You often spend considerable time working on an image post-capture - why?'
Mal references the 'Buffalo with 4 ox-peckers' image. It did not reach its final form ready for print, till about 5 months from starting to process the original RAW file.
He did a little bit each week on this project as he grappled with various ideas and what they would mean to the audience - tweaking, taking a break from the process, then re-evaluating and changing, in attempting to honour his vision for that particular image.
This species is vulnerable and the image plan was for Mal to create a nostalgic, aged effect that would elicit a certain response in the audience.
Mal describes, 'We can almost imagine a future time....perhaps not too far in the future, where Grandparents are telling the story to a child as they stand in front of a large framed fineart print of this male Buffalo in all his magnificence - the story of these wonderful animals that roamed parts of Africa in abundance, powerful and dangerous, yet beautiful and vital to a balanced ecosystem.....these animals, that became extinct a long time ago.
The subject remained as it was taken in-camera with minor enhancements. The background has a combination of layers blended with the original background of grass and some bushes that was a bit too messy and distracting. The added layers are exposures of the immediate area where the principal photograph was taken. They include grass, mud, stone and acacia tree bark that all combine to textualize the background.
When combined with a monochrome rendition, the effect is enhanced'.
Printing is a critical element in the whole post-capture process. 'Large print' is widely regarded as the ultimate expression of a photographic image. Currently my images are printed with a long side of 60cm or 1m.
For a start it is less forgiving of the photographer, flaws show up more easily and this level of professional printing process requires considerable specialist expertise.
I am lucky enough to have partners who are consummate professionals in their respective fields - BowHaus based in the LA.
Images displayed on the website, can take anything from a few hours of post-capture work, through to months of intermittent work.'
