Making big images is an absolute passion. It is a twofold thing, to see your images used large by a client is such a stoke. But the behind the scenes, making the images at the highest possible resolution is paramount.
I'm obsessed with megapixels. The camera geeks could have a field-day with that statement. What is meant is that over the last decade, moving from an editorial photographer to a freelance and landscape photographer the requirements changed. Instead of shooting for A4 or A3 magazine pages the images [or files] had to be bigger, more robust. A new mantra applied. If you put out an image on social platforms or to the galleries on PhotoCPL.co.nz, the high resolution version has to be good enough to handle any useage. In fact better.
This dictate sent me on a radical learning curve. Re-learning the craft, quite a humbling and actually embarrassing process. I learnt, after 15 years of being one of NZ's most published surf photographers, I knew nothing. I went from digital back to film to get the fine resolution wanted.
The process was awesome, learning how to use large format film cameras. From yielding a correctly exposed sheet of film and being stoked on just that, to crafting an image that sings.
The methodical approach of Large Format was then applied to digital cameras. Simply; slow down, concentrate on getting it right in the camera. If that's right, post processing will look after itself.
This image; Piha Layers is a good example. The location was scouted and revisited many times. Then the right afternoon came, that feeling, it is on today. Get there early, set up in the rehearsed position. Tripod set, camera and lens set. Wait, wait for the light to do its thing to the hills and foliage. Then go through the method.
When it is right, you know. There's a gut feeling something good just happened. Somehow that feeling is shared with the client. I'm not sure how that happens.
The printers chuckle at my files 'Craig you don't have to send such big files, it's only going 2 metres wide.' I love this. The client doesn't need to know how robust the file is, they have bought into the feeling the image conveys.
Piha Layers has been good to me. In 2019 Auckland District Hospitial used it as a 8.0 metre x 3.0 metre mural in the new EP lab. It was a feature image in The Big Little Beach Book. It has been used as kitchen splash backs. This week Waitakere Osteopathic Centre hung it in their reception on canvas at 1600mm x 550mm.
