photographs of light

Visit the Gallery ©Paul Foley

Visit the Gallery © Paul Foley

'Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.'

Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man

Visit The Gallery © Paul Foley

Cab ride across the Brooklyn Bridge, NYC

Peak hour is never the best time to drive across the Brooklyn Bridge if you are in a hurry. On this occasion I had arrived by train from Boston and any delays just gave me more time to hang out of the cab window like a happy dog. Besides, the scent and sound through an open window is the right way to begin a visit to New York! 

It was cloudy and almost raining as I headed to the apartment I had rented in Clinton Hill. Most streets and cities would look a little drab in this light but not New York! All a photographer has to do is find their black and white eyes and the viewfinder is filled with beautiful textures and tone. Even the grit looks fantastic.

I am a photographer

Sometimes I am asked ‘Why am I a photographer?’ Often there are days when I ask myself the same question but with a heavy emphasis on the ‘am’.

I hear so often in these digital times that ‘anyone can be a photographer’ as if the mere purchase of a piece of equipment can make you something. If that is the case I am off to buy a stethoscope. I just wish I could afford the Playboy Mansion or a F1 team.

Of course, life doesn’t work that way. A photographer, by my definition, makes pictures using imagination, emotion, skill and knowledge. A camera of some sort is required but it isn’t the reason a photographer photographs.

A photographer sees a picture before raising the camera to the eye - yet is often surprised by what can happen as light bounces around in the viewfinder. Not to mention the shenanigans that silver halides and pixels can get up to! The origin of a photograph is most often a thought that becomes frozen by Henri Cartier-Bresson’s ‘decisive moment’. It is the result of both a temporal and spiritual interaction with light as it hits (and sometimes misses) the scene on the other side of the lens.

Photographers see pictures even when they don’t have a camera. The guilt felt when this happened the first time is why photographers always carry a camera. A photographer doesn’t need an audience. Sure, an ego needs the occasional feed but they will make pictures even if the success of exhibitions, publication and social media likes eludes them.

So, if not just anyone can be a photographer, what about being a Professional Photographer? I have come to recognise that a Professional Photographer is not always a ‘photographer’ as I have just described above.

I even think it is possible for anyone to be a Professional Photographer. They may never be exceptionally - or any - good at it but, given the right equipment, assistance and adequate seed money, a person may be able to make enough satisfactory pictures for a certain type of client to buy their services. Eventually they may improve and get repeat customers. Most likely they’ll go broke. In any case, for a period of time, the occupation box on their tax returns will say ’Professional Photographer’.

There does sometimes occur the happy coincidence where photographers are paid for making the pictures they are passionate about. It’s how I turned pro around 27 years ago. Unfortunately, for most of us those clients who want you to photograph exactly what you want to photograph (and pay you for it) don’t last forever. Or even for long.

In moments of reflection, I consider the role of the Enthusiast Photographer in today’s photography scene. I love trawling Flickr,  Google+,  500px and other sites. I find so many wonderful, intriguing and sometimes gobsmacking images made by people who may well be considered the true photographers of the 21st century.

Many make pictures purely because of their love of photography. The accessibility of digital photography allows them to reach skill levels and undertake experimentation that would not have been possible in the analogue times. Photography gives them a creative break from the demands of day to day life and while camera gear can be expensive there are still many affordable entry points to the world of photography. Like the photographer who cobbled together rudimentary cameras and lenses to photograph individual snowflakes on his exposed and cold patio.

I have made pictures since I was 16 and still work hard serving corporate, government and small business clients. Yet, after more than 25 years as a full time professional I still love 'finding pictures' for myself and making them into prints. I may work in a dry lightroom today and not the wet darkroom where the art of photography first took hold in my imagination but the passion is still there.

My personal images are not confined by genre. I make pictures to express how light and shadow shape my creativity. I look for the special light wherever it hits (and misses) the scenes I come across. Made around my neighbourhood, my country and the world, they include coastal landscapes, urban architecture, rural locations as well as portraits and the human figure.

While the back story to my pictures is important to their creation, my motivation is to make prints that are independent of their origins. I want eyes to wander around the composition, enjoying the tones, colours and finding nearly hidden details. The viewer may have never visited where I made the picture but if it encourages reflection, perhaps a daydream, I am very happy.

I am committed to the search for light and the process of photography. For the most part, though, the best of my endeavours in this time of digital photography are usually just pixels on a screen. I still exist on the idea that a picture isn't real until I can feel it. The light and shadow of my imagination and creativity lives in the paper you hold when I show you a print. No longer ones and zeros moving around the ether, those pixels are now real.

For many years I was able to separate my photography from my job - even though my job was being a Professional Photographer. I enjoyed making pictures for clients  (I still do!) and supplying a service for a fee gave me the time and the money to make pictures for myself.

But that was the 80’s and 90’s when my day fee could go as high as $4k and I was paid $75 for each roll of film I put through my ‘Blad. Not to mention the $8 per Polaroid. Unfortunately, the fees I now charge are much lower despite me having many more photographic skills than in 2002 when I bought my first DSLR.

So, while the mantra ‘anyone can be a photographer’ is popular, it is very far from reality. I know there are many like me working hard at our day jobs as Professional Photographers so we can continue to relish and love our other lives as photographers.

5th Avenue & W53rd Street, New York City

October 19, 2013

I made these pictures in the 2 minutes and 26 seconds after 3.38pm. I had been walking along W53rd Street when I noticed how the sun, shining down 5th Avenue, was being bounced around by the high-rises and shop fronts. It was not the first time I had found backlighting with beautiful front fill light on the streets of New York City.

5th Avenue & W 53rd Street, NYC - Images by Paul Foley

Street photography requires a photographer to be ready for the moment. I like to shoot on either manual or shutter priority so I make sure to adjust exposure whenever I move into different light. The first few frames were shot at a high shutter speed (1/2000th of a second) which narrowed the depth of field. I quickly changed down to 1/250th to increase the range of focus. I set the exposure compensation to -2/3rd of a stop and framed the picture to include the lit part of the street corner while levelling the camera as best as I could. I wanted to avoid creating distracting convergence angles on the buildings, which happens when a camera is tilted too far, as well as to give a sense of the streets of New York.

I photographed during a single lights change, standing still, as shoppers, tourists and business people walked past me heading downtown. I didn’t really concentrate on any particular face - it was all happening so quickly.I did notice, however, that some people were looking down 53rd with very interesting expressions as they came up to me. I wondered what it was they were looking at but knew if I turned to see I would miss shots. The light could disappear at any moment so I kept shooting before turning to cross the street just as the red hand flashed. I never did work out what they had been looking at.I often walk the street looking for pictures with my large professional camera - the Canon 1Dx. I’ve tried compact cameras but have never been happy with the images made with the smaller sensors. I can’t afford a Leica and, while I am hearing good things about Fuji cameras, at this stage I am sticking with the full frame sensor.

In the somewhat vain hope that I can make the 1Dx more discreet I use Canon’s very compact 40mm ‘pancake’ lens to lessen the apparent bulk of the camera. This is not always a success as the tiny lens looks so out of scale on the body it often causes photography enthusiasts to ask me about it. I’m always happy to talk photography and very happy to rave about this small, simple lens. It is one of the cheapest that Canon manufacture and, from my testing and use, one of the sharpest.

Faces - International Students, Boston 2013

During September and October 2013 I was commissioned by Navitas to photograph their international students at 3 University of Massachusetts campuses in the Boston area as well as at the University of New Hampshire at Durham.

International Students photographed for Navitas, September / October - 2013.

On a three week road trip Navitas Art Director, David Kilvert, and I wandered around the North East of the US visiting the four campuses and the many towns and cities in between.

This collection of images pays tribute to the many wonderful students I met and photographed.

Navitas brings young people from all over the world to learn at these fine universities as well as at many others around the world

With profound thanks to the students and staff at Navitas Boston. 

University of Massachusetts - Boston

University of Massachusetts - Lowell

University of Massachusetts - Dartmouth

University of New Hampshire - Durham

Photography - Paul Foley - Lightmoods

Art Direction - David Kilvert - Navitas

Original Music by Sean Degan ‘Shirts for Mathew

Seeing in Black and White (again)

During my transition to digital I noticed that I was seeing less and less in black and white while out photographing personal work. It eventually got to the stage that I was only really seeing the potential for a black and white print while I scanned through the files after loading them onto the computer. This didn’t seem a problem whenever I was commissioned to provide B&W for a corporate client - I guess my professional eye would just work to the brief.

For a while I wasn't sure why I was seeing less B&W scenes until I went back over how I learnt much of my photography. For many years I only shot 4"x5" or medium format, often exposing a polaroid first. I would have the (almost) instant gratification of seeing a print of the scene in either  B&W or colour. I think this is what helped train my photographic eye to almost instinctively assess a scene in terms of it's colour saturation or monochromatic tonal range. 

Remastered Prints - Images by Paul Foley

Like most photographers I left my LCD screen to display in colour  - even when making black and white images. To help reignite my black and white imagination I began wandering around on self assignments determined to only photograph scenes that would suit a fine art black and white print. So, to re-capture the old process of shooting a B&W polaroid, I  set the camera's LCD to display a monochrome image and tested my ability to ‘see’ in black and white.

Once I had found what I considered a suitable scene then thoughtfully set the framing and exposure, I would open the shutter and check my visualisation against the LCD. Whether using a tripod or hand held I slowed the whole process down to better appreciate the nuances of light, shade and tone.

I even used the mindset I operated under in my learning days: polaroids and large format film were very expensive so I would look carefully at every scene, fine tune the composition and make a lot of spot metering measurements before I made an exposure. Quite often during this process I would decide not to take a picture at all! I know how ridiculous that sounds in these times of free pixels.

So, I think the slowness of my money pinching mindset is also part of the process. As I only ever capture Raw files and even though the camera is making a B&W jpeg to show me on the LCD, I still have all of the information I need to make a fine art print.

This is, in effect, the digital age workflow of how I would make many of my black and white pictures all those years ago. Back then Polaroid made a beautiful Pos Neg film (Type55 I think) which allowed me to get a polaroid print and an excellent negative in the same exposure. The only drawback being the requirement to carry around a small bucket of solution to wash the negatives. Not quite as convenient as checking an LCD - especially when trekking around the bush! 

From time to time I revisit older pictures and apply new techniques and knowledge to the original RAW files. Sometimes the changes / re-workings are minor, other times I see the original completely different to how I saw it at the time of capture. While I would do this back in my B&W darkroom days as well, the immediacy and accuracy of these digital times makes such revisiting original files an important part of my personal photography practise today.

As my digital black and white conversion skills improve and with the help of the technique I  have adapted from the 'old days' I am again ‘seeing’ in B&W. The gallery here has some comparison pictures to show how my interpretations can change with time and skill. Please let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

Cathedral Rocks Shoreline, Kiama, East Coast Australia.

February 16th, 2013

I had seen a number of pictures recently of this place and decided to check it out for myself. The aptly named rock formation is very impressive but wasn’t exciting my photography bugs on this particular evening. Instead, I found myself drawn to the slippery, rocky shoreline and the intricate nooks and crannies surrounding it.

The waves were surging in through a narrow u-shaped channel at a regular interval and seemingly of a consistant size. Unlike the conditions I experienced shooting Rainbow Sunset. Despite these benign seas I knew I would still need to be alert. Positioned behind a tall rock shelf, I would not see the approaching waves until they flooded the rocks and channel I decided to shoot.

Occasionally, a heavy thud and a spray of whitewater rising above the far side of the rocks, hinted a larger than usual wave was coming. So, before setting the tripod and camera up, I had spent 30 minutes or so higher up the cliff behind me watching the sets as I tuned into the ocean’s rhythm.

Arriving early is wise for shoreline photography. It leaves time for scouting the best shooting position, a dry spot to leave gear not being used as well as plan an escape route if a rogue wave does turn up. Even with all this prep and respect for the ocean there’s been a plenty of times when I have (very ungracefully) rock hopped to safety while holding the tripod and camera high above a surging wave. 

Today, though, was calm and comfortable with time to appreciate the warm, summer evening and slowly, softening light. Shielded from the direct rays of the sun by the cliff, my cocoon of wet, glistening rocks and foaming waves was bathed in the reflection of the last blueness of late afternoon sky.

Nature’s colours were subtle and muted this evening but I was seeing in black and white. I made some exposures based on where I wanted shadow detail then others to hold the texture of  the highlights all the while visualising how much contrast I would need to properly show the flow and substance of the scene before my tilted lens.

Tomorrow I would lay three or four of these exposures on top of each other and paint in (or out) the tones I wanted to keep (or not). I love the digital ‘light’ room - all the techniques of past learning without the smell and red darkness.

Right now, however, I would enjoy this place - it’s mood and beauty - until the last of the light had soaked into the rocks and washed away on the waves.

My Holiday Snaps

The pics in this slide show are my holiday snaps. Not the usual vistas, sunsets or tourism icons just pictures I found around the corner one hot summers day.

Over the New Year break I spent some time in Melbourne, Australia with friends. Chris and Marie live in the historical suburb of Williamstown with its beautiful colonial architecture and pre Federation houses. Chris is a builder who specialises in restoring such homes and any walk around his neighbourhood is dotted with many fine examples of his skill and devotion to authentic quality. Marie is also an artisan but one I have more in common with. She's a skilled chocolatier. I eat chocolate.

Please click on the pictures to purchase as fine art prints or stock

Apart from spending time with my friends I had the intention of taking lots of personal photographs. Unfortunately Chris and Marie are too good at hosting and while I did drag my DSLR around, they filled my days with dining, wining and talk while we wandered around Melbourne and it's surrounds.

Soaking up the atmosphere of places like Yarraville, Fitzroy, St Kilda and the city's famous laneways was a real delight and I found myself enjoying it for real and not through a viewfinder. For a photographer such enjoyment is sacrilege!

This hiatus lasted a few days until a major professional cycling event passed by the Williamstown foreshore. I was still very ensconced in holiday mode and somewhat surprised to find myself meandering down there with a camera slung over each shoulder - as if they had invited themselves! As we neared the foreshore the noise of the crowd and race commentary quickly roused the photography in my veins and I was glad to feel the straps on my shoulders.

This part of Williamstown looks across the bay to the Melbourne skyline. There is a tree filled park beside the water with many yachts moored alongside wooden piers. Large merchant vessels glide past as they head into the port or off to the ocean.

The historical town centre with it's cafes, restaurants and yesteryear appeal is separated from the park by a wide esplanade. It was here that the main straight, finish line and two strategic corners of the 2012 Jayco Bay Cycling Classic were situated.

The closer we got to the foreshore I knew I needed a plan of attack to make the most of the many photo ops that would lay just around the corner. A practical benefit of shooting digital is that a photographer can make decisions about the look of the final picture after the shoot. However, the best pictures are made when a photographer's idea is realised. That 'idea' can be involved or simple - it may just be a starting point or it could be a plan with every variable accounted for. My holiday brain was quickly switching to picture mode with every step.

My 'plan' was formulated soon after I rounded the corner to see a group of riders (led by a photographer's motorbike) lean around the first turn of the course. The mass of individual athletes had become an organism of tension, sweat and competition. Though each strained to win, this corner required co-operation, skill and agility if the pack were to survive it. I wanted to photograph that.

This was a hot January day with hard overhead light, areas of deep shade, an abundance of orange, crowd control mesh and a vibrant discord of advertising signs. So, despite the colour overload that defines professional cycling, my imagination saw black and white.

A tonal but contrasty approach would suit the gritty strain and determination on the faces of the athletes. The tension and jostle as they rounded tight corners or rose to sprint towards the finish line would have had me reaching for Tri-X film in the days before digital.

Cycling is a great sport to photograph and this event featured the best of Australia's professional cyclists including the new Australian GreenEdge team. The sport is fast and strenuous with lots of movement, colour and tension. There are often many opportunities to get close to the action with a wide-angle or to stand back and create those compressed, montage-like views of the peloton and crowds with a telephoto.

Even a simple idea like shooting for black and white will improve the pictures you make. It helped me define my compositions and framing. Because I could imagine what different parts of the scenes would look like in black and white I chose my angles, backgrounds and exposures to suit. When the action passed by me I was ready.

Of course the same cacophony of colour that made me see in B&W could be the inspiration for another photographer wanting to show the full gamut of bright, wild energy. Whatever the decision it's best to have a plan - even an unplanned one!

The fantastic auto focus modes found on all brands of quality DSLRs these days are perfect for these tight, fast situations. Canon call theirs AI Servo while Nikon uses Continuous/AF-C. Both will follow focus a moving subject while ever you keep the shutter button half pressed. By using a single focus point to the side of the field of view I was able to select which riders were in focus as well as create strong, dynamic compositions.

Using the wide-angle lens was a different matter. As it was manual focus I had to preset the focus and wait for the riders to pass by. I sometimes held this camera over my head and pointed down to get a different angle. Some of these shots were made by panning with the subject using a slow shutter speed.

The event was actually a series of races held on a set course so it helped that riders would pass by the same spot several times. It gave me time to assess my shots while I waited for the next lap. It also meant I could move around the course to capture different views and actions.

For the technically minded I used a Canon 1Ds Mark3 with a 70-200mm f2.8 lens and a Canon 5D Mark2 with a 17mm f4 T/S lens. The files were made in the RAW format and processed in Lightroom 3.

Please use these links for more information on:
Williamstown,  Yarraville,  St Kilda,  Fitzroy,  Melbourne's Laneways,  GreenEdge Cycling, Streetscape Detail,  Lightroom.


Finding pictures is the theme of my next workshop being held in Sydney's Royal Botanic Gardens in February, March and April. You can find more information here. 

To prove a moment happened.

On a visit to British Columbia on Canada's beautiful west coast I came across a thundering river cascading over smooth, ageless boulders. I followed it upstream for a while until at one point it took a sharp right angled turn. In the noise and violence of so much water forcing itself through a dark, narrow gorge the river settled momentarily in a churning, frothing and sunlit pool.

Mesmerised by the new patterns and textures being created every millisecond, it took me a while to remember that I had my camera. I chose a very fast shutter speed to freeze a few of those moments - if only to prove they had indeed happened. Before long they had melded into a lost but not wasted hour.


To prove a moment happened - Images by Paul Foley

I have recently made some prints on Canson's beautiful Baryta Photographique paper. Using it reminds me of my early B&W printing days. The standard fibre papers of that time came out 'not quite gloss' and were then run through a 'glazer' for a full gloss finish. Baryta is modern version of that 'not quite gloss' effect.

These wet texture pictures, when printed large, relive those silent frozen iotas I experienced in the thundering noise of that Canadian gorge.

The B&W baryta prints show every shade from white through to deep black while the colour versions have subtle bluish tones. To purchase a moment just click on your favourite. The prints live their own life with more contrast, tonal range and beauty than can be shown on a monitor.

Enjoy!

Camera/Exposure Details:
Canon 5D II with EF 70-200 f2.8 IS USM lens @ 200mm
F4.5, 1/8000th of a second @ 400 iso