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| Approaching Applecross |
Not long ago, Phil Rogers of a parish not too far away, came across a couple of new entrance "rules" for a major landscape competition that had us cheering in unison. The cause of this united front? Graduated filters and "honeypot" locations.
The organisers in their infinite wisdom decided they'd had their fill of coloured skies softly disappearing into the misty distance and shots of Glen Coe from common GPS co-ordinates if not actual tripod holes. They banned graduated filters and drew up a blacklist of locations that would usually form the bulk of a normal year's entries. I can only imagine the consternation amongst copycat photographers who like to recreate the same scenes that have already been done to death. “What? Take a picture of something that no-one has ever pointed a camera at and make it my own? Are you mad?”
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| Plockton Causeway |
If you want to see what I mean, do a Google search for Glen Coe or Iceland black sand and see what results you get. Don't get me wrong: many of the images are stunning. Well done to the early birds who were amongst the first to capture and bring to our attention these fabulous locations. But buckets of opprobrium for all those who simply followed along afterwards knowing that they just had to turn up to get something similar. It's lazy and uncreative photography.
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| Trifid, Plockton |
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| On Skye |
However, it was encouraging to see a stand now being taken against those who like to practise hot-tripoding. It got me thinking what honeypot locations around the world I'd like to see added to such a list. The slot canyons of Bryce Canyon would be at the top followed not far behind by Iceland. Iceland was old 15 years ago and yet photo tours are still escorting photographers around the place showing them where and how to take their photos.
In the way that some people apparently take a magazine pic of a hairstyle they admire to the hairdresser and say, "Give me one like that," I wonder if photographers take their favourite pic of Iceland and make much the same demand of their tour guide.
Which is a very long-winded explanation of why I have no recognisable photographs from my recent jaunt to Plockton and Skye. Quite simply, I refused to point a camera at anything resembling a honeypot scene.
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| Trotternish |
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| Near Bagh an t-Srathaidh Bay |
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| Harbour Street, Plockton |
This took reserves of strength and courage I didn’t know I had as some of the familiar shots - The Cuillin mountains, Buachaille Etive Mor, the Three Sisters of Glen Coe, the yet more prolific Five Sisters of Kintail, the pitiable Lone Brother of Achnashellach*, etc - are even more spectacular in real life than in print or on screen.
I hadn’t been to that area of the West Highlands for about 25 years and it’s fair to say my gob was well and truly smacked anew. It was the first time I’d been in the depths of winter, though, and it’s even more awe-inspiring in its brooding menace at that time of year.
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| Cooper Street, Plockton |
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| Church Palms |
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| Croft, Portree |
I saw all the landscape eye candy along the way and was sorely tempted but what would the point have been exactly? To prove I can get in a car and drive to a tourist hot-spot where I can point my camera in the same direction as the rest of the tourist photographers? No thanks. Bearing in mind this was the middle of winter, there were probably about 10 to 15 people standing in the same sort of area pointing their cameras at the Three Sisters when we passed through Glen Coe on the return journey.
This sort of fundamentalism of mine has its drawbacks as the scenic hot-spots are the scenic hot-spots for a good reason. I'm not pretending for a minute that my holiday pics are better than anyone else's but they are at least my holiday pics and not facsimiles of something I saw online. I know the effort I had to put in to my find my wee scenes, returning once or twice for better light in some cases and getting a soaking standing by a tripod for fifteen minutes in the rain in a couple of others. It wasn't just a case of parking in the viewpoint car park.
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| Phone Box, Plockton |
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| Olly's Eggs, near Portree |
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| Towards Raasay |
On a technical level and as mentioned in my previous post, I had two Nikon F90x bodies, 35 and 85 mm AF primes and 28-105 and 70-210 AF zooms with me. I didn't touch the primes at all and the two zooms fairly evenly shared the workload. As is inevitably the case when you're on a break with other people (Cath and my cousin, Dawn, in this case), compromises have to be made so I didn't have enough time to go mad with film. I finished three rolls of XP2 - the pics here are from those films - and I have another two rolls that were only half-finished but have now been used up but not yet sent off for processing. Film is too dear nowadays to waste shooting a load of nonsense just to get to the end of the roll.
So that's the tale of a fundamentalist photographer with a severe downer on honeypot locations, whether for good or ill. But what about you? Are there any over-exposed locations that set your teeth on edge to the extent that you'd be happy never seeing a picture of them again?
* I made that one up.
The Kelpies. The big wheel on Man.
ReplyDeleteMaybe we should make up a table and let people have a vote. The Kelpies would get mine. Haha.
DeleteBruce - there's a quiet majesty to these. I think you've hit the nail on the head - you've captured atmosphere - I can smell peat-smoke and only imagine what it must be like on a rainy Sunday when everything is closed. Beautiful. WELL DONE!
ReplyDeleteThe rainy Sunday bit is spot on, Phil. That was when we arrived to find everything closed and the streets deserted. It was like the start of 28 Days Later!
ReplyDeleteYour so right Bruce. Visiting many honeypot locations over the years I've always tried to take something a little different. It could simply be just taking a shot in B/W or infrared film or with a 15mm lens. Often a challenge. The alternative is just to collect the postcards available from the local shop but they would be just pictures not real memories of your visit.
ReplyDeleteI think more and more people must be feeling the same way by now. Everyone’s tolerance level is different but even the copycats out there must surely be satiated at some point, especially given the amount of images we look at nowadays.
ReplyDeleteWe’ll always have Paris. The Eiffel tower, (other) tourists photographing themselves and each other with their telephones. Since you/I are well mannered, we try to keep away from their cameras, which of course puts us in their pictures instead, because the camera was pointed toward the visitor instead of away from her/him. We should have seen the hollow smile, but we missed it.
ReplyDeleteI suggest that we make a search for the Camera Restricta. The camera that locks itself down in the Picture Spots Selected by Kodak, based on the GPS coordinates and direction.
The Camera Restricta was a new one on me and very funny. Read about it at https://philippschmitt.com/archive/2018/work/camera-restricta.html
ReplyDeleteI loved the suggestion from someone in the “comments” section that cameras connected to the internet might simply automatically download the most popular online photo of the location they’re at directly to the memory card saving the photographer from the bother of having to look for it.
Mr Schmitt is a funny guy.
Excellent stuff Bruce, as always, a thought provoking read.
ReplyDeleteI am not sure if I made this up, but I recollect once reading somewhere that until the advent of “digital cameras", an astonishingly small number of photographs had ever been made, bearing in mind just how many humans inhabit this flying rock of ours.
In those days, photographers were rare, but holiday snappers were common during summer hols. My late dad, had some sort of TLR from Gamages (or the like, complete with a brown canvas case) and it only came out of his tallboy for the annual trip to Devon, where shots were taken from those handily provided lay-bys and picnic areas. Sometimes a whole roll of twelve snaps would be grudgingly sent to the chemist, in other years that roll would remain in the camera, along with the johnnies, until next year.
I also have a recollection that since then, a similar amount are now made each and every year.
Surely it is not beyond the realms of possibility that a good proportion of these pictures are not made as copies of somebody else's creations, but rather just happen because the local council plonked a lay-by in a safe spot and while the kids are chucking bits of food at each other and mum yells at them, dad goes off to stretch the pins that have hitherto been squashed into the footwell of the car for the preceding "x" number of hours, TLR jauntily hanging from his neck in search of a moment of peace and solitude, the ensuing snap being a mere by-product.
What might be a surprise in terms of art could be what the pet dog sees when an imaging device is strapped to said bonce.
Another flask-lid of thermos flavoured tea anyone?
How about a cheese sandwich?
I read that somewhere as well, Stephen. It's a sobering thought. As you say, the average amateur photographer's camera once contained a roll of film that charted the important points in the family life over months or a year. Now people post 36 shots of their latte and croissant at Starbucks. Speak about devaluing photography?
ReplyDeleteI'm off now to do a quick iphone selfie of me, my thermos tea and cheese sandwich. But first, let me copy what I've written in case it disappears when I hit the publish button. 😄
Bruce, many thanks for your assurance, I tend to panic resulting from an overdose of anasthesia following emergency surgery, I went in to have my kidney fixed and came out with (what is hopefully temporary) brain damage.
DeleteStill, at least they found one!
I listened to an interview with a National Geographic "photographer" about 10 years ago who specialized in wildlife in Arctic environments. The astonishing thing was that in order to get 8 to 10 images to use in the magazine he would shoot roughly 70,000+ digital images over a 24 to 48 hour period. Once he was back home he would edit the images down to 100 or so. I can't imagine he'd be using that approach if he had to pack all that film around.
ReplyDeleteThat's verging on the obscene.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely. I remember thinking that Adams or Weston might have taken 30,000 images in their entire life and even that number seems high. Quite the contrast. If I recall correctly Adams figured that 10 or so good images a year was a reasonable success rate, so it puts 10 out of 70,000 into perspective.
DeleteSlot canyons, of course.
ReplyDeletePictures of water disguised as chicken soup by spending a fortune on a piece of very dark plastic.
Any article mentioning The Rule of Thirds.
Bored teenagers standing in front of a graffitied wall.
Obviously, this list could go on and on, so let’s exclude lists too.