Why Am I Taking THIS Photo?

Posted on July 13, 2021 Posted in UncategorizedTagged antidote, blog, canada, digital, film, history, korea, leigh, lesson, life, macarthur, memories, memory, nova scotia, photo, photograph, photography, plan, purpose, reason, review, story, storytelling, thinking, this, thoughts, travel, tutorial, whyLeave a comment

There’s an old saying that I like to believe: Everything happens for a reason.

I could go through the history of my life and there would be many times that I could use individual examples of points when, at the time, I asked myself, “Why did that happen?” There are also a lot of other examples that happened, that seemed rather normal. But when I look back at both, I say “Ahhhh, that happened to prepare me for this.” Or that’s what I like to believe. It makes the bad memories a little easier to digest.

But for the longest time, I didn’t apply it to my photography. But I have seen the light. (No pun intended.)

Reason.

Even today, there are a lot of instances when I forget. “What is the reason for this photo? Why did I take it?”

Reason. It is the first and possibly the most important brick in your path. In fact, as I have learned over the years, it should be within every brick in your path. The reasons will change over time, just as everything changes. In fact, the reasons may change not only from day to day but even from hour to hour or even minute to minute.

I started out before digital cameras and my reasons were the same from day to day: to capture the places I had visited. With a limited budget for rolls of film and developing, I really had to pick and choose what I took photos of, at this point in my path, time of day had no influence on what I took photos of, but I had to choose wisely. This scan of a film print of my trip to Florence, Italy in 1996 is the photo I credit to starting my photography path, is a perfect example of my first reason: to document the places I visited.

Over time, the purchase of my first digital camera helped change my reasons. With not having to pay for film and developing I was able to start taking photos because I thought something looked nice and/or colourful. But that lead to something else. I will call it “the vacuum”. This was a time along my path when I was taking pictures just for the sake of taking pictures. I would take the photo, and in many cases multiple photos for no other apparent reason other than to just use the camera. Sure many of the photos were nice, but if you had asked me at the time why I took those photos. I probably wouldn’t be able to give an answer. Looking back at those photos I still wouldn’t be able to give an answer, and I even ask myself, “Why did I take a photo of that?”

Even today, I still catch myself asking why I did something. The good thing is now, when I have to ask myself that question, I pull myself back and concentrate on the reason. It reminds me of a time I was filming an episode for a TV programme. We just got to the top of Namsan, a mountain in the downtown area of Seoul, South Korea at night. The remains of the old city wall are still very well preserved, and there were square holes in the wall that the soldiers could shoot from to protect the city. I crouched down and took a photo of the city through one of these holes. The director asked me why I took that shot. My answer was “I thought it might look cool.” That’s when he turned off the camera and it was brought to my attention that, that couldn’t be a reason. So I came up with a story: With South Korea being a world leader in televisions, I thought that the wall represented a TV and the hole was the screen and all the lights of Seoul below were the pixels of the screen. Well, that didn’t go over very well either. Do you know what? The actual photos that I took were nothing close to the way I had hoped, and they were just plain bad. This experience is what finally made me realize once and for all that there has to be a reason for the photo and to the photo. I took those photos thinking that they would look cool and they didn’t, because I had no real reason for taking those photos.

One of the shots of Seoul through the hole in the wall… I know, right? Enough to ruin a career before it starts.

Having a reason will lead you down the path of composition, f-stop, and shutter speed.

There must be a reason. This is true for all photos, and it does not matter the situation. Are you taking the photo with the phone that you just hurriedly pulled out of your pocket so you can post it on Facebook or Twitter? I feel that if you would like to have a better photo you have to have a bigger reason than “Just to post it.” I would guess that the resulting photo is either going to be blurry or unflattering. Now if that’s the look you were going for, then, great. But chances are you weren’t.

You have to make a quick decision, 1. Do I enjoy the moment in its entirety? or 2. Do I want to share this experience with my friends and followers?

If you chose #2 and pulled out your camera, make it count. Share the experience. The experience that made you want to share it to begin with. Don’t just press the button or shutter at the first possible moment your finger touches it. Relax, wait, try and get that moment that made you say to yourself, “Wow, I wish ________ was here to see and experience this,” so that ________ will be able to see it and experience it. Chances are that if it is one of those experiences that you wished others were there to share with, it will either happen again or continue.

For most of mainland Korea, the fog doesn’t happen often or stay for a long time. You have to decide and act fast.

If it is one of those very short experiences, (trust me when I say I’ve had my fair share) I smile while nodding or shaking my head in disbelief or awe of what I witnessed and I am thankful that I was able to see it and experience it. One such situation that happened to me a while ago, I was set up waiting for the sun to rise on the coast and I noticed something fly behind me, bigger than a seagull, but I wasn’t sure of what it was. I didn’t see anything, but as I turned back around there was a large Eurasian Eagle Owl flying about 2-3 metres in front of me and my camera. My knees got weak and I froze as its two bright orangey-yellow eyes stared at me as it flew by. It wasn’t until 3 minutes later that I remembered I had the camera in front of me with the shutter release in my hands. Had I tried getting those shots of it as it flew by, I will almost guarantee that those haunting eyes would never have had the lasting effect that they had.

If you hastily press the shutter and the photo doesn’t turn out they way you hoped or remembered it, in my experience, one of 2 things might happen, and both will sour your memory of it. The first thing is spending too much time in post-processing trying to “save” the photo. It becomes an obsession, and after hours and hours of work, it may still not turn out the way you want or remember it. It will only turn the memory into a bad experience because you spent too much time on the post processing that it went past fun, it became “work”.

The second thing that might happen is that the photo is so unflattering that it warps the memory that you had of the experience. You go back and look at the photo a few months or years later and think to yourself, “That’s not exactly how I remember it.” But because you have a photo of it that doesn’t lie, you could start to think, “Well, maybe it wasn’t that great after all.” And since it has been proven that our memories of events aren’t as sharp when we are photographing them, it will fade into the background of your mind. Which really would be a horrible thing, because the reality was that it was a spectacular experience.

As I mentioned earlier, your reasons can and will change over time and even from time to time. You could be shooting a rainbow to show off its colours and size for your friend in Europe to see, and then shooting a tornado that suddenly appeared to send to the local news paper or TV station. Situations can change that quickly.

The next time you have your camera in your hand, ask yourself first, “Why am I taking this photo?” You might surprise yourself with your answer, and by asking this question it will allow for your first step towards more meaningful photos, and it might make choices on shutter speed or depth of field easier.

In this second photo, the reason for the shot was to capture the two boys playing together both as a memory for the two boys, but also as a history shot of when I was their age playing with my brother on the beach. I wanted to show that no matter how much the world is changing, some things pass down from generation to generation, surrounded by the strength and stability of family and friends. I wanted to show the movement of the water, the symbol of life as it flows and to give a sense of how quickly the boys were moving and playing to show how quickly people act throughout their lives, but surrounded by the stable rocks of the mother and father (the 2 larger rocks) and the true friends (the smaller rocks) as they stand true and strong throughout their lives to serve as protection from the outside elements, the rough water on the other side of the rocks as well as a holding the stormy skies at bay. Because of these reasons, it allowed me to choose a slower shutter speed and get a lower point of view so that the the parental rocks appeared larger. For me, the reasons have changed over time. As I’ve said before, each brick is different, and sometimes I go back to the first reason of wanting to document the places I’ve been.

Now, about controlling the reason…

Oh, wait… what’s that? What do you mean I can control the reason? Well, now. That changes everything… But we’ll save that for another time.

The Boat

Posted on April 20, 2021April 20, 2021 Posted in blog, UncategorizedTagged award, black, blog, blue, boat, bonnie, bonnie ross, book, brand, coin, design, designer, english, ferry, gold, graphic, korea, korean, leigh, leigh macarthur, logo, macarthur, macarthur photography, mint, moon, photo, photograph, photographer, photography, red, ross, ship, stamp, tall ship, vessel, winningLeave a comment

Boat.

That, according to my parents, was my first word. Growing up I was fascinated by them so much, again according to my parents, I would point and yell, “Boat, boat, boat!” every time I would see one. I remember a class photo in elementary school, maybe grade 1 where I was wearing my favourite shirt… a captain’s shirt. EDIT: I found the photo, and it was actually 1 year before I started school.

For those who have known me since junior high and later, even grade 5 and later, yes, I had blond hair! (1978)

Digging around, I even found a book I wrote in kindergarten. As a former English teacher and proofreader, I sincerely apologize for the apostrophe. In my defence, I was 5.

Looking back throughout my life, I have spent my entire life next to or near a large body of water. Even family vacations and trips were usually on or near the water. With the major exceptions of driving through the prairies to the Rocky Mountains and then BC from Ontario. The 2 times that weren’t spent near a large body of water, would be my 3.5 years in Sudbury at university. But that is offset by the fact there are 32 lakes within its city limits. Most recently, in Pocheon and Yangju, in my last 4.5 years in Korea. The 1 kilometre wide Han River wasn’t that far away at 25 minutes, and the Yellow (West) Sea was only an hour and change away by car.

Taking the ferry to Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, and Saint Pierre and Miquelon were highlights in my life. My grandfather’s power boat was always fun. Even in Korea, I managed a couple of ferry rides, one to Nami Island, which was far too short to enjoy, and a trip to Hongdo, an island south west of Mokpo in the southwest corner of the Korean peninsula.

Fast forward to 2021. I have become a little more planted back in Canada. My wanting to establish my photography business here in Nova Scotia, Canada, I felt I needed a rebrand. One that was a little more identifiable to Canadians and one where people who didn’t speak Korean, could read my name.

One of the things that I realized was, and it’s going to sound strange, is that it was (and still is a little) weird to hear and speak English all of the time. I was raised speaking English, I had taught English for 17 years, I wrote a Business English Textbook, I edit materials, apps, and scripts that are written in and for English… and yet, hearing it on the streets in an English speaking area of Canada is strange to me. (Insert shoulder shrugging emoji here)

But this weird feeling made me realize that the logo that I have been using to promote my photography in Korea as well as my watermark wasn’t going to cut it here. For the most part, it would just look like a bunch of squiggly red lines in a circle, with no meaning.

Here is the original logo that started with Leigh MacArthur Photography. It is a personal stamp that I had done. These stamps are traditionally used with a red ink, hence the red. It is merely a macro photograph of a real stamp. Let me break it down for you…

In this colourized version, the blue is 맥 which in Korean is “Mac”. The yellow is 아, which is pronounce as “ah”. The green is 더 which is pronounced as “daw”. Which is my last name: 맥아더 (MacAhDaw) or MacArthur. (There are no similar ‘th’ sounds in Korean, so it often gets replaced with either a ‘d’ for the voiced dental fricative or an ‘s’ for the voiceless dental fricative.) The purple 리 is pronounced “Lee”, or in my case, Leigh. Plain and simple, this is just a stamp of my name in Korean. I added English script to it a little later to add to the watermarks on the photos, often followed with a copyright.

So to avoid going through the complete transition that the logo has gone through, I will fast forward to earlier this year. I was looking to make some business cards. I went around to several print shops in the local area, and was a little underwhelmed at what they could offer me. Queue the Google search.

The first name that came up was an address that I hadn’t seen before in my short time here in Kentville. So I went on a hunt to look for it. I found it, but was closed. So I went home and did a little more digging into their website. Some of the designs that they had done were really cool. Then I came across this:

Coins to me are really cool. I don’t have a collection per se, but any coins from different countries or what I think are cool looking coins are kept. The graphic designer I “found” has designed a coin! How cool was that. Well, I just had to meet her.

Bonnie Ross, I learned, has won a number of awards in graphic design and has just the other month had designed a new gold coin with an emerald! The selling price is $4400! The crazy part is that it sold out before the mint had told her that it was up on their site.

Here is a list of all the coins and stamps that she has done.

I had told her I was looking to do something that would tie me to the area a little more. Knowing nothing of me personally, the first thing she suggested was using a sailboat within my name as a logo. I thought that was a great idea, I had thought of trying to use a tall ship, much like the Bluenose II. We tossed around some ideas, I had thought of using the sails as the M in MacArthur. I worked and worked at it for days. I sent off what I had done, and she asked if I wanted her to give it a go. I said please. The first thing she came back at me was pretty close to what I had decided to be the final product.

The idea of using the Korean logo as a part of the new logo, she explained was to include my international history in photography. It was actually my wife’s idea to move it to the right side and treat it as if it were the moon. The addition of the blue… that blue. I have obsessing over that shade/hue of blue for the last few years. It blew my mind, as Bonnie had, naturally, no idea of this obsession. I also asked to use the original sketch that lead to the idea for the big logo which is now on the back of my business card.

Even in the word mark, the use of the Korean logo as a reflection of the circled M was more than just a nice touch.

I am more than ecstatic to not just have a new logo, one that my wife said when I first showed her the first draft, “Yes, that’s a professional logo. You can see that it’s professional.”, but to have a logo designed by one of the top graphic designers in Canada is beyond my wildest dreams, and the cherry on the top, is the honour to be able to consider her a new friend.

I’ve come full circle with boats. So it’s time to guide it through without sinking.

A Whole Lot of Newness

Posted on January 18, 2021 Posted in UncategorizedTagged affinity, affinity photo, blog, canada, change, devon, edit, editing, korea, marco, marco devon, moving, new, nova scotia, photo editing, photoshop, replace, replacement, save, saver, saving, shop, sky, south korea, timeLeave a comment

There have been a long list of real life situations that have prevented me from adding to the blog or updating the website since my last post. If you know me personally, then you know the story, and if you don’t, I’m not going to bore you with the details.

The biggest change, for those who don’t know already, is that I am no longer based out of Seoul, South Korea. I have returned to my native Canada. Now you may be asking, “how is that a part of the newness?” Well, it has been over 17 years since I last lived in Canada, so coming back is very much like moving to a new country again. But, I’ve also moved to an entirely different part of the country, Nova Scotia. Which for those of you at home keeping score is roughly 2,000 km away from the town I grew up in.

The last time I stepped foot inside Nova Scotia was for a weekend, for a friend’s wedding. Before that, I think I was about 7 years old … That’s nearly 40 years ago. So locations, weather, and sun/moon rising and setting times are a whole lot new.

New Shop

As a part of the new, I am going all in on trying to make this photography my life’s work. You will have noticed that a “Shop” section of the website has appeared, which for now is really a menu of what I will offer.

As a part of the new shop, I’m also adding something that I’ve never offered before, but figured it is time to do so, and that is to offer my editing services to the public.

Editing for the Masses

Editing, especially for those who are just starting out can be a scary thing. Trust me, I know. Editing scared me for the better part of the first 16 years of photography. That is one of the reasons why I tried to get as much right in camera, on site, in one frame … editing (or “Photoshop”) was just too intimidating. Editing has come a long way, especially now that a lot of smartphone apps offer filters and some other bells and whistles. But now that there are so many people using those apps and filters, one of the best ways to stand out is to develop your own editing style. I have one friend who is an amazing photographer, Marco Devon, based in Seoul, South Korea, that once you see one of his photos, you know it’s one of his photos. He has developed his unique editing style that is on full display on his secondary Instagram account.

Not only setting up your personal style, you are able to work some magic with a full powered edit. In this example, the original was taken at about 2 pm in the afternoon on a cloudy winter’s day. After a little editing magic, it’s a summer’s night.

Maybe you’re not looking for a full blown digital image. Just milking out some fabulous colours that you didn’t know were there when you took the photo is what you want or need.

No sky replacement was done for this one, unlike the first example. In this one, it was a matter of adjusting the white balance, and saturation. So either way, a solid edit can do wonders to your photos and feeds. So if the idea of editing is overwhelming, or you just simply don’t have enough time to go through all of your photos from your most recent excursion, allow me to free up some of your time and get the most out of your images.

Contact me for more details and prices, which start off at around the same price as a fancy cup of coffee.