On Landscape - Any Questions

Tim Parkin (00:01)
Hello and welcome to the inaugural on landscape any questions podcast. I'm here with Alex Nail and Joe Cornish. And Alex Nail is the guest this issue for the rough topic of mountain photography, but he's also having just published a book, a second book. I'm sure he can answer some questions around that or generally discuss what the process of creating books is like.

Alex (00:09)
Hello.

Tim Parkin (00:29)
as we both know. We've had a list of questions off people and I've arranged them into an approximate order that makes sense for a discussion, but we're gonna try and have more of a round table discussion for the session. So Brian Pollock sent in the first question, which I'm gonna address it Alex, because it's to do with his book. And the question is, having just completed The Great Wilderness, how has your photography changed, evolved, and progressed since the Northwest book?

Now, if you want to give us a bit of background on the books for anybody that doesn't know them, that would be great Alex.

Alex (01:05)
Sure. Yeah. I guess evolved is probably the right word. I haven't made any massive changes. But Northwest was my first book and had some pretty expansive mountain vistas in generally fantastical lighting conditions. And it really focused on that wow factor that you can get from the mountains and these big scenic views. And it covered the whole of the Torridonian sandstone area of the Northwest Highlands.

So that's Ascension, Koyak, Fisherfield or the Great Wilderness and Torridon and the Hills to the South, the Cowlin Forest. Whereas this latest book was actually the same area, but just one of the chapters in that previous book. So the Great Wilderness. And I think my style has changed in various ways evolved is the right word evolved slowly, because I think some of the things that I was doing in

work well, both for me and the viewer. The reality is that mountain photography, grand scenic mountain photography is a pretty tough game. So there aren't that many people doing it, and certainly doing it with the regularity that I do. And so I think there's an inherent value just in that, that I that I recognise that with so few people doing it, that it's important that it's carried on in some sense. And

There's also the, I mean, people talk about whether they're, they care who the viewer is. And I have always cared. I've always wanted to produce images that people enjoy. And so I think what I was doing in Northwest was effective in that sense. And it's something that I wanted to continue. But that said, I think I did the, the wow game, the colour game a little bit too much.

Um, and so I've gone for more subdued and possibly honest scenes more regularly in the latest book, which is convenient as well, because, um, it means that you can make a bit more of less spectacular conditions. Um, but, but also it, you know, in the intervening period, we've had our eyeballs absolutely hammered by all of this fantastical, um, mountain photography from around the world.

Tim Parkin (03:11)
Not one.

Alex (03:26)
and these incredibly exaggerated editing styles. And so I think people are less impressed by that style of imagery and actually looking towards quieter images more often. And that's certainly been my experience. So yeah, you do see some of those scenes a bit more regularly in the book, overcast mountain scenes, and a few spectacular lighting scenarios, but certainly less than previously.

Tim Parkin (03:50)
I'd be interested in your take on this Joe in terms of how do you think lens, mountain landscape photography has developed? Because I suppose our references are probably people like gallon Raoul and Colin prior, and then obviously, you've got your own Scotland's mountains books. Have you seen any progression in the way it's represented? Or is it really there is a self contained way that you restricted way you can work? And so it's just variations.

Joe Cornish (04:19)
Well, I think the styles of photography have definitely evolved as much as anything with technology and the huge proliferation of access that there is to, I mean, I think to work. So people see much more of each other's work than ever I did when I did Scotland's Mountains, for example. I was fascinated listening to Alex there to sort of think about how it worked for him and the...

the consciousness of an audience, I feel, is one of the big differentiators with my own approach, I would say. I do think now that there's an inevitable, and it's something I'm not criticising at all, but I do think there's a strong sort of natural drift towards photographing with an audience in mind, partly for many people who do YouTube and so on.

that's inevitable because you're working with an audience. Whereas my own approach was based on basically going out and seeing what I could find at the time and in the conditions that were available. And I was always really impressed when I first started seeing Alex's work that he had spent so long in the mountains that he actually had been there when there were amazing moments of light. Because what I found doing Scotland's mountains is that the weather never played ball.

So I was constantly having to just make, in a way, make the most of the conditions that I was given, which I came to the conclusion was really good for me. And it actually helped change my photography. Hopefully for the better, but I mean, it was just a realization that I could make pictures in really quiet light and that I could love those pictures every bit as much as more spectacular lighting that I originally had hoped to achieve. So.

I think that ultimately it is down to being a witness to what you see. And certainly just very briefly before I finish just to say that Alex's book, to me, they're both great books, but The Great Wilderness shows a maturity and a variation that I'm not saying is completely missing, but you know, it's definitely a step up from Northwest. And it's subtle in its variation.

just a wider range of seeing. And I would say that as a viewer, that's really refreshing. It gives you a much deeper sense of what it's like to be in the mountains in all different conditions.

Tim Parkin (06:55)
Certainly, I think especially with introduction of AI, and the pictures that you see from some of the photography proponents who create imagery that was very similar to AI that AI is probably feeding on that, that overblown, sublime photography, AI art is gets tiring. It's like being thrown sugary confections repeatedly.

And I think probably one of the escapes from that is to start seeing a large range of different environments, different conditions, because it's obviously a lot more interesting when you find a great photograph that's taken in not so great light, it's more challenging and it's more satisfying in many ways, not only to create it, but to see it. And in terms of an audience, I'm going to skip to one of Bruce Davis' questions here because he's, you mentioned about creating for an audience. And I'm wondering.

he's asking about how do you identify the readership before you create a book? How do you identify who you're going to market it for? And I'm interested in how you did that, or whether you did that? Is it is it important? Alex?

Alex (08:04)
Well, I mean, I think it's very important when you're producing a book that you that you find a readership for it. I mean, it's a it's a difficult subject for many photographers, really, because of course, we want to pursue photography in an individual way. And I think, you know, Joe's approach, not considering the audience is the way that many photographers would love to work, just producing the work that they would

be most interested in themselves and then hoping that there is a market for it. I think when it comes to photo books, though, that would probably be a big mistake now unless you are so big a name that you can completely ignore what I'm saying, because unfortunately, or fortunately, you know, there are lots of titles out there now. And there are lots of brilliant photographers and finding a way to differentiate yourself such that you can sell enough books to make it even feasible.

to publish a book or self publish a book. I think yeah, it's, it's difficult if you don't have a market in mind. And that's certainly one way in which having a view of what your readership or viewership might be is helpful. And of course, with mountain scenics and beautiful mountain areas, like the great wildernesses.

There are naturally going to be Hill walkers and outdoor enthusiasts who are going to be a market for that book. And so in many ways I don't need to worry, but that's certainly one of the benefits of pursuing some of these more spectacular styles. I mean, I think this is sort of aping off Joe's views, but I think he's mentioned in a more eloquent way that beauty is a sort of way in which people can access the landscape more easily. It's a way to engage people.

And I think that's something that I lean into.

Tim Parkin (09:57)
In terms of you, Joe, it's presumably with Scottless Manchurians that was produced by Eddie and R. Jensen, they would have dealt with all that and they would just ask you for a book on a brief.

Joe Cornish (10:10)
That's true and yeah, it's very, it has changed unbelievably really since, I suppose it was the mid 2000s when I was commissioned to do Scotland's Mountains. I had a publisher, I had an editor, a designer and really all I had to do was to produce the photographs and the text and it was very much left up to me how I wanted to structure it. I mean, it's a very different time.

And the readership, the audience was, I mean, I knew there would be photographers who'd be interested and I had a reasonable idea there would be some hill walkers and mountaineers who might like the book as well. Just in that sense, it's no different to Alex's audience, but I didn't really have to worry about the marketing or, you know, kind of the problem of having 2,000 books stuck in a warehouse or in your sitting room, which is a much bigger problem.

to have, especially if you live with somebody else, as I've discovered with a book I've done more recently. So there is that issue. And I would definitely be very careful now if I was to set out to do a book of that kind, thinking about how could I sell it? So yeah, I'm very conscious of that. It was a real privilege in a way to be able to work with a publisher and not to have that kind of pressure in the same way. Having said that, of course, you know...

I think we all want to work to communicate and it's not as if I'm not interested in having success with a book. But I think in terms of my approach to photography, it's always been just based on what's actually there and trying to find beauty in that circumstance, whatever it might be. It just amazes me that I was so.

I have so few pictures in a way in Scotland's mountains that kind of fit the mold of being spectacular because actually that's one of the notable things about that piece of work. I think if you look at the great wilderness of Alex's, every chapter has some a wonderful range of different expressions in it including spectacular images and of course that's partly down to the amount of time Alex has spent at high altitude.

camping, more commitment than me. I mean, I do a fair amount of camping, but you know, in the end, the most important thing is to be there a lot. And the longer you have, the better your photography is likely to be, I think.

Tim Parkin (12:48)
Yeah, I'm going to come back

to one of Brian Ollix.

Alex (12:49)
Yeah, I mean, it's actually been.

Tim Parkin (12:52)
Sorry, go on Alex. A bit of a delay here.

Alex (12:55)
Yeah, it's, it's been, it's been interesting for me, actually, in some ways, developing as a photographer with Joe's work to reference and kind of seeing that comparison and also knowing that the challenges that Joe's had just with his equipment when he produced Scotland's mountains, I mean, you know, he talks about how few images and I immediately when he said few, I thought, yeah, but you're shooting.

five by four and you know, lots of these moments happen in, you know, such brief moments that you would struggle, I think, to set up a view camera. So there's a degree of opportunistic, well, just general opportunism and flexibility when shooting with smaller camera systems and so on that obviously I was able to take advantage of. But I think, you know, Joe's influence and

other photographers to of course, in shooting in some of these more subdued conditions has certainly encouraged me to do that more when I started looking at Northwest and then comparing it to some of my other favorite mountain books. And that's a big part of why I have slightly shifted in that direction. And in fact, one thing I thought for the next project is actually I need to do this even more. Because some of my favorite images actually are the overcast ones and in particular

a photo that I took on a trip, a workshop, which I was co-leading with Joe out there. And we didn't have particularly interesting photographic conditions for most of the trip. But on our on our last day, we had an overcast evening, a little bit of light striking what I thought was a really interesting rock. And that's one of my favourite images from the looking back, I've got it big on the wall just here. So it's still changing my preferences.

Tim Parkin (14:37)
I can follow that one up with the question from Brian Pollock, which is, what are the key ingredients of the ultimate mountain landscape image? And this is going to be an interesting one for some interpretation of ultimate. Either of you which

Joe Cornish (14:54)
I'm just

Alex (14:55)
Yeah, I mean, maybe you should start with this, Jay.

Joe Cornish (14:57)
It's very tempting to start because I mean really where do you start? In many ways you could say I mean if you said what's the ultimate mountain image I can immediately think of two and they are completely different. I would guess that most people will be familiar with the first one which is Clearing Winter Storm Yosemite by Ansel Adams which is a mountain photograph but was made from a car park. You know so just to put it into perspective

It wasn't difficult to do. It was just a matter of bearing witness to an amazing moment of light and then being a wonderful photographer and a wonderful printer. And then the other picture that springs to mind is a view from the summit of K2 by Alan Hinks, which is, Alan is not, well, he's a photographer, but probably also filmmaker and professional mountaineer first, not a pro photographer who makes his living out of it.

And so he's a brilliant photographer, but what's amazing about the picture is it's literally on the summit of the world's second highest mountain. It shows the shadow of that mountain cast across the landscape as the sun is setting, 250 miles of landscape laid out beneath him. And not only is it incredibly beautiful, but it holds this kind of fascinating

If he doesn't get down from there in the next three hours, you know, he is going to die. And so there's this kind of, it's the most extreme sublime moment in a way in photography that I can imagine is a sublime picture, but it's also the implications of what it contains. It couldn't be more different to Ansel's picture. So I think you have that, those two extremes and everything in between has the possibility of being a wonderful.

evocative image, whether it's an intimate or a very, very broad vista. I mean, the two examples I've given obviously are very, very wide. Um, but I mean, just briefly to skip back to your previous response, Alex, that picture, I am, I could immediately visualize it. The one that you mentioned that you, that we were together when you shot it. Uh, because I do think genuine is it's incredibly strong, partly because of its restraint, it doesn't.

it doesn't showboat light in the way that so much mountain photography does. It doesn't need to because of the way that it's seen and the complexity of the composition, the texture of the rock. And so I think maybe that picture proves that it's possible to make mountain pictures that are, that can still surprise you and, uh, and give you something new in your experience of what it means to be outside and what beauty means as well. So, yeah, I think it's, uh, it's always going to be open question.

Alex (17:55)
Yeah, so picking apart Brian's question more specifically from what differentiates mountain photography from other sub-genres of landscape photography, I think one problem,

that you really have is giving any sense of the scale and depth that you have in the mountains and that experience that you have when you're out there. And that's an intangible for me. I'm not sure what that quality really is or looks like in a photograph, it's that sort of goal that is always out of reach. Sometimes you know when you've, when you've achieved it, but to me, it doesn't seem like an ingredient that I could break down into any.

sort of set of rules or ideas. I mean, we can talk about depth in terms of atmospherics coming through that give a physical sense of depth. And we can talk about color and warmer colors coming forward and cooler colors disappearing into the difference and distance. And we can talk about scale in terms of the mountains potentially having a reference for scale at a tree or a person, or in terms of

how much of the physical height of the frame they take up, which is certainly one of the reasons I think panoramas can be effective, because you can have quite a wide scene whilst the mountains physically take up a reasonable proportion of the height of the frame. I think that does help them to look slightly larger, but unfortunately, and I suppose this could be the case with other forms of landscape photography, actually figuring out those ingredients that come together to produce a compelling image.

is pretty hard to break down. I don't know how you guys feel about that.

Tim Parkin (19:35)
No, I

think it's, I think as you start in photography, there is this idea that there are ultimate images. And also perhaps when you start in photography, you're turned on by certain styles of sublime, amazing light, because it's things that you don't see very often. But as you do get more mature in the way you approach photography, you start to realize that the beauty can happen anyway. One of the interesting things,

Joe Cornish (19:37)
Hmm.

Tim Parkin (20:04)
as part of that is when you go out with somebody like Joe or David Ward or yourself Alex, and you're thinking, well, there's not many pictures to be taken here. And then when you get back and see what somebody has done and go, Oh, wow, okay. There was something after all, it's just my block, not a general block. Because a lot of people would say in your book, I wish I was there for some of those pictures that you've taken. And if they had been there, they probably didn't wish they were there after all. Because it's like that in the mountains. What you see in a picture isn't what it's like in the in the moment.

And it's more transformative than you would think. People say, oh, photography, it's just a representation, but it really isn't. When you can stand next to somebody and not see what they've done and what they've brought back with their camera, it's, that makes a big difference for me.

Joe Cornish (20:52)
Yeah, and on that note, Tim, I think that I was really, you know, thinking about Alex's book in particular, and also Alex's comment about it being unfortunate that you can't sort of formulate it. Well, I kind of disagree, because I think it's quite fortunate that you can't turn it away. That's part of the magic of the creative process. It is. Yeah, no, that's right. But it would be lovely if you could be more consistent. But on the other hand,

Alex (21:12)
It's both Joe, it's both.

Joe Cornish (21:18)
We can't, you know, that's the uncertainty principle is part of what keeps you hungry to go out and see if you can do better next time. And I do genuinely think that is part of the being created person. You know, there's always another challenge. I mean, there are, just thinking about what Tim was saying about the experience, I think your account of the winter days that you spent with MERS on evasion was...

one of the best parts of the book for me. And I loved the writing, but also the photographs that you took on that expedition, I think we can call it that, were brilliant. And so what was fascinating was seeing how the pictures had this sort of lucid beauty to them that conveyed the cold and all of that. But what they...

couldn't, of course, convey with the amount of effort that it took. So as Tim was saying, we'd probably all imagine we'd love to have been there, but we might not have enjoyed making all that effort of, you know, cutting steps through deep snow and climbing several thousand feet in order to see that scene. But, boy, I was so impressed by those pictures. And if I was a bit younger, I think I would love to have been there with you.

Alex (22:44)
I'm sure you could have done it, Joe. You're one of the fittest people I've hiked with still, even though you seem to think otherwise, but.

Joe Cornish (22:46)
Thanks for watching!

Tim Parkin (22:49)
Likewise.

Joe Cornish (22:53)
Well, anyway, I mean, of course it would be great if fitness didn't come into it, but unfortunately it is quite an important aspect of doing this work, isn't it? And it's one of the gifts that photography gives you is actually the continued reasonable wellbeing.

Tim Parkin (23:09)
One of the problems with sickness is it doesn't seem to matter how fit you get, it always hurts.

If you're going back on.

Joe Cornish (23:15)
That's true.

Alex (23:15)
Yeah, that is true. Well, because you're always pushing yourself to your limits on you. I guess that's the nature of it.

Tim Parkin (23:20)
Yeah, exactly. Last question from Brian was the interesting one that we've seen in the Natural Landscape Photography Awards is that there's been a general move recently, or a trend, let's call it, away from the grand landscape and towards more intimate work for various reasons. And I think it's in many ways, it's a good thing because I think people can develop in their photography, working in a more intimate fashion, it gives a lot more scope. But does that?

You think that's changing the way mountain photography is seen? We see a lack of good mountainous photography in the competition or general grand landscape photography. Do you think it's gone out of fashion or is it just that there's more people out there and it's hard? Alex.

Alex (24:06)
I mean, I think it has gone out of fashion to a degree. I mean, one of the things that social media has undoubtedly done is create these trends and these shifts in different ways. And I know I've chatted with this, about this with Joe before, and he's somewhat isolated from that because he's not spending quite so much time on social media, but certainly that seems to amplify any of these shifts.

And certainly some of the photographers who I felt were making some of the strongest ground landscape images have moved increasingly into this more intimate style. And there's a whole host of reasons for that. And broadly speaking, I think it's been a great thing for landscape photography, because finally we've divorced ourselves from this very simplistic impression of what landscape photography should be, which is

epic light, epic mountains, wide views, which was vastly overdone, incredibly boring by, by the point 500 PX and so on had filled our eyeballs with every technicolor rainbow and epic mountain scene imaginable. I was, yeah, I was pretty much done with it by that point because you can only go so far and then of course the processing comes in and you realize you can go even further.

and we got these more and more extreme things and you know that kind of thing has been hashed out plenty of times before but it has been a good thing seeing more of this intimate work. I think there's a limits to what I think is really strong work and I think in some ways we might be going a bit too far where you can just take a photo of a pattern or some trees and call it art which I don't always feel that it is.

But, but it has been a good thing. And, uh, you know, for me personally, um, I've stayed with my approach in part because I see everybody else shifting in other ways and I look at somebody like Joe and I think how did Joe become so good at what he does. And I think a big part of that is time and persistence and, and learning your own style and, and your own preferences. Um, maybe, maybe Joe can.

speak a bit more about that.

Joe Cornish (26:24)
Thanks. Well, I think that there's several different elements to this. One is I think there's inevitably ebbs and flows of style, which are sort of trend-based. But I am also trying to see this in the wider, sort of historic context of the history of photography, because there's been mountain photography done since the middle of the 19th century. We shouldn't forget that.

I think it's to me, I still find I'm quite gricked when I look at a great Carlton Watkins photograph from the Sierra Nevada in the 1860s, which you have no sky because of panchromatic film. So he's totally dependent on form to create compositions that engage the eye.

And he succeeds sometimes in doing that brilliantly. And despite the fact he's using a camera that's 16 by 20 inches or thereabouts, which he built himself, with all of the technical difficulties that are involved in that. So you can see that then time goes by, mountain photography, maybe it becomes less fashionable, especially when the world war's raging and so on. And then we come into the...

towards the end of the 20th century, very good colour films evolving and then suddenly digital arrives. And so what you've seen is an explosion of interest in landscape photography because the technology enables us to record it with a great deal more, well both accuracy but also more creativity than in the past. And yet you look back and there were still the likes of

Francis Frey and someone who photographed in the 19th century who used form, foregrounds and shape and not color, but tone as a way of making their images truly engaging. And so it isn't something that's just arrived, but something that has changed as technology has enabled us to use form.

more powerfully, I suppose. One thinks of, I mean, I used with the five by four camera, like large format cameras before me, using the tilt mechanism of the camera to synthesize focus from the foreground through the middle distance into the background. Now many people can achieve something very similar with focus stacking if they want to do something extreme. And actually, I think that has tended to

produce a rather over-hyped, overblown method of composition from time to time, just because it can be done rather than should it be done as it were. I think ultimately the best work is something that has got balance and doesn't feel forced. Maybe that's one thing that we could talk about a bit more at some point, but it is a fascinating area. I think that ultimately work that has

beauty and integrity because even in its abstract form, it works is a goal from my point of view. So literally, if you can turn the picture upside down, and it's still satisfying to look at, then that's a good sign. And the one other thought, because I'm looking at your room at the moment, and I can see a picture that's shot from a high elevation just behind you. And that reminds me to say that another reason that there might be a trend away from pure mountain.

photography, let's say without the kind of intimate element is that drones may be starting to kind of, not supplant, but they're providing an alternative for a wide view which many people want to adopt. And of course, drones are amazing, the perspective that they can create. And I think that perhaps shifts the emphasis when you're a terrestrial photographer.

to looking more carefully at what's immediately around you.

Tim Parkin (30:43)
I was.

Alex (30:44)
Yeah, that's, that's interesting, and not something that I'd really considered, but that may well, well be a feature. I mean, I think, broadly speaking, one of the best things about intimate photography in contrast to grand landscape photography is just the degree to which grand landscape photography is a literal form of photography. Generally, what you see is what the scene was like, at least if you're processing in the way that ways that we do. Whereas

Obviously with intimate photography, that abstraction does give you the ability to suggest these ideas that are much, much harder in, in grand landscape photography. And in fact, there's really only one image in my book that I feel suggests things that aren't immediately obvious. Um, when you, when you first look at the book and that's the nature of shooting these wide views. And I think that's a great part of the appeal of photographers looking, particularly to differentiate themselves as artists is that.

is potentially somewhere where it's a little bit easier, or at least there are more opportunities to express ideas that are not immediately obvious.

Tim Parkin (31:51)
I think you see this in the history of photography with Weston and Stieglitz and then the photographer's reacting against Ansel Adams. And Ansel Adams got dismissed for his representative views of the landscape and the wider views and the people who are doing writing about the philosophy of photography and the interesting takes on the wise were doing more intimate work photographing vegetables or

Joe Cornish (31:52)
Agreed.

Tim Parkin (32:21)
bits of details of beaches, et cetera. And I think that could be because trying to interpret something in depth with mountains is difficult because they only represent a certain range of ideas. I also think there's another aspect to this, which is the social media and the desire to have a long continuous output of images on a regular basis makes it more difficult to do that with mountain photography.

a great mountain shot and another one and another one and another one and put out like maybe two or three a week at least is gonna be hard unless you're out in the mountains all of the time. Whereas if you're only a week long trip, maybe one of those days is a good mountain weather day or whatever the rest of the time you're wandering around taking pictures of the smaller scenes. So you're gonna have naturally a greater supply of those images as a photographer. So it could be as little as that. And you see the people who do take

mountain photography. I mean, Alexander Deschamps, maybe as an example, his output isn't prolific and he does put out more intimate images as well. I can't think of many photographers who are continually putting out mountain images. I don't know. You probably know more than me, Alex.

Alex (33:40)
Yeah, I can't think of those people either, unless they're people who have a lot of assistance, let's say with helicopters and, and vehicles that can take them take them places a bit more easily. But certainly, if you're talking about people who are backpacking with cameras into wilderness areas, that there are a few but they're the real extreme cases of people who are happy to spend more than 100 nights in a tent a year, which I'm certainly not.

Tim Parkin (34:05)
Okay, we're going to want to ask a couple of questions about the book design. And this is from Francesca Caravillano, who asked, did you do the design of the books yourselves? And also I'm listed to both you and Alex and Joe from different angles? Or did you find a designer or was it somewhere in between? And yeah, I'll be interested in the takes on that. Do you want to start off Joe? Well, Alex, sorry.

Joe Cornish (34:33)
Sure. Oh, sorry. Shall I go first? I'll try and be really quick because I think it's probably much more interesting to hear what Alex has to say. But yeah, back in the 2000s, when I did Scotland's mountains, I was lucky to work with Eddie Ephrons and Eddie was most definitely the designer. And most of the time I just said, yes, that looks great. When he would do things. He's a very creative guy and...

Tim Parkin (34:37)
Yeah, I go then.

Joe Cornish (35:02)
He does love to experiment a lot, but in the end, he'll come back with a very, very well-balanced and well-conceived design. And I know that that's true, Tim, because you yourself have been inspired by his books in the way that you design your books. But yeah, so I can't claim to be a book designer by any stretch, but I'm lucky to have worked with some good ones.

Tim Parkin (35:17)
Absolutely.

I know Alex, I know you've designed most of it.

Alex (35:29)
Yeah, I mean, I guess that.

Yeah, I mean, I think that question kind of gets at whether you should have a designer and what a designer can bring. And I think there's lots of ways of answering that question. And it will be dependent to a degree on what your preferences are and how your work might be presented. I mean, both of the books I've produced in terms of the photo layouts, especially the design couldn't really be simpler. I mean, I might be making some images smaller and some images bigger, but generally they have

even margins around the page. And the entire aim of that is, is to take the design out of the equation, really. And, you know, I'm not sure that I want the design to be noticed. And if it is noticed, I want it to be seen as, you know, done well, but not done cleverly, if that makes sense. Because that isn't what I want.

my books to be, I don't want them to be statements about my ability or anybody else as a designer. And I did take some advice from a designer friend of mine called Jonno Renton, who is very busy who I wasn't paying. So he perhaps couldn't give me the time that I would have needed to make for a perfectly designed book like someone like Darren might make. But

I think that there are other books that I love that take the design more seriously as a part of the creative output. So, you know, a book is this, this combination of the book as a thing, and the presentation of the images. And in some ways, they are two different things. But they're obviously combined in book form. And Sandra Bartok and

you know, her books and the book she's done for Theo Bosbeam, that they're a great example of how design can be integrated to not only show the photographs, but perhaps give a different impression of the photographs through the way that they're physically laid out on the page. And I think that can be done to great effect.

So it really depends on your style of photography and your preferences as to whether you think that would add something or detract from your work. Because in my case, I feel like it would detract. And in Sandra's case, I think it adds immeasurably, particularly because she is the designer. And so it's making a statement about her as the creative person.

Tim Parkin (37:58)
Yeah, I think when you look at books, I mean, when I was looking at the natural landscape books, I looked through a very large amount of books that I have to try and get some inspiration and find out what it is I liked about photography books. And there's a range you can probably represent from a catalog book, which is basically a introductory preface, and then just a series of plates filling the whole book, maybe with chapters, maybe without.

at one end of the scale and at the other end of the scale, you have books that are not necessarily photography books, which have a lot of narrative around things like perhaps a walking book that has some good photography in there. And there are very few books that do the middle ground. I mean, I like the fact in your book that two of the really creative things were the maps that you used.

and the writing in the essays, which worked perfectly to try and put some rhythm into the books. And I think that's the key in terms of design is to try and take a block of images that could get very tiring. It's like a song that goes on the same verse all the way through and break it up so that you are like a refreshed palette in a meal or something. You're having something in the middle to take your mind off it to the gate, think about something else and then go back into the images. And there aren't many books that do that well. I think Joe's

Joe's First Light, which is fantastic with the essays and the secondary images on the page, give you something on every image to read about. And then Eddie Ephraim's other books, Creating Vision and Style, I think that's one of them is called, or Developing Vision and Style, that's the name of it. Had a lot of images from multiple photographers with small comments by photographers about the images themselves. And then Occasional.

double page feature essays about a single image perhaps. And it's that rhythm, I think, that makes the most interesting part of design. And then let the images do the work. So I base the natural landscape book very much on that. But it's still gonna make the images work. There's no point. I say there's no point. I have a couple of books that are very much more creative. So they combine type and graphics and art on top of photographs in some cases.

that looks fantastic, but I can't enjoy the images as photographs in the same way as I would in another book. So it's a funny striking balance, but anybody who's asking this, I would say try and avoid just making a catalog. I think it can devalue your work if that's what you end up doing. A quick one, we'll just cover calibration because I've got the other question from Francesca was about...

What did you do to your images to try and get them profiled for the book? And I know we both worked on this for the natural landscape book as well, but what can you tell us in brief about what the process should be like?

Alex (41:01)
I think the process probably at its best is you convert your images into the correct profile, which for my book was Fogra 39, although I think we might be moving to Fogra 51 now, which is a CMYK profile, CYMK profile, just like any other RGB profile, really. I mean, the process of conversion is exactly the same. You have your

rendering intent that you can choose and the colour shifts may be more dramatic with certain colours, particularly rich ultramarines. But in general, your image should look almost identical, with some exceptions, when you've made that conversion. And then it should also print the same as you see on screen, assuming that the whole process is calibrated correctly. So that's maybe how it should work.

In practice, there are all sorts of things that mean it may or may not work that way in reality. There are practical issues with printing that might mean there are some colour inaccuracies. So one thing that listeners to this podcast might not know is that there are no two books made the same if they're printed in a colour offset way because the ink densities are always changing.

from page to page, every single image will be different from one book to another, or even across a double page spread if they're printed on separate sheets. And so a mark of a good printer really is being able to keep that as consistent as possible whilst the ink levels change and also matching, obviously what you've actually effectively requested in terms of the colors of your images. But even if you can get all of that right, there are other practical

problems, one of which is the layers of ink and the order in which they go down. That can introduce some color shifts. You also have problems where if you have very low densities of an ink on one, of ink on one image, and then immediately above it, very high densities on that same sheet, then the two images can affect one another.

which when you have very low ink densities can create hue shifts and that might be a point at which you need to intervene in the print process. So whilst in theory an absolutely perfect output is possible in practice, that is never possible. And it's a mark of a good printer being able to manage some of those practical difficulties.

Tim Parkin (43:31)
Printing books is nearly always a compromise. And I think anybody who thinks they can have absolute control and print things like they would on an inkjet printer is in for a disappointment. However, having said that, both, all three of us have had experience of our own work and also other people's books heard from where the printing hasn't gone as they like and they're very disappointed with the output. And nobody who reads the books as customers will ever notice.

It's an extraordinary process. I think there might be a few people if you go out there and you have a print on your wall of a picture and you bring up your book and compare it directly with it, you'll notice some differences. But people don't do that. And even if people do that, they forgive a lot of this because the because the books are about images, they're not about accurate production. So I mean, what do you think about the process?

Joe Cornish (44:24)
Well, I just agree with everything you've said, I'm afraid in a boring kind of way, but just as an amusing anecdote and to confirm what you've said, Tim, I had a panicky message from Alex about two months ago saying, oh, the book's printed and I'm not sure what I think of it. And so he sent me a copy. This is the great wilderness. And it arrived and I was sort of expecting the worst.

page after page of wonderful images all looking absolutely brilliant. I found myself thinking, hmm, I think I detect a little bit of kind of photographer anxiety syndrome here. And you know, I've been through it myself, you obviously have, and we do overstress. So it's important to keep things in perspective. As Alex said, it is literally impossible with Offset Life though to-

perfectly reproduce every image as you see it on your screen because of the juxtapositions on a layout. Inevitably, you can't print single images that would be far too big, fill up a whole A, or it'd be B3 or A1 or whatever it would be, sorry, but very large bits of paper relatively speaking, which have to be cut down for book use. So inevitably there are those compromises.

And it's about making the best possible compromises that you can earn a really skilled print man, print technician, print woman, of course, will do a great job. And you just have to accept that they're gonna be 95%. I think it's a good goal, color accuracy, and accept that the perfectionist in us is never going to be fulfilled completely. However.

when you look at the book and you think about its context, what it represents and it is the best for the photographer. It's really the ultimate legacy we can leave the world. I think it's what it's our statement and other people looking through it. And they've got no, they haven't looked at the pictures on screen. They're not comparing them. They don't care anyway. So you have to let go a little bit, I would say, of the perfectionist instance.

Tim Parkin (46:43)
Yeah.

I think we've hit.

Alex (46:46)
As a more general point, I think thinking about the colours that are possible with offset litho, and particularly with blues, is really interesting. Because I think it was Tim who told me first that you can't print ultramarine in a book. I mean, you can if you add an extra colour, which some photographers have done, but that's the exception, not the rule. And you really can't print a rich ultramarine blue. And so all my life I'd looked at...

images in books with ultramarine blues in, not realizing that they are only a fraction of the color intensity that we could reproduce on screen, certainly, but even on a desktop printer these days. And that to me is a really interesting point because I hadn't noticed, and I think I'm good with color, and yet we worry so much about color spaces and this slight increase in saturation we might be able to get in reds if we use Adobe RGB.

And I think we sometimes lose the plot completely with these kinds of technical things, because whilst it's good to have the best, it's important to know what the best actually means and the trade-offs that you might have there. Yeah. So I just, I just thought I'd make that point because I mean, generally seeing just how far short Litho can be versus the experience you have of it, it is an interesting one in general when we, when we think about how we represent colour.

Tim Parkin (48:13)
As a last point from there as well is when I first got my copies of the natural landscape, the first book, I opened them up and thought they were absolutely terrible. Didn't even think about the fact I was looking them in the kitchen and the LED lights I had were just really low quality LED lights for color. And it had taken my pictures and put about almost like plus 10% magenta across the whole picture. And then you move into another room and you look in another LED light and they look great. And then you go outside and they look different again.

And that difference is not subtle. It's really big difference. And nobody does that. Nobody sits there and makes sure they're under a proper high CRI light source when they're reading the books. And yet everybody's happy with what they get. Our eyes are very good, and our brains are very good at normalizing what we see in terms of subject.

Alex (49:05)
And I think people will listen to what you're saying there, Tim, and think you're just talking about white balance, you know, having some orange light on versus some daylight on, and it isn't that at all. It's the frequencies of light and how they excite the ink specifically, and you can get these wild hue shifts. You really can. And I think if you print your own work, then you suddenly realize just how substantial those changes can be. Even

Tim Parkin (49:11)
No. Yeah.

Alex (49:29)
To my right here, I've got a daylight bulb, but of course, it's not sort of calibrated light, whereas to my left, I have a sort of soft box that is calibrated and the difference between those two, even though they appear to be exactly the same color is absolutely enormous when it comes to the colors that are shown in a book.

Tim Parkin (49:47)
in.

And still even then good quality daylight lights. I've got a just normal like booth in the corner there, but it uses fluorescence or LEDs. And it still has problems with color. The only true color that will represent really, I mean, there's no such thing as true color. That's another philosophical thing is going out in daylight. And I do some painting photography occasionally. And the only way I've found to do that properly is to go out on a cloudy day and set it up in the yard because I've got some diffuse light. Anyway.

Before we go on about that, color is one of these things that can go on for a very long time. We probably should, yeah.

Alex (50:19)
Yeah, you can do a whole podcast episode on that Tim and actually you should because not many people know as much as you about colour.

Tim Parkin (50:27)
Andrew Mohan asks, and I'll start with you, Joe, on this one, because he's aimed them at Alex, but I think it's quite interesting anyway. What opinion do you hold about landscape photography that tends to differ significantly from the mainstream views or commonly accepted practices? In other words, why are you weird?

Joe Cornish (50:49)
Well, if you're asking me, I mean, I guess it's because I've always been weird. Probably. I really think that actually, that's a very important thing in the creative world to just be yourself, isn't it? And one of the things that we, I mean, maybe this is going off piste rather, but I think that we all want to be different. We all want to be ourselves. And, you know, that is part of the kind of philosophy of being certainly in the West of being

a creative person. You want to be different, you want to be individual. As to Andrew's question, my view of photography, I mean it's a question that's aimed at Alex more than me, but in terms of mountain photography, I really couldn't say what that difference would be. I still personally think that the pursuit of beauty, whatever...

whatever your idea of beauty is, is probably the underlying goal. It's just that it's elusive. You don't actually know exactly what it is. And it's the experience of being out in nature and discovering the, you know, rediscovering the joy of being there each time you go is what makes photography for me in itself worthwhile, I think. And the fact that it, just having a camera with me gives me a sort of sense of

of purpose and focus, which perhaps I don't have as much if I'm just out for a walk. I just think it's the most fantastic opportunity to reconnect with the natural world. And I think that I don't have a preconception of what I want to do generally when I go out with my camera. Does that influence the way that I think about other people's work? I don't know.

Tim Parkin (52:36)
No, I think I probably would is that people do have I think in general that the typical way people work is to have preconceptions of what they want and plan things in detail. Your lack of your lack of expectation going out works as a as a slightly different one. But you're like you were you're the target of this one. I know you probably have a few things that you do very different to other people I can think of a few.

Alex (53:02)
well, maybe you should tell me and make it easier to answer the question. But I mean, I think one thing that I have found about my own approach that is different, that that's quite significant is how I view the role of creativity and originality and artistry and whether that actually matters. And of course, it does matter and it should matter, but not always. And I think one of the strange things for me about people's perception of photography is that

creating a representational view of reality, and almost taking yourself out of the process completely, just showing the world as it is, is somehow seen as a lesser form of, quote, the art, which I suppose it is, if you're defining it as an art. But, you know, for me, representation can be one of the highest forms of the art, because it's one of the most powerful things that photography can do. And

And this does get discussed, but I don't think people actually encompass that idea into their approach in the way that they might and say, Oh, I don't care if I'm just showing the view. And instead, they focus so much on the artistry that they can't enjoy that kind of literal approach of, do you know what, I'm going to capture an image that makes the viewer think that they could have taken that photograph. So for many people, were they to receive that?

that comment, they would see that as an insult, I could have taken that photo if I was there. Because it implies that they don't have any artistic input into how the scene is actually photographed. But for me, it's almost a compliment because it shows that I've created something that they can engage in and puts them in the scene. How do you feel about that, Joe?

Tim Parkin (54:51)
Yeah, I'll see you back in a bit.

Joe Cornish (54:55)
Oh, sorry. Yes, I would absolutely agree in the sense that in a way, the most engaging photographs of all for me are those where what you see feels completely that there's no intervention. I mean, one of my favourite photographers is Peter Dombrovskis, as you both know. And Peter's work is artful in its artlessness, perhaps, in the sense that, I mean, they're beautiful.

photographs of course, but you feel they're totally unforced. They're not kind of artfully done. They're just done with incredibly, actually what they are done with is incredibly precise and clear, a very clear concept of approach. And that approach is, it's not about me, it's about the subject. And in a way that distills the idea or a philosophy that I...

I believe in and I aspire to personally. And it's very parallel with what you, Alex, what you just described. What it was the same philosophical impulse, I'm not sure. But I do think the idea of the subject matter itself is the is the most important thing. And the photographer's role from my point of view is to get out of the way and to allow the subject to speak. And it's really the eye.

The idea is if you do your job really well, a bit like being a really good designer, you don't notice the photography. You just see the beauty or the place or the moment or whatever it is that's the kind of, you know, the content of the photograph, which might be quite complex, but it's done in a way that reveals rather than, rather than, what's the word, puts lots of sauce on. I mean, if you take the cooking example,

because I think that works quite well sometimes in photography. There's a lot of photography that we see that is overcooked or over sourced or over sweet even.

Tim Parkin (57:03)
Yeah, I think that goes to one of Herbert Schlatt's questions, actually, which is about what you regard as art in photography. And I think I'm, it's a bit of a bugbear reminder, I completely agree with both of you. And the bugbear is that when somebody says that the mere act of choosing where to point your camera, and how to crop it, isn't art, the art has to come in the post processing somehow. And I completely disagree. I think that's the perfect

The perfect essence of the art of photography is that choice of where am I pointing the camera at and what am I cropping it to that those two choices are that are the art in photography. And if it if that isn't art, then it's not I don't understand what photography is really, I think that the idea that we need to do lots of post processing, and then it becomes more art, because we've played around with it is wrong. Yeah, I'll go as far as the state for

Alex (58:00)
And going back, going back to some of my favourite images of Joe's actually, one of one of the interesting things is that one of the things I've always had to separated Joe's work from other people's is his approach to photographing complex subjects. And there are a few images in Scotland's mountains, for example, where he has photographed what appears to be an ugly scree slope.

And yet somehow there's an ease to it. And that's partly the lighting. I mean, I think if you had the kind of fantastical contrasting lighting we were talking about earlier, those images really wouldn't work at all. But there's an ease to the composition that doesn't show itself at all. So it looks like you have a, just a photograph of the scree slope, and yet it feels very comfortable on the eye. So, you know, he's maybe done something clever.

But actually, nobody's ever going to notice that unless they've tried photographing that kind of subject matter themselves and know how challenging it is. So it's a really hard thing to express because you, you almost want the photograph to look like a snapshot and yet have all of the beauty that might come with the approach of a really accomplished composition.

Tim Parkin (59:10)
Yeah, I think a lot of good photographers have said very much the same that it's a, I mean Ruskin, Ruskin I think was one of the original persons to say it, it's like a scene glimpsed, a scant in passing and that's the ultimate of what the romantics used to think. Is that about right Joe, from my interpretation of it?

Joe Cornish (59:11)
Yes it is.

Tim, I think your grasp of the academics of art history are way better than mine, but I think that is right. And the philosophy is very clear, and I think it is about revealing the reality of the world, but in a way that you can... I was like, yeah, it's really hard to say, but it becomes universal. It's a bit like, you know, Michelangelo said that he, all he was doing...

was removing the excess from the marble so you could see what was contained inside. And that's a kind of, it describes an incredibly complex process that where, you know, as in his case, being a sort of master craftsman, having bashed away at marble probably from the age of eight or so in a master's sculptor's studio, he would have an intimate understanding of the stone.

which of course most of us would never know. And in a way, one of the problems with photography, I would say in the contemporary world is that everybody has a camera, and that's in their phone, and that's good because there's a lot of experience of using it, but they don't necessarily study the philosophy or the artistic process in a way that's coherent

with.

producing pictures that will really last. They might have a very quick impact. That's fine, of course, because we're in that quick impact social media world. But to make pictures that have a little bit more depth, I would suggest that it's probably more likely that you'll get there by using a large format camera and looking at the world upside down for a few years. I actually think that's probably how to develop that kind of depth. And just briefly, Tim, what you said about

about the knowing where to stand and how to frame, which is sort of the fundamental I see. It's the absolute foundation of all good landscape photography. And whether you make black and white pictures in the dark room or you're a digital color photographer and everything in between, the post-production is there to serve the concept created in the field.

So it's important, but it's very important that the two are in harmony. But it's not because you're laying on lots of sauce in the post-production, to use the cooking analogy again, that makes it art. The art comes from the original concept, the vision, the positioning of the camera, and the way that you manage the fundamentals of the photographic process to reveal the subject.

Tim Parkin (01:02:21)
And I think we're out of time here now. We've got to about an hour. One thing I'll finish for there is something that we discovered in working with the Natural Landscape Awards is when we looked at the first rounds of the competition and looked at the scores, some of the pictures that came the highest were those that had some of the immediate impact. They were quite strong in terms of presence. I can think of one category where the mountain

leading the pack in terms of the best photograph. But the thing we discovered was as time went on, when we gave all the pictures back to the judges and the judges spent some time with them, and then we had a long five or six hour session looking at the pictures to try and work out which one we wanted to win, things started shifting around and those more complex, less instant pictures became more interesting and came to the fore. So I think a lot of people who may judge what's good photography based on what wins competitions and what's...

seen on social media we're getting the most likes is only a single small take of the way photography works and the way art works and we very rarely see pictures that spend that can spend more time with us and books are the way to do that i would recommend anybody buy more books i think alexis books and joe's books are things that go back to and you can develop your own opinions of how photography works and what

Any last words Alex? As our guest.

Alex (01:03:56)
No, not really. I just, yeah, I'm very happy to have been discussing these things with you guys. I'm looking, I'm gonna put the pressure on you now in two ways. One is to keep the podcast series going because I think it will be really good because I listened to the lockdown podcast that you did with David Ward as well a few times actually, because this kind of content isn't readily available in most podcast discussions. There are some.

And the other is since we've been talking about books to publicly put more pressure on Joe to self publish another book. So because if we all keep pressuring him enough, then it will eventually happen.

Tim Parkin (01:04:32)
I think both of us can help, can we?

Joe Cornish (01:04:39)
Thanks Alex, well that's really kind. And Tim, thank you so much as well for hosting this today. You know what, I think we've got a lot more questions that need to be answered that have come in and I'm just a bit concerned that we don't to get round to them. So maybe we can just do another one as soon as possible and get on with the rest of the questions because we get some great questions that have come in from the community. So, what do you think of that?

Tim Parkin (01:05:04)
Yeah, well, we'll do another one again. And I'd love to have you back for future ones. And I cross fingers we will carry on doing these because I enjoy doing them as well. So thank you very much.