Thanks to all who have written to commiserate with me about my disaster last week, and to share your own stories of mistakes made. I should compile them into a book and call it “The Ghosts of Photo-Mistake’s Past.”  

And thanks to those who offered technical advice on how to salvage my JPEG’s, because of this advice I was able to save more of my files than I thought possible. I thought I’d share what I found worked best.

To bring everyone up to speed, I accidentally photographed Death Valley with no RAW and only JPEG files. Because I was shooting in Monochrome Mode, the JPEG’s were in black and white and not in color like the RAW files would have been. The reason for this is that when you are shooting in RAW, all of the settings you make to the camera such as the mode, saturation, sharpness and etc, are ignored by the RAW file. However the JPEG file is affected by all of those settings.  So because I had JPEG’s files, I was unable to convert them to black and white myself.  

Why does this matter? Because much of “my look” comes from this conversion process as I adjust the color channels.

The JPEG files are also more grainy and the grain seems to clump together more than the RAW file. Lastly, the JPEG file is an 8 bit file while the RAW is a 16 bit file. This matters because I do a lot of dodging and burning and an 8 bit file will not produce smooth gradients, it’s subject to banding and posterization.  

There is nothing I can do about not having a color file to work with, that ship has sailed. But, there was something I could do about the 8 bit files, I thought I’d simply go into PhotoShop and converted the file to 16 bit. However my friend (and master printer and great photographer) Adrian Davis pointed out that this approach is not ideal and offered a better way.  

His suggestion was to use HDR to create a true 16 bit file as opposed to taking a 8 bit JPEG and simply converting it to 16 bits. You do this by making a copy of the original file and then using Photoshop’s HDR to merge together the two identical files which resulted in a file with 16 bits of data. Note: it does not produce that “HDR” look in this process.

Now this did not solve all of my JPEG problems, but at least by having a 16 bit file, I was able to do my dodging and burning on a 16 bit file which provided me with smooth gradients. I compared the JPEG image to the converted 16 bit image and it looks better in a three ways. First there is no banding, second the grain looks smoother and third the edges on high contrast transitions are smoother.  

The improvement was enough that with a little extra work, I’ll be able to salvage 10-15 of those “lost” Death Valley images. I’m very happy about this!

So my thanks to all for your support and suggestions, and I hope that my mistake and this technical tip will be beneficial to you.

Cole

P.S. Please take a look at Aline Smithson’s L E N S S C R A T C H entry for 2/14/2013.  She invited people from all over the world to submit their self-portraits and there are some amazingly creative images here! But there’s a twist, she tells the story about how I got to know someone who wrote me and how it led to a friendship and an exhibition. She then invites all of the self-portrait artists to contact the person who comes before and after them in the exhibit.  Aline’s a pretty clever woman.

Sunday I arrived home after spending 16 days in Death Valley. It was a fantastic trip; the weather was perfect, it was relaxing and I felt very productive. Each night I’d review my images and the compositions were looking good. However the images had a funny look to them on the camera’s screen, they were flat and dull, but it was a new camera and so I figured that I had the brightness adjustment set a little differently than on my other camera.

When I got home and all caught up with two weeks worth of mail, email and phone messages, I anxiously began processing my images. As I reviewed the thumbnails, the images again looked a little odd, they were very flat. Then I noticed that I was looking at a JPEG, which I thought was okay because I had set my new camera to record in both RAW and JPEG.  However as I looked for the RAW files, my heart stopped when I realized they weren’t any. I went back to the CF Card and they weren’t there either.

I could not believe it.  I had shot for those entire 16 days and didn’t have a single RAW file to show for it. I went into the camera settings to see how I had set up the camera and sure enough, I had misread the settings and had mistakenly it set to record only in JPEG. I was devastated because as I reviewed the images it appeared to me that I wouldn’t be able to salvage a single one.

The problem was twofold: First the images were recorded in JPEG and were a much lower resolution than the RAW files I normally work with. And second, the files were recorded in B&W which meant that I could not convert them they way I wanted using the color channels.  This took much of the creative control from me.  As I worked on some of the files I concluded that I wouldn’t be able to use any of them.

That was a very long night for me. I could not stop thinking of all of the mistakes I had made:

• Setting up the camera wrong.
• Not creating some test images before I took the camera into the field.
• Not processing some of the images while on the trip, which would have uncovered the problem.
• Not digging deeper into why the images on the camera’s screen looked funny.

I felt pretty foolish and just couldn’t believe that after all of that time, money and shooting, I was coming home empty handed.  It was a long sleepless night.

The next day I thought that I’d take another stab at some of the images, perhaps by using some different techniques a few might be salvaged? After working on them for a few hours, it turns out that I might be able to save about five of the images. Not a lot to show for 16 days work, but a lot more than I thought I had last night!

I felt foolish for making such a silly error and thought maybe I’d say nothing about this to anyone and just quietly show the five images, but I then thought better of it. That was pride speaking and the truth is that I messed up and I need to share this experience to keep myself humble and to help others from making the same mistake. This disaster was completely avoidable and I’m grateful that I’ve learned this lesson now, before I travel to Iceland later this year. Can you imagine coming home from Iceland with no images? Now that would have been a tragedy!

So, please learn from my mistake and tuck this experience away.  When you get a new camera, test it out thoroughly before you head out on a big photo trip.  And if something doesn’t look right, investigate it right then and there until it’s resolved.

Also, after working with these JPEG files and seeing their limitations, I must reinforce my previous recommendation to always shoot in RAW!  There is an ENORMOUS difference between RAW and JPEG, and you are handicapping yourself when you work in JPEG.

I’ll be finishing these images over the next several weeks and will introduce them in the next newsletter. In the meantime, the above image is one that I think I’ll be able to salvage.

Cole

Isn’t the iPhone incredible?  Beautiful 180 degree panoramas created in the field in seconds!

Today I visited the Armagosa sand dunes, near Beatty, NV.  I was the only one there and the dunes were pretty clean.

Here’s a short video of my visit.

And a 45 second time-lapse video.

Cole

Here is a very short time-lapse video showing me at work at the Devil’s Golf Course.

I know that a lot of you will ask: Color?

It’s just an iPhone snap, but hopefully more serious (and less colorful) work will emerge after I get home and process my images.

Cole

I’m leaving for my annual Death Valley trip in the morning.  I’m going for two weeks this year, a little longer than most because I’m also hopping over to L.A. to attend the Auschwitz Liberation Day remembrance at the Simon Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance.

What will I do for two weeks?

The first thing I’m going to do is enjoy being alone with my thoughts.

My goal is to clear my head of all the day to day clutter that keeps me preoccupied with relatively unimportant stuff.

I hope to continue on my quest to “see differently.”  Not differently from everyone else, but differently from myself.

Would I love to come home with a dozen of good  images?  Yes, but I’d rather come home with a single great one.

One that I am in love with.

One that I am proud of.

That’s not too much to hope for, is it?

Cole

The Ghosts of Auschwitz-Birkenau

Two Exhibitions

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I use a very simple workflow and for years I hid it from others because I thought it  unsophisticated and backwards. As I listened to other photographers talk about their process, I was embarrassed to let them see my rudimentary procedures.  What if they started talking about layers, I didn’t even understand them!

Fortunately with time I came to the realization that it’s not about the process, it’s about the image.  Nothing else matters.

There are many ways to use Photoshop and I doubt many photographers use more than a small percentage of its many tools.  There is no right way or wrong way to use it and not one workflow will be right for everyone.  My procedure works for me and I’d like to share it to illustrate a point: that you don’t need to know a lot about Photoshop or have a complicated workflow to produce beautiful images.  

Here are the six tools that I use to process most of my images:

1. RAW Converter - I use Photoshop’s RAW converter to set my image to a 16 bit, 360 ppi, 10X15 TIFF file.

2. B&W Conversion tool – I like Photoshop’s b&w conversion tool and play with each color channel to see how it affects the different parts of my image.

3. Levels – One of the most basic secrets to a great b&w image is to have a good black and white. I use Levels to set the initial black and white point and I use the histogram to judge this, never my eyes.  Throughout my processing I keep my eye on that histogram to maintain a true black and white.  Something else I do while in Levels is to adjust the midtones, which can radically change the look of my image and tends to set the direction I will take it.

4. Dodging and Burning – This is where I do most of my processing and where I have the most fun!  I feel most at home with dodging and burning because that’s how I did things in the darkroom.  However the primary difference today is that I can take my time and exercise minute control over every part of the image. I use a Wacom tablet to dodge and burn because you CANNOT do a good job with a mouse.

5. Contrast Adjustment – After I have the image looking great on screen, experience teaches me that it will print flat, and so I add some contrast.  A monitor uses transmitted light and a print uses reflective light, so that means it will take a lot more work to get your print to look as snappy as it does on the monitor.  Contrast helps.

6 Clone Tool – I use the clone tool to spot my images.  Cloning is so much better than the old days when you had to spot every single print and your mouth tasted like Spottone all day!

My point isn’t that you should imitate my workflow, but that a workflow need not be complicated.  Did you notice that I didn’t make mention of special b&w conversion programs, plug-ins, curves or layers?  I also don’t use monitor calibrators, profiles, RIP’s or special inksets.  

I use Photoshop and six tools.  Ofttimes there’s beauty in simplicity!

Egg in Glass – Age 14

What do you want to be when you grow up?  What child has not been asked that question a hundred times, and who over the years hasn’t had a variety of answers?  Fireman, policeman, teacher, nurse…  Those answers were not prophecies or predictions, but merely answers that were reflective of this month’s favorite TV show or parental expectations.  What we would actually become in life was more often due to luck or chance, rather than careful career planning.

I was fourteen years old and living in Rochester, NY.  One day I was hiking in the woods when I came upon a crumbling and deserted home that my friend told me had once belonged to George Eastman.  I knew George Eastman was connected to Kodak and this piqued my interest enough that I checked out his biography from the school library.

I started reading and could not put the book down.  I was captivated by the wonder of photography and before I had finished the book, before I had taken a picture or before I had ever seen a print develop in the darkroom, I knew that I was destined to be a photographer.  I know that using the word “destined” is a bit presumptuous and grandiose, especially for a 14 year old, but that is what I was meant to be.

I had been infatuated with various things before, just a year earlier I had fallen in love with architecture and I wanted to become an architect.  But never before or since have I felt “destined” to become anything; it wasn’t just something that I wanted to be, it was something that I felt destined to be.

Why a photographer?  I don’t know, but it was almost a Déjà vu moment, like I had been there before and had now come home.  Ever since that moment almost 45 years ago, I have never doubted that this is who I am.

And so for the next 10 years I learned everything I could about photography.  I am self taught and have never taken a class or workshop in my life. I’ve learned through studying, experimenting and through the friendship of three great men.

I started off by reading every single book I could find on photography; I studied the history of photography as well as the science.  I studied about cameras, techniques, processes and about the different types of photography, from fine art to scientific.  Because I didn’t know what direction I would eventually go, I studied everything about everything.

I studied the images created by the great Masters of Photography.  I spent countless hours looking at every image I could find and tried to identify why certain images fascinated me and caused a shiver to go down my spine. These were a very particular type of image; dark and  contrasy images with bright subjects.  I found myself particularly drawn to images by Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and Wynn Bullock and later I would find my work going in this direction.

I set up a darkroom, first commandeering the family bathroom with a Sears’s enlarging kit and then taking over the basement and purchasing an enlarger and proper darkroom equipment.  Everything was an experiment and an adventure, and those were some of the happiest days of my life; experimenting, failing, succeeding but always learning.

I had always been an impatient sort and learning this way, independently and hands on, allowed me to hyper-accelerate my learning and to go in any direction I felt inspired.  I think it was at this point in my life that I began to form the habit of learning by doing and avoiding structured and formal education.

Another way that I learned was from the assistance of three men who touched my life and taught me some life lessons.  Three great men, three great lessons.

The first was Mr. Casey who owned Casey’s Camera’s in Rochester, NY.  I was a boy of 14 with very few dollars to spend and an enormous thirst to learn.  Mr. Casey tolerated my many visits, the endless hours looking at his cameras and all the associated questions.  He always showed patience and tolerance and magically a used camera was always within my price range.  It was only recently, as I recounted those experiences, that I fully appreciated what he had done for me.  I contacted Richard Casey, now 82 years of age, and thanked him for his simple acts of patience and kindness.  His example has inspired me to return the same gift to others.

The second significant influence in my life was Joe Boyle, an old-school photographer who worked in Hollywood shooting stills for the studios.  Joe hired me to work in a department store’s camera department and he then became a friend and mentor.  Joe was king of the cheap and dirty solution; he could solve any problem with the most basic of materials and a lot of imagination.  He truly was a follower of Rube Goldberg and the King of Kluge.

He once taught me how to remove telephone lines from an image long before the days of digital and Photoshop.  We mounted a piece of glass about 12″ in front of the camera lens and then looking through the camera, drew over the telephone lines with Vaseline on the glass.  The glass was out of focus and the Vaseline blurred out the telephone lines, a simple solution with simple materials.  This was the great lesson I learned from Joe; to look for the simple solution and to improvise.

The third mentor in my life was John Holland, a photography teacher at Loara High School in Anaheim, CA.  I relocated to Anaheim in my Junior year and naturally gravitated to the photography department.  I had no interest in the basic photography classes that were offered and so John allowed me to have an open-study photography period, where I basically just wandered the campus and photographed.  Unlike so many other teachers and photographic approaches that I was aware of, John encouraged me to focus on the creative over the technical.  This was such a different approach than I had been pursuing, that I thrived creatively and started the early transition from photographer to artist.  This was the important life lesson John taught me, that the creative is more important than the technical and that I should find my creative vision.

Here are some of the images that I created during those early years:

Gull and Moon – Anaheim, CA

Wooden Indian – Anaheim, CA

Old Shoes – Anaheim, CA

Headlight – Anaheim, CA

Two Hippies – Anaheim, CA

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High School was coming to an end and I needed to decide what I wanted to do for a living.  I had assumed that I would pursue photography at the Rochester Institute of Photography, which had always been my dream.  But as the time drew near to make such decisions, I started to have doubts, not of my love for photography or my destiny, but of other things.

I began to question if a formal photographic education would stifle some of the qualities I had developed through self-instruction; my independence and a disregard for the rules.  Not a willful or belligerent disregard for the rules mind you, but more of an ignorance of the rules and a lack of peer pressure that had served me well.  Would a formal education constrain me and would I start to conform to herd mentality?  I also worried that if I earned a living through photography I would lose my passion for it.  Would I at the end of each day really have the time, enthusiasm and energy to pursue my personal work?

Ultimately I chose not to go to college for photography or to earn my living from it.  I decided that the best approach was to separate money from art, which I hoped would give me the best of both worlds.  I could choose a career that would provide me with the material things that I needed and my art could be pursued separately allowing me to retain my passion for it.  What I could not appreciate at age 17 was how much time and energy family and career would require.

I obtained a degree in business and for the next 30 years I ran a business and raised five children.  While I imagined that my photography would be pursued parallel to my career and family responsibilities, so little time remained that I didn’t pick up a camera during this period except to document family life.

But even though I had become a businessman and a family man and I never created a single piece of art with my camera, I still thought of myself as a photographer, I never once stopped believing that it was my destiny.

As the kids started leaving home and I had more time, I felt the time was right to pursue my destiny once again.  This time digital was just coming into its own and so I had the wonderful opportunity to learn all over again.  And even though the tools were completely different, the creative process was still the same.  It was good to succumb to the passion again and to feel the satisfaction of creating something.  Here are some of the first images I created upon my return:

Skeleton – Fort Collins, CO

Bent Grass – Sulfur Hot Springs, CO

Windmill in Moonlight – Rural, NE

Old Car Interior – Laporte, CO

Socks – Colorado Springs, CO

Flaming Dahlia – Fort Collins, CO

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I quickly regained my technical skills and I found myself growing creatively.  I was winning competitions, exhibiting, publishing and increasingly selling my work.  There was an assumed path that a rising star should take which was: get into galleries, sell more work and sell it for more money.   Some of the same old questions that haunted me when I was 17 started to haunt me again; did I really want money to become the focal point of my art?  Was that the inevitable end?  Why was I creating?  Would this take the fun out of it?  Was there another way?

It turns out that there was another way.  I did not need to become a professional or take that path to be a photographer; in fact for me the opposite was true.  What I discovered was that the old world definition of an amateur was what I was looking for: one who is self taught, who creates out of love and who does not earn their living from their work.  That was what I wanted to be!

I did not want to create for money or for prizes or for recognition.  I wanted to create for myself and not care what anyone else thought.  After I made this discovery and changed my direction, I took down my traditional resume and replaced it with this one:

My art has appeared in many exhibitions, publications and has received numerous awards.  And yet my resume does not list those accomplishments, why?

In the past I’ve considered those accolades as the evidence of my success, but I now think differently.  My success is no longer measured by the length of my resume, but rather by how I feel about the art that I create.  While I do enjoy exhibiting, seeing my work published and meeting people who appreciate my art, this is an extra benefit of creating, but this is not success itself.

I believe that the best success is achieved internally, not externally. 

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By seeking to please only myself, I am free to break the rules, flaunt convention and not care about achieving success on anyone’s terms but my own.  In the process I have pleased myself, grown creatively and ironically have become even more successful…but on my terms.

Through all of my experiences I have come to the conclusion that money and art do not mix well, too many compromises are required.  I am happy with the decision that I made at age 17 and I’ve become happier with my decision some 45 years later.

I always knew that I was destined to be a photographer and I now fully understand what that means.

Here are some of my favorite images:

The Angel Gabriel – Newport Beach, CA

Swimming Towards the Light – Kihei, HI

Auschwitz No. 14 – Auschwitz, Poland

Ceiling Lamp, Mourning Dove Ranch – Laporte, CO

Linnie No. 2 – Grand Junction, CO

Harbinger No. 1 – Utah Desert

Lone Man No. 7 – Oregon Coast

Time No. 2 – Death Valley, CA

Lone Man No. 20 – LaJolla, CA

Monolith No. 10 – Bandon, OR

Monolith No. 27 – Oregon Coast

Fountainhead No. 70 – Portland, OR

Stone Jetty No. 6 – Maalaea Bay, HI

Monolith No. 42 – Bandon, OR

Dunes of Nude No. 43 – Death Valley, CA

Eight Trees – Hilo, HI

Monolith No. 50 – San Francisco, CA

Note: I am publishing this shortly before the clock strikes 12/21/2012.  I do hope you are around to read it!

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December 18th 2012 by Andrew S Gibson

This article is part of a series of interviews with long exposure photographers to celebrate the release of my ebook Slow. You can keep track of the interviews by clicking on the Long Exposure Photography Interviews link under Categories in the right-hand sidebar.

Cole Thompson is a fine art photographer based in Colorado in the United States. As part of the interview I asked him how, in a world where it seems that many photographers are producing similar work, it is possible to create original photography? His answer is worth reading, as it brings up one of Cole’s most interesting concepts, ‘photographic celibacy’.

Interview

How would you describe your photographic vision? What kind of look do you try and create in your photos?

I cannot describe my vision because I believe vision is intangible and indescribable. I view vision as the sum total of my life experiences. It is what makes me see the world a bit differently than another, because my experiences have been different.

I do not try to create a look or pursue a certain style in my images, I simply follow my vision. If you pursue a look, style or technique without vision, then those things are mere gimmicks and your images will lack power and conviction. I have been creating images since 1968 and so my skills would allow me to pursue many different styles or looks, but I’m only interested following my vision.

What I’ve learned is that vision must always come first and then techniques and style must flow from it. I’ve also learned that I must only create images that I love, that’s where my passion is and where my best work will come from.

Name three photographers you like and why.

Edward Weston is my photographic hero, not because of his images (although I do love them) but because of his attitudes. In my opinion Weston was a true artist and not a photographer (I draw a distinction between the two). He was independent in thought and did not care what others thought of his work. He created for himself and he had no obligation to explain his work to others.

One of my favourite stories is told by Ansel Adams on his first meeting Weston:

“After dinner, Albert (Bender) asked Edward to show his prints. They were the first work of such serious quality I had ever seen, but surprisingly I did not immediately understand or even like them; I thought them hard and mannered. Edward never gave the impression that he expected anyone to like his work. His prints were what they were. He gave no explanations; in creating them his obligation to the viewer was completed.”

In so many ways Weston has been my mentor. I re-read his Day Books every year and often read them just before I go out to create new images. His independence and obligation to self has inspired me.

Wynn Bullock. As a 14 year old boy I taught myself photography and part of what I did was to sit for hours looking at the work of photographers. Wynn Bullock was one whose work I admired and it wasn’t until years later I realised how much he and I saw alike, with both of us gravitating towards dark and contrasty images.

Ansel Adams. For many years I dreamed of being the next Ansel Adams (like millions of other young photographers). And for years I tried to imitate his look and even specific images. But then something happened to me that changed my attitude and led me on my quest to find my own vision. I was at a portfolio review and a gallery owner quickly looked at my work, brusquely pushed it back towards me and said “It looks like you’re trying to copy Ansel Adams.” I proudly told him that I was because I loved his work! He then said something that really made me mad at the time, but later opened my eyes, he said:

“Ansel has already done Ansel and you’re not going to do him better. What can you create that demonstrates your vision?”

That was the beginning of the search for my vision. I still love Ansel Adam’s work, but I no longer want to be known as the “best Ansel Adams imitator in the world.” In fact, now if someone says to me “your work reminds me of Ansel Adams” I know that I have failed to distinguish myself with my own vision.

Long exposure photography – what’s the attraction and why do you do it?

The long exposure is not something I set out to pursue nor is it a marketing strategy I chose to become known as “the guy who uses long exposures.” But rather it’s the outcome from following my vision: it’s what I love, it’s how I feel and it’s how I see the world.

About 90% of my recent work was created using long exposures. I initially started off with water, then moved to clouds and now have been creating images of people with it as well. I suspect I’ll find other areas in which to use it as well.

Why black and white – what is the appeal for you?

That is a very difficult question to answer and perhaps my artist statement says it best:

I am often asked, “Why black and white?”

I think it’s because I grew up in a black-and-white world.

Television, movies and the news were all in black and white.

My childhood heroes were in black and white and even the nation was segregated into black and white.

Perhaps my images are an extension of the world in which I grew up.

I really don’t worry too much about the “why” behind things, I simply accept them as they are. I love black and white and always have. I’ve tried dabbling in colour and I’ve seen a few colour images that I’m drawn to, but in the end I really am just a black and white guy and I’m okay with that.

I can see from your portfolio that you are widely travelled, especially within the United States. How important is the contribution of travel to developing your portfolio from an artistic point of view? How has travel helped you develop as a person?

Travel is not critical for me in terms of subject matter, I can create similar images anywhere. But in terms of concentration and freeing my mind of my daily responsibilities, it is very important to get away. I have a full time job, a large family and many professional responsibilities, and I find that it’s difficult for me to concentrate when I’m on my home turf. However when I get away I’m able to leave all those things behind me. The best thing about being away is that I’m able to focus on just one thing: creating.

So travel has become very important for me. Many of these trips are to visit my children who have been stationed around the world. We visited my Marine Corp son who was stationed in Japan, my Peace Corp son in Ukraine and Poland and next year I’ll visit a son in Russia and Croatia. I am very fortunate to have family in these places because I probably wouldn’t have been brave enough to venture there without them. However next year will be a first for me as I visit Iceland by myself.

I do also travel within the United States. I go to Death Valley every January, the Oregon coast every September and I’m looking to add a third location, probably Hawaii. I like going back to the same spot each year because I can continue working on an idea, but once I’ve lost interest in that idea, I find a new location.

There are so many photographers working with long exposure photography techniques in black and white that sometimes it is hard to be original. Yet your work is very original. Can you give our readers any tips for finding an original approach to long exposure photography?

One of the side effects of the internet is that everyone quickly knows what everyone else is doing. When someone creates a new look, it seems as if overnight everyone is copying that look. I did that for many years, imitate others look, until I realised that I wanted to be more than an imitator or copycat. I want to create my own unique work and that is what I focus on, ignoring what others are doing.

I have a friend who thinks the key to success is to photograph something that nobody else has photographed before. He once told me that he had discovered something unique: frozen chickens. He said that he would always have a frozen chicken in his images (to this day I’m not certain if he was kidding or not!). In my opinion success is not about finding a subject that’s not been photographed before (I doubt there are many such things) but rather creating something unique, from your own vision.

I never focus what others are doing, I simply go down my own path. I am unaware what others are creating because I practice something that I call Photographic Celibacy. It’s the practice of not looking at or studying the work of other photographers. I do this to reduce the number of images floating about in my head and to reduce their influence on my own work. I find that when I see a great image, my first thought is “how can I do that?” Then I catch myself and remember that I do not want to imitate, but create. I’ve practicing Photographic Celibacy for five years now and it has been very helpful, but I still have some iconic images floating around in my head and when I go to the grocery store I have to admit that I still look at the bell peppers! But I’m doing better at not imitating others.

Most people who hear about this practice think I’m crazy, they believe that imitation is how we build our skills and grow creatively. I disagree, I believe imitation is harmful because it retards the development of our own vision.

Can you tell us a little about The Lone Man series? What inspired it? What are you trying to express with these images?

Like most of my series, the Lone Man was an idea that I just stumbled upon and spontaneously created. Whenever I get an idea for a new project, I write it down on a long list. However the truth is that I’ve never once used one of those ideas, all of the ideas for my portfolios have been spontaneous and just took off like a wildfire.

That’s what happened with the Lone Man series. I was in North Laguna at one of my favourite dive spots, creating long exposures of the water. It was a pretty crowded day at the beach and so people were out on the rocks looking for creatures in the tide pools. A group of people were in my shot and I was impatiently waiting for them to leave. While waiting I decided to do a test exposure so that I’d be all ready as soon as they left. After the 30 second test exposure, I noticed that one of the people had stood still for the entire 30 seconds and I recognised his body language. It was pensive, thoughtful and you could tell the man was thinking about things larger than himself.

Soon I started noticing this effect in a lot of people, they would come to the edge of the world and just stare off into the distance. I began photographing these people and the Lone Man series was born. Here is the artist statement for this series:

Something unusual happens when a person stands on the edge of the world and stares outward. They become very still and you can almost see their thoughts as they ponder things much greater than themselves:

Where did I come from?
What is my purpose?
What does it all mean?
What is beyond, the beyond?
Do I make a difference?
Is there more?

At that moment they are The Lone Man, alone with their questions and thoughts about life, the universe and beyond. People are affected by this time of meditation and they often vow to make changes in their lives. But this moment is short lived as these weighty thoughts are replaced with more immediate concerns:

Should I eat at McDonalds or Burger King and should I try that new green milkshake?

Normally I do not comment on what my images mean, sometimes because they are just beautiful images and don’t have any deeper meaning, and often because I think it’s the viewer’s job to decide what they mean. But in the case of The Lone Man, I have revealed a bit of what I’m thinking about in my artist statement. When I was creating these images I was impressed at how standing at the edge of the world causes people to ponder their smallness and their purpose in life.

So many people have asked me “how did you get those people to stand still for 30 seconds” and “did you ask them to stand still?” I didn’t have to ask people to stand still because this is just what people do! You could see them deep in thought as they stood there, often for several minutes, and pondering the “bigger questions” of life.

The last part of my artist statement is a little dig, at how little time we spend thinking about those bigger issues and how easily we are brought back to our own petty concerns; my burger wasn’t cooked right, I don’t get a good cell signal at my house, the guy in front of me is driving so slow etc. So much of what we concern ourselves with is so unimportant in the larger scheme of things.

Another series I like is Monoliths. What draws you to photographing seascapes? What’s the appeal of the giant rocks that appear in these photos?

I grew up in Southern California and spend my youth at the Huntington Beach pier, bodysurfing at lifeguard tower number 1. I spent countless hours diving Laguna, La Jolla and Catalina. The ocean was a large part of my life until I moved to Colorado in 1993. Truthfully the ocean is the only thing I miss about California and whenever I visit, I am drawn back to it.

Photographing the movement of the ocean with long exposure is just a part of my vision, it’s how I see the ocean. To photograph it with a static image, seems to me a sin!

I have always had a “thing” about Monoliths, first when I was a young boy and read Thor Heyerdahl’s “Aku-Aku, the Secret of Easter Island.” Those stone giants really captured my imagination and I wondered who created them, how and why?

Next I was fascinated with the Monolith in “2001: A Space Odyssey.” And so when I first saw the beaches of Bandon, Oregon with their statuesque “monoliths” (sea stacks to the locals) all of my past fascinations flooded back and I knew that I would photograph them. I am certain they have been photographed a million times before, but since I don’t look at others work, I am ignorant of how others have portrayed them. Even if I were to find out that I had unknowingly created images similar to others, it would not concern me, as my images are honest creations borne from my vision.

Perhaps related is your series Ancient Stones. What is the story behind these photos? What is significant about these stones, and where did you get the idea of photographing them?

The Ancient Stones series is related to the Monoliths in sense. I was wandering about in Joshua Tree, waiting for inspiration to hit me, and nothing was happening. In response to those “dry spells” I’ll usually find a nice spot to sit for a while, clearing my mind of clutter and trying to see more clearly. As I sat there looking at those large rocks, I had some thoughts that were similar to what I was thinking when looking at the monoliths in Bandon. How long have these rocks been here, millions of years? How many men have they seen scurrying about, going here and there, building this and that, full of self importance? I wonder if “they” find all of this amusing?

That made me want to photograph “them” in a way that showed their permanence and timelessness. I hoped the long exposure helped do that, contrasting the still stones against the movement in the sky. I’ve only just started this project and so I’m not sure where it will go from here.

I believe you earn a living, or at least a part-time living, as a fine art photographer. Do you have any advice for our readers on how they can work towards achieving the same goal? What can they do from an artistic viewpoint to improve their work and a practical viewpoint to selling their work?

I have a full time job and do not earn my living from my art. Many years ago I purposely chose not to pursue photography for my living because I feared it would take the fun out of it, and I’ve never regretted that decision. I create only for the pure love of it and am proud to be an “amateur” in the truest sense: I am self taught, I create for myself and I do not earn my living from my work.

What I dislike about earning a living from your art is that it invariably involves compromises and I never want to create for others. I want to create whatever and however I want, not caring if a single person likes my work. Ironically it is that independence that brings out your best work and may bring about success. I once posted on my blog that the fastest way to earn money from your photography is to sell your equipment. There is truth in that!

Links

Cole Thompson’s website
Cole Thompson’s blog

You can contact Cole by email at Cole@ColeThompsonPhotography.com

Photo Gallery

Here are some more of Cole’s long exposure photos:

Story Number One:

I was 16 years old and living in Anaheim California. I had this idea for an image, a gull flying against a clouded moon, but I couldn’t find a way to create the image with a single shot. So I decided to combine two images, not as a double exposure captured in-camera, but by combining two images in the darkroom. Composites are easily done in today’s digital world, but they were not easily done back in 1970. Back in the “old days” I would sandwich the two negatives together in the enlarger and project them as a single image.

The first image was taken at night in the local K-Mart parking lot. I took a series of shots with clouds floating past the moon. I had this idea (vision) in my head of what the final image would look like and so I placed the moon and clouds on the right and left room for the sea gull on the left. The shot of the sea gull was taken later during the daytime in my high school parking lot, I shot a series of gulls looking straight up. Working from memory of where I had placed the moon and cloud in the frame, I positioned the gull on the left.

After I processed the negatives, I had to find two images that would work together, not just in terms of composition but also exposure. Getting a good print with this method is a challenge since you have two negatives that may have different printing needs, but you must print them together as one.

I named the image “Gull and Moon” and while I loved the composition, I was never able to get the blacks that I envisioned, the print was very muddy.

Story Number Two: 

I was new to Loara High School and had joined the Yearbook staff as a photographer. The new yearbook advisor was John Holland the photography teacher, he became and remained a friend and mentor until last year when he passed away. What was so very different about John was that he encouraged us to create fine art images for the yearbook, not just pictures of the football players, cheerleaders and cheesecake shots. This was fun (!) and we had a wonderful time creating artistic images for the yearbook including my “Gull and Moon” which was prominently featured.

Unfortunately neither John nor any of us really stopped to consider why people purchased yearbooks. It was not for fine art images but for the pictures of the football players, cheerleaders and cheesecake shots! When the yearbooks arrived and were being handed out there was a near riot as the football players angrily confronted the yearbook staff. I was a junior (and small for my age) and I remember slowly slinking out through the back of the crowd and hiding in the photography room. I made myself scarce for several days.

Story Number Three:

After high school and for 30 years after, I focused on family and career and neglected my photography. During those years we moved several times and with each move I threw out more and more old things, including much of my photography. When I returned to photography around 2004 I wanted to feature some of my earlier work on my website and I began searching for anything that might have survived.

Most of my negatives were gone and only a few prints survived, in fact only 13 remained from all those years of work. Most of these images survived only because a single print was still around, and this was the case with “Gull and Moon.” I found a single 8 x 10, poorly printed and curled up print. This has always been a special image to me and I so set about the task of restoring it.

I scanned the image and worked on it in Photoshop. I was pleasantly surprised because not only was I able to restore the image, but I was able to bring it into compliance with my original vision, something I was never able to do in the darkroom!  Just tonight I was comparing the original to the restored version and it reminded me of why I love digital.

If you are interested, you can see those 13 restored images from my early years here:  http://colethompsonphotography.com/1970s.htm

Recounting the story behind this image reminded me of the many lessons that I learned from this experience. 

1. Vision is the most important ingredient of a great image.
2. Yearbooks are for documentary work, not fine art photography. 
3. Focus on the creative early on, it’s more important than the technical which can be learned quite easily.
4. Don’t throw things away when you are young, you’ll regret it later. 
5. If you have an image that you cannot get just right, keep working on it.