Interview with Courtney Milne

Award-winning photographer Courtney Milne has published 12 photography books, including The Sacred Earth, with a foreword by the Dalai Lama. His latest project is called the Pool of Possibilities

PHOTOGRAPHER

Courtney Milne

Based in Saskatchewan, Milne and his assistant Dominique Hurley joined writer Candace Savage on a canoeing adventure down the South Saskatchewan River.

Read more about the Weekend Voyageurs in the March 2008 Canadian Geographic Travel issue.

Visit Courtney Milne's website for more.

Q What were some of the challenges of this assignment?

A I had already done a 22-day canoe trip on the Bonnet Plume River with the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society in 2003, so it's not like I'm new to a canoeing adventure, by any means. But whether there are 22 days or two days, the same challenges are there. In fact, with a two-day trip, you've probably got more challenges because the time is going to go just like that! You're going to say: "Oh, that was a grand experience. I forgot to take pictures!"

Having that presence of mind all the time, that's the challenge. If you don't have to be thinking f-stops and shutter speeds when you're out there, it's going to pay off in dividends with the outcome of the shoot. Put your mind aside and let your body react much like a boxer would. If a boxer starts thinking about what he's doing with his next punch, he's going to miss the opportunity. And I think that's true of a photographer on a shoot like a canoe trip. It's almost like you need to react instinctively.

Q What tools would you consider essential on a shoot like this?

A One of the most important tools in the photographer's arsenal is a sense of humour. For instance, the cows on the side of the river were about the biggest opportunity for wildlife on the whole trip. We were even yelling across the canoes to each other: "Wild cows over to the left, up the port bow!"

You have to take it with a bit of a sense of humour and make the most of what you've got. Don't don't beat yourself up because you didn't have deer, or elk, or moose, or a grizzly or something that rears up on the edge of the water for you. It just didn't happen. It was a short trip and you take what you get. Besides, that wasn't really what it was about, it was about really getting into the history of the place.

Q What equipment did you bring along and why?

AI had two cameras, both digital. The day I started shooting digital was the day I stopped shooting film. The transition was abrupt.

One camera was a Nikon D70 and the other was a Nikon D200. It's wise to have a backup. If, for instance, I was in a situation where I was shooting like crazy and my battery was getting low and I wasn't getting the shots fast enough or if it died completely, I've got the second camera ready to go. If something happened with one of my cameras and I had any technical problems, I would have a backup. I also had two zoom lenses. I find that a fixed focal length lens for that kind of trip just doesn't do it, because you always have to make adjustments in zooming.

Dominique Hurley, my assistant, had a Nikon D70S and three different zoom lenses. She also brought a mounted flash for fill-in lighting, which is great for portrait work.

Q How do you compare shooting for yourself versus shooting for a magazine?

AMy history of photography is probably quite different from most other photographers in that the majority of images I've shot over the past eight years have been right on my own property, right in front of my house. I've photographed in 55 countries around the world, and I've come home to discover the most joyous photography for me is right in front of me. I've done 40,000 pictures of my swimming pool for a project I call the Pool of Possibilities. I even changed the pool's liner to black so that I could get better pictures and not have the original blue liner influencing the colour of my images.

I love doing assignments, but the bulk of my work is shooting for my own books and projects. When I do an assignment trip, I keep in mind that I'm not going to be doing the editing, someone else is, and so I really attempt to look at the trip with the mind of the editor.

If I was shooting for myself and I was on the water, it might become a portfolio about light on water and what I experienced going down the river. And I might take hours just concentrating on the water the same way I would concentrate on the water in my swimming pool, where it becomes an artistic study in and of itself. But I know perfectly well that's not going to fit the bill for a magazine assignment. So, for example, I arrange with the group to give me a half-hour head start to go down the river. I paddle like crazy, climb up a huge cliff and wave half a mile away to them and say "Okay!" Then they leave their lunch break and come down the river. That's how I got the opening shot for your article, by planning ahead and making sure I was on that cliff so I could shoot the rest of the canoes in the context of the story, whereas if I were shooting for myself, I would just be part of that flotilla. And there's a real danger in a documentary-type story that all you end up with is the backside of the next canoeist, because you're just one in a train of canoes going down the river.

Dominique, my assistant, shot as much as I did. We planned it out so that she'd be in one place and I'd be in another to be able to cover more of the story. She wasn't an assistant in the sense of her changing lenses for me, holding an umbrella to shield my lens from the sun or anything like that. She was a second photographer. For instance, when we were breaking camp, there was a lot of activity going on at once: people packing up tents; others doing dishes and others moving the gear down to the water and packing the canoes. And this was all happening simultaneously, so I said to Dominique: "I'll cover the camp; you get down there and cover the water."

Q Tell us about what you've learned through years of shooting for magazines.

A I looked at your layout and said, "Oh, yeah, they have a nice variety of close-ups and little human-interest things." So my sense was, "Hey, very nice job." Dominique, on the other hand, is much newer to the game. She came out of photography school within the past two years, and so her perception was: "Oh, they missed putting in the best pictures!" And I just laughed because it was exactly the way I felt when I was a young photographer. I could see it at a glance that she was married to her ideas of what the best pictures were. But you're not picking the best pictures; you're picking the best pictures for the purpose. If you don't remember what the purpose is, of course you're going to be at odds with what an editor picks.

What experience has shown me too is that we're all such unique human beings there's absolutely no way on the planet that the best editor in the world is still going to pick what the photographer would pick, because they are two different people with a different eye. And that doesn't mean one is right and the other is wrong, it's just the unique perception of each individual. When I learned that, through years of doing assignments and shooting for editors, I realized that in order to enjoy doing the work, you have to be willing to put aside your personal preferences. And if you're not willing to do that, you're in the wrong game.

Q Tell us about an unforgettable moment during this canoeing adventure.

A One of the most memorable things for me was one that Candace Savage, the writer, didn't cover. She opened the article talking about this amazing storm in Saskatoon on the night before the trip and how she wasn't prepared for that kind of weather. But as a matter of fact, we got equally torrential rain and lightning and thunder during the trip.

The weather actually held off for us on the first day, and we were all relieved that we weren't out there getting soaked in the canoes going down the river. But it was definitely starting to threaten when we had our beautiful buffalo-stew dinner that night. And just after we got into the tents, the rain started. By the middle of the night, it was a full fledged lightning storm. The thunder was crashing right overhead, and the wind picked up and we even wondered if our tents would last. It was that violent.

Q Did you take photographs during the storm?

A You really have to make a judgment call as a photographer. Do I go out there and attempt to get pictures of the lightning? It would've been virtually impossible, because it_s not just taking the risk of being out in the lightning storm that's right overhead; it's also the risk to the equipment. So I did not venture out into the night to shoot, but I did take some shots from inside my tent in the morning with water on the tent.

Playing on the edge of what we consider comfortable is always a judgment call for a photographer. I think that's the distinction between a photographer and say, someone like Candace, a writer. She can sit in the comfort of her tent and write about the experience, or she can sit in the comfort of her home later and reminisce about the experience, whereas the photographer is married to the here and now. You can't get those pictures by reminiscing; you need to make the decision whether to be out in it. Sometimes as photographers maybe we do need to take risks a little bit beyond other art forms.

Q A final word of wisdom for our readers?

A I've seen a lot of photographers stop shooting because somewhere along the line, the fun is gone from it. You can't take this work too seriously. You need to look at it as something that really satisfies the craving of your soul, and if that component leaves, it's time to move on. The work will reflect it ultimately. You can't be a professional photographer and do it day in and day out for years and years, unless it's coming from a spark, a place of the heart that makes you love getting up in the morning and doing this. That's the most inspiring message I can think of: make sure you're shooting from the heart.

I have no trouble at all being out there and having a joyous experience. The others will probably tell you, I stood right up in the canoe and yelled at the top of my lungs, "I LOVE THIS RIVER, I LOVE MY LIFE!" And then that spirit catches on and other people start laughing and yelling back from another canoe: "I love my life, too! Hi cows, I love you cows!" It gets to be really fun.

That's my message to photographers: keep it light and at the same time look through the lens with the eyes of an editor. There's a lovely balance there that can happen. I'm there for you, but I'm doing it in a way that is deeply satisfying to my soul.

Interview by Maria-Lucia Castillo.