Depth of field. Many ways to achieve a sense of depth

The most usual means of separation in depth is to place one thing
 behind another with obvious spacial separation
 and receding perspective. Near things are larger.

Unlike our eyes which are mounted side by side ( binocular vision) and give us good depth perception, the camera is monocular, has no natural depth perception, so we must adjust our subject matter to make up for this deficiency. We may do this automatically as we arrange the parts of our 'reality', but using depth of field, useful as it is, is not the only way to go.

There has been a lot of discussion around this subject. The beautiful bokeh in the blurred background etc. are an important part of the vocabulary of photographers who use a large aperture and close subject to achieve a dramatic separation of frontal subject and softened background. One might think sometimes that that was the only way to achieve such a separation. But in practice we use several. 

The tree trunk is obviously in front of the cedar branches
 and is lighter in tone and different in texture and shape.

Colour or tonal contrasts are obvious ones: red leaves set against a green mossy bank will provide such separation even if the tonal differences may be slight, and a dark shadowy background will set off a lighter, closer, subject. Differences in texture, in shapes, in focus, in directional lines and so on are all available to the photographer who looks through his viewfinder and concentrates on what his photograph will look like rather than settling for a simple capture of an attractive subject and the devil take the details.

    

In  colour and texture there
 is little separation except for the grey trunk...

...especially in monochrome. With our eyes
 we can see the real depth 
that is present but not in the
 photograph. 
The tree trunk adds needed form
 to this busy  image.

Sharp, red and white rails set
 off the soft receding background.
 Allowing the background
 to soften in the distance supplies
 a  natural sense of depth. 
Atmospheric perspective.

In monochrome the close values tend
 to loose the separation.

Colour difference gives separation.

As it does in monochrome as 
well.
 Establishing the appropriate
 sharpness in a snowstorm 
is the tricky part here.

Even with all the green we can separate the shape
 of the lighter tree from background

Spring. Finding the essential image.

The snow has melted quickly, the rain pours down and the land runs with water; every surface is filmed with moving water, the pond is close to overflowing and the stream  roars down-slope into the valley below. The subject matter is flowing around my boots as I jump from one bank to the other to line up my photographs. Of all the possible fragments of the landscape I could choose to zero in on, the stream symbolizes the flow, the sweeping away of winter and the beginning of spring.

The business of selection is where my mind is today as I tilt the camera forward to exclude the sky, my studio and car from the viewfinder. The course of the stream creates the major element, the line that twists and curves from top to bottom, back to front. But then, is this fairly standard documentary image all there is to say about what is happening here?

My instinct as a photographer is to move in closer, to find something more intimate that is less about information of the standard descriptive kind and more expressive of the feeling of flow in the landscape today. I progressively find smaller parts of the stream, the waterfalls being the most dramatic elements. Closer still, and falling water fills the frame, closer still and I am noticing the transition point where the main waterfall begins. Is this the essential image then that I am reaching for? Perhaps, but I back off and shoot the waterfall, tightly constrained within its rocky chute, this time underexposing so that only the brightest parts shine out from the dark background. Yes, this seems congruent with my feeling about what is happening here.

Later, I walk beside the ocean and see a plum tree in blossom, battered and solitary on a long stretch of rocky shoreline. Almost too obvious a photograph, spring blossoms, but something pulls me to take a series of photographs. The first, from a distance, places the tree within the seascape, but the foreground is cut off and the tree centrally placed against the strong horizontal of the island behind it. “I've got it”, I think but conscientiously walk closer and take some other views including a closer and horizontal version of the first exposure. How focused and business-like this all is, running carefully though my routine with the camera, but at the same time keeping the central symbol that teases at me close to the surface of my mind.  Blossom pictures are a dime a dozen but it is something closer to my personal history that I am reaching for today. I have known this tree for thirty years or more, watched it struggle to live on this rocky sandstone shore, battered by winter winds and salt spray; dead branches aplenty, but always fresh shoots and spring blossoms. A fellow feeling, one might say, and what I am really photographing today might be thought of as a portrait in landscape of something up close and personal.

As with the flowing water, so with the lone blossoming tree, I am  making images that express what is within both the landscape and myself. Strange though, no matter how inconvenient it is not to have that idea fully conscious and available, it is there, waiting just below the surface of my mind and driving my little photographic program. It is pulling me towards expressing the more personal and intimate.

I take photographs of the world of things and find myself inside every image.

Snow. Can Spring be far behind?

The air is positively mild, almost up to 50 degrees Fahrenheit after a couple of weeks of freezing temperatures. It smells of Spring even as the snow drifts melt rapidly away and the land runs with water. The sound of rushing streams and plunging waterfalls is muffled amid the tall coniferous trees and upthrust moss covered rocky bluffs. The remaining snow makes lacy patterns and interesting blobs in the shady places. I have been documenting this series of snowfalls, from the early delicately picked out outlines of maples against the dark forest giants to the later white drifts that blanketed the rocky slopes, to the blue shadows and white streaks of light as the snow began to melt in the winter sunshine.

Photographs of snow are so kitch somehow, that I began by photographing only reluctantly, and then threw away my qualms and began to see the possibilities here. Besides, I got to walk around my property every day to see the many animal tracks, the rabbit hops, the raccoon, deer and bird footprints, and one set that had me puzzled on the slushy surface of the pond until I saw the merganser duck skulking in the reedy open water at one end. She had obviously attempted to land on the soft surface and then flapped her way towards open water. Here was a record written on the landscape for me to put meaning to even as I was using my camera to do the same with own my familiar landscape.

Cool, very cool. 'Consider the lilies of the field....'

'Another cold snap', we call these below freezing days on the Pacific coast of Canada, and really if our pipes are not frozen or our car will not start these dry, cold, windy and sunny days provide a welcome break from the warmer grey overcast and slanting rain that is our normal winter fare.

  

This morning I took my camera down the trail into the forest and found,as I had expected, that the spray from a small waterfall had frozen into beautiful patterns. I spent some minutes crouching down close so I could peer through the viewfinder and then finished off by free-styling with my Nikon held down by the ice at arm's length to find its own focus and framing.

I hoped for some interesting images, but of course it was these moments spent down at the base of the falls and focused on my task that I remember from my whole day of activities. It is not often mentioned in photography, where the hunt for the image, the trophy, seems paramount, but I wonder if, as for the big game hunters of yesteryear, the experience of being in relationship with the subject, where the hunter feels himself to also be the one hunted, is not the major benefit.

To find these beautiful constructions flung out upon the rim of the pond makes me think of 'consider the lilies of the field...' and that perhaps that is all that is called for - to consider carefully, to experience a sense of participation in the natural world if only for a few moments every day.

Dark Matters. accepting the dark as a creative guide in the arts.

  

To know the Dark.

To go into the dark with a light is to know the light.

To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,

And find that the darkness too, blooms and sings,

And is travelled by dark feet and dark wings.

Wendell Berry.

.I was surprised the other day to find that what I had thought to be an ordinary photograph taken on a dark day late last Fall could be described as a challenge to all things legitimately photographic. I should have expected this.

This image was part of a set of photographs taken on a heavily overcast day, spitting with rain, just after the first big south-east storm of the season had rolled over a beach on Vancouver Island . Piles of seaweed and tossed driftwood, dead seal pup and heron, and this image, caught by panning quickly, of a Oyster-catcher flying against grey water, dark, blurred islands and a grey sky.

It was questioned if the moment, the time and place, the mood itself, was legitimately expressed within such a grey, blurred, flat toned image. That really it was a poor image by accepted standards of photographic practice. The same argument could be made about any other piece of creative work: can a disturbing topic be expressed in an ugly way? That good form is needed to express even nasty ideas. And that does make sense, good communication should always be tied to excellence in how the subject is expressed.

Then, thinking about my oyster-catcher imagery, what would have been a correct form within which to express the cool logic of an early winter storm that weeds out the unprepared and the young and old indiscriminately? A nice range of values from white to black, ( and if so, taking this image on a different day entirely)? A sharper, closer depiction of the bird itself so it is identifiable as an Oyster-catcher? No, I am not making this image as a wildlife photographer within the understood confines of 'good wildlife photography' nor am I concerned with some standard ideas about good photos. It is the darkness of the day, the dispassionate power of the wilderness, that is my subject here.

My personal set of parameters say that there must be a correlation between the subject and how it is expressed though the image's design. The reality of the place and time and my perception of it rejects some version that is sharp and bright and 'correct'. So I have actually been thinking very carefully about form and function, about communication, more than that maker who leans always on ' the right formulation'. We all need to give our heads a shake and see for ourselves, not through the medium of accepted practice but by way of our own ideas, developed over time and congruent with our own personal perspectives. Seeing comes first and expression follows naturally if we are fully open to the possibilities.

But what of the viewer, it could be argued. Who would be attracted to this flat, blurry, grey image? If the photograph is not attractive in a decorative or superficially aesthetic way no one will stop to look or to buy. And that is the point: is it my job to sell, to produce product that will move? In a commercial gallery setting the answer would have to be yes if pretty or stylish is the criteria for sales. So I do need to ask myself to whom I think I am communicating. I have to think big questions like why I take photographs and what does this highly specialized kind of image-making mean to me. Why am I so cussedly insistent on the value of this dark vision of Autumn's first clean sweep after the soft days of summer.

Perhaps the answer lies somewhere in the above quote from Wendell Berry, where he lays before us the possibility that using light to explore darkness is self-defeating, and that darkness has its own special qualities. Of course the poem can be read as being about light and dark in a psychological sense. Perhaps there is much to be gained in the development of a personality by allowing the darker sides of life to express themselves in a creative way. If we find that repression of 'the not so nice' leaves the darker side that we all possess unformed, under-developed and hence frightening, then we must see that if it is allowed to participate in a creative way, if it is given a role to play, darkness can 'bloom and sing' and we would find in darkness a useful creative guide.

That photograph? It is for me a message from my dark side asking for admission, that I should claim it and give it legitimacy, take the guidance offered and move along my own path allowing the dark to provide a counterpoint to the light. That co-operative path, in the final analysis, is the artist's journey.

Winter work. Felling trees for firewood

Often these winter days I hear the sound of chainsaws and the crash of falling trees around my neighbourhood. It is the season for the provident to begin the labour of making firewood that will be stacked and dried, ready for the stove that will heat our homes all next winter long. Of course, some of those chain saw sounds seem a little desperate so perhaps there are those who are making wet unseasoned firewood for this winter too. A little smugness on my part is my reward for being a forward thinker.

I was talking to a hitch hiker the other day who lives on a trimaran in Burgoyne Bay and we got to thinking how backwards the great mass of city folk really are (a favourite topic among folk out on the margins). They would look down on my passenger, living rough on an anchored boat, taking his life in his hands every time he rows his dinghy ashore or back again through wind and wave, but our point is that that the further one lives off the grid the better skills, the more care and organization one needs. He too heats with wood, cut from beach logs and prepared well in advance, and his ability to survive all winter out in the cold, tossing bay depends on it. Imagine, good firewood is the key to life itself.

Today it was my turn to sharpen my saw, collect my wedges, and sledge hammer and approach the two trees I had selected some month's before. Heather stood far back, cell phone ready to call 911 if things went wrong, as I made my cuts and pounded in the wedges and finally brought my beauties crashing to the ground. Ah, such satisfaction, such a pleasant feeling of participating once more in the seasonal round of work.

Light. Direct lighting: would it were that simple.

I'm sure that all of us have reached for our camera when the evening sun has burst out from the clouds and dramatically high-lighted the scene before us. Rich, warm light, strong shadows, dramatic contrasts, - we have another sunset photograph to add to all the others. It is is such a powerful lighting effect that our photo is arresting even though it may not be perfectly composed in other respects. Lighting in all its forms is key in photographs. Variations on direct lighting* like this are actually somewhat complicated though.

The sun is still just below the horizon, it is a cold frosty morning at the Fulford Docks, and hoar frost coats the deck boards. This twilight lighting is transitory and precious for a photographer. The sky overhead vibrates, casting a blue sheen over the white frost and altering the shadowy red guard rails towards the purple end of the spectrum. The warm colours of the distant sunrise provide direct, warmer light and contrast, each area of warm and cool * emphasizing the other.

A big stump lies on the beach, the light coming from the mid morning sun, is directional and creates interesting shadows which defines the form. But the sun has only just now emerged from a fog bank and the light has a special quality that comes from the remaining fog particles in the air; it is partially diffused and partakes also from the blue sky overhead and from the softer white light from the fog bank in the background. It is actually more complicated than it may at first appear. And that makes this moment special.

.......................................................................................................

*Warm and cool contrasts. In designing with colour, one of the useful aspects is the effect of warm versus cool. Warm being in the red quadrant of the colour wheel and cool being in the blue. One extra effect is that warm colours seem to advance towards the viewer and cool recede, so for example, a warm colour in the foreground set against a cool background ( even greys can be warm or cool) will increase the sense of depth dramatically. Your whole image may be about these colour effects. Try it out.

Direct v's diffused light. Often, as you see in these photos, there is a combination of these two. Direct, is light in a flashlight beam, a single point source. Sunlight is like a flash light and has intensity, colour and direction. Like a flash light which is covered with a tissue, the sunlight can be diffused by cloud, fog, and other particles in the air. The sun at noon is more intense and whiter, and at dawn and dusk less intense and warmer. Winter light on a sunny day seems washed clear and cold, and on a summer day warm and partially diffused by particles in the atmosphere. Heavily diffused in fog, the direction may seem to be from the whole atmosphere and shadows almost disappear. Sunlight through fog may pastel the colours. It is through an intense study of light that we become better photographers.

Canoeing down the Amazon

This is a copy of the first of a series of entries that will tell the story of Bill and Heather during their CUSO days in Guyana SA. Here we are canoeing down the Amazon and hoping to get back to Guyana to begin our new assignment in the Rupununi district where we will be teaching and running a hostel. Rather than place these amid other material here in Dragongate, I have established a new blog called Dragonish. So please come over there to read the exciting story that eventually comes to an abrupt end in the aftermath of a failed revolution.
Find the link to Dragonish down to your right among the companion blogs.

Canoeing down the Amazon

 

Guiding the canoe through the snags

Moonlight sparkles on the Amazon River, the high banks and overhanging trees are inky black and the current sighs and ruffles the smooth surface. All is silent in the perfumed air as our long dugout canoe drifts sideways downstream very close to the high river bank. Lovely, yes, but oh so dangerous!

Two days earlier we had arrived in Iquitos by plane from the coast of Peru only to find that the only flight further down river to make connections with Manaus had just left. That was it for a week, and we needed to begin teaching in Guyana and my wife Heather’s mother, Ruth, travelling with us on a holiday trip around South America, had a ticket for her flight home to Canada. We found an English speaking person who arranged for this long canoe ride down river to Leticia where we could catch a flight on to Manaus. Two Amerindian men, a canoe with a big Swedish outboard engine perched on the stern and a banana leaf covered shelter amidships were to get us there in time. We paid some money to our fixer and negotiated how much to pay at the end of the trip. We roared down river all day, stopped for lunch at an Amerindian house for smoked Peccary and carried on.

Occasionally the engine stopped for a while, but eventually started again. Ruth also desperately needed 'rest stops' as she had picked up an intestinal bug. 'Es necessario', I would beg as our crew showed great reluctance to stop their outboard engine yet again.

Into the night we rushed and then the engine stopped; on purpose this time. SHHH, our crew said and pushed us gently down under the shelter. We drifted silently through a riverside town; barking dogs, but no calls to HALT, no flying bullets, as we slipped past the military check point. Again we rushed down river, and then another break down. Another day passed, pretty much a repetition of the first. Another night!

The crew came forward to ask me about the MONEY. The river was dark, wide and lonely, we were very vulnerable here. My Spanish was of the sort that comes from failing it miserably in University, but I was able to explain that yes they would be paid at Leticia, and that we were CUSO volunteers who would be teaching at a school for 'los Indios' in Guyana, far to the north. Phew, back to working on the engine.

This latest breakdown however has us drifting towards a newly slumped section of the river bank, leaving branches and tree tops sticking up out of the swiftly flowing water. The crew, heads down over the engine on the stern, seem oblivious to the danger so I pick up a paddle in the bow, take a few strokes to turn us stern foremost and begin to weave us through the labyrinth of snags. The men glance back, nod and resume work. Paddling a canoe is a skill I learned as a child. Who knew that it would come in so handy! We edge back out into the wide river and eventually the engine roars back to life. This would be a high point in most adventures, but by now it is just another moment of adjustment to the needs of the day in what is turning out to seem an eternity.

The next morning is our date with Leticia and the scheduled flight downriver to Manaus. At each bend the crew smile and call “Leticia”, but of course it is just another jungle covered bank of vegetation. We are all very tired, mosquito bitten and feverish. “Yeah, right!” we think even as we smile back. Eventually though, it does appear and quickly we pay off our crew with many thanks and hurry into town. We change our money ( we are now in Columbia), take a taxi to the dirt airstrip and immediately jump on board our DC3. A near thing, but with a roar we are off. We spend all that day hopping in and out of jungle clearings all the way to Manaus.

The next morning it turns out that the scheduled weekly flight direct to Guyana is full of tropical fish, - no room for us. Another problem to solve. We are sick from a tropical fever that will remain our weekly companion for the next few years. We do not have enough money for the long way around via Belem at the mouth of the Amazon and then the Pan Am flight north along the coast to Guyana. The Brazilian currency devalues that day! The banks are closed! Prices remain fixed at the old rate. We exchange our last US travellers cheques on the black market! Now we can just pay for our flight!

We do eventually get to Guyana on time and in one piece and see Ruth off on her plane home to Canada. We then rush about making plans and buying groceries for our next teaching assignment in the Rupununi District of the remote interior. Looking back to those years in our early twenties it is interesting how experience played such an important part. After a year teaching on the coast of Guyana we were well acclimatised to tropical conditions and to living in a 'developing' country. We could get along using lots of smiles and good will with people of all stripes. We had our camping and adventuring background from Canada. We had visited our next assignment twice already. Now we had our travels around South America, including our trip by canoe down the Amazon to add to our portfolio. We were not really prepared for the responsibilities we would face but were confidently ignorant. We were ready as possible to begin our next assignment.

Perhaps ignorance would turn out to be our best defence in the turbulent months that lay ahead.

Finding light in the dark places.

You must be AWARE.*

Hans Hofmann

Sometimes we see the perfect photographic opportunity and snap away only to find later that low light has messed up our image. Our camera, if on auto iso, may have simply boosted the sensitivity to the point that we have little coloured dots over everything. If we have set our iso to say 200, we may find that our camera has automatically slowed the shutter speed to balance things up and we have a blurred image either from subject movement or ( most likely), camera shake. The program in the camera is trying to produce a 'normal' looking image from an abnormally dark subject and we must find a way to work around this. (The best computer is the mind itself.) If we use exposure compensation to override this problem, closing the aperture some more, we get a darker, low key*image that will match the feeling of the scene.

In most cases however, we find that there is no substitute for a well exposed photograph and to get that in low light conditions requires adding more light, either artificially with lights of various sorts ( don't forget the humble flashlight), a flash unit, or by redirecting light by way of a reflector. Here are some examples.

 Practising with my Speedlight, using a tripod and myself as subject, I chose the dark shadowy area beneath some cedars. I set the camera time exposure for a 10 second delay ( I also have a remote shutter release if needed.) and stepped quickly into position. I chose to bounce the flash to one side so it would reflect back on the subject from a side angle. I have a 4x4 foot piece of white hardboard as a reflector for this purpose, but this time choose to bounce the flash off a cedar tree instead. The resulting lighting is softer, more diffused, (because the reflecting surface is textured bark), and matches the reflective pose I have struck.

One can bounce a flash off anything; but it will reflect the colour of what you bounced it off. In my studio I once got a lovely golden glow from bouncing off the varnished inside of my wood and canvas canoe! Of course I use my on-camera flash if I must, and have experimented with using tissues as a diffuser or a small mirror to bounce off the ceiling or wall.

  

My grand daughter is down at the beach, the morning sun is glancing off the ocean and beach stones. She squints, her face is broken into strongly defined areas of light and dark. And then she steps under some dark trees. The reflected light off the beach has bounced into the shade. Perfect! If the light had been off calm water, it would have been strong and glaring but here the pebbled surface of Beddis Beach formed just the right reflector.

The more we experiment with light in a purposeful way the more possibilities we become aware of for our camera work. We also experience the world in a more intense way and whose to say which in the end is the more important.

*Low and high key are terms that describe the general effect of the light in your image. High key would be at the upper end of the tonal scale and low key, as in the forest photo, is at the lower end. Matching the tonal scale to your subject is always one aspect of making an image that communicates what we perceive the subject is all about. This image is all about the darkness under the trees, not about the trees in themselves which are the subject matter.

* Hans Hofmann taught painting, but much the same attitude applies to the other visual arts as well. No matter how much equipment we have, our effectiveness as a photographer still hangs of our ability to be aware, super aware, of our surroundings. That awareness has multiple part to it; how we 'know' the world determines what we are able to 'say' and how acutely our senses are honed, our awareness, determines what we are able to see. And seeing is the key to all.

Walking in a Winter Wonderland. The difference between subject and subject matter.

We have been listening to carols for the last few days on the radio and on CDs. ; a mixed blessing, this combining a variety of different songs for different tastes. A few day's ago we had several inches of snow which transformed our forested property into a beautiful, if dangerous, 'winter wonderland' ( dangerous, because of falling branches and trees laden with heavy wet snow). I had such mixed emotions as I headed out with my camera because some images would end up being pretty snow photos just like the saccharine carols we have been listening to and it could be difficult to find something original to say amid all that splendid white stuff. Because snow is transformational in our dark green winter rainforest, from the first fragile perfection of early morning - the flakes still sifting down through the tree tops -, to a dripping disintegration later in the day as the warm front filled in, there was plenty of subjects available.

The idea that the subject of the image is not necessarily the same as the subject matter is a novel thought for many when they bring their cameras up to take a shot. The subject may be philosophical or scientific, newsworthy or emotional, but the subject matter in front of the camera is chosen to represent that broader viewpoint. We are aware of this in written work be it a novel or popular song: a theme/subject of loneliness, for example, is expressed by subject matter, “Hear that whistle blow”.The snow of early morning in its perfection can offer a different subject than the same snow sliding off branches and puddling on the ground later in the day.

When we take our photograph we need at some level at least, to be aware of the expressive potential of the subject matter, and compose our image, even as we take it, so that our communication is clear. Without words to make our intention more precise, a photograph can be interpreted in a variety of ways, so everything we can do at the design stage to emphasis our intended subject is important. Thinking about the tonal range, (the amounts and placement of darks or lights in our viewfinder), considering the colours with their emotional values, and planning our image so that the textures, forms or lines contribute and do not distract, is what makes photography challenging and interesting over the long term. Taking a photograph is dead easy, but making one that is interesting and communicates clearly is an endless challenge. 

This business of expressing the subject through the subject matter is challenging for me because sometimes I am only dimly aware of my real subject. I am attracted to certain subject matter, frame it carefully and later I process it in 'Lightroom' as though I know what I am setting out to say, but if asked I realize that my subject is still only partially conscious and that much of my creative thought is below the radar. It is in struggling to make my process conscious that I develop my Self as well and that is a long and rewarding path. It could be said that I make photographic images and that they in turn develop me.

Ethical Photography. Simply Sensible

“There is such a thing? Ethical photography is probably some plot to restrict my right to photograph anything, anywhere, in my own neighbourhood or around the world. Yeah, I got my rights!”
That, believe it or not, is the fossilized belief system of many photographers today who resist any restrictions on their snapshots. We see them in the park, on safari, in the markets of third world countries, lining up great shots, sticking their cameras into people's faces or grabbing their images from afar with telephoto lens. It is as though they think themselves armoured and invisible behind their cameras. They certainly seem to consider the people around them as just another photo-trophy. How dare they!

Remember when smoking in public was viewed in the same way? How often did we have smoke blown into our faces and our food in a restaurant or at the family dinner table? There seemed to be a right to do that and non-smokers were the sissies. Times changed though and one of the most effective anti-smoking campaigns focused not on the obvious health risks, but on how disgusting that habit really was.

The camera itself has no morality. Because we can photograph anything at all, we do. Pornography, for example, is a multimillion dollar industry and pictures of children being used for these purposes are common enough. Most of us would draw the line at this kind of unethical behaviour, but exactly how far down the field do we place the goal posts for the average photographer?

One of the most obvious ways to deal with this dilemma is to ask permission first ( not second). Yes, that informal pose may be lost, but this is not wildlife photography is it? We may be asked to pay for our photo, but if so we can also get signed permission and that would place our interaction with our subject on a more equal footing. Snapping people's images wholesale is an unequal interaction. The image of the 'ugly North American', cameras draped around his or her neck, photographing 'local colour' is one of disrespect and that is how many people receive it. There are of course legal considerations as well which vary from country to country, but I wonder if, like warnings of the health risks of smoking, these alone will not convince people that are already hooked by the habit to adjust their behaviour. Perhaps in the end we have to say that this photo habit, once considered okay, is not any longer. Like a wide range of humour focused on sex, religion or ethnicity is no longer acceptable and marks the perpetrator as a dinosaur from another era.

So when we wander with our camera we need to be aware that taking someone's photo is really a delicate transaction. And this is not a blanket ban after all, we can obtain permission by asking first, (and probably thereby getting a positive response) and then ideally, getting a model release. We can take people photos where the person is part of a crowd, or purposely on display, say in a parade. It is really just those captures of identifiable individuals that we need to avoid. Not so difficult to adjust to really if we would just get off our unfortunate belief that anything goes.

We live in an time where privacy is perceived to be important because it is increasingly under threat. A photo of someone can end up very quickly on a photo club or social media site and who know how it will be used after that. Think of the stories of 'primitive' peoples who felt that the camera had captured their souls; is that really so different from how we feel today, somehow soiled and abused, when our image is snatched from us?

Photography is about taking images and, as Susan Sontag says in her book 'On Photography', using the camera not for art, but as “ mainly a social rite, a defence against anxiety and a tool of power”. Powerful words, and, like a photograph, oh so true to life.

A walk beside the Englishman River.

It is the middle of December, Fall is way back there somewhere, and snow is still waiting in the wings. I am walking beside the Englishman River, midway up the east coast of Vancouver island, and using my camera as a tool to understand what is happening here on this cool winter's day. It is not my camera, but my nose that picks up the first clue: carcases of spawning salmon lie among the boulders and in the shallows. In one deep pond, chum salmon leap to show some are still arriving to spawn. My foot-on-land perspective is really only a partial understanding and others here see things differently. Those salmon circling in the ponds are waiting for heavy rain to supply more water so they can move further upstream through the shallows to the spawning beds. They are more aware of the consequences to them of a dry Fall than I am. The eagles flying heavily along the river are focused on their next meal of dead salmon drifting on the river's current. I may see this river as picturesque, a good collection of 'photographic opportunities', but for these others on different planes of existence this environment has different faces, different values.

 Among the occasional human visitors today we would find shared human perspectives: the fisherman, the young couple with their cell phone camera, the man and his dog; if asked they might share some general ideas about nature and the need to protect this river, but as individuals, once beyond the usual off-the-shelf beliefs, I would guess there has been little thought given to a reality beyond their own. It is after all an unsettling thought that a human perspective is not the only one available.

While taking my photographs in colour, I am thinking them in monochrome as well. Partly colour blind as I am, I make up for it with a heightened sense of tonal values. The vivid green mosses, the patches of blue sky seem too cheerful once I feel the cold light, the scent of death and see the life running parallel to my own along this river.

Perhaps it is the river itself that is such a powerful teacher, flowing on and on down through the ages, creating the boulder strewn bars and water-worn cliffs, looping from side to side of its valley and arriving finally at the sea. I can experience it as something that has a beginning in the mountains on the horizon and an end in its estuary or know it as I do today as nothing but flow, the constant sound of rapids, the never-ending-ness of it all. I have a choice how I experience the world, as discreet events, as objects, or as flow or change. My choice of perspective influences how I experience the river, how I then understand my place among the many and what I see through the viewfinder of my camera today.