk about, it's the hardest thing to sell and it's impossible to buy (no matter what those courses tell you!). It takes time and dedication. It's the hard slog. It's also the best thing you can do for your images!

Discussion
Here are the important things to note about our pyramid:

• The attributes at the bottom of the pyramid are your foundation: They are what the rest of your image is built upon.
  
• The equipment at the top is the easiest to acquire and most expensive -- but the least important.
  
• The stuff at the bottom is the hardest to get... it requires enormous time, energy and commitment to improve these areas... and reaps the biggest rewards.
• The things that are furthest from your eye are the most important (using a bit of poetic license regarding "skill" being a more ethereal thing). That expensive black camera and white lens is not as important as your subject, light or skill.
  

Some fallout from these rules:

• Not buying gear is ok! Concentrate on the bottom of the pyramid to really improve your photography and grow your gear collection in lockstep with your mastership of the skills, use of light and interesting subjects.
• Buying gear is the "cheap" thrill... and it avoid the real work/benefits. You don't get to be a better photographer just by buying more equipment. You also need to focus on mastering the rest of the stack.
• Some publications focus on reviews and comparison of the superficial stuff at the top. Naturally, pay some attention to this but also aim to broaden your skills, consider the light and seek out new subjects. Even something seemingly unrelated (like learning to rock climb) can improve your photography by opening up new subjects to explore (not just the scenery but the people and equipment).

I've been improving my skill by engaging in projects that make me get out there and take photographs: a daily photoblog, a SoFoBoMo book, a few ongoing themed projects and the occasional photowalk. Practice hasn't made my photos perfect but it's heading in the right direction. To help with the bottom half of the stack, I'm building Shutter Scouts as a tool for outdoor photographers to organise their ideas for subjects and predict the desired light.

A Mile of Coastline

Well, the month is up and I've finally finished my SoFoBoMo project so now I can concentrate on Shutter Scouts development again!

When Weather Forecasts go bad

Apparently 25,000 people didn't visit Bournemouth because the weather forecast was for thundery showers when in fact the weather was lovely. The tourism chief would prefer more accurate, and apparently more optimistic, forecasts!

The accuracy of weather forecasting is something that I've constantly struggled with for Shutter Scouts. Will the forecasts be accurate enough to be useful? I've certainly found them to be good enough to make broad decisions about where to go, what to photograph, and what equipment I might need. For example, a prediction of an overcast evening has meant that went out knowing that I wasn't going to shoot anything with the sky in it. Instead, I was going to concentrate on flowers and macro shots with the flat light. These forecasts have allowed me to make lens and filter choices before I've left home, which as cut down on the "what should I be shooting... hmmm... need to change lenses" process on-location.

The weather data that Shutter Scouts currently uses is certainly more accurate than what you find in the daily newspapers. Sure, it has been wrong on occasions but then blindly following a weather forecast would be like following the directions of your GPS off the edge of a cliff. It's pretty stupid, isn't is? No photographer is going believe a weather forecast when the prevailing conditions outside their window say otherwise.

I'm confident that more accurate forecasts can be aggregated and overlaid to improve Shutter Scouts considerably. Also, there are constantly evolving weather models which will improve the accuracy and scale of weather forecasts and again I'm confident that these will come online over the next few years. I could sit around waiting to build Shutter Scouts on the perfect weather forecasts but then it would never get built! By building it now I can provide a decent amount of value to other photographers, which will only increase in the future.

SoFoBoMo — one month's motivation

SoFoBoMo is short for the Solo Photo Book Month, a worldwide group event where photographers work individually on producing a photobook. The idea is to spend 31 days (and not a day more!) on putting together a photobook of at least 35 images. There's a 2 month window in which to start & finish your 31 days (to make it flexible around holidays etc) and I startted mine today.

Why would you take part in SoFoBoMo?

a book is a big commitment and a lot of work. That to me is the beauty of the SoFoBoMo challenge. It isn't a huge commitment. It'll all be over in a month, one way or another. You'll either have a book, or you won't. It can't stretch out into a multi-year or multi-decade albatross around your neck.

In fact, I do have a 2-year photobook in mind and making any sort of consistent progress on it is very hard. Because your SoFoBoMo project will only last 31 days it is much easier to make the commitment and put all your effort into it.

My project is to shoot a wide variety of scenes and conditions on a short stretch of coastline in Ireland.

But, seriously, why do this?
Well, I find that any type of photo project can give you great focus and motivation to your work. I've learnt so much, taken so many photos and been out far more since I start my one-photo-every-day photoblog, "Hot off the Memory Card" - and that's just in the first few months!

Preventing Underexposure from Stray Light

As photographers we are obsessed with light — but it's a rare that we encounter too much light which cause our shots to be underexposed. It's not supposed to work that way, is it?

Here's a botched shot from last Sunday:

It's obviously massively underexposed... but what caused the automatic metering to fail so drastically? The clue is in the top corners. I was using a polariser and ND8 filter stacked with the polariser closest to the lens. In the top corners you can make out the shadow of the polariser's notched edge being reflected in the ND8 filter. Therefore the light was from coming directly behind the camera, bouncing off the nearside of the ND8 filter. Because I didn't want my own shadow in the shot, I was standing some distance away and triggering remotely. But if a strong light source (like the sun) is coming from directly behind the camera, it can fool the camera's light meter into underexposing the shot.

Here's what it should have looked like (by covering the viewfinder as described below):

The solution is incredibly simple. Most cameras will come with this little viewfinder cover that is usually attached to the camera strap:

By removing the viewfinder eyepiece

You can slide the cover down over the eyepiece and prevent any stray light from entering the camera during an exposure

Weather Data!

One of the major factors holding up development of Shutter Scouts has been negotiating with weather data providers. Even in these apparently bleak times there's a lot of companies out there who don't even respond to business enquiries. Unlike the average person, I can't simply scrape weather from Google or use freely available data (because it's not actually free of usage restrictions). Also, I'm committed to obtaining the most comprehensive and accurate data I can — my users will depend on it and that data doesn't come free.

Thankfully I managed to find three good providers and after a lot of back-and-forth, I've signed up with one. This means that the next stage of development can progress and it should accelerate the release of a preview version. I'll also be evaluating this data and may in the future augment it with further weather forecasts.

New Site for Shutter Scouts

I've finally updated the Shutter Scouts site with much more information about the features of the site and why I'm building it.
There's also a signup form for the preview version, which I encourage you to complete if you're at all interested in Shutter Scouts. The more information I can gather from potential users, the more I can tailor it to your needs!

Photo Radar

Photo Radar looks like an interesting app for the iPhone-carrying photographer. Unfortunately, I don't have one so I can't check it out.

Slow / No Progress

Chasing the Light (DVD)

David Noton is one of my favourite landscape photographers. It's not just because of the wonderful, serene photographs but because he opens up the world of a professional landscape photographer in his column for Practical Photography. That's why I was eager to watch his DVD, Chasing the Light

, which shows his approach to landscape photography.

Now, the first thing you need to know about the DVD is that David is not a natural TV personality. The presentation style is fairly natural, honest and down-to-earth — pretty much like the man himself — but don't expect the flawless scripted style of a TV presenter. There are occasional hesitations etc but it doesn't detract at all from the content.

The DVD is split into a number of different sections but it's filmed entirely on-location so you can see how he finds a so-so location, envisages what it might look like in different conditions, and then wait it out with him until he captures a stunning shot. This is David's philosophy: find somewhere interesting, imagine (pre-visualise) what it will look like is different conditions, plan, return, shoot. He firmly believes that most of the work of the photographer is done before he touches the camera. There's a little talk about apertures, shutter speeds and white balance but technique is not what he's really teaching. It's really a motivational video for going beyond the point-and-shoot style of photography. Instead of simply settling for whatever scene we come across, we should be planning a particular shot, in particular light, and then waiting it out.

After taking on-board what I learnt from this DVD I went out and shot an amazing panoramic photo just by following his philosophy. I thought of an image I wanted to capture (a mountain ridge with the turf cut out of the bog, highlighted by the setting sun). I thought of a location which I knew but hadn't shot before. I studied the map, checked the time and position of sunset, and set off on a recce as the grey clouds rolled in. This was the location:

As I was scouting out the place, I noticed that the sun was just appearing underneath the clouds. And within a few minutes lovely golden light flooded across my scene. I hastily setup the tripod and snapped away for 5 minutes before the sun sank beneath the mountains.

I'll be returning in September when I expect the sun to set in a better position and I'll have found a more interesting location.

Although it's a touch expensive, I'd recommend this DVD to any budding photographer as it shows just what shots are out there for the taking with a little forethought and patience. Sample clips are available from David's site.

Oh, and my latest photographic kit is my cheapest: a small tripod stool

— I reckon I'll be waiting for the light a lot more often now :-)