Valda Bailey reveals how she shoots her creative, painterly images
This noted fine-art photographer tells David Clark how she creates her beautiful, painterly images – in-camera
When did you first get bitten by the photography bug? I started when I was 14, but I was more interested in painting at that time. I briefly went to art school in London in the mid-1970s at the age of 16, where I was surrounded by drugs, cheesecloth and joss sticks. Basically I bailed out after a couple of terms. I just wasn’t mature enough to deal with it. However, I continued to paint when I returned home.
In 2006, after I bought a digital camera for taking holiday snaps, a friend suggested I should go on Flickr. He said it was a great place to learn about things. So I joined up, learned an awful lot and became engrossed in photography.
What kind of work did you do at that stage?
After I got to grips with learning the basics and trying to find a vision, for want of a better word, I wanted to find
“I struggle with the ethics of hiding behind a lamppost, and I don’t like to ask people for a photo”
a way of making images that were unique to me. I realised street photography was one way of getting something that couldn’t be repeated. So I went down that road: I did two workshops in New York with the American photographer Jay Maisel, and learned a lot.
I quickly realised that I didn’t have the personality for it. I struggle with the ethics of hiding behind a lamp-post, and I’m not someone who likes to ask people for a photo. So that was when I started looking for a different approach, and I decided to try landscape photography.
When did you start experimenting with landscapes?
About five or six years ago, I came across an image by Chris Friel in a magazine. It was an abstract landscape made using intentional camera movement (ICM); and I thought, this is exactly how I want to paint. I didn’t think it was possible to make images like that with a camera. So I went off to find out as much as I could about Chris’s way of working.
During that process I met Doug Chinnery, who I now work with, and got to know Chris. To discover there was an
alternative way of shooting that was accessible to me was just a revelation. After working with ICM for a while, I also started using multiple exposures. Since then I’ve worked at it and haven’t felt the need to reacquaint myself with a more traditional way of working.
How do you work in practice?
I use a Canon 5DS R, which has different blend modes and will blend up to nine images into one composite image. But within that sequence of images I can change the white balance, the lens and the exposure values throughout the sequence. I can choose to move my camera any which way, and I can walk for five miles and take more shots. So the permutations are virtually limitless.
How do blend modes work?
Every camera is quite different, and you have to work with what you’ve got. On my 5DS R, you have to commit to one of the four blend modes at the start of the sequence, and once you’ve done that you’re stuck with it. As you shoot through the sequence, you can review after each
“The techniques themselves are quite easy to master, but knowing how to apply them and what to do with them, and having the patience to figure out which way to do it, takes a long time”
shot you’ve taken; if you think you’ve made a mistake, you can delete the last image. You can also stop the sequence of four or five images if you decide you’ve nailed it.
Is your style of photography hard to master?
The techniques themselves are quite easy to master, but knowing how to apply them and what to do with them, and having the patience to figure out which way to do it, takes a long time. You’re layering textures upon shapes upon beams of light. Knowing how the camera is going to blend certain tones together is the key to getting the most out of it, and that does take a while to figure out. But I always point out that the hardest aspect is trying
to make an image where the technique doesn’t speak too loudly. A bit of blur or multiple exposure is obviously never going to rescue a duff image.
Why do you blend your images in-camera rather than using Photoshop or a similar program?
There are plenty of choices with a camera, but you do have boundaries. If I’m sitting in front of my computer screen, I have 12,000 images in my Lightroom Catalog. I can take any combination of those images and layer them together using blend modes in Photoshop. I can do anything with them, and I don’t know where to start or finish. Creativity thrives on boundaries, and when I’m outside with my camera, I’ve got boundaries. I’ve never managed to make images in Photoshop with the same degree of spontaneity as I do with a camera. Also, I’d rather be out in a landscape than sitting in front of my computer, which I do more than enough anyway.
Do you spend much time in post-processing?
Most of my post-processing time is spent trying to get a gratifying arrangement of colours within a frame. You can usually tell on the back of the camera if the shapes work and there’s a pleasing composition. But then you get it back and start playing with the colours and colour sliders. In Lightroom you can change the contrast through each colour channel in quite a precise way, and I spend quite a lot of time creating a harmonious arrangement of colours. Using the colours and contrast I can create tension and dynamism in the image, and that’s one of the most enjoyable aspects of what I do. A conventional photographer doesn’t have that freedom. I get to play like a five-year-old: it’s great.
How do your bodies of photographic work develop?
Developing a project or an idea happens in various ways. If I’ve got a location that’s accessible to
me, or a place I like to visit, I’ll go and decide what I’m trying to say about that location on a given day. I might have had an idea that I want to explore, which could be from a piece of poetry or a film, for example. Ideas just bubble up.
My ultimate objective is to make a group of maybe six, nine or 12 images that will fit together happily in a gallery on the website. Whether I do that on one visit or over several visits depends on the subject. Most take longer than one visit.
How do you know when you’ve finished making an image?
It’s an instinctive thing for me now. One of the hardest things with this technique is when you see the images on the back of your camera and they all look great, but when you get them home and see them on a big screen, all the artefacts you didn’t want to be there explode into life. Then you realise you should have stayed there for another half hour trying out different ideas and fine-tuning it.
The technique is a bit like learning to drive a car: there are so many things to remember, but after a while it seems to become a bit more instinctive.
What do you most enjoy about your way of working?
I have never really been able to relate to traditional landscape photography. That’s not to say there isn’t an enormous amount of skill that goes into it, but it’s just not for me.
My way of shooting is difficult, and I’m still learning how to do it. It’s about trying to make an image that’s unique. You have to be willing to fail, but it can be absolutely rewarding.