Introducing Terry Tucker Landscapes

My father rekindled his interest in photography when I was 12 years old. This introduction became a semi obsession so that I worked during summer holidays and saved to buy my first SLR. I learnt on manual 35mm cameras, doing my own black and white processing. This meant my numerous mistakes acquainted me in a very real way with Gamma, depth of field, exposure, etc. My main subjects then were landscapes, family and, when I needed to try any new piece of kit or new technique, the pet dog.

Life gathered momentum, an education, work, a social life, sporting interests, then a family, and a home. Photography became less of a passion but nevertheless was always part of the fabric of my life. Family life, sporting interests, and kayaking expeditions dominated my spare time, and my photography reflects this. Occasionally I would get asked to do some photography associated with family events or with work, and proceeds from these helped to pay for new kit, so I was able to keep pace with the technology as it marched on.

Children growing up and changes at work gave me an opportunity to reset my work/life balance. As a person who enjoys outdoors with a passion for photography with a technical background it was a no-brainer really, I had to try outdoor photography.

So after struggling with 35mm and medium format for 18 months I realised that I like to take pictures where you feel part of the scene and be intimate with it. Therefore it must have depth, detail and texture. If there is sand I want to see the grains, if it is rock I want it to look weathered, polished or even coarse. If it is water I want it to reflect at times, to be transparent or to be both, sometimes still or to be in a raging torrent. Often my pictures are scenes within scenes and I try to use the natural light with texture to help organise the composition. These requirements suggested a much larger canvas to work with, so I moved up to a bigger format, 5 by 4.

Using these cameras results in a more deliberate and thoughtful approach. I not only try to take pictures of interesting places but will try to take pictures at interesting times, weather conditions or even the time of year. This requires several visits to get to know a place, sometimes getting up well before dawn or returning home hours after dusk. Rather than think in classic terms about depth of field, exposures, etc, as explained in most photographic texts, I find myself thinking about texture, sharpness, tone, contrast and colour and how they can add to a composition. I find I am constantly learning and refining my technique especially on how to use camera movements, filtration and histograms. One constant pressure about using cameras and techniques associated with large-format photography and using Fuji film is the constant risk of inadvertently ending up with similar shots to Joe Cornish, David Ward and now Paul Gallagher and probably a whole host of others out there. So part of my journey will be finding and defining my own take on the world.

More recently I replaced my 35mm cameras with a digital body and, interestingly, I use it in a different way to any camera I have used before. These cameras are really helpful in capturing the moment, and they ask questions about what that moment means. Histograms and RAW processing, in effect, means a computer is helping you out in the field to get tone, colour, and saturation close to being right. In general, 6mp exceeds the quality of my previous 35mm work. I still practise my technique and try out new kit on pets, but the dog has been replaced with a pair of cats, who instantly become temperamental and uncooperative when they see a camera.

Naturally with all of the control I like to exert over the camera, it is not surprising that I should want control over the output. So with that end in mind I have finished up with an Imacon scanner, two Epson largeformat printers, a 3800 and a 7800, a computer with enormous disk drives and the means to colour manage and calibrate the whole lot.

I have always managed to sell some of my output since my university days, even more so since 2000. After branching out professionally, I decided to take things slowly – creating a large portfolio seemed to me to be the initial step. Luckily word spread and with a little bit of persistence, I found myself contributing to exhibitions, calendars and doing the odd commission. I now find myself printing the work of fellow photographers and artists, and also teaching others how to improve their photography, printing and Photoshop skills.

Towards the end of 2006 I reached the number of images in my portfolio which was meant to trigger a more active phase in developing a photographic business. I called in some favours from family, using some of their expertise with the intention of raising my profile. I identified three areas to work on first:

1) Join a professional body, with a view to gaining a qualification. After some research I approached BPPA as they seemed ideal.

) Create a “shop window” for my photography, namely a website using expertise, skills and ideas that exist within my family. My web site was born, www.t2landscapes.co.uk. We realise it needs to be developed and between us we have lots of ideas, but being reasonably computer literate, I wished to be involved, and wanted to be able to edit it, so it is work in progress, but is in the caterpillar stage, and needs to be driven more to the butterfly stage.

3) Explore the possibility of doing more exhibitions, bigger ones, possibly a one-man version.

The website has attracted a lot of interest especially from those who would like to join some of my photography classes. I have a number of projects, such as photographing stained glass windows in historic buildings, visiting or revisiting parts of the country, and to workout how to integrate large-format photography with kayaking. I am in the process of negotiating my first one-man exhibition near where I live, so continuing a move towards a higher profile, and judging by the information and support, and reminders I get from SWPP/BPPA, I seem to have joined a very energetic vibrant organisation.

About my Photography

When asked about photography, “it starts with a vision” does sound over the top, but assuming we have an impression on how an image looked or was designed to look when we captured it, we normally would like to have a reasonably faithful copy of that impression. Realising that impressions is what we photographers do, and sometimes it is our limitations, the equipments, or some other person in the chain usually at the printing end that gets in the way. I belong to a band of people that think if you can appreciate photography and art then, with perseverance, you can take good photographs. I find that the way we are often taught is about controlling the camera and the output processes emphasise technique, rather than creative control. It overcomplicates the process of capturing an image. I am often asked “how do you make your photographs sharper?” or “how do you get more accurate or more vibrant colour but not about depth of field and exposure?” In reality, I think professionals, and enthusiasts, take a more creative decisionmaking route when deciding what to make sharp, colourful, textured, etc, then think how to go about it. My tool box is about light and colour, tone and contrast, sharpness and texture and it is these I am trying to control with my camera.

Picture Commentary

In Lyme Bay, the part of the Jurassic Coast, the mudstone called ‘Blue Lias’,is famous for the Ichthyosaurs fossils found in it. Photographing the ‘blue’ is difficult as any cliff collapses quickly oxidise to a brown colour. In direct sunlight the blue-coloured mud tends to look black anyway. Fortunately by choosing boulders near the shore line just after sunset, lit buy a blue sky overhead, increased the contrast between brown oxidised mud and ‘Blue Lias’. I used a long exposure and neutral graduated filters to preserve tone and colour, hopefully to give a dreamy or surreal atmosphere.

I used to take black and white photographs and colour separately until after some testing I discovered that I could get just as good results from a colour slide with a good tonal range using the colour channels in Photoshop, in a similar way to normal black and white filtration such as yellow, orange, green and red. The black and white versions of Dunraven Bay is shown.

To get more texture in an image I will normally shoot either straight into the light such as Temple Bay or Worbarrow, to induce rim or edge lighting. More often I will use side lighting to increase the contrast between the edges of the detail.

Time of exposure is quite important combined with lighting, such as multiple exposures onto film to avoid bleaching out highlights on the South Cornwall waterfall and so get silver threads of water. (Headline image).

Finally it seems, all that creative energy is about being prepared for that vital split second, or quite often with a large-format camera, those vital seconds or minutes, to capture an elusive masterpiece, and it is an excellent way of avoiding the gardening or decorating so hopefully the future beckons and hopefully I can see myself having a more active photographic career.

Now I shall return to organising colour litho printers for greetings cards, revamping my web site, writing notes for my photography class, preparing lessons on particle accelerators and nuclear fusion for the sixth form, and maybe get to take some photographs of bluebells. The lawns are looking overgrown; maybe if I leave them, bluebells might grow in them!

Photo Quote: You learn to see by practice. It's just like playing tennis, you get better the more you play. The more you look around at things, the more you see. The more you photograph, the more you realize what can be photographed and what can't be photographed. You just have to keep doing it.- Eliot Porter