Calendar: The Shadows of Scotland

There is so much I could write about this experience and I will continue to expand on my design process and procedure as time allows.

Last May I spent 18 days in Scotland shooting a documentary on Dr. Johnson’s (the original writer of the first single English dictonary) 1773 tour of Scotland. Dr. Johnson wrote extensive journals of his journey and I along with a few other scholars are finishing up a feature length documentary that features places written by Dr. Johnson that have alluded even goggle.

When I heard, calendar assignment, I first thought what did I enjoy most about a good calendar. First and foremost it was the images. I wanted clear, high contrast powerful images. To be frank I didn’t want other design elements taking away from the photo. Yes, other design elements can work well, but so many calendars are placed on a wall, at a distance for those viewing, small photos, a combination of images or even borders take away from the view, which is so often at a distance. So making the photo as large a possible, as dynamic as possible was the key in my design intentions (not that my intentions are the only ones that are correct.)

So, then it seemed I was almost making the assignment too easy. Slap a month name on a photo and be done with it, right? Wrong! That’s when I realized and played with all the photoshop settings for hours (contrast, color, brightness, softness, blur, sharpness, exposure) and really saw the potential of photoshop. To make subtle differences in a photo that took it from good to great.

My theme centers around the Highlands of Scotland in the spring. Ultimately, flowers serve a connection between the images. The first (The Flowers of May at Cawdor Castle) doesn’t fit as well perhaps in a series of three but the flowers served as a design connection.

First and foremost is good composition. Good photo design cannot happen without good composition. Here I always work hard to create depth in my images. Photos and videos are a 2D medium, they have no depth. That’s why it is important to create depth through the use of shallow focus (parts of the image being in focus and others not). I use this technique in the first and last photos. Good balance and position of subject was also important in my selection of these images among 700 candidates. Look at them all and you will see a similar S-curve from left to right in the horizon between the sky and the mountains and flowers. When I had found images with good, interesting composition, I could proceed with making them “pop”.

These images were taken with a RAW camera. A Sigma SD10 to be exact. If you aren’t familiar with RAW you might consider some brief research on it. Basically, it stores the actual uncompressed image from the camera sensor, not a JPEG processed image. Using photoshop’s Bridge application (which I’ve never used before) you are able to quickly view RAW images and when you select the one you want you can apply simply amazing color, saturation, exposure, and sharpness filters before it goes into photoshop. Because you are using RAW uncompressed data the results are stunning, yet sometimes subtle. But that is what I noticed most. A simple subtle change in saturation does indeed have a huge impact on the results.

And I guess that’s what I really learned in this lesson. To create a really compelling design doesn’t necessarily require lots of layers, effects or filters. Often the best designs are simple photos made to look the best they can. I encourage all of you to take any camera, take some photos and just play with the photos. So often I think good design is as simple as a good photo . . . maybe I’m wrong.