Micro Blog: 31st Dec 2011 (Landscape Photography)

My cheap single-speed bike (an errorneous purchase btw) came to a screeching halt at the edge of the beach on the East Coast of Malaysia. It was 6am and the there was the faintest of morning light illuminating the sandy ground. The tide was great but that can't be said for the sky where dark clouds were hanging and moving fast in my direction. By the time I got the bungee cord off the tripod, I could feel the tiny droplets of moisture hitting my panicking limbs. Within a minute, I was face to face with a monsoon storm that would keep me under shelter for a depressing 2 hours.

Pack up and go? Nah, not in this rain. The country roads will be terrible to bike on and despite being labelled crazy, etc by non-photographic friends, I do put personal safety high up on the priority list, it just somehow seems to take a backseat when I am immersed in my photography. Thus it was a waiting game under the shelter that had so many holes that I was not completely protected from the storm. In fact, I was totally drenched as the rain starting coming in at an angle and there was nothing I could do other than to enjoy the free shower.

In situations like this, it is normal not to be very excited about photography and most will start to feel a little near-sucidal about the precious waste of time. Looking out to the east where a gorgeous sunrise could have been will plunge the spirits down even more. It was so stormy that I was even having difficulty making out the waves that seemed to have increased in height and intensity when I could make them out. Half an hour past before I told myself that the intended sunrise shoot will definitely not be happening thus I took the camera out from the backpack and looked around. It was all grey and windy.

The winds were picking up and a few hundred metres away, the coconut trees were swaying in unison. Nice! With the tripod that was already opened, I got the telephoto out and composed. A slow shutter speed ranging from 1/3 second to 1 second was used for a series of images. The light was low so the shutter speed was naturally going to be a little slower but it was also a deliberate choice as that would have given the impression of motion. The inexperienced photographer could have just brought up the ISO and used a wider aperture to freeze the movement in fear of blurred images. That is just playing it too safe and a reason why the tripod stays with me. It allows me to do things that would otherwise be a total waste of time if I was handholding.

It is a wonder how a simple scene of coconut trees in the wind can still be appealing. This would have been brushed away by everyone on a normal day. But throw in a storm and some thought-pushing and things do take a turn. I did visualize the final image to be in monochrome and since I was shooting RAW plus JPEG (small), I dialed in my custom Monochrome Picture Style on the 5D Mark II and had a very rough preview of how my final image could look like. Satisfied with having more coconut tree images that I have taken in the past decade, I turned my attention to another spot that pushed my lens's minimum focusing distance to the limit.

^&^#$@#!!, I was cursing at missing the drops of rain hitting the ground again. TIming was crucial to ensure that I captured the moment the droplet rebounded off the puddle. A new challenge nonetheless and one that lifted my spirits up once again. A few hundred frames later, I was exhausted and at the same time, the skies seem to have had enough of drenching the photographer under a broken shelter. I could at last make out the sun behind a thick veil of cloud.

The monsoon season ensured the sea was looking like a humungous pot of diluted hot chocolate (I do not know anything about coffee other than it leaves a strong aftertaste in my mouth) and for photography, it would also mean that the images will look like a new advert for Cadbury's Coco Powder. To avoid that, I was in monochrome mode for the whole 4 days and thinking of contrast and tones rather than hues. Patterns and details became the norm as I seeked both eagerly. Hopes are dashed of course when a mad sprint an incredible sunrise become a desperate rush from the weather. To prevent that overwhelming rush of negative emotion and thoughts, it's almost a necessity to keep telling oneself to think out of the box. If all you have ever done was to shoot with a wide angle, get the macro lens out and surprise yourself. On this trip, I brought along the old Canon 100 macro lens and had a ball of a time. I also had the Canon 15 Fisheye that allowed me to get close to the shells on the beach and obviously provided the unique distortion, a trait of all fisheye lenses. These 2 lenses are not my normal landscape lenses and I would have left them behind in most situations. But in this case, given the weather and lack of dramatic light, the 2 lenses came along and I was thankful for their existence.

For patterns and details, the stronger currents and increased amount of water flowing along the beaches carved out tiny eroded portions on the sandy beach and it was quite a sight to witness cupfuls of sand plonking into the water. I stood for a few minutes with my camera down and was not that distant from being Gulliver in Lilliput. Even a small patch of sand taught me something new that day and that was to shoot really fast when there is water flowing by it. The patterns that I had composed for disappeared within a minute when the waters washed it away. So think fast and act even faster. Who ever said landscapes was the slowest form of photography? If I saw a pattern that was worth capturing, I will do it without hesitation. Never tell yourself that you can do that shot the next day as the terrain is in constant change and movement. See the tree-like pattern on the ground? Get the camera out and set up the tripod. The tendency to just move on due to sheer laziness is something that any photographer have to overcome and it does take some determination.

If one is shooting monochrome, then a larger amount of work has to be done during post-processing. In the past, it used to be toggling the sliders of the Channel Mixer. Then Aperture made things easier with their Black and White feature. The gamechanger is however definitely Nik Silver Efex Pro 2. The monochrome images you see here were all ran through the plugin that I can access through Aperture. You can of course install it into Photoshop as well but since my post-processing starts with Aperture, I work with Silver Efex Pro 2 in combination with it. There is a healthy number of presets and a serious number of B&W film looks available. Selecting a preset will still allow one to make changes to a huge number of parameters and that gave me total control over the final output. Download the trial version and be really glad that you did as it is a huge time-saver and will definitely give you more striking monochromatic images within a very short time.

The tropical weather do have its ups and downs and I envy my friends on either distant end of the equator where they have the luxury of the 4 seasons but as photographers, we just have to make do with what we are given and in this case, it will be diluted hot chocolate and stormy weather for some months of the year. :)