I’m not one to pigeon-hole, but all the same, I’m no wildlife photographer. Of course I said that about landscapes three years ago as well, so what do I know? I’ve spent almost 2 weeks in Japan, mostly in Hokkaido, with birds and monkeys, often flopping around gracelessly and hip deep in snow, and almost always freezing my arse off. It’s been amazing. I came to meet Martin Bailey, a friend I’ve never met in person until now, and to learn from a man I consider a peer and a colleague. 14 of us traveled around this northern island of Japan, with enough outdoor wear to open an outfitters and enough camera gear to keep B&H stakeholders very happy for a very long time. It’s been a wonderful trip and so much of that is to Martin’s credit.
Martin is an excellent teacher. Very patient, and with a wonderful sense of humour. He knows Japan, particularly Hokkaido, because he’s lived here for 20 years, and has chosen excellent locations, none of which disappointed – no small feat considering how reliant on weather we were. He’s well-organized and if anything didn’t go according to plan I certainly didn’t notice a glitch in the matrix. But for a guy who’s so easy-going he can really march his troops, and we were up at some lunatic hours, one morning my alarm went as early as 3:30am. Thank God you can get coffee in the vending machines. If you’re looking for a relaxing holiday, this isn’t it, though the food, sake, and abundant hot springs took the sting out of the early mornings and long hours.
I came not only to meet, and learn from, Martin, but to work, and to create something new in my portfolio. I’m returning home with over 300GB of image files from both my D3s and D800 bodies. Of those 8000+ images, I’ve got 200 selects that I’ll edit down to something closer to 30 or 40 printed photographs, some of which I’m showing here, and the best of which might also make it into SEVEN, the fine art book I’m releasing this year (details and pre-orders are coming soon, I promise!)
What I hope shows in this new body of work is my love for this place. If there’s a serenity in the images, it’s because this place has been, despite the long hours and hard work, deeply calming for me. There’s a blanket of snow here that simplifies things, quiets them, and makes it easier for me to work. It’s like that when I’m working outside and in touch with wild things; I feel it especially here for some reason. It feels wide open here, so I cropped many of my images to 16:9 which is unusual for me, but feels like the best choice for these photographs. Can’t wait to get home and print the work over the coming days.
If you click the image below, it’ll go large and from there you can scroll through them; a much nicer way to look at these.
What you might not see so readily in the images is the learning curve. I mentioned in my last post that I felt the learning curve was steep and one commenter said, based on a couple good images, it didn’t seem like it was that steep. Just because you make it to the top of the mountain doesn’t mean you didn’t have to work your ass off to get there. For me it was an endless battle with focus modes – I never use servo/continuous focus modes, and I fought with them the whole time. And it was a battle with the large files and slow buffer of the D800, learning to pace myself against the limited frames I had until the inevitable waiting for the buffer to clear, giving me more frames to shoot. It was learning the behavior of the animals and learning to anticipate their actions. But most of all it was a re-learning a lesson I’ve taught over and over again to my own students – you need to fall in love with your subject without getting seduced by it.
It’s easy, even after making photographs for 25 years, to forget that a photograph of a beautiful bird is not the same thing, necessarily, as a beautiful photograph of a beautiful bird. A beautiful bird, or person, or landscape, is it’s own beauty, but the moment it becomes a photograph it’s reduced to light, line, and moments, and it’s those that you have to be thinking about. Making a sharp photograph of an eagle is one (sometimes very difficult) thing, making one that’s alive, that people care about, is entirely another. Tom Kostes left a great quote in the comments of my first Hokkaido post, and I’ll finish with it, because it so perfectly sums up the goal of my struggle – as joyful and truly fun as it’s been – here in Hokkaido.
“Paint the flying spirit of the bird rather than its feathers.” ~ Robert Henri
The image at the top of this post is a downloadable desktop wallpaper. Enjoy!
Read the Postcard from Yamanouchi.
Read the first Postcard from Hokkaido
If you want more information on Martin Bailey, he’s got a great podcast on his website HERE, and more information on his workshops HERE. I’d travel with, and learn from, Martin again in a heartbeat. He’s also a Craft & Vision author and writes a regular column in PHOTOGRAPH, the Digital Quarterly Magazine for Creative Photographers.
Comments
Some absolutely stunning images here David, well done. I’m a huge fan of Martin Bailey and an avid listener of his podcast – I must say I really enjoyed his podcast featuring you. I loved the walk through and general discussion.
Sounds like Martin (and the other workshop participants for that matter) had more fun and laughs on this workshop more than any other that Martin has done and it sounds like that could be attributed to you.
Keep up the excellent work. I’ve added you to my bookmarks – I’m really fond of the work here on your site.
Thanks for sharing and taking the time to write about this.
Regards
Michael
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Beautiful and peaceful photos. I’ve been following your work for a while and I recently read your book “Making a life and a living in photography”. Very inspring. Keep up the great work!
Truly Awesome , Great post & Thanks a lot for the wallpaper 🙂 Love
Wonderful images. The swans against the all-white background of the snow is especially eye-catching.
I’ve also noticed an enthusiasm to using the 16:9 crop in many edited photographs, especially landscapes as it allows much more weight to be given to the horizontal of the image and concentrates the eye a bit more.
David, i’m impressed… can imagine how hard is to shot in such environment… on the snow… where everything around is just white… i wonder if you could tell us smth about mettering – any blog lesson? 😀 Thanks, m.
After the 200 selects and the 30 worthy of paper, how many of the remaining 7,800 will you keep for a review in years to come – or do you trash them all now?
I am completely captivated. The pure white canvas is the perfect backdrop for work that is calm, peaceful, and serene. I can hear the snow quietly falling, and feel the solitude of the scene. The swans in the mist took my breath away: shrouded in fog, yet emerging with such power and vulnerability within the graceful curve of their necks. I have a print of Berthe Morisot’s three swans, and to me, your photograph is more moving than that painting. The swans in flight thrill me. Such determined gazes, taking off for new horizons, wherever those may be. Beautiful, beautiful work. Bravo!
Wow…these are breathtakingly beautiful.
Quite a journey you’ve been on. You fell off a wall in Italy, and landed on a soft, white, cloud of a snow bank in Hokkaido. That photo of you lying in the snow is a picture of contentment. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer person. Safe journey.
David, you have surpassed yourself, now it’s up to the rest of us to pick up on the lessons learned. I can’t get my head around 8,000 plus images 😉
Man, I so love these pictures, all your struggles and hard work have paid off big time. The first image in the large set is insanely wonderful. Simple, delicate, refined… takes my breath away. It’s truly like a painting.
Love the one of you, you look a bit like one of those snow monkeys! 😉
Happy you enjoyed the quote, it just seemed to fit so well.
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Wonderful images and story David, thank you for sharing. I’ve been following Martin for some years now, he is truly a craftsman.
With your permission I would like to use (as a quote) the first part of your last paragraph as an introduction to link to this post.
Thanks Mark, link away!
very special post, thanks David.
These are magnificent. I can feel the calm, the serenity. So inspiring.
Beautiful shots and a great story. I am more than curious to know about your process for sifting through 8,000 shots to arrive at 30 or 40 select. I find the process of sorting through large volumes of images a real challenge. I thought I had a difficult task ahead of me sorting through 10,000 pictures from the last 5 years or so. You’ve got almost that many from one trip! If you ever feel like shedding some light on your process of selection, I’d be very interested in that. Thanks again David.
The image of the three birds in the fog (8043) brought tears to my eyes. Thank you for creating such a moving image. I could feel the calm and serenity and it made my heart soar.
Hi David,
It’s been a while, but I just wanted to drop a line and say nice work man! I especially love #412 & #7024.
Woah. David. These are beautiful. Such a dreamy quality to them. Weird, but the first thought that went through my mind was Narnia?