How to Remove Water Spots

I find myself photographing in a lot of bad weather. What this means is that I spend a lot of time wiping water, sea spray and condensation off of my lens and filters. If I'm lucky I'm shooting away from the wind which greatly minimises the problem, but often I'm shooting into the storm and so it's a bit of a problem. My usual solution of "wipe and shoot" with a lens cloth (I use and recommend these ones by Matin) works, but if the rain is particularly heavy then more rain has hit my lens by the time I'm ready to fire the shutter. Another problem is that sometimes water drops down between the filters in my filter holder, which isn't always apparent at the time without constantly taking the filters out to check them, or studious review of an image on the LCD once taken. One way I reduce that particular problem is by using a chamois (which I usually drape over my camera to help protect it) to cover the top of the filter slots.

Nonetheless I often find that an image I like has been ruined by water spots. I've recorded a short video showing how I get around these which you might find useful.

If you're pressed for time, here's the short version (or you can skip to about 7:20 in the video to get the main points) :

• Wipe your lens and filters, wait for the camera to settle down, and take the shot
• Do that several times so that I have multiple versions of the same shot. It's unlikely the water spots will be in the same place in each image.
• Select the images in Lightroom with differently positioned water spots, and Open as Layers in Photoshop via the Edit In right click menu.
• Auto-align the layers in Photoshop
• Create a layer mask and then paint black on it to remove the water spots by showing the un-tainted image on an underlying layer

It's pretty straightforward, indeed a simple use of PS layers. But it's also a very practical application which can be useful in other situations where an unwanted object is momentarily in frame, or to combine the 'best moment' (such as the best wave as I did in the video) into the final image.

Rabbit Holes of Creativity

In my recent Craft & Vision podcast with Jeffrey Saddoris I talked about the ‘gut instinct’ you get when you know you’re doing your own thing. It’s something I believe strongly in and I wanted to share with you a couple of recent examples of what I mean. On the first weekend of June most of the east coast of Queensland and New South Wales were hit by an ‘East Coast Low’, basically a large and powerful weather system carrying a lot of rain and high winds, plus reportedly the biggest swell since 2007. Most of the coast battened down the hatches amid severe weather warnings.

The worst of it hit here in Yamba on the Saturday night. Come Sunday things had quietened down a lot, but the seas were still huge and the sky heavy with cloud. I went down to Angourie for a short while to photograph the stormy seas, making a number of images I was happy with.

I intended to spend Monday shooting more storm photos. High tide was due about 9am and I wanted to see the extent of the encroaching sea and the possibility of making more photographs in some unusual conditions.

However, Monday brought mostly clear skies. The sea was still rough but its intensity had definitely decreased. Under blue skies I was disappointed that the moment for stormy seas under stormy skies had passed; a photograph now might show some of the rough sea but felt altogether too benign for my intention. Here’s a record shot of one of the bigger waves hitting the point, with a few of the distant clouds to the north trying their best to make things a bit murkier.

The waves were breaking further out so the bay was filed with mostly white water. I would later look for better waves in more promising locations to photograph. For now I found myself drawn to the tidal pool. With the tide right over the top of it I became drawn to the contrast between the water and the part submerged handrails, bent and broken from the large logs and rocks tossed at them by the storm. I started out with wider shots, hoping for something speaking of 'the pool in a storm’. But the hand rails drew me in ever closer. I noticed the movement of the white water and spume (foam) in the pool as each wave came over. Over the course of 45 minutes I continued to narrow my focus and vision onto these bent handrails until eventually my favourite shot was of the dark and broken rails with the added geometry from the submerged poolside on a backdrop of water.

There were several moments in those 45 minutes that I thought “Hold on, you came to shoot stormy seas and you’re now doing some semi-abstract long exposure thing that - bent rail aside - speaks nothing of the storm. What on earth are you doing?”. And the answer was that I was just going with my gut instinct. There were already stormy sea shots all over the news and social media, so nobody - least of all me - was interested in some more stormy seas in what was actually t-shirt weather. There wasn’t much drama to be had here, and I’m not a documentary photographer anyway. I was here to find what interested me and photograph that. I just allowed myself to go with the flow and continue to focus on the hand rails.

Now, yes, there are no shortage of long exposure photographs of objects protruding from long exposure water. I’m sure handrails probably feature prominently in those photographs too! But right there, in that moment, I was just photographing what I found interesting, not thinking about what had gone before, about being creative or original, or what the outcome would be. If anyone would like them, or if they would be shots I would display proudly. I was just following my own instinct, running down my own rabbit hole. That’s what I consider to be ‘following your own path’. I had conspired against myself to shoot something so completely different to my intended subject, the obvious subject, the newsworthy subject, to make what I’m sure a lot of people will find a boring photograph of a twisted pool handrail. I don’t think creativity is too bothered about making the most dramatic image, just the one that speaks the calls to you at the time.

The other example I’d like to share with you came the following day. Again the skies were pretty clear but the swell was impressive. I decided to go to Angourie again to make some more of my wave ‘portraits' (you can see some examples here). Arriving at the Blue Pools’ car park I was surprised at how busy the car park was, such that I was lucky to find a parking space. As I approached the rocks I found a good crowd of people including quite a number of photographers with long lenses pointing towards what seemed like a couple of dozen surfers on the large waves just off the point. One surfer told me he hadn’t seen the surf as good for about 10 years.

I visit this spot often and I’m usually the only one there, maybe with a surfer or two in the water but otherwise I have it all to myself. Working with a big crowd to my back was quite unnerving! Clearly the ‘go to shot’ here was sharp, highly detailed photographs of the surfers weaving their magic through these seemingly monster waves. That’s not really my thing, but I took a few before the rabbit hole opened up before me once again.

My wave portraits are often shot between 1/10 and 1/40 shutter speeds to intentionally blur the water; I love the lines, shapes and textures that this reveals in a wave. Rather than going for the ‘surf magazine’ shot I felt my creative instinct tugging at me to do my own thing, but try it with the addition of the surfers to add an extra sense of scale and interest to the wave portrait. So here I am, standing in front of a large crowd including several photographers with big long white lenses, and I’m waggling my camera from side-to-side with several ND filters on the front and the tell tale ‘kah-clunk’ of a slow shutter speed. During brief moments of self-consciousness I could hear the voice of the other photographers in my head, “What the hell is that guy doing? He’s not going to get any sharp photos doing that. Damn newbie, all the gear, no idea!”. I carried on regardless, playing with my shutter speeds, panning with the surfers, swapping filters in and out, understanding how the momentary cloud was changing the light, trying to get the same feel as my wave portraits but with a relatively sharp surfer riding the wave.

So here I am photographing the best waves in a decade, with dozens of surfers to shoot, and yet I’m just doing this same blurry photography thing because that’s the rabbit hole I find myself instinctively diving down. Ye, I could have disciplined myself to shooting the surfers with a high shutter speed with perhaps a more marketable result. But there’s no shortage of great surf photographs out there (I think of the great work by the likes of Russell Ord, great watermen as well as great photographers; infinitely better placed than I to take such photos). I remember chatting to Neil Mansfield about surf photography; I have neither the water skills, surfing knowledge or photography experience in that environment to make the best photographs of that particular genre. I see no point in me trying to do that when I find myself interested in exploring it differently, a different aesthetic and style that appeals to me on a personal level.

Now, I’m not saying all of this to say “how amazingly different am I?” because, really, I’m not. A long exposure hand rail and some blurry surfers are not by themselves anything special. Quite the contrary. In fact I'm a really bad digger, or at least rabbit hole spotter. But increasingly when I see one, or sense one, I tell myself to go down it.

So what I am saying is that I found myself curious and interested in something different to what I intended or expected myself to produce, and just went with it. Other photographers might get that same feeling which leads them to make amazing photos of storm waves pounding cliffs, or insanely sharp shots of surfers as they ride through the barrel of a wave. That’s their particular rabbit hole, and they need to dive down that just as much as I need to dive down mine.

It’s important to listen to those little voices in your head, or that feeling in your gut, or however ideas speak to you, that says “this intrigues me, what if I…?”. That’s your creativity talking. The point isn’t to make original photographs but to make authentic photos - the photos with your own stamp on them, that spring from your own mind and ideas. I think this is how your photographs speak to other people; they see how you think, see, and feel and communicate that in a photograph. The goal isn’t to be popular, but to express yourself through the ideas that you have, and hope that your voice finds the people who want to listen.

So next time you hear the voice in your head and see a hole appear at your feet, jump in and see what you find.

New eBook Release: The Perfect Shutter

I'm delighted and a more than a little excited to announce that my new eBook "The Perfect Shutter" has just been launched! Published by the wonderful team at Craft & Vision, the Perfect Shutter is a book about the creative use of shutter speeds in landscape photography. You can buy it on the C&V website by clicking this link.

It's been a number of years now since I first started experimenting with different shutter speeds to create different effects and moods in a photograph. Most often by the sea, but also by rivers and waterfalls, and occasionally sky and vegetation, I'm fascinated by how the passage of time - the 4th dimension - can play a part in an image. It seems strange that you can depict something you can neither see nor touch in a single still photograph, but there it is.

In the book I talk about the different tools and techniques for achieving different effects via shutter speed, with an overarching theme of using such knowledge intentionally to best realise your own vision. David duChemin describes the book as follows:

“I believe that every photograph has a ‘perfect shutter’—that magical sweet spot where the depiction of motion within the photograph best conveys the intended vision and emotion.” – Duncan Fawkes

I’m excited to introduce The Perfect Shutter from landscape photographer Duncan Fawkes. Duncan has a body of work that so impressed me that I was thrilled when he said he’d share his knowledge in an eBook for us.

In 180 big, beautiful spreads, Duncan shows you how to refine your vision by putting technique into practice, adding stronger mood and intention to your photographs by sharing his knowledge of the basic fundamentals, tools, gear, visualization, techniques, and subjects, before expanding into more advanced topics such as deciphering ND filter numbers, panning, intentional camera movement, and blending exposures. In his “Making the Image” section, Duncan includes 10 photographs that walk you through the how and the why of his personal choices in creating those images.

Whether you want to photograph silky waterfalls, energetic waves, the sky, or even the wind, The Perfect Shutter leads you to find your perfect place to creatively capture the landscape as you experience it. Nature renews itself every morning: reframe how you see it.

Download your copy before 11:59 PM (PST) on June 15 for just $6.00 (a 25% savings). Learn more.

For the Love of the Photograph, - David duChemin

If you'd like to read my book it is available from the Craft & Vision website. Better yet it's discounted from $8 to $6 (25% off) until June 15th, so go grab a bargain!

And if you're into bargain hunting they also have a bundle deal with the hugely talented Michael Fyre's Exposure (which I also have and recommend) for an additional 20% off - both books for only $8.80. You can get them both here.

Timed with the book release I sat down with Jeffery Saddoris to discuss my photography on the C&V podcast. If you're interested in hearing my thoughts (and a lot of umms and ahhs!) then you can listen to it here.

On a personal note, the release of this book is quite obviously a huge highlight for me. Not only does it represent years of work - and the usual cliches of blood, sweat and tears - but also it's a real honour to be featured by Craft & Vision. Regular readers will know how David duChemin through his blog, photography and Craft & Vision were instrumental on helping me onto the right path artistically at the start of my photographic journey. In a sense things have come full circle and I'm so very grateful to contribute back to C&V and its readers, of which I've been one all of these years. I'm very grateful to David and the team for the opportunity and their belief in me. I think the final product looks amazing and I'm very happy with it.

I am grateful to and humbled by those of you who have supported and encouraged me all these years. To have people interested and engaged with your work is truly one of the greatest gifts to an artist. I thank you.

 Buy it now for only $6.

Experimenting with Polarisers

I’m a big fan and heavy user of polarisers, particularly when I’m around water or foliage to remove glare and reflections. Whilst I often love the effect of the polariser, there are times when it feels like a hindrance rather than a help to an image.

One such occasion was last week when I was photographing the rock ledges down at Lovers’ Point here in Yamba. There are lots of interesting rocks and cracks here, and numerous rock pools that are uncovered when the tide recedes.

My almost default reaction in this situation is to attach the polariser to cut the glare on rocks and reflections from the pools. However it’s always a good idea to make such decisions intentionally. Sure being able to see all the detail in the rock pools and extra colour in the rocks can be great. But sometimes, that extra detail can be a distraction from an otherwise simpler image. Beyond that, the reflection of the sky can give some luminous space around an object.

Take this pair of images by way of example. In this first image most of the reflection of the sky during early twilight has been removed by utilising the polariser to its full potential. We can see into the pool and see all the seaweed and shells living in there.

In this second image I have adjusted the polariser (with a 90 degree rotation) to allow the reflection to fully return. The weeds and shells are still there, but there’s a light blue sheen on the water that obscures those details for the most part.

What I’d like to highlight in this example is the difference in tonal separation between the rocks and the water in these images. What do I mean by tonal separation? As it sounds tonal separation is taking about the separation - difference in relative brightness - of the tones in the image.

In the polarised image the water and the rocks are pretty similar, with darker patches here and there from the dark weed. By comparison, the water in the unpolarised version is much brighter than the rocks. This provides a backdrop to the most prominent rock, something it can sit upon and stand out from, enhancing the contrast between the rock and the water. Where the tones are closer together as in the first image, the rock tends to blend into the background more, losing its immediate shape and impact.

As well as tonal separation, there is better colour separation. The polarised image brings out the yellows and oranges in the water which are similar to the colour of the rock. There is greater colour contrast in the polarised image, with the light blue water contrasting with the orange-grey rocks.

You might notice that the rocks in the polarised image are a touch bluer than those in the polarised version. This is where the polariser has cut the glare of that twilight blue sky from the slightly damp foreground rocks, returning their natural colour.

Which is better? Well neither version is likely to win any prizes but, as ever, it depends. For me it was the shape of the rocks against the water that caught my attention, that’s what I want to accentuate and so the unpolarised version works better for me. If instead the detail in the rock pool and the colour of the rocks was the main subject then the polarised version might work better.

You may prefer the warmer colour of the rocks and lack of glare in the distant rocks from the polarised version. In that case you could layer the two images in Photoshop and mask in the light blue water from the unpolarised version for a ‘best of both worlds’. This also works if you want to alter the strength of the polarising effect in post-processing - take one shot polarised, another shot unpolarised, and blend them together in Photoshop with a lower opacity for the desired effect.

The takeaway is that you shouldn't use a polariser just because you can. Instead consider all of the effects it has on the image. They can be a great help in minimising glare and distractions, but sometimes the reflections are an important part of the image so it’s well worth experimenting - and/or taking both shots - to get the best result.

If you're in the market for a polariser I've recently started using a Formatt-Hitech Firecrest 105mm polariser and can recommend it.

A Review of David DuChemin's Making the Image

I've just sat and read David DuChemin's new eBook Making the Image cover to cover in one sitting. My initial reaction is that this is a great book for outlining the thought process that goes into making photographs and will appear on my must-read list. My second reaction is that this is a book that I wish I had written, notwithstanding the fact that I'm not near as as eloquent, passionate and prolific a writer as David is!

So much of it resonates with how I work and the conversation that I have when I am photographing. Indeed, I have written several blog posts which I also titled "Making the Image" which outline how I go about making photographs whilst on location.

Some background

If you follow me here, on social media or - gasp! - know me in real life, you'll know that I'm a huge admirer of David DuChemin.

Whilst most point to the likes of Ansel Adams or Joe Cornish as their inspiration (for me too they were my encouragement to pick up the camera) I'd shout out David as one of my heroes for saving my photographic life. Like millions of others I'd fallen into the trap of thinking that it was my equipment that was letting me down. Daily visits to the likes of DPReview convinced me that a new camera or new lens was my photographic saviour.

I stumbled upon David's blog by chance years ago when it was much smaller than it is now. What he said clicked with me immediately "Gear is good, vision is better".

My lacking as a photographer had less to do with my (now very expensively assembled) gear and everything to do with me (and remains so to this day). His blog has always been full of passion, challenged my thinking, and focused on the mindgames of photography. It was never instructional in an absolute sense, he didn't say "do this" or "do that" as other blogs and books would do. It was always questioning and challenging. The answers - though admittedly heavily implied - were left to the reader to decide for themselves.

So it is with Making the Image. This book isn't about telling you how to take better photographs. More it outlines a process that you might go through to make better photographs. Focusing on the journey, rather than the destination as it were.

A Conversation

For a long time now I've considered photography to be a conversation, between the photographer, the camera and the landscape. It might sound silly to non-photographers, but I see it as an ongoing process of observation (listening), questioning, and personal interpretation (talking). The joy of digital technology is that the immediate feedback on the LCD allows that conversation to happen much more fluidly.

"How do I feel about this photograph?"

"How can I make it stronger?"

"What is distracting?"

"What's the light doing?"

"What if I...?"

And so on...

This ongoing interrogation results in a very iterative process, where I reach my best photograph step-by-step. Sometimes I'll take a wrong turn and go down a blind alley, but that's all in the name of trying something, failing, and learning. Sometimes the first image I make is the best, sometimes the last, and sometimes it's one somewhere in the middle. But each step (or image, whether I press the shutter or not) is taken in answer to a question I have posed myself.

I share this approach when teaching workshops, trying to encourage the questioning mind rather than relying on absolute truths. Those truths simply don't exist from one photograph to the next. There is no universally best exposure, composition, aperture, focus point, shutter speed, ISO, filter combination, focal length, position, and so on. It's all these variables and more that create an individual photograph and perhaps even an individual style. It's up to the photographer to put the jigsaw puzzle together that best represents what we have in our head.

Making the Image

Making the Image is laid out like the conversation that is so often going on in my head. It clearly outlines all of this thinking through a series of questions, each of which considers a different aspect of the photograph and how certain aspects might support or detract from the photograph we have in mind.

From "Why do I want to make this photograph?" to "Can I further simplify the image?" to "How is the image balanced?", it provides not so much a framework - you wouldn't sit down and go through these from start to end on every shot - but a pool of inspirational questions to draw on when you're not sure where to go next. Sometimes it well help to get unstuck, other times it will open up a new creative avenue that you hadn't considered. Better yet, if you use and practice the questions over time they will become ingrained in your own photographic routine. It even comes with a Quick Reference guide of just the questions so that you can keep them close at hand.

Rather than just dump the questions and run for the hills, for each question David talks through one or several of his own photographs and shows how he applied the questions in his own approach. This really helps ground the questions, taking them from a perhaps abstract idea to pragmatic advice you can relate to your own photography.

As I say, the book strongly resonates with how I approach my photography and my teaching. I think most photographers will find something to learn here, even if affirmation of your own approach (powerful in itself). For myself, with someone else presenting these ideas and questions back to me, it has helped me think further and more clearly on my own process. There's even a few extra questions which may have been in my subconcious that Making the Image has helped bring to the surface. I expect to hear David's voice on my future photographic adventures (which could get a bit weird at times).

The blurb for the book asks "Have you ever wanted an experienced photographer to look over your shoulder once in a while and ask you why you're doing this or that, and whether you'd considered trying something different?".

Normally I find there's an expectation gap between the marketing and a product's reality. On this occasion I think the marketing for Making the Image is good to it's word; that's exactly what this book feels and reads like. A good teacher won't just tell you the answers, they'll help you to understand the process for yourself. That, as I found on his blog all those years ago, is where David excels.

“A wise man doesn’t give the right answers, he poses the right questions.

~ Claude Levi-Strauss. This quote from the inside cover of the book gives a strong clue as to the book's contents.

Making the Image contains 35 questions over 158 beautifully illustrated pages, a quick reference guide for use in the field, and also contains a 45 minute video (if you really want to take David into the field with you!). You can get it for $20 discounted from $25 until August 12. As well as that, there's a tempting offer that goes with it. In David's words:

Everyone that picks up Making the Image before August 12 at 11:59 PM (PDT) also gets a chance to win one of three portfolio or image reviews with me. This gives me a chance to connect with a couple more of you, and gives three of you a chance to go a little deeper with your own images and process. No restrictions, no fine print. Everyone that gets Making the Image before August 12 at 11:59 PM (PDT) gets a great resource for 20% off what I hope is already a really great price, and a chance to win some time with me.

You can buy it here.

Disclaimer: note that I am a Craft & Vision affiliate. That reflects the fact that I strongly believe in the products David and the team produce rather than it will ever make me a rich man. If this review helped make your mind up then please do buy the book through my affiliate link for which I will receive a small commission. If you'd rather I didn't, you can visit Craft and Vision directly here.)