On Landscape - Any Questions Private

Tim Parkin (00:02)
Hello and welcome to On Landscape Any Questions? I'm here with Joe Cornish and our special guest Paul Gallagher. Hello, Joe and Paul.

Paul Gallagher (00:11)
Hi Tim, how are you doing? How are you?

Joe Cornish (00:12)
Hi Paul, good

Tim Parkin (00:14)
We've got a bunch of questions off our readers and as normal I'll get down to things quite quickly with our first question We got a question from Henk Goossens. I don't know if you know the name Paul Yeah, asks an interesting one about The question says is the work of the English landscape or nature photographers valued by the public compared with the mainland public in Europe?

Paul Gallagher (00:27)
I don't recognise the name,

Tim Parkin (00:43)
He's saying, I think, is there a cultural difference, do you think, between photography in the UK and photography in

Paul Gallagher (00:52)
I don't know much about the photographers in Europe, I'm absolutely honest with you. I mean, think photography in the UK is cherished and it does paint a portrait of what the English landscape is about and in some way helps to protect the English landscape. But in terms of Europe, I don't know really, I'm not really sure. I really don't know.

Tim Parkin (01:15)
think from my point of view I've seen a lot of, it tends to be nature photography as described, so there's a lot of who are landscape photographers and wildlife photographers at the same time, especially in Scandinavian countries.

Paul Gallagher (01:28)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.

Joe Cornish (01:31)
I'd agree. think there's a kind of slightly bigger emphasis perhaps on the crossover between wildlife and landscape. So maybe you don't have quite such a distinction as you sometimes, it feels like not that there were two separate schools, but know, landscape in the UK is a, is I think a very strong, you know, area. it's that question Tim from Hank, did it say specifically England or the UK?

Tim Parkin (01:55)
It did say specifically England, yeah. I mean,

Paul Gallagher (01:59)
Yeah.

Joe Cornish (01:59)
That's quite compelling. You and I have spent an awful lot of time in Scotland and Tim, you live in Scotland. So it does feel like there's a whole kind of genre of Scottish landscape photography, if I'm honest, which maybe is something separate to English. But also this is a question about the public reaction to photography. And think that's much more complicated issue, isn't

Paul Gallagher (02:03)
Yeah. Yeah,

Yeah, exactly.

It is. I I'm sure it's looked at in social media and revered and stuff like that. in terms of people's opinions, whether they like it or not, it's very difficult. It's very, very difficult to say. But it's certainly like you say about Scotland, I mean, it still seems to be one of the main parts of the UK that draws landscape photographers. It's still done. There's a lot of scope.

Tim Parkin (02:46)
Got a hotbed in the lakes as well I think, let's see.

Paul Gallagher (02:49)
We have it up and the lakes is probably a bit too busy for doing good now, think. I mean, I think I love the lakes. There's certain parts of the Eastern lakes that I cannot go to where it's trying to avoid people get out of the way, but it's a very, very popular place, very busy.

Joe Cornish (03:08)
And actually that would take us very rapidly into a whole other area of dispute, is what people, local people think about tourism. You know, it's a hot topic, isn't it, at the moment? You think of the protests in Barcelona and Venice and other cities in particular. But I mean, I think this is also a major issue for, let's say, Cornwall and the likes. And indeed, even now, parts of Scotland, I would say.

Paul Gallagher (03:31)
Yeah.

Yeah, and I think that really reared its ugly head during the lockdown period. mean, parts of Scotland, it was a disgrace what people did visiting Scotland. I think most some of the places that I've been visiting for many, many years, and I couldn't travel there, but you'd seen pictures of what people have done camping out and dumping tents and this kind of stuff. From an environmental standpoint, it was awful,

I remember thinking, no, we'll go home, leave the place alone, don't go up there. Like it's my kind of like, you know, it's perfect place, but people will visit Scotland. It's beautiful. yeah, you can understand why people don't like visitors coming in. I've heard some people, I mean, we used to work a lot in, based ourselves in Keswick. And even some of the people that I know that live in Keswick have said, but effectively the tourism's almost spoiled. It's just too busy. You know, people...

If not, then how does people park on side roads to visit the place because the car parks are Because the capacity of the car parks was designed 20, 30 years ago, and we have a lot of car parking spaces.

Tim Parkin (04:39)
I know a few people have moved away from the lakes because of the busyness.

Joe Cornish (04:43)
for that reason. And for one, maybe just to sort of wind up this point at any rate to bring us back to Hank's question, I'm just really intrigued also by the idea of the public reaction as in the general public and thinking about how we think of America as being a proper marketplace for landscape photography and also having a kind of cultural tradition of it, which is embedded actually in the arts more widely in painting.

and so on. I do sometimes, I still feel, and I'm not sure if this is just speaking as a landscape photographer, but there is a lack of any such kind of valuing of the art of landscape photography, at least in the general public in the UK. And I wonder if that applies in Europe. I suspect it is not dissimilar, certainly more similar in Europe than it would be in the States, for

Paul Gallagher (05:37)
Yeah, it's like you mentioned, Joe, the state has always really held landscapes that have been high regard. The UK has been so far behind in that. I mean, I was in galleries years ago and I literally kind of gave up on it, you know. I mean, sometimes it was good and they'd sell prints and there's some galleries that perform better than others. When you actually look at the value of the investment, the time, the prints in the mountain and all that, for a while I

you know, is it really worth it? It's nice to get seen, but I mean, there was still a struggle because they were the type of galleries, not like your gallery was, Joe, the type of gallery where it was mostly oil paintings, crafts and stuff like that. So you were kind of screaming from a shelf or a wall trying to get attention. And in the end, was never, never really, you got the same attention that the rest of the arts did surrounding it, you know.

Tim Parkin (06:29)
That's America's history is in photography, isn't it really? Our history is in painting. So I think there's definitely a different attachment to photography in

Paul Gallagher (06:39)
Yeah, and it's the value of it. I think the public probably in the UK, because of that kind of history, regard like painting and crafts as real art rather than photography. And I still think it's partly viewed that photography's a quick click and you've kind of got it there. Which as we all know, that's not the case at all, but I still think it's regarded in that way. In the same way, I know some commercial photographers

Tim Parkin (06:52)
Thank

Paul Gallagher (07:08)
city architectural photographers that, you know, they've lost some contracts and when they've requested, why aren't we going forward with the contract? John from the postal room has got a really good camera, know, that kind of thing, you know, it says, no, that's not quite the same thing, you know, so there is that kind of skew on things, which is

Tim Parkin (07:27)
I've got a question from Matt Payne who is my colleague on the Natural Landscape Awards and also runs his own podcast. He's started doing his own workshops and he's got a question about the air travel. Given the amount of air travel needed to capture the depth and breadth of your work, how do you reconcile this impact on carbon emissions? He says as a fellow traveller who teaches photography across the world full time now, I've been struggling with this in my own mind.

Paul Gallagher (07:57)
Yeah, and it's the same for me. I my wife works for the environment agency, as did I at one stage, protecting the environment. And you know, quite a high role in that particular organization, and now I'm flying everywhere. Sometimes it's the difference between running a business and doing what you love doing. I I love the landscapes around the world, lot of different places I've been to. But if somebody was to ask me, where am I most

comfortable with a camera, it will be within the familiarity of Scotland, without a doubt. Or in the UK, even more so because we just discussed about the Lake District, around Yorkshire around the day, or some of the landscapes around me. borders of Scotland are fantastic. I'm really, I am, one for age and the other one for the environment, trying to cut down on these things as much as I possibly can.

and kind of movement to more of kind of UK educational side of things as opposed to traveling. But painfully aware, I mean, you I will openly admit pre pandemic, I was bored in over 40 flights a year, which is terrible for the environment, absolutely terrible for the environment. But I was mindful of it all the time. So there's kind of a sense of kind of guilt with it, you know, I was like, yeah, this is great, going to see these places and other people when we got there were happy running workshops out in these places.

But I still had this undercurrent of guilt about what I was actually doing. I shouldn't be doing this. And when you ask the question, you know, is the UK, a part of the UK as beautiful as inspiring for me as a photographer? I'd have to answer yes, which made it mean even more guilty that I shouldn't actually be doing what you do. So I am sorry.

Tim Parkin (09:40)
demand is there isn't it? I mean the demand is there. People want to go to these places and it's a question if you didn't do them would they not go? And I think they still want to go because it's aspirational for a lot of

Paul Gallagher (09:54)
They probably would go because it is aspirational. And then you've got to ask yourself, well, is it just for the business then? Should you be doing it just for the business? Should you not? It should be encouraging people to get on planes, essentially. That's what it feels like sometimes, but people do.

Joe Cornish (10:09)
And that's the biggest worry because I agree with you, by the way, that the, you know, if, if, if let's say you didn't go, Paul or some, you know, I still travel abroad occasionally as well and still feel guilty about it. But then they would practice, there was somebody who maybe wasn't interested in these issues and therefore it wouldn't come up in conversation. And actually I do think there is something to be said if you, not that one will want to do it all the time, but when you do travel.

have those conversations with your group, with anybody who's interested. the interest, I'm finding increasingly now people are concerned about their carbon footprint. And it's partly because we know it's the one thing that we can really affect relatively straightforwardly. You can say it's a sort of low hanging fruit of positive action. As an individual, you could fly less. But of course, the reality, the actual reality of

Paul Gallagher (10:59)
Okay, yeah.

Joe Cornish (11:07)
climate change is incredibly complex and there's so many things over which we have literally really no control, cement manufacturing, concrete, international, agricultural practices, wherever we are in the world, you know, and so on. And there is a couple of other things that are worth bringing up, I think, here when it comes to travel. it depends on where you travel. But when you do travel internationally, if you can do so in

as sort of environmentally friendly away as possible. The curiosity and the learning process is really, really can be very, very strong for people involved. it can, it can, I mean, it's certainly the polar region travel that I've done. feel people become engaged with the issues and especially with climate change because it becomes very, very real for them, whether it's the, you know, the absence of animals that they had hoped to see or the

very low levels of sea ice, for example, and just learning as they go because there's always a lot of lectures on pollution and the impact of climate change. Now increasingly so on these tours. So it depends on the teleprompter tours. I think the most, since we can't change the world overnight, what we can do is at least keep planting the seeds of the conversation. We have to question our own carbon footprint, don't we? But also

Paul Gallagher (12:30)
Yeah.

Joe Cornish (12:32)
encourage everybody to think more about it and to do what we can. But mean ultimately... Sorry, go

Paul Gallagher (12:35)
Yeah.

Tim Parkin (12:36)
Out of interest is what with the clients you have on the international tours Why do they? How do you think you could convince them to do tours in Scotland say instead or is it because they why do they go abroad instead of? Go on short visits to the Europe or just to Scotland

Paul Gallagher (12:57)
They go because it's a place, it's two things, they want to immerse themselves in the culture. And the second thing they want to do is have the opportunities to photograph these places. And that's the two simple things, that's why they do it. Some people are aware of the travel to that extent, whether it's China, Japan or something like that, has a big impact. But I think the appetite to do it overwhelms them and they only want to go and do it. And I understand that.

Some of them, it's true to be said, will say things like before we time runs out, that kind of, I've retired, I've got the financial wherewithal to go and do this kind of thing. And so you kind of understand it. But it's even like recently we were with a group in Greenland and it was quite a moment of poignancy. We went up some of the fjords and the skippers of the boat were saying, you know, just that part.

we passed by there a kilo -ontas of ago, the glaciers now was that far down a few years ago, if understand that. And you can see the melt -out. And then it became apparent sometimes that what they were photographing was, when they were photographing the iceberg, was the debris, the impact of climate change. That's what they were doing, that's what they went to photograph. And so that was quite poignant, still beautiful in its own right, but the carving of the ice and the rate at which it's increased was purely down to climate

So there's a moment, like you're saying, Joe, sometimes you would hope that they see that real time, people may start thinking more about it. And we've all seen the Yokel Sal and the old pictures where the glass here was right before and it's gone back again. We can all see these things. You go to the murder glass in the Alps, you've got the year markers, you go actually further up the murder glass, you go and all that kind of thing. So it's rapidly moving and quite scary actually.

Tim Parkin (14:49)
How many people on these workshops are serial foreign tour goers or is a lot of them individual? A lot of them doing this is a one time, like once every couple of years.

Paul Gallagher (15:04)
A lot of people are very dedicated photographers and travelers, very, very dedicated, you know, and to the extent that some of them are fortunate enough to be in a position whereby they'll do kind of two or three trips a year, some of them, you know, and they will go and travel and want to see all these places, you

Tim Parkin (15:18)
Yeah.

Joe Cornish (15:23)
And the other thing to add, because you're asking this Tim, is that many of them also enjoy going to Scotland. Which does have a lower carbon footprint, fortunately, but it's travel. I've thought about this issue so often. Our ancestors, if we came out of Africa, they essentially spread throughout the planet. And part of what drives that human evolution is a curiosity.

Paul Gallagher (15:29)
Yeah, they do. They do.

Tim Parkin (15:29)
Yes. Yeah.

Joe Cornish (15:53)
and that sense of adventure, maybe I'm using the not very scientific terms here, but whatever it is that makes us curious about the world and makes us want to continue to explore is still there, it's still part of us. And it's quite difficult when you have the financial means and actually your idea of life is quite strongly associated with travel and you have the means

Paul Gallagher (16:20)
Good.

Joe Cornish (16:22)
It's really hard to say, well, you shouldn't go, therefore, don't and throw everything from home. I mean, it really is. It's an issue. It's an almost insoluble issue, I think. I mean, we're all hoping that one day we might have carbon -free air travel, but we're still quite a long, long, long way from

Paul Gallagher (16:28)
It is.

Yes.

So long way off and it's interesting Joe because me and all of my friends are approaching its retirement age, are certainly discussing it and if you were to ask say 10 of them what's your aim for retirement? I'd say about nine out of the 10. I'd say I to go travelling.

Tim Parkin (17:00)
Yeah. Yeah.

Paul Gallagher (17:01)
same thing. Whether you've got a camera or not that's what they normally say.

Tim Parkin (17:05)
It's understandable. It's not just photographers. Definitely. Yes.

Well, move on to a question from Kai Thompson. It's an interesting one. He asks, does a photo have to say anything at all? And if so, how do you get your photography to say what you want it to say? A little question for a single sentence answer will

Joe Cornish (17:30)
long how long has he got?

Paul Gallagher (17:32)
No, it doesn't have say anything to a photograph. A photograph can ask a question maybe, you know, or it doesn't have to give you information. know, ICM and multiple exposure and abstract photography is like that, isn't it? It doesn't have to say anything. I mean, for me, a photograph is me trying to sum up the essence of not just the place, but the experience, what the weather was like, what I felt like when I was there.

what I felt of the day, the smells, the atmosphere, everything about it. That's what you're trying to say in a photograph. So I'm in a way, ultimately trying to say that to myself when I see a finished image or finished print in particular. So I'm trying to convey that. I get this kind of feeling when you're in a landscape and kind of, the circumstances sometimes, it's not just planning, things come together and then

make a composition, make the exposure, and you get the finished photograph and you're thinking that's fantastic. And when then you get that fortunate moment of happenstance and everything comes together then you want to carry that journey along. It was the same in dark room days and you've got a raw file which is often a poor cousin to what reality was like and then you try and recreate that moment. And what I'm trying to do really is with a photograph is trying to have that moment back so that says something to me

Whether it's say to all the people, don't know. But sometimes it does have to say something.

Tim Parkin (19:04)
I think it's also misinterpreting what landscape is because if you do portrait photography, there's so much narrative involved in viewing the human face and human body, cetera, that that's ultimately saying things without really trying too hard. When you take a at the landscape, there's a lot going on, but it's nonverbal and it's very difficult to put words to it. But it doesn't mean you're not there and saying things.

Paul Gallagher (19:24)
Yeah

Exactly. Exactly. Somebody said this to me, right, you would be able to get the message across to viewers of your work. And I almost, somebody mentioned this to me a while ago and I said, well, actually, it doesn't matter what I try to say, they'll say what they say to themselves when they view the picture. It's their response to it. That's

Joe Cornish (19:50)
That's so true. think another way to think about this is also to look at painting. We probably know European painting reasonably well from the Renaissance. Clearly there was a time when everything was narrative. then paintings had the intention to tell stories and have symbol and metaphor through the centuries. And some of that has depended on education.

on people knowing how to read a story, whether it's a biblical story or some other kind of metaphorical story or an allegory, let's say. And landscape is a very particular kind of genre. A landscape that has sufficiently varied and clear kind of environments in it can be read. It can be read as kind of factual information about environment, about geography. you

if you have the background knowledge and understanding of it and if it's revealed in a way that also says something about beauty and connection, then a landscape, even quite a straight record landscape picture can have value beyond just the surface, I think, in that way. But the message, I think, is almost, you have your own ideas of what is meaningful. I feel like there's this underlying sort

desire to connect with nature and to seek beauty and that those two are kind of indissoluble. But ultimately, you're dependent on the landscape itself to corroborate or to share with you that feeling and you can reach for it, can't you, Paul? You can't necessarily make it happen by wishing it. There's a certain amount of luck to do with the moment, the day, maybe the state of mind you're in. But I think being open to the possibility

Paul Gallagher (21:29)
Yeah. No.

Joe Cornish (21:42)
the shape and flow and texture and space of the landscape can say something to us. If we're at least open to that, then there's a chance of it saying something. But what that says is much more likely to be dependent on the viewer than it is on what we would like to impose, perhaps.

Paul Gallagher (22:00)
It is, and we're going from a real life situation and experience using all of our senses and putting all that together into a photograph. Now, when a person views a photograph, the one that we've produced, they've got their own reference points. They will make of it what they will. They might like certain colors. They might not like a certain time of day. When we say we look at it, say the power of the ocean

off the beaches of the Hebrides, they might say, my God, it looks horrible and wet and cold. So their response could be entirely different. So all we could do really is subtly suggest something, put some kind of seasoning in the photograph that kind of makes it feel right for us. And then it's kind of hand over the, make of it what you will. And I hope you like it maybe. Maybe you don't want to say like that. know.

Joe Cornish (22:54)
you

Tim Parkin (22:56)
I think we also communicate quite well when we've got a set of pictures that we've done, not necessarily a project, I don't mean a project or a triptych or anything, but if we're showing pictures to somebody and we show, like a book, for instance, when you see lots of pictures together, you start to draw ideas about what the photographer likes, what they're passionate about, how they interact with the world. And then knowing all that, when you look at the next picture, you read it differently based on your experience of seeing their previous pictures.

Joe Cornish (23:24)
That's where the element of autobiography comes in, it? Yeah, because the photographer's personal life journey will lead them to look at the world in a particular way. And that in itself can be fascinating,

Tim Parkin (23:27)
Mm, that's fun.

Paul Gallagher (23:28)
K

Tim Parkin (23:37)
Yeah, it goes back to the conversations we've had on style. The style is just who you are and what you're interested in, essentially.

Paul Gallagher (23:37)
Go, go.

It is. We can't control the way we react to a landscape. And heaven forbid we try to do that. Because we're there, generally because we love it, we want to convey that landscape. mean, trying to fit that within a particular thing. We see it with some people where they go, I've got to use this lens, I've got to do it this particular way. they say, no, no, don't do that. Just respond. Have a kind of commune with the landscape. Don't try and fit to some individual

style because style is really is how people respond and how they present the landscape. In a sense everyone kind of has some sort of repetitive factors in the way but that's part of what makes them feel comfortable when they're out in the landscape and we dip in and out of certain things and go back to using a lens or a particular approach and then we come out of it again and I think that's a good thing you know but a strict style, no no no.

Joe Cornish (24:38)
Where did this question start?

Tim Parkin (24:41)
It's how do you get a photography to say what you actually want it to say?

Joe Cornish (24:44)
that's it. Yeah. Well, the answer is no idea.

Tim Parkin (24:49)
No.

Paul Gallagher (24:49)
No, exactly. mean, that's because everyone's different. Everyone, every viewer is different. So you can't really do

Tim Parkin (24:56)
It's an emergent property, isn't it? You can't. You can become more interested in the landscape and know more about it to change how you interact with it. And hopefully that might help communicate it. And the next question from Adam Pichala. Paul's current color work is often understated with subtle colors and far from the oversaturated epic vistas with shouty contrast. What are your thoughts on saturation, also white balance?

Paul Gallagher (25:07)
Yeah, yeah.

Tim Parkin (25:26)
and how that brings out the feelings in an image. And this goes on also to probably, we'll go on to talk about black and white and color as two separate things, but start off with the white balance -y subject.

Paul Gallagher (25:40)
white balance type things. You're dealing with a victim of almost 28 years of black and white. So when I went into colour, I really had to take it easy to be honest. I didn't want to overdose in the first few years. And I still very much dip between black and white and colour. I'm in a black and white phase at the moment in time. But yeah, I mean, think it's like, say you went to social media, you look at social media.

And I often say to groups, sometimes when I'm black, the thing with social media is that that's where you get a lot of saturated color. So if you're going to scroll through lots of different images, be it Facebook, certainly Instagram, the way you want your images to stand out is to overcook it effectively or push it too far, make it look bright, give it louder voice, a loudest voice you can possibly give it. there's no dispute in that. Instagram is influenced in photography.

Social media is influencing photography. And so if that becomes the norm for people to want their tile of images, to want their pictures to stand out, then they will turn to things like that. And for me, really, for me, that doesn't sit comfortably with me and never has done me call away. It's one of the things.

we talk about infrared at some stages. The one thing when I went into infrared that was a very difficult transition to be using infrared is that I'd spent many years in dark rooms trying to get this wonderful nuance and tone black and white. So the harshness of infrared was difficult and I found the same in color. Really subtle color work for me is what feels comfortable. I don't like it screaming at you like that. I was never a big fan of velvet. I didn't use it much, but because of velvet it could be quite strong at times, as you know.

So yeah, the subtlety of the colours is great. I prefer the photograph to whisper to me while I'm shouting in the ear, to be honest. For

Joe Cornish (27:40)
That's a really nice way putting it. I was actually intrigued by Adam's mention of auto white balance, though, because I think that that does imply there's a good understanding there of the way that colour balance is so fundamental to how pictures look in the end. And I think, you know, it's very easy to get lost with saturation if you don't at least...

understand that every colour picture is a series of colour relationships, between warm and cool, put in a very simple term, and that water -white balance is trying to deliver something to the photographer in the field that looks natural, that looks pretty much like the eye sees it. And I don't know if you'd agree, both of you, but I think that's one area where cameras have improved greatly in the last few years.

you can often, I think, rely on auto white balance to give a reasonably kind of natural looking result. That's a good starting point. Whereas perhaps 10 years ago, you might have preferred to put it on daylight, knowing that you would get a cast, quote unquote, and then manage your cast in a way that is compatible with your own memory. I think ultimately, with raw files, have the most important resource you have is your own memory of color.

Paul Gallagher (29:02)
It is the

Joe Cornish (29:03)
themes and feels natural. it means naturalism is a starting point. I'm not saying it has to be naturalistic. That's my preference. But I think if you don't understand that in from this, then then it's difficult to head off in a direction and have a reasonable level of control, especially when it comes to emotion, which I think was also part of Adam's question is how we manage that and how we work, say,

And actually, do like to think of the warm, you know, just purely in terms of color, because clearly there's tonal questions as well, dark and light, but warm and cool. You know, we can choose to give a little bit of a cast in one direction or another, and that will certainly be the starting point of guiding the kind of emotional content of the landscape photo.

Paul Gallagher (29:53)
Yeah, but it's one thing I find with lot of digital, even good quality digital cameras is that regardless of the white balance, the greens tend to be a blue green. They do tend to be quite a cool green. And most of the time that's in some way to some certain degree has got to be addressed, that green. And obviously this time of year is not particularly favorable for landscape photography. It's that dull green that's out there everywhere.

But sometimes you still be tempted to go in a woodland below beneath the canopy and photograph it and that color balance can throw it off completely. other thing that sometimes I like people to avoid is when they load the color preset, like Provia in Adobe Camera Raw or Lightroom and you load these things, and I often say, what you saying, right? You saved your memory. When we're presented with a raw file,

then it's very easy to assume that's the benchmark and then move forward from that. Well, that's it. The colors are kind of maybe warm or cool, but that's it. And sometimes it can be from reality, they're not actually quite close to reality at all. They need altering straight away.

Tim Parkin (31:03)
Greens, greens especially. I remember old the Canon cameras, like the Canon 5D Mark II, had very yellowy greens. it seems like Nikon have gone the other way now. All the colors have gone very bluey greens.

Paul Gallagher (31:05)
Yeah, especially greens,

We got very blue, yeah, the Z series was very blue.

Tim Parkin (31:22)
And they typically need darkening and desaturating, think, to try and turn them down. And that seems to be a default thing. think that's probably the difference with how our eyes see compared with how the digital camera sees.

Joe Cornish (31:34)
And it does depend on the environment too. mean, I would agree, Tim, but I also think there are exceptions and occasionally the greens need to be a little bit lighter, for example. But what is quite common is that they need desaturating. think that otherwise, I think our eyes are so sensitive to it. And I'm pretty sure our brains kind of dial back the greens. I'm looking out the window here. It's a lovely scene of Southern England. It's been pretty wet summer and everything. And, you know, there are

I mean, it's just green everywhere, but I'm pretty sure it looks natural to me. I'm pretty sure if I took a picture of it, the raw file would be far too saturated.

Tim Parkin (32:12)
Here's something very weird I had with greens. When I started getting into color and I was doing my, I do a lot of color negative inversions from scratch from my scanning work. And so I wanted to see what colors things were. And I got the spectrophotometer out and started looking at, and I think I had a Pantone set of colors. And I went outside to look at grass. And you think grass, you know, it's fairly green. I couldn't actually

Paul Gallagher (32:22)
Yeah.

So see you here.

Tim Parkin (32:39)
monitor or even the Pantone set to match how vibrant green grass is. It's just insane and yet when you look at it, it doesn't look that green. So I think there's a very strange perception thing going

Paul Gallagher (32:48)
No. No.

brain, isn't it? The eyes and the brain and how we perceive it. And it's like, you know, we go out, can go and say something about the latest, the rolling hills of the latest. It's green, everywhere is green. You take a photograph of it and you can come back and try and manage the greens in it. And when you see it on a monitor, it looks like everything's green. But when you're there, it's kind of not as overwhelming when it's digitized and printed. It's just too green. And I

I think most landscapers have gone through that process of maybe going to enjoy the good weather and going out into these nice places and got back and when they've been bombarded with the green you're thinking, I probably won't bother with some of it. Sorry very much. I've done that process. I'm not doing it again.

Joe Cornish (33:36)
Well, you were saying how July is like, just horrendous, isn't it? A lot of the time for photography. I've had to do quite a bit of professional work at this time of year. And actually, at least with digital photography in a raw file, you've got the magenta green tint slider in the white balance. And I often end up with about plus 40 magenta. So it's to make them look natural. And you can do that. And then look at the neutrals, which now have got a bit of a magenta cast.

and then just desaturate those. And I often feel that's quite an effective tactic to produce something that looks really, really, really natural. But I don't know if that answers Adam's question, Tim. Was that the last point in, you know, it's quite a

Tim Parkin (34:17)
think so. He says he's tend to stick to daylight or even 5300K so sort of like cool but not ridiculously cool and it's like a cloudy daylight. I must admit I do the same mostly as a way to start off with and then I'll sometimes just go in an auto white balance to see what the difference is between the two.

Paul Gallagher (34:33)
Yeah, yeah.

Joe Cornish (34:33)
I know how to do

Paul Gallagher (34:37)
That's close between the two, yeah.

Tim Parkin (34:40)
But yes.

Joe Cornish (34:40)
I everyone has, or the one other solution I was gonna come up with was probably the next question for Paul, which was the shooting black and white in this month of the year. But certainly I was out with my camera yesterday in a beautiful woodland in the New Forest and it was raining for a lot of the time and black and white was definitely the way to go because everything was far too saturated, metaphorically, but it worked great in

Tim Parkin (35:06)
Just a quick question before we go to the black and white color question. Joe, when you print things, do you see a difference in saturation if you print really big to small? Because I've read a couple of times, and I think I've done a couple of tests where when you do bigger prints, they don't need as much saturation and contrast. And as it gets smaller, you need more saturation. It is a perception thing, I think. I think what it is is when you have a really big print, the areas of color get bigger.

Paul Gallagher (35:06)
Thank you.

Is that a perception thing though? Is that a perception thing do you

Tim Parkin (35:36)
so they become more impactful, so they don't need to be as strong to have the same effect. And I wonder if that's why lot of the fine art

Joe Cornish (35:41)
I think that's the reason. I've actually never thought of that before, but I think the equivalent is that when you print larger, you can print darker as well. And that seems quite intuitive, I think it opens up the shadows. Is that to do with dot gain or when you print smaller? I don't know, but small prints, if they're printed at

Tim Parkin (35:57)
Yeah, yeah, because you can see this tonal content in the shadows.

Joe Cornish (36:10)
what works for a really really big print it often will look too dark.

Tim Parkin (36:16)
It might be like the thing when you get a when you get a 5 -4 transparency on a light box. It looks really contrasty and the blacks are really dark. But if you crop off the blacks with a mask, all of a sudden you can see all the, the tonal detail in there.

Joe Cornish (36:32)
It may be to do with if you isolate things or... Yeah, when you're at a big print, it's immersive, isn't it? It's filling your peripheral vision and so on. And you can take really, really dark shadows, as long as there's something there. But those shadows do tend to fill in with a smaller print. And I wonder how that relates to colour. I've not heard that before, though. That's really interesting.

Tim Parkin (36:34)
Yeah, and if you've got a big print, you're naturally isolating parts of it by a

Paul Gallagher (36:36)
That's where we're at.

Yeah, it's similar to when you see, I'm teaching people black and white and they're being in Lightroom or Adobe Camera or Photoshop, whatever, and they go full screen and the backgrounds like that dark grey or black, and you can't assess the tones of black and white image with a black background, you just can't do it. And there's been a few times we've been teaching it and then they go, think this is just right.

Tim Parkin (37:19)
that.

Paul Gallagher (37:26)
this looks just right and I'm going, that's fine, can I just change the background color and I'll click it. It goes to white and you go, it looks rubbish now. Like it was my fault, you know, I haven't done anything, know. But we've got to work with the white background because that has the same effect. It throws comparisons out completely at home, it completely throws it.

Joe Cornish (37:44)
Yeah, absolutely. think for printers, a white background is essential as a default. It really is. By all means, view things for viewing, for displaying and so on with a darker background. for analyzing the tonal values of an image, you really do need a white ground.

Paul Gallagher (38:01)
Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely.

Tim Parkin (38:04)
Question about colour and black and white. Are you working more in colour or black and white at the moment, Paul?

Paul Gallagher (38:13)
At the moment, it's probably a split of 50 -50. As of the last few weeks, months, it's probably been basically all black and white, to be honest.

Tim Parkin (38:14)
Or is

Yeah, that conditions the appendix

Paul Gallagher (38:26)
It is kind of conditions, think. Black and white, it's like a big sort of springy robe. What's it called now when you jump off buildings and you do this? Bungee, yes, like a big bungee. And it pulls me back all the time. I'll never escape it, but I don't mind. I don't mind the slightest. So I really enjoy color. I'll explore color. But at the moment, I'm probably doing more black and white.

Joe Cornish (38:38)
on Zoom.

Tim Parkin (38:38)
jeez.

Yeah. And the majority of your work when you're taking it, do you have an intent when you're taking pictures as to what it will

Paul Gallagher (39:05)
Yeah, normally. But I think part of that is because when I... I almost like, let's say you've got like two pairs of eyes, you know, I'll see things in color, I'll be using color within the frame, the balance of the color, the flows of color through the frame. But when it's black and white, I'm just looking at luminosity. And so part of black and white is like pre -visualizing it. It's a good black and white.

I gain an understanding of pre -visualization is really important because if you just try and, if you haven't got that, and you convert to black and white when you get back, call the file to black and white, and you haven't pre -visualized it, then we can't really possibly assess what it's going to look like in black and white. You're just hoping it will work out when you get it back. So if I go out with the intent, or I happen upon an environment where I think I want to work in black and white, then I'll start pre -visualizing in black and white.

Tim Parkin (40:00)
Just put your black and white glasses on and you

Paul Gallagher (40:02)
Black and white glasses on, yeah, that's what I do. It's amazing though, because I think mentally what happens, I'm just looking for luminosity, I'm looking for brightness and dark and texture. Weight and balance becomes a hugely important part of the composition I'm making. And I've found myself, say I've been in a particular environment where I've done some color work, when I decide to work in black and white, when pre -visualizing things, I'll make compositions

If I flip back to colour, they never would have worked in colour, but in black and white they'll work. They'll work very well because I'm using light, different surfaces, different textures and things like that. So I like to flip between the two, but generally I will go out and I will aim to work solidly in black and white. Mostly the reason is that I miss it. If I don't do it for too long, I miss

Tim Parkin (40:52)
Is it hard to switch in the field? I mean, if you're going out for a session or a day, you tend to stick a mode?

Paul Gallagher (40:57)
Yeah, it can be. What you tend to get is a continuous switch. if I'm out and I start photographing and saying, cool, that enough, I'll switch to black and white, then kind of because the pre -visualization thing, I'll just stick with black and white probably for the rest of the day and something will have to switch me back. That's generally it. sometimes there's no dispute in the fact that the certain places and environments you're in and situations whereby

The beauty of the colour is just, you can't question it. That's why it's good because when I was working in large form at Black and White Film, I never really had that choice, but now I can. I've got that choice to explore in colour and celebrate the colours and that's really, really nice.

Tim Parkin (41:44)
Can you visualize the filter changes in your head a bit as well, like red, orange or yellows or things like

Paul Gallagher (41:51)
Kind of, but I don't really need to do that nowadays. For obvious reasons. I don't really need to. Nowadays, in the past, yeah, you could kind of put the filter on for what you want and everyone seemed to think, it's great to use a red filter, but it often wasn't good to use a red filter whatsoever because things are far too contrasty. And that's the one thing I didn't want to get.

Tim Parkin (41:55)
Yeah.

Paul Gallagher (42:11)
But nowadays, mean, the way you balance the tonality of it, using luminance, light bouncing off surfaces, that's all we do with photography. But when it's black and white, that's the main thing you're interested in, is the brightness of light that's being reflected off surfaces. So as long as we get a good file and you get it back, then that's great. But the color information is still useful, obviously. If you're shooting with a digital camera and it's a cool file, that color information is also very useful, but it's less important than the brightness range in the

Joe Cornish (42:42)
You know, one of the things about black and white that's great is that I think if we look back in the history of photography, think of mid -20th century photography in terms of landscape tends to be dominated by the Americans and Ansel Adams in particular. And a lot of his pictures were made in what we would regard as overly harsh conditions, you know, often in bright sunlight with strong contrasts. And he was able to control that.

relatively easily using classical techniques of exposure and development. it is fascinating that that opens up a whole field of creativity, which I can't really go out, I couldn't go out in this weather and shoot pictures in color. mean, it's just too bright and sunny. There's no mood and there's no subtlety. It's very crass somehow.

Paul Gallagher (43:18)
Yeah, yeah,

Yeah.

Joe Cornish (43:40)
And so I love that, the flexibility of photography like that and the fact that black and white gives you a whole other language to play

Paul Gallagher (43:47)
Yeah, yeah. Because when the weather's really sunny, you've got the bright light, which is the component that can be useful for black and white. But if you're shooting in color, then you've got the bright light reflecting the bright colors, and that becomes the overload. But if you discount the colors, then you can play with the tones. You can celebrate the bright light by getting rid of the colors, which is a great thing to do. So certainly on sunny days. yeah, put the color camera away.

Tim Parkin (44:15)
Good question about printing colour. I'm currently putting together the Natural Landscape Awards book. And we have a black and white category. And a few black and white ones get through in the normal categories as well anyway. When it comes to printing them or preparing for the book, quite often the black level can vary in the file quite a bit. People are not as consistent. When you're mastering for that, do you tend to try and get a

dense black, a solid black like zero zero zero or do you normally have a lifted black

Paul Gallagher (44:51)
I normally have lifted black. I mean, maybe it's the kind of the original black and white approach I made was like with negatives and printing and dot print and having solid blacks for me. I want to be able to see every tone so having solid blacks for me doesn't work. I don't like it. It can be used very effectively. Some photographers have used it. Very, just a solid area of black. I don't like that because really, when

see a photograph, I don't like the viewer to look not at it, but into it. And if you've got areas of solid, certainly black and white, solid tonality, solid blacks, then it becomes like a barrier to viewing the photograph on there. But that kind of looking into it through a photograph is kind of lost. So I like to keep the tonality right down, will tip you down, right down to the edge of black, but not completely into black. So, you know, not too dark.

Tim Parkin (45:44)
Yeah, let's keep it open at those bottom levels.

Paul Gallagher (45:48)
Yeah, and it's even good digital, you know, black and white photographers and digital printers that can understand the capabilities of the media they're using. You know, like fine art media generally kind of can't produce the same into black and white, the same tone ranges of say, but write a paper that they've got more variation in the darker tones. And it's understanding what that means when you're processing an image as well.

on the computer and understanding what the blacks have, the blacks will represent themselves and finish prints. So it's all them kind of things. That sounds really techy, but if it's about producing a print that people, you want them to experience it in the way that you chose because you're the photographer and print and produce it in that particular way is quite important.

Joe Cornish (46:34)
But I'm sorry, just to jump in, I think that's really fascinating because what you're telling us, Paul, is that the black or what I call flat black, mean, black zero zero zero, essentially keeps the eye on the surface. It doesn't allow you to really explore into the image, which I think is what I would call the philosophy of immersion is getting really connected with the subject. whereas

let's say solid black, zero, zero, zero black, it will tend to create an image that's like more like graphic design where there might be some spectacular effect from it, but it doesn't connect so much with the subject. And we're talking about usually nature and landscape in that sense. So I think there's a clear philosophical direction now in your photography. You said it was a technical, might sound technical, but actually it doesn't. To me, sounds,

essentially is based on concept and sentiment, what's the feeling that you're looking to create in the

Paul Gallagher (47:40)
Yeah, and I think it's true. I've produced over the years quite dark images of dark scenes and it's almost on the edge of black. So they've been richly printed. I've elected to print them quite dark as a representation of where I was there. And sometimes it could be like very dark woodland at the end of the day and it's almost black. But the one thing that will attract the viewer's eye into the dark shadows is just

discernible information in there. They'll dive into the shadows and look at this. And it's the surest thing to draw them in to the picture, because people look at shadows in kind of nature, the darker shadows are threatening places. So they kind of look at the darker areas and they do that when they look at prints. So if they see the finest detail, their eyes go straight into it. If it's printed solid black, the best thing it serves as is telling the viewer what the texture of the surface of the paper is, because it almost comes reflective.

Joe Cornish (48:39)
Exactly,

Paul Gallagher (48:40)
what it does. For me, that's the reason why I don't go there.

Joe Cornish (48:44)
Yeah, what you're describing is what Charlie Kramer calls mysterious black. It's really good.

Paul Gallagher (48:48)
Yeah, it's true. Yeah, very, true. Very, very

Tim Parkin (48:52)
One question on books before I go to the next question in printing still is, what's your opinion of the CMYK blacks versus doing blacks with multiple grays or tones? Have you done both, I presume?

Paul Gallagher (49:08)
I have over the years the multiple grades and tones. I've not really seen much benefit in it. Really, I've really not seen much benefit in it. It's a while since I've had a go at it and I've tried it. It's a long, long time. But from my experience, not a lot of benefit in

Tim Parkin (49:27)
Yeah, so we could seem like a black and white spine.

I did have another question from, do you still use perspective control lenses? I'm looking back at your old large format things and the approach there

Paul Gallagher (49:44)
Not as much as I do, not as much as I used to, should I say. I do still use them. I still carry them around. The lens, I mean, when you look at it, my God, it's been around the world at how many times? There's hardly any black paint left on it, to be honest. It's all the controls are on, but I do still use it sometimes, occasionally. If I'm doing something very near, far, then I'll use it or I'll deploy it. It's just a 24, yeah. I mean, I've never owned a 45 or a 90.

Tim Parkin (50:08)
So it's 24, is it?

Paul Gallagher (50:15)
I've used it occasionally, but I use it less and less and less. And I think the reason being because it started, I didn't want to, the equipment started to influence what I was photographing. So it was always tarnishing my vision, pre -visualization. it's 24 mil tilt and shift, put the camera on five, four cropped and go vertical. I thought, no, no, I don't want to start doing this.

And the other reason being is that I started enjoying it too much. And then if it became over familiar, I don't know if it, no, no, I don't like this. So I had to kind of like wean myself off it, but you know, move back from it. Cause I started doing the same thing and pre -visualization you do in that you can do that with a lens like that. You start looking at what's like, what's in the first three meters in front of you? And how can I compose that with the distance? And that's, and you walk along and do the same thing and do the same thing. And

One day I thought, you know, I'm going to put an 80 to 400 on and throw it out to three, 400 mil. And then what I found was is that then what was before me was a mosaic of different landscape compositions because I'd stretched it with a landscape. And so it's good to switch between the two, but I use it less and less nowadays.

Tim Parkin (51:31)
Your focus bracket if you need it already just stop down

Paul Gallagher (51:35)
I just stopped down a bit. Well, I've done some focus stacking in the past, not too much of it, yeah, I'll just, you know, just basically use a tilt shift that really be near far and if not, use those lenses, you

Tim Parkin (51:51)
last question I was going to ask is, what are the best and worst things about leading workshops? I mean, I'll ask that to you and and Joe.

Paul Gallagher (52:02)
The best and worst thing is normally the people. No, I shouldn't say that. The worst thing as I get a little bit older is the tide, to be honest. Lots of travel, I used to come back from the States and I'd know, not two days be fine. And now I'm like, you know, a week later I'm still ploughing through and I'm a bit tired, you

So that's probably one of worst things. One of the best things is seeing people's excitement. I've seen it place for the first time. helping them. Me saying, listen, let me show you what I do here. Let me work with you on this. That's the best thing. That's what I enjoy the most. And the rapport with the group as well. I'm a kind of chatty guy, so I like being around people and enjoying people. I've always enjoyed that. And so to be within a group of people, a group of

is fantastic and most people you know running workshops they enjoy that they enjoy that because the individual people essentially coming together for the first time and they want to get along the Germany 99 % time do get along and to be a part of that's an uplifting thing I'm just talking old photography it's good fun it's good fun but tiring at the same time

Tim Parkin (53:21)
What do you do?

Joe Cornish (53:22)
Well, I can echo a lot of what Paul said about it being tiring when you get to my age. I can corroborate what Paul's saying about being chatty. He is one of the most wonderfully convivial workshop leaders you could ever work with. If you're in a workshop with Paul, I don't have to do anything. just basically does all the talking. I mean, I actually think that so for me, I also feel that I learn so much from it. I think that's

Paul Gallagher (53:37)
Thank

Joe Cornish (53:51)
the thing I've loved and also really, really lucky that almost everyone who comes on workshops is really nice. and, know, even if they're not, you can get on with people fine. But almost all my clients, I would say are wonderful people and just learn so much from them. But you also just learn about photography, about talking about it, articulating, you know, I mean, we talking earlier, what does your

photography have to say something, that's a conversation we have a lot out in the field and how do you translate that? Well, it's an unanswerable question, but it's great fun to try. The techniques and of course the pleasure, especially of revisiting places that you know and love and they're never the same. think increasingly I'm finding, I mean, this isn't quite answering the question directly, but that I go to Scotland a lot and also my back doorstep in North Yorkshire.

And I'm now really noticing things differently as I'm getting older. Maybe it is just due to age, but appreciating the subtleties and the subtler changes. there are changes. Landscape is always changing. Regardless of climate change, it's changing because things grow and die and rocks fall down and cliffs fall down and agricultural practice.

Paul Gallagher (55:14)
Yeah.

Joe Cornish (55:16)
produces now on the whole, we're more wild plants evolving as a result of less pesticide use, for example. So there are all sorts of interesting aspects to it. And I think that that's to do with, you know, appreciating the incredible beauty and subtlety of our world. that, you know, I feel very grateful for the opportunity to do workshops, you are encouraged to want to help others to connect. And then you find yourself focusing on these things and becoming

Paul Gallagher (55:23)
Okay.

Joe Cornish (55:44)
curious about them. yeah, I think the learning process lasts forever and that's something to be very grateful

Paul Gallagher (55:52)
It's true, Joe. And I think the other thing for me, and I'm sure you've probably experienced it times as well, is seeing through other people's eyes. I mean, sometimes we do like an image review and it's fascinating. I've been to, you know, a Melanodric beach or some, you know, some part of Scotland and a woodland and I photographed it. And I'd never say it's kind of exhausted. It's being done. I don't believe that. To go on what you just said, Joe, it never stays static. Nature changes all the time, but I'll go back somewhere.

and they'll be a photographer and they'll see it with a fresh pair of eyes or it's their first interaction with a particular beach or mountain path or something and they'll photograph it. And I love the moment when you think, how did you see that? I've been here for 20, 30, how did you see that? And that's great that because it's refreshing, it refreshes the place you've been too many times and it sows them seeds in your mind. They kind of sit there, but it sows a seed of thought about how will the people see.

You know, one thing as a landscape photographer, it be great if you could have a fresh pair of eyes. can't, we've got all these templates that we've built up over decades and decades and we kind of refer to them and try and break away from them. But fresh pair of eyes, that's what you see through clients and it's great. And they'll experiment and do things that I never, it's not that I would have refused to do. I wouldn't have thought of doing in the first place. And that is rewarding in its own right. Great reward for a leader, well that's a

Joe Cornish (57:18)
Absolutely, absolutely. And it's brilliant that other people also in turn get inspiration from you when you're with them. But yes, isn't it fascinating that we do all see differently? And I think that actually the ultimate sort of sense of creativity is realizing that instinct, whatever draws you, whatever you see and you want to photograph,

that's what you should do rather than feeling an obligation. think trying to convey people that they should have the confidence to believe in themselves and to see that it's actually just as simple as what catches your eye and then figure out how you make a picture of that. And that's where those of us who are lucky enough to lead will often learn, as you say, from other people find a fascination for a different way of seeing. It might be compositional, it might be texture or color.

or something to do with the way they just read the landscape. that is, yeah, it's fantastic. It's at the heart of creativity,

Paul Gallagher (58:24)
Yeah, sometimes you get a member of a group that is first out of the minibus and they're off. They won't have miles, they won't be on that beach or in that one, they'll wander off somewhere. They're in the environment where we stopped and they may have two, three hours to explore it. And that's the person I always want to see what they've done. I want to see all the way, but if there's five or six other people walked onto the beach and there's one guy right on the top of the dunes, two miles

can't wait to see what he's done. He's seen something different, you know. That's very exciting. That's very exciting.

Joe Cornish (58:59)
Yeah, it is great.

Tim Parkin (59:01)
Well, thank you very much, Joe and Paul, for that brilliant session. We could have carried on for a lot longer, we'll try and keep it down for now. Maybe we'll do another one in a few months' time.

Paul Gallagher (59:08)
you could

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Joe Cornish (59:14)
Thank you very much, it's actually fascinating to listen to.

Paul Gallagher (59:16)
Thank Yeah, no, thank you. Thanks for inviting me. I've really, really enjoyed it.