The walls of the world, Pigment print, 127cm x 127cm, 2012

I am fascinated in the broadest sense by landscapes like the Pilbara, including my ignorance and insensitivity to them. I’m not ‘in the Pilbara’ in the way that scientists collect and identify its objects. Rather I am collecting what can’t be seen; evidence of my uncertainty, my interaction, my wanderings and pondering.

But what do I really know of this far away place? Very little except that it is remote and ancient, a place of extremes, both climate and distance, and cultural dislocation. What do I discover about my settler culture, my artistic presumptions, my myths and prejudices? What do I suspect I am doing, and what am I responsible for?

I’m drawn to its boundaries and edges; between solid and liquid, weight and weightlessness, hot and cool, dry and wet, between ourselves and the rest of the world, and that line of habitation that encrusts, indeed misrepresents our nation.

For the Pilbara carries a stain or residue that is at the heart of its troubled relationship with urban Australia. The problem is how we index, moralise and politicise land use, rather than appropriating or projecting country as an aesthetic object. ‘History’ pales against ‘three and a half billion years on the surface of the earth’. The terrain shifts while the ground remains the same.

I would hope to make pictures that acknowledge this struggle and dislocation, that point to what is possible or unlikely, and mimic a more general theory of habitation; including the myths I incite, the paving I import, and the gate keeping I impose. There is also the fascination with the unanswered questions and what it means to become entangled in their complexity and construction. Not only the conflicts and contradictions but the fact that I am on stolen land, not my country, and what it means to acknowledge and engage with such strangeness ‘in your own back yard’.

I see only what I know. I respect only what I understand. What I need is an ethics for decolonisation. I have a lot of ground to recover.

Colliding Worlds, Pigment Print, 127 x 170cm, 2011

A recent book review described him as “unquestionably one of the best-known, most prolific and most published photographers of the twentieth century” …  but although his “work earned him fame around the world, in recent decades it has often been derided by critics and curators as overly commercial, and too easily accessible”, and therefore “not sufficiently serious”. As a result, his reputation has suffered in “comparison with a younger generation of photographers”.

Undoubtedly he was a serious photographer, but as the absent voice discloses, it remains what others consider we seriously endeavour that determines our reputation. How we value and represent what we do remains as important as what we do.

The often excused ‘letting the work speak for itself’ is doubly cursed because it both abdicates responsibility, perpetuating the myth that the creative process is beyond rational enquiry, and abandons local knowledge in favour of work that risks going missing in translation. By detaching the artwork from its means of production, it abandons the flux of ideas, emotions, desires, thinking and doing that has created the work.

I was born into a culture where modernism and formalism were tied to the universal claims implied in aesthetic judgements, where works of art were considered the embodiment of aesthetics, and presented as signs of social distinction and superior taste. Today we understand such claims as an abuse of Western power prevailing in the name of a universal humanity that glosses over local difference, contradiction and conflict.

If the reaction of the 1980s was the embodiment of the anti-aesthetic, and the 1990s a return to representation, then the first decade of the 21st century has questioned our allegiance to the past and responsibility in the present.

We encode our ignorance and the displacement of those around us in works of art when we champion only indifference, familiarity and disinterested contemplation. Henceforth things cannot be as before.

Falling Skies No 4, Pigment Print, 127 x 170cm, 2011

The world is often in far too much turmoil in front of the lens for me to also be in turmoil behind the lens. I therefore privilege the stillness of my camera as a welcome respite, and because I respect the extraordinary optical purity of my lenses I do all I can to stabilise them. I use devices like my surveyor’s tripod with geared heads, or when I’m the sole camera support a hand held gyro stabiliser. I have used these same devices for over 30 years; faithful companions in the quest for optical revelations on sensitive surfaces.

My lenses, that so carefully draw the world for me, when combined with the joy of working at the limits of a diffraction limited system, teach me the principles of stillness and stability. This condition can not be taken for granted, because technique can also destroy optical purity long before diffraction defines its limits. If the camera is not perfectly still during exposure another factor, instability, takes over the determination of how the picture is drawn. An unstable camera robs our finest lenses, while stability, whether it comes through technique or technology respects their democracy and the complex projections lenses undertake on our behalf. As a lens reflects the world it also contemplates what we are doing, and this conversation consciously and deliberately becomes embedded in our process. Technique therefore is the forging of technology with ideas, desires and emotions. Lenses that extend our vision; techniques that extend our grasp; and thoughts, words and gestures that extend our intellectual appreciation both reveal and make good the latency in photographic practice.

The careful inspection of my images below at 100% magnification reveals my Hasselblad H4D-200MS camera and lenses becoming diffraction limited around f12 to f13. This is why, except when movement is more important than resolution, I rarely use a smaller aperture than f11, often f8, before stacking multiple planes of precise focus in post production.

The physics of diffraction for circular apertures also confirm my visual findings, where:

A = 2 (1.22 λ F)

A = diameter of the bright central spot of an airy disk (m)
λ = wavelength of light (550 x 10^-9 m)
F = f stop

Given the sensor’s pixel pitch we can calculate when the diameter of the airy disk, that point of optical uncertainty at a given f stop will exceed the resolution of the sensor thereby diffraction limiting its resolution. Nyquist’s sampling theorem infers that twice the pixel pitch, that is a before and an after, is required to define a point, which also defines the minimum circle of confusion for that system. A bayer filter array also interpolates the chromatic resolution across a grid of 2 x 2 pixels where green light is sampled at twice the frequency of red or blue light. Diffraction limiting will therefore be visible at 100% screen magnification when the airy disk exceeds a 2 X 2  pixel grid on the sensor. My Hasselblad H4D-200MS system has a pixel size of 6 microns, therefore the diagonal of a 2 X 2 pixel grid is 16.97 microns. Beyond this diameter an airy disk will be increasingly noticeable as an unsharp and unresolved point. The following airy disks (in microns) are calculated for my system:

f 16  =  21.47
f 14  =  18.79
f13  =  17.45
f 12  =  16.10
f 11  =  14.76
f  8  =  10.74

Given an f stop is a constant (the ratio of aperture to focal length) and that all my Hasselblad lenses can resolve beyond their sensor’s pixel limit, the system’s diffraction limit is independent of the lens.

Art and science being the twin conditions of our contemporary consciousness; the believable and the believed, enlightenment myths of place, acquisition and occurrence, and the ignorance of pejorative skepticism, all too often conspire against learning what our ways and processes have to teach us. Maybe we just have to learn to trust that the materials we are working with will, in their own time give us confidence to make another image, and to trust that our work means something, and that what we are really doing is creating such connections between people and things. Our gestures, actions and processes are our allies because they work together, because they belong together, and because they transcend the doubts and blockages that consciously besiege our will. It is about knowing what to do, and why it looks after us.

South West Light – A Photographic Perspective from Michael Fletcher on Vimeo.

Michael Fletcher has posted his first trailer for our current Ninety Degrees 5 – South West Light project. It is an introduction to the project as a visual investigation of our relationship to and engagement with the cultures, environments, places, and events that define the South West of Western Australia; its diversity, majestic, and enduring presence both as an imagined land and a constructed landscape. As we photograph and write, Michael films and edits.

But beyond the images, the edits, our words and deeds, lies the contested temporality of film and photography. The juxtaposition of stilled and moving images in Michael’s trailer recall Lacan’s distinction between ‘the real’ and ‘reality’, between the demonstrated and the displayed. This is not pre-linguistic imaginary, nor Kant’s ‘thing-in-itself’, but something that transcends language. It remains essentially ‘unknowable’ except for the shared sense underlying its presence; like the inside behind the outside, that felt something that lingers still.

This disruption between fact and fiction, narrative and non-narrative, and the corresponding complexities of collective memory and remembering, also inscribes our feelings. Not as felt at the time, nor thought of, but as demonstrated. This presence and simultaneous absence is what makes photography most remarkable. We know its ‘reality’ only by other means. It ‘is my son (in the photograph) though he is not here’. It is as Barthes explains in Camera Lucida, ‘a certain but fugitive testimony’.

Phenomenologically film and photography also share the technology of temporal dislocation, where photography’s frozen fragment is displaced and reassembled into a filmic continuum. The world becomes a photographable present; a moment described with a past whose reputation defends its presence. This physical and metaphorical interface between cinema and photography moves me with the logic of emotion. Moreover the photograph though ‘putting us in the presence of something’ transcends mere indexicality because it touches us more than the objects, moments, events and places it rubs up against. The idea always remains richer than the actual.

Michael’s idea, of time and place projected through the experience of being there, choreographs these affinities and eases the tensions; between film and photography, the past and the present, the aesthetic and the materialist, the permanent and the transcendent. His films construct a shared past as the basis for our group identity. In the end it is about being together, admiration, friendship, cooperation and artistic revelations. His films transport us between a stilled moment and the flux of eternity, and beyond ourselves and our illusions. Michael is also my close friend and collaborator.

Michael Fletcher – The Video Guy – 2011

Les Walkling, Falling Skies, 2011, Pigment Print, 127 x 170cm

A young artist recently contacted me after reading my paper Pixel Perfect: The Craft of Photography in the Age of Digital Reproduction. Her concern was that while digital processes were becoming increasingly central to her work, and though the outcome was visually satisfying, the ease of the process itself left her ‘feeling slightly fraudulent as an artist’. Even worse, she suspected that the viewer could also ‘sense her fraudulence’.

This feeling of inadequacy is not uncommon in an age where we are first inclined to blame ourselves. In the end it is the content of the work that determines its place in our world, and that is a combination of what we do, why we do it, and how it is done. The production process is critical but no more or less than any other feature. When process dominates it becomes the main content of the work. When process retreats, other content less physical or material and more metaphysical must be added to balance the work. Some works are a much greater labour of the mind, while other works result from sheer physical labour. There is no right or wrong, no better or lesser, just what makes sense to us at the time.

What particular accomplishments or qualities we are credited with depends on our definition of art, and the role that craft plays in that definition. This can be quite personal, and we shouldn’t underestimate the contested role guilt plays in our understanding of the world and our place in it. We also aren’t the same today as yesterday or tomorrow. So it comes down to what we feel comfortable doing at the time, and what we give ourselves permission to do, even if that is being concerned over work coming too easily. We really have to own our convictions at this time. It seems to no longer be adequate to merely be convincing.

Doubt also grows out of pessimism, advertising and bad luck. Learning to be patient with ourselves and our growth as an artist, and being sensitive to our needs, both real and imagined, are all part of this process. Perhaps all my friend was asking for was a deeper belief in what she was producing and its effect on her world. This faith is a confidence that artists need a lot of. It also takes time to evolve this way of being. In my early years I kept reminding myself to ‘go for the jugular’. That is, to never hold back from trying to put as much personal meaning and significance into the work as I could. I once wrote in large letters across my studio wall ‘merely decorative is never enough’. The point is to train your attention and your lens on what possesses and consumes your moments.

So digital processes are not the problem. In fact they can be wonderfully liberating by delivering what is required with less errors and less effort, thereby freeing up precious time and energy for our thinking and dreaming. Thinking is metaphysical doing. Doing is material thinking. As tricky as it can be, you just have to get the balance right between these complementary forces. Art is worth exhausting yourself over, because art remains the best game in town. History also reminds us that making truly great art is incredibly difficult, so I wouldn’t hold back. It is an informed investment.

Don’t be worried about complexity. Complexity is what keeps someone ‘standing in front of your image’ long after they have left the gallery.

In photography where we stand is as important as why we stand where we do. This perspective both draws (composition) and frames (ideology) our image.

Commencing a new project is always filled with trepidation, anticipation and proclamations. So it was that together with my ’90 Degrees 5′ collaborators Christian Fletcher, Michael Fletcher, Tony Hewitt, and Peter Eastway, along with our guest photographer Nick Rains, we commenced our South West Light project in September 2011. This project is a testimony to the significance of landscape in our lives, and the larger issues of our relationship to country, place and belonging. It is about the relationship between ourselves and the natural world, and evidence of our desire to live in harmony with our environment. If the ‘landscape’ is altered by our encounter with it, and through our changing relationship both metaphorically and physically, then our acts and actions are always accountable. They mean something.

If we also only respect what we understand, and only know what we encounter, our methodology, how we photograph, says much about our relationship to what we are photographing. My decision to tether the Hasselblad H4D-200MS camera in the field is a meditation on this. It begins by dividing the capture process into two parts: Seeing (Constructing) and Making (Interpreting), which also mirrors 19th Century processes like wet collodion photography where the camera once set up had to wait until the glass plate was coated and sensitised before it could realise the imagined image. A division of duty and purpose all but lost in digital translation. This was also about contemplating the act of photography, including an exploration of the attitudes and values not just the ways in which photographers respond to the world. Thus it provides the opportunity for a conversation about such matters and concerns.

At 200 megapixels the Hasselblad H4D-200MS translates the world of appearances into a 1.22GB RAW file and 16,338 x 12,259 pixels. An initial exposure is followed 1o seconds later by a series of six exposures over 20 seconds. Four of the six exposures see the sensor being moved one pixel at a time relative to the Bayer filter array, so that each pixel records the actual RGB values in the scene with the Green values being sampled at twice the frequency of the Red and Blue values. The 5th and 6th exposures record the Green values at the intersections of the 4-shot pixel matrix. That is, the sensor is moved half a pixel diagonally for the 5th and 6th exposures, with the missing Red and Blue values being interpolated from the true RGB values already recorded in the 4-shot matrix. This results in 200 mpx files of exquisite quality. On my Epson printer at 240 ppi a 6-shot file produces a 51 x 68 in (130 x 173cm) print. For the first time in my digital life I am downsizing not upsizing my files. This is also the luxury of real, not imaginary numbers and pixels.

This image of the Stirling Range in Western Australia was made with my Hasselblad H4D-200MS tethered in 6-shot mode. An enlargement to 100% reveals the extraordinary detail captured in this image despite the howling gale and shifting light patterns. Only the white balance and histogram’s white and black points have been adjusted in this rendering. There is no sharpening or other image enhancements.

Being able to count the branches on trees that I couldn’t see with my naked eyes is a revelation, and a powerful metaphor for our boundless embeddedness in the natural world. Beyond such nascent pursuits, the sheer eloquence and profound beauty of the rendered image simply takes my breath away.

Focus stacking multiple multi-shot captures can further reduce movement artefacts between the successive shots to an often acceptable level. I also make a 1-shot exposure at each plane of focus when there is obvious movement in the scene, such as moving water or people, and then combine the advantages of the 1-shot and multi-shot images in post processing. However in this image all objects were at such a distance from the sensor that their movement was not noticeable in the 6-shot file so no additional processing was required. The Hasselblad H4D-200MS is therefore three cameras in one; a single-shot 50 mpx camera, a 4-shot true RGB 50 mpx camera, and an exceptional ‘game-changing’ 200 mpx 6-shot camera.

When you stop to look closely at a photograph, a person or a place, you surrender the right to take it for granted. My Hasselblad H4D-200MS camera also surrenders the right to be indifferent or inconsequential. Cultures portray their own nature, and our constructions of nature bear the same relationship to the totality of the natural world as a photographer’s rendering does to the world before them. Nature has no say in this matter. We are the ones who breathe life into the idea of nature. It becomes a site of wonder and wondering, action and response. And so we create pictures, not as images that portray a likeness or a real place, but as experiences that embody the presence of being there. This appreciation translates my conscience into a conscious engagement with our environment, and enhances my understanding, empathy and compassion for all living systems, people and places.

My annual Orpheus Island photography workshop is a very special occasion for me. It is not only the joy of being in the relaxing warmth of a North Queensland tropical island at the end of winter, but also the style and substance of this unique workshop.

Orpheus is a five day residential workshop so I get to spend all of that time with those attending, not just photographing, editing, printing and enjoying the beautiful meals prepared by our chefs, but also engaging in and following the conversations that echo deep into the night beyond the lecture theatre and production lab.

It is also the practice component that makes Orpheus so special. In my University lectures and other short courses the emphasis is rightly on the intellectual skills so critical to a successful career in the world of contemporary art. While these important intellectual skills can be understood in a few hours or a weekend or two, it takes a much greater effort to master the practical skills necessary for an informed and enduring practice. In an art school this practice component takes places over three to four years. Short courses by their very nature can’t provide this continuity. While the critical skills can be relatively quickly understood and incorporated, the practical skills require a much more sustained engagement.

On Orpheus the critical skills that I present during the morning lectures, discussions and demonstrations are immediately put into practice in the afternoon and evening, where we practice and interpret the critical distinctions as creative, artistic and productive working practices. It is not unlike a semester of art school compressed into a single week, only without the all too common breaks, distractions, and inefficiency of art school. It is learning at its very best. This is why I love presenting at Orpheus Island, and can’t wait to once again be back there at the end of August.

Another key feature of Orpheus is that each year I co-present with another professional photographer. This year my co-presenter is the wonderful Darren Jew. Darren’s presentations will include specialised underwater photography sessions, a first for my Orpheus workshop, as well as coverage of 3D photography and his artistic and business practices. The snorkeling is always a highlight of being on Orpheus Island, which after all is a James Cook University Marine Science Research Station, but this year with Darren’s expertise we will be inspired by professional photography both above and below the waterline.

Orpheus runs from 28 August to 02 September. Further details can be found under my COURSES tab.

I can’t wait, and hope you can make it as well.

I have posted in my Words/Theory of Practice section a new paper titled Camera Profiling that covers the methodology, workflow and colorimetric advantages of custom calibration and profiling of Hasselblad H System cameras. While the Hasselblad Natural Color Solution (HNCS) provides an accurate ‘straight out of the box’ result, small but significant productivity and quality gains can be achieved with a custom camera profile that accounts for the scene illuminant. This paper includes a step by step procedure for making a custom camera profile with Xrite’s Profile Maker 5 camera module and ColorChecker Digital SG test chart. The custom profile is evaluated against the generic Hasselblad RGB profile, and incorporates illuminant calibration, and the Phocus scene calibration and lens corrections. I expect this will be of  most assistance to the precise photography of cultural and biological collections, and the tethered capture of product and fashion photography where dyes and pigments can produce aberrant inconstancy and metamerism failure.

Also recently posted in my Words/Theory of Practice section is my Soft-Proofing Theory paper which outlines the theoretical factors determining the limits of soft-proofing simulations along with workflow solutions to the most common soft-proofing errors and misunderstandings. I wrote this paper in response to the questions raised in my Monitor Theory paper regarding the importance of what a screen calibration (and therefore the monitor’s image) refers to. For very good reasons Photoshop’s View/Proof Setup option has become a default approach to soft proofing, but it is also a very poor solution when accurate soft proofing is required. For example, Photoshop’s method pays no attention to the calibrated state of the monitor, let alone type of monitor, nor the ambient lighting and other environmental influences, nor the accuracy of the printer profile, in particular how critically it represents the media’s white point. This of course becomes even more fraught when optical brightening agents are included in the media. My Soft-Proofing Theory paper examines the various factors influencing and determining the accuracy of the soft-proof, and provides solutions on how to ensure the most accurate soft-proof can be obtained.

The seminar provides a critical overview of contemporary best practice workflows, from the initial image capture to proofing for pre-press and publications, and the highest quality exhibition printing. It is presented over three separate sessions/nights at Blue Tree Studios, where real- world imaging solutions address the issues most commonly encountered in real life.

The seminar is ideal for those who want to realise the benefits of full control over the image-making process. Modern inkjet printers and cameras provide exceptional control, workflow and sales opportunities for the full spectrum of photographers. Commercial, wedding and portrait photographers in particular can take advantage of the unique opportunities provided by fully controlled in-house print operations.

During the seminar participants have the opportunity to photograph and print their own images, utilising the latest state-of-the-art Canon EOS DSLR cameras, large format Canon imagePROGRAF printers, media and inksets.

Each session runs from 6.00pm to 9.00pm over three consecutive evenings as follows:

28 March – Session 1: Capture
The focus is on studio capture, shooting tethered and working with a balanced and colour managed workflow for maximum quality and efficiency while minimising unnecessary post-production. Topics include:

•  Shooting tethered – what are the advantages and disadvantages?
•  What is ‘correct’ exposure?
•  What is a histogram and how should I interpret it?
•  What are the advantages and disadvantages of RAW versus JPEG workflows?
•  How do I decide what RAW processor to use?

•  What are camera profiles and do I need to work with camera profiles?
•  How do I create ICC and DNG camera profiles?
•  When should I edit the RAW file’s white balance, tonal balance, and contrast?
•  What should I know about creating and working with metadata?
•  How do I auto-batch process images?

29 March – Session 2:  Proofing for Publication
Both RGB and CMYK print processes are covered, including magazine, sheet fed, and inkjet outputs, with an emphasis on preserving image quality and integrity across multiple printings and platforms.  Topics include:

•  What do designers expect from photographers?
•  What questions need to be addressed to printers, pre-press and publishers?
•  Bit depth, file sizes, file formats – what is required?
•  Should I be working with an early binding or late binding workflow?
•  What are the safe options in a world lacking foolproof methods?

•  Should I be soft proofing or hard proofing or both?
•  How to identify and compress out-of-gamut colours?
•  In-house CMYK separations – saving money or wasting time?
•  How do I determine how much to sharpen my images?
•  What are the essential colour management skills that I can’t work without?

30 March – Session 3: Printing for Exhibition and Point of Sale
This is all about the creation of stunningly beautiful exhibition and archival quality inkjet prints, from dedicated file preparation to colour managed printing on the finest media. Topics include:

•  What is an optimal RGB printing workflow?
•  How can I increase the sensation of depth, dimensionality and presence in a print?
•  What is creative sharpening and when would I use it?
•  How can I tone and colourize a B&W print?
•  Media selection and ink usage – economy versus quality – what are the trade-offs?

•  What are the best methods for up-sizing and calculating the best printer resolution?
•  Why, how and when should I compress the image’s colour gamut?
•  What are the advantages of printing through a Photoshop printer plug-in?
•  What are printer profiles and how do I print with them?
•  Do I need a custom printer profile?

Contact:
Email: Blue Tree Studios
Phone: 0413 187 246
Download Brochure

See website for program details: www.digital-light.net.au
No bookings necessary

This interdisciplinary symposium invites leading international and Australian figures working with digital light-based technologies to consider the capacities and limitations of contemporary digital processes. How do contemporary digital media imitate, advance or retreat from the achievements of older techniques and devices? Why do accidental artefacts of specific media become desirable outcomes in others? What role do artists and artisans play in redefining technologies through technique? Artists, curators and technologists will explore these questions from diverse angles, each exploring the techniques and technologies used in depicting, recording and projecting digital light.

Confirmed speakers:

Geoffrey Batchen (Art Historian, NZ)
Victor Burgin (Artist, UK)
Steve Dietz (Curator, US)
Jon Ippolito (Artist/Curator, US)
Stephen Jones (Artist/Historian, AUST)
Alex Monteith (Artist, NZ)
Christiane Paul (Curator, US)
Jeffrey Shaw (Artist, HK)
Alvy Ray Smith (Computer graphics pioneer, US)
Van Sowerwine (Artist, AUST)
Lynette Wallworth (Artist, AUST)

This event is part of the Australia Research Council Discovery Project ‘Genealogies of Digital Light’ involving Professor Sean Cubitt (University of Melbourne), Dr Daniel Palmer (Monash University), and Dr Les Walkling (RMIT University).