This is my well.

Ereka, Cornwall, 2009

Lawrence Of Arabia is an amazing film.

Those who have seen it will know that, even at around 4 hours long, it is one of the most engrossing, beautiful and intelligent works of art ever made. If you haven’t watched it, well, then you should.

The last time I saw it, I realised that it would be the perfect film to give me an excuse to get an HD TV and some fancy blu-ray player. Y’see, (and here’s the science part) the movie was shot on 65mm film, providing much more detail and resolution than standard 35mm film.

Now, far from just being greedy and wanting more of everything, David Lean quite wonderfully used this extra resolution to be able to frame shots with much more subtlety and precision. In one scene, Lawrence returns into a treacherous patch of desert to retrieve a lost companion. He is shown riding a camel at the bottom of the frame, with the huge expanse of sky above and desert to the sides. When watching this in the cinema, all would be crystal clear. Particularly if you’re lucky enough to be seeing it in a theatre that shows it on a 70mm projection system (something I long to do).

However, when watching it on DVD and standard-definition TV, Lawrence and the camel are rendered as not much more than black blobs. Similarly for the scene where Omar Sherrif first approaches on horseback from the horizon after his well has been drank from.

All of which made me wonder about the methods of display we are now using, and how they are possibly affecting how I am composing my shots.

Despite the growing resolution of the cameras, we are still primarily looking at our work on screens; first on the back of the camera (or monitor if tethered), then when we edit them, and then we may post our images on online galleries, downsizing them in order to do so. Sure, we may create prints or have our work reproduced in magazines and the like, but our primary way of seeing our work is on screens that are incapable of displaying the full image at full resolution.

I can’t help but think this is imposing a subtle restraint on creativity. It was something I had in mind when shooting Ereka a few days ago.

She looked great, as usual, and I loved the way the wall looked gigantic behind her. But I knew as I shot these frames that she may be reduced to pixels at the bottom of the frame, once the images were reduced for viewing.

However, I remembered David Lean and Lawrence and decided to carry on. There’s more to photography than my monitor and Photoshop…

I’ll just have to get these printed up nice and large!

Ereka, Cornwall, 2009