Operator Error!

click photo to enlarge
Most people's photographs consist of shots of family, friends and holiday locations. And why not? Cameras are good for recording people, their activities and the places they go. Like most enthusiast photographers most of my photographs show a subject that I want to record or interpret. Consequently, only 5-10% of my photographs are family shots. I don't include in that figure those images where my wife - it's usually my long suffering wife - is included for scale or as a focal point.

The other day I broke off from a series of landscapes to take a family photograph of my wife in a small wood by a waterfall. Unfortunately I forgot that I'd got the two second self-timer on. When nothing happened in response to my press of the shutter button I moved the camera down to set it to single shot and, as I did so, the shutter fired. The image that was saved shows the arc of my hand through the air, and recorded for posterity as an impressionistic blur, my wife in her red cardigan among the fallen leaves. When I looked at the shot on the camera screen, thinking to erase it, I quite liked what I saw and decided instead to save it.

I once went to an exhibition where every photograph looked like it had been taken by the photographer as he walked along with the camera dangling from his hand, or he had thrown it casually into the grass and the shutter had tripped. There were no straight horizons, no attempt at composition, no sharp shots, no main subjects etc. I remember thinking at the time that this looked like deliberate operator error. It also occurred to me that photography, more than perhaps any other art (when the aim of the photography is art), can produce effective images by accident, or when the camera doesn't record what the photographer intended. That wasn't the case in the exhibition: all I saw was the work of a charlatan seeking to impress by his disregard for photographic conventions. Nor is it the case with my photograph, though it will be a fun shot in the family album. Moreover, I'm tempted to try and reproduce the motion blur in a more controlled way to see if I can produce something more worthwhile with the effect. Watch this space!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 12mm (32mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f2.5
Shutter Speed: 1/40 sec
ISO: 160
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Reflecting on family snaps

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In terms of the number of photographs taken, family snaps must easily top any list that seeks to measure the uses to which photography is put. That must have been the case since the advent of Kodak's first home-use cameras, and it surely remains so today. Photography eminently fulfills the need of people to record their lives and the lives of their nearest and dearest. But, in terms of the hierarchy of the uses of photography - at least from the point of view of "serious" photographers - the family snap props up any such list, with all other branches of photography above it.

I suppose the reason for this is that such images are sometimes thought of as "unconsidered". That is to say, the thoughts about composition, colour, mood, etc that usually characterise the images made by professionals and enthusiastic amateurs are often absent from family snaps, or present only in fairly basic ways. But, whilst this can lead to photographs that conform to "types" - figure in front of landmark, figure at party, figure on beach, figure pulling funny face, figure with immediate family in a row, etc - it also, periodically throws up creative compositions and ideas that sometimes wouldn't have occurred to someone steeped in the art, craft and traditions of photography.

I was reflecting on this a few days ago when we were near Stave Hill, Rotherhithe. I've photographed this man-made hill in London before, and the view from its summit. On this occasion we were admiring the wild flowers - mallow, yarrow and much else - that was growing on its slopes. As my wife climbed the grassy cone I noticed the fine, white clouds against the blue sky and took a couple of shots of her as she scrambled upwards and away from me. But, when she got to the top she turned to me and I took the shot above. Looking at my images on the computer it is the one I prefer. I hadn't set out to take a family snap, but it will serve nicely as one even though she's quite small in the frame.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 47mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/800
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

A lesson from Victorian photograph albums

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The other day I was looking at a couple of Victorian albums that contain photographs of some of my wife's ancestors. As I turned the pages, looking at the sepia and hand-coloured images of men and women posing in photographers' studios, I reflected that a print is still the best way of archiving family snaps. The dress of the people in these photographs - men in suits or military uniform, women in their finery, and children dressed like miniature adults - are of a style that suggests most of the shots are from the second half of the nineteenth century, with some from the early 1900s. And yet these photographs, of which many are well over 100 years old, still look clear, sharp, and for the most part show little evidence of fading.

When I shot 35mm film my final images were either black and white, colour prints, or colour transparencies. I converted to digital photography in 2000. During that first year I made an album, printing photographs of different sizes on a single sheet of paper, and captioning them. I'm ashamed to say that since that time my printed output has declined substantially. Like many photographers my archives remain digital. I keep RAW files ordered by date and location, and processed files by date and caption. I do print images but these are usually larger format for display - from 10x8 inches up to 13x19 inches, and very occasionally a few 6x4 inches snapshots. There are those who argue that digital archives are the easiest and best way of storing photographs, and for keen amateurs and professionals that is certainly so. But for the average person (and the keen amateur and professional), who might well want the images to pass down through future generations as a piece of family history, I can see them being next to useless. No, for that purpose you can't beat durable prints, because they require no special (or maybe obsolete) equipment to view them, and are so easy to access.

However, there is one additional item that is guaranteed to make them last longer, and be valued more highly by your descendants, and that is an expensive, attractive and durable album. Had the prints in today's photograph been stored in shoe boxes I very much doubt whether they would have survived beyond a few decades. But, in leather-bound albums with metal clasps, mounted in frames on gold-leaf edged pages, they became objects of fascination and beauty, repositories of the family's past, and heirlooms to be cherished. The albums shown above have all those qualities and more, and yet they lack one vital finishing touch: they aren't captioned. This is a small tragedy. Some have a few notes about the people shown, written in pencil on the back. But the rest are anonymous except for those that an aged relative was able to identify before she died.

So, my recommendation to photographers is "look to the future now". The images we make that are most significant to our families are those of relatives and friends. Print those shots, bind them well, caption them carefully, and you'll earn the gratitude of generations not yet born. There's only one problem with me dispensing exhortations of this sort: I'll now have to make a start on following my own advice!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro, (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/5
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On