Wratten Lecture

[Mike Farley]

I am sure that we all enjoyed tonight's lecture from Michael Freeman. We owe our gratitude to Bill Yates who did his usual sterling job of organising the event. Thanks, Bill.

[davidc]

What did he talk about?

I hadn't really heard of him/remembered him but googling him, I think I've seen one or two of his books in a bookshop over here before and have a vague memory you (Mike) rate him quite highly? Assuming it's the same chap of course

Next year you'll need to setup a video link so I can tune in!

[Mike Farley]

What did he talk about?

I hadn't really heard of him/remembered him but googling him, I think I've seen one or two of his books in a bookshop over here before and have a vague memory you (Mike) rate him quite highly? Assuming it's the same chap of course

Yes, that's the guy. I like his approach to photography and got him to sign one of the books of his which I have bought. Actually, it is the first of these , "The Photographer's Eye", which formed part of my reading when I was investigating composition.

Right at the start, Michael Freeman talked about an international photography competition held in Kuwait where he had been on a judging panel which looked at 11,000 images. He said that a number of shots were ubiquitous and could even have been taken at the same time and place they were so similar. He also referred to fashions in photography, such as the vogue for HDR and overuse of the Clarity control.

He spoke about travel photography and the problems posed in getting unique shots, especially with the impact of tourism. For example, he was one of the first people to visit Angkor Wat in 1989 after the Khmer Rouge had been defeated and he showed us a series of photos from the location. In the first set, taken on film with a 5x4 camera, it was deserted and overgrown. On succeeding visits the more accessible parts were being tidied up, but more and more tourists were visible. Today it is commercialised by the locals and full of people from dawn to dusk. He published a book of images from that first visit, so in a way was partly responsible for making the place popular. Another problem he highlighted concerned landscape photography where people take similar shots of well known locations and it is difficult to get views which differ from the norm and are still successful.

His strategy is threefold. He showed us examples of locations close to popular areas which look similar, but are not heavily visited and life continues much as it did before the advent of tourism. Sometimes it is necessary to travel further afield and he has a "five hour" rule. If it takes longer than to travel somewhere, tourists are unlikely to venture there. Some places are quite inaccessible and on one occasion he was only able to get aerial shots of dwellings built on coral reefs after being lent a military attack helicopter* and crew for three days after a chance meeting with a general.

His next piece of advice was to tell a story. His book about the Tea Horse Road is one example of where he has done this. During the Q&A session at the end, he said that this can be accomplished in a dozen to to two dozen images , rather than a complete book's worth and many weeks of shooting. One of his current projects is a book about tea in China and he has already spent eight weeks out there and he is about to return for another ten. He anticipates that around 300 photos will end up in the book, although he did not say what proportion this represents of the shots taken overall.

Finally, he says take shots of people, as these will always be unique and cannot be repeated exactly.

He did show us a number of images which would not pass muster in a club competition, although many would certainly do well, and one questioner raised the over emphasis by judges on assessing technical rather than aesthetic issues in club competitions. His view was that the world is there to be recorded and he is happy documenting it as it is.

Overall, another excellent talk in the Wratten Lecture series.

Next year you'll need to setup a video link so I can tune in!

Not possible. It's a biennial event.

* The only shooting which took place was by Michael Freeman. With his camera.

[davidc]

He spoke about travel photography and the problems posed in getting unique shots, especially with the impact of tourism. For example, he was one of the first people to visit Angkor Wat in 1989 after the Khmer Rouge had been defeated and he showed us a series of photos from the location. In the first set, taken on film with a 5x4 camera, it was deserted and overgrown. On succeeding visits the more accessible parts were being tidied up, but more and more tourists were visible. Today it is commercialised by the locals and full of people from dawn to dusk. He published a book of images from that first visit, so in a way was partly responsible for making the place popular. Another problem he highlighted concerned landscape photography where people take similar shots of well known locations and it is difficult to get views which differ from the norm and are still successful.

This rings true for me. I went to Angkor last year and was underwhelmed in a photographic sense, partly because of the tourist crowds and partly because there were no unique angles of the place left that truly worked. Come sunset, everyone hits the exact same place at the exact same time. The animals must wonder why we have such peculiar habits as a species

Likewise on the landscape front. It's something of a running joke that every other photo here in Singapore is of the city & Marina Bay Sands hotel. If you check the facebook streams of photographers here and the major photo societies it is absolutely true, to the point where I'm doing the same thing in all of my camera reviews as a pastiche

I've always thought it's the story that turns a photo from killer to filler and looking back at my shots that others have rated higher, the common theme tends to be that there's a story for them. Trouble is, finding a compelling story is the hard part! I do think that's why the creative/overly photoshopped montages are all the rage, people can't find real life compelling stories or put a twist on familiar scenes so they just make stuff up.

[Mike Farley]

Angkor Wat was on my list of places to visit, but having seen Michael Freeman's lecture now I am not so sure. I expect the same would be also true of other well known places such as Machu Pichu . In one of his books, MF described how he was an early visitor there and took the shot everyone takes, which did well in terms of sales for a time until others replicated it. On his return to the location, he found a different angle and included a llama in the foreground, which generated income until it too was copied.

Another way to look at it, especially as an amateur for whom sales are not essential for survival, is to accept that much has been done before, but it is the first time YOU have got the shot. Maybe it will not win a photography competition, but you will have something of your own for yourself. On Wednesday during the Q&A, someone in the audience who is a judge said that they were fed up of seeing shots of the London Eye*, which I went to earlier this year and put the results into a post on this forum. On that occasion, I tried to do something different by shooting with a fisheye lens, but even while I was shooting I knew that inevitably someone else would already have done something similar. Did it matter? Not really, I enjoyed the shoot, was pleased with the results and it gave me an opportunity to experiment with the lens to get an idea of what I can do with it. Maybe one will make it into a competition at some point, maybe not.

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After the lecture, I spoke to Michael Freeman and said that I quite often take shots with the fisheye lens in order to get something a bit more unusual. During the talk, he had mentioned he uses a mirror lens** and he said that he often tries that for much the same reason. We are all trying to be original and I am conscious that this is pushing me into introducing effects during post processing. I did this with my last POTD shot and If I am honest I am not entirely convinced whether the high clarity/HDR style look adds to it or otherwise.

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One of your successful shots is of the plane depicted flying overhead and appearing in the gap between some tall buildings. It has done deservedly well, but is far from unique. Some might even mistakenly think that the plane was added afterwards. That similar shots have been done before and could be considered a cliché did not matter in this instance, which demonstrates that there is capacity for a degree of repetition. I do agree, though, that people are looking for something unique and the advent of Photoshop and other post processing software have provided the tools which aid this. Using some of the automated apps such as Hipstamatic do not necessarily provide much satisfaction in feeing that one has done something creative, though.

* I have heard the same person say something similar about the Shard. Unfortunately, that was during a competition in which I had a shot of said building and which I thought worked well. It bombed.

** MF did say that most modern mirror lenses are cheaply made and of poor quality. His is an older Nikon lens which he found unused on eBay and he looked it out as he thinks such lenses work well with digital, where having a fixed aperture is less of an issue than it is with film due to the higher ISOs which are possible.

[Paul Heester]

I'll add my 2p worth in re Cambodia and Angkor Wat.

I visited in 2008 on a guided tour of the whole country. My lasting impression of the trip is of the people being so friendly and open, they were genuinely happy to get in front of the camera for you. Angkor Wat is such a massive complex, most of which is still consumed by the jungle. We saw archaeologists working away unearthing temples, which really appealed to my Indiana Jones side There are lots of smaller temples we visited and each had its own USP so suffering from temple fatigue wasnt so bad. I would heartily recommend visiting the country and re Angkor taking in the smaller temples, some of the stonework is amazingly intricate.

Here are a few I took from that trip - https://www.flickr.com/photos/8182614@N ... 1857690575 - however Ive realised I didnt upload that many temple shots.

[Mike Farley]

Thanks, Paul. Thinking about it, Michael Freeman did say on Wednesday that there were more remote parts of Angkor Wat which are less heavily visited. Besides, many people will come on tours and only spend an hour or so there before leaving. Maybe I'll put it back on my "to do" list.