Better Megalithic Photography

Submitted by Thorgrim on Tuesday, 20 September 2005 Page Views: 8657

**Men-An-Tol** submitted by sem : Never visited before so I had to take a shot from the classic angle. (Vote or comment on this photo)

You struggle for mile after mile across moor and mountain to that elusive standing stone. Another one in the bag and you snap away before slogging back to the car. How often, when you look at your photographs, do you feel that they don’t really capture the stone and its living landscape? Where has the wide, open moor gone? Why is that splendid, sturdy, rough textured stone just a grey cardboard shadow? How can we take better megalithic photographs? This article is an introduction to the special problems we face as megalithic photographers. Further into the series, we shall look at them in greater detail. We shall also look at how we can best edit and prepare our photographs for uploading to the Portal. By sharing tips and techniques we can all benefit by learning from each other - so read on if you want to begin to improve your photography and collectively enhance the quality of the Portal’s photo library.

Megalithic photography - what does that mean? It is a convenient term for all that we try to cover on the Megalithic Portal. So that means prehistoric earthworks as well as megaliths and later “big stones” such as Pictish carvings and ancient crosses. Each have particular problems associated with them and we shall try to address them in turn by inviting guest writers to talk about their approaches to megalithic photography. There are three main types of photographs on the Portal – the simple record or “I was here” shot, the informative record that seeks to give specific information about a site and the atmospheric or pictorial shot that says something about how you feel about a site. In every case, there will always be ways to improve your photography and that will give you greater satisfaction as well as enhancing the Portal’s gigantic library of megalithic photographs. Your simple record shot will be a souvenir of your visit, but if it looks just like everyone else’s shot, then it will be of limited interest to others and we may decide not to accept it if it is identical to others already on file. Can you improve or vary it by finding a new angle? The informative record may require several shots in a series – front, back, inside and outside, but have you forgotten to include something that gives an idea of size? We don’t all carry metric rules, but a human figure, sheep or even a trekking pole will rapidly establish scale. The atmospheric shot will depend very much on the weather, the time of day and the quality of light. Early and late will be the most rewarding, but the one indispensable ingredient is forethought and planning. You have to ask yourself – “What does this site mean to me and how can I capture that feeling and show it to others?” This is the winner that you chose this year. Browse through our Spirit of Place and Middle-earth Galleries to see some great atmospheric pictures.

Every kind of photography needs advanced planning and thought. “Engage brain before releasing shutter” might be a good slogan to adopt. A good photographer can take good photographs even with a mobile ‘phone. Similarly, a poor photographer will take poor pictures even with top of the range equipment that he or she doesn’t know how to use. Whatever your camera and whether you use film or digital, you must know how to use your camera effectively. We cannot cover that aspect here, but your camera manual does and can help you to get the most from your camera. Modern cameras are pretty foolproof when it comes to automatic exposure and there are various programmes you can select to cater for low light, sunsets, snow scenes, close ups and so on. The camera also does the focussing for you, but just make sure you haven’t got locked on to close-ups if you want landscapes. Fewer and fewer people know how to use a hand held exposure meter or how to maximise depth of field, but we can talk about manual controls in a later article. Then there are the essential variables – light quality and direction, time of year and time of day and most important of all - your position relevant to the subject.

Types of site all have their own problems. Standing stones are perhaps the easiest to photograph, but think about composition and light direction. Avoid placing the stone in the centre of your picture – try moving it to the left or right and see the difference that it makes. You want to capture the viewers’ eye and draw it into your photograph – a centrally placed object will stop the eye and kill the picture. Look at this and see how you are drawn in. Circles are a real problem – how can you photograph the entire circle without chartering a ‘plane? You can’t, so you need to think about sectors of the circle that suggest the whole. This great photograph says everything but doesn’t try to include everything. Earthen henges are even worse – you have the giant circle problem, but without any stones. Only very low sunlight that throws bank and ditch into contrasting relief are going to help you. Try for light against dark or dark against light to gain contrast. Sometimes, there is nothing that you can do and perhaps the dullest photo I have ever taken is that of Wigborough henge in Essex. Hill forts are less problematic, but you cannot encompass the whole so you will have to select which ditches and banks will be the most effective. That means looking for sunlight and shadows and that is also essential for round barrows. How many of us really try to show the full extent of a long barrow? Take a look at our photos of West Kennet – they all show the entrance or the interior, but what about the length of a long barrow? Isn’t that important? If you are attempting to record faint carvings of cups and rings, the intricacies of designs on ancient crosses or Pictish stones, what do you need to do to avoid the all too common “white out” caused by flash? Solutions here depend on side lighting, off camera flash, not standing too close, standing at an angle to the design and even wetting faint designs to enhance them.

A good photograph is conceived while the camera is still in its case. So looking and thinking while moving around the site is essential. Explore possibilities; look to see what the weather is doing and how the clouds are moving. Will you get a better picture if you wait for a while or even come back later? What is in the background? Does that pylon or parked car help or hinder your idea of what you want to produce? If you take a step or two to the side can you hide it? Composition and visualisation are the keys, so please don’t bang away and hope for the best – you won’t get the best that way. Digital cameras make us lazy and extravagant with multiple shots – if we take loads of pictures, then surely one of them will be good and we can delete the others. Hmm – you might get lucky, but take a look and learn from the old timers. They used expensive, heavy glass plates and they couldn’t afford to waste any. They took their time and set up their shots very carefully. There is no substitute for careful and effective composition and arranging all of the elements of your picture BEFORE pressing the button. That stone has been there for thousands of years so its not going anywhere. The variables are light and shade and most important of all YOU. Where you decide to position yourself determines how the picture is going to be framed and what you will capture (and exclude). So take your time, move around and only when you are sure that you have located the best aspect and can actually see your intended picture in the camera…shoot.

Note: Can you write an article explaining your approach to megalithic photography?

Contributor Bio for Thorgrim: Contributing since 2003.

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