How to get the James Ravilious look

It's a shame, but not uncommon for artists, that James Ravilious didn't receive the respect and appreciation he deserved for his photography until after his death. I hadn't heard of James until about six years ago although I'd always liked the paintings of his father, Eric. It was the unusual but familiar surname that got me looking at James's work and I was instantly hooked. His composition is impeccable and the tonal qualities in his prints are, in my opinion, unrivalled. He also had two rules that I respect and try to live up to: no cropping and no "setting" up photographs, whether of people or things.

As occurs not infrequently with other photographers when they see images they like, they start to wonder if they can produce something similar. Thus begins the quest for information about the equipment and technique employed by the master, as if copying those will lead us to success. That's what happened with James. Some people loved the look of his prints, the delicate, silvery tones, and set out to duplicate the look if not the actual subject matter.

I remember reading a few appeals on different forums for info about James's choice of film and developer. Then there was the near mystical reverence in which some believed he held pre-war Leica lenses - so Summars and Elmars were added to the shopping list - along with the lens hood he carefully crafted (using black electrical tape on the hood) to reduce flare to the lowest possible level when using these old, uncoated optics.

There will be readers who have James's books who will know all this stuff off by heart but also others who have heard a bit and still wonder what all the fuss is about. As someone who has picked up a few Ravilious books, I thought I'd write a post explaining what I think it all adds up to.

The best place to start is with what motivated James when it came to "the look". He started off with contemporary Leitz lenses but hated their high contrast. He couldn't cope with the hard shadows and the punchy appearance of the resultant negatives. I think he experienced some difficulties retaining detail in key areas when shooting against the light as he often liked to do and in the dark Devon cottages with their deep shadows. That's when he started to cast around for something that would give him a softer image.

You can get a good idea of what he was after from the reproductions in the book below if you can find a copy at a reasonable price.

The book's subtitle is "North Devon Landscapes & People" and it's all of that and a lot more besides. The photography just oozes charm and atmosphere and has frozen in time a people and a way of life that, although captured not too far back in the 1970s and 1980s, don't really exist any more. As such, it's not just a collection of lovely-to-look-at photographs but an important social documentary record.

This copy landed in my possession via Abe Books. I can't remember exactly what I paid for the hardback but it was £7-something. The other copies I found on Amazon and various other online book stores were all at least £30-£40 so I snapped up the volume as soon as I saw it. The book I bought is a republication and dates from 1995. I can't remember the last time I enjoyed looking at a collection of pictures quite so much.

The entirety of my teenage existence is encapsulated within the '70s so it's a time with which I readily identify. However, so slowly does the culture of the countryside and its traditions develop that many of the pictures could have been taken at any point since the war. Now and then there are some "modern" bits of machinery lying around or younger people with datable fashions to give the game away but many of the farmers featured in James's work are still wearing the heavy overcoats, bonnets and wellies of their grandfathers' generation - a timeless attire that the late 1980s/early 1990s and the explosion of popular culture largely brought to an end.

One of the things that sets James's photography apart, aside from the subject matter, is explained by the man himself in the introduction. We're often told by photography critics and gurus to concentrate on the image and not obsess over the technicalities but sometimes we can make an exception.

In the introduction to A Corner of England, James said,

"On the technical side, I have always used Leica rangefinder cameras and prefer the character and quality of their earlier, uncoated lenses. Most of my photographs were taken with a 35mm wide angle lens, together with a yellow "0" filter for clouds. 

This means rating the film at, say, 200 ISO and under-developing to compensate for this over-exposure. 

This gives a far superior tonal quality to negatives which are, consequently, easier to print. I wish I had discovered this earlier in my career. For colour, I use Kodachrome 25 with an 81A (warm-up) filter."

The result of this approach is an abundance of delicate, silvery greys, soft highlights and shadows you can walk through without needing to take a machete to them. Although I think James printed a lot of his own work, the photographs for the book were printed by photographer, Bryony Harris, and she did a beautiful job. How much of the look of James's photographs is down to his negatives and how much credit should go to Bryony I can't really say. But it's a lovely combination.

Certainly, by the time of the book's republication, James had become sensitive to the chemicals used in the darkroom and had given up printing. He had started recording everyday life in North Devon for the Beaford Archive and I believe his own prints are held by that body. Lots of them can be seen - and purchased - at James's Archive on the Beaford website. It would be interesting to see how closely Bryony's prints match James's originals. The reproduction of the black and white photographs in the book is quite good and the few colour shots have that typical Kodachrome look with nice skin tones and reds and quite high contrast.

Is that James's tripod I see in the background?

But, returning to James's choice of materials and equipment. I can see - at least I think I can - why he went to such lengths trying various optics before plumping for old Leica lenses. Take a good look at the pics from the book I've posted here. I took some time trying to match the scans as closely as possible to the photos and they're a good facsimile on my computer screen.

What James's choice of equipment and materials seems to achieve is the exaggeration of aerial perspective. Contrasty lenses might take the background in these pics and reveal more planes than are evident in James's photos. His Leica lens, being older, uncoated and of lower contrast, isn't able to achieve this separation of tones but tends, I think, to create more of a misty background which achieves a feeling of depth in a different way.

This effect is helped by some flare - more accurately, veiling glare -  from the Leica lens. Bright backgrounds, even on sunny days, flare quite badly in some of his photos but this, too, resembles a misty haze more than what we think of as flare. These two effects combine to give many of his pics a special appearance that conjures up a picture of warm, sunny days in the country with a heat haze hanging over the picturesque background. Of course, in some of these photographs, the misty background is caused by exactly that - mist! Some of James's autumnal and wintry scenes have a wonderful atmosphere about them.

Lower in contrast and prone to flare in some circumstances they might be but the old Leica lenses are still very capable when photographing people in the 6-12 ft range. Many Devon characters are captured with great sensitivity and not a little sympathy by James. His interior photographs reveal some slowish shutter speeds with one or two displaying a little bit of camera shake but there can't be too much light bouncing around in a small-windowed country cottage - especially when you've got 200 ISO film in your camera.

James's widow, Robin, wrote his biography, James Ravilious, A Life - another great read that I'd heartily recommend - and she revealed some more information about his shooting technique and equipment which included an uncoated 73mm Hektor lens. His photographs, she wrote, took on a more subtle, three-dimensional form after he adapted the Zone System to his own needs.

The best reproductions I've seen of his work are in An English Eye by Peter Hamilton. Peter said the photographer's problem was the need to compress a large range of tones caused by his shooting into the light. He wrote, "By giving the negative twice the normal exposure and then reducing its development in a dilute, soft-working compensating developer, he obtained a negative which retained detail in both shadow and highlight areas." This approach meant that skies typically needed a 10-30% burn in time as opposed to the 100-150% extra he was accustomed to before adapting his technique.

He seemed mainly to use 35mm and 50mm Elmars and a 28mm Hektor with his M3. I've not really found confirmation of his choice of film and developer but it doesn't look like Tri X to me so I'd go with HP5. In all probability he used them both. As for the developer, he wanted something soft-working and compensating. Perceptol would be one candidate. However, I've also heard that James did, indeed, use Tri X rated at about 200 ISO and developed in D76 (that's what his photographer friend Chris Chapman said) so who knows. I can't verify anything about his film and developer choices.

Clearly, then, not everything is known about James's working practices but there should be enough information in this post if anyone wants to have a go at duplicating his atmospheric look. Older, uncoated Leica lenses, a lens hood taped up to stop unwanted light striking the front element, contre jour lighting, a light yellow filter, HP5 or Tri X rated at 200 ISO and a soft-working, compensating developer.

Those are the technicalities. The title of this post, How to get the James Ravilious Look, is obviously a bit tongue-in-cheek. Knowing the process is just part of the equation. What you'll have to bring to the party is James's unique eye for a picture and, unfortunately, there's no short cut for that.