More scanning

All pictures - Pentax 645 Fuij Velvia 50

Despite the fact that it takes a long time and I can only get a quite small file to upload to my picture libraries, these scanned images that Ann and I took some time ago are very enjoyable to work on. They are also proving very popular with our picture library editors, who are taking everything we send them.

Process - Part 2

From time to time I try to make a dent in the tens of thousands of medium-format and 35mm transparencies that are stored here. Because of changes in fashions, cars etc. many have now become examples of recent history, but the images without people will probably be current for many years to come. The landscape images, barring an apocolypse, will probably be current for centuries.





Film had a quite different process. Picture libraries who accepted film always required transparencies, both for the quality of reproduction and for ease of use. Since I never processed my own films, the work involved was somewhat less than it is now. After getting the processed slides back from a lab, I would cut them from the strips, put them in a card mount and write a short caption on the mount. They were then sent off to the library, who then did all the sorting, filing and collating. 


These days very few libraries, or indeed clients, want transparencies. They require all film material, either transparency or negative, to be scanned. So from being a fairly painless way to take and distribute pictures, film is now much more difficult to deal with.





I approach scanning in much the same way as I approach raw files, keep it simple! I scan as closely to the original as possible. Fortunately these days film scanners come with software that "removes" dust spots and scratches. If they didn't, removing these manually would make the task so time consuming, that nobody would do it. 





Unlike digital, colour transparency film has great contrast and colour saturation. Often I have to tone this down as opposed to often increasing it with the somewhat "flatter" rendition of reality that digital cameras record.





Its still a slow time consuming process, but in many cases well worth it. While scans never look as "clean" as digital images on a computer screen, they do reproduce in print very well. 
I may never get everything that I want scanned, but I will continue to do this on an occasional basis and hopefully have the best in digital form at some point in the future.














Words - David
Images - David and Ann

Natural?

Pentax 645 Fuji Velvia 50

Back in 1990 Fuji introduced Velvia 50 transparency film. This proved very popular, particularly with landscape photographers. It  had a combination of very fine grain, warm colour saturation and high contrast.  Many photographers thought it the perfect film, that finally gave them the punchy results that they were lacking with other films. Others however disliked it, and felt that it exaggerated certain colours and added an unnatural warmth to images.


It became the film of choice for landscape photographers like Charlie Waite and Joe Cornish, and was very much associated with the coffee table book landscape photography of the 1990's.


Whether people thought it was natural or not, nobody could deny that pictures taken with it had an impact on the printed page. I was a long time user of the film & the various magazine covers and double page spreads that I shot with it, usually on medium-format cameras, still look impressive to this day.



Pentax 645 Fuji Velvia 50



Pentax 645 Fuji Velvia 50


To those of us used to results like that, digital was a bit of a shock. The results were much more sedate and while appreciating characteristics like more shadow detail, always difficult with Velvia, the overall lack of impact straight out of the camera was disappointing to many of us. Of course there was always Photoshop to the rescue, to add that touch of drama that many of us love.


There's still a debate between photographers over a natural v processed look, though neither of these terms are strictly accurate. I decided a long time ago that no film, or digital sensor could ever be relied upon to provide 100% accuracy in either colour or contrast. I also decided that wasn't really important to me. 



Pentax 645 Fuji Velvia 50


I know that I prefer shooting landscape images on a Leica rather than a Canon DSLR. I prefer the look, the colour and the overall impression that that the M9 or X1 give. For portraits, I'll go with the Canons every time, as the look from those cameras strikes me as much more flattering. 


So natural or not, the decision as to how a photographer chooses to handle colour, contrast etc. is just another of those creative decisions available to us. Some may like our choices, some may not, whats important surely is that we have them.



Leica M9



Leica X1



Leica M9



Leica X1


Words - D
Images D & A

Gower and the Mumbles

We have just returned from a stock photography shoot in the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park in West Wales. On the way we stopped off at the Gower Peninsula and The Mumbles near Swansea. The light was very flat to begin with, so we used the Samsung NX10 for its warm high contrast jpgs.



On a Gower beach we found beautiful red and pink wild flowers amongst the sand dunes and in the absence of strong sunlight, concentrated on these using shallow depth of field.





The Samsung NX10 and the three lenses currently available, produce great richly coloured images that can be very "over the top" in bright sunny conditions, but can give a real lift to images taken on dull days. It is possible of course to tweak the jpg settings on most cameras, but we have never found anything approaching the Samsung for such intense colour saturation.


The requirement to produce commercial images that people find attractive and want to publish is very much the prime consideration in travel and landscape photography. Some people seem to object to photographs that do this. Back in the days of film there was a split between users of films like Fuji Velvia and Kodak Panther (A very short-lived yet beautiful film) and other less saturated emulsions. There was some notion of "photographic purity" that was often cited as a reason to use more "conservative" films such as Fuji Provia.


The truth of course was that no film was ever 100% "accurate" In the same way that no sensor in a digital camera reproduces "reality" Considering that we all see colour in a different way, there's not a lot of point to this anyway. The primary consideration with us is, have we produced an image that we are happy with? Also do we think that others might like it too and be prepared to pay to use it? Whether other photographers think that we over-saturate images or use too much photoshop manipulation, is not really of any concern to us. It makes as much sense as criticism of photographers such as Ansel Adams who worked out elaborate systems of exposure and development and used extensive "burning and dodging" techniques to produce his beautiful, yet often "unrealistic" images.


Whatever your photographic "philosophy" or personal preferences there is no "right" or "wrong" way to produce an image. Thankfully we have a wide variety of ways of taking and producing images, and choice and experimentation is always preferable to uniformity.


Our experience of the world through our eyes (the best lenses ever produced), is 3D, capable of incredible dynamic range and colour differentiation. The world is full of intense saturated colour, and it is often very difficult to produce a photographic image that does it justice.


Returning to the Welsh trip, the clouds did eventually lift late in the day and we able to get some dramatic shots of the Gower (Top Image) and the Mumbles Lighthouse (Below)


D & A

Stock Photography - The Best Sellers

These are all images that have generated large amounts in terms of fees. All were sold for advertising. As the picture library and stock photography business has changed dramatically over the past few years, sales like these are probably in the past. All of these date from the days when companies would pay huge sums of money for an exclusive image to use in their advertising and promotion campaigns.

Unlike the downloads top 20 several of these are among our favourite images of all time, proving that those "special" pictures sometimes get their reward.

This was an image taken at the Cirque de Lescun in the French Pyrenees. Pentax 645. 150mm lens. Fuji Velvia. Sold to a New York advertising agency. We never found out what the product was though we did find out it was used on the side of subway trains, buses and was a 48-sheet billboard poster. Also used as double - page magazine advertising spread. This image despite being an all-time favourite never sold until 13 years after it was taken. It has still only ever had one sale. It is however our highest-grossing image ever.

Total fees- £8250

Taken from the summit of Castle Crag in the Lake District. This was the only time the sun came out all day. Shot on Fuji Velvia (pushed 2 stops) with a Pentax 645 camera and 55mm lens. Used by a walking boot company for magazine advertising and point of sale promotion. This picture was on the box of every pair of the boots.

This was how it was used:-

Total Fees - £6500

Kelly Hall Tarn in the lake District. Originally shot on a Pentax 645 with a 35mm lens on Kodak Panther 100 Transparency film. It was then cropped down and put into a 35mm mount, because of a large amount of flaring on the image. On the section of the bank below the tree a black felt tip pen was used to remove the last remaining flare.

Used as an advert for Glen Morangie whiskey.

This was a double page magazine spread plus was on huge billboards all over the London Underground. Yes we are aware that it wasn't taken in Scotland, as I am sure were the company and designers.

Total fees - £4835

The most incredible haw frost I've ever seen. Shot in Bedfordshire, this was opposite the house we were staying in with friends over New Years. Incredibly cold. Shot on a Pentax 645, 55mm lens and Agfa 50 Transparency film.

Sold several times including two large sales to a Swiss pharmaceutical company. Never found out what it was used for.

Total sales - £3950

The European Commission Parliament building in Brussels. Taken when we were in Belgium shooting Christmas markets and general shots for a travel company.

Pentax 645 150mm lens on Fuji Velvia 50. The building wasn't even finished. Below the flagpoles were concrete mixers, diggers and all the rubbish of a construction site. Taken on Christmas Eve. The temperature was -6 selsius with a fierce wind, which you can see on the flags. The site was completely deserted, no security, not even a barrier. We had the the entire place to ourselves. Sold to the travel company (non-exclusive) and then many sales via a picture library. Biggest single sale was to VISA in the US. Still sells now, even though there are a lot more flags as many more countries have joined the EU. Note the Union Jack first in line, which is ironic for a country not renown for its enthusiasm towards Europe and the EU. Maybe thats why it sells!

Total sales - £3870

As I said the days of these kinds of sales have largely disappeared. During the time these were taken it was actually cheaper to buy a library photograph than to hire a photographer. These days photographers work cheaper so its now more "cost effective" to hire a photographer, if you want an exclusive "bespoke" image.

We should point out that these kind of amounts for pictures were the exception. All other images sold for a lot less. However even with the driving down of fees for pictures, with the huge amount of imagery available throughout the world, we are in the fortunate position of still increasing our income from this source year by year. Its just that we have to take and sell many more images to do that.

Images D & A