Tag Archives: sunrise

Nils Karlson – Earth Stands Still

Friends –
I feel I’ve let you down. You see, I’ve known for a few weeks now that Nils Karlson’s book, “Earth Stands Still”, would be coming via crowdfunding. I’ve known this whole time that it was going to be a triumph of pinhole minimalism. But due to some travel and a mixup, I’m getting this announcement out a few days late. To say the book is flying off the shelves is an understatement, and I’m so happy to see that Nils’s work is being received so well. So for those of you who miss out, I apologize!

You have to check out Nils’s work. What follows is the ƒ/D interview with him, along with some sample imagery. Have a gander, and then head over to his IndieGoGo – and fast! There’s barely any copies left, and it is a limited printing.

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ƒ/D: How did you discover your passion for photographing coastal areas in this impressionistic way? Is it a vision that you had been searching for? Did you start with some happy accidents that developed into something more? Something else?
NK: It started out with a rather usual approach, trying to record the scene as it appeared in front of my eyes. But I have never found a true connection to my subject by this. This changed when I stumbled over an excellent book – „Liquid Light“ by Fabien Baron – at the photobook exhibition in Cologne 2014. It featured the most minimal and quiet photos of the seascape I have ever seen: All long exposure images, featuring the horizon dead centre in a vertical frame. This became my starting point for this leg of the journey, and several concepts in respect of technical approach evolved from here.

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What influence has the shore had on other aspects of your life?
As long as I can remember I was drawn to the sea. We used to spend summer vacations at the North Sea, and I was always fascinated by the view, sound, scent, and feel. Today, I love the vastness, when you can see for miles and miles. In the densely populated area I live in, you will not find that. There will always be some kind of obstruction. Also the light has a unique character, especially in the very early or late hours. I travels through a lot of atmopshere, where it gets scattered and incredibly soft. Fortunately, my wife loves the sea, too – and it is a great place to bring our dogs!

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These sorts of minimalist impressionist photos leave so much space for the viewer to explore their own feelings in the scene. What do you find yourself getting from them?
The answer lies within he question – it is space what I am looking for. Vast spaces, where the eye can wander without obstacles. Silence is made of vast spaces bare of distraction, and silence might be the most profound factor i am searching for.

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You quote lyrics from the band No Omega in your book, a passage questioning modern society’s priorities. The photos in the book are like an epiphany of calm, while No Omega is anything but. Can you talk about how you relate this harsh music to your nature photography?
That’s a long, and probably confusing story, but I will try to make it somehow cohesive. Ever since I can remember, I had difficulties to filter sensory impressions, especially noise. This put a lot of stress on me, and the first device to control all these impresions was sister’s first walkman. Wearing headphones, I was able to control sound from the outer world as well as the crippling voice of self­soubt (latter one only to a small degree). This brought me to music, and to the drums when I was about eleven. The more ferocious and noisy the music, the better it works as a shield – bury the sound under another sound. It was a progression from bands like Iron Maiden, Deep Purple and Jethro Tull over Anthrax, a lot of bay area thrash and death metal. As I found the lyrics of most bands well beyond cheesy, I expanded my vocabulary to hardcore and eventually lots of political grindcore and experimental bands. Listening to all that rather noisy music used to be my safety blanket. But after all these years, it started to wear off. When my wife and me had a vacation on La Palma (Canary Islands) in 2009, it was the first time I was confronted with silence. Actually, this trip was the foundation for pretty much everything I do in the photographic realm these days. Since then, it has become like a quest for me – seeking silence. I seek the most quiet dialogue with the landscape. When I crate these photos, I never listen to music. I don’t need to. The problem is that I do not find that silence where I live. That’s where I fall into old patterns and use music as a suit of armor. But still, I find the lyrical content of music to be a crucial factor, and I am always looking for bands who are passionate and authentic. No Omega is one of these bands, and I find myself in their music to a point which is beyond my means of written expression. Actually I have a quite braod taste in music, with a lot of Indie, old (and old­sounding) Emocore, and instrumental bands with a „cinemascope approach“ balancing the fury. I live in a constant state of contradictions existing simultaneously anyway, and I have stopped believing in the concepts of absolute truth. Embrace Ambivalence.

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There are many studies of the shore in this book, and I’m sure many many that didn’t quite make the cut. How do you choose?
Even in high quality photo books, I often miss a cohesive story, flow, and dramaturgy. My goal was to treat the book like a musical album. Have an Intro, build and release some tension, finish on a a strong, but subtle note. Creating an organic flow of light, colour, and atmopshere was the most time consuming aspect. A lot of strong and beautiful photos do not appear in this book, as they just did not fit into the flow. Other photos, which I found to be just „quite decent“ without context, proved to support the story, leading to a perfect sequence of images. Editing is hard though. Sometimes you have to push your favourite kid off the cliff.

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What technologies did you use to shoot these photos? Were they all pinhole?
For seascapes, I love to work with long exposures, whether in a normal camera or lensless.

In Earth Stands Still, one of the three chapters is dedicated to the vision of the pinhole camera. Isn’t it amazing how the very stripped down to the bare bones concept of the pinhole camera yields such atmopshere and mystery? Throughout the few years I am using pinholes, I have tested a lot of different cameras. The difference in the way they render a photo is stunning, having each a distinct characteristic on their own, just like some lenses. Also, I find it to be fascinating to work without any kind of finder – everything is more of a guess, from composition to the inaccuracy of the manual exposure. The pinhole rules out all the „merits“ of the technical revolution, and becomes much more a part of the person using it.

Another technique I use to depart from the scene in front of my eyes towards the image inside my head, are intentional camera movements. These are inspired by Australian photographer Steve Coleman and other artists he featured on his blog. Ethis technique benefit from happy accidents, though I also practiced different movements with a small digital camera before transferring the knowledge into the realm of film.

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Changing Light: Managing the Long Exposures

Many of us who’ve been around photography for much time at all have been introduced to the concept of the Golden Hour – that time just after sunrise and just before sunset. The light during this time can be truly amazing, and has served as the drama of numerous photos over the years.

The challenge for us pinholers though, is that our cameras often require a longer exposure during these times of day. Moreover, as the exposure time increases, the intensity of the sunlight can change rapidly, leading to complexities in our exposure. The effect can be compounding, especially on slower capture methods such as paper negatives.

In my photo, Elliott Bay at Dusk, I had my Zero Image 4×5 loaded with a paper negative and pointed at a scene that originally metered at a 5 minute exposure. By the time I was done shooting, the scene was metering at 20 minutes. Overall I exposed for 15 minutes and got a result I’m quite happy with, albeit with quite a bit of nailbiting for that 15 minutes.

Elliott Bay at Dusk, ©Kier Selinsky 2015
Elliott Bay at Dusk, ©Kier Selinsky 2015

 

For this article we want to learn a bit about working with the light during these challenging times of the day, and I decided to interview Eddie Erdmann for his insights. A quick look at Eddie’s Flickr profile shows that he’s quite adept at shooting pinholes during sunrise and sunset, and can speak with a bit of “been there, done that” authority on the matter.

Do you have a specific amount of time before sunset or after sunrise that you find works best? 
It varies. Sometimes the best part of a sunset occurs before the sun is down, and sometimes it occurs well after the sun has dropped below the horizon. If I have a particular location in mind for shooting the sunset, I will try to arrive 30 minutes to an hour before the sun goes down so I can watch and wait for the scene to unfold. In Alaska sunsets can last for a very long time in the summer, so when shooting a sunset here at that time of year, I may end up hanging out for a couple hours. When I’m in the Lower 48, particularly on the Gulf Coast, sunsets are fairly quick because the sun goes down at a much sharper angle. Sometimes I don’t even bother to take my cameras out of my bag because the sunset isn’t especially inspiring. When I’m shooting sunrises, I employ the same 30-minutes-to-an-hour approach. I find that the best moments occur from 30 minutes prior to 30 minutes after the sun rises.

Eddie Erdmann - Judith Gap Wind Energy Center at Sunset
Judith Gap Wind Energy Center at Sunset, ©Eddie Erdmann 2015

How do you meter for a sunrise or sunset? 
I usually spot-meter an area of the scene that I estimate should fall within the middle range of brightness values and go with that exposure time. Usually I choose a cloud that isn’t catching the full rays of the sun. If I’m shooting with Fuji Velvia, I tend to spot-meter some of the brightest parts of the scene as well so as not to blow out the highlights too much. When shooting with Kodak Ektar or black-and-white film, I don’t worry so much about that.

Do you adjust your exposure time as the light changes? 
I usually decide on an exposure time before I open the shutter. I determine this time by metering, compensating for reciprocity if necessary and then tacking on a few extra seconds (or as much as a minute or more for longer exposures) to accommodate the diminishing light of the sunset (or subtracting a few seconds for a sunrise). I find that rough approximations do just fine when working with long exposure times.

Eddie Erdmann - Pinhole Sunrise on Dauphin Island
Pinhole Sunrise on Dauphin Island, ©Eddie Erdmann 2015

Do you find that you need to adjust for reciprocity in the middle of an exposure?
If I determine that the scene will require an exposure time that will require me to take into consideration the film’s reciprocity characteristics, then I will do so, but I really don’t think about this once I’ve opened the shutter. I meter the scene, and if necessary I consult my film’s reciprocity data to decide how much I need to adjust the exposure. Then I open the shutter for the amount of time that I’ve determined would be best. A good thing about pinhole photography is that because the exposure times tend to be pretty long, you really don’t have to worry about being terribly exact. I don’t spend a lot of time calculating exposure times. Usually, it takes me only a few seconds to meter the scene, consult a reciprocity-failure chart (actually, at this point, I rarely look at charts–I use only a few different types of film, and I have a decent understanding of their reciprocity) and perform a simple calculation in my head.

Eddie Erdmann - Mobile Bay Just After Sunset
Mobile Bay Just After Sunset, ©Eddie Erdmann 2015

 

We thank Eddie for taking some time out of his hectic schedule to help us capture the amazing light that exists at these times of the day. Hopefully some of this experienced input helps our readers to take advantage of the changing sunlight! Do you have additional questions? If so, put them in the comments and we’ll follow up with Eddie to respond back to you!

 

Get Inspired – Everyday Hope

Wake up this week to a warm new day.

Everyday Hope
[singlepic id=125 w=600]Everyday Hope, Sharan STD-35, Fuji Sensia, ©Andrius Sidlauskas 2015[/singlepic]

Andrius Šidlauskas created this warm morning bedroom scene with expired Sensia that was cross processed after being shot through his Sharan STD-35. This is a wonderful example of how some of the most amazing photos can be found right at hand.

More of Andrius’s work can be found on Flickr.

 

Get Inspired – Sunrise on Biloxi Bay

Today’s pinhole inspiration is provided by Eddie Erdmann’s amazing capture of a spectacular sunrise on Biloxi Bay.

Sunrise on Biloxi Bay
[singlepic id=3]Sunrise on Biloxi Bay, Reality So Subtle 6×17 pinhole camera, Fuji Velvia 50, ©Eddie Erdmann[/singlepic]

For this image, Eddie used his Reality So Subtle 6×17 camera with Fuji Velvia film. Eddie captured this stunning scene while standing at the top of the Biloxi Bay Bridge, which connects Ocean Springs and Biloxi, Mississippi.

We chose Eddie’s image for this piece of inspiration because it is a fantastic example of the unique movement and color that can be captured with a pinhole camera. The subject matter also plays perfectly into his choice of an ultra-wide format camera.

Eddie can be found on Twitter, Flickr, and his website.