Ancient Stones No. 12

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“Ancient Stones” is a portfolio that I started last year when I visited Joshua Tree for the first time in 20 years. This trip  brought back many great memories because it was the site of one of my earliest dates with my wife Dyan. We camped amongst the boulders, sunned ourselves on the rocks and listened non-stop to U2′s “Joshua Tree” album. What wonderful times those were!

Ancient Stones No. 12 above is the latest image in the series and I love it! But why do I love it? Is it because it evokes wonderful memories or do I love it because it’s a good image? Evaluating your own work is very difficult, especially when it’s tied to to things like memories, praise and the opinions of others.

Recently I’ve been corresponding with several photographers on the topic of finding your own vision. I explain that one of the first steps I took was to divide my work into two piles; work that I REALLY loved and everything else. By isolating the work that I really loved, I would then try to understand what those images had in common and pursue that “vision.”

It sounds like a simple exercise, but it wasn’t for me. I actually had difficulty in separating what I thought about my work from what others thought. I noticed that if a lot of people liked one of my images, it started to affect how I felt about that image also. If one of my images won a competition, I took that as evidence that it must be a good image and that affected my opinion of it. I became so addicted to “positive feedback” that I began seeking it by producing work that I thought others would like, and in time I lost sight of what I loved.  

Upon realizing this, I committed that I would never again produce images simply because others liked them and I adopted a new policy: Never Ask Others About Your Work.

To isolate myself from other’s opinions I stopped asking my friends if they liked my work. I stopped asking my mentor what what she thought of my images. I no longer approached the experts to ask their opinions and I no longer attended portfolio reviews for input. I purposely removed the clutter of other voices and focused only on what I thought.

So what happened? I once again began to understand what I loved and focused only on that, which turned out to be a key ingredient to finding my vision. I became more confident in my work and I was certainly more satisfied. Now the measure of my work and success was internal rather than external.  

There was another important reason why I stopped asking others about my work; no one knows more about my vision than I do. Their advice, though generally good and well intentioned, was not coming from my point of view or vision. Increasingly I found that my vision and their advice was in conflict, and I realized that I had grown to the point where I was ready to decide for myself what my work needed.

Those of you who are familiar with my practice of “Photographic Celibacy” might recognize a reoccurring theme in my decision to “Never Ask Others About Your Work.” In both cases I am attempting to understand myself and my vision, and to pursue it without being influenced by others. In both cases I am isolating myself from the thoughts, opinions and images of others.  

This idea of never asking others about your work, was echoed and reinforced by one of my favorite books, The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. The main character is Howard Roark, an architect who is an uncompromising individualist, who defines success by being true to self and creating work that he loves. His designs are unique and he rejects the traditional designs and opinions of the experts.

However his friend and fellow architect, Peter Keating, has an opposite view of  success: he seeks the approval and admiration of others.  In one of my favorite scenes, Peter asks Roark what he thinks of his latest design and this is Roark’s response:

“If you want my advice, Peter,” he said at last, “you’ve made a mistake already. By asking me, by asking anyone. Never ask people, not about your work. Don’t you know what you want? How can you stand it, not to know?”

There is strength and power in knowing what you want. Finding your vision and pursuing it is a wonderful feeling that gives conviction to your work. Like Photographic Celibacy, “Never Ask Others About Your Work” may seem to run contrary to common wisdom, but I have found it to be instrumental in helping me to know what I really love and keeping me focused on my vision.

If I were to ask you to list five great locations for creating great images, what would you list? Here’s my list that might be typical:

1. Yosemite
2. Iceland
3. Big Sur
4. Japan
5. The African Plains

These beautiful locations would almost guarantee a great image! Think of the great work done here: Yosemite and the iconic images of Ansel Adams. When I think of Iceland will I forever see the incredible iceberg images of Camile Seaman in my head. Or how about the work of Edward Weston in the Big Sur area or Michael Kenna’s incredible minimalistic work from Japan. And Africa…could anything be more definitive than the work of Nick Brandt?

But do you know what would happen if I were to visit these locations, say Yosemite for example?  I’d be looking for the spots where Ansel created those famous images so that I could recreate them for myself. And while I might be able to create a pretty nice image, it would neither be original or be as good as Ansel’s.  Remember, Ansel has already done Ansel and I’m not going to do him better!

And so it begs the question; do I need to photograph at places such as Yosemite, Big Sur or Africa in order to create great images?  Can’t great images also be found in ordinary places?  

Yes they can.  I believe that ordinary places have just as many image opportunities as the exotic places we all dream of visiting.  So let me suggest another list of locations where you can  create great images:

1. Your neighbor’s yard
2. Your bedroom
3. A greenhouse
4. A hotel
5. In your car

They don’t sound very exciting when compared to that first list, so let’s take a look at why I’ve chosen these ordinary and even mundane locations. First, they are very accessible: no passport needed, no time off from work and no travel expenses.

But there’s another more important advantage: Ansel and Seaman and Weston and Kenna and Brandt have not photographed there and so you don’t have their images floating around in your head. You are free to see these locations in a fresh and unique way, and you are free to be the first to create great images there!

Here are some examples of my images from those very “ordinary” locations:

My neighbor’s yard.

My bedroom.

A greenhouse.

A hotel.

In my car.

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Great images do not need great locations…or perhaps better said; great images can come from everyday and ordinary great locations!

Yes, I have traveled to many exciting locations around the world and and I’ve created images there that I’m proud of, but I’m just as proud of my images from these “ordinary” locations. 

Here are a few more examples of images from ordinary locations:

At my feet.

A friend.

Something my daughter made.

At a flea market.

Before my son’s senior prom.

The river in my town.

On the way to work.

My backyard.

At a local tree nursery.

On the side of the road.

At a family get together.

Along the railroad tracks.

At my kitchen table.

In my office.

Along the river.

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The “key” to a great image is not location, but your vision and your ability to see differently than those who have gone before you.

It’s a hard thing to do, but it is the key.

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.

Many people assume that I’m working in film and others are surprised to learn that I photograph in color. Let me explain.

All of the work you see on my website (with the exception of the 1970′s portfolio) was created digitally. I switched to digital in 2004 after working 35 years in the darkroom. And I’ll be honest, while I have fond memories of those darkroom days, I do not miss them and I would not go back.

Why? Because my work is better since I began using digital.

I’ve often heard the assumption that digital is suitable for color but not for black and white.  That has not been my experience.  I’ll use whatever tools give me the results I’m looking for and I have absolutely no allegiance to the process; film is not sacred, digital is not sacred, old processes are not sacred…the only thing that is sacred to me is the image.

Perhaps more surprising to some is that I shoot all of my images in color. I’ve written that I shoot in B&W mode and so you might wonder how can that be? Shooting in B&W mode allows me to see the camera’s preview image in black and white, but I save my files in RAW which means they are really in color.

Confusing? When you shoot in RAW all of those settings such as B&W mode, sharpness, saturation, toning, color balance…are not recorded in the image. RAW means just that, it’s a raw capture without any of those tweaks and the image is recorded in color.

This is a wonderful thing!  This combination of B&W mode and RAW allows me to preview the image in black and white but process from the color image. Why do that? Because I don’t want my camera or software to decide how my images should look in black and white, the black and white processing is what makes my images “mine!”

Sometimes I’ll show people the “before” color photograph to illustrate how my vision and processing has changed the image.

My vision drives my processing and I’ll happily use whatever tools and processes best helps me do that.

Recently a friend told me of her frustrations as she sought to find her Vision and this brought back memories of my own journey. For years I was confused as to what Vision was and frustrated because I didn’t know how to find mine. 

I had absolutely no idea how to find my Vision. I was told that I had to keep working at it, but how? It was frustrating because it was such a nebulous concept and I had no idea how to proceed.

And the truth was that I wasn’t sure that I was capable of having Vision. I was raised in a home where the arts were not emphasized and I never developed creative skills; instead I was logical, methodical and gravitated towards mechanical things. I wondered if  some people were just naturally creative and others were not, and feared that I was in the “not” category.

The good news is that not only did I find my Vision but I am absolutely convinced that everyone has one. It may be buried deep under a lot of “stuff” and it may be atrophied from lack of use, but it is there and you can find it.

What is Vision? It is the sum total of my life experiences that makes me see the world in a particular way. Because my experiences are different than yours, my Vision will be different than yours. And since my Vision is based on my experiences, it will change with time.

Vision is what makes me see an image that others may not see, or see it differently. Have you viewed a great image that was created where you had photographed before? I used to wonder why someone else could see that image and I could not, I believe it’s because we have different Visions. The good news is that  it works both ways and sometimes you’ll see an image where others do not. The important point is that you should pursue your Vision and not try to see what others see.  

Because Vision is simply your experiences and how you see life, I am convinced that everyone has one. It just needs to be discovered. Sometimes that is hard because it can be buried beneath a lot of “stuff” such as self doubt and a lack of creative experience, as was in my case. But I found mine and am absolutely convinced that each person is capable of finding theirs too.

So how did I go about finding my own vision? I had this idea that to follow my Vision was synonymous with following my heart and so I took all of my images and divided them into two piles; ones that I REALLY loved and everything else. I purposely ignored “good” images or ones that others liked and ones that sold the best because I didn’t want to consider what others thought, I only wanted to consider what I thought.

Then I started studying those images to understand what they had in common. I noticed that when I was doing what I loved and pleasing myself, my images had a particular look and mood. I also noticed that what I was photographing and how I was photographing was changing; I was moving away from my landscape roots and creating a different kind of work.  

Once I found my Vision, there was still a challenge, and that was to religiously follow it. I was so used to copying others, pleasing others and following trends that I had to train myself to only pursue images that followed my Vision. When you copy others, the best you can ever hope to achieve is being a great imitator. When you seek to please others, you end up not pleasing yourself. When you follow trends, you are like the blowing grasses which are buffeted by every wind.   Following your Vision is the only way to achieve satisfaction.

Over the course of two years (it was a slow and painful process) I found my Vision. It was not a “Eureka!” moment, but rather it crept up on me slowly until one day I just realized that I had one. I cannot put my Vision into words, but now I understand it and what was once so mysterious now seems so simple. 

Finding my Vision gave me a tremendous feeling of freedom and confidence. I no longer felt constrained or bound by the opinions of others, I was free to create what I wanted and how I wanted, regardless of who liked it. The most important thing was that I was happy with my work. Finding your vision does not guarantee critical or financial success, but it will bring about personal satisfaction. Ironically, as I stopped caring what others thought and created for myself, my work became more popular with others.

Vision is more important than your equipment, your location or your processing techniques. Vision is the most important ingredient in a great image and I am absolutely convinced that everyone can find theirs.

I often tell people not to follow other people’s advice. However, if you follow this advice then you wouldn’t follow my advice…which would mean that you actually should follow my advice. What a conundrum!

Everyone loves to give advice; we all know how others should live their lives even better than we know how to live our own, and it’s no different with our art. Everyone wants to tell us how we should process our images and how we should best achieve success. The advice givers are good people, who are well intentioned and who have had some wonderful life experiences, so why shouldn’t you follow their advice?

Because their vision is different from your vision and their definition of success may be different than yours. Can you imagine what might happen if I was inclined to give you lots of advice and you were inclined to follow it? One day you might wake up to the realization that your images bore a striking resemblance to mine and that you had met every one of the goals that I had set for myself! It’s not that my advice is bad, it simply may not be right for you.

Over the years I’ve come to learn that the only opinion that really matters is your own. Let me illustrate with two examples of some well-intentioned advice that I’ve received:

Never Center the Image!

A few years back my friend and mentor saw my latest image entitled The Angel Gabriel and almost yelled “Never center the image!” I was frequently presenting her with centered images (see above) and she constantly told me that I was breaking one of the rules of photography. I respected her position and experience but the advice just didn’t  feel right to me. However since she was the teacher and I the student, I reluctantly re-cropped the image as she had advised… and I just hated it! It literally made me ill to look at it and at that moment I realized that this was my image and my vision and no one could tell me how it should look. It wasn’t that her experience wasn’t good, but it came from her vision and it wasn’t right for me.

It is critically important that you find your own vision and once you do, you’ll find less and less of a need to ask others for advice about your work.

Large Prints, Small Editions:

I have a friend who is attempting to earn his living from his photography. He has chosen to offer large prints and very small editions (as low as 12). He believes this will maximize his profits and thinks my open editions and lower prices is a bad idea. He has frequently tried to convince me that I am making a mistake and that I should follow his example.  

The problem with his advice is that he and I have different definitions of success and therefore different goals. I am not trying to earn a living from my art, I wouldn’t be happy in the Gallery environment and I couldn’t stand the thought of printing only 12 images and then never any more! This formula would not work for me, even though it may work for him.

It is so important that you define success for yourself. What do you want from your art? What will bring lasting satisfaction? In five years, what would you like to accomplish with your art? Only once you know the answer to these questions, can you set your own course with confidence.

So listen to others and consider their ideas, but do not follow someone’s advice simply because they have more experience than you, create beautiful images or are  successful.  When it comes to your vision and what you want from your art, nobody is better qualified than you to make those decisions.  

There is tremendous confidence and strength that comes from finding your own vision and knowing what you want from your art. Life becomes so much easier, so much simplier and so much quieter. 

A friend and I were recently talking about how to set the price for our images and this brought up some thoughts I’ve had over the years. Typically people price their work in one of three ways:

1.  Cost method, total up your costs and then add a percentage for profit.

2.  What others are charging for “similar” work. If others are getting $150 for an 8 X  10 then I should be able to get that too. 

3.  What the market will bear.” Price your work as high as it will sell for and get as much as you can.

First let me say that if you’re trying to earn your living from your photography, then ignore everything I’m about to say. I made a purposeful decision not to earn a living from my art because I didn’t want to lose my passion for it if I “had” to do it every day. Looking back these many years, I do not regret that decision and in fact it’s been reinforced by another lesson that I’ve learned; art and money do not mix well because it requires too many compromises. Worrying about producing art that others like and will buy is not conducive to risk taking and being creative. When I create I want to think about only two things; the art and how I feel about it.

So what method should you use to price your work? I’m suggesting that there might be another way to determine pricing based on your goals rather than your costs or market forces. Several years ago I asked a similar pricing question to someone I respect and he in turn asked me a question: in the end would you rather have your images in thousands of homes or to have sold them for thousands of dollars? He emphasized that there was no right or wrong answer, only what I preferred. I immediately answered that I would like my art to be in thousands of homes.

Therefore I have chosen to price my work reasonably and affordably compared to my peers, because my goal is to produce art that I love and allow as many people to purchase it as possible. This approach fits my goals; I do what I love, have remained independent and I am able to pay for my equipment, supplies and photo trips. I am the luckiest person in the world!

However this approach has come under criticism from my peers for two reasons. First, I only offer open editions and many feel that this cheapens my work and makes it less “serious.” But the truth is that offering limited editions is simply a pricing strategy, it creates a shortage to increase the price. This approach goes against everything I believe, and the thought of someday not being able to make any more prints is completely unacceptable. My intent is that my art be enjoyed by many; not 12, 25 or 50 people!  

The second complaint other photographers have with my pricing is that my lower prices hurts them. If my friend is asking $1500 for his image and I’m asking $400, then he believes that my lower pricing makes it harder for him to sell his higher priced work. However I do not believe this to be true, because we are not buying a commodity such as apples. If I’m selling apples for $400 a ton then it does make it harder for someone else to sell the same apples for $1500 a ton. But in the art world we are not talking about apples and apples, but rather apples and oranges. If someone really loves my friends oranges, they are not going to buy my apples just because they’re cheaper.

Likewise someone will not buy my art  just because it’s cheaper. People buy art because they love it!

My beliefs about editions and pricing go against everything that the traditional art world and gallery system believe. I don’t care. I create for myself and count myself lucky to find others who appreciate and want to purchase my art. My goal is to put that art into as many homes a possible. This is what makes me happy.

Cole

P.S.  Joel Tjintjelaar just published the first interview in a new “Artist’s Vision Series” in which he focuses on the vision behind an image.  My image “The Angel Gabriel” is featured in this first interview.

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See the Article in Google Docs

I would like to tell the story behind “The Ghosts of Auschwitz-Birkenau.”

My wife and I were visiting my son who was serving in the Peace Corps in Ukraine (providing balance to his two brothers who were serving in the Marines). Being part Polish, we decided to visit our homeland and took a train to Krakow. Upon arriving discussions began on what to see and of course Auschwitz-Birkenau was high on the list, but secretly I hoped we wouldn’t visit the camps because I did not want see a place of such sadness. However my wife wanted to go and so I agreed.

We took a bus tour that would spend about 1 hour at Auschwitz and 30 minutes at Birkenau. Even though I had my camera equipment with me, I had not planned on photographing  the camps because it seemed that this might be disrespectful. The tour began indoors and we saw the meticulous records the German’s kept of their victims and then the piles of personal effects: glasses, shoes, hair and other items.

This was just too overwhelming and I felt like I was suffocating, so I signaled my family that I was going outdoors. Breathing in the open air I began to feel a bit better and slowly walked, looking down at my feet. The thought then came to me: how many had walked here before me, in these exact same footsteps and now were dead? How many had taken this same path and then had been murdered?

I began to wonder if the spirits of those who were dead still lingered, did they still inhabit this place? And then it suddenly struck me that I must photograph the spirits of those who had died here. I instinctively knew how I would do that, I would use long exposures of the other visitors at the camps, who would stand in proxy for the dead. The enormity of this task hit me as I realized that the bus was leaving in 45 minutes and so I ran from location to location, working incredibly fast.

Each location had its own challenges, I had to photograph people without their knowing it, because if they thought I was photographing they would politely move out of my way. I  developed techniques to fool people into thinking I was not photographing, I would set up my equipment and then talk on the phone or look in my camera bag, and then trigger the camera with a remote shutter release.

I found that the closer I was to the scene, the harder it was to get the shot because people would see me and move out of my way, not knowing that I actually needed them in the picture! Auschwitz No. 9 was the most difficult image to get, it took many exposures to capture these ghosts.

Another challenge was that people had to keep moving to produce the ghosting effects. So many shots were ruined when someone in the group would stop and interrupt the ghosting effect. In one image, Auschwitz No. 4, a man in the group stopped to read a historical placard.  This is the only image that I’ve included a “mortal” because it seemed to say “I am completely unaware of the ghosts around me.”

It’s no simple matter to get the right ghosting effects; so many factors affect the image such as the color of the clothing people are wearing, the speed in which they walk, the angle they are walking in relation to the camera and of course the length of the exposure. I  had to learn all of this in very short order and I was so grateful to be using digital so that I could get immediate feedback. There was so much to learn in such a short time, but I knew I had to finish before the bus left as I would not have another chance.

In one sense I felt prepared for this moment, for this opportunity. I had been working with long exposures for several years and I understood the basics, however I had never worked with people before and certainly not with unsuspecting subjects. I had to learn quickly and work quickly.

I do feel that I was inspired, both in concept and execution. As I looked at each scene I knew in my mind exactly how the finished image would look. However if you were to see the original shots and compare them to the final images, you would be surprised to see the extensive Photoshop work it took to bring the “shot” into compliance with my vision.

My processing included cropping the image to a square, darkening the scene for an almost nighttime look, increasing contrast, dodging up the ghosts and burning down distracting elements. You can see one extreme “before and after” example by clicking here.  Vision was the key to this series (remember my Rule of Thirds) and it was the constant that drove everything.   You can view the entire Ghosts portfolio here.

Auschwitz-Birkenau is a depressing place, but I am glad that I went. I hope my images can portray the camps not just as a historical location, but as a place where real people lived and died.

Cole

P.S.  I recently had the honor of meeting a group of Holocaust survivors who attended the opening of this exhibition in Dallas. I saw a very elderly woman in a wheel chair looking at my images and I introduced myself by saying: “Hi, my name is Cole Thompson and these are my images.” She responded by pointing at the wall and exclaiming: “These are my images!”

Her name was Edith Molnar and she had been interned at Auschwitz and recognized these locations. That was a humbling moment, to appreciate that you were talking to someone who had lived through these horrors, she was “living history.”  Edith passed away several weeks later.

I’d like to tell you the story behind the image of Harbinger No. 1; how I came across it, how I created it and how it led to a ongoing portfolio.

My son Jem and I were traveling across Utah on a Father-and-Son road trip, it was summertime and it was 105 degrees in the Utah desert.  Driving along I70 just across the border from Colorado we came upon these “mud hills” which caught my eye.  They were so void of life that they made me think that this is what the moon must look like.

We stopped and I photographed for a while, but was unsatisfied.  While the images were “interesting” they just didn’t feel complete and they certainly were not great.  So we packed up and descended down the hill, eager to get back into the air conditioned truck.

But as were returning I saw this lone cloud moving very fast across the landscape.   Based on its trajectory I knew that in just a minute it would be perfectly positioned over this dark symmetric hill that I had been photographing and would give my image the focal point that it needed.  I ran up the hill as quickly as I could and hoped that I could get at least one shot, all the time thinking about the Ansel Adams story and how he rushed to get just one shot of Moonrise, Hernandez.

I quickly set up my tripod and camera, focused, adjusted my exposure and was lucky enough to get off two shots.  I chose the above image of because it was centered above the hills and as many of you have noticed, I love centered and symmetric images.  I was so fortunate to have this one perfectly shaped cloud come by and oblige me that day.

I like to name my images with the first word that comes to mind and this image immediately screamed “Harbinger” at me, and the dictionary’s definition became my artist statement:

Harbinger: \?här-b?n-j?r\ noun

1. one that goes ahead and makes known the approach of another; herald.

2. anything that foreshadows a future event; omen; sign.

People most often ask me about the processing of this  image and I think that’s because many assume the key to a great image is in the processing.  While there is no doubt that processing is important, it’s certainly no more important than the shot or your vision.  If you focus on just the processing at the expense of vision or the shot, you may end up with a technically perfect but mediocre image.  As an artist I try to focus on all three areas.

Vision

My vision for this image occurred at the moment I saw that cloud moving into position and I knew exactly how I wanted this image to look.  It was going to be dark and that cloud was going to jump out at you!  Sometimes that burst of vision can come later when I’m processing the image, but I don’t think it’s too important when the vision occurs as long as it does occur.  Vision is what drives us to force the shot into compliance with our vision.

The Shot

When I composed this image I purposely centered the cloud and put the horizon in the center of the frame.  Why?  Because that’s just how the image felt to me.  Next, I wanted a dark and graduated sky and so I used a polarizing filter which gave me both.  On images i intend to be dark like this, I’ll often underexpose the image by 1 stop and then in processing I’ll dodge up the highlights.

Processing

When I converted this image to B&W I decreased the blue color channels to darken the sky, but I couldn’t go as far as I wanted because too much noise was being introduced.  So to further darken the sky I burned it down with a very large and soft edged brush that was set at 1%.   I work slowly to darken the sky to a pure black at the top and a very light gray at the hill’s edge.   I dodged the cloud up so that it had a true white, but I was careful not to overdo it and lose highlight detail.  This black sky and almost white cloud created this wonderful contrast that I love.

Next I burned the hills down so that visually they did not compete with the cloud for attention.  And lastly I dodged up the very small edge of the ridge line to separate the hills from the sky.   The final result is a dark image with a very bright subject, which is my preferred style.

When I created this first Harbinger image I really hoped that I could create an entire portfolio of similar images, but I never dreamed that I’d be lucky enough to find other such opportunities.  I thought, how often will I see a single cloud over an interesting setting like this?  But strangely enough I have found a few more and slowly my Harbinger portfolio is growing. Click here to see the entire portfolio.

Like all of my portfolios, this idea occurred spontaneously.  I find that it’s easy to be creative when you are excited about a concept that inspires you!

Many of you know of my disdain for photographic “rules” and so you might wonder why I’m writing about the “rule of thirds.”  It’s because I’m writing about my rule of thirds:

A great image is comprised of 1/3 vision, 1/3 the shot and 1/3 processing

A great image begins and ends with your vision.  Vision is a tough concept to describe, but I think each of us instinctively know how we want our image to look, and our job as an artist is to bring that image into compliance with our vision.

When we pursue an image with vision, then equipment and process becomes the servant and the creative process the master.  It’s only then that great images can occur.

Vision is everything.