Thanks again everyone for the welcome. And to answer a few questions….
Peter Wood, hopefully soon. I have been playing a bit lately with just a modicum of success. Perhaps a Wednesday morning in the near future.
Andrew, I’ll call you soon and deliver the books before the end of the week.
Slag, the devil is in the detail. You may have tested my patience if you walked through the middle of my shot leaving evidence of your progress, but I still would have welcomed a little conversation.
Philip. The text of Planet Golf is solely the credit of Darius. During our travels we met up only once at Doonbeg and Lahinch. Back in Australia we talked about various courses and maybe my thoughts influenced Darius but I think he knows enough about golf to write his own opinions. I didn’t have anything to do with the writing, and I don’t see too many of my thoughts reflected in Darius’ writing. Not that I necessarily disagree with what he wrote, but the reviews in the book reflect Darius’ opinions.
Melvyn, I’ll try to be brave. It seems easier if I can take your word that no-one actually reads what is written. But I think you jest!
Mark. You’re right, Aidan has a very distinctive style, one that I admire immensely. I met Russell a few years ago when we were both photographing Merion. Again a wonderful photographer.
You’re correct in saying there are differences but I don’t try to quantify what those differences are. Even back in the days when I was involved in commercial/advertising photography I always thought the clients were willing to pay me because they liked the way I saw things. And I think now people will assign me to photograph a golf course based on what they have seen of previous work and whether they like it. Perhaps they would prefer the vision of the aforementioned Aidan Bradley or Russell Kirk. The differences in style to me seem to be the differing ways in which the photographer perceives what is in front of him.
Sometimes I wonder why I do things. For example you will rarely see a photograph of mine which is taken from behind the green. I simply don’t look from there. Yet I see many great shots by other photographers from those locations. I can be a slow learner. The only such image in Planet Golf is the 18th at Capilano. My reason for taking that shot was that I wanted to show the mountains in the background and given the conditions and the time of year I was there I couldn’t find another location to do that. I like the shot, but I just don’t look from behind the green very often.
I would use a telephoto lens even less frequently than I would shoot from behind a green. Put simply I don’t like to compress the view and make things appear too close to each other. But again I do see images where the photographer does this and the image looks great.
What I am trying to say is that the differences in photographers come down to how they see things. The good ones are able to translate that vision to whatever recording device they use, and it is then a matter of choice for the viewer to decide which they prefer……if it is important to them to make such a choice!
The best idea is too simply enjoy the range of images made available by the various photographers.