The Photographers
Listing in Surname Order

Cameron, Ian [bio]

Christie, James

Hancox, Mark

Herbert, Amanda [bio]

Mott, Lee

Stephenson, Mike [bio]

 

Ian Cameron

When & how did you first become interested in photography?

Growing up on the outskirts of London instilled in me a yearning for the peace and quiet of the countryside and an appreciation of nature and wildlife.  At 18 years of age I got my first SLR camera with fixed focal length lens and began by shooting easily reached landscapes.

I opted to use transparency film and quickly realised that photography was not just a matter of clicking the shutter release.  As so often happens I had one shot that inexplicably stood head and shoulders above the others.  It was several months and many rolls of film before I repeated that level of quality again.  Those occasional successes drove me to learn the art of photography well.

Who were your main influences in developing your style?

Galen Rowell an American landscape photographer was undoubtedly the biggest influence on me.  His ability to work light and fast with 35mm film to record some of the most extraordinary light imaginable was so far ahead of its time, sadly Galen died relatively young in a solo flying incident on the way to another wilderness photographic venture.  A true pioneer to which the adage a candle that burns twice as bright lasts half as long, justifiably applies.

What equipment do you always carry with you on a shoot?

I shoot with an old steam driven Pentax 67II medium format film camera and I use it exclusively with lenses from 45mm to 200mm.  All metering is done externally using a Pentax spot meter and held rock steady on a Gitzo 3530LS tripod and RRS BH-55 ball head.  Exposure control is maintained with graduated neutral density filters and a polariser.  Photoshop is kept to an absolute minimum and used solely to return the initial scan to the appearance of the original transparency as viewed on a calibrated light box.

Select two of your favourite photos and explain how you took them?

Ian Cameron

My two personal favourites here are quite muted and unsaturated images.  Velvia has an ability to separate subtle nuances of tone and hue quite beyond anything I see with digital.  The first image is called Lightning tree and it is at the edge of Loch a Chroisg near the village of Achnasheen on the outskirts of Torridon.  Extremely careful positioning was needed to eliminate any sky appearing at the top of the image.  The muted colours derived from a coating of frost turn this image almost monochromatic with just the arrest hint of colour and hue in the bracken and mosses in the foreshore.  I used a 200mm lens attached to my Pentax 67II in conjunction with a polariser to enhance the reflected content and soft contrast.  The exposure was around f/16 at 6 seconds with Velvia film.  The best landscape photography is not merely about vision it should invigorate the other senses.  I believe this one does that the atmosphere of still silent cold is tangible.

Ian Cameron

The second shot is of my favourite beach in Scotland Mellon Udrigle.  This was taken on New Years day on a rainy morning under a soft umbrella of white light.  The luminosity of the sky combined with the dark backdrop hanging over the mountains has brought out the colour of the indigo mountains and perfect unblemished but delicately patterned sand that for me is about as perfect a coastal image as I have ever taken.  It hangs big on my wall.  A pentax 67II and 55-100 zoom was used with a polariser and 0.45ND graduated filter at f/22 and 4 seconds.  Velvia film has delicately separated the similar hues.

Where else can people go to view more of your work?

Please do visit my website at www.transientlight.co.uk a recently published book of my work called Transient Light is now undergoing its second print edition.  Many of my images appear in the popular photo press such as Outdoor Photography from time to time.