I feel that I’m much more creative with a prime lens and I love them as objects
Duncan Macarthur, Landscape photographer
Duncan Macarthur lives “an away-fromit-all lifestyle” in a sheltered valley in the French Alps. “It’s really nice,” he enthuses as we begin our interview. “Five years ago, I opened a new gallery in Guillestre, by a river that comes through the Queyras valley, which is where I live. I sell lots of photos to tourists and I sell lots of pictures of Scotland here, which is surprising.” Maybe not so surprising, given that Duncan keeps in touch with his Scottish roots by making regular return trips, mostly to shoot the quiet unspoilt beaches of the Isle of Harris in the Outer Hebrides. Indeed, he journeyed there just a few days after this interview. But even on a lonely Hebridean shore, the language he spoke wasn’t English or Gaelic, but fluent French. Why? Well, that’s the secret to his success…
The Isle of Harris seems to be a favourite location, but what keeps bringing you back?
I run landscape photography workshops for French speakers, and being Scottish and living here in the French alps, I’ve found my niche of clients. I’d go back to the Isle of harris anyway. It’s the most liberating place to shoot – prime, minimal landscape, all pastel and stormy and low light. It is staggeringly beautiful… Especially in January. I’m hoping we’ll get a bit of snow but it doesn’t look like it at the moment.
What made you swap the Scottish Munros for the French Alps?
I always enjoyed French at school, I wanted to speak French and the way of life is just something that always attracted me. When I got the opportunity to come down here and work, it wasn’t photography in those days, I came down here to ski. I moved in 1986, so I have been down here for more than 32 years now.
The Outer Hebrides are a remote part of Europe that few people visit – how do your French clients react? I think the whole of the north is on a trend at the moment and Scotland with it. I’m really surprised that this has worked out as it is. the Isle of harris workshops, since I’ve done the first one, have all been sold out. I’m running two back-to-back now! I only have five participants on each workshop but they’re both full. It’s amazing, these people are happy to follow me to a place they’ve never been to or never heard of before; in the winter; in a storm or two; in the half-dark (laughing); it’s great!
They clearly enjoy it! they do. and I do too, which is important. One of my clients has been on more than ten of my workshops. I think on these next two at least half of them have done that same workshop last year or the year before. It can be difficult though. For someone who is learning to frame a picture, the Isle of harris is more difficult than say the Isle of Skye, where the landscape is so omnipresent you just want to stop and take a picture at every corner; there’s always a real subject, like a mountain or a crashing waterfall. harris, on the other hand, is much more abstract. there really isn’t an obvious subject, but once they have understood that and grasped this framing of a few lines and tones rather than details, then it suddenly happens for them.
I can see from your images of Harris how you emphasize the abstract potential of the shoreline. They are very different to your landscapes of the French Alps. they are, but the subject matter is too, and that’s also determined by what
I do with my pictures. My photos from the French alps are taken for me to sell, so they are usually of places
where hikers are going to, so it’s much more detailed – you see the flowers and the grasses and so on. Whereas going up to Scotland, particularly the coast, there’s some kind of freedom and liberation there, which I really enjoy and it’s a different photography technique. It’s certainly a different kind of photograph, but the two complement each other really nicely. I tend to run out of inspiration here and then want to go to Scotland, and when I’m up there for a few weeks I come back here and think, “oh great, some mountains!” It does work like that, hand in hand, one with the other.
At what point did photography enter your life?
Quite early, actually. When I first came over here I worked as a foreign representative for British tour companies. I was a ski guide the first year. I worked a couple of years back in the uk in the mid ’80s for a tour operator, selling holidays to this area, and very quickly I got fed up with that and made the move over. I was doing odd jobs and met up with this guy who was looking for ski photography of the resort I was working in. Eventually, over a pint of beer in a pub, we decided that he was going to let me do that, because photography was a hobby of mine. So I did this little job photographing a family skiing and got shots of the resort at night-time and daytime, and they really liked it! One thing led to another. I spent practically 20 years working as a freelance travel brochure photographer.
Is there another photographer or artist who has influenced your photographic style?
When I was doing my tour operator brochure photography, I used to love Joe cornish’s work. But most of all, I’ve been most influenced from the moment I put my tripod in front of the sea. It’s just the way that my photos have gone, and having taken some six or seven years ago, I thought, “I like this.” now I try to make the effort to go in that direction at all times. Previously, my photography was on contract – I didn’t choose my subjects. When I opened my first gallery, 12 years ago, all the pictures on the wall were illustrative landscapes – an alpine valley with pretty flowers or the nice lake and the mountain behind – and that had appeal for tourism. then I started looking a bit deeper into my subject matter and Scotland definitely facilitated that.
there’s also ansel adams. there’s a film of him on Youtube where he’s working in his black and white lab and I feel so close to what he’s doing there. he was a pioneer, so definitely him.
What will you be packing for your workshops in Harris?
I’ll take my faithful D810 and I’ll also be taking a D800, just in case I drop the D810 in the sea! I will also have in my bag: an 18mm, 21mm, 28mm, 35mm and a brand new 50mm; all Zeiss prime lenses.
Why all those primes and not a couple of zooms?
I really enjoy fixed lens-type photography because you can’t get lazy with your work.
But the quality of zoom lenses are pretty good nowadays…
Yes, I think you can get a similar quality
from zooms now and for a lot less money. I do have a zoom, of course. I do school photography here and I use my zoom for that, it’s really practical. But when I’m doing landscapes I like tocompose, and choosing the lens, putting it on, setting up your filters, putting it on the tripod – I just really enjoy that process and the kind of picture it produces. It means you have to physically move or change the lens instead of going in and out with a zoom. I feel that I’m much more creative with a prime lens and I do love them as objects. I love getting out my Zeiss 21mm and going, “Wow, look at this!” and putting it on the camera.
Is there something about the optical and build quality of the Zeiss’s that appeals to you more than nikon’s own primes?
I expect the nikon ones are very nice too. What happened was that my first Zeiss lens was a 21mm Distagon and I fell in love with it instantly. By coupling that with the nikon D800 and its 36 million pixels, I had these images that all of a sudden I could put on my gallery wall at 1.8 metres wide! It was a really nice, sharp image which I wasn’t getting before. It was a big step for my gallery and because my photography is mostly for that – where I earn most of my money – the combination seemed ideal. Why change it? having said that, I do have the 70-200mm f/2.8, 200-400mm f/4 and 24-70mm f/2.8 zooms by nikon. When I do my ‘bread-earning’ photography of schools locally, I use my nikon zooms because they’re practical for that type of shooting.
Which is your desert island lens? One lens? the Zeiss 35mm f/1.4. I’ve never really worried about whether a lens is f/1.4, f/1.8 or f/2 because I’ve rarely ever opened up like that, especially with landscape. I’m more likely to be at f/11 than f/2. these are things which probably some photographers get all het up about, but I honestly don’t care too much.
And your most useful accessory? My Lee filters… if I forgot my filters, I’d take a flight home to fetch them.
Which one do you most rely on? It would probably be the 0.9 soft grad. It’s the one that comes out of the bag most often, but I do like the 6-stop and 4-stop grey filters, just for long exposures. I have a little pouch that I wear when I take photos. I have about 12 filters in there and as I wander about I just pick and choose. I do like the 0.9 soft… I have two of those just in case I manage to damage one.
Do you use the same kit whether in Scotland or the Alps?
Yes, I only have one rucksack full of kit and I take it all with me so long as I can carry it. I do a bit of wildlife photography as well, I’ve got a hide in the forest. For those days I would probably only take my 200-400mm nikon and my macro zoom, just in case there’s some nice flowers along the way. Otherwise, for landscape I will take the 18mm, 21mm, 28mm, 35mm, the 50mm and 70-200mm and just lug it up the mountain.
You started in film days, what was your first nikon camera?
My first nikon was an FE that I bought secondhand in a side street in
If I forgot my Lee filters, I’d take a flight home to fetch them…
Marseilles for about £60. I bought it with it a 35mm – still my favourite focal length, and a 105mm. that was my kit when I did my first job. I unfortunately broke my FE when I was in India…
What happened?
I fell on it one monsoon day… slipped on the pavement and fell onto my little carrier bag with my nikon FE and 35mm. the lens was pushed into the camera! It was the start of my trip, in Delhi, and I found this guy sitting crossed-legged on the pavement on a mat with bits of camera equipment around him – all dismantled with his screwdriver. I was certain nobody could fix it while I was there but I left it with him for four days, came back and everything worked except the meter!
When I got back I sent my FE off to nikon for repairs and they found bits of filed springs from watches, and bits of canon and all sorts, all filed down and put in there. he made it from all the spare parts he had around him and they sent it to me all in a little plastic bag with the camera. I think I paid the guy $30 and to get all the spare parts replaced I think it cost me two or three times what the camera cost me.
What are the main areas where people require your professional advice and guidance? composition, definitely. Even more experienced photographers, they have the nice kit and they know how to correctly expose a picture, but they get bogged down in all of this calculating – they should just be looking at the scene and trying to make a nice shot.
all that technical stuff is important for the final image too, but composition is where most people get stuck. It’s a generality, but they just don’t know what’s beautiful and what isn’t. It’s really surprising.
How do you teach composition?
I run a workshop here in this larch forest, which is absolutely beautiful in the autumn, and I take them into the middle of the forest where there is no obvious subject – it’s just trees and lots of shrubs. Some people will go, “Oh, wow! Look at all these lines!” and they will have a fantastic time – I won’t be able to stop them photographing. and you’ll have other people who will say, “What am I supposed to photograph? there’s nothing here!” the first time I ran a workshop here I learnt a big lesson with that, because I’ve never had that problem.
There are different styles of landscape photography after all… there’s landscape photography where your picture is illustrative and full of detail and then there’s abstract landscape photography, which is all down to composition at the end of the day. I try to teach that to my clients – separating form and tonal composition from detail.
What’s been your greatest moment so far in your career?
My greatest moment – I didn’t know it at the time – was when I took the shot that helped me so much through the last several years. I sell it over and over again. I keep saying to myself that if I hadn’t done that I wouldn’t have had my house! It’s a panoramic of the mountains with little white flowers in front. It’s my biggest seller every year, without a doubt.
How did you take it?
It’s four or five images stitched together, taken about eight years ago on a D2X, so turning it vertically and making a panorama shot gave me much bigger files. also, this system meant I could use a lens which was a bit shorter, the 17-55mm DX lens, to keep things in perspective better and still have the wide view.
What is the top tip that you pass on to your clients and students of landscape photography?
Leave the family at home, go on your own, take your time, put your camera on a tripod and use a fixed prime lens. For composition’s sake!