Bill Irwin, photographer

We are just days away from moving out of our house to a small rental while we build our next new house. You may have heard that we are taking the opportunity of a disrupted year to have a good look around NZ, I’m really looking forward to having the time to see and photograph all the quiet little places I usually race through without stopping. I plan to build up a collection of photographs of NZ in 2010, a slice of real New Zealand rather than the normal glossy over the top images we usually see. These images can look a bit underwhelming at the time but several years down the track it’s interesting to see how we change. One of my all time favourite publications is Robin Morrison’s ‘South Island from the Road’, a collection of photographs from around 1980.

Regarding the above photo, when I photographed it last week I couldn’t help but compare it to one I posted a few weeks ago of a blue car outside our garage in Methven. Two photographs of cars outside garage workshops in two little country towns, not very far apart. Similar but not. Life is full of contrast!

Last week I had an brilliant day photographing two ‘Gardens of Significance’ on Banks Peninsula.  One was artist Nancy Titchbornes at French Farm, the other Jill and Richard Simpsons at Fisherman’s Bay. The images were commissioned for the next issue of Latitude, due out in early March.

While the gardens were different from each other the scale of work involved developing and maintaining them is amazing.  The creativity involved was a pleasure to capture.

Blue car by red shed, Methven

‘Reality’ in photography is something some people spend a lot of energy talking about.  I try to avoid any discussions on the matter so am writing my thoughts here for reference to those who worry about such.

No matter how an image is captured, reality is altered to some degree.  Anyone who says “Oh I don’t use PhotoShop, my images are unaltered” is either ignorant, lying or disingenous. Even if they use a manual film camera and print straight from the negatives they have altered reality by all the decisions along the way: selective framing/composition of the subject, what sort of film was used (just how ‘real’ is B&W?), lens choice, processing method, type of paper printed on (is reality glossy, matte, borderless?).  Not to mention various filters – how did Ansel Adams capture those broody skies? – by using filters to enhance the tones among other choices he made.

Digital photography is no different.  Instead of film being processed the raw digital data is processed either in the camera (the only option for pocket digicams) or optionally later on the computer with PhotoShop or other software.  And contrary to what some people think, PhotoShop does not have a magic ‘unsuck’ button that transforms a bad image in to a prizewinner.  A good image still needs to be captured properly in the beginning.

Now this assumes that for some reason a finished image should convey something ‘real’. Maybe if you are a forensic photographer, or cataloguing artwork for a museum.  But for anyone who approaches photography as an artistic outlet the only reality to worry about is your own and you should use all tools & skill available to construct your reality. Ten people can photograph the same subject and come up with ten different images, because everyone’s reality is different!

When I find a subject that compels me there is a mood, feeling, or some emotion triggered that I want to capture in a 2D image. If I set the camera to ‘A’ for automatic (or maybe ‘P’ for Professional), push the button, and download my memory card at the nearest photo kiosk I’m going to be sadly disappointed with the results.

What I do instead is spend a lot of time getting the composition right. Then I often have to wait for good light. I decide what lens to use. I agonise about the right exposure to get the tones I’m after. When I get back to my office and download the images I pull them apart and reconstruct them to match my reality of what I saw and felt. If other people enjoy what I do that is a bonus and I’m glad that my reality resonates with theirs.  If it doesn’t, too bad, it is impossible to produce a universally loved image.

So do I use PhotoShop? Yes, of course I do, and I’m proud of it.

I have not spent as much time out photographing as I would like lately due to some big changes underway. If you are not plugged in to the Methven grapevine you may not have heard that we have sold our house.  We love living here but decided we want to be able to pack up and travel more easily.  A house with 2 acres of garden is not very conducive to that idea!  Having sold the house, we spent a lot of time deciding where to live but ended up realising Methven has everything we want: a great community, all the shops & essential services yet still retaining the small town ambiance, and a location central to all points of the South Island.

Having decided to stay here we looked for a smaller house to live and work from but couldn’t find the right combo so once again will go through the building process.  I’m excited to be able to incorporate purpose-built printing room and studio space.  We have found a great architect to work with and are at the early planning stage, expecting to take most of the year to complete the new property. We will live in a nice little rental cottage on a farm just out of town for the year.

With a disrupted year on the books we thought why not really mix things up.  So we have ordered a large (25′) caravan that we hope to spend a lot of time in this year, doing a slow crawl around the island(s).  NZ is not that big but there are endless little communities and interesting pockets of country dotted all over.  We want to take the time to get to know as many of them as possible.  And of course be photographing life and land along the way.  I’m not sure what the end point for this photographic journey will be, but it will develop along the way.

I am hoping to connect with a lot of people on the road.  This blog will be a lot more active than it has been, with updates of where we are and where we are going.  So if you are somewhere near us and feel like sharing your part of  paradise do get in touch, we will  head your way.  And if you have any suggestions for places not to miss, we’d love to hear those too.  Here’s to an interactive tour.

We will be heading off in early March once we have fully moved out of our house and settled in to the cottage.  I’m busy trying to figure out the best mobile internet solution because much of area we plan to go is not near cellphone coverage.  If you have suggestions, please let me know.

All this means my other ‘regular’ work will be a bit disrupted during the year, but we will have short periods back in Methven now and then, so if you do have a project you need help with let me know.  I might just need a bit more notice than usual.

Snow on Mt Taylor and Pudding Hill, mid summer

And for the visual of the day I have a photo I took just out of town this morning looking towards Mt Taylor and Pudding Hill. Yes it is supposed to be mid summer with harvest getting under way but fresh snow makes a joke of that. I am reminded once again why I class my 20 years farming as ‘character building’.

Frosty sunrise, Glenfalloch

In the Dec issue of Avenues magazine there is a feature on the best place I know of for a corporate retreat.  Glenfalloch Station is set in beautiful isolation and offers great hospitality, accommodation and conference facilities. It is also one of my favourite places to photograph.  The Avenues article only used a few (including this one as a double spread on the entry page) but if you look through my portfolio you will see Glenfalloch images popping up regularly.

It must be time for spring cleaning, I have just finished a big overhaul of the portfolios.  They are now grouped in themes, all on one page (portfolio).  I have added some new images and deleted some old, with the aim of better showing what and how I like to photograph. Like most visual sites it does need Adobe Flash installed (version 9 or greater) and javascript enabled. Do let me know if you have issues, there is always a balance between presenting images nicely and having pages that work on old systems.

Life imitates art, Methven Rodeo

Cowboys from all around descended on Methven today for the annual rodeo.  This bull earned my respect for the best impersonation of the graphic on the wall.

The latest Latitude magazine is out now. Each issue I have a double page spread of one of my images, with a few words about what was going on in my head at the time.  Often it is not easy to articulate why I like something, it just seems right, so I find it an interesting exercise having to put pen to paper (actually finger to keyboard).  Here is this issues image, click it and you will go to a full 1600×1200 pixel version which you are welcome to ‘borrow’ if you need a new spring themed desktop.  Oh, and here was my ‘insight’ about the image:

“As a full time photographer much of my time is spent aiming for not only a creative composition but also technical perfection, coaxing the maximum detail from every pixel.  Now and then I enjoy stripping the composition right back to the basics, sometimes less detail works better to convey the mood I’m trying to capture. Too much detail can distract. There are still some people around who feel that photography should always be a literal representation of reality, but everyone’s own reality is very different.  The camera is just a tool to help show my particular view of the world.”

Chas watches a good throw

Dietlind from Glenfalloch phoned early yesterday to let me know they were shearing in case I wanted to head up and take some photos.  Of course I did.  It is one of my favourite areas and one of my personal projects is to keep building up images around shearing and woolsheds.  This was special with merinos being shorn; the super fine wool is beautiful to handle and great care is taken with the preparation and classing.  Apart from recording the process I really enjoy meeting the wonderful individuals involved, they are my kind of people.

Now I just need to sift through the dozens of great images and add the best to my woolsheds portfolio.