In the 1980s, everyone was shooting film, of course.
For those of us who were doing work for publishing, shooting transparency was very unforgiving.
It was really important to get it right in camera.
People used to say the exposure latitude of Fuji Velvia was a third of a stop.
I question even that. I think you had to get it bang on and that was that.
Velvia had a typical working range of about four to five stops
maybe a bit more for Provia or the less contrasty films.
But it was brutal.
So filters – especially in the northern hemisphere
where the landscape is dark and it’s often damp – it’s a big exposure gap to bridge.
So grads were essential, and still are.
I find I’m still using them but in a very different way.
I use the grad as a contrast-control device to hold on to the detail in the sky.
Then, subsequently, I fine-tune the relationship between the sky and the landscape in postproduction.
But I need to use the grad to make sure I’m recording that precious highlight/shadow information.
I think, too, when you get the feedback on the back of the camera,
if you’ve used a grad, the picture will usually look pretty good.
If you’re shooting a bright exposure for the shadows
and then a dark exposure to blend them afterwards
which is possible, as we know – it’s a right carry-on!
It becomes very technical, there’s more postproduction.
The picture doesn’t actually look that great on the back of the camera.
So you’re not actually looking at what you’re seeing at the time.
Because the camera doesn’t see the same way as the human eye anyway.
And there’s something fundamentally satisfying
about creating that one-off image that’s one moment in time.
I might not be quite the end product, but pretty much.
I find I don’t have to use quite as much grad as I might have in the past,
and I tend to use soft and medium grads more often, too.
That’s partly because, when I shot large-format film, the grad line is very out-of-focus.
You often found that it softened the grad line so much,
that a hard grad effectively became a soft grad.
My most used filter was a 0.9 ND hard grad,
and now it’s probably a 0.6 ND medium or soft.
I use medium grads a lot.
Because I live further north than you,
and I’m probably not in quite so many exotic locales.
So I often shoot slightly darker landscapes where the contrast range can be that bit wider.
I probably use the 0.9 a little more often than the 0.6.
Coming back to the fundamentals of trying to capture the image in one exposure,
I think it’s such a good discipline
and we had the benefit of all those years of shooting film.
If you can translate that discipline of shooting film into working digitally,
and embrace all the flexibility that the new media brings us,
then we’re getting the best of both worlds.
I agree. It almost makes me think that the youngsters should be made to suffer!
Now we sound like a right pair of old fogies!
But actually, the quality of light is so fundamental,
and you had to learn that shooting film. I still feel that.
Well you once said – I remember reading it in a magazine article
every picture has to have an umbilical cord of connection to reality.
It’s a brilliant quote and I mention it often.
For me, it’s so true.
I need to look at a picture I’ve made and know it’s a genuine record of that experience.
It’s not the product of hours in the digital darkroom.
It really is down to that click of the shutter, and that capturing of the decisive moment.
I’ll drink to that.