Rainbow Journeyman’s diary

As journeymen we have many a discussion about resolution and pixels. Pixels are the dots that make up the basis of all digital pictures today.
Pixel comes from the word pixelated meaning crazy. If you look at the screen on a detuned television you will know what I mean. The dots fly every which way and back again. Now I don’t propose to get to technical about all this guff. Interpolation and the likes, as it gets boring past the first few words. Suffice to say, it’s as always the end results that I am interested in. The picture.
It is also politic to say that the purists are right and that digital has not caught up, yet, with film. Films equivalent resolution, and I think that I am right in saying this, is about 30million pixels. So, we still have a little way to go. But it’s happening

But hold on. Revelation here! (Big light glowing) Its a bit like the audio response of Hi Fi. Top class amplifiers can and do produce sounds that dogs and bats find interesting; but humans don’t have the audio range to hear. And, wait for it, it the same with our eyes. Beyond a certain pixilation even bats can’t tell the difference. And for those of you who haven’t caught on. (Blind as bats!! Yeah yea!)

But I am serious about what we can and cannot see. Up to a point that is. When you look at a picture on a postcard. It’s a picture. Might even be a nice picture. Sort of, Hoom har , Mmnn that’s nice, type of picture. Followed by a big yawn if you attempt to extract the rest of the pack from your pocket.
But stop for a minute. Take a moment or two and enlarge it to a metre and quarter long, by three quarters of a metre deep; then you have a b e a u t i f u l picture. It lives, it has life, and it extracts the WOW factor from the once bored audience. The effect is pure magic. Trust us, we have done it again and again.

Time out! Time out!

I have to add a clause here!! You’ll never make a bad picture a good picture no matter how hard you try. Unless you crop to creases for abstracts or something equally weird. (We do quite a lot of that on the odd occasion; does that tell you something about Journeymen? Weird bunch I hear you say. Yup, you could be right) Any way back to pixels.

Here’s the revelation. If the pixel count is too low it starts to show.
As it expands through A4, A3, A2, A1, and so on up the grain starts to count.. …. literally. But, if the picture is upwards of eight mega-pixels when it leaves the camera you’ll begin to see the magic. At last the AO picture appears and then some and then the WOW factor cuts in. It’s a picture that you can’t take your eyes off.

A whole new talking point.

“Where’s that too. (Devon talk) Look you there’s pretty (Wales) Way I lar, there’s brae. (No idea!!) But take our word for it. They are superb works of art. Ask our Helen. We had to send her off to have her jaw lifted back into place, after looking at the boat on Padstow Harbour, enlarged to AO size. And as our Helen never stops yacking you’ll understand the misery she went through until the quack could see her. Although I am told from a reliable source that it was her husband, not some anonymous caller, that kept cancelling her appontments!!

Then there’s a second point. Add a frame to suit your décor. Every picture should be framed properly or not at all.

Frameless is good!

Pictures really do help you relax. You don’t need stare at them all daylong. But after a hard day they are as welcome as spring rain on a parched lawn. You sit and you look and you dream yourself into the picture. It’s your mini holiday whilst you are still at home. And hey, next year you could go and see it for real. After all they are all pictures of the West country that you know.

More soon

Mike Tyrrell a Rainbow Journeyman on his travels - www.rainbowjourneyman-southwest.co.uk

As I said when I was last on my soap box ; we are getting close to a release of our new site. but hey, if they can delay the Air Bus for another year, what’s a week among friends!

Cameras are interesting when it comes to taking pictures that look good. People often say to us, “Ah, but look at the camera you have got, its a super digi two tone whatsit with a Kleb attached”.
Whilst a nice camera does help from the point of view that it reduces the numbers of failures, especially when you are clinging by your teeth to get a shot, it is not the whole argument.
Now here I have a confession to make. I don’t begin to understand half of what makes a camera tick. Especially in the area of focal planes and specialist lenses. It’s too much overload for a simple lad lilke me to get my head round.
Now that doesn’t mean to say that I dont know how my cameras work. (I do, I do, he said forcefully.) Its more of a case that I know what I want from a camera and more important, I live within the expectations of the lenses that I have chosen for the effects that I want.
Ok so your confused. So am I. So lets add meat to that statement. (Sorry vegetarians)

Experience has taught me that framing a picture properly is half the argument to making a good photograph. Logic really and it sounds easy. It is if you follow the rules. When I look at a possible picture my head calculator does a series of checks.

No 1. Whats in the picture that I like. (a) Abstract (b) Pretty (as in wow!) (c) Architectural or Historic. (Interesting) There are other bits of mental dross too, saturation of colour and contrasting light effects, but I wont bore you with too much trivia, trivia.

No 2. “What’s the llight meter doing, flashing or steady”. Then, what do I want from the picture. Now this is often a difficult one as pictures can happen too fast for the subject to sit there whilst you analyse the outcome. But hey, lets not be shy. The fact I am holding the camera to my head suggests to any audience that I may have the intention of taking a photograph!! So I do. In the days of film I doubt if I would. You know the argument, 35 shots on a roll and the cost of deveoping them!!
So, what else.
No 3. Is the back ground interesting? If its not, I will adjust the camera to blurr the backgound (If I can) i.e. Faster the shutter speed less depth of field. Slower , vice versa etc.
Now this is where the serious part takes over. Composition. Now lets not have any friviolity. This is not a place where you dump your kitchen waste. As an experienced Rainbow Journeyman I will run my eye around the periphery of the picture in the viewfinder looking for No, no’s. Bits that distract from the main theme. I try to focus these out or move to compensate for them. I then look for theme lines. Here at this point may I suggest that you will need to look at the Widmouth Beach pictures where the wind was streaming the sky up and over the cliff edge. The cliff edge rock styrations are matching the cloud movement. Now that’s what I would call a neat shot. Or look at the couple on the Trebarwith Strand in Cornwall. The picture is hauntingly simple. But it’s the light effect which took my eye. The reflections from the sun making the beach look like a golden pavement. Now to me that’s a wow factor. And talking of WOW factors if you really want to impress your friend try buying one of these picture printed in AO size. It will stop them in their tracks. The visual effects are stunning. But I digress so back to the soap box.

One big unwritten rule, get over the problem of nerves before you take the camera into the field to do your shots. Practice shooting pictures around the garden or house, trying out different setting as you do so. Then erase the bad ones and start again. (Rembering what settings you used for each failed picture helps here…) With that type of familiarity you wont find yourself fumble fingered when you are the centre of attention taking shot after shot and switching settings as you do so to gain the best result. Think of your camera as the Kama Sutra of cameras. There’s always a new position to be tried!!!

One of the Camera’s I use (Canon Pro 1) has a twisting LCD screen so I can take odd angles without cricking my neck in the process.

Finally batteries and odd add on’s.
At a club meet recently one member arrived with several thousand pounds worth of super camera and all the gismos that would make Lord Lichfields efforts look box brownyish. Except, his battery was flat. No spare so no photographs. He had paid good money to come of a trip to a special locatiion (Invitation only) to find that he couldn’t take a single shot.

Odd add on’s? If it’s summer time remember insect repellant. Horse flies don’t give a damn if you are not horse shaped. They just love the flavour. Same for midges and mosquitos. And in the bottom of my gunny bag I carry Wasp eaze. Not for wasps but for stinging plants which have a distinct liking for bare arms and legs. And in winter, keep your camera warm. You may be clinging to your thermals but your camera can’t. Keep it away until you need it for a shot or two. Then put it away after the event. A dangling camera on a cold morning not only invites misting of the lense but chills the batteries into a nonperformance peak. All good exciting stuff and enough for today.

To see more of our portfolio of stunning images of South West England see www.rjsw.co.uk

More soon.