End frame: Near Sommarøy by David Ward

Andy Latham

Based in Bolton, I concentrate my photography on the landscapes of north-west England, with occasional forays to Scottish islands. The images that I make are simple observations from my wanderings, whether that be a grand vista or a more intimate detail.

andylatham.co.uk

‘Near Sommarøy’ may not be David’s most beautiful photograph, nor his simplest and it is certainly not very mysterious but for me it represents, in one image, a turning point in my own photography and the influence that David’s writing and photography has had. It was an image made behind my back and therein lies the lesson.

Over 20 years ago, in the days before online photo competitions, I was lucky enough to win Practical Photography’s ‘Photographer of the Year’ competition. All the stars aligned, and my limited landscape output enabled me to win a couple of the monthly rounds, qualifying me for a final ‘shootout’ against another photographer in the Lake District, where again a landscape specialism gave me an unfair advantage.

Now, with an award to prove it, my family thought that I must be quite a good photographer after all, though I suspected I still had a lot to learn. With that in mind, I decided to spend some of my prize money on a photography tour with one of the pre-eminent landscape photographers of the generation. Unfortunately, all of Joe Cornish’s tours were fully booked so I settled on a trip with the non-award-winning David Ward instead. To be fair, I was already an admirer of his work through his writings for Outdoor Photography and his book ‘Landscape Within’ so knew I would be in safe hands, even if he did have a bit of a penchant for ‘detail’ shots.

The trip was to Northern Norway and the Lofoten Islands, a little-known archipelago south-west of Tromso (oh, how times change!). I was drawn to it by a single, splendid, panoramic image in the brochure of towering cliffs and a tranquil fjord. It looked like a place for some serious vistas...