Mark Hilliard Atelier

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Pawleys Island, SC
Mark Hilliard Atelier

My personal Studio for the creation of Photographic Fine Art, Giclee & Darkroom Printing plus altern I process film as well here in the studio.

My personal studio space where I can escape to to unwind and create! I do large format Gicle'e printing on various print media as well as Alternative Darkroom printing of Van D**e Brown and Platinum/Palladium prints.

12/06/2023

I wish to thank everyone who sent me a happy birthday wish. Given the severity of this year on me and my family it meant the world to me and your support has touched me deeply.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart

07/31/2023

While Lily has been visiting her other grandparents in the Outer Banks, I have been keeping her dashound Buddy bones company at my house! He is an amazing little guy so full of spirit and love that it is hard to understand his capacity to hold at all for his humans!

She will be returning home this weekend, and he will be delighted to see her again!

03/31/2023

Here are 2 images at the Glade Creek Mill in West Virginia. A long exposure of the falls beneath the mill and the mill itself. Both images are shot on HP5 medium format film in the 6x7 format and processed in my studio. They were scanned on my Nikon 9000

10/15/2022

Seeing And Working In B&W Series Part 1a, Basic Compositional Elements Understanding the B&W BASIC Compositional Elements and the IMPACT that they can have on the viewers! Honestly, with li…

09/13/2022

What subject types do YOU look for specifically when B&W is the desired end result? This is one of the harder aspects when designing and shooting for monochrome images. It is also some of the most difficult decisions that you will have to make in order to generate powerful B&W output.

We have discussed things like the “Big Scene” in past posts so today I wish to explore the smaller choices of the “Detail Shots”

Sometimes the supporting subject matter can be more important than the main scene and lead you to even more powerful images! I am going to give you 3 images to ponder.

I am NOT going to tell you why I chooses as I did, rather I wish to to study the images and decide for yourself why YOU think they are either powerful images or not. Things to consider in your deliberations…

1. Mood of tone… Can the darker tones of almost black cause you to pause and look harder at an image? If so then perhaps you should consider using them as the main part of your composition to draw your viewers into the image.

2. How about leading lines with diffused and confusing non centralized subjects? What is more important a single shrimp boat or a strong leading line with many non subject parts that your eyes can explore again and again while following the line?

3. Isolated GRUNGE, OH MY! I can get lost in old mechanical equipment, support structures and well “the little things” that do not really define your main subject yet steal away the stage from the main and hold you captive!

So having shared these small ideas to creat powerful images can you think of scenes you have stood in front of pondering the best possible composition to bring out the power of the scene? You need to become really intimate with each and every element of the scene EVERY TIME you stand before it! Ponder how to make the image more powerful with the use of tones and subject placement. Can the supporting elements be more central than the subject? If so DESIGN the composition to make it work and dive in and explore it. Take your time and have fun. You WILL be suprised at the outcome!

Would YOU like to learn these and other secrets of well done B&W images from any source like Color DIgital, B&W Digital, IR and film cameras?

Consider joining Jamie Konarski Davidson and Mark Hilliard for our:

Low Country Monochrome Workshop

November 30 – December 4, 2022

Georgetown, SC

But be quick there are only a few seats left open!

09/02/2022

Today I thought that I would discuss the use of an Infrared camera system for moody B&W images.

Since we are shooting in Infrared (regardless of the particular band) the camera has the ability to see deeper into cloud structure. This give the capability to see structuree and mood that your eyes will NEVER see! When you consider this fact then you will realize that IR photography will enable greater mood than other types of image capture because you will see into the clouds for greaater details that your eyes will never see.

This is a very good thing indeed! It not only gives more moody by showing contrast differences within the cloud it also gives you greater leeway in post processing edits. WIth time you will learn editing secrets using various color filters that will further enhance the image. But they must be learned through trial and error experience or formal teaching. It is worth the effort to learn these skills as they will enable you to create the most amazing monochromatic images you will ever see! This is one of those areas where will will use COLOR VIRTUAL FILTERS within Photoshop and the NIK Filter set and C1 to really get the creative juices going…

An example of this is the image below, yes a simple capture to be sure but one that had to be taken immediately due to the fast movement of the storm and the cloud rotations! Look closely and the right lower section of the clouds out over the ocean and you will quickly realize that these are water spouts, 3 to be exact! Only Infrared was capable of bring these out in the contrasts. Monochromatic conversion was the best way to further highlight them and the overall intensity of the rotating super cell and the tornados.

I had exactly 10 seconds after I realized that something special was happening behind me, turn and capture 2 or 3 shots. I was shooting 590nm and with an older camera that was rather slow. But when I saw the images on the camera I knew that I had captured something special and with color based filter editing in PS I would create an exceptional moody image showing the heart of the storm!\

Yes the edges are a bit cramped but the intensity and power of the storm are all there and due to the IR band it created a powerful moody image that draws you in and keep you there.

Image: Pawleys Island from the church dock next to a rotating super cell thunderstorm with 3 water spouts. Hand held with about 10 seconds to compose and shoot 3 or 4 images.

08/25/2022

Who doesn’t like or appreciate a finely crafted B&W image? For those of you who know me you KNOW how important B&W photography is to me. But how do you get there? Color converted digital? Infrared? Film?

Surprisingly the type is not as important as the how…

Lets take a look at just ONE image and discuss it!

So here I give you the salt marsh taken form the north Pawleys Island causeway. After looking at it what can you tell me about its strong and weak points? Think about these compositional elements as you are standing there with your camera and thinking about creation in monochrome…

1. Sky: Plain or filled with clouds. Light clouded or filled with moody clouds?

2. Contrast in the scene going from true black to light.

3. Story line, what is the scent saying to you as you stand there and take it all in?

4. Filters. How could you use physical and digital filtering in post to bring out the contrasts and MOOD? Do you keep and carry filters in your bag?

5. Physical composition. How can you change composition to enhance the mood?

Ok these are only the first line of questions as you are setting up for the shot. For the image below I was thinking of creating a bit of mood and contrast yet leave a amount of light to give hope for a better day as depicted in the image.

So, I adjusted my composition, adjusted exposure to give a slightly darker moodier sky but not so much so that the image suggests stormy but with a hope of clearing, and give fine gray detail in the sea grass around the dock to lead you to the boat house and sky.

Camera setups….

Color DIgital…. choose a polarizer set to maximum contrasts in the sky. If you are going for softer clouds yet still moody choose a longer exposure say around 3 or 4 seconds.

B&W Digital…. Yes these cameras exist and I use one for 70% of all my photography. WIth a true B&W sensor you can use normal B&W filters so…. I selected a ORANGE filter to give darker, moodier clouds against a blue sky. Oh, let me restate that in a CLEARER way: A Monochrome only camera sensor will use ALL OF THE NORMAL B&W FILM FILTERS with the exact film look!

Infrared Digital… With IR images like this are easy yet still they jump out at you and scream IR! Other than choosing you IR band filter everything else is done in Post. In a future post I will show an example of this for you

B&W film…. Oh my the capabilities are endless but the workflow is longer, (dont let that scare you!). Filters filters filters! contrast is defined by filters!

OK then for this image I used a B&W digital sensor in my Leica Q2M camera with a ORANGE filter so that the sky would be darkened in a medium fashion and the plants lightened. The composition was using the dock to lead our eyes to playfully circulate around the boathouse and sky never allowing you to leave the scene!

Post work was simply adjusting contrasts in the various image elements.

What do you think? Each day I am planing on expanding on B&W image creation so stay tuned, and oh…. please make comments and ask questions!

11/07/2021

Living here In Pawleys Island, SC we are near MANY amazing photographic locations! One of which is Sandy Island in the Waccamaw River. Here during the time of Cotten in the deep south the slaves were given the island as their homes. It was a tough place to live but quite large. Not too long in the past the island was given to the decedents of those who originally lived there. The boat you see here has been in service of transporting the children of the families there to and from school each day.

Fuji GA645zi - Sandy Isle School Boat - FP4 125 - XTOL Stk - 9000ED Fine - 2021-11-6

Scanned today on my Nikon 9000ED.

10/06/2021

Looking Glass Falls west of Ashville, NC .

This was on a trip with Ellen. We went to several falls and I only shot on Medium Format Film.

This was a troublesome shot due to the vast amount of people there!

Mamiya 7ii - Looking Glass Falls Ashville- Acros 100 - Fr 1 -Xtol Stk - 9000EMamiya 7ii - Looking Glass Falls Ashville- Acros 1 - Fr 1 -Xtol Stk - 9000ED - 2021-09-15

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Our Story

My private personal studio space where I can escape to to unwind and create with my young grandson who also shoots and develops his own film! I do large format Gicle'e printing on various print media as well as chemical Alternative Darkroom printing of Van D**e Brown and Platinum/Palladium prints. I process B&W, E6 and C41 film as well here in the studio.