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Over and under: homage to Doubilet

Dominick Tyler - George fishing

I can vividly remember the first time I saw David Doubilet's photography in National Geographic Magazine, they were obviously images made by a great photographer who happened to be underwater as opposed to images made by a great diver who happened to have an underwater camera. Rather than accepting the limitations of working submerged, Doubilet always seems to push the boundaries to tell fascinating, beautiful, visual stories.

I don't know if he was the first person to do an "over and under" shot, where the surface of the water splits the image, but he has certainly perfected the technique over the years. I have certainly NOT perfected the technique, but on a recent commission for the Guardian Weekend Magazine I had a pretty good shot at it. Part of the secret is in the kit, you have to use an underwater housing with a domed port, the bigger the better, so that there is a reasonable distance from the waterline to the lens. The water needs to be very calm, because the peaks and troughs of even small waves will make the water-line obscure most of the image, and also clear, to minimize the difference in exposure above and below the water. Lastly you need something to photograph: Doubilet has photographed all the world's oceans and most of the species of fish and mammals in them, I have photographed a mackerel. I did grill and eat it on the beach later though, and you can't do that with a whale shark, or can you?

In Camera

Dominick Tyler - Pinhole Office

One episode of the recent, brilliant, "Genius of Photography" series began with a magical sequence. A group of people set to work blacking out an ornately decorated room. When every chink of light is extinguished a man cuts a small hole in the black plastic over one of the windows and suddenly the whole room becomes a ghostly mirror of the scene outside, a venetian canal as it turns out, complete with vaporetti and gondolas gliding silently across the ceiling. This, of course, is a camera obscura.

I've seen camera obscuras before, I remember visiting one in Edinburgh as a child and being a bit non-plussed, but something about the sequence in Venice did impress me. I think the idea of turning a normal room in to a camera (a joke there for the latin scholars?) was what appealed, and so, yesterday, armed with duct tape and sheets, I set about turning my office into a camera obscura.

The image on the left is the light coming through the 1/2 inch diameter hole that I cut in my blind. The projected image on the right wasn't particularly bright, but with the help of a digital camera and a 30sec exposure you get a pretty good idea of the scene outside my office window (I flipped it over in case you were wondering).

No gondoliers, but it was a bit magical.

Here's how to make a more sophisticated version with a lens.

And if you're asking yourself what this has to do with photojournalism take a look at Abelardo Morell's recent work, which, I think, is certainly a kind of photojournalism. Discuss.

Landforms

Dominick Tyler - Clitter/Clatter

I'm suddenly working on a lot of ideas that are basically landscape projects. I didn't plan it that way so I suppose it's serendipity or perhaps an indication of where my heart is pulling these days. Moving out of London to a rural idyll doesn't seem like it'll happen soon so the next best thing is to escape for work. With a bit of luck I can fill my lungs with good, fresh air and walk some hills, maybe even sleep out under the stars and all that with the added bonus of producing work. As well as the benefits of getting out into nature I think that there's value in shooting projects that redress an imbalance towards the urban in documentary photography and photojournalism. Landscape photography, at least rural landscape photography seems to be outmoded: associated with the postcard, calendar and biscuit tin; whereas urban photography, including urban and suburban landscape work is the sharp edge.

There are exceptions: Simon Norfolk's work on the hidden military significance of the Hebridean landscape (The Hebrides: A slight disturbance of the sea) combines picturesque imagery with hard fact  to great effect, and leafing through a copy of Fay Godwin's book "Landmarks" reminded me of the political content of her work, much of which is pure landscape. So, it's not impossible to produce work outside the city and suburbs that still has significance, is it?