Photographyblog, David Noton, Great Travel Potrait

This month we’re going to Peru, via Laos, and back again, to talk about travel portraiture. It’s logical, trust me.

Well I started out down a dirty road at dawn, with the raw throbbing power of the Honda 50 beneath me as I trundled over the bridge in the half-light. It’s not quite Easy Rider, but I’m loving it. At the toll I fumble for the right note; 10,000 kip, about $1. I’m a millionaire here. A couple of bungees have secured my tripod behind and the Lowepro is on my back. It’s cool and fresh for now as rural Laos awakes and comes to life. Cattle are being driven along the lanes, children are cycling to school, the ubiquitous Lao tractors chug across fields and whole families of five or more cling to one moped en route to another day of scratching out a living in this sleepy south east Asian backwater. All around me the Karst mountains rise from the landscape; great lumps of forest clad hills dominating the horizon. It’s beautiful. But it’s also very hazy. Arrggh haze; it’s a landscape photographer’s greatest curse.

I’m in the countryside around Vang Vien, in northern Laos. It has to be said mankind has not been kind to this country. Laos holds the dubious distinction of being the most bombed country in the world, courtesy of the US Air Force in the Vietnam War. Mines still litter the countryside. I’m trying not to think about that too much when I trudge through fields in search of locations. And just to add to this patch of earth’s woes, the locals are burning the land. Whole tracts of countryside are being put to the flame routinely; slash and burn, to stimulate new growth presumably. The net effect is a scarred landscape and terrible air quality. Smoke hangs in the atmosphere like smog, and ash drops from the sky. It’s a bloody disaster of which the only upside is I feel considerably less guilty about my own carbon footprint. From the river at Vang Vien the incomparable view of the mountains beyond is lost in the murk. Much as I love south east Asia I have to admit I’m pining for the crystal clear light of the Coromandel Peninsula or the mood of the Isle of Skye.

So, what are my options? For landscape photography these conditions are hopeless. But the name of this game is being flexible and extracting the maximum photographically from any given situation, so I’ve just got to re-frame my objectives. If I can’t shoot landscapes I’ll shoot people, and thankfully Laos is a great place to do just that. The people are warm, friendly, relaxed and generally open to being photographed, it’s areal treat. And the hazy light is actually good for portraiture, particularly when it’s warm and soft at the beginning and end of day.

This trip I’ve an ace up my sleeve, which I’m itching to try out; a new Canon 24mm prime lens. Now I already own a 24-70mm f2.8, a 16-35mm f2.8 and a 24mm shift & tilt lens, so why on earth do I need another 24mm lens? Well, it’s a nifty f1.4 super fast optic. So what? I must admit up to now I’ve never really seen the point of such lenses. I mean the case for super fast telephotos is obvious; restricted depth of field for creative effect and big apertures to freeze action and allow hand held exposures. But wide angles generally go hand in hand with front to back depth of field, don’t they? Or do they?

Let’s talk out of focus backgrounds. With travel portraiture the background can make or break a shot; too much confusing detail will distract attention from the main subject. Generally speaking a medium telephoto is the lens of choice for portraiture, enabling a pleasing perspective from a convenient distance for a full frame head shot with the background dropped out of focus. I’ll often reach for my 70-200mm f2.8 when presented with a face that just cries out to be photographed. Let’s now just fly First Class from Laos to Peru. In the square in Pisac in the Sacred Valley of the Incas sat this wizened, distinguished lady. Fill the frame, shoot wide open, be bold with the composition and sweep your eye from corner to corner of the frame. Is there anything in shot that doesn’t deserve to be there? It’s a tried and tested approach that works everytime, and the elements that make the shot are the subjects face, the interaction between photographer and of course the lighting. The background is out of focus and devoid of irritations. Pity life’s not so simple. But sometimes a sense of place, a feel for the environment of the subject is desirable. That bustling market behind is all part of the scene; so how to use that in the shot without distracting from the foreground is the challenge.

In this case, going a bit wider will help. Still in Peru this shot of a lady in the market at Chincherro was shot with my 24-70mm at 70mm, still wide open at f2.8. The splash of colour of the out of focus lady in the background gives some sense of the setting, but my chirpy subject full of the joys of life is still dominant in the frame. Peru is such a great place for shooting travel portraiture. The people out in the countryside still wear the colourful native dress so synomonous with the Andes and like Laos there are few hassles about exposing them to pixels. In fact people often thanked me for taking their picture.

That certainly was the case with Marina, this shepherd girl who I came across on the misty Pampasmojo at dawn. For this travel portrait her location was integral to the shot. So still with the 24-70mm but at 50mm this time I shot again wide open, but the lonely mountain side setting is a much more significant element in the frame, as is the cool sombre sky. Now when skies start intruding on portraits things start to get complicated. It’s difficult to expose for the face while holding the drama of the sky. Normally I’d use a grad to hold detail in the clouds, but in this case with the figure of Marina breaking the horizon it’s not an option. Neither are multiple exposures, as I’m working hand held here with a rapidly evolving opportunity. Luckily two factors come to my aid; the low contrast nature of the light and the exposure latitude of the RAW image. I managed to expose ensuring the highlights in the sky were retained and the balance between her face and the heavens was balanced with multiple RAW conversions of the same frame and a bit of buggering about in Photoshop with layers and the eraser tool.

So as I go wider with my focal lengths the background becomes more and more of a feature. The key consideration is how much detail I want in the background. There is a time and a place for isolating the subject from their surroundings, equally injecting a sense of place can be very effective. Back in Laos the sun is coming up and I’ve parked my Big Bike with an embarrassing basket over the front wheel by a ford near a village. It was a location I shot as a landscape the previous dawn, but the light was so hazy it didn’t really work. I did however note just what a thoroughfare it was for passing peasants, so here I am, hanging around shiftily, waiting for Something to Happen. The backdrop of mountains and river is quintessentially Lao, a perfect setting for some environmental portraits.

Preparation is everything in photography. Have some idea of how you’re going to tackle a subject before it happens. Don’t wait until the moment is upon you. Think, use your eyes, imagine. So I’m planning this shot before I know who or what my subject is going to be. I want to use the river setting as a backdrop, but out of focus. How out of focus? Well with my 16-35mm wide open at f2.8 there’s still quite a lot of detail evident in backgrounds, which is why I’m keen to test this new 24mm f1.4. I’ll shoot wide open, using single shot auto focus. I’ll need a 0.9 ND grad on to hold the sky, but I’ll have to be careful with the composition to avoid a “grad head” situation where the effect of the gradation intrudes on the crown of the subject. ISO? At this aperture 100 is plenty fast enough. I do a test exposure, and dial in +2/3 exposure compensation. I’m ready.

All I need is a subject, but in the rural backwaters of Asia I’ve rarely long to wait. Take one obvious westerner with a big camera, plonk said homo sapien down by a ford in Laos and very quickly I become an object of curiosity to the locals. It works every time. So before I know it I’m shooting kids as they pass by on their way to school. A few frames are exposed and they all jostle around to see the glowing image on the monitor; shrieks of recognition and laughter, how did we do this in the film era? There’s much gesturing and fingers behind heads, it’s all part of the game but not really the shot I want. But the image will come to me, I can feel that. The light is great; soft, directional and tropical. One girl stands apart from the group, watching me intently, seriously. She is the face of Laos. As I kneel down to position her in the frame her expression changes not a bit, her eyes boring into my lens. At this focal length I need to be uncomfortably close but it bothers her not a bit. I half depress the shutter, lock focus and recompose. Done. Five frames, all virtually identical, with that slightly haunting look.

I ride back to Vang Vien, thoughtful. In the market rats and Ritz crackers will be on offer. The backpackers will be watching endless repeats of Friends in the bars. For me the future’s bright and orange as we’re moving on to Luang Prabang, the Monk Capital of Laos. I like this 24mm lens. It’s super sharp and fast. Wide open the coverage isn’t uniform, unsurprisingly. A touch of vignetting is apparent, but it’s a relatively easy factor to dial out at the RAW conversion stage. Actually, with this shot I chose not to, the slight “tunnel” effect of the darkening of the corners helps to concentrate the attention on the subject. I’m realising I’m developing an expensive taste in super fast lenses, but you just can’t beat that fuzzy background feel in life and photography.

Biography

http://www.davidnoton.com

Born in England in 1957, David spent much of his youth travelling with his family between the UK, California and Canada. After leaving school David joined the Navy in search of further travels and adventures – and it was while sailing the seven seas that his interest in photography grew. After several years at sea he decided to pursue his passion for photography and returned to study in Gloucester, England. After leaving college in 1985 he began work as a freelance photographer specialising in landscape and other travel subjects, which over the last 25 years, have taken him to almost every corner of the globe.

David is now established and recognised as one of the UK’s leading landscape and travel photographers. His images sell all over the world – both as fine art photography and commercially in advertising and publishing. He has won international awards for: British Gas/ BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year Awards in 1985,1989 & 1990 and also writes regularly about landscape and travel photography for a number of national and international magazines. David has worked for numerous clients including British Airways, Sainsbury’s, Geo, Toyota, Qantas, Sunday Times and the Telegraph. During the last twenty years he has also worked extensively for the National Trust covering much of the UK’s landscape and coastline, which has featured in many high profile publications and several highly acclaimed photographic exhibitions. Most notably:

‘New Vision’ Contemporary Art Photography – AOP Gallery
‘The Coast Exposed’ – Maritime Museum Greenwich and the Lowry
‘Climate Change – in Britain’s Back Yard!’ – London, Nottingham, Wales, Belfast, Bristol