MY image of Ereka, near Newquay, 2009

The far-too-talented (and beautiful) Lara Jade posted information on her Twitter feed about something extremely useful for photographers. TinEye is a clever little site that uses advanced electrical machines and long sums to find other instances of your images on the interweb.

Why is this useful? Well, because as I found when I tried it with my image of Ereka, some folk like to take an image that is not theirs, clumsily remove the watermark and proceed to pass off the image as their own (and also try to sell prints of it).

I’ve known folk post other’s work on their sites before, but with an appropriate credit and usually some sort of permission is sought first. But when their posted with someone else’s copyright notice and the original one removed… well, that’s clearly an intent to rip-off the original artist (in this case, me).

People can, it seems, suck.

Ereka, The Woods, 2009

Oh! Grandma…

Ereka, Bodmin Moor, 2009

Unfortunately. No sheep either.

They’re pretty cool animals, those cattle. I love the way they just mooch about up on the moors, walking all across the roads and such.

They nearly made an appearance in this shoot with Ereka, but became camera shy when it came down to it.

One cow in particular made the most perfect ‘moo’ sound I’ve ever heard…

I’ll find a way to get them into my photographs one day. I don’t think they’ll require model releases.

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

Ereka, Near Newquay, 2009

More from a field near Newquay.

So different from the original set, I find them quite surprising. Which I like, of course.

Ereka, Near Newquay, 2009

I shot a few frames with my Lensbaby during my shoot with Ereka a few weeks ago.

Liking what it can do… I shall tame it.

Ereka, Near Newquay, 2009

Ereka, near Newquay, 2009

Hawaaii-based model Ereka Marcelino and I had been discussing shooting together for nearly a year. So when Newquay became a destination on her world tour, we started to put together some ideas for what we’d actually do.

I went driving around the area looking for possible locations and saw the numerous fields of bright yellow oilseed rape that are common at this time of year.

As soon as I decided that this would be the location, the rest of the idea fell into place.

Black & yellow. One of my favourite colour combinations. And you can’t get more yellow than those crops, and Ereka’s hair is amongst the richest black that I’ve seen. Perfect. Choose some black clothes and accessories and Bob’s your uncle.

As the shoot drew nearer some factors came into play that helped make the results something special:

1. Ereka had recently had some (very expensive) hair extensions. I didn’t mind benefitting from this..

2. We switched the shoot day in the hope of getting sunnier weather. As it turned out, the day was overcast and rainy — giving us a wonderful grey backdrop which was far preferable to a bright sunny day.

3. I had feared the crops had all been harvested — this meant we were limited to the fields that remained, which included one which was almost too good to be true in terms of crops height and separation.

I don’t really believe in fate, but together with Ereka’s timing for her visit, those add up to some lovely coincidences…

I’ll post more from this shoot soon. We didn’t shoot a huge amount of images, but we got a nice variety with different feels.