Make-believe but still real.

Halo 8

As the latest show of work, Convergence, draws to a close it has been a time of reflection. As with the Penumbra work, the show brought about the question; How did you do that? This really wasn’t surprising, especially when you consider I always get asked the question, even with my ‘straight photography’. In an ideal world I would have left everything a mystery, but the problem there was that most would assume everything was done in post rather than in camera. And then I got thinking about something I had never related to before. Unlike a straight landscape, which could also be sketched or painted, these images could only have been done using photography. The idea being that the shutter is opened, I walk into the shot, and then wave a light around (simple explanation). Of course the artist can always add something, or take it away, but they cannot physically alter reality. (The same could be said for photography post-production of crappy AI.)

And so with this in mind, I feel good to have produced something, Make-believe, but still real..

This is what a polished turd looks like..

Not sure how many more times I can write how much the Salton Sea has changed, but as I place I spent years photographing as early as the late 90’s, its about all I can do.

The vintage cars have gone, and only a few abandoned, dilapidated buildings exist. Early on there was a story, and like all good photographs, the place asked questions; What happened here? why is it like this?

Now, its just there, with an abundance of ‘enraged sculptures’ and the threat of Lithium pollution. It’s looks abandoned, and yet people live there now. Basically the place is a parody of itself. A none-place that no longer needs discovering.

Monumental.

Monument Diner, 2000

I spent much of this past week searching through my photography archive, and by that I mean negatives and contact sheets, some dating back 25 years. It’s been some time since I looked at much of my old work, but it reminded me of when I would make images without reason other than the pure joy of making pictures, it was wonderful..

Sometimes you have to look back in order to move forward. Remembering why I used to make photographs will always be inspiring.

A Hot Show

Arc. Convergence 2026

CONVERGENCE

RUBINE RED GALLERY

The best thing (for me) about having a show is that the work is presented in the way it was intended. Lugging around large cameras and jumping off rocks at night deserves to be shown as large prints with beautiful framing in a fine gallery in a beautiful location. On this occasion, the fact that it was 105 outside, and lovely and cool inside, was a little ironic as all of the images were made in the desert.

I always enjoy seeing how people react to the work in person which is very different to seeing the work online. Sadly this will always be limited. It’s a bit like seeing a film at the cinema as apposed to watching it on your TV, or if you are silly, on your phone!

Books are great of course, but the images will always be ‘copies’ and too small to appreciate in the same way. For me at least, a nice show is the ultimate goal as a Fine Art Photographer.

Another, World In Itself.

My Summer Project, The World In Itself, continues with a marvelous shot made this week with the help of some moonlight. Work like this would be so much easier with a few people to help, but there in lies a conundrum. Do I risk sharing my technique (not that its anything too top secret), or do I just dig in. It took five hours from arriving at my destination to getting the final shot in a single frame. Those rocks are bigger than they look…

Circles and Full Circles. .

My latest, The World In Itself, series continues. Above is an idea I have had for a long time. Although pretty much as I had imagined, this one turned out better than I had anticipated proving once that the most simple images tend to have the most impact, (at least for me they do).

The journey continues.

Pre Selection Rejection

Back in the days of film and print you could drop your portfolio off and pick it up later. In 90’s London this was commonplace, be it a gallery, an Ad Agency, or magazine. Leaving a business card at the back of the ‘book’ would let you know if someone had looked at it, providing of course it was gone! Then the hope was that your work had left an impression and perhaps you would get a call. There was never an occasion where my card had not taken. Whether or not the phone rang, there was always a sense of respect knowing someone had taken the time to look at your work.

Last week I got an email with the title, ‘Pre Selection Rejection, and it wasn’t from a dating website. Without going into too much detail, It did give the impression that had I left a portfolio there, the business card would not have been taken. The fact that there is a ‘pre selection’ is a new one on me, but at least they let me know, unlike the 99 percent who just don’t bother.

Sadly I feel the respect there once was has fallen by the wayside and we cannot be bothered to even look anymore, let alone see.

The World in its self.

The World in its Self, part II

Since AI popped up its ugly fake head I have been working on images that at first glance may look like I have been dabbling in the artificial, but in I have been making images that are all done ‘in camera’. It started with Penumbra and has continued as I find more ways to mess with the digital worlds mind, or at least that’s what I think as a human. Perhaps this is a vain attempt to show off some ‘old fashioned’ photography skills, or perhaps I just cannot bring myself to do an empty landscape..

I have often said it doesn’t matter how you get there, just get there. Its a mantra I still go by. But the fact remains, I want to be the sole creator of my work, and maybe work a little hard to produce something. If a photography project is easy, then perhaps the project itself may be lacking. If we are not challenged, then really, what is the purpose? Without challenge, there is no fulfillment.

“Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe..the starry heaven above me and the moral law within me. “

Immanuel Kant

The world in itself.

The perfect representation of an image and other things.

3 Halo Mirage, 2026

When out photographing I always have in my head what the image will look like. Sometimes I get it exactly like I was thinking (see above), sometimes its close but not quite, and sometimes its spot on, but still looks awful. I used to work the same way when I was printing black and white in my smelly London Darkroom in the 90’s. I would look at the landscape and then visualize how it would look as a black and white print. But not just a print, a framed print on a wall somewhere. I’m still not sure why I had to frame it and place it in some loft apartment, or a fancy room, it was just how my mind worked. Decades later, I still think how an image might look, framed in my house, or someone else’s house for that matter.

For me, the framed print is still the end game. Unlike a book with sequencing, text, and basically copies of the original images, the print is, and should be, the perfect representation of an image. Lets hope it lasts…

Convergence…

Apex 3.

Often with my work a project can lay dormant, usually its because there isn’t enough for a series, or in this instance I really wasn’t sure how I felt about the work. When I started the Penumbra project, I would often do a circle or a triangle as well as the ‘doorway’. These ‘other’ images lay dormant for a few reasons, one being that I had seen similar things being done and also because I really wasn’t sure.. Anyways, recently I jumped in and after a little editing put together a series, Apex, and Halo. Eventually the Convergence of the images will come together in one collection.

What shall we talk about..

Back in the early 2020’s during flu season (covid), many actors, unable to work, took to writing biographies, some very thin with big letters, others a little thicker. At the same time many people calling themselves landscape photographers took to youtube and began a Vlog, a word I still cannot bring myself to say out loud. What I found most odd is that back in those dark days of shut-ins and parliament-parties, rather than isolating oneself in the open air, as a landscape photographer should, people shut themselves away and began to waffle on about wide angle lenses and megapixels. Without blowing my own trumpet, I spent two years whizzing around the desert making photographs. In that time I did not see a single person, and therefore assumed they were all making Vlogs. Fast forward to 2026 and it comes as no surprise that most of the Vloggers are gone, but its not because they are out making photographs, its because they have ran out of things to say. Even the one or two good ones (or less), have taken to talking about equipment while trying to keep their sponsors happy, which will be followed by the inevitable; “ I’m giving up this channel, and lost the will to live..”

Like most things online, the vlogger, like the blogger, will vanish, and what a glorious day that will be..

Entering the Ergosphere..

Ergosphere, 2026

It’s been about six months since I last went to Anza Borrego. It still baffles me how I spent so many years traveling to the Salton Sea region and missed this place entirely when its only a mile away. Having said that, this place always gives me the heeby-jeebies, and it literally smells of poo and wet-cardboard. But despite its stinky horror, the place is set to bloom with flowers in a few weeks which will take the smell away, but not the horror as the place becomes full of toddlers riding dirt bikes and RV’s the size of an oil tankers.

This new year has brought with it a few project ideas including this one, Ergosphere, which will hopefully form part of a larger body of work. I’m still not sure what the light source was behind the mountain is; at first I thought it was the moon, but that came up behind me!

One of the great things about going out to these places spooky places is that you are never really sure what you will get. My old professor used to tell me (or maybe it was my agent), ‘No one goes out happy on a sunny day and makes interesting pictures’ . So perhaps the opposite is true…

The circle of Truth..

I have been around long enough now to have seen several photography techniques go full circle. The first time was the rejuvenation of very old techniques at college; a Wet-Plate-Frenzy followed by several sick students after breathing in too much toxic vapors. The second was a rival of Photo-Montage, led by, the Douglas Brothers. who knows where they went. Then it was Cross Processing one way, Slide Film through Negative film, and then the other way around. Jump ahead 30 years and we have already seen the rebirth of Film over digital and ‘Straight Photography’ with a repeat of Wet Plate- despite it being the most inconvenient and messy process ever, but the results are beautiful and unique.

Its always the same reactions to the old ways, the magic, the uniqueness, the idea of something unrepeatable and therefore more valuable ; But in truth, it really shouldn’t matter. Photography has always been, and will always be fickle. Why? because so often we see the technique, rather than looking at the actual image.

The techniques of photography will continue to move in circles. But actual Photography will never change.

It’s Magic…

Atlas. 2026

Since its beginnings, Photography has always been like magic, be it the actual process in a darkroom, a location no one has seen before, or a technique like the one pictured here . But once people know how, the mystery is no more, and it’s no longer ‘magic’.

I have always thought every image should have a some mystery and make the audience work a little. The problem these days with online platforms is that most want a quick return and are not willing to spend any time looking, but rather move onto the next thing.

Growing up in the 80’s magic shows in the UK were extremely popular as were the big time magicians in the USA making buildings disappear while getting eaten by Tigers. As a kid I loved magic, in particular card tricks. One particular trick would stay with me, mastered over several years to the point where I could fool most people. At college I would sometimes perform the trick (usually after people had a few drinks which always made the trick more convincing). After every performance there would always be those that insisted I tell them how their card ended up in their pocket, or stuck to the bottom of their shoe. I never told them and even lost friends in the process. And so it is with photography (maybe not loosing the friends part). But despite being magic, photography is, and always will be, a lie.

I have no problem with photographers manipulating their images, they can do what they like. The problem I have is when they try to convince others that an image is a single frame (as opposed to a composite of ten images), or the Milky Way really was over the Statue of Liberty, or the sunset really was that color.

If you want to keep the magic, all you need to do is say nothing..

A little bit wet..

The thought of spending time in a wet smelly cave with only a red light to guide you has little appeal these days. But that was black and white for me back in a time when I printed black and white images to make a living. We can fool ourselves into thinking that the good old days of black and white were somehow better; that the feel of a hand print, the smell of the chemicals, and the cosy red light, were somehow romantic and fulfilling. But this is nothing but pure nostalgia.

I did have a brief rebirth of the wet darkroom a few years ago when it became a bit of a retreat from students, but even then, the enjoyment of solitude did not last long after working on a single print for an hour only to turn on the light and realizing it was a nice print, but a terrible image not worth the costly en devour. Add to that, the efforts of maintaining an archival print standard are almost impossible in a communal darkroom, (or even a professional one), the high cost of papers where all the good stuff has been taken out, the breathing in of chemical vapors etc, well, there really isn’t any reason to go back to the old ways. Having said that, I always keep my dodging tools just in case I forget..

Good Stuff..

It’s been 20 years since I decided not to pursue commercial photography. I remember it well, mainly because I was stranded on a remote Scottish Island while paying homage to my late Grandfather, an artist who first sparked my interest in photography.

There has not been a day go by when I haven't thought to myself, ‘Doyle, what are you doing? This is no way to make a living!’ But somehow, here I am.

I haven’t been lucky, I haven’t made a fortune, I haven’t gotten famous, but I have done what I like and thankfully never had to compromise my work…

Lost and Found

For the past 9 months I have driven the same route back from Joshua Tree. Every time I did the route, usually late at night, tired and hungry, I kept my camera unpacked in the hope of finding a scene worthy of a photograph. Sometimes you get an image idea in your head and start looking for it. If it’s there long enough, eventually, you find it...

This is the Future..

Rock 1, December 2025.

It’s been an interesting year easing back into a Fine Art Photographer frame of mind (whatever that is). A market over saturated with an ever changing technology chipping away until eventually there will be no such thing as an actual photograph. Photography has always been under threat from the day of its invention so it really shouldn't come as a surprise when one hears of a beloved film stock no longer being made, or a print method becoming obsolete. But technology is not invention, and the idea of making an image will always remain.

How photography will look in the future is a pointless prediction, good or bad, because in short, you just don’t know…

More the Gnarly..

Continuing my Vortex series within Joshua Tree park with each tree I find more gnarly than the next. Sometimes it takes hours to find a good one, other times (like the one above), just a few minutes. They are certainly difficult to photograph (I have the scars to prove it), but usually worth the effort. The quest continues…

As a ‘professor of photography working in the USA, the late-great Robert Frank and his book, The Americans, often pops up in lectures and discussion. Usually, after discussing the motives behind the work, Guggenheim’s etc, attention is given to the fact that the edit took over a year to do. Most students are horrified by this after hearing how such-and-such edited their books in 30 minutes (nothing to brag about there). But when you consider Frank had over 27,000 images (from 767 rolls of film) with an edit down to the final 83 iconic shots, I thought it would have taken longer..

It has taken me around 3 months to edit The accidental Tourist from about 500 images shot over a 20 year period working in The States, down to 72 images. Now resting in the form of a handmade book, it was definitely a labor of love.

It’s certainly not The Americans,’ but its American none the less.