It all started with a tweet, actually. I was visiting Austin, TX for the first time and happened to mention it on Twitter. One of the first responses was from a photographer whose work I really did enjoy, so I was familiar with the name. It was Dave Wilson. He said that he was coincidentally leading a photowalk in the area that I was planning on shooting at and suggested a rendezvous. And so, under the exquisite dome of the Texas State Capital building, Dave and I first shook hands.

Dave is a fella that you can’t not like. He’s congenial, extremely sharp, and is a fine photographer. His sensibilities around HDR, coupled with his ability to frame extremely creative shots, has allowed Dave to build quite an impressive catalog, some of which is showcased in this Alt Perspective piece. Recently, Dave visited Boston and we had an opportunity to shoot around the city for the day. It was one of the most enjoyable, and prolific, days that I’ve had in a long time, thanks in part to the company. And so, I am so happy to share this latest entry by my friend, Dave Wilson, with all of you. Please enjoy.

You can follow Dave on Twitter, Facebook and his Blog

Alternative Perspectives – Dave Wilson

Wow – Brian invited me to write an entry for his blog! What could I possibly write about that would be more interesting than all the sage words penned by my predecessors? After a week or so of deliberation, I’ve failed to come up with any particularly serious topic so have fallen back on one of my favourites – the art of thinking differently or, to try to link this back to Brian’s theme, coming up with alternative perspectives.

Before I dive in, however, a bit of introduction. I was brought up in Scotland (which explains the spelling in this post unless Brian “corrected” it) and got interested in photography at high school when a couple of friends and I discovered that our science department had a completely unused black-and-white darkroom. We had fantasies of asking girls to “come into the darkroom and see what develops” but the smell of fixer obviously put them off so we learned developing and printing instead.

There followed several years of shooting way too much FP4, HP5 and Fujichrome 100 for club photography competitions, freelancing for a couple of local newspapers and shooting for the University of Glasgow Guardian student newspaper. After leaving school, I worked for IBM writing image processing software for 6 years. In 1994, I changed employers and moved to Austin, Texas to work first in PC graphics driver development and then on digital TV systems. I was a solitary photographer for the first 10 years in Texas but then went 100% digital, discovered HDR, met a bunch of like-minded Photomatix maniacs and never looked back.

During all that time, I’ve had the privilege of meeting and talking to a large number of great photographers. One of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned from really good photographers is that the most compelling art images tend to show the subject in a way which surprises the viewer – angles and viewpoints which are unusual, crops which don’t give away the whole story but leave something to the viewer’s imagination, textures and colours that are somehow different from those typically seen. Your subject can be something completely mundane but if you can portray it in a way that a normal viewer wouldn’t think of, you may be onto a winner.

I’ve tried to use this advice when creating many of my images. My background is in science and engineering (I still pay the mortgage by writing software for TI’s embedded microprocessors) and I love images which reflect my analytical and mathematical tendencies – clean geometry, strong graphical elements, repeated patterns, minimalist composition, interesting texture and/or bold colour. Most of my images are architectural and many of these use HDR since it provides me the best tool I’ve yet discovered to unleash amazing textures in scenes that would otherwise remain relatively flat. That said, I’m not a slave to HDR but am a firm believer that what really matters is the final image, regardless of what you do to create it.

Another of my favourite tools in creating alternative perspectives is an ultra-wide lens. In the past, I’ve shot with a Sigma 10-20mm lens on a crop sensor Nikon D90 and recently moved up to a Nikon 14- 24mm on a D700. Both of these lenses offer amazing creative potential at their wide ends with the perspective exaggeration provided by the super-wide-angle allowing me to create some very surprising compositions.

In trying to think differently, I also enjoy shooting well-known subjects using rather less common techniques and compositions. Why shoot with a wide angle and get a typical postcard shot when you can stick on a 300mm, walk a couple of blocks north and give a totally different impression of, say, the Flatiron Building in New York City?

And why shoot a normal picture of the fabulous Frank Gehry-designed Stata Center at MIT when there are reflections like this waiting to be used for great abstracts?

Being a Photoshop and Lightroom junkie, I also enjoy creating surprises in post processing. Cinderella’s Castle at Walt Disney World has been portrayed in its pink and fluffy glory millions of times but how often have you seen it portrayed in a way that Dr. Frankenstein would be proud of?

Post processing of a different type also allows me to create geometric variations on a basic image that completely remove the viewer’s ability to recognise the subject. Why show another fairly typical architectural reflection shot when you can fiddle with it in Photoshop and create an abstract instead?

In trying to explain the wonders of the Falkirk Wheel in Scotland (look it up – you’ll love it if you are even vaguely interested in really cool engineering), Photoshop provided the perfect answer thanks to a lot of layers and masks and a series of images taken as the structure turned.

Possibly as an act of defiance against the prevailing feeling that HDR-derived images are always gaudy and oversaturated, I have recently been doing a great deal more monochrome work. Removing the colour from a great shape picture and adding the texture that HDR processing excels at providing, I can produce images that I only dreamed of back in the darkroom days. As if this wasn’t good enough, I can print them multiple times without having to worry about getting the same dodging and burning done every time. Better still there’s no fixer smell any more so I’ve been able to find and keep a wife!

When you are out shooting, take a bit of time to try to see your location differently and shoot a few alternative perspectives yourself. It can make all the difference between a good photo and something truly exciting and it’s great fun to try to create something truly different that gets people thinking and talking.