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Tim Parkin
Tim Parkin is a British landscape photographer, writer, and editor best known as the co-founder of On Landscape magazine, where he explores the art and practice of photographing the natural world. His work is thoughtful and carefully crafted, often focusing on subtle details and quiet moments in the landscape rather than dramatic vistas. Alongside his photography and writing, he co-founded the Natural Landscape Photography Awards, serves as a judge for other international competitions. Through all these projects, Parkin has become a respected and influential voice in contemporary landscape photography.
Sitting at home and looking out of the window wishing you were out taking photographs has to be one of the most popular occupations for landscape photographers everywhere. Finding something to do with your time while you're cooped up inside watching another sunset roll past is a mildy frustrating and yet knowing this doesn't make it any easier. You can spend all day looking at the forums or on social media but typically you just get more frustrated seeing images from colleagues who just happen to have their holidays whilst you're looking. What's more likely is that they're just people like you who are mining their Lightroom catalogs panning away to find that hidden gem (like they wouldn't have noticed first time around).
If it's not social media it's probably looking at the review websites to see what new gear is coming out (how come every new camera is such a big performance increase over previous models and yet our old photos don't look that bad?). Now I'm not pretending there is a cure for this but I will suggest a slightly different tack. How about picking up a book about the stuff you photograph? I'm currently re-reading "Mountains of the Mind" by Robert Macfarlane (highly recommended!) and also have a fictional account of the construction of the Blackwater Reservoir in Kinlochleven ("Children of the Dead End" by Patrick MacGill). I'm finding the more I find out about my photographic subjects the more I'm interested in photographing them and the more they "speak to me" (not in a unicorn and rainbow kitten sort of way though).
In other words, enjoy photography but enjoy the world as well...
Click here to download issue 107 (high quality, 103Mb)
Click here to download issue 107 (smaller download, 43Mb)