The Art of Seeing #44: In a flash of light, Benedict Brain makes a surreal connection with Portmeirion
Deliberately setting the flash power much higher than is necessary gives this scene a surreal twist. Fujifilm GFX 50R. 1/125 sec at f/11, ISO(Image credit: Benedict Brain)
About Benedict Brain
(Image credit: Marcus Hawkins)
Benedict Brain is a UK-based photographer, journalist and artist. He is an Associate of the Royal Photographic Society and sits on the society’s Distinctions Advisory Panel. He is also a past editor of Digital Camera Magazine, and the author of You Will be Able to Take Great Photos by The End of This Book.
The magical Italianate village of Portmeirion, nestled on the north Welsh coast, has long held a special allure for me. My father had connections with the architect, and we visited frequently when I was a child.
As a location to photograph, however, I always find it really difficult to capture the sense of place I feel when I’m there. How to see beyond the ‘picture-perfect postcard’ aesthetic is a challenge. More often than not, that sense is also corrupted by the throngs of tourists, who not only disrupt the vibe, but also make photography really hard by their very presence.
A while ago, I happened to be in Portmeirion again, giving a one-to-one training session on the back of a workshop I had run the previous day for The Royal Photographic Society. During the session, I was explaining how I use on-camera flash in my work. I was showing the relationship between foreground and background, and how I use flash power and aperture to control the brightness of the foreground, and aperture and shutter speed to control the brightness of the background.
In the demo, I deliberately over-flashed the statue and made the background as dark as I could, to make a technical point. However, when I saw it on my viewfinder, it instantly made a connection with me and the sense of place I feel at Portmeirion.
I couldn’t really work it out at the time, but I think the image with this over-flashed look takes on a surreal twist, and it is this that resonates with me and how I feel about the place. Perhaps I am a Surrealist sympathiser at heart. Either way, I love this shot, and it captures the essence of Portmeirion for me.
It may feel like a mistake, and it has raised a few eyebrows. I could easily have created a harmonious image, with lovely details in the highlights and shadows, but it is this over-flashed image that I chose to share.
Benedict Brain is a UK based photographer, journalist and artist. He graduated with a degree in photography from the Derby School of Art in 1991 (now University of Derby), where he was tutored and inspired by photographers John Blakemore and Olivier Richon, amongst others. He is an Associate of the Royal Photographic Society and also sits on the society’s Distinctions Advisory Panel.
Until July 2018 Benedict was editor of Britain’s best-selling consumer photography magazine, Digital Camera Magazine. As a journalist he met and interviewed some of the world’s greatest photographers and produced articles on a wide range of photography related topics, presented technique videos, wrote in-depth features, curated and edited best-in-class content for a range of titles including; Amateur Photographer, PhotoPlus, N-Photo, Professional Photography and Practical Photoshop. He currently writes a regular column, The Art of Seeing, for Digital Camera magazine.
