Episode Eleven

Episode Ten

Episode Nine

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A short podcast this time as a few of you groaned at the amount of time you had to listen to us waffle for. So this issue it’s a thirty-minute dip into three topics. Firstly, some thoughts about landscape photography as a genre – does it matter what it’s called and should we try other stuff? Secondly, what’s it like photographing at iconic, “overphotographed” locations and finally, because we all love a bit of clickbait, “Is the DSLR dead?” (I’ll spoil the surprise by saying “no but … yes but … ”

This issues podcast’s topic is books and specifically, Joe and David’s experiences making their first ones. Don’t forget, if you like these podcasts, please let us know and suggest a few topics we might discuss in the next one.

As mentioned in last episode, we are looking at having a mini ‘in your house’ photography challenge. All three of us are going to give this a go (me and David have done something, Joe is still cogitating) and we invite anybody else who wishes to take part to submit some work. The deadline will be Monday morning and the only rules are that it has to be inside your house, not in your garden or out of a window.

We also mentioned last time that we’re having a mini book club chat next week where myself and David Ward are going to talk about Edward Muybridge, in particular the book “Motion Studies” and me and Joe Cornish are going to talk about Robert Adams book “Beauty in Photography: Essays in Defense of Traditional Values”. We’ll be discussing these in a weeks time, starting with Robert Adams, if you’d like to read them and ask us questions about them, please let us know.

As mentioned in this episode, we are looking at having a mini ‘in your house’ photography challenge. All three of us are going to give this a  go and we invite anybody else who wishes to take part to submit some work. The only rules are that it has to be inside your house, not in your garden or out of a window.

We also mention that we’re having a mini book club chat next week where myself and David Ward are going to talk about Edward Muybridge, in particular the book “Motion Studies” and me and Joe Cornish are going to talk about Robert Adams book “Beauty in Photography: Essays in Defense of Traditional Values”. We’ll be discussing these in two weeks time if you’d like to read them and ask us questions about them, please let us know.

Sorting out the technology

We ran the idea past David Ward as well, who was positive about the idea and like most of us didn’t have anything else to do, and so we recorded our first episode using GoToWebinar. Unfortunately, there was a bit of lag/delay on the connection which made for a stilted start and the final audio quality wasn’t great. However, we enjoyed the process and I went away with the task of trying to work out a better process for next time.

We ended up sending separate audio recorders to Joe and David and although we had our conversation on our phones, which got rid of the nasty lag, we used the recorders to get a good quality record in each location and also used video conferencing software with the audio turned down to make sure we had the visual cues that conversations sometimes need. The end result of this was much better and we’ll stick with this going forward.

All of this description of our process is by way of explanation of why our second conversation is actually our first proper one. However, the first conversation was still interesting and so we’re including it here with the quality warning.

What did we chat about? Well, for our lower-quality chat, we challenged each other to choose a question to ask of ourselves and the second, better quality chat we had a discussion about what we have been doing since the lockdown started and how it’s been affecting us

Questions for Joe, David or Myself?

What we really want to do is to continue having these conversations but make things more interactive with our audience. So if you have any questions you’d like to address to Joe or David (or myself) then please add them to the comments below, send a message via our Facebook page or via email to submissions@onlandscape.co.uk.

We also want to include other photographers in our chats and if you have any suggestions for these or want to nominate yourself, please let us know!

Our goal was to be specific about the types of activity that would be specific to us as photographers but we also discussed some general adaptations that anybody can make. Charlotte and I included ourselves not only as enablers of the discussion, but also, I hope, because we have made adaptations in our photography business to try to have less impact on the environment.

If you have any questions for David, Joe, Ted, Morag, Charlotte or myself, or have ideas of your own, please add them to the comments at the bottom of the article and we’ll try to follow up this discussion with a separate article bringing the community into the discussion.

I’d like to add a little bit of news to the discussion as well. At the end of last year, the Outdoor Writers and Photographers Guild gave the Award for Excellence to a campaign website, Save Glen Etive, David Lintern and I built. The website made dramatic use of photography donated by Joe Cornish, David Ward, Colin Prior, Michael Stirling-Aird and many others. Sadly the campaign didn’t stop the development but it raised awareness to the point where we had tens of thousands of supporters and petitioners.

The landscapes Margaret captures, typically on the remote islands of the Outer Hebrides, Inner Hebrides and Orkney Isles, are a reflection of her solo time in nature, being still and embracing quietude. In this podcast, Margaret talks about her exhibition and what she finds in the quietness and solitude of the islands that keeps pulling her back.

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Exhibition

See Margaret Soraya’s landscapes from the Outer Hebrides, Inner Hebrides and Orkney Isles in her exhibition ‘Quiet’ at Bosham Gallery, 1 High Street, Bosham, West Sussex PO18 8LS from October 5-December 14, 2019.

Margaret has a talk on Saturday 30th November | FINDING YOUR OWN CREATIVE SPACE Artist Talk With Margaret Soraya | 3-5pm | Bosham Gallery

A couple of weeks ago, Al Simmons from Teamwork came to visit to demonstrate the latest camera system from Phase One, the Phase IQ4 150 and also the new technical camera solution, the Phase XT and its range of 23mm, 32mm and 70mm electronic-shuttered Rodenstock lenses.

We went out to Glen Nevis to take a few photographs, test out a few features and, after coming back, recorded a chat about what the new system does and what it means for photographers who may use it.

Below the podcast, I’ve included a few photographs with samples of zoomed sections. You can also find out a lot more about the Phase IQ4 and XT Camera System on Teamwork’s website (links on the home page to both). Al Simmons has just come back to spend a day with us where we tested the camera more extensively and we’ll be featuring an article about this in a future issue.

Alister Benn joined us at our Highland headquarters for a chat about his recent trip to Sweden, where we randomly bumped into each other, and his forthcoming move to Lochaber!

If you’re on a mobile device, please click here for the podcast as there’s an issue with the mobile version of the site.

Alister Benn and Ann Kristin Lindaas working the abstract in Sweden

Are you passing through Glencoe in the coming weeks or months? Why not pop in for a cuppa tea and a catch up? We’re looking for other stories from our community, whether it’s talking about a trip, a project, some of your favourite images. Drop us a line and we will get in touch!

As a drop-in back for old Hasselblad medium format cameras, it’s a little bit interesting but once you introduce the tiny 907x body adapter which will take X1D lenses and with converters for Hasselblad mount (and via other converters to Mamiya, Bronica, LF lenses, large image circle 35mm lenses, etc) we have a system that is incredibly flexible. The final inclusion of an electronic shutter means you could mount it to a coconut and use it as an organic pinhole camera if you really wanted! It’s the first really flexible MF back which should appear at a top-end DSLR price. We hope to get our hands on one in the coming months.

We should apologise for the slightly less than perfect sound. The recording was made last-minute via our Macbook microphone. Future instalments of “Passing Through” will hopefully sound a little better.

If you are on a mobile device please click here for the podcast as there’s an issue with the mobile version of the site.

Are you passing through Glencoe in the coming weeks or months? Why not pop in for a cuppa tea and a catch up? We’re looking for other stories from our community, whether it’s talking about a trip, a project, some of your favourite images. Drop us a line and we will get in touch!

So, a big thank you to Joe and everyone who submitted their questions and here’s the fourth and final section..