Paul De Odorico describes his early exposure to landscape photography fundamentals and the wider industry through his time working as a young photo lab assistant and how this laid the foundations for his own journey as a landscape photographer.
Old School
I started working in a professional photo lab in Sydney in 1980. I was the general dog’s body, as the new kid always is. I processed transparency and negative film in dip and dunk machines, using E6 and C41 processes respectively. I processed old rolls of film by hand using obsolete C22 and E4 processes. I enlarged custom hand prints from both negative (EP2) and transparency (cibachrome) as well as many other less familiar and probably forgotten processes like duplicate transparencies, internegs, copy negatives and, the most time-consuming of all, composite transparencies.
I printed large murals using a Durst 8×10 enlarger mounted on tracks in the floor and projected sideways onto 50-inch wide paper pinned to the wall, all in total darkness. It could take me an entire day or longer to produce a composite transparency ready for printing, compared with today where it would take minutes in Photoshop.
All of this gave me the opportunity to meet and work with some of the best commercial photographers of the day and to learn as much as I could from them. I absorbed everything like a sponge! Those years taught me a lot about the fundamentals of photography, both practically and theoretically. But on reflection, the most valuable thing I came away with was a trained eye. Experiencing such a diverse range of work daily and discussing it with the photographers who created it instilled the skill to recognise light, composition and inspiration.
Laying the Foundations
My inspiration has always been landscapes and, fortunately for me, many great landscape photographers used our lab. I came to know these guys and volunteered to assist on shoots, going on location with them at weekends as often as I could. The time I spent with these great artists was simply invaluable and taught me the landscape photography fundamentals for moving my own work in the direction I wanted.
When I got serious about my own landscape photography work I bought a secondhand Pentax 6×7, a Toyo-View 5×4 and borrowed an 8×10 camera when I could. I would shoot every weekend and even during the week, before and after work. I would take a week’s vacation and go to as many locations as I could afford to shoot and I was lucky if I came home with 20 shots and even luckier if there was one keeper. It was a hard slog but I knew I needed to get out there and make my mistakes and try as many techniques as I could. After 3 or 4 years I found my groove and began to produce some quality images.
Some modern-day photographers take longer to perfect their skills, perhaps because they missed the opportunities of the film generation or because digital can make it too easy in some respects. My young son can take his digital camera to the seaside and take 400 shots in 10 minutes. Somewhere in those 400 will be one or two decent shots that he can easily print off and hang on his bedroom wall. I try and explain to him what I had to do when I was a kid to get the same result. But I’m dismissed with an eye roll and a desperate plea to get him back to his “device” so he can Instagram his latest “work” to his thousands of followers!
I left photography in the late eighties to chase the new butterfly that was video. I was lured away by one of my clients who was making the transition from commercial photographer to corporate and commercial video production. Thirty years later, I’m still in the broadcast TV industry. But serious landscape photography has always been my creative release. I too have seen the undeniable benefits of the digital revolution and I would find it almost impossible to shoot film again, even if they still made the films that I loved to use like Ektachorme 64 or Kodachrome 25.
3 Landscape Photography Fundamentals
Now I live in South East Queensland, Australia, which is an area with countless landscape and seascape locations that inspire me to capture images that are a bit different from the norm, which is what I concentrate on. I’m also more than happy to pass on to anyone the knowledge I have gained over 40 years of landscape photography. In addition to the old chestnuts of commitment, planning and research, I try to convey three other things.
The Importance of Originality
Firstly, be different and avoid photo envy. The digital world means we can all access countless photo-sharing sites and millions of images that are of an exceptional standard and this motivates and inspires people, which is great. But the trap is coming home with the same image you saw online the week before, which may have been one of my son’s 400. If that’s what you want, OK, but I always look for something new and unique. When I find it, it motivates me to keep looking for the next original. I’m not saying my images are totally unique because most aren’t. Originality is the single most difficult aspect of landscape photography.
Go to Google Images and search “Horseshoe Bend, Colorado River, Arizona.” There will be literally tens of thousands of stunning results. Whilst this is an iconic location and spectacular in its own right, do you really want to travel halfway around the world to take virtually the same shot as everyone else? It’s like being a photography lemming! I’ll try and find a little-known location and go back for fifty sunrises trying to get the unique shot I see in my mind. To date, I could probably count half a dozen shots that I have taken that I would consider original. They may not be images that stun the world, but for me, that’s not the point. I do it for selfish reasons. I do it to challenge myself and to be different.
Understanding Light
The second thing is to understand light and to “see light”. I realise this is also a point that can be considered basic in terms of learning the craft, but it’s fundamental to taking better landscape photographs and far too often forgotten. You have to look for the light and composition and put them together to create and realise your inspiration. This is my mantra. Some modern photographers could be taking the opportunity to educate their eye rather than shooting hundreds of images in the hope of capturing “The One.” I suggest they review each individually and try and understand why it isn’t “The One.” I find they learn more from this process than they will from Photoshopping their best image to within an inch of reality and sometimes beyond.
Embracing Feedback
Third and finally, be open to feedback and critique. It really is the breakfast of champions and can only make you a better photographer. Find a mentor or a professional who will look at your work and tell you what you are doing right and wrong. It really can’t be beaten as a tool for improving your landscape photography.