Much of my photographic output is ‘classical’ - carefully composed, exposed and focused, recognisably a particular subject or place. However, even back my film days I experimented with multiple exposure and Intentional camera movements. It was tricky in those days - film costs a lot of money, and you didn’t get instant feedback. Digital allows you more the freedom to play with these techniques, fine-tuning the initially rather random results. The portfolio here was made on a single Spring day in Dalby Forest, North Yorkshire.
The aim was to use the visual scene in front of me as source material and see what would happen when it was abstracted through the use of camera movements and multiple image capture. As such the images exist in an abstract space between the original subject, the camera used to create the exposure, and the subsequent ‘interpretation’ applied in post processing. They won’t be to everyone’s taste, but I find them rather beautiful and love the joy of the ‘unexpected result’ that such techniques can produce.
In a human being, provided he has not been crushed by an economic or governmental machine, there is the same kind of individuality, a something distinctive without which no man or woman can achieve much of importance, or retain the full dignity which is native to human beings. It is this distinctive individuality that is loved by the artist, whether painter or writer. The artist himself, and the man who is creative in no matter what direction, has more of it than the average man. ~Bertrand Russell
We are today at a point where much that used to be impressive about the art of photography in the past no longer is, at least not to the degree that it used to be. Cameras today are smart enough as to rarely miss a proper exposure; automatic focusing has become fast and accurate; resolution, noise and dynamic range of digital sensors have reached impressive levels; software manufacturers boast a plethora of easy-to-apply presets and effects making it possible to produce beautiful results almost effortlessly and without great investment; high-quality large prints can be produced simply by uploading a file to a printing service; and it is remarkably easy to look up directions, or join a guided tour, to locations practically guaranteed to yield beautiful images. And indeed, an overwhelming plethora of such visually spectacular images—often of repetitive subjects and/or compositional templates—are posted to various media sites every day.
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “The heroic cannot be the common, nor the common the heroic.” In an age when visual appeal and technical excellence have become commonplace and easy to accomplish, it should be acknowledged that such qualities today also are less impressive and less distinctive than they used to be. As more people become aware of how easy it is to produce visually appealing photographs; and as the same places and visual effects become more and more widespread and recognised; they also lose their distinction as indicators of the excellence of the photographer or serve to distinguish their work.
“Watching The River Flow” and subtitled “The Medway and its Moods” is my second exhibition. The first show, in February 2014, was a pretty miscellaneous collection of work, described by a friend as “a pre-retrospective that took him 60 years to put together”. In it were a few photos in it that I’d taken along my local stretch of the River Medway, and they were well-received. This helped reinforce an idea I’d had for a while that an exhibition about the river might work in its own right.
I had been been photographing a six mile or so stretch of the Medway not far from home, for several years, and had seen it in all kinds of weather. It’s maybe not gob-smackingly beautiful landscape much of the time, but it’s quite varied. Between Tovil Bridge and Wateringbury, which is what the show covers, the Medway runs through woodland, open fields and remnants of the Kent cherry orchards. It’s mostly quite open ground, and one constantly-changing feature of the area I’ve been photographing is its fantastic skies. The river is the focal point of the exhibition, but very often it’s been the sky that has given an image its mood and character.
There have been time when I’ve regretted that artists like JMW Turner and John Constable never painted in this part of Kent, as far as anyone knows. As a lover of 19th century art, I’ve occasionally, and more often than not accidentally, been able to give a hat-tip to some old favourites. I like a “painterly” look to my photos at times, which on this occasion only really been done by pushing a basic image ever so slightly beyond it’s comfort zone.
I’ve photographed the area with a variety of cameras, from a Bronica GS down to a far from humble iPhone 6. The latter has served me well with the components of panoramic shots stitched together in PTGui software.
When you spend your normal working day trapped behind a DSLR, it’s good to go out to play with different toys. My simple main aim has been to present “my” the part of the Medway valley in the way I’ve experienced it. When the mood has taken me, I’ve shot in mono. There are occasions, such as after heavy rain, when the water can be quite dark, and refuses to reflect a great sky. I’ve also worked all year round. Some spots shot in winter, with skeletal tree reflections in the water, are almost unrecognisably different in the summer, and all the more attractive for it.
The exhibition is not a “calendar” however. How we set it up on the walls of the lovely little “Below 65” gallery in Maidstone hasn’t been decided yet!
Watching The River Flow Exhibition runs at the Below 65 Gallery, Gilbert and Clark Frame and Print, Maidstone from 1st to 29th November 2016.
Do you have an exhibition, project, trip report or location review that you would like to submit an article on to On Landscape? We'd love to hear from you! Please submit our submissions form and we will get in touch.
‘Blurry Julie’ first came to my notice on Flickr, but is active on Twitter too. There’s a sense of energy to her images, which mix intentional camera movement and multiple exposure. They’re often based around fairly simple landscapes – beaches and dunes, or fields, water, and sky – but usually feature some gilded light or texture that lifts them beyond simply being blurry.
Can you tell me a little about yourself – your education, early interests and career?
Hills of Home #20
English and German were my favourite subjects at school, along with biology and sports. I have always loved animals and the outdoors and started climbing trees and wandering about on my own when I was still quite little.In my teens I wanted to work with horses, but then changed my mind and went to university instead. I studied translation in Cologne, but worked as an au-pair in East Sussex for about half a year before that. During my studies I also spent a semester in Spain and some months in Ireland. After a traineeship with a translation company in Dublin, I set up my own business as a freelance translator. And this is what I’m still doing – translating and reviewing texts. It’s not easy to earn a living with that, but still, I like being my own boss and the possibilities that come with it. I recently translated some photography-related magazine articles, which I enjoyed very much, and I get some equestrian translations every now and then too. It’s great when my work and personal interests combine like that.
Someone, it may have been Tolstoy, once claimed that there are really only two stories: "A Person Goes On A Journey", and "A Stranger Comes To Town". This was obviously intended to be provocative, but there is a debatable truth in there, and it strikes me that a similarly reductive provocation might be applied to landscape photography.
A couple of years ago I had an exhibition in Innsbruck, Austria, and on the back of it was invited to do a ten-day residency in the city. I was hardly going to say no, but I did have some serious misgivings. I had last visited Innsbruck as a teenager, hitchhiking in Europe in summer 1972. Forty-two years is a long time between visits, and although mountains are not much subject to change, cities and their inhabitants most certainly are. Not to worry, my host said, we want to see what we look like through your eyes. A stranger comes to town...
From time to time I reckon all my good luck cards are used up…but then another one comes along. Earlier this year, Drew Altdoerffer from Phase One, with whom I have worked before on Skye and in the Antarctic, emailed. Was I interested in leading a Mongolia workshop tour, with Julian Calverley? If only so you can casually say to friends, “yes, just got back from Outer Mongolia”, this was not an opportunity to pass up.
Julian and I discussed it, met at The Photography Show in March, and all looked good. But as the months went by all became quiet, and I wondered if the project would happen. Julian received an assignment offer he could not refuse so had to drop out, and when Drew and I finally discussed the plan we had a total of three clients. While not classically ‘viable’ Drew decided to do it anyway, including two mystery guests from Phase One who would use the trip to field trial some prototype and new gear, and OS updates. For a landscape-loving equipment-fascinated bloke it was, in a typically British, understated way, an attractive prospect.
A weekend workshop in the UK Lakes with the ultimate photographic systems and the ultimate photographers & trainers.
This is an intimate two-day workshop at the 4 Star Borrowdale Gates Hotel in Borrowdale, Derwentwater, the Lake District, Cumbria.
The event costs will include one night's accommodation, breakfast, lunch on both days, morning and afternoon refreshments and Banquet Evening Meal on the Friday night.
This will be a great opportunity to meet everyone, socialise, relax and share ideas over some great food. www.borrowdale-gates.com.
Situated in "the loveliest square mile in Lakeland" Alfred Wainwright MBE, with open log fires and award winning cuisine, where better to relax and admire the panoramic views with like-minded photographers.
Extra Nights available at special rates.
Over the two days the delegates will be divided into small groups to spend time with each of the mentors. and multiple camera systems.
Two location shoots, lots of Phase One XF, IQ3 digital backs and Technical cameras worth over half a million pounds to play with, plus we will use together Capture One Pro software to deliver the best images possible from your RAW files.
Places are strictly limited to 20 to ensure maximum benefit for all attendees. The cost of this event is £750+VAT (£850 inc VAT) For more information and an itinerary contact Chris Ireland at chris@directdigitalimaging.co.uk
It can seem like Autumn at any time of the year when you are in the Lake District - such is the famed changeability of the weather. And some would argue that climate change is leading to a similar blurring of traditional seasons for the whole of the UK - turning the mild changeability of Autumn into the norm. With this in mind, we thought we would take a look at some of the issues and kit outdoor photographers need to think about when heading out into changeable weather.
Autumn Colours by Crummock Water, Lake District
Being prepared for all possibilities is always going to be a challenge, but a key Autumn priority for me is protection from the rain - both from myself and my photographic gear. Starting with the latter, if I am taking a substantial amount of kit out it goes in my F-Stop Loka bag. This is made from sturdy, water repellant materials, has a good supportive back system, and a substantial hip belt to transfer the bulk of the weight effectively to my leg muscles.
It also provides plenty of space - not only for my camera gear, but also for the waterproof and warm clothing, food and drink that I need to carry. However, it is most definitely not fully waterproof. That’s because of all the stitching needed to join together the various panels that make up the rather complicated shape of the bag. The way most things - jackets, tents, etc - get around this problem is to apply waterproof tape over the seams.
Doing this in an elaborate shape like a rucksack is difficult and expensive, so you won’t find many genuinely waterproof photo bags. In fact if a camera bag says it provides ‘all weather protection’, it usually means it comes with a separate rain cover. This will certainly stop the outside getting too wet, but personally we wouldn’t rely on it as a complete solution.
A rain cover over the outside of your bag will help the bag itself stay dry - make sure it fits properly, and choose a bright colour so it can be spotted in an emergency. Dry bags and phone pouches offer extra protection for spare dry clothes, and valuable electronics
The reason is that water has a way of finding a route in, whatever you put on the outside of the bag - down your back is a favourite route in if it’s a rucksack. Rain covers also have an annoying habit of getting blown around in the wind when you are trying to put them on, and then working loose unless tightly attached. They also impede you getting to anything inside the bag, or any external side pockets.
One solution - and something Neil and I tend to use for expensive/essential bits of kit - is to put things inside dry bags, or dedicated pouches. That way you know that even if the water should get into the bag itself, your iPhone, iPad, camera, and particularly your spare dry clothing, are all well protected. Dry bags come in a variety of sizes and colours, so they can also provide a useful way of organising and identifying your kit.
The ‘season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’ can be a dream for landscape photographers
You can get what are effectively dry bags with shoulder straps on too - turning them into a lightweight fully waterproof rucksack suitable for carrying lightweight jackets, a fleece for warmth, and a snack lunch. However, they are literally a bag with a roll closure top - with no significant back system, and no real structure to support or cushion what is inside.
I use one of these myself when conditions are mild, when I am going out ‘fast and light’, or for sight-seeing when I am only carrying a Fuji X-100 or similar small CSC with me. The Exped Cloudburst bag I use is hard to come by now, but we have recently found a new range of similar bags from a British company called OverBoard. These have a more substantial construction - albeit at the expense of extra weight - with wider straps and some limited back padding.
My trusty Exped Cloudburst bag is difficult to obtain now, but British Company OverBoard make a range of similar lightweight waterproof bags - including some designed to just take an SLR
Out in the open…
This is fine when the camera is safely tucked away inside your bag, but when I am out walking it is usually out ready to catch those fleeting photographic moments as the light and weather change. Personally I hang the camera from the shoulder straps of my rucksack, using a set of Think Tank Camera Support Straps. These take the weight from around your neck and transfer it to the much more substantial and comfortable back system of the bag. Having the weight of the camera and lens on the front helps to balance up the whole package as well - aiding stability when you are covering uneven terrain or heading up or down hill.
Hanging the camera from the straps of your rucksack takes the weight off your neck and helps to balance the weight on your back. A suitably sized dry bag can make an effective rain cover if needed.
Having the camera out leads on to the need to protect it - however shower or waterproof your camera system claims to be, rain on the lens is still going to be a problem..! Personally I carry a dry bag that is just big enough to go easily over the camera and lens and then clip together around the hanging straps. There is still an opening on the bag using this method, but it faces my body and is therefore largely protected from everything but the worst downpours. It can also be put on and removed in a hurry.
Whatever kind of jacket you have, the more changeable weather of Autumn is a good prompt to treat it to a wash and possibly a re-proof.
You could of course use an ordinary plastic bag for the same purpose, but keeping it on can be tricky. Another cheap solution is to pick up one of those disposable shower caps that you find in hotel rooms - they may not last forever, but in an emergency they do the job. For the ‘well healed’ there are also all sorts of elaborate rain jackets to cover camera and lens - sometimes with clear viewing windows or hoods to get inside. I have to say that for me all of these interfere with using the controls of the camera, and I suspect will end up being more of a hindrance than a help.
Keeping yourself dry - top half…
And that leads us on to keeping yourself dry. The minimum that most people will have will be some kind of waterproof jacket - either featuring a waterproof membrane, like Gore-Tex, or possibly a Paramo style analogy garment. Whatever kind of jacket you have, the more changeable weather of Autumn is a good prompt to treat it to a wash and possibly a re-proof. This will help to keep the face fabric water-repellant, and the system as breathable as possible.
Whether your jacket is lined with a membrane like Gore-Tex or Pertex Shield, or is a non-membrane Paramo Analogy Waterproof, you must wash and re-proof it regularly to keep it performing well.
Note here that the requirement to wash and re-proof applies just as much to membrane based systems as it does to those without - they all need to be regularly maintained if they are to perform well. The gold standard system for doing this is made by Nikwax - a British company founded by Nick Brown - which forms the base upon which the Paramo waterproof and breathable clothing brand has been built.
There are two stages to the process:
Tech Wash - for washing your gear
This is a gentle non-detergent soap formula that removes dirt from whatever waterproof clothing system you use, whilst leaving any water repellant coating largely intact. By contrast, using an ordinary detergent to wash your gear will clean it, but it will also strip off any water repellency. Furthermore, it will leave behind detergent residues that stick to the surface of your garment. Ironically enough, these residues are hydro-phyillic - attracting water to them - which is that last thing you want on a waterproof jacket..! The residues can also block some of the pores in the waterproof liner inside, making it less breathable.
TX Direct - for re-proofing your gear
Tech Wash may be gentle, but each wash does remove a small amount of the water repellant coating applied to your jacket. So after about five or six washes the coating will be ‘wearing a bit a thin’ - it’s effectives reduced by the washing, and also by abrasion and exposure to UV. At this point it is time to use TX Direct to apply a fresh coating of water repellency. All of this can be done in an ordinary washing machine, although the formula is also available in a pump spray for application to the outside of rucksacks and other bags.
The breathable membrane paradox…
That is why it is critical that you regularly use the washing/re-proofing regime outlined above - even if your jacket uses a physical water-proof barrier such as a Gore-Tex style membrane.
As noted above, there are two aspect to all of this - keeping the rain out, and keeping your jacket breathable, so that it allows water vapour to escape from within. Put simply, membrane based systems like Gore-Tex stop the liquid water coming through from outside because the water molecules are too big to go through the microscopic pores in the liner. Meanwhile, the water vapour molecules generated by you getting hot and sweaty inside, are small enough to pass through the pores in the membrane - pulled outwards towards the lower humidity outside.
That’s fine in principal, but in our experience we have found that it is quite easy to ’wet out’ - or overwhelm - even the most breathable of membrane lined jackets. This is particularly true in the relatively mild conditions of Autumn and Spring. If it starts raining - when you are most likely to be wearing the jacket - the humidity will often be little different on the outside to that on the inside of your jacket. So the pull towards equilibrium that the model relies upon is dramatically reduced.
If the water vapour does make it through the membrane, it then meets the additional barrier of the face fabric of the garment. In real world scenarios, the face fabric may not be clean and re-proofed, as advised above, in which case it is likely to be soaking wet with rain water. Nothing will escape through that barrier, and water vapour is just going to condense. That is why it is critical that you regularly use the washing/re-proofing regime outlined above - even if your jacket uses a physical water-proof barrier such as a Gore-Tex style membrane.
Dalby Forest - near Pickering, North Yorkshire - is one of our local stomping grounds, and a fantastic place to capture the beauty of Autumn
The Paramo alternative…
I have to confess that when it comes to waterproofs, we are all ‘Paramo Fanboys (and Fangirls)’ at Trailblazer Outdoors. We just find their gear more comfortable to wear than any of the membrane lined alternatives. And the fact that their analogy garments keep you dry without needing a membrane makes them supremely breathable, and ideal for our increasingly mild, damp climate. Don’t get me wrong, you will get warm inside a Paramo if you are expending energy, but we find that your temperature returns to equilibrium much more quickly, and any damp you feel inside disperses very rapidly.
The way Paramo Analogy garments work is by using an inner ‘pump liner’ that actively moves moisture away from your body - moving water vapour and liquid sweat outwards and pushing it towards the water repellant face fabric of the garment. Because there is no membrane to be protected Paramo face fabrics can be softer and less ‘crackly’ - making them popular with wildlife watchers, and others who want to be ‘stealthy’. It also makes them easier to pack down into a compact space when not in use.
The lack of a membrane makes Analogy waterproofs easy to repair - with Paramo offering a cost effective service, that prolongs the useful life of the garment. Finally, Paramo garments can be re-cycled at the end of their life - something rendered impossible with conventional systems where the non-recyclable waterproof membrane has to be bonded to the face fabric.
We believe the new Velez Jacket is the best lightweight waterproof Paramo have ever made. The venting pockets are high up - making it ideal for use with a rucksack, and the ‘halo’ hood moves comfortably with you as you turn your head. The Velez Jacket’s light weight and moderate insulation make it ideal for the mild, damp climates of Autumn, Spring, and increasingly year round…
Base layers and layering…
Be it membrane based or Analogy, your Jacket will only work well if you are wearing a suitable base layer underneath - to effectively wick sweat away from your skin. If you try to get away with wearing a standard cotton T-Shirt, the moisture is going to soak into it and stay there, making you feel really clammy. Because water molecules are a very effective conductor of heat, the wet fabric can also make you lose body heat very quickly - producing discomfort, but also risking the far more serious problem of hypothermia.
Layering is a useful concept to get your head around in this context, and becomes increasingly important as we move towards the colder months.
Layering is a useful concept to get your head around in this context, and becomes increasingly important as we move towards the colder months. Combining differing layers allows you to adapt to changing conditions whilst still remaining comfortable:
Base-Layer - worn fairly tightly next to the skin to wick sweat away so that you stay dry, which is half the battle in keeping warm
Mid-Layer - provides an additional warm layer when required, usually consisting of some form of fleece to trap a layer of insulating warm air
Outer Shell - membrane lined or Paramo style jacket provides water and wind repellency, whilst also preventing the insulating warm air from escaping, and cutting down the effect of wind chill
And this will be my last plug for Paramo. In our experience, unless you are standing still for a long time, or are out in the depths of winter, most people don’t need a mid-layer when wearing an Analogy Waterproof. That’s because the pump liner effectively works like a lightweight insulator - rather like wearing a thin synthetic down layer underneath the outer shell of the jacket. So a good base layer plus the new Velez Jacket will be our ideal walking/photography system this Autumn - and probably well into Winter.
mist and fog are highly prised by landscape photographers, but can make you feel extremely cold. A good base layer will help by keeping your skin dry, whilst a mid layer and outer shell will trap an insulating layer of warmer air and help protect you from the cooling moisture in the atmosphere.
What about my legs..?
Keeping your legs dry is something that often gets forgotten. I have lost count of the number of times I have run into photographers wearing jeans when out in cold, damp, and rainy conditions - yet it is difficult to think of less appropriate leg wear..! They may be tough, but jeans are generally stiff and heavy, they absorb sweat and rain water like a towel, and they take forever to dry - meaning that you get very cold very quickly if the wind picks up.
I have lost count of the number of times I have run into photographers wearing jeans when out in cold, damp, and rainy conditions - yet it is difficult to think of less appropriate leg wear..!
The changeable conditions of Autumn can be dealt with much more effectively by a good pair of walking trousers. There are many makes to suit all shapes and sizes, but we particularly like those made by the German company ‘HS’ - standing for ‘Hot Sportswear’, don’t laugh..! They come in standard form and fleece lined versions for Winter warmth, in a wide range of sizes and three different leg lengths. But perhaps their best feature is that they are made from a comfortable stretch fabric that moves with you as you negotiate the landscape and any obstacles such as stiles, fences, etc.
Like many dedicated walking trousers, the outer surface is coated with a Durable Water-repellant Coating (DWR) - just like the jacket options discussed above. Whilst not being fully waterproof, this does help rain, and the Autumn mist and dew, to bead up and run off the surface rather than soaking straight in. Being made largely from man made fibres such as polyester, polyamide and elastane, they are also very quick drying. The DWR can be replenished periodically in the same way as described above using Nikwax Tech Wash and TX Direct.
Gaiters are also a sensible addition at this time of year - adding extra protection for your boots, whilst keeping the bottoms of your walking trousers clean and dry. They will also help to combat the spectacular amounts of dew that tends to be a feature when walking through grassland and remaining crops in the Autumn. The pictures below illustrate the way that this can wick up the legs of your trousers if you don’t keep on top of re-proofing for your leg wear..!
Gaiters are a cheap and practical addition to any outdoor photographer’s kit - keeping some of the mud off of your boots and the bottom of your trousers. The Fjallraven G-1000 fabric that the walking trousers are made from is a dense weave polycotton - extremely tough, breathable and fast drying. However, if not re-proofed regularly with Greenland Wax or Nikwax Cotton Proof, they will still soak up moisture like a sponge. In this case the iPhone that was in the leg pocket was soaking wet by the time I had crossed one dew filled Autumn field - should have put it in one of the pouches pictured at the start of this article..!
If you want to completely protect yourself from moisture, and wind chill, you could invest in some light-weight, membrane lined over trousers. These can be fairly cheap - although Gore-Tex lined ones will set you back over £100 - and they add little weight or bulk to the kit in your bag. However, you do need to be aware of the changing conditions as timing when to put them on can be tricky. You also have to perfect the ‘over-trouser dance’ to get into them without falling over - so look for ones that aren’t too narrow in the leg, and have a decent length zip opening at the ankle.
The ultimate leg-wear..?
Alternatively you could go the whole hog and get yourself some fully waterproof trousers - such as those in the Paramo Cascada, Torres or Enduro ranges. We live in these when we are out in the Autumn and Winter - they keep you cosy and dry when it’s cold, but have full side ventilation for when the sun comes out. They are of course a more serious investment - although you can kit yourself out with everything mentioned so-far for way less than the cost of a ‘professional’ lens for my Nikon D810..!
I hope that we have given you some useful advice here for when you are heading out to capture the Autumn colours. It is a fantastic time of year to be shooting, but you have to be prepared for anything weather wise. If we have at least persuaded you of the value of topping up the water-proof coating on your jacket and trousers, we think we will have done a good job.
Next time we will be looking at issues you need to consider, and kit that can be helpful, when you head out into the landscape this Winter. In the meantime, we look forward to talking to you personally at the Meeting of Minds Conference in November, where the Trailblazer Outdoors stand will feature many of the items mentioned above.
Whilst only in my second year of photography I went on a family holiday to the west coast of Scotland, my first visit I might add. Still quite wet behind the ears and having just passed my driving test, I relished the challenge of driving all that way. Little did I know that the trip from the South West to Scotland would become a familiar routine in years to come.
Photographically, I had a really successful and enjoyable time, probably because I was very lucky with the weather. One morning we visited Oban. I was lost in my new world of photography and stumbled across a gallery on the high street. Without hesitation, I rushed inside and was blown away, not only by the quality of work, but the compositions and sheer volume of images, all of which had a particular style and romance. At the time, I was living in Cornwall and had a real soft spot for seascapes, which peppered the gallery. Yet, the one image that struck me was one very large print, hung at eye level on the wall as I walked in. The detail in the image was astonishing. It had subtle colours, a pin sharp focus and a composition that pulled you into the image. I could have stared at it for hours. Ever since stepping into Richard Child’s gallery, I’ve been a huge fan of his work. To pick one favourite image is an impossible task. Yet, when I was asked by On Landscape to contribute my favourite image, this particular memory sprung to mind.
On a recent visit to On Landscape headquarters we asked Jon Cuff whether he would be able to answer a few questions about the process of creating the filters and a few questions from our readers as well. Jon graciously agreed and also took a few photographs of the operation for us.
When people see a Lee filter for the first time, there is a perception that you must just buy in a sheet of clear plastic, dye one end and then chop them to size and wonder why they are so expensive. Could you let us know just how the filters are made and why the processes are so demanding? i.e. plastic type, optical purity, how to get parallel/smooth, how to get neutral dyes, how to get the right gradation.
Firstly, it is important to note that our resin filters are made by hand in Andover, Hampshire. It is here we convert a selection of raw materials into the filters many of our customers know and love. The resin used in our filters is a formulation known as CR39 (which has the highest abrasion/scratch resistance of any uncoated optical plastic). This is similar to that used in the manufacture of spectacle lenses, but it is not the same. We buy the constituent parts of a CR39 resin, and our team of chemists formulate it to our own specifications and tolerances in house. This gives us ultimate control over the quality of the resin; plus the mixing conditions we use gives a superb optical clarity that we could not achieve by simply buying in sheets.
Once we have the correct formulation we cast the resin sheets in a ‘mold’ of two perfectly flat pieces of float glass. The thickness of the filter is controlled by a specifically made filament system. The combination of the glass and the filament allows us to achieve perfect flatness as well as a parallel sheet. These ‘molds’ then go into a highly programmable oven which cures the resin for 24 – 48 hours.
Once removed from the ovens the filters are tested for optical clarity, flatness and hardness. If they pass all of these requirements, they are then sent on to our dedicated resin dying team.
All of the dyes we use are, again, supplied to us in a raw form and are formulated from a number of individually coloured dyes on site. This allows for very fine control in maintaining the accuracy of our colours as we can adjust the final dye depending on any variables that we may encounter.
All resin filters are hand dyed in tanks heated to a specific temperature. The heat will enable the dye to migrate into the surface layers of the resin. The density of the filter is not only affected by the dye itself but also the duration in the dye tank.
Graduated filters are partially dipped into the dye and agitated depending on the type of graduation we are producing. This is a very time-consuming process which can vary from filter to filter; for example, a 1.2 (4stop) ND takes longer than a 0.6 (2 stop) ND.
All filters are then given visual checks that are also confirmed by spectrophotometers to ensure they meet specification.
The filters are then cut to the correct size, sent through a rigorous quality control and then packed for worldwide dispatch.
During the whole process, each filter will undergo at least 12 separate quality checks, and of course, can be rejected and discarded at any point. We have quite a high waste figure, but an incredibly low returns rate, and that’s how it should be.
Recently Lee has introduced two new gradations, the very hard and medium ones, to make a total of four different gradations. Where did the demand for these come from and are they proving popular?
The new graduations have been received very well indeed. For those who don’t know; we have added medium and very hard to the 100mm and SW150 systems and a medium to the Sev5n. In truth, we have been making these graduations in one form or another for our professional photographers for some time now. There were a few reasons to offer them as a general release.
"Which Graduation?"
We're currently doing some research and testing to work out which graduation is best for a particular lens/camera system but in short we're pretty sure it depends on three things 1) Focal length - longer needs harder 2) Distance of filter from nodal point of lens - farther needs harder 3) Aperture - larger needs harder (e.g. f/1.4 blurs the edge of a hard grad)
Firstly, we wanted to give the photographer as much creative control as possible. Secondly, with the ever increasing popularity of APS-C / M4/3 mirrorless systems we wanted to give a harder graduation range that would be better suited to their equipment needs. Lastly, focal length has a direct effect on the usefulness of a grad with longer focal lengths requiring a much harder edge.
The very dense neutral density filters have proved very popular and are glass based rather than plastic. How are these manufactured and how hard was it to get a result that has minimal colour casts?
It is worth noting that the vast majority of our range is still made from resin. However, sometimes it is necessary to produce a filter in glass. In the case of the Stopper filters; glass was an essential part of their design. Glass has to be used in order to block the infrared colour cast associated with long exposures. These filters are made in a deep dye process where the dye is mixed into the molten glass rather than a surface-coated treatment. This not only locks in the dye, making it permanent, but it also enables us to achieve the high densities we require. The essential part of the process is to get the dye mix correct at the point of casting. Once cast, the colour cannot be changed. After the casting process is complete, the glass is cut into sizes and then highly polished to a finished surface.
A couple of manufacturers make glass graduated filters (albeit only in soft gradation and at enormous expense). Have you considered producing your graduated filters in glass?
We never discount anything, but we will only produce out of glass if we are confident it is better than we currently make. At this time we plan to stick with resin. There are a number of reasons why we continue to use resin for the majority of our products, but the main one is the ability to control our graduation types. By using resin, we can dip dye the filter in tanks and tightly control the differences between the four graduation types. Glass grads are made in a very different process where a vaporised metal is effectively sprayed onto the surface of a glass substrate. The clear part of the filter is shielded off, thereby giving you a graduated filter. This process often leads to big variations in the graduation lines, often leaning more towards a softer edge. Using glass also adds the complication of reflectiveness. By adhering metal to a glass surface, you are effectively making a mirror. It is, therefore, necessary to add all types of anti-reflective multi-coatings to combat this. We do not experience such an issue with the resin filters we make.
Colour correction filters used to be very popular for film use. Are you seeing demand for these filters again now that film is becoming more popular?
Digital photography has meant that we do not sell as many colour correction filters as we use to, but the demand has never totally gone away with even a number of digital photographers preferring to use some of the weaker variants. We have seen more and more film based photographers get in contact with us, especially if they are planning long exposures using a Stopper; combating the blue colour cast with one of our amber filters.
Strongly coloured filters for black and white film photography can create some dramatic looks or just give increased contrast etc.
What are the most popular of these?
Black and white landscapes are ever popular and I am pleased to say that many still use traditional black and white film. We make a select range of black and white filters, each with their own benefits. Yellow absorbs blue in images, which has a great effect on darkening skies and foliage. Yellow-green is great for lightening foliage and grass and darkens reds. Reds and oranges are ideal for adding drama to an image with an increased contrast, absorbing blues/greens with the effect of the red filter being very strong. We even have some digital photographers use these filters effectively too (Tim: Be wary though, very dense red or blue filters can have a big effect on resolution)
Gel filters are considerably cheaper than resin ones, what are the disadvantages of using these?
To clarify, we make a couple of gel filters. One is our range of lighting gel. These are sold in sheets and rolls and are for lighting control only. Sadly they do not have the optical quality to be used in front of a lens.
The other type of gel is a select range of polyester camera filters. These super thin gels offer incredible optical quality due to the fact that they are so thin and therefore have a very low refractive index. However, they need to be mounted in a frame to be used in a holder. Their thin nature makes them more delicate than resin, and they can damage easily. They are an excellent option when a temporary solution is needed. It is worth noting that we cannot offer graduated filters or strong ND’s in polyester gel form.
In terms of product development, have a look in the crystal ball and tell us what you see in the potential Lee filters pipeline.
We are lucky to have a very active R&D team. A great deal of work is put into investigating new technologies, applications and ideas. Sadly R&D are a secretive bunch so sadly no juicy bits today I am afraid. However, we do endeavour to view our product line in a wider scope and are already seeing photographers and film makers use our filters in increasingly creative and different ways. We take a great deal of inspiration from this and look to develop products that not only offer filtration but support the photographer too.
Questions from Readers
We like the new dayglo 75mm adapter caps, will you be doing similar ones for the 100mm system? Can you redesign the 100mm caps to make them fit better, protect the lens better and more easily removable?
The new Sev5n caps have been very well received. At the moment we do not have plans to replace the 100mm system cap, but you never know. The 100mm system caps have to be of a different design because of the more complicated shape of the 100mm adaptor rings, and we originally made them white so that you can also take a fairly good white balance reading through them.
Can you make adapters that repeat the lens thread so I can use my own lens caps?
This is something we used to have but changed some time ago when we widened the design of the standard rings to give more angle of view. The far more popular wide angle style rings are made to be incredibly thin and by design have no area for a repeat thread.
Lots of people are asking about a reverse grad - can you tell us what the problems with this are?
We do get asked for reverse ND grad filters, and it is actually something we are looking into. However, we believe we have a very good reason why we have not offered them in the past. Most customers use such a filter for sun below the horizon shots, seascape sunsets, etc. and want a very hard grad line at the horizon with a short graduated area to darken the sun. Reverse ND grads as they are currently available do offer a hard horizon line edge, but the blend to a fade can often be too wide, or the lens itself is not seeing a wide enough expansion of sky to see the faded area. In many instances, an ND stripe works well.
Before you ask, sadly we do not currently offer a ND stripe, but there is an option by using two ND grads together. If you insert one of the grads upside down you can overlap the filters; where they cross you get a ND stripe.
This is not only adjustable to suit your scene and or focal length of lens but you can vary the effect massively by using different strengths and graduation types. This gives the photographer a lot of control. Using this technique does mean that you have to allow for the second ND grad affecting your foreground exposure but once you understand the technique it is very simple. That being said, if we can produce a reverse ND grad that we feel offers the photographers what they want, we will do all we can to do that.
What do you recommend to clean the filters? Will using natural soap cause any problems?
We do have a cleaning solution in our range that works well, if you have other filter/lens cleaners they should be ok too as long as they are not aggressive in their cleaning action. If you shoot near the sea and find that at the end of a session you have a lot of salt on the filter, we would recommend washing this off first. Luke warm (NOT HOT) water is ideal. This will dissolve the salt away. Once dry you can polish with our cleaning solution and a cloth.
Filters eventually change colour. How long should a Lee filter last and stay within spec? Can you do trade in discounts on updating filters that have gone out of spec?
As the dye in the resin filters is a surface coating, it can fade after use and time. With good storage, you can expect to get 7-10 years of use out of them. Sadly we do not do any trade in schemes to replace these filters but as all of our filters are dated, if a problem occurs before this time, a customer can contact us directly, and we can sort it out.
Will you be making an adapter or system for the Canon 11-24mm fisheye?
We currently have an adaptor for the SW150 system that works with the Canon 11-24mm lens. It is worth noting however that vignetting does occur at 11mm. You can, however, use the holder fitted with two slots at 13.5mm and one slot at 12.5mm. These figures are when the holder is being used relatively straight. If you angle the holder, then the vignetting issue is much greater, and you have to sacrifice more focal length. The only way around this would be to make an even larger filters system with dramatically wider filters. At the moment this is not something we are planning to do.
Is there any way Lee can make the grad transition zones more uniform at each given style i.e., soft, medium, hard. I virtually always use multiple grads to arrive at my requirement but none of the transition at the same rate.
As our filters are hand-made there is a tolerance to each of the graduations. However, there are very distinctive differences between them. Due to the different depths of each graduation transition there can be a variance from one type to another, especially if you are using a soft filter with a harder one at the same time. Since we changed to the 4 variations of gradation, we have had to tighten our tolerances for manufacture even further. But because the filters are made by hand there will always be some variation from filter to filter, but you will find that LEE filters made in the last 2 years or so will have much less variance in the transition zone than filters from a few years back.
Do you still see a place for graduated filters as digital cameras have more and more dynamic range?
Dynamic range has indeed become much better in recent years, but we find that there is still a need for a graduated filter. Even the most modern cameras with impressive dynamic ranges often need a two stop grad to give them a balanced image. We are seeing that customers need less ND strength to balance their image than they use to, but there is still some way to go before we wave goodbye to graduated filters.
A big thank you to Jon for his answers to our questions. We'll have our research into how to choose your graduated filters in a future issue - if anybody would like to help who has a range of lenses and a Lee filter holder, please get in touch!
On Landscape Meeting of Minds Conference
Jon Cuff will be on the Linhof Studio stand at the conference this November, so if you have any questions for Jon, please do visit him on the stand.
Lee Filters DSLR Starter Kit Offer from Linhof Studio
Our 4x4 feature is a set of four mini landscape photography portfolios from our subscribers, each consisting of four images related in some way. You can view previous 4x4 portfolios here.
If you would like to submit your 4x4 portfolio, please visit this page for submission information. We are looking for contributions for the next few issues, so please do get in touch if you're interested!
The live oak “boneyards” of the southeast coast of the United States hold a deep fascination for me. They are starkly beautiful and often deeply mysterious. They also serve as a metaphor for life on earth. The ocean, having given rise to all life, is now reclaiming these forests as the salt water erodes the land that once supported them.
I aim to combine my photography with hiking. After two long distance photo-hikes (not on consecutive days) – the full length in both directions of both The Cotswold Way and The Thames Path – I looked for something much nearer home and settled on Bredon Hill near my home in Worcestershire. I started on 1st January 2016 with the objective of hiking and photographing there on average once per week throughout the year. Bredon Hill covers about 30 square miles within the encircling road and is criss-crossed by some 50 miles of public and permissive paths.
At well over half way through the year I’ve now covered many of the paths several times at different times of the day, in different weather and lighting – and in various frames of mind. And there are always new images to be found, often being a new perspective on a previous subject. The hill supports a diverse mix of agricultural land, woodland, game shooting, nature reserve as well as having a number of iron age hill forts – all of which provide me with plenty of material to work with. My ultimate objective for each photo-hiking project is to present a selection of my favourite images in a print folio and/or book as well as present a project page on my website and a progress blog.
I'm lucky enough to have an Italian girlfriend whose family own a house hidden in the Mountains near Levico Terme in the North of Italy. Every year we go for a few days and it's like stepping back in time.
The texture, colours and simple nature of these houses, many of which have been handed down through generations, is a stark contrast to the bland 'new build' apartments that are now cropping up in Italy's conurbations, and across Europe generally.
Dotted around the slopes of the mountains these houses are simple yet effective and just staying in them for a few days is a great way to go back to a slower way of life where the main concerns are shelter, food and water.
Black Clough is a gorge on the southern flank of the Woodhead Pass. Its steepness isolates it from the managed boredom of the surrounding grouse moor. Deciduous trees line the stream as it tumbles down amongst the rocks. The tight confines give it an intimate and ever-changing character. I like its modest scale.
I move slowly up the clough, amongst the trees, the rocks, the chutes and the falls. I walk, see, think and be. When I have my camera with me I may see something that I’m drawn to; I might take a picture. Not purpose-less but purpose-free. My process is an iterative discursion. I contemplate, refine, execute, review, repeat.
Then I put that moment aside, leave it gathering digital dust in the HDD basement until it's matured, been forgotten, changed. After a while, it can be months or even years; I bring it back up to the surface, and I process the images. Sometimes I am back in the moment. Sometimes it's a different experience and sometimes there's a mystery. Usually all three. Then I attempt to make a picture.
After many years of walking in The Alps with a camera, I start realising that my understanding of photography much evolved from its original form. In the beginning, the way I practised artistic landscape photography was quite within the original goal of the photography, designed and thought as a mean to capture a favourite subject at the desired moment, i.e. make a document. Many tourists, when they come to visit new places, want a document (rather many of those) stating they were there. These documents usually called postcards.
My alpine photography was not much different at its beginning. Of course, I did try to photograph picturesque subjects at interesting moments, but still, too often, I ended up with just a document stating the fact of subject’s existence. Nothing more. Later on, I realised that an image of a picturesque subject, even captured at an interesting moment, but without an overall support of other elements of the scene, has little artistic value. A foreign detail, as a boring, disharmonic but well visible line might detract attention and impeach the spectator to enjoy your subject.
Sunset view over Les Dia-blerets with a small pond in the foreground. Annoying dark horizontal line breaks cross-talk between fore- and far-plans and ruins the image. Pentax 67II, SMC Pentax 55-100mm lens, Fuji Reala.
Being wielded nowadays with very modern (or even not so) cameras, we tend to forget our spectators are still humans and they are unlikely to get an “upgrade” that would enable us (photographers) manage their attention in a way we like and make spectator ignore unwanted details. The principles of human perception, have evolved a lot over the past century of modern art, but still remain close to the origin. Hence, I believe it is worth observing those, that have been well formulated in the flourishing heritage left to us by classical landscape painters.
Albert Bierstadt
In my previous post, I referred to some paintings done by Alexandre Calame, who was regarded at his time as a creator (or one of the creators) of the romantic alpine landscape. Here I would like to introduce the works by Albert Bierstadt, an American painter of German origin. After his 5-year education in the famous Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and professional maturation during his tour with fellow painters over Germany, Switzerland and Italy, he definitively moved to States, where he quickly gained celebrity grace to his monumental and romantic yet realistic works, full of dramatic light effects. The way Bierstadt painted mountains closely corresponds to my understanding of what a perfectly composed alpine landscape should be.
Albert Bierstadt, Storm over the Rocky Mountains, 1866.
Chiaroscuro
The image below readily demonstrates us the technique to concentrate spectators’ attention in the interior of an image, one of the base principles of the romantic landscape. Well known and appreciated earlier as chiaroscuro, such an effect of emphasising was employed by many Renaissance artists including Caravaggio. In application to landscape painting/photography, it suggests us that the closest foreground would remain in shadow, while the subject, being somewhere at the mid-plane is highlighted. Of course, such a complex scene we see on this monumental multi-stage painting is impossible to observe in reality, and I assume Bierstadt had never seen it entirely but rather composed it in a studio from sketches and plain-air etudes. We cannot benefit from this technique using classical photographic means, but following the principle of keeping illuminated subject somewhere inside the frame outlines the way to go and harvest some reasonably good images.
Morning light illuminates a mountain grid near Montblanc, September. Pentax 67II, SMC Pentax 55-100 mm lens, Fuji Reala.
Multi staging
Another basic principle of the romantic landscape is the abundance of stages or coulisses in the image.Technically speaking, these are shapes like stretches of ground, residing somewhere between the closest edge of a scene and the point of infinity. There should be at least two stages: fore and far ground, but more are always welcome.
Albert Bierstadt, Autumn landscape – the Catskills.
A sufficient number of intermediate layers helps us to achieve one of the photographer’s vital duties - render depth of the scene with confidence. Landscapes having at most one single plan are usually too simple and quite flat, in my humble opinion. It is indeed difficult to say sometimes how many stages there are and where one finishes and the next one starts, though natural relief and alternating illumination might give us a hint on where the boundaries are. Probably, the spectator does not have to count stages, but rather feel they are enough to entertain her or his eyes.
View on Les Dents du Midi, October. Pentax 67II, SMC Pentax 55-100 mm lens, Fuji Reala.
Alternation of light and shadows
Multi-staging comes closely related to yet another important rule in romantic landscape – alternation of light and shadows at fore- and mid-grounds, which is, in fact, an extension of the principle of chiaroscuro, discussed earlier. A closer look at image 1 would reveal us that the magnificent work by the famous painter does have several light strokes on the foreground, though less evident and important than the main one. As well as practically all romantic landscape painters, Bierstadt did reiterate this approach multiple times [see image below] and was famous as a virtuoso of luminism.
Albert Bierstadt. Mountain Landscape II
I perhaps should not speak much to fellow photographers to persuade that revealing illumination, as well as light accents, in reality, is a privilege, not the right. No one can be certain that being at a location would benefit having such. However, some prior knowledge might help. Knowing beforehand that direction of incident light on the hour almost coincides with the orientation of slopes, one might expect a revealing illumination. Certain weather conditions like next sunny day after a good rain stimulate the formation of low clouds, which usually provide interesting light accents. Having all these, it is worth to compose and wait until your frame becomes full of nicely highlighted details like e.g. the flow of curves of ground relief [see image 5, View on Les Dents du Midi, October] or stretches of larches revealed by light strokes.
The ground principles enumerated above are indeed very important and total ignorance of those usually make results unacceptable (at least, for me). However, we cannot always require that all rules be satisfied at 100%. The photography, as we all know, is totally different from the spontaneous rendering of scene elements using pencil and brush, so we cannot have the same freedom. As I wrote in my previous post, we can only wait, search for the perfect viewpoint and select the right lens. The choice of focal length or long exposure are powerful instruments of creativity in photography, unavailable to classical artists, so we can positively use those advantages, while still remaining faithful to the base principles of the romantic landscape.
Foreground with wide-angle lens
Looking on classical landscapes, we readily observe that their creators depict subjects as they see the scene looking just straight, with perhaps some little movements of eyes around (this correspond photographing via a normal lens e.g. 40-50mm lens in 135 format, 80mm in medium format, 150mm in 4x5” and so on). Using modern wide-angle lens, we can render images that naturally cannot be seen without turning the head left and right or up and down. We thus willingly distort the image, giving eminent, sometimes utter importance to foreground elements and reducing mountains on the far-plan to small ridges. This is opposite to the way classical artists treat mountain forms - they always tried to emphasize their grandeur. Though little classical, I find photographing mountains via wide-angle lens is still acceptable if foreground elements compensate lost “value” and entertain spectator with a plethora of unusual shapes and combinations of colour [see images 3 Morning light illuminates a mountain grid near Montblanc & image number 8, Sunrise with a view on Montblanc grid]. Both example images obey the same principle discussed earlier – multi-staging. These multiple coulisses composed of completely different elements (stones, bunches of plants, steady or running water or even clouds) assure spectator’s eye amusements while accompanying its walk to infinity.
Sunrise with a view on Montblanc grid, late September. Pentax 67II, SMC Pentax 55-100mm lens, gradient filter and filling flash, Fuji Reala.
Ambient light instead of direct light
Though the fore and mid grounds in the latter example clearly does not have any alternation of light and shadows, we still can reasonably well read all its details. Why? Grace to a different reflective capability of its elements, the water surfaces are still less dark than the areas covered by various mountain herbs. On the same note, deranged by a little wind and thus reflecting bright sky a part of the lake is clearly visible in between and separates the darken ridge and still water casting ridge’s reflection. Though not as powerful as incident sunlight spots, all these subtle variations do the job alternating dark and light areas and assure readability of the image.
Colour instead of light
The previous image also shows us how the opposite colours, the herbal green-brown hues alternate with blue-purple tones reflected from water and greyish stone faces. Variation of colours at adjacent planes is another possibility to stay conformed with the rule of alternation when direct sunlight is unavailable. Interchange of opposite colours in addition to (or instead of) classical light and shades was well studied and employed by impressionists. Nothing prevents us from also combining both tonal and coloristic approaches and thus create images rich in various counterpoints.
View at Lake Emosson, mid-October. Pentax 67II, SMC Pentax 55-100mm lens, polarising filter, Fuji Reala
On this image, in addition to several obvious light-shadow alternations at both fore and far grounds, we can as well observe how yellowish hues of larches contrapose to blue tones of the lake. While taking this image, I paid special attention and spent quite an amount of time to find a viewpoint where illuminated halves of the larches remain on a darker background, yet their shaded counterparts stay rendered over lighter areas.
Atmospheric effects
Atmospheric effects are another very effective mean helping photographer to unglue planes. I keep saying that fog is the best photographer’s friend. Just a little presence of haze can readily separate planes and help rendering depth with confidence.
Bierstadt certainly had observed this effect many times before immortalised it on one of his paintings. Haze naturally accumulates almost every evening, though during some days more than other. After several warm, windless days it is certainly there. Hence a photographer might benefit if the scene is deep enough. To give you an idea, the distance between the point of view and Montblanc on the last photograph is about 20 km.
Albert Bierstadt, Storm among the Alps
Originality
Sceptic reader might say: yes, following these principles is, perhaps, a fruitful idea, but the resulting images are embarrassingly similar to already existing paintings. True, it is clearly a point, though it is only because of choice of the subject. Same as a century or two ago, in the mountains, we tend to immortalise easily accessible locations, i.e. low altitudes, though nowadays we have much more technical means to go a little bit higher. In The Alps trees exist up to about 2 km, thus at already 2.5-3 km we have quite a different scene, rarely depicted during previous centuries just because only a few painters dared to be there.
Sunset with a view of Montblanc grid, late June. Toyo 45AII, Apo Symmar 210mm, Fuji RDP III.
We can name just several high mountain landscape artists (e.g. Edward Theodore Compton, Gabriel Loppé, Marcel Wibault), who were brave to go high with all their heavy mountain as well as artistic equipment, but without all these modern hi-tech mountain shoes, jackets, pants and skies. Though not always romantic, their works show us they did observe same above discussed principles. I am impressed by these people and do think that those, seeking nowadays for original artistic images of mountains, should follow their efforts.
Plagiarism or follow up?
Did Bierstadt and other influence me? Certainly yes, with their artistic ideas. My works included in this post should illustrate it quite evidently. Though, while looking in my archives, I did find several of them with quite striking similarity to Bierstadt works, this happened “to my surprise”, as I never tried to repeat his Alpine images. I can certify it is impossible, even if he would paint the entire canvas at the location and I knew his exact viewpoint. I cannot make technical replicates of some my own photographs after my move from medium to a large format camera, though I, of course, know exact place, date and time. There are simply much more conditions than just place and time. I believe it is actually very good. Modern technology and means of transportation tempt people to follow other. I guess everyone heard stories on how many try to copy famous “Moon and Half Dome”, so there is even sometimes a queue of photographers at the location on the right day and time. However, looking at these resulting images, one can easily spot out the Ancel Adams’ work just because it is arguably more artistic. I will let the methodical reader find out if his masterpiece conforms to at least some of the principles that we have just spoken about. I hope my post will help fellow photographers to see the beauty of Nature from less technical and more artistic point of view.
Lee Acaster has built up an enviable track record of competition successes, so it’s likely that you have heard of him and seen some of his images. His urban goose - the winning picture in the British Wildlife Photography Awards 2014 – is prominent on the current catalogue of a well-known paper manufacturer; a slight irony perhaps for an East Anglian landscape photographer.
Can you tell me a little about yourself – your education, early interests and career?
I grew up on the edge of a small town in East Yorkshire, where my dad was a dustman and my mum worked in factories, often on nights, so needed to sleep during the day. Like many children back in the 70’s and 80’s I was often ushered out of the house to go and “play outside somewhere”, so I spent much of the time exploring the nearby farmland and countryside. I’ve had a love of nature and the outdoors ever since. Two or three days indoors soon has me climbing the walls.
I’d always been fairly good at art at school, so after leaving with underwhelming exam results, I enrolled on a general Art and Graphic Design course at a nearby art college. This included a small amount of photography and was where I first got my hands on an SLR camera. I learned the basics of aperture and shutter speeds etc., and how to process and print in the darkroom. Although I really enjoyed the photography aspect, I found it slightly frustrating that my pictures always seemed to be a pale imitation of what I had seen through the viewfinder, and as I progressed through higher education I concentrated on graphic design, rarely picking up a camera again.
I recently found myself facing a bit of time in post-operative recuperation, during which I would be unable to carry or use my camera, walk any significant distances or manoeuvre a tripod. In short, I was going to have to rest and not take any photographs for a while. I wrongly assumed this would be relatively simple and the free time I was to be afforded would allow me to undertake all the image editing, printing and absorption of books that I hadn't managed to get around to for a while. Instead, only a few days into my enforced period of sofa warming I found myself much like a small child in a sweet shop being told they can’t have an everlasting gobstopper. I wanted the one thing I couldn’t have; I needed to create some images.
In order to create those images, I had to accept some restrictions that were being imposed upon me by my recovery. I could not drive, carry a bag full of gear, manipulate a tripod, bend down or stretch and even though I could walk, I could not go for longer than a few minutes without stopping to rest. Those constraints pinned me geographically to my back garden, and to subject matter that was at a convenient height, which in turn led to other decisions regarding camera and lens choice. On top of these imposed constraints, I chose to add some more of my own. I wanted to produce a cohesive set of work, so a consistent depth of field, wide open, and final rendering styles were decided upon even before the press of the first shutter.
I also set myself a deadline by which I wanted to complete the set of 12-15 images. As for subject matter, I’m fortunate enough to have a garden stocked with architectural plants and foliage which at the time were at just the right stage of growth to match my impaired bending ability, but I didn't want to simply hone my macro skills, and instead wanted to use this as an opportunity to explore for myself form, line, structure and space within the confines of the image frame in a more abstracted way. In short, I’d given myself a fairly tight brief to work to, overlaid with several layers of constraints all helping to initially define and then refine that brief.
I had to accept some restrictions that were being imposed upon me by my recovery.I could not drive, carry a bag full of gear, manipulate a tripod, bend down or stretch and even though I could walk, I could not go for longer than a few minutes without stopping to rest.
I also set myself a deadline by which I wanted to complete the set of 12-15 images. As for subject matter, I’m fortunate enough to have a garden stocked with architectural plants and foliage which at the time were at just the right stage of growth to match my impaired bending ability, but I didn't want to simply hone my macro skills, and instead wanted to use this as an opportunity to explore for myself form, line, structure and space within the confines of the image frame in a more abstracted way. In short, I’d given myself a fairly tight brief to work to, overlaid with several layers of constraints all helping to initially define and then refine that brief.
Now, the concept of applying constraints to our image making processes is anything but a new idea. The photographic press is periodically awash with advice on how we can benefit from constraining ourselves whilst shooting; only shoot with one focal length, only shoot in black-and-white, only shoot one type of subject matter, only shoot X number of frames, only shoot using a tripod, only shoot handheld, the list goes on and on. Whilst the advice itself is clearly rooted in common sense, very rarely is the benefit of doing so fully explored beyond the obvious, e.g. Shooting a fixed focal length will teach you to see and compose stronger images with that focal length; Shooting with your camera set to black and white will help you to see in black and white, understanding the translation of colours and tones from the colour we see with our own eyes into the black and white image on our computer. That advice is generally focused on helping people improve their technique, their craft, and does not necessarily explore what it can do for your creativity.
Several photographers based locally to me in South Wales, regularly produce beautiful portfolios of work, borne out of a world full of self-imposed constraints of one type or another. Rob Hudson’s ‘Mametz Wood’ project and ‘North Towards the Orison’ series, Matt Botwood’s ‘Ephemeral Pools’ and Neil Mansfield’s latest series ’29 Steps’, are all constrained in terms of their approach to composition, capture and/or also post-capture treatment, and in most cases are also geographically constrained to their local area. Rob’s work, in particular, is constrained by a piece of prose or poetry that beautifully frame and drive that body of work.
Chris Tancock's long-term projects take on many levels of constraints, from the choice of camera and lens, the time of day the work is produced, and even so far as adopting the habits of the wildlife that inhabit the landscape he works in. While Michael Jackson constrained himself for many years shooting sand patterns on a small section of a single beach, Poppit Sands in West Wales and his more recent Luminograms are produced in the darkroom ‘simply’ using an enlarger and some light, but no camera whatsoever.
when I look enviably at each of the bodies of work listed above, I simply don't see those constraints manifesting themselves as limitations or restrictions in their imagery, instead on the contrary I see exploration and variety, the birth and evolution of ideas, the chasing down of a creative spark or thought.
However, when I look enviably at each of the bodies of work listed above, I simply don't see those constraints manifesting themselves as limitations or restrictions in their imagery, instead on the contrary I see exploration and variety, the birth and evolution of ideas, the chasing down of a creative spark or thought, the subtle ongoing conversation between the creator and the created and in some cases a genuine sense of play. I sense each photographer using those constraints not as limiting factors but instead as guiding lines and principles that help define a bounding box or world within which they can explore their ideas freely.
Constraints can give a photographer permission to focus, permission to shut out other distractions and build themselves a creative framework within which they can explore, experiment and develop ideas or concepts. Creativity can blossom in such environments, in much the same way that our remaining senses become heightened and more acute when one of them is impaired, lost or masked in some way. Our photographic instincts can sharpen, our creativity begins to flow with more clarity, and our craft improves through play. Research suggests that the most reliable way to facilitate our brain’s shift to a more creative state is first to undertake a simple, repetitious task requiring little forethought such as sorting children’s building blocks by colour. By giving ourselves constraints, such as lens choice, subject matter or a pre-determined treatment style, we are in fact removing those typically conscious decisions from our workflow and by doing so opening up the relevant neural pathways in our brain allowing us to more easily enter that creative state of mind.
Constraints can give a photographer permission to focus, permission to shut out other distractions and build themselves a creative framework within which they can explore, experiment and develop ideas or concepts.
Care does, however, need to be taken to ensure those guiding lines and self-imposed rules or constraints do not become an all smothering blanket for our creativity. It can be all too easy to sleepwalk into allowing those constraints to turn into a warm, snuggly duvet of comfort from beneath which we would rather not emerge, taking those easy images that require little forethought and little effort to create and ultimately leave us looking at them on the computer screen with a feeling of slight disappointment and a nagging sense of familiarity. Neither should those constraints be akin to a straight jacket, stifling our creativity and restricting our ability to react and explore. We should use constraints carefully, and most importantly mindfully to enrich and challenge ourselves.
We should not, however, lose sight of the fact that we are inviting these constraints into our photographic lives, if they begin to feel like a burden or anchor weighing us down, then we can and should shed them and move on. Some can live entirely within a world of constraints quite happily, for others, a short time spent engaging in a project or a series in this way is a more realistic proposition and can provide a well-needed kick up the creative backside. The important thing for all of us though is to be mindful of our own creative processes and know when those processes are being fed or starved by the decisions we make.
We should not, however, lose sight of the fact that we are inviting these constraints into our photographic lives, if they begin to feel like a burden or anchor weighing us down, then we can and should shed them and move on.
I unexpectedly learned these lessons and discovered those benefits for myself as I attempted to fulfil the brief I’d set. Initially, as I gently rocked back and forth amongst the foliage of the Iris in the border, simply hunting for abstract lines and forms in the viewfinder as tiny sections of leaves drifted in and out of focus, I would notice something in an image or through the lens that acted as a seed or catalyst for another run of images. A glimmer of something that momentarily appealed to me, a line or shape placed in a particular way or position within the frame, a curved leaf tip gently leading the eye around the frame to its own natural pointy conclusion, or the transmogrification within the two dimensions of the viewfinder of a flower bud into the gaping mouth of a newborn chick.
Sometimes these experiments went nowhere and instead led to creative dead ends, and the idea was discarded or parked, sometimes they lead to other streams of exploration that in turn themselves became sparks for ideas I have yet to pursue but have been captured in my trusty notebook for future reference. Most importantly, though, as the thread of an idea emerged, it could easily be explored, refined and honed or dismissed, all within the safety of the constrained brief. Perversely, instead of feeling constrained and restricted, I found myself feeling freer than I had for a long time with my own image making, refining both craft and ideas along with a fair amount of hugely refreshing play along with the way.
I have already seen the influence of that project and the importance of constraints in the work I've created since, and now have notebook pages covered with scribbled ideas and trains of thought I'm looking forward to exploring over the coming months and years. Try it, constrain yourself for a while and set yourself free in the process.
There is one spectacle grander than the sea, that is the sky.
Victor Hugo
Often, as ‘landscape’ (or ‘seascape’) photographers, our focus is on the just that, the land or the sea. Here is our foreground, the place we search for leading lines and ’S’ curves, for texture and interest. It is very easy to become preoccupied with what is happening around our feet and off towards the horizon while forgetting, or placing too little importance on, what is going on above us in the sky. Indeed, for some, it appears the main consideration concerning the sky is which ‘third’ to place the horizon line on. (and don’t get me started on the Rule of Thirds [We've written about it before here, here and here - Tim]). We can, if we are not careful, just accept what the sky presents us with and make the image almost in spite of it.
Indeed, for some, it appears the main consideration concerning the sky is which ‘third’ to place the horizon line on.
As photographers however, we are photographing light and the sky, or perhaps more accurately, the sun, as the source of that light. We are drawn to the colours of light around the edges of the day, at dawn and dusk, but we may fail to realise that what is happening in the sky can often make or break the effectiveness of a composition; not just because of the quality of the light but also because of the patterns in the clouds. We take so much care to organise the foreground elements in the frame, should we not also give the sky the same intensity of consideration? If we do not, then perhaps we are treating it simply as a backdrop. The kind of thing a studio photographer drapes over a stand just to give a portrait image a background. How sad that would be when, as Mr. Hugo said above, the sky is such a grand spectacle.
Waiting for the Cloud
Or, it may very well be, that if possible, we return to that composition many times until one day we are blessed with that wonderful coming together of earth and sky which work together perfectly. Those are the moments we landscape photographers live for.
To use the sky as an integral part of our composition we need patience. It so rarely performs for us as we would like. I can’t be the only landscape photographer who sometimes wishes I could just nudge clouds into position, much as a landscape painter can place the clouds exactly where they want to enhance the painting? Or perhaps even to change the cloud type, maybe from a leaden grey blanket of low Stratus into a day of high wispy Cirrus? On location, if an image is really worthwhile, it is worth waiting to see if the right clouds drift into position for us and this takes patience, rather than running around a place firing off lots of frames regardless of what is happening above us. Making the clouds an integral part of the composition can really elevate an image and add so much to it.
Inside the Outside is a collective comprising: Al Brydon, Stephen Segasby, Joseph Wright and myself - Rob Hudson. We were brought together by a similar approach to photographing the landscape. Our name comes from the great Scottish naturalist and founder of the American national parks movement John Muir, who said, "I found that going out was really going in."
We are diverse in technique, style, method and process; yet we share a similar approach and understanding that is difficult to summarise in a succinct phrase, but might be shortened to ‘beyond the visual’. This isn't without irony, as it's also the title of a conference where three of our founder members first met. Somewhere in our DNA, there is a shared appreciation of the need for varying degrees of narrative, metaphor and investigation. That a photograph should speak of something more than the photographic process itself. That there's a big difference between a photograph of something and a photograph about something.
We are diverse in technique, style, method and process; yet we share a similar approach and understanding that is difficult to summarise in a succinct phrase, but might be shortened to ‘beyond the visual’.
Whereas the common understanding of landscape photography is broad, its intentions to catch as many as possible, our aims are more liberating, and possibly more uncompromising. We're more focused on the intimate relationship between the voice of the photographer and the inner eye of the viewer.
The exhibition aims to bring our work together with others who share this perspective, to act as a marker of where the photographers of the landscape are at now, and to introduce these ideas to a broader public. The selection in many ways marks the closing of a circle, the expression of a voice that for too long has remained quiet, restrained by its own intimacy and engaged with looking out in order to look in.
I fell in love with the landscape of South Wales long before I fell in love with photography. It was the experience of that landscape; it was its valleys, hills and coast that could alter my perceptions and emotions, that opened my mind to a new world of possibilities. It would be in photographs of that landscape that my thoughts and feelings were first given a tangible expression. Photographing the landscape introduced me to new friends, which led to us forming our collective and now to an exhibition.
Although the exhibition is of landscapes of England, Scotland and Wales, that isn't all they are about. The images maybe of the diverse territories of our islands, they may describe the topography for us, yet they also use the voices found in their subjects to speak about other things. Mainly they use them to talk about us, the people who view, make and inhabit these lands.
Landscapes without those people are just nature. Landscapes don't exist without being imagined through the prism of our intellect (or indeed cameras). Landscape is an idea; we bring landscape into being. So it should be no surprise that the photographs also speak of the way we interact, see, feel and think about these environments.
The intention of these photographs is often to render the abstract worlds of thoughts and feelings more concrete through the depiction of the physical world around us. They inquire below the apparent surface and build, in series, to a bigger picture. As it is we who make the landscape it is ready to be mined to illustrate ourselves.
Being in the landscape (and representing the landscape) is to simultaneously inhabit two worlds, the one before us and the one inside us. And when those two worlds collide and intermingle the result can often surprise.
Being in the landscape (and representing the landscape) is to simultaneously inhabit two worlds, the one before us and the one inside us. And when those two worlds collide and intermingle the result can often surprise.
Dealing as it does with the apparent reality of what is before us, and also with the often unspoken ability to express something of our inner selves; photography, it turns out, is the perfect medium to explore our relationship with the land. And it is also the perfect medium to mediate between those two simultaneous worlds of being there experiencing and the revelations that occur when we open ourselves to the creative possibilities of that liminal space.
To my mind there are two elements that make a successful landscape photograph; they portray both that which we already knew and help us see that which we thought we knew. In Seamus Heaney’s essay ‘The Sense of Place' he describes two (often contradictory) ways in which we experience the landscape: "One is lived, illiterate and unconscious, the other learned, literate and conscious." Yet, he goes on to say, "both are likely to coexist in a conscious and unconscious tension."
It is this tension between the conscious and unconscious knowing of a place that has produced many of the photographs in this exhibition. And which leads to what poet Owen Sheers described as the ‘double-sensation of recollection and illumination; of being presented with something familiar and yet also shown something new.’
The individual photographers will be your guides to the exhibition, and I believe they will both revitalise and illuminate our experience of place and through them ourselves. I hope our visitors can take the time to look through each photographer's work, in turn, to find the value in each and the connections between.
Valda Bailey
Valda Bailey’s ‘Southern Song' is part of a larger project that attempts to explore the Japanese concept of Wabi Sabi. One of many dictionary definitions defines it as "a way of living that focuses on finding beauty within the imperfections of life and accepting peacefully the natural cycle of growth and decay. Valda focuses on the bittersweet beauty of the transience of nature and its imperfections that she finds expressed in her Sussex garden.
John Blakemore
John Blakemore is one of England’s leading landscape photographers and is Emeritus Professor of Photography at the University of Derby, where he taught from 1970 to 2001. Informing all his work is a constant interest in death and decay, the cycle of nature and the history of Western visual culture, as well as an all-consuming concern with the craft of fine photographic printing. Notably for an exhibition by Inside the Outside he is the author of ‘Inscape’ a book of biographical landscape photographs made between 1971 and 1991, which shows his ideas both influenced and predate our own.
Alex Boyd
Alex Boyd’s series 'The Hebrides' began in 2013 when he was appointed as the Royal Scottish Academy Artist in Residence on the Isle of Skye. Despite using Victorian photographic processes, he wanted to push his practice in new directions, both physically, mentally, and aesthetically.
While he worked on this series Takeshi Shikama, the renowned elderly Japanese photographer, printer and artist, accompanied him on many of his journeys. His influence on the work is apparent, with Japanese minimalistic approaches to image making paired with a dedication to craftsmanship.
Jacqui Booth
In ‘Yours and Mine’ Jacqui Booth finds the land is the only place that allows her to draw her own interpretation. The contours of the land, the ruined traces of humanity that pervade it and the foliage covering it are mute. Even the prevailing environmental factors have no voice other that what we’ve applied through folklore and literature. It’s up to us. We’re the ones making it speak, be it a howl, whisper or a lullaby. It’s there for the taking.
Al Brydon
Al Brydon discovered twenty rolls of undeveloped exposed film but was unable to recollect what they might hold. The films were originally exposed roughly fifteen years ago, and he couldn't have known this would be the basis for a conversation with his future self. As each new exposure was made, he realised he was in effect destroying the original, but creating a new link with someone long gone. The result of this conversation was ‘Based on a False Story’, a unique collaboration with his former self. Making double exposures 15 years apart to explore memory, time and the gulf between who we are and who we were.
In the act of alarming optimism, he has kept one film back to re-expose in another fifteen years.
Mike Colechin
Mike Colechin’s ‘Graphica Ricercata’ is inspired by the Hungarian avant-garde composer, György Ligeti and Mike’s collaboration with the pianist Stuart Ellam. Like the music, the pictures are part of a much larger body of work - an exploration of the landscape in and around a series of gravel pits at Attenborough to the West of Nottingham; an on-going work of photographic research in a liminal location, where urban sprawl is curtailed by the need to give a river room to breath. It is a space exploited by industry - first through extraction of aggregates and now by the business of managing nature for the benefit of wildlife, but also for the benefit of the local human population.
Chris Friel
Chris Friel’s ‘Memorial’ is another series to use music as an inspiration. In his series, multiple exposures of the flowers left on graves are digitally displaced using audio samples from Fauré's Requiem Opus 48.
In his travels, he's been fortunate to film burial ceremonies around the world. Including celestial burials in Tibet and Mongolia, fire burials in Bali, ritual finger amputation in Papua New Guinea, and the ceremony of Famadihana in Madagascar where the dead are exhumed, rewrapped in fresh cloth and then danced around the grave before being reburied. So a walk in his local overgrown and generally ignored Victorian cemetery full of plastic flowers set him thinking about the British attitude to death and memorial.
Stephen Segasby
Stephen Segasby’s ‘A Process of Reclamation’ depicts the healing of scars in a post-industrial landscape that hint at the healing of our inner scars; and both nature’s and our own strength in adversity. His work addresses the effects of human influence on the landscape and nature’s drive to return it to a new natural state. This series is solely photographed within abandoned slate quarries of the English Lake District, one of the areas significantly affected by the industrial revolution. Where slate mining to provide roofs for houses followed the migration from rural to urbanisation. It depicts a landscape’s journey through time and the change abandonment and natural decay bring to bear. While also reminding us of the people of the area moving from rural to Victorian urban squalor under the roofs of that very slate.
Joseph Wright
Joseph Wright’s ‘The Lost Forest’ delves deep into our landscape's history and our fading connections to the past. It's an ongoing project begun in 2014 to rediscover and reassert the ancient boundaries of Bradon Forest. Retracing and walking its entirety, along the way telling its story by making images in response to topography, social history and to place. Exploring what forms boundary and permanence in the land, it's an altogether modern perambulation of ancient lines steeped in myth and folklore.
Using the records from 1228 AD, his journey starts in the edge lands, suburbs and industrial estates of Swindon, through sculpted parklands, into the pastoral landscape, across farmland, visiting ancient towns and villages, and finally to the heart of the old forest.
This reminds us all that our understanding of the landscape is too often one dimensional, when, in reality, it is deep with historical reminders, multilayered and open to multiple readings.
Rob Hudson
In my own ‘North Towards the Orison’, which although ostensibly retraces a journey by the poet John Clare, also addresses the issue of mental illness and the restorative power, and perhaps therapy to be found amongst nature. In 1841 the poet John Clare walked out from the asylum in which he was incarcerated at High Beach in Epping Forest to walk the 80 miles north to his home in Helpston, near Peterborough. He went in search of his first love Mary Joyce, who’d been dead for three years and who he believed to be his wife, despite being married to another woman. The walk took Clare four days.
The old word ‘orison’, meaning prayer is pronounced ‘orizen’, much like horizon with a silent ‘h’. When John Clare conflated these two words in his writing, I found a powerful metaphor with which to make a body of work that represented Clare’s search for that orison and in doing so also explore both our and Clare’s relationship with the land. The images were made in a small wood on the outskirts of Cardiff.
Dan Wood
There are yet more broad hints of the deceptions of the mind in Dan Wood's ‘Hypnagogia', where he expresses the fears found in those moments between sleep and wakefulness. These are dark, brooding diverse images of the world about us, but combined they speak of powerful, disturbing forces in our psyches. They take us to a realm of imagining and remind us of our fragility.
These photographers demonstrate both the diversity of relationships with and expressions of, the landscape. This isn't the formulaic common conception of landscape photography, but of photographers who reached as deeply within themselves as they have closely studied the land around them. And in those photographs of the land, they provide a vision allowing for exploration of the self as equally as an exploration of the topographies of our islands.
It seems timely to present an exhibition of photographs of the landscape. There are multiple threats to the environment from fracking, opencast mining and the industrialisation of farming, to doubts about the future of conservation funding after the Brexit vote. Plastics pollute our oceans, rivers and soil; pesticides designed to protect crops threaten to undermine the ecosystem upon which we all depend on. Technological change seems to conspire to drive us further away from the contemplative, healing qualities of the natural world.
The landscape has become a place of physical activities, somewhere to run, cycle or walk the dog. It is mostly seen from the window of a train or car. We are becoming remote from the charms of the flaneur, aimless, contemplative, coexistence. How often do we walk alone into a dark wood, feel the spider's web upon our face and the cool, moist air surround us and feel cocooned by the gently swaying green oasis? Indeed, climate change could become a threat to the very future of human civilisation. These factors speak of our growing inability to listen to the voices of the landscape and the effects of our actions upon the environment.
What can a photography exhibition do about this? Practically and directly, very little. But the photographs can remind us of what is threatened, not just nature, but all of us that it contains and mirrors. Our relationship with the landscape isn't purely one of physical dependency, but it's also spiritual and emotional. Photographers can deepen our understanding and appreciation of the landscape while also deepening our understanding of ourselves.
Perhaps they could form a memory bank of a shared experience, for it's difficult to appreciate the beauty of a place after it's gone. Better, perhaps we could be persuaded to adopt a more sustainable existence because we become aware that the threat isn't simply ‘out there’, but inside, to us personally. For what we could lose is also a piece of the puzzle that makes us, us. Let us not forget going out is really going in.
Ice is very special. Being the solid state version of water, it is lighter the liquid state. Water is the only chemical substance showing this property. Normally a substance is increasing in density from gas to liquid to solid. This unique property is of enormous importance for life on earth. If this were not the case, all lakes would be deep frozen all the way to the bottom, and no life would survive during the winters.
The melt from glaciers provides an even refill of water for creeks and rivers and keep their flow alive all year around. This has been taken for granted until now. Due to global warming, glaciers are shrinking, and so with a speed, we have never seen before. The fronts of the glaciers on Iceland are retracting roughly 50-100 m per year. As a result, their unique ”ice rivers” are drying out one by one. Wetlands and lakes fed by the melt water are also drying out and leaves a desert like landscape behind.
On Greenland, the inland ice is now showing meltwater lakes on top of the glacier. Something we also have never seen before. The meltwater eventually plunges down trough crevasses 3000m to the bottom of the ice. There it forms a huge subglacial lake. The lake´s water works as a lubrication and makes the ice slide faster down the slopes towards the surrounding sea. In 1997 the average calving speed of the inland ice into the ”Icefjord" of Western Greenland was about 30 m per day. Now almost 20 years later it has doubled. This results in more icebergs than before, but also more deposit of fresh water into the sea. Since fresh water has less density than salt water it has a less ”sinking effect”.
The fronts of the glaciers on Iceland are retracting roughly 50-100 m per year. As a result, their unique ”ice rivers” are drying out one by one. Wetlands and lakes fed by the melt water are also drying out and leaves a desert like landscape behind.
This ”sinking effect” is the pump which keeps the Gulf Stream alive. The Gulf Stream works like a conveyor belt. On its northern turning point just south of Greenland, the stream´s surface water is cooled off. The cooled off water then sinks towards the bottom of the sea. Salt water with its higher density sinks faster than fresh water and therefore works as a more effective pump. The sinking water then moves south keeps the conveyor belt going. Some scientists predict the Gulf Stream to stop if the salt water gets too much diluted by fresh water. The consequence of this would be a disaster for the whole of Northern Europe.
Our 4x4 feature is a set of four mini landscape photography portfolios from our subscribers, each consisting of four images related in some way. You can view previous 4x4 portfolios here.
If you would like to submit your 4x4 portfolio, please visit this page for submission information. We are looking for contributions for the next few issues, so please do get in touch if you're interested!
The images here are from Virginia Water, part of Windsor Great Park near Staines. Although it is landscaped and managed, there are many wilder parts where once I am concentrating on my photography I forget how near I am to towns and motorways.
I have recently been doing more black and white work, harking back to how I started photography (colour film being very expensive for teenagers in those days!), and dabbling with mono infra-red. Shooting in dull and even very wet weather, I hope to show the variety of textures and shapes and how these affect the mood of the scene.
The consideration of form within space concerns me in this series.
Focusing on forms within the landscape and photographic space has been a challenge for me along my local environment of the East Anglian coast.
During a recent conscious decision to seek out new subjects away from the draw of sea, river, and estuarine environments, with all of the beauty and challenge of the acres of space, tone, light, texture and glorious saline, I stumbled across and was reminded of the field border planting of Scots Pine Trees across Suffolk and Norfolk.
Undertaken to reduce erosion, these borders of plantings have become synonymous with parts of East Anglia, in particular along the sandy coastal fields and across chalk lands of Breckland. Their twisted forms, often sitting on distant horizons within the imagery of the region, as sentinels to mass within the great swathes of space.
Through this series, I feel as though I have been attacking these lonely spectres of evergreen. Starved of mountains, boulders, and as my good Welsh friend extols ‘real landscape’, I have set upon them, demolishing, deconstructing and seeking to reform their shadows into photographic representations of their existing gnarled solidity.
This approach to subject and representation has been consistent in my work for some time now, incorporating the now much better-understood processes of in camera movement and multiple exposures. While working from a technical perspective, I hope my work; I feel benefitting from the adoption of a more structured and considered practice as I learn, transcends just considerations of the adoption of this technical approach.
I am striving through my images to find some essence of the subjects I ponder, for me, the use of multiple exposure and ICM suits a natural desire to abstract and deconstruct, a remnant of earlier drawing and painting practice likely, and to reform.
Form being key in this series, however at times implied and faint, leaving just shadows of its’ former self, and within context, juxtaposed with the landscape and spaces it sits within.
I hope the results achieve some sense of these aims and resolve the sense of subject?
The two most prominent features of Joshua Tree National Park are its trees and its rocks. A mecca for rock climbers and geologists alike the boulders and rocky outcroppings of this California desert landscape draw the eye and hold it. The four images here are meant to hi-lite the shapes and textures produced by a February sunset.
Subject, as it is to the weather systems blowing in from the North Atlantic Ocean, and with its rugged topography, the North-West Highlands of Scotland, are best known for producing images of a tempestuous nature. There are times, though, especially in the early winter and spring mornings, when peace and tranquillity can pervade. At these times, before the heat of the sun rising above the valley walls stirs the still air, the surface of the lochs in the bottom of the straths and glens becomes mirror-like – perfectly reflecting the shore and skyline above.
I love capturing these moments, exploring not only the geometry and symmetry created within the framed image but also how they can mess with our heads, especially when a normal point of reference, the sky, is removed from the top of the frame. This can, for many viewers, bring to the fore a phenomenon called ‘unconscious inference’ - the power of the mind to piece together incomplete data using assumptions based on previous experience. Drawing on past experiences, however, is not a skill we are born with; so these types of encounter can take us back to the first few days of life. Back to a time when, as babies, we see the world upside down - because our brains haven’t yet learnt to flip the raw visual data. An uneasy feeling, as anyone new to looking at the ground glass of a view camera, will attest!
I don’t know where I first saw Colin’s images. It may have been in one of the photography magazines in the early 2000s or perhaps when he started working with platinum palladium printing or perhaps it was simply that his compositions looked so mature and timeless that I found it difficult to believe that he’d only been producing them for just over a decade. Whatever way I saw him first it has been a pleasure to follow his progress and see his work develop from a subtle homage to Michael Kenna (and he's hardly alone in that) to something that is more distinctive. In particular, his latest work on rivers and coasts show that, although they have a hint of the Thomas Joshua Cooper's, they draw in from many other sources and have become uniquely Colin.
It was way back in the mid 1960s that I first realised that songs could have so much more importance than the cost of doggies in windows and the pleasures of swooning under the moon in June and that, with the emergence of song writers such as Bob Dylan, Roy Harper, Buffy Sainte-Marie and in Britain, Donovan, songs could have a message and a conscience. To me at this time, this was a totally new concept but once I started to explore this new found genre I soon realised that this was indeed nothing new: the likes of Pete Seeger, Woodie Guthrie (who had been a great influence on Dylan) and, over here, Ewan MacColl had been penning this sort of song for years, if not decades. I have no doubt that if you dug deep enough, you would find that it has been going on for centuries!
In 1940 Woodie Guthrie released the album‚ "Dust Bowl Ballads" a collection of songs that he had penned about his experience as an "Okie" during the great dust storms of America in the 1930s.
The Dust Bowl of the 1930s affected the 'Great Plains' of Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Arkansas where severe drought, the plains winds and poor farming methods meant that the area was virtually stripped of its top soil making future crop growing impossible. This, coupled with the Great Depression, forced thousands of farmers to abandon their homes and head for what was seen as the honeypot of the orchards and crop fields of California. However, this influx of migrant workers soon saturated the market for crop pickers, and many were either turned away at the border or warned not to make the journey at all. In Guthrie`s song "Do-re-mi" he writes:
Lots of folks back East, they say, is leavin' home every day,
Beatin' the hot old dusty way to the California line.
Cross the desert sands they roll, gettin' out of that old dust bowl,
They think they're goin' to a sugar bowl, but here's what they find
Now, the police at the port of entry say,
"You're number fourteen thousand for today."
Oh, if you ain't got the do re mi, folks, you ain't got the do re mi,
Why, you better go back to beautiful Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Georgia, Tennessee.
California is a garden of Eden, a paradise to live in or see;
But believe it or not, you won't find it so hot
If you ain't got the do re mi.
(In this context Do re mi means money)
In 1935 the American Government set up the Farm Security Administration (FSA) to try to ease the plight of poor farmers and migrant workers by buying up their land and re-settling them in group government owned farms more suitable for effective crop production under the guidance of "experts". This was, however, criticised by amongst others the Farm Bureau and after the Conservative Coalition had taken control of Congress, the FSA was transformed into a scheme for poor farmers to buy their own land. This scheme still exists to this day as The Farmer`s Home Administration.
From 1935 t0 1944 the FSA ran a program of photography, hiring photographers to document the plight of poor farmers and migrant workers. Altogether, eleven photographers were hired for this project, but in particular Gordon Parks, Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange.
The Photograph that I would like to highlight here is "Migrant Mother" by Dorothea Lange. This was a sequence of five images made of Florence Owens Thompson and her children in 1936 in a pea picker's camp Nipomo, California.
In Dorothea`s words, published in Popular Photography in February 1960:
I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother as if drawn by a magnet. I do not remember how I explained my presence or my camera to her, but I do remember she asked me no questions. I made five exposures, working closer and closer from the same direction. I did not ask her name or her history. She told me her age that she was thirty-two. She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields, and birds that the children are killed. She had just sold the tires from her car to buy food. There she sat in that lean- to tent with her children huddled around her, and seemed to know that my pictures might help her, and so she helped me. There was a sort of equality about it.
Dorothea Lange
In fact, Lange made six exposures that day, the last of which is the iconic picture seen here.
Florence Owens Thompson died from cancer on September 16th, 1983 and is buried next to her husband in Lakewood Memorial Park, Hughson, California. Her headstone reads;
"FLORENCE LEONA THOMPSON Migrant Mother - A Legend of the Strength of American Motherhood."
Editor: The image has an interesting aside in that Lange "Photoshopped" out the thumb at the bottom right. In the original picture the thumb appears quite obvious and slightly awkward. Roy Stryker, the head of the FSA Information Division, disliked the fact that the print was edited and filed the unedited version in the FSA catalog as you can see below.
Beneath you birch with silver bark
And boughs so pendulous and fair,
The brook falls scattered down the rock:
and all is mossy there.
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The birch tree must be the most recognisable of our native trees. It’s silver bark makes it stand out from quite a distance and it’s shocking lemon and lime autumnal colours are as close as we brits get to the iconic aspens. But unlike the aspen, which stands in arrays of clones, the birch shows a broad range of character depending on its habitats and can range from craggy and dwarvish to balletically graceful.
Birch Shadows, Yorkshire Wolds, Paul Moon, website
The birch is one of our woodland's winners and was the first species to appear after the ice age. It’s fine and small seeds travel far and wide and it is well known as a pioneer species; Downy Birch, in particular, would have been one of the first trees to grow in new woodland. Birch tree roots are known as one of the most aggressive species in searching for water which allows them to grow on craggy edges and rocky slopes (and can cause urban specimens to do a great deal of damage to buildings and infrastructure).
In fact, it was Birch that showed up first at the start of Britain’s wildwood after the last major ice age about 12,000 years ago. The birch would have appeared in clumps here and there but Birch have a self-limiting character, they can’t grow in shade and hence once they form small ‘woods’ they typically are replaced by Pine, Oak, Hazel, Alder and Lime.
As an aside, the term “Silver” Birch is a modern invention by Alfred Lord Tennyson and less than 200 years old, prior to that, it was simply the ‘common birch’ (or Gemeine Birke in Gaelic).
The Scottish name for Birch is “Beith” (pronounced “bay”) and you’ll see many hill and place names include this and also the old English for Birch is Bircen, Birk or Berk - hence Birkby, Birkenhead (“headland overgrown with birch”).
Shadows of the silver birk,
sweep the green that folds thy grave.
Let them rave.
- A Dirge, 1832. Alfred Lord Tennyson
The birch provides one of the first signs of life in spring and I would think that it is for this reason that in Celtic folklore the birch represents renewal and purification and it is also channeler of emotion and the bringer of hope and new beginnings. Young couples would wander off into the woods on Beltane, the Gaelic May day festival, to make like nature. The church co opted some of the spirit of this and brought birch trunks or ‘May Poles’ into town for more puritanical celebration. Many pagan gods were associated with Birch including the Norse gods Freya and Frigga but also the Anglo Saxon goddess of spring “Eostre/Ostara” (Yes! Easter! The christian celebration is more rightly called Passover).
The Unnamed Feeling, Stupca, Romania, Ionut Hrenciuc
Folklore and herbalism credit different parts of the birch with a variety of medicinal properties. The leaves are diuretic and antiseptic, and an effective remedy for cystitis and other urinary tract infections. They were also used to dissolve kidney stones and relieve rheumatism and gout. The sap (as wine or cordial) similarly prevents kidney and bladder stones, treats rheumatism, and can be used to treat skin complaints. The bark is said to ease muscle pain if applied externally.
Mausoleum Woods Birch, Mausoleum Woods, Lincolnshire, Louis Murphy, Flickr
The birch bears fine leaves on shining boughs, it
grows pale green and glittering, the flower of the
trees in bloom, fair-haired and supple-limbed, the
ruler of the mountain.
The winds call, they shake gently, she bends her
boughs low in sport; smooth, straight and
white-barked, trembling she speaks a language, a
bright token, a good mystery, blessing my people.
Evening grows dark with clouds, the lightning
flashes, the fine leaves fly free, but firms and
faithful the white birch stands bare and waits,
ruling the mountain.
Bagma Bloma, JRR Tolkein
As a source of useful materials
Birch wood is easily carved and turned and provides a cheap source of smooth grained wood. It’s commonly used in plywood and much of it is sourced in Scandinavian countries or Russia.
Birch bark is an incredibly flexible resource. It is thought that the name “birch” may have come from the Sanskrit word bhurga meaning a 'tree whose bark is used to write upon'. It has undoubtedly been used for this purpose though but it has also been used for making baskets, roofs, gaiters, wrapping paper, and much more.
The bark can also be cooked in the absence of air and a tar extracted (Oleum Rusci) which contains creosote like compounds and has been used to treat leather and also as a glue to mount arrowheads and the like and also an antibacterial and antifungal agent.
Canoes and coracles were made out of birch and birch bark with the edges sealed in birch tar (there is a great Ray Mears episode showing just such a creation). These boats were very light and manoeuvrable.
In Iceland Birch is also made into a schnapps called “Björk” (yes she is named after the Birch tree!) and even includes a twig from a birch tree. In contrast to Brennivin (the Icelandic drain cleaner), Björk is smooth and syrupy and highly recommended (and hence quite dangerous).
Birches, Rocks, Lichen, Bole Hill, Peak District, Eli Pascall-Willis, website
Punishment
The birch was a common method of punishment or control. A bundle of birch rods were called a fasces and were used as a representation of power in Etruscan and then roman government and went on to be a symbol for the fascist movement (although they also appear in the oval office and may other senate and national guard symbols in the house of representatives). The birch (typically a bound collection of small birch branches) was used as punishment for hundreds of years and until the late 1960’s for minor and major crimes and the Isle of Man carried out its last ‘birching’ in 1974.
In Great Britain, the Birch can be either Downy or Silver in the UK (and occasionally dwarf) and is a relatively short-lived tree, 80 years on average. If you want to differentiate the Silver and Downy varieties here are some of the aspects you could look at
Silver Birch
Downy Birch
Appearance
Tall and langourous
Pert and can look naturally coppiced (many trunks)
Geographic
Common across most of Europe but peter
Not so common, but is the most northerly tree species and occurs frequently in the arctic
New Branches
Downy green
Shiny maroon and warty
Environment
Moorland
Prefers a wet environment
New Leaves
Waxy and darker, red tinge at first then a bluey green later.
Downy grey underside
Leaf Shape
More pointy with a concavity in the end before the point. Commonly flat/straight bottomed.
More rounded bottom with less point on top.
Leaf Serrations
Large serrations with smaller serrations in between
Single set of serrations
Bark
Very silver with ‘eyes’ and diamond black ‘crust’ at base
Broken, Foulden Common, Norfolk, Paula Cooper, website
Birch has a particular relationship with funghi. A range of funghi including Fly Agaric (that poisonous red mushroom from fairy tales) form a mycorhizzal partnership with Birch to help the tree preserve nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorous for example) and can help process decomposing matter. Birch are often invaded by parasitic funghi including the bracket fungus or hoof fungus (also known as tinder fungus that gift for firestarting) which reveals itself once the tree dies or is wounded.
Fallen, Holme Fen, Cambridgeshire, Robin Jones, Facebook
Sleeping Beauty
A study of birch trees produced the peculiar conclusion that trees 'sleep'. When monitored overnight a birch trees branches dropped by as much as four inches. The explanation seems to be that the tree uses energy to keep it's sap pressure high which during daylight pays off with more energy intake from the sun. At night, with no payoff, it makes sense to let the sap pressure go a bit and hence the droopiness. Here's a New Scientist article on the phenomenon.
Birches often appear to have large bird's nests in them but these are in fact a type of growth deformity caused by fungus, insects, parasites or mites. These so-called witch's brooms form naturally and aren't necessarily bad for the tree and also play host to a range of insects that wouldn't live elsewhere and they are occasionally used as homes for some species of squirrel.
Shepherds Crag Panorama, Shepherds Crag, Lake District, Rob Oliver, website
Photographing Birch
Photographing birch is one of my favourite activities and, judging by the number of submissions we have had, it’s one of yours too. Birch just seem so photogenic all year around. In the winter the silver of the trunks and the hint of red/brown of the fragile branches provides a graphic component in many photographs, in spring the new growth of the branch colour of silver birch, in particular, can colour the whole landscape and the early spring leaves are about a vibrant and refreshing as it gets. Even in summer the foliage still retains some colour interest even when the rest of the woods enter their overripe green phase and they provide a wonderful contrast to the heather when it arrives. Then in Autumn they start to really show off and provide guaranteed colour, at least before the winds arrive in late October. The colour in autumn is also quite varied because of the diverse range of habitats they live in. Some craggy birch may show autumn colour as early as the start of October and sheltered birch near rivers and wet ground may hold onto a vestige of colour until December.
Hushed, Knettishall Heath in Suffolk, Lee Acaster website
One of silver birch’s big wins for the photographer is that they nearly always have a degree of space around them. Because they are a pioneer species you will typically find them on the verges and edges of landscape types. For this reason, you can usually find a birch to go with whatever landscape you are looking at.
Tolcher Trees - Way below zero, New Forest, Baxter Bradford, website
Here are a few ideas for images that you could think about next time you meet a birch
The Edge of a Forest of Birch
Birch rarely forms large forests and you’ll really only see this sort of grouping where a new forest is forming. Birch will generally be taken over by Oak after a decade or so so make the most when you can. Try visiting in early spring to capture that shocking brown/magenta glow of the new growth or early autumn for a lemon and lime spread across the landscape.
Doors of Durin, Munich (Starnberg) in Germany, Prashant Khapane, website
Mostly birch trees across the lake, Bradley Lake, Wasilla, Alaska, Ian Meades, website
Birch and Mountains, Lairig Ghru, Joe Cornish Joe Cornish
Misty Birch
Because birch is quite often on open moorland or boggy ground, you can quite often encounter them in a nice early mist. The graphic silhouette of the drooping canopy of a silver birch is quite beautiful.
Birches in the Mist at Sunrise, The New Forest, Kevan Brewer, website
Frosty Birch
The fine branches of the birch pick up hoar frosts and the environment they tend to be found in is quite susceptible (see mists above). The appearance can be quite wonderful and the silver and black trunks contrast well.
Frosted Birch Trees, Finland, David Moorhouse, Flickr
Bark Details
Of course, the bark is one of the unique qualities of the Birch and you can make the most of this by looking for areas of particular interest. Sometimes the bark will peel and show the surprisingly vibrant warmth of the inside layers (great to photograph at sunset on a clear day where the contrast of warm and cool can be used to good effect).
Betula Utilis, Dawyck Gardens, Scottish Borders, Brian Mahler, website
Dead birch trees continue giving too, the bark remains beautifully silver because of its antifungal and antibacterial qualities whereas the wood rots and this quite often leaves reams of paper like detritus on the woodland floor. This is particularly beautiful when contrasted with other elements such as grasses or reeds.
At the end of Autumn, you’ll quite often find a last few golden leaves hanging onto the birch trees where all other leaves have vanished. The colour contrast between the drab pre-winter landscape and the white and yellow birch works well.
Autumn in the Peaks III, Bolehill Quarry, Roger Voller, website
The Movement of Birch
Many poems and a great deal of prose has been written describing the birches trembling boughs and we can make interest with this by using longer exposures. John Blakemore did just this in his work on wind where he took multiple shorter exposures to capture the wind’s work but keeping the glitter of the leaves.
Goyt Valley, Peak District, UK, Peter Murray, website
Birch tree in the wind, Chaumont, Haute Savoie, France, Patrick Morand, website
Winter birch, Crompton Moor, Oldham, Paul Adams, website
These are just a few ideas though - the nature of birch is that each can be quite distinctive and will change year on year.
Many thanks for all of the submissions for this article, it has been a great pleasure to see them coming in over the last couple of weeks. We’ve compiled them all into the following gallery.
Birch Shadows, Yorkshire Wolds, Paul Moon, website
Sutton Birches, Sutton Park, Sutton Coldfield, Andrew Page, website
Alan Hinkes is the first Briton to climb the world's highest mountains. These are the 14 8000m peaks, all of which are in the 'death zone', where human survival rate is measured in hours. They are the most dangerous mountains on the planet. Alan is part of an exclusive club of only 12 people alive who have achieved this feat, which is the same number of people who have stood on the moon. Many have perished attempting this challenge.
Alan began his mountaineering career whilst at Northallerton Grammar School, North Yorkshire. He progressed to the Alps with ascents of many difficult mountains, including the notorious North Face of the Eiger, eventually graduating to the Himalaya.
He currently works as an outdoor equipment technical consultant, writes for magazines such as Trail and lectures on his exploits. He is an accomplished cameraman (filming 11 documentaries), photographer, motivational speaker, environmentalist and mountain guide. Alan was awarded the OBE in the 2006 New Year's Honours.
He is an Honorary Citizen of his home town, Northallerton; Yorkshireman of the Year 2005; an Honorary Fellow of the University of Sunderland; Honorary Doctor of the University of York, Honorary Doctor of Professional Studies, University of Teesside and has received the Outstanding Achievement Award from the Royal Institute of Navigation and the President’s Award for Outstanding Voluntary Contribution to Water Aid. He is involved in charitable work for Water Aid, the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, Duke of Edinburgh’s Award and Mountain Rescue. He works closely with the British Mountaineering Council.
Alan lives in North Yorkshire and enjoys being in the hills, rock climbing and fell walking. You will regularly see him in the Lake District and Yorkshire tramping the fells and moors or clinging to a rock face.
35mm at 800m
Alan's immense achievement of climbing all of the world's 8000m peaks obviously overshadows the fact that he took some photographs up there. However, a leaf through his latest book shows that the images he has produced would be impressive if taken at sea level, never mind taken on film in lethal conditions whilst wearing a full down suit and gloves.
The mere fact of removing a glove in these conditions would well prove fatal. But Alan was a photographer before he was a climber and this experience stood him in good stead. Joe Cornish and Tim Parkin will be chatting with Alan about these experiences accompanied by some of the best of 35mm film photographs that were recently drum scanned for his best-selling book.
GREEN ROOM INTERVIEW
Alan Hinkes Film
There is a documentary launching in October 2017 which is directed by Terry Abraham.
There is nothing so wrong as accepting a thing merely because men who have done things say it should be so. ~Alfred Stieglitz
Among the perils of the Internet age is that it has become harder than ever to trust the veracity of, and motivations behind, information and advice offered online. Where in the not-too-distant past those offering public advice, information or opinion, had to prove their qualifications to do so and were held to certain ethical standards before given a public platform, today much information is offered by so-called influencers, for which the only required qualification is the ability to gather a following. Certainly, some excellent and conscientious influencers are out there, offering sage advice, thoughtful contemplations and useful information; however given the great diversity of sources, motivations and opinions, it is incumbent upon consumers of such information to exercise prudence and scrutiny, rather than accept anything as given by virtue of an author’s popularity.
consider whether your time, indeed your life may be better-spent seeking ways of making yourself into a better version of you, rather than a lesser version of someone else, no matter how successful or admirable.
Among the least useful bits of advice popular among photography pundits are those attempting to harness the reputation of now-deceased masters, postulating such things as what their choice of equipment or methods might be regarding products and technologies that did not even exist in their day.
Landscape photographers with doctorates in cosmology are few and far between but fortunately for us Mat Robinson points his camera (not the big one!) down from the skies occasionally to treat us with some earthbound beauty.
Can you tell me a little about your education, childhood passions, early exposure to photography and vocation?
I've always been a scientist at heart, with little interest in anything even vaguely artistic, going on to study for a PhD in Cosmology which I've just completed at the University of Sheffield. My childhood passions were wanting to know everything about space, dinosaurs and waterfalls - the last of which was my first link to the landscape and was particularly easy for my parents to expose me to what with living on the edge of the Dales. We'd spend plenty of time exploring everything from the famous falls up the Swale to many of the small tributary cascades.
My only real early exposure to photography was a small Ansel Adams postcard book that was my favourite thing that my grandma owned (and which sadly, but gladly I now own - a little worse for wear). I'd enjoy flicking through this every week from the age of 4, admiring the vast landscapes of Yellowstone and New Mexico. Slightly more recently my interest in photography became more a means of recording the things that I saw and the views that I enjoyed on my many walks in the Dales and Peaks. Over the last five or so years the photography side has gradually taken over and these days the walks are more to facilitate that.
What are you most proud of in your photography?
This is perhaps not answering the question exactly, but I'm probably most proud of being able to share the beautiful part of the world that I live in with many thousands of people each week. Linking to this, I'm also proud to be able to say that I've been involved in promoting the two areas I love most, the Yorkshire Dales and Peak District over the last few years by providing the last three cover images for the annual Dales guide and being one of Visit Peak District's destination photography partners.
In most photographers lives there are 'epiphanic’ moments where things become clear, or new directions are formed. What were your two main moments and how did they change your photography?
Probably the main thing that really saw a steep improvement with my photography was moving to Sheffield and having the opportunity to explore the Peak District by train and bus so easily. This allowed me to get out and about much more and meet many of the other very talented photographers in the area, making me realise just what was possible with a camera and pushing me on in an attempt to produce images as beautiful as those I saw from others.
I came upon landscape via a circuitous route. My main career for 25 years was as an author of young adult and children’s books including an eco-thriller titled Ravenwood with mile high trees and leaves the size of a human. The rights were bought by the publisher who signed J.K.Rowling and sold to 15 countries. I thought I had arrived. However, with each book in the series being 100k words, and with re-writes 250k, the virtual eco-system with its created backdrop slowly fizzled away as depression took its hold, hospitals gripped me, and the outdoors changed from a place of contemplation to one of cruel terror. I hugged radiators rather than leaping into lakes; fresh air, the fox that nipped at my growing fears. But transformation and darkness bring strange gifts. After six months, I slowly started to recover. When the pressure of my career, the endless book pitches and performances began to recede, there was a gap.
I have always loved different art forms. At school, pottery, art and music were times of glad re-imaginings of the world around until I was reminded that only academic matters mattered. Even today, I get several snarky comments along the lines of how I 'lark round the hills' following my photographic fancy despite appearing in the national papers on a regular basis. So, when I began to get better, I met for the first time a DSLR, courtesy of my son’s interest in stop-frame animation. Here was a plastic and metal investment that hung heavy in my hands. Why not stills as well as animation. Like a first date, we were unsure of each other. Getting to grips meant respecting that an instant infatuation would neither cut the proverbial palette of mustard nor do justice to all relationship possibilities. No, these things take time, though I have to admit the amount of buttons, menus, bits, kits, magazines, upgrades and possible futures were enough to make my gadget head spin.
Of course, head over heels, one makes all those early mistakes of young lovers who are pushing the pictorial boat out. The effect was all. You mean to say I can take a bus accelerating over Westminster Bridge and turn this into tinted streaks of light. {even then it annoyed me that most shots of Big Ben blew out the clock in a crime against highlights}. When I saw the joys of Long Exposure, it was a hook. And there is nothing wrong with that. Other cul-de-sacs beckoned – the kinkiness of HDR, the general sexiness of the saturation slider and let’s not even get started on High Pass layers.
But love, at first sight, must need be blind. Passion is to be applauded, and these can be steps on a different, more subtle journey whose results, in the end, are even more breath-stealing.
Passion is to be applauded, and these can be steps on a different, more subtle journey whose results, in the end, are even more breath-stealing.
This took me time, with feedback from good friends such as my mentor Ben Osborne who always goes with less-is-more. Perhaps here is the link between my writing career and progress in understanding the landscape within a frame. With endless editors over the 100 or so books I have written, many with my wife Polly, the phrase I would most take to heart is ‘show not tell’. It also applies to photos. And I would honestly say that with a mere four years of photography under my belt, it is only the last 12 months where I have understood this.
Here is my leaping moment. I can work hard, understand that ‘Clarity’ is not the answer to my feeling of ‘less-than’. The work is about pre-visualisation and all credit to Ansel Adams who understood that Nature in her greatness required some help. It was he who worked out angles, framed the shot, spent hours in manual post to dodge and burn by hand, bring out elements he wished the eye to rest on. I try, stumbling, to walk with uncertainty in the footsteps of our forefathers. Here is the point. In the end, the miracle is what lies in front of my eyes. This could be a salmon leaping at Ashford Carbonel, a context shot that shows river, bridge, reflection, trees, sky and the whole envelop in which salmon struggles. A tonne of technique to get there – manual flash, tripod, wide angle, pre-focus, remote cable, relationship with the land owner. The work is done, the response often ‘No way! You must have photoshopped the fish in.’ Then I know I have succeeded in dicing a moment of time, presenting it, capturing it if you will. It’s a long way from HDR land.
Now the journey has become simple. Light, water, sunset, dawn, moon, stars. Water will always attract me – I wrote a book about wild swimming called Dip, and this is the aim of my photos, to dip deeply into a moment, bring it back and serve it up. Decent bodies and glass are part of it, but they are only tools {that said, I am currently thinking hard about the 5d mark four as I am not sure I need 50 megapixels of the 5dsr}.
I have studied dawn and dusk obsessively and can know see that best light is often the half hour before dawn and the half hour after sunset. I think of heather as a layer, place it in my mind as foreground.
We have only a few weeks of purple heather blooming on the Long Mynd and Stiperstones, and I have image after image burning in my head. I have studied dawn and dusk obsessively and can know see that best light is often the half hour before dawn and the half hour after sunset. I think of heather as a layer, place it in my mind as foreground. The spot is one I have used for dawn before, back in January. In that pre-dawn shoot, I drove like a maniac round the skirts of the Long Mynd, light-chasing, zipping up the steep single-track Burway, grabbing the kit and running to the top of a mini rock outcrop that rears above the Mynd. The sky was red. No, that’s not accurate. It was rich, unashamed, like the colours in a renaissance painting. I just needed to set up fast with decent glass, clean grads, remote cable and right settings. Pre-dawn was best, sunrise a letdown. Here was the promise of day.
I think of Monet, coming back again and again to the view of the bridge, the hay stacks, deepening his knowledge that light, time, season all have the ability to utterly change the same material objects in front of them. There is a pool above Wildmoor on the Long Mynd I have returned to over and over with this same obsession. I have seen it change in the time it takes to adjust a filter or change a horizon line.
This is the action of light and ever more the core of what I believe in as a landscape photographer. Once I understand the language, read the runes that fall from my BBC weather app, then I can chase dawn as I would the hare: with patience, understanding and finally stillness. For there is my purple heather and also the far dimple of the Wrekin, the Shropshire hills dressed in a light coating of mist. My rule of two-thirds, tweaked, pliable, sometimes to be ignored, now asks me to give all to that wondrous sky that holds inside it the promise of a day unbegun and half-formed. The world is asleep, and I am about my business, revelling in aloneness, almost at one with the world, depression unable to sink its dark thoughts into me, for how can there be doubt with the world ‘… will flame out, like shining from shook foil;’
Night is a chase all by itself. With a squash injury and advice to rest up, I set out on the tiny farmer’s road through Bridges, ice on the road and crusting the puddles of March. Winter in wait. This is time for hearth and home, not venturing abroad. I have already had one near write-off tackling a snowbound road.
But I can feel the stars in me, asking that they are laid on the water. I make it onto the high heathland, geese in affront disturb the pool. Ripples subside and I cannot contain my frozen excitement for the sky has doubled up, and the constellations now orbit with the trout.
But I can feel the stars in me, asking that they are laid on the water. I make it onto the high heathland, geese in affront disturb the pool. Ripples subside and I cannot contain my frozen excitement for the sky has doubled up, and the constellations now orbit with the trout. I am slipping ‘in between the beauty coming and the beauty gone’ as Wordsworth says, and the moment holds all glory. It helps that four of the nationals buy it, of course, it does, we all want approval. But I must not forget that other impetus of mystery for the moon, the sun, the stars and the hills falling away into a dream.
It’s almost a year since I first received an email from Farley Farm House – Home of the Surrealists and the Lee Miller Archives, inviting me to exhibit my latest project “Between Land and Sea”. I felt honoured to have been invited by Antony Penrose, writer, photographer and director of the Archives and the Penrose Collection, and very excited about the prospect of being able to show the work in its entirety. It all felt like a dream come true, yet there’s nothing like planning a solo exhibition to focus your mind on a project and wake you up to the reality of exhibition deadlines, not to mention the nagging self-doubt induced by the thought of having your work under the spotlight. Couple that with the venue being at the former home of photographer Lee Miller, whose work I greatly admire, and the pressure, much of it self-inflicted, was on! Yet, having now gone through the process I have found some unexpected benefits in addition to the wonderful experience of seeing my work on the walls of a highly respected venue.
I have always had an affinity with the land and fell naturally into the grouping of landscape photographer, greatly influenced by JMW Turner’s use of light and inspired in my teens and twenties by Ansel Adams and Sebastian Selgado, as well as loving the black and white documentary work of Cartier-Bresson and Brandt. Seeking female inspiration, in the mid 80’s I visited Fay Godwin’s exhibition entitled “Land” and was blown away by the bleak beauty of her work, in particular, her images of megalithic sites and her use of light.
I love being out in the landscape, watching the waves crashing onto the shore, high winds powering clouds across the sky and the rays of light as they appear between, highlighting the white tips of waves and elements of the land that had previously seemed dull and lifeless.
Her landscape images later inspired my “Sacred” project which became the overarching theme for much of my photographic work including “The Memory of Trees” and “Sacred Sites.” Not long after, I came across my favourite Lee Miller image, “Portrait of Space”, which has influenced me in the approach I have taken to several of the images in my documentation of the Dungeness landscape.
In the past I had dabbled with long exposure photography using film, however, once I embraced digital in 2006, I started to experiment more, having seen and loved the work of Michael Kenna. I’ve come to understand that the combination of influences from Godwin, Miller and Kenna has helped me form my own style in my recent work, the result of which is “Between Land and Sea.” I term this style as ‘slow photography’ - using long exposures to capture several decisive moments, holding them together in one image.
I love being out in the landscape, watching the waves crashing onto the shore, high winds powering clouds across the sky and the rays of light as they appear between, highlighting the white tips of waves and elements of the land that had previously seemed dull and lifeless. Being able to observe all of this while practising ‘slow photography’ makes the process a mindful meditation for me, mimicking unseen rhythms of life, creating the sense of peace and stillness I desire, in often challenging weather conditions, as I reconnect not only with this beautiful land but also with myself.
The images in “Between Land and Sea” represent a journey along the East Sussex coast, capturing the landmarks that occupy the space where the land meets the sea. The use of ‘slow photography’ has enabled me to record the interaction between the land and the sea to evoke a feeling for the solidity yet impermanence of our coastline, both natural and manmade. The fluidity of the water, its ebb and flow, always moving, changing and uncontrollable merges into one. Whilst the solid structures are in sharp contrast, they too are slowly eroding, existing in a less evident state of flux.
The seed of this project first came to me in 2010 after Hastings Pier was the subject of an arson attack that threatened its existence. As a local photographer, I saw the pier as a focal point when walking along the seafront. Yet, after the fire, the possibility of there being an empty space where the remains stood led me to document the many structures along the ever-changing coastline that I take for granted when out walking before they too are destroyed or reshaped.
Working on and exhibiting “Between Land and Sea” has given me an even greater appreciation of the coastal landscape and how fragile it is, as well as the opportunity to visit parts of the East Sussex coast that I had not really had a chance to explore before.
For Hastings Pier, there has been a new beginning yet for many of the other structures their future is less secure. From an abandoned fishing boat, various groynes and shipping markers that erode and are replaced, piers that burn and are ravaged by the sea, a lighthouse living on the edge, to a place of lost souls, eroded cliffs and a historic harbour arm left to deteriorate. Forms, seemingly always present yet in a constant state of change – nothing stays the same.
“Between Land and Sea” opened at Farley Farm three weeks ago and I have received some wonderful feedback from Antony Penrose and his dedicated, helpful team as well as from visitors, who have been very positive about the work and have voiced their own interpretations and feelings about the images, which have been fascinating to hear. Amongst the positive responses I’ve received that stood out for me was that I had really “stamped my own distinctive style on my imagery,” which I feel is what a photographic journey is all about – documenting our own unique perspective of the world around us.
The pressure of putting this show together has, therefore, proved to be very worthwhile for me as a lover of this beautiful land and a photographer. Working on and exhibiting “Between Land and Sea” has given me an even greater appreciation of the coastal landscape and how fragile it is, as well as the opportunity to visit parts of the East Sussex coast that I had not really had a chance to explore before. Equally important to me, however, is that exhibiting at Farley Farm Gallery has encouraged me to look more deeply at my own process, as well as gain a better understanding of my influences together with the photographic style that I am developing that I feel I can now confidently call my own.
“Between Land and Sea” is on show from 28th August to 30th October 2016 at Farley Farm Gallery, Farley Farm House – Home of the Surrealists, Muddles Green, Chiddingly, East Sussex, BN8 6HW. It is open Sundays from 10 am to 4 pm and admission to the gallery is free.
What I like about photography is that it can be many different things: art, documentary, passion, money, social media, fashion, history, creativity, popularity, connections, etc. People get inspired by photography in so many ways that it’s safe to say it has become an integral part of the social and cultural anthropology of our times.
There are countless reasons why people take and make photographs. One of the most significant of them though is self-expression. Or you could say art, but to give a definition of art is something I’m not able to do; the whole concept is far too captivating for me and it should be left undefined and remain like that. A good form of self-expression usually relies on creativity, and photography makes no exception. Yes, it’s possible to come up with new and creative photographs these days, simply because photography is about unique moments in space and time filtered through who you are as a person - your technical abilities, your views of the world, your life principles and so on.
Landscape photography in its many guises and forms is a driving passion for so many of us, leading us out into the wilds of our country and wider to capture the essence of the landscape in our creative minds eye. One thing for me, that is vitally important, and serves as a deep seated inspiration since my days studying Geography at University, is the role and central place within our notion of ‘landscape’ of us as humans.
For me the power, the beauty, the majesty and the interaction we have with the landscape is shaped and defined not only by the purity of nature but also by the perceptions and experiences we have. In essence our relationship and perception with the landscape is a dual and reciprocal one…….. we are both shaped by and shape our landscape and our view of it. This is something I explore deeper in my ‘The Experiential Landscape’ discussion that I presented on the Outdoor Photography stage at this year’s Patchings Art Festival in Nottinghamshire.
Visual story telling is something which is a massively important part of photography, our ability to convey a series of moods, feelings and emotions which are often more than just a mere sum of the visual parts of an image requires the photographer and artist to explore their personal connection to their subject intimately. This is evident when we look at the work of photographers such as Colin Bell and Mark Littlejohn, for example, who have a deep connection and experience of their localities of favour and this shines through in their images which are rich with emotion and connection.
In choosing the image I wanted to explore for this End Frame the above principles were key in my thoughts, and whilst it would have been easy to choose any number of works created by both Colin and Mark. The actual piece of work I have chosen is by a north east photographer, Ian Forsyth, from his longitudinal study ‘Coast People’. In the six-year project Ian explores not only a region he has a connection to through where he lives but also the people who make the coastal region, the people who share experiences and struggles, the coastal landscapes that are defined and inhabited by these people.
Our 4x4 feature is a set of four mini landscape photography portfolios from our subscribers, each consisting of four images related in some way. You can view previous 4x4 portfolios here.
If you would like to submit your 4x4 portfolio, please visit this page for submission information. We are looking for contributions for the next few issues, so please do get in touch if you're interested!
I put together these images after a winter trip to Bole Hill and Lawrence Field near Hathersage in the Peak District. It is a location that has become popular with photographers, particularly when mist envelopes the beech trees, or when the purple heather is in full bloom (see the brilliant work of Dav Thomas, or the location guide to this area featured in On Landscape issue 2). However, with limited photography time available to me I rarely have the luxury of catching such favourable conditions.
Recently I have found myself enjoying the challenge of smaller scale landscapes. It’s been a deliberate choice to move away from “grand vistas” that require exceptional skies and unforgettable light to do them justice: rather to enjoy the conundrum of making interesting compositions from the smaller elements of the landscape.
Finally, I like to have specific projects to work on – something to give me a goal for my photography. Small sets of images that work together as panels, therefore, fit the bill for me.
These images were taken on a typically bad light day in the depths of last winter. The forecast had looked promising, but the weather gods failed to deliver, serving up a very flat light that had all but disappeared in a snow storm by 2.30pm. Concentrating on small details gave me images that I thought would work well together as a panel. They have been processed and toned to enhance the cold light of the winter’s day.
'Abandoned Coach' taken and processed on my phone. Using monochrome, I wanted to show the feel of loneliness and dereliction.
'A Lonely Thrift' also taken on my phone. A Wildflower of the Hebrides on the beach.
'A Lonely Thrift' also taken on my phone. A Wildflower of the Hebrides on the beach.
'Just Simplicity' using a long exposure and mono with Panasonic Lumix.
'Just Simplicity' using a long exposure and mono with Panasonic Lumix.
'Minimalism' again on my phone, Berneray. North Uist, Outer Hebrides.
Fourth time holidaying in the Isle of Harris, so decided to show you these series of images from our time there.
Simple and minimalist compositions of how I thought of Isle of Harris at the time... 'The Lonely Planet'.
Always thinking of new unique ways to view as I shoot... We'll be back again soon.
Réserve Naturelle de la Vallée de Chaudefour…or was it Narnia?
The Chaudefour Valley Corrie, one of the Auvergne's most beautiful glacial valleys, is a superb mix of habitats from lush alpine pastures, scrubland, rocky crags and beech woodland. With snow and winter light enhancing its natural beauty it had the power to transport the mind. Being in such a magical environment, I was reminded of what Keats called ‘taking part in the existence of things’. The Chaudefour, this seemingly timeless arena, demanded my participation and challenged my default preset and its preference for abstraction. These images characterise the woodland but represent only one element of riches the valley has to offer but is, arguably, the most important. Trees not only stand as symbols of isolation, intricacy, strength and the inclusive nature of woodland, they also allow entry to a different world.
Through them we can hear the wind and see its action, we can tell time and place, connect land to sky – and we can lose ourselves in dreams, and the destination of those dreams is a journey limited only by one’s imagination. To set foot – or rather snowshoe – in the Réserve, on this particular day, I felt extremely privileged. The soft, still beauty, the gentle wisps of snow, so theatrically arranged, almost overwhelmed. Seemingly every turn teased my imagination as I recalled childhood memories of Rupert Bear sheltering from a snowstorm in Nutwood or perhaps I was entering the fantasy world of Pan’s Labyrinth – or Narnia. I could just as easily be in an Arthur Rackham illustration, with sumptuous dark, subtle tones blending with menacing shadow, occasionally uplit by a spot of light borrowed from the snow. This is my world, this open-minded, open-eyed view, full of mystery and imagination transferring nature’s beauty to another dimension.
Many landowners burn the dry, dead vegetation on peatlands to encourage new lush growth to sustain their livestock. Other fires may be started maliciously, by accident or through natural causes. Fire builds up over the bog burning the tops off the Sphagnum mosses. The cushion or hummock-forming mosses on the bog surface are particularly sensitive to the fire including Sphagnum imbricatum and Sphagnum fuscum.
Fire catches in the heathers and shrubs, as there is more fuel to burn down. It hollows out the shrubs creating bare peat. Fires will remove the vegetation from mineral soil islands in peatlands and low hummocks in the flat bog. In the year following the fire, there is good re-growth of graminoid species but not of heathers. A single fire can provide the right conditions for the invasion of scrub and trees.
Apart from either killing or driving out wildlife, in very dry conditions, fires can burn unabated for days on the open peatland. Once the protective vegetation layer is gone, the peat surface is subject to erosion, and it’s related problems, and it may take many years for the vegetation to recover and recolonise. Hot fires may also continue to burn within the peat after they have been extinguished on the surface, causing fires to restart on the surface several weeks later.
I am finding myself using ‘time’ as an answer to so many questions asked to me by various photographers and visual creatives. Besides the obvious one about exposure, it has become a very clear answer to some very important photographic questions. So what follows is a discussion of a couple of these questions that ‘time’ is my answer for.
“What makes a great photograph?”
This is the most asked question of me at my various workshops, talks and photography tours. Inevitably I find myself explaining that time is the best judge. If I like a photograph today, and I still like it tomorrow, I have a nice photograph. If my love for this photograph keeps growing and I like it even more in a months time, I have a good photograph. If my love for it continues to grow and I love it even more in a years time, I probably have a great photograph.
If your audience and peers love your photograph today, that is a good thing. But if they still love it in a year, then it is a good photograph. If they still remember it and love it after ten years, you know that you have a great photograph. Many photographers dream to create at least one iconic image that stands the test of time. I know it is one of my clear goals with photography and the rewards of having done so are hard to explain. The creation of something iconic is certainly worth the effort to create them.
If your audience and peers love your photograph today that is a good thing. But if they still love it in a year, then it is a good photograph. If they still remember it and love it after ten years, you know that you have a great photograph.
One caveat here is worth explaining. You may take a photograph of a loved one, or of a moment in your life that is very important to you. The photograph in question may anchor you to that person or event. With time, your are still going to love this photograph, regardless of how good it is. It is always going to be special to you. Your feelings may change over time, and will reflect your current attitudes to the original. To you, this type of photograph will always be great, which I believe is a very valid thing. Just don’t try to pass them off as your best works of art.
Many photographers print out their work and put it up in their house or studio. I love to do this so I can keep revisiting this photograph over time. I can contemplate it, ponder it. Figure out if it needs more work. I can devise a ‘fix it’ plan. I can decide if it is resolved or not. I can decide if I am going to exhibit it. At art school, we would try to speed up this process with a coffee and a cigarette. I think we only imagined that it worked, as an excuse to socialise yet again. The best thing to do is to give your photographs some real time. I might leave a work up for a while. I might even put it away for a while before pulling it out again and contemplate it again. Give your photographs time to grow on you or to allow to fade out of circulation.
The best thing to do is to give your photographs some real time. I might leave a work up for a while. I might even put it away for a while before pulling it out again and contemplate it again. Give your photographs time to grow on you or to allow to fade out of circulation.
For many, this explanation isn’t really good enough on what makes a good photograph. So I often go on to explain that a good photograph wants you to keep looking at it. It demands your time. The longer you keep looking at it, the better it is.
This is where all the beautiful things like composition, edge awareness, holding the viewer's attention come into play. Steering the viewer's eye around the photograph; Having a clear subject; having little details to discover; include errors in there to show your human and that life isn’t perfect. They all relate to this one point. When you do it well, the viewer's eyes want to keep looking at the photograph. They stay in there; they circle around. They dance in the highlights and the main points of interest. The photograph gets you thinking, contemplating, and gives you feelings. You stay with it. You want to stay with it. You want to linger.
A good photograph keeps you looking at it. A great one can repeatedly capture your attention over time. Simply, the longer you want to keep looking at the photograph, the better it is.
“How do you become a better judge of your work?”
Yesterday I looked through a shoot I had done two years ago. It was a brief shoot with a friend who I was trying to inspire back into photography. We were lucky enough to have a fine art nude model staying at my home for a while, so I organised a morning shooting. He is a retired wedding photographer, and he rolled out his film cameras. I dug into my film supplies and pulled out a few rolls of 120. We wandered down to the local reserve and shot by the water. Lovely sandstone rocks, distant natural Sydney harbour views, water and a stunning professional model to work with. After the shoot, I had gone through my images.
The loves and comments grow quickly, and this image far outstrips the acknowledgement of the earlier works of art I had chosen to show the world.
I selected only two and processed them. One went on to be turned into a copper plate photogravure which I had printed on an etching press and produced a lovely limited edition with. The other didn’t make the cut and was left to hide lost in the Lightroom collection. (Oh, the wedding photographer now has my retired digital camera and has found a new passion in digital photography and concentrated on work for him rather than clients.)
That was a long while ago. So yesterday I wander through the photographs again. I no longer rate my images. I just five stars the ones I work on and red label the ones I really really love. So without any memory of my last viewing and only the vaguest distant memory of the shoot I look through the images again. I look slowly and with enjoyment. I am searching again. And suddenly there it is. Jumping out of my screen, yelling at me. An amazing shot. I quickly process her and make a few variations. One version stands out. Though many are more than acceptable. I quickly post it and show my friends and fans. The loves and comments grow quickly, and this image far outstrips the acknowledgement of the earlier works I had chosen to show the world. Yet again I have discovered a gem within my work.
A gem that I had missed the first time around. This happens to me regularly, and consistently in my work. So I have had to adapt my work flow around it. No longer I rate every photo. No longer do I make decisions that seem to be final. I browse quickly, choose something and show people. Then I let them sit and saviour for a while. A long while. For a very long time if I can. Then I delve back into them to see what I can find.
This is about our emotions getting caught on the taking. When we take an image, we have all of these expectations about how it is going to look. How it is going to turn out. We are trying for something, and certain angle or idea.
This is about our emotions getting caught on the taking. When we take an image, we have all of these expectations about how it is going to look. How it is going to turn out. We are trying for something, and certain angle or idea. And when we look at the result with that memory in our minds, we are prone to be disappointed with the final result. We have trouble seeing it for what it really is. We judge it on what we wanted it to be.
The best way to do deal with this is time. Of course, there are other methods, such as using other people to help you judge your work. But for me, choosing my work is a personal thing. Something that I want to be in control of. So my answer to this is to use time. The longer I can leave my photographs sit before I judge them the better. If I can revisit shoots I did a few years ago and found better work in there, then I will and I do. Try it for yourself. Go back to a very old shoot. And revisit your choices. I would recommend making a duplicate collection and removing your rating system so it doesn’t influence you on this revisit. Now look for the gem. There is one in there. One that is better than all the others that you have already processed and sent out into the world. Now you have me wondering what you have found.
Garry Winogrand would deliberately leave his films for a year or two before developing them, and even longer before contact proofing them and evaluating. This was so that he had no memory of taking them. He was distancing himself emotionally from them. He readily acknowledged the problems of having his emotions of taking them being confused with his critical evaluation of them. He had over two and a half thousand rolls of undeveloped films in a bin when he died. His catalogue has over five and half million images in it.
“How do you find your photographs?”
I love to spend time with a place and see which photographs come to me. Which things inspire me. The longer I spend in a place, the more connected I become with it.
Time also allows me to dissociate myself from my stresses and realities of every day life. Peter Dombrovskis used to walk for a couple of days into the wilderness before he started using his camera. I personally think that he had to clear his head, relax and get in touch with the landscape and mother nature.
I am no different. It takes me time to get to know a place. I love to linger. Spend lots of time there. Sit relax and contemplate.
I revisit locations. I keep going back. Gordon Undy talks about making a connection with a place through making a successful image there. If you get one keeper from a place, then that will drive you back there to get some more. Once you make a visual connection with a place, you can then continue to explore it.
I push myself to return to places that I am still not visually familiar with. I like to challenge myself and to keep pushing the boundaries.
I push myself to return to places that I am still not visually familiar with. I like to challenge myself and to keep pushing the boundaries.
My favourite thing is to go back to a lovely spot and rephotograph it. Spend more time there. The better I know the place, the better my images are.
“How did you become a better photographer?”
Well, it takes time. It takes time to practice and to study. It takes time to mature and grow. It takes time to learn the software and how to use your camera.
As a beginner, you have to get through the stages of learning. From that conscious use of the camera to unconscious competence. I like to be at one with my camera so that my camera isn’t in my way. Or more accurately so I am not in my cameras way. If you're not following that one, I will leave that discussion for another day.
The more regularly you practice your craft and your art, the better you will become. The more familiar you will become with your tools and with what is possible. A huge part of photography is learning that the camera is a tool to help you create. It doesn’t just replicate what is in front of you. You have to learn its potential. What it can do. You have to learn to manipulate its strengths, to embrace its limitations. To learn to see how it sees. This all takes time and practice. They say that to become a master in your field; it takes ten thousand hours of practice. If that is even half true, that is still a huge amount of time you will need to devote to photography.
Luckily you can practice your photography without a camera. You can take photographs in your mind. You can research photography while surfing the web, reading a magazine or while engrossed in a book. What you need to do is analyse the photographs and artworks of others, and practice taking pictures in your mind.
I didn’t really understand that life makes you a better photographer until I really experienced it. I put my camera down for over ten years, from the moment I graduated art school until I picked up a point a shoot and started my first real personal project. In those ten years, I kept painting, taking photographs in my head. I studied and loved art. I visited art galleries and became engrossed in art exhibitions. In that time I became better. So so much better, I had to stop and figure out what it was so that I could understand it. The answer in the end was time. Life makes you a better photographer.
I didn’t really understand that life makes you a better photographer until I really experienced it.
I practice regularly. I will organise at least one day out a week shooting. Usually with other people, models mostly, but often with other photographers. I would like to do this twice a week. When I go on holiday, I shoot daily. Not all day every day. But at my favourite times, when the light is beautiful or when I am in places that inspire me to photograph. When on tour I photograph all day every day. And when I am not photographing I am reading about photography, studying and learning.
The more knowledgeable I become about photography, the better my work becomes. I also consume photography, art and design obsessively. Art gallery visits as often as I can fit them in. New books filled with amazing portfolios sit everywhere I go to be consumed at every opportunity. I am taking in photographs daily. I am trying to build my subconscious bank of visual images with quality images. I look at work that I am not inspired to create. To see how they use the medium. Don’t ever stop building that visual library.
Len’s time tips
The longer you leave your photographs after taking them before you evaluate them, the better. Avoid using a rating system that gives lesser images a lower score. This is to stop you discounting them at a future date. Revisit old shoots and search for photographs that appeal to your current aesthetic.
Print your photographs out, and spend time with them. Make ‘fix it’ plans. Contemplate your work over time. Figure out if they are resolved or not.
Spend time each day increasing your visual literacy. Study photography daily. Practice daily, even if it is without a camera. Immerse yourself in amazing photographic works that you love and adore.
Spend time in a place. Get to know it. Go back over and over again.
For sharp images use at least the reciprocal of the lens length in full frame equivalent. Many of us double that at least. On my micro four thirds camera that means a 25mm lens needs about 1/00 of a second handheld. Use a tripod if you really want sharp photographs.
For blurry photographs, my go to shutter speed is 1/2 second
For soft waterfalls, you need at least a second exposure. The longer, the better. Compose the highlights in the water.
Time like the light is an essential essence of photography, so play with it, use it and get to know it. Figure out how it relates to your work.
Spend time on things outside of photography, such as art, cinema, architecture and life.
Never delete your photos. Your attitudes to them may change. What if your delete your masterpiece. At least you will never know. Deleting your photographs isn’t good for corruption of files either. Never delete off your card either. Best to leave them alone.
Len is one of the speakers at our landscape photography conference "Meeting of Minds" in November at Rheged, Cumbria. Click for more details.
Although he has his own gallery and has been exhibited widely,
books are the heart of Joe Cornish's photographic output. First
Light, a Landscape Photographers Art, is one of the best-loved
landscape photography books of the modern era. He wrote and
photographed Scotland's Coast, and the critically acclaimed
Scotland's Mountains. He has had a DVD (With Landscape in
Mind) and a book (Joe Cornish, a Photographer at Work) made
about him.
A reluctant convert to digital imaging, Joe now works with many
different digital systems including medium format and technical
cameras. He co-leads workshops with David Ward, Antony
Spencer and Mark Banks; as well as field work he specialises at
in-depth critiquing on aesthetic and technical matters. He makes
almost all the prints showed and sold at his Northallerton gallery,
the experience that is invaluable in the workshop environment. His
written work frequently appears in the online photography magazine,
On landscape, (of which he is a co-founder) and he is
an experienced public speaker who has hosted the Natural History
Museum's Understanding Photography evenings since 2011.
Joe is part of the elite group, The world's 40 most influential
Nature Photographers, listed by Outdoor Photography magazine in
2010, and he has appeared on television as a presenter and
Photographic expert. He has been a judge on Wildlife
Photographer of the Year and is an Honorary Fellow of the RPS and
one of the RPS distinctions panels adjudicators.
The Unseen Photographer
It is Joe's hope that he does not 'appear' in his photographs; essentially, the subject matter should do the talking. That is an aspiration of sorts to be invisible. The other motivation is to show and share some unseen work that is essentially personal. This work goes back a long way into by archive since he has been making such images since he first picked up a camera. They are mostly intimate details from nature and are simple observations of form, light, colour and texture. They may reference painting, sculpture, architecture or music, or there may be glimpses of human and animal forms; but for the most part his motive is the simple joy of being outside, and seeing.
Birch trees are one of the UK's most recognisable and beautiful species. Related to Alders, Hazels and Hornbeams, the Birch, either Downy or Silver, is one of the UK's most recognisable trees. It's lemon and lime variegation and black and white bark make it a common inclusion in many landscape photographs. What do you really know about the Birch though? The next issue will have an in-depth look into all aspects of this wonderful tree.
And just like our Heather article in a previous issue, we would like to include some of your best photographs of the Birch, either as part of the landscape, as a subject in its own right or as part of an abstract, detail or macro.
We'll be picking the images that best represent Birch trees in all its varieties and habitats. The article will be published in issue 123 and the deadline for submissions is 23rd September Midnight. Entries for this article are now closed.
When I was talking to Len Metcalf about coming from Australia to talk at our conference in November, he expressed an interest in offering a small workshop the week before. As a full-time photography teacher (at the aptly named “Len’s School”), I pointed out that this was a bit of a busman’s holiday but Len was still keen to see if the Antipodean school of tuition would be of interest to a Limey audience. Knowing Len fairly well I’m fairly sure that people will get a lot out of his years of experience.
However, for a workshop based in the Lake District we thought it would be good to get some local knowledge. And who better than Mark Littlejohn, winner of Landscape Photographer of the Year (and also a pretty talented photographer!). Mark lives in Penrith and has walked most of the Lakes at one time or another and will complement Len’s skills excellently.
And then there’s me. Yes I’ll be coming along and I’m sure you know about my own interests but if there is demand I’ll be helping with tilt/shift lenses, large format, film and post processing (as well as composition if you like my photos). Oh and we may have a couple of special guests dropping in toward the end of the week
Derwent Water - Tim Parkin
Workshop Details
The workshop will be based in the Borrowdale Valley and myself and Len will be staying at a self-catering in Manesty near Grange but we have decided that it would be best that people organise their own accommodation as accommodation in the vicinity ranges from £85 to £800 for the five day period and we know some people may wish to extend their stay at the accommodation they have booked for the conference as well. There are also self-catering accommodation available to share at the Manesty holiday cottages for 2, 5 and 6 people which could work out at £120 each for the five-day period. Please get in touch and we can help arrange things.
Len Metcalf
So here is the itinerary for our pre-conference workshops.
Meet up on Sunday evening at the Borrowdale Hotel or on location on Monday morning, probably in Manesty across the road (weather permitting)
During the four full days of the workshop, we will travel around the Borrowdale area, including locations such as Castle Crag, Shepherd’s Crag, Manesty, Latrigg, Surprise View, Walla Crag and more.
Because potentially we will have people in various hotels or guest houses, we will publish a detailed itinerary so people will always know where we are and what the plan is.
In the evenings we will have a mix of social and tuition time including a talk or slideshow by Len, myself and Mark and also a chance to talk about your own images in private or as a group.
It will be late autumn in Borrowdale which will mean we will see some of the best of the warm Larch colour and bracken turns a deep straw or even a rich rust if it rains and the chance of frost is high.
Mark Littlejohn
Sunrise is a reasonable 7:30am and sunset is a leisurely 4:00pm making it possible to enjoy both ends of the day (but not every day I imagine!).
Overall this is a wonderful way to lead up to the conference or just as a standalone workshop.
The cost of the workshop is £500 and will have a maximum of 9 people for a tutor-client ratio of 3:1. The fee does not include food, accommodation or travel (although we will have a couple of cars so if needed we can help transport a few people). We have many options for meals but will probably eat either in Keswick or at the Royal Oak Hotel.
If you are interested in booking please contact Tim Parkin on tim@onlandscape.co.uk.
Tutors
Mark Littlejohn
As well as Mark's encyclopaedic knowledge of the Lake District, he specialises in split toning colour images and prefers the smaller view to the grand vista. In 2014 he was named the Take a View UK Landscape Photographer of the Year.
He spends his years alternating between working on the Ullswater Steamers and running small photographic workshops in the Eden Valley and the Lake District.
Len Metcalf
Len has become renowned as a leading photographic educator through teaching, mentoring and facilitating innovative workshops and tours around Australia. He has a Fine Art degree and a Masters in Adult education. He has run his own gallery, has exhibited widely and writes for photography journals around the world. He is particularly interested in black and white photography.
Tim Parkin
Tim is the editor of On Landscape and has taught workshops in large format and tilt-shift photography. He will also be helping clients with all aspects of image quality and post processing. The Borrowdale area is his favourite location in England and he is looking forward to sharing his experiences of photography.
Trees and woods are a perennial favourite for many photographers, offering plenty of scope for personal interpretations. Michael’s images hint at their mystery but also tease with paint like flecks of colour and light. Plants form part of his make-up and connection with the natural world; how has he come to photography and what role does this now play for him?
Can you tell me a little about yourself – your education, early interests and career? Do you still work in horticulture/ecology?
From early on I had an interest in plants and the natural world. For a long time though I wasn’t sure if I wanted to follow a scientific path or a more artistic one which lead to studying both art along with sciences at A-level. After this I went to study horticulture at university although at the time I had no real idea what work I wanted to end up doing or even what it could lead to. Horticulture is an applied science so rather than dealing with pure theory everything relates to physical problems that I could visualise and get my head around so this worked well for me.
After working in commercial fresh produce roles for a year or so I realised that such work was not for me and started to look for other work within the plant world. I successfully applied for what seemed to me like a dream job which was working as a gardener in the tropical biome at the Eden Project. Here, as part of an enthusiastic team, we fought with giant bamboo, climbed on ropes and flew in a helium balloon in order to reach the tree tops. This was a fun and stimulating place in which to work and I consider myself lucky to have had this experience and still associate with the work of a gardener even though I no longer do such practical work.
I do still work with plants as I’m currently employed in the field of plant health which sees me hunting for pests and diseases on imported plants.
When you look at the history of photography, the contribution of Russia is sadly not writ large. Apart from some fascinating pre-revolutionary work with the tri-colour and autochrome processes and experimentation with photo-montage during the Soviet era, it is fair to say that not much in the way of photographic innovation has historically come from Russia. The reasons for this are many and varied, but nowadays it is a very different country and new ideas from Russia are already making themselves felt in the world of photography. The rise of Lomography, Holga and other ‘toy’ cameras being the most noticeable.
What is Photo Laundry?
‘Sushka’ (to its Russian friends) was the brainchild of Andrei Kezzin, a teacher at the St. Petersburg Academy of Photography. The first event was held in 2011 and since then similar events have been organised in over a hundred Russian cities, as well as in Europe (London, Essen, Murcia), Australia and New Zealand. And, of course, my club’s event in Zurich. Visually resembling the print-drying lines that were strung across traditional photo labs, it’s part community event, part print-exchange and part pop-up exhibition.
A bit of creative flair helps. Copyright: Pascal Cornuez
The premise is simple: a basic makeshift exhibition space is provided (usually outdoors), and people are invited to come with their own prints to hang on the lines provided.
The premise is simple: a basic makeshift exhibition space is provided (usually outdoors), and people are invited to come with their own prints to hang on the lines provided.
They can then view the pictures on show and may if they wish, take away any that they like. No money changes hands. And that’s it. Simple and refreshingly democratic. In fact, it’s so simple any club could host such an event. We’ll get to the organisational nitty-gritty later, first a little background.
PICZ & Our Photo Laundry
All of which brings me to the Photo International Club of Zürich (or PICZ), which I joined last year after being impressed by the energy and creativity shown in the club’s inaugural ‘Sushka’.
PICZ is lucky to have a very international membership with a sizeable contingent from Eastern Europe and Russia. One of our members, Natasha Chub-Afanasyeva, originally an English teacher from Moscow but now a photographer and videographer, got to know about the first-ever event in St. Petersburg and thought she would try to bring the concept to Zurich.
Attendance was good on the day. Copyright: Pascal Cornuez
What appealed, she explains, was the Photo Laundry’s “accessibility and an easy-going flair - for a starting photographer it can be quite intimidating (and costly) entering a serious exhibition when you feel insecure about yourself”. And so the germ of an idea was born. “I simply wanted to participate in such a project… Well, what can you do if there is nothing like that in a city you live in? Create it yourself, of course!
“I felt such an exhibition could be helpful to bring people together to share and discuss their work without going through a standard pre-selection process - that is what I wanted for myself at least. Still, at that moment there was no way I could do it on my own.” And this is where the club stepped in. As Natasha puts it, “when I came to the member’s meeting of the club for the first time, I told everyone about this street exchange project straight away. A year after that we had the first exhibition in place.”
I felt such an exhibition could be helpful to bring people together to share and discuss their work without going through a standard pre-selection process - that is what I wanted for myself at least.
A visitor looks at the work on display during a sunny interlude. Copyright: Natasha Afanasyeva
Despite a hard-to-find location and little pre-publicity, the first event (in 2015) was a success. People were intrigued, the event was well-attended, and many prints were pegged on the lines to be viewed and taken away by their new owners. A second event was mooted and planned, a better venue found (a trendy open-air restaurant with full facilities) and better publicity was organised. The concept quickly evolved from a simple exhibition: professional photographers were brought in to give educational talks, and one member brought his collection of Polaroid cameras to use for taking visitors’ portraits.
A professional band (friends of Natasha’s) provided entertainment - essential as it turned out. On the day, we had almost every sort of weather from sun to downpours and thunderstorms. Luckily there was a marquee where the band did a great job of keeping people in the venue as we sat out the showers.
Natasha continues, “In many senses, we are still trying out so we are in continuous change. Next year we will change the venue - we have not yet found a permanent place for the exhibition”.
The concept quickly evolved from a simple exhibition: professional photographers were brought in to give educational talks, and one member brought his collection of Polaroid cameras to use for taking visitors’ portraits.
Another of the four categories. Copyright: Pascal Cornuez
Of course, in an outdoor setting you have to be prepared for any weather and on the day we had it all – thunder, rain, sun, wind. Not to mention the usual niggling worries and problems. “Although we knew it was going to rain and prepared for it by covering the lines with clear plastic, it was impossible to avoid all the little pitfalls connected with the weather. When you want to grow [an event], you start to seek ways to improve what has been done. So, there are plenty of small issues to address.
“For example, we noticed that some additional clarification is needed directly at the venue communicating to participants what exactly happens during the event. Although everything was written on the webpage and the event page on Facebook, some people felt lost when they arrived.”
Some people just need a little encouragement. Copyright: Julian Barkway
How to organise your own ‘Sushka’
Clearly, the first requirement is a venue. Usually, a Photo Laundry is held in the open, but there is no reason a suitable hall couldn’t be found. It’s great if you can find somewhere with catering and toilet facilities, as we did for our second event, but this isn’t absolutely necessary. What is really essential are some lines on which to hang pictures (on two or three levels to maximise the available space) with some poles or other means of support (obviously!) and a large number of clothes pegs with which to hang the pictures.
For outdoor venues, you’ll also need a lot of plastic sheeting or other weather-protection for the prints. Those are the basics. Over and above these come any number of optional items – some decoration for the venue and its approach so as to give a sense of occasion and, if budget permits, peripheral activities (photo workshops, live music, etc.) will help set the mood and encourage visitors.
Making an event of it. Copyright: Julian Barkway
Important, too, is some basic education about the concept and the organisation of the lines (a simple notice is fine). We used four categories for organising content: Landscape, Street, Portrait and Abstract but these are not hard and fast. Feel free to create your own! In keeping with the informality of the occasion, club members were on hand to lightly police the prints people were hanging (we had a ‘no nudity’ rule to keep it a family occasion) and to give advice, but generally, people seemed to get the idea pretty quickly. We also had a system of tickets allowing visitors to reserve prints for later collection, mainly aimed at ensuring the lines wouldn’t look too bare if the rate of new additions to prints removed slowed too much. This got quite chaotic with people ignoring the tickets and taking prints anyway or tickets simply falling off. Next year we may have a separate, and more strongly policed, a set of lines just for prints people wish to reserve.
And then there’s publicity. These days, a Facebook presence is almost essential but traditional flyers can help to get the message out. Make sure that your budget has a generous allowance for this aspect. To get an idea, here’s the flyer we designed (English version): www.photolaundry.ch
The name of a local business makes an important point. Copyright: Julian Barkway
Finally…
The PL concept is a great way of publicising your club while ‘giving something back’ to the wider community and (particularly for club members who may be disillusioned with competitions where the same people always seem to win, dull talks or the usual humdrum club activities) it’s a great way of reviving club life while attracting new blood. The organisation can be as simple or as complex as you wish to make it and club members can be involved in setting up and decorating the venue, being available on the day to answer questions / give advice or simply helping behind-the-scenes with admin or publicity. It’s a win-win for everybody, people respond to it positively (if our experience is anything to go by) and, most importantly, it’s a lot of fun!
I’ll let Natasha have the last word: “To be honest, I am not sure I can say much to encourage other organisers… It is a free project, volunteers work on sheer enthusiasm … What can be the best encouragement? Only that you find the project useful to yourself personally…. So it is either you want to make it happen - because you feel it can benefit you and the community around, or you don’t….
“It should be said that it is a non-commercial cultural project but [in order to] keep it in line with the original name and the spirit of the very first project, there are a couple of rules to follow: entry should be free for all participants, and there should be no pre-selection of photos.
For us, it is the most encouraging thing was to receive positive feedback from the visitors and to know that people felt great and benefited from the event.
Visitors check out the images on show. Copyright: Myron Bingham
“Being a part of the Photo Laundry community is a great idea as it helps to create a world brand which is associated with the specific type of the event.
“For us, it is the most encouraging thing was to receive positive feedback from the visitors and to know that people felt great and benefited from the event. We are creating it for people, and it is important to know such an event is needed. This helps us to keep our enthusiasm high!”
Adam: My friend Harvey and I had both previously visited the Outer Hebrides on different tours organised by Light & Land, which incidentally is where I first met Tim Parkin back in 2009. However, we both felt that there was still unfinished business for us: for me it was that being a beginner in “serious” photography, the images I made on those early visits were very much work-in-progress: I was reasonably pleased with only 2-3, but even those never ended up on paper – just film transparencies.
Harvey: My first trip to the Outer Hebrides, under the tutelage of David Ward, was back when I think I was still finding my own photographic style and the confidence to do my own thing. So subsequently, although I had thoroughly enjoyed the trip, I felt I hadn't made the most of what the locations had to offer. I returned briefly in recent years as part of a group led by Peter Cairns. On this short second trip, the emphasis was very much on traditional golden hour photography of vistas (which is outside of my comfort zone photographically), with no one else interested in stopping to photograph dilapidated buildings. I enjoy getting to know a location through repeated visits and so was happy to return for the third time when Adam suggested the possibility of a trip, and I felt he would also be a kindred spirit when it came to searching out dereliction!
Adam Pierzchala, Horbagost, Willows
AP: We met up in Birmingham for the long drive up north, this time, "going it alone" rather than being part of a workshop or tour. Our photography differs significantly in the way we work, in our approach, styles and visions for the final image. It would be interesting to see how we interpret subjects that we both photograph but also what other subjects we would find when working further apart. We had allowed a couple of hours on Skye before catching the ferry and decided on a visit to the Fairy Pools at Glen Brittle.
Despite it being quite busy on Sunday, some decent photography was possible. Although Harvey found a wonderful deep pool to photograph, I had yet to get into my photographic groove and came away with nothing. Then onward to Uig and the ferry across to Harris via Lochmaddy on North Uist. Here the skies were moody, initially full of warm evening sunlight filtering through the clouds and we both enjoyed taking some shots across the water, catching the fleeting light. But once the sun had set and we were on open water on our way to Tarbert, an ominous rain-filled darkness enveloped us. What conditions would the coming week bring?
30 years ago as a teenager in the home counties photographically it was like the dark ages. My first print of trees catching the light curling up in the developer hooked me, but information was sparse. Grey snow in prints, why is that. Bedroom vapours and dermatitis didn't discourage all manner of grade 4 pursuits. On a local library exhibition feedback form, someone had written ‘too dark’. They were probably right although I hadn’t yet discovered Thomas Joshua Cooper so confidence temporarily waned.
The subsequent art school tutors (figurative painters) for a year would chuckle and sneer when I talked about photography as art. If I wanted image feedback I went to see the editor of Creative Camera, then Peter Turner, who offered instruction on turning away from wide angle ‘trick’ photography to a more straight style based on looking. The Creative Camera visit as an 18-year-old changed my direction away from wide angle effects photography and confirmed my interest in the classic 20th Century master photographers.
Few photography degree courses existed in the 1980’s and my landscape only portfolio of local woods, didn’t entice offers despite receiving a commendation from the art school tutors. I’d run aground. I switched to people, partly to appease a re-application, setting up a photo therapy workshop for long stay patients in a psychiatric hospital.
I chose Derby College after seeing an image by John Blakemore in the prospectus which looked, unlike any photograph I’d seen before in the UK.
Each week my flip chart and three students with Cosmic Symbols would be gathered in a Victorian hospital ward. Pretty quickly I discovered my teaching style, more do, less chat. Armed with my Pentax 67 we’d head off to photograph our local surroundings. After several months, a portfolio of people photos had been amassed, never to be published. I decided to re-apply for degree courses, spurning institutions that had previously rejected me.
I found Glasgow school of Art and was enthralled by Thomas Joshua Copper’s images but suspected my painting sucked to get in. Instead, I chose Derby College after seeing an image by John Blakemore in the prospectus which looked, unlike any photograph I’d seen before in the UK. Once there I found his teaching of the Zone system excellent, the highlight of technical instruction on offer. Now I knew seven years later, why the snow was grey. The possibilities for creative black and white photography with a medium format camera allied to technique were endless. Instead, I didn’t take another landscape photograph for more than ten years and then only on a handful of occasions…until this summer.
In the intervening years I’d paid little attention to landscape photography and now based in Morocco there are few exhibitions to absorb.
I’d continued as if there had never been a 30-year hiatus; a project unfinished, the abstract landscape.
Creative Camera had long since lost interest for me and despite the occasional dip into other magazines in libraries back in the UK, the landscape form that excited me was rarely found, instead urban conceptual seems to have taken over. I’d spend too time on the computer with client photos than to search out others. David Ward had been the only website I’ve been an occasional visitor of in recent years mainly to show students the virtues of format quality, although I also marvel at his creative style.
So this summer I headed back into the woods, this time, the Moroccan variety; a little scruffy, not too grand, small scale, motivated once again to employ the self-imposed rules of 30 years ago:
To exclude sky and instead, concentrate on shapes and structures within a small location.
Often use DOF to compress space.
Fill the frame with interest.
I’d continued as if there had never been a 30-year hiatus; a project unfinished, the abstract landscape.
Additions to my approach included photographing at dusk to reduce the negative impact of contrast, embracing lens limitations so no focus stacking (instead playing to the limited DOF lenses offer) and include little western perspective. For me, the sky distracts the viewer unless it’s integral to the scene. I’m reminded here of the films of Robert Bresson. Eradicate the superfluous.
The advantages of abstract photography far outweigh the limitations. We can practice at less obvious photogenic locations which are often more accessible. Travel to epic locations for many of us requires long journeys and limited time once there. Instead, our local environment can frequently be returned to, and this increasing familiarity can hopefully bring rewards including developing a more personal style. Once the obvious scenic parts of the landscape have been exhausted, you start to look much closer and realise that interest can be found all around. Is there a danger that we begin to see things that are only alive to us and as such viewers will be excluded, possibly.
The advantages of abstract photography far outweigh the limitations. We can practice at less obvious photogenic locations which are often more accessible.
But then creating in a vacuum without an audience to appease is perhaps the ideal way to develop a personal style. It’s no risk for a non-commercial photographer just an ego bruise. Time away from looking at other photographers doing the same thing may also amount to blasphemy in these parts, but there are benefits from not being overly influenced by peers. Instead look at image makers using different types of locations and using approaches markedly different to your own. A tight-knit community of back slapping can be reassuring but can do doubt influence mimicking of style. The internet has given instant access to millions of potential images, but that access can inhibit as well as inspire.
The dark ages were exactly that and thankfully gone. There are now countless accessible high-quality image makers to view, many within this publication, which I discovered after assembling this summer’s photography. My only note of caution is that we seek to plough our own furrows.
Looking up Thomas Joshua Copper after 30 years and seeing beyond the 4 or 5 sea and rockscapes I recall, it’s reassuring to see the mark of a distinctive style is still there while the breadth of work has soared. Derby College also left me with one memorable quote. A good photographer can make something 20 feet from their front door.
With three months to go, we are delighted to announce that we have over 120 people booked for the conference. So without further ado, please find the latest information on the schedule of speakers, day tickets (and discount code) and lightning talks.
Schedule
Day Tickets
There have been a number of enquiries about day tickets for the conference, and we are pleased to say these were launched today. It's £140 for a day ticket for either Saturday or Sunday. If you're keen to get your ticket, we have set up the discount code earlybird to get you £20 off your ticket (available up to 30th September).
Lightning Talks
For the first time, we are launching our lightning talk series which we will be running over lunchtime each day. Celebrating the craft and community of landscape photography is one of our core values. Getting speakers from our subscribers to talk about their projects and ideas is something that we're remarkedly proud of.
Saturday
TIM PARKIN
Lee Filter Transitions, 13.00
Up until recently, we had two choices of filter transition, soft and hard, and you picked the one you wanted based on whether you used wide angle lenses. Most of the time this worked, but On Landscape and Lee worked together to produce Soft, Medium, Hard and Very Hard transitions for their filters. The talk looks at the relationship between the different transitions and camera/lens combinations with the aim of producing a predictable effect and to help people choose the appropriate filters. Read more
KAREN THURMAN
From Seed to Show, 13.15
Karen will be talking about getting a photographic project from a germ of an idea to an exhibition. Read more
THOMAS PECK
Utah Rocks!, 13.30
The American West is a photographer’s mecca, especially Utah and Arizona with their canyons both Grand and Intimate. A land of iconic vistas, but a risk of photographic cliché. So how do you search for your own point of view? Is it possible to develop a vision as well as technique while on a landscape workshop? Here’s what I learned when I swapped being a landscape workshop attendee for leading the workshop myself. Read more
ALASTAIR ROSS
Ties to the Land, 13.45
Using pinhole cameras and film I explore humanity's relationship with the land and how it has used the land. Humanity has always used the land to his own ends and he has left evidence of that across the millennia from the subtle to wholesale reforming of the land. Read more
COLIN BELL
What’s the Story?, 14.00
Colin will be using his work from Holme Fell, Thirlmere and Delamere Forest to talk about how the landscape reveals the narrative of its history and regeneration. He will talk about how to create photographs that embrace imperfection and reflect the sense of place and not just a location. Read more
Sunday
JOE CORNISH
The Life of the Print: A maverick’s view of digital printing technique, 12.20
A year of images. Some seen and some unseen, and stories of how those images came to be. Moments of unparalleled grandeur interspersed with quieter reflection. A personal love affair, with this most special of National Parks. Read more
MICHELA GRIFFITH
Redefining the River, 12.50
In between the extremes of sharp detail and blur, photographing water offers a wide range of possibilities; a palette to suit each mood, the possibility of a painter’s touch. Rather than focus on incident or motion, I increasingly look at the surface of the river as a canvas on which I’m making marks and finding new truths. Read more
ALEX NAIL
Wilderness Time-lapse, 13.05
An introduction to the capture and creation of time-lapse films in remote areas. Alex will discuss the unique challenges he has experienced whilst shooting time-lapse films in the Drakensberg and Greenland. Read more
RICHARD CHILDS
Foreground First, 13.20
Richard explains how his photography has evolved to a point where his images are always about where he is standing rather than the horizon thanks to using Large Format cameras. He also demonstrates how reading from the front down helps to build strong composition often making light a secondary consideration when taking a photograph. Read more
It’s heather season in the Northern hemisphere and those areas blessed with this glorious plant are being presented with one of the wonders of nature. In certain places in the Yorkshire Moors, Peak District and the moors of Scotland there is a swathe of mauve that can extend from horizon to horizon. If you’re driving over the tops of the Yorkshire moors it can seem as if you are afloat on clouds of blossom.
If you live in a moorland area you can sometimes take for granted what an extraordinary view this can create. I remember on one of my first trips to the Peak District with David Clapp and Dav Thomas, we were expecting a write-off as far as photography goes with my usual rain gods in attendance. However, as dedicated as photographers can be we ventured out anyway and as the sun rose, the rain clouds broke and the vista of purple sprang to life. This experience at Higger Tor was one of the most amazing I’ve had. The wet weather somehow amplified the intensity of colour and it was a shock just how vibrant the final picture ended up.
Tim Parkin
Returning to the Yorkshire Moors a few years later with Joe Cornish we made the most of the elevation from the top of our transport to capture one of the reasons that the tops of the moors make such great driving country.
Tim Parkin
Let’s back up a bit because when we say heather we’re mostly talking about the most widely distributed type, known as Calluna vulgaris or Common Heather (also colloquially known as Ling Heather from the Scandinavian Lyng (Old Norse) or Liung (Old Swedish)).
Calluna translates as Broom but this was a modern name given to differentiate it from it’s visually similar 'Erica' plant. The place name ‘Lyng’ is also fairly widespread and it is suggested that our Langdales are actually not “Long Valley” but “Heather Valley”.
Anita Nicholson
However, there are two other types of heather that we often see, Bell Heather and Cross Leaved Heath Heather (Erica Cinerea and Erica Tetralix). You’ll see Bell Heather quite often mixed in with Ling Heather and can recognise it by it’s deep, dark purple colour, almost verging on blue in places. Cross Leaved Heath Heather is less often seen, is a paler cousin of Bell Heather and is mostly found in wetter areas and is more commonly known as ‘Bog Heather’. And heather seems to grow anywhere, all thanks to a combination of having waxy evergreen leaves which hold moisture in and protect the plant from dry, salt spray and freezing conditions but also by living in a symbiotic relationship with a fungus which grows around its roots. Mycorrhizal fungi live in the roots of heather, where they exchange sugars that plants produce by photosynthesis for mineral nutrients that fungi absorb from the soil. This gives the humble heather, shunned as vulgar by high society, an ecosystem in common with the exalted Orchid. For some reason, I like this idea of heather being the peasant's orchid.
Leslie Ash (Bell Heather)
And for the keen gardener, there are a huge number of different heather types with variations in colour, stature, flower types and even winter flowering varieties.
Elke Epp (Varieties)
Medicinal Uses (i.e. Beer)
In aromatherapy, heather is a bit of a ‘cure all’ but is especially has a calming and settling effect, especially for gastrointestinal problems but also for wounds. More interestingly, heather was also used as an ingredient for ‘gruit’. Gruit is a beer made with herbs instead of hops and interestingly the term ‘ale’ used to mean unhopped beer and so was probably some form of gruit. In 1707 after the battle of Culloden, all things Scottish were frowned upon or banned and that included using anything other than hops as ‘bittering agents’ for beer (a law probably introduced by English hope growers after an easy profit).
If you fancy a taste of the past, Williams Brothers Brewing company are making heather ale again called “Fraoch” (the original name for heather ale) which also uses Bog Myrtle and Meadow Sweet and a very nice flavour it has too!
Heather as Pasturage
In moorland and heathland, heather is also one of the main feed crops for herbivores. Although the main body of the plant is tough and almost impossible to eat, the fresh tips that grow each year are eminently edible and are one of the main foods for deer, grouse, mountain hare, etc. Heather is particularly useful for animals as its tips retain their nutrients through winter and offer a source of food in the coldest of British climates.
David Taylor
Tim Parkin
Tim Parkin
Nectar and Pollinators
Heather is also the source of nectar for on of our main pollinators. Bees that frequent heather areas produce a dark, thick set honey that has been tested to have similar anti-bacterial properties to Manuka honey and used for veterinary wound dressing.
David Tolcher
Muirburn
In order to promote the growth of new tips, a process called muirburn North of the border or ‘proscribed burning’ in England. Although this way of maintaining the land for livestock farming has a long history, it has been recognised that for some of the good it does for grazing livestock, it has many negative effects on biodiversity and also on drainage and flooding. There are examples of well-managed grouse moorland but over the last couple of decades, there have been increasing reports of mismanagement. The most recent examples are the over burning and drainage of heather moors above Hebden Bridge and the subsequent increase in water run-off and flooding into the town itself. For an example of the extent of burning, compare these two photographs, the first from a sympathetically managed grouse moor in Scotland and the second from the area above Hebden Bridge.
Well managed muirburn
Hebden Bridge muirburn
The management of moorland by shooting estates has two sides though. It is undoubted that the landscape would be very different without these estates with much of the moorland reverting to woodland via scrub and birch forest. Many would say this would be a good thing but perhaps there is room for both a rewilding and some ecologically managed moorland.
The Colour of Heather
For all that we describe heather as being purple, there are actually many different shades to be encountered, even within Ling heather. If you wander around you will often see stronger pinky mauve flowers, lilac blue flowers and the occasional deep purples of bell heather.
The lighting conditions give great variety as well. Here's an example of a late evening photograph by Andrew Kearton showing a range from blue-violet in the shade to rich pink where the heather is rim lit by the setting sun.
Andrew Kearton
Generally speaking, direct sunlight on a clear day will suppress the saturation of heather's colour but it will also evenly light the whole landscape; so if you have heather from horizon to horizon it can look very impressive indeed.
The colour of heather typically looks stronger in softer and warm lighting conditions but as Andrew's image above shows, you can play around with mixed lighting at dusk and dawn to really show off the range of colour that heather has to offer.
Don't dismiss heather when it's not in full flower though. The texture of moorland heather can pick up frost beautifully and an early dew with cobwebs strung over a heathland is a sight to behold.
Mat Robinson
The burnt stubs of heather can work very graphically later in the season against the changing colour of bracken and bilberry.
Scott Murray
Photographing Heather
The season for photographing the flowering of heather typically starts at the end of August and although ‘peak colour’ only lasts for a few weeks, there are places to be found with significant heather cover until early October and even patches that last through to December.
When photographing heather you can either choose to show
The abundance of colour through a wide view of the landscape
One of the amazing things about heather is the way it covers a whole landscape. Here are a range of images showing just this
Matthew Dartford
Tristan Campbell
Lee Potter
Bert Vliegen
Guy Richardson
Matthew Nuttall
Tim Parkin
Richard Fox
Stephen Young
Andrew Entwistle
John Clifton
Andrew Leaney
Sarah Blandford
Jason Boscombe
Stephen Byard
Andrew 'Miff' Smith
Martin Tosh
Phil Starkey
Use the texture and colour of the flowers Close UP
Alternatively, you can get closer to the heather or use its colour in the abstract as part of your picture
Tim Parkin
William Dore
Tim Parkin
Paula Cooper
Cat Thompson
Charlotte Parkin
Claire McConnell
Heather and Woodland
Photographing heather on the boundaries or within woodland is particularly satisfying. Early growth birch with its white trunk and speckled green/yellow leaves and mountain rowan’s rich red berries can create great colour contrast.
Tim Parkin
Louis Murphy
Stu Meech
Darren Ciolli-Leach
Jason Hudson
Richard Jones
Robert Birkby
Matt Lethbridge
Jake Turner
Even a lone tree or two in a sea of heather makes for interesting
Damian Ward
Paul Richards
Alan Howe
Gritstone and Granite Tors
Many moorland areas also have rocky outcrops (or tors) on them and seeing gritstone or granite raising itself out of a sea of purple can be quite beautiful (and don’t forget to look for millstones and the remains of quarries - e.g. Peak District Edges).
Nigel Halliwell
Paul Newcombe
David Tolcher
David Eberlin
Liz Withey (Hush Mine)
Tom White
Pete Hyde
As you read this, the heather season in the UK is just peaking so get out there and show us how you see this floral wonder.
A big thank you for all who contributed images to this article, I'm continually amazed at our subscribers so please visit a few websites and leave a few comments.
I'm sure we've all found ourselves in the situation where you see a photograph and your initial gut reaction is "you lucky lucky sod". Well, this is one of those images where you'd be forgiven for that reaction. If you dig a bit deeper, it doesn't get any better either - you're in Tibet in 1981 with your Nikon F3, a bag full of Kodachrome and a National Geographic expense account. You look in the mirror - staring back at you from beneath a shock of boyish wavy hair is a good-looking all-American guy bearing more than a passing resemblance to a young Robert Redford. Your name is Galen Rowell, and you've already carved yourself a reputation as one of America's leading outdoor photographers, having sold your small business hot rodding cars some nine years previously. And then mother nature drops this little beauty into your lap. You lucky, lucky sod.
Of course, as with many great images, what seems like apparent luck and effortlessness disguises the knowledge, skill, and hard work that has gone into creating the image. "Rainbow Over The Potala Palace" doesn't have a complex composition, creating order from chaos, or much navel-gazing value, but the fabulous conceit here is that what looks like a simple image has a fantastic back story and one that we can take a few lessons from.
I drifted into photography at about the same time as Galen Rowell's tragic and untimely death alongside his wife in 2002 in a light aircraft accident. After taking up photography more seriously, I found myself reading Rowell's seminal book 'Mountain Light' on the recommendation of a friend. This was my first encounter with "Rainbow Over The Potala Palace, where Galen takes us through the story of how this image came about (it's also on the cover of his earlier book 'Mountains Of The Middle Kingdom'). The book was pretty influential on my outlook on photography and this image always stood out, for the approach and process as much as the final result, with a few clear lessons to take from it.
The north! The north always fascinated me. I like the silence and the vastness of the Nordic countries that you won't find in Central Europe anymore. So, it's more than logical for me to travel to the north to flee from the noise and bustle of my overpopulated home country. I've been to Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish Lapland, exploring the breathtaking landscapes that lay before me.
Deep Cold, Finnish Lapland, Inari County
A Breath Of Warmth On A Cold Morning, Norwegian Lapland, Troms County.
Gathering Of The Birches, Swedish Lapland, Norrbotten County
Enjoying the hikes, the cool fresh air and the loneliness. I feel uncomfortable among humans. The worst part is returning home after weeks of solitude. To distract myself, I'll look for future destinations that I might want to visit sometime.
The European Nordic area consists of five countries and three autonomous regions. Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Iceland plus the Faroe Islands, Greenland and the Åland Islands. Denmark might be a tad too populated for my liking. I'm sure there're some beautiful places to photograph, but so far I'm not very keen on visiting this country yet. The same goes for Iceland. Although Iceland's population is very small, one of the smallest in Europe, the country is overrun with photographers. The motto seems to be: "Go there before you die!“ Seriously?! If I see any more photographs of Jökulsárlón, I might lose my mind!
Kind of special are the Åland Islands. It's a Finnish region (however the people of Åland speak Swedish) that consists of an archipelago lying in the Baltic Sea with an area of barely 1,600 km². The archipelago consists of 6,757 islands, skerries and rocks, of which 60 are inhabited. I haven't had a critical look at the Åland Islands yet, but the autonomous region might be worth visiting in the future.
The other two autonomous regions, Greenland and the Faroe Islands are integrated parts of the Kingdom of Denmark. However, both are self-governing countries within the Danish Realm.
I'd love to visit Greenland one day, but unfortunately, it's pricey to travel there. Greenland has no roads, so getting around wouldn't be easy.
The Faroe Islands, also known as "the islands of sheep“, lie in the Atlantic Ocean, halfway between Iceland in the west and Norway in the east, and north of Scotland. The country is a bit smaller than the Åland Islands, around 1,400 km². It consists of 779 islands, islets and skerries, of which 18 are major islands. The capital and largest city are Tórshavn on the island of Streymoy.
Seeing pictures and reading about the history and background of the Faroe Islands sparked my interest. I had to visit these magical islands. Getting there is fairly easy. Just book a flight to Vága airport, rent a car and accommodation and you're good to go!
You have to keep in mind, though, that the Faroe Islands is a small country and finding a place to stay can take time. Booking a couple of months in advance is adequate. I avoided the high season, which starts in May and ends in September. Most tourists come to the Faroe Islands in July and August. I wouldn't recommend visiting the country then. http://www.airbnb.com is a good site to look for accommodations.
Furthermore, having the internet at my cottage was extremely helpful as the weather in the Faroe Islands is very fickle. It's possible to have rain in the west and sun in the east. You can even experience all four seasons in one day! To know where to go helped a lot! A reliable weather forecast site is http://www.yr.no/place/Faroe_Islands/. The forecast was mostly spot-on! I also used the internet to check for auroras or how Tim once put it: "green shit in the sky!“ A good site for Aurora checking is http://www.aurora-service.eu/aurora-forecast/.
Whenever I travel, I have my Nikon D800E with me, just one body, along with two zoom lenses, the AF-S Nikkor 24-70 mm f/2.8 G ED and the AF-S Nikkor 70-200 mm f/2.8 G ED VR II plus the AF-S Nikon Teleconverter TC-20E III 2.0x. Filter wise I use B+W, Hoya and Lee. The tripod is a Manfrotto 055CXPRO4 with the Acratech GV2 Ballhead.
I knew from the beginning that the Faroe Islands has no trees. If I wanted to take pictures of arboreal stuff, then I would have gone to Finland or Sweden. Artistically, you are somewhat limited to photographing coastal and mountain sceneries. I wouldn't be able to include a lone tree or a rotten branch lying on the ground in one of my images. Instead, it would be stones, rocks and the like. Another possibility would have been to take pictures with the tele-lens. Close-ups of cliffs, mountains, waterfalls. Unfortunately, I mostly used my wider lens. In hindsight, I regret not getting the tele out of my rucksack more often. I guess I was too overwhelmed by the stunning scenery which I wanted to capture with a wide-angle lens.
The most challenging aspect in the Faroe Islands is by far the weather. You always have to be prepared to get soaked even if the forecast says otherwise. More problematic, though, can be the wind. Strong winds don't work well with long exposures. A camera on a tripod is prone to shakes and vibrations when the wind whistles around your ears. You somehow have to prevent that. What I like to do, is to set up the tripod low and sit or stand close to the mounted camera. It mostly works. If the wind comes from the front, then it obviously doesn't.
Getting to locations on the islands is easy as the roads are in mint condition. You don't need a 4x4 wheel drive. It's forbidden to go off-road! Bridges and undersea tunnels connect most of the islands. You have to watch out for sheep on the road, though! They are everywhere! On the road, on the beach, on the hills, in the mountains, in the villages. Everywhere! They rule the Faroe Islands! Hence, there's a lot of sheep droppings. You have to take that into consideration when shooting wide and to choose a "foreground in-your-face“ composition. You definitely don't want droppings in your frame. I had no intention to spend hours in post cloning them out. So I always kept an eye out for any dung before shooting. I'm serious!
On my first day, I wanted to hike up to the Tjørnuvíksskarð north of Saksun even though the weather didn't seem too promising. Saksun is a beautiful small village on the island of Streymoy and is surrounded by high mountains. Unfortunately, the weather didn't play ball. Horizontal rain and gale-force winds made hiking unpleasant. I had to abort my mission. Despite the weather, I set up my tripod and tried to take pictures. Of course, it was a fruitless effort. The rain was too unforgiving.
The storm did not abate much on the next day, and it still rained. My intention was to explore Tjørnuvík and try to shoot something from above the picturesque village. Tjørnuvík is situated in the north of Streymoy and has a charming sand beach, which is quite rare in the Faroe Islands. It's most famous for its view of the sea stacks of Risin og Kellingin (The Giant and the Witch). The legend goes that the pair were sent to the Faroe Islands to pull the Islands to Iceland. The giant's wife, the witch, climbed the mountain of Eiðiskollur (352 m) to tie the Faroe Islands together, so that her partner, the giant, who was standing in the sea, could drag them to Iceland. But she wasn't careful enough, and the north of Eiðiskollur cracked. It took them far too long, and as they were about to head back home to Iceland, the sun rose and turned them to stone.
Once the rain ceased, I headed up the steep hills south-west of Tjørnuvík. I got lucky this time and was able to shoot my first picture of the Faroe Islands.
The sea stacks of Risin and Kellingin seen from high above Tjørnuvík. The flat mountain in the background on the right is Eiðiskollur (352 m).
I chose a classic composition for this image. A flat stone in the foreground and the snow leading the eye to the base of the mountain on the right. From there further on to Eiðiskollur and the sea stacks. The steep slope on the left balances the stuff on the right. I try to keep it simple. No mumbo jumbo compositions.
My mood heightened after taking the photo despite the challenging weather and I was looking forward to the next day. If I knew what awaited me the following day, my mood might have been less optimistic.
Fuglafjørður, which means "fjord of birds“, is a bigger village on Eysturoy's east coast. It has a lovely hiking route up to Fluglafjarðarskarð and down to Hellur in the north. I almost made it to the top but had to abort mission once again as the wind picked up speed. To cap it all, it started to rain cats and dogs. Back in Fuglafjørður, I was soaked to the skin! No more hiking for today!
At least I could shoot one picture from the back seat of the car. I somehow managed to set up my tripod on the back seat and shoot across the street through a half-opened window. I took a picture of a waterfall just outside the village of Fuglafjørður.
Close-up of one of many waterfalls around Fuglafjørður shot from the back seat of the car.
The two stones, the one in the bottom left and the other in the top right are a major part of the composition. I tried to place them adequately into the frame.
It can be helpful to come up with ideas when it's raining buckets. Drivers in passing cars might have thought I'm doing a speed monitoring operation.
The next day my throat was sore thanks to the wind and rain, and I coughed a lot. No time to rest. Cough pills will do. Thankfully, the weather showed its happy face now, and I could take some shots without shelter over my head. I made a trip up a narrow mountain road that leads to Sornfelli, a 749 m high mountain on the island of Streymoy. On Sornfelli once was a NATO base, where air and sea traffic was monitored. Due to protests in the 1980's, the base was closed. Driving up was quite scary because of ice and snow. The spectacular views, though, made it more than worth. Even better, there was hardly any wind.
Mount Skælingsfjall (767 m) on the left bathed in the afternoon light and mount Stallur (614 m) on the right in the shadows.
As I waited for sunset, I tried a composition I wasn't sure if it would work. I put a crack in the ground in the centre of the frame. I wanted to use the crack as a line pointing to the setting sun. Kind of. At first, I thought the picture looked okay, but when I processed it, it looked weird. So I cropped it quite a bit, to get the crack more to the left.
View of the mountains of the island of Vágar at sunset.
So far, I explored the islands of Streymoy and Eysturoy and wanted to delve into the other islands now. I decided to head to Borðoy the following day, which is one of the Northern Islands. The Northern Islands are situated in the northeast of the Faroe Islands and are referred to as Norðoyar. There are six of them, from east to west, Kalsoy, Kunoy, Borðoy, Viðoy, Svínoy and Fugloy. The second largest city of the Faroe Islands, Klaksvík, is situated on Borðoy.
Klaksvík, the city of the Northern Islands. It's the second largest town in the Faroe Islands.
To the north-west of the town lies Klakkur, a 413 m high hill with fantastic views to the islands of Kalsoy in the west and Kunoy in the north.
Early evening light and the island of Kalsoy, stretching to the north. A bit more to the left and the sun would have blown out the picture. Balancing the composition was crucial.
I didn't ascend Klakkur due to strong winds. Instead, I found a spot below the peak where I could shoot pictures.
A dark sunset photographed below Klakkur (413 m). Below the sun the village of Leirvík, barely visible.
Up until now, I haven't taken any images from sea level. To change that, I drove to Elduvík the next afternoon, a quaint village in the north of Eysturoy. Elduvík is split into two parts by the brook Stórá, and a lot of sheep roam the few narrow streets. Unfortunately, the wind was back in full force again which made photography a challenge.
I found a scene that I wanted to capture and decided to shoot a long exposure. So I set up the tripod very low and mounted the camera on it. I sat down as close as possible to the camera, composed a picture and shot. The Little Stopper helped to lengthen the exposure to ten seconds.
The brook Stórá splits the village of Elduvík into two parts. On the left mount Tyril (535 m). On the right the island of Kalsoy, illuminated by the sun.
The big stone in the brook balances the sunlit chain of mountains. There is a little “extra” in the frame. It's the little red stone in the bottom left corner. It should tease the eyes a bit. Despite the strong winds, I got away with some decent images.
A pinkish dusk at Elduvík. The bright stripe below the cloud on the left is not where the filter ended. The cloud looked like that.
For the next day, I planned a trip to Suðuroy. Suðuroy is the southernmost island of the Faroe Islands. To get there, you have to take the ferry from Tórshavn to Tvøroyri. It's a two-hour trip. It's possible to travel to Suðuroy in the morning and be back in Tórshavn in the evening.
Photography wise it wasn't the best weather. The sky was mostly a milky, flat grey.
I first drove to Sandvík, the northernmost village on the island. Sandvík's beach is a large stretch of sand where you can sometimes observe seals.
The beach of Sandvík with views of the islands of Stóra Dímun on the left and Lítla Dímun on the right in the far background.
I then made a trip to the south of Suðuroy to Beinisvørð. Beinisvørð is a vantage point from where spectacular views of the west cliffs can be enjoyed.
The huge west cliffs of the island of Suðuroy seen from Beinisvørð.
The drive up was one of the scariest things I've experienced so far. The road is steep and barely two metres wide with no guardrail. One false steer and the car would have been tumbling down the steep mountainside. Scary!
Thankfully, the other way down was less frightening. I ended up in Sumba, the southernmost town of Suðuroy. Driving from one end of the island to other takes less than an hour.
The weather didn't get any better, so I called it a day and drove back to the port.
After a pleasant night's sleep, I checked the weather and aurora forecast. Clear skies and a geomagnetic storm of G1. Could it get any better? Maybe I get lucky tonight? I poured over the map, trying to find places that have a good view to the north. A view of the sea would be nice with maybe some mountains as the back drop. Tjørnuvík and Elduvík were possible. But I've already been there. I didn't want to revisit places I've already photographed. I wanted something fresh. Maybe Gjógv on the island of Eysturoy? Gjógv has views to the east and north. That could work. The village's name is Faroese and means “gorge”. The sea-filled gorge runs north to the sea from Gjógv. There is also a large stretch of rocky beach with pools filled with sea water. I could use them as foreground interest. There was plenty of time to kill. Instead of hanging around till sunset, I decided to try to ascend the highest mountain of the Faroe Islands. Slættaratindur (882 m) is just around the corner.
I almost made it to the top, but large snow fields prevented any further progress. To get to the peak, I would have needed crampons which I didn't have. On a clear, sunny day you can oversee the whole of the Faroe Islands on top of Slættaratindur.
Looking back down the steep slope of the mountain of Slættaratindur (882 m). Ice and snow prevented any further progress. Not seen in the picture.
Back in Gjógv, I photographed the last light of the day. The setting sun lit up the mountains of Kalsoy nicely.
The setting sun illuminates the chain of mountains of the island of Kalsoy.
Dusk was lovely too. Time to head back to the cottage to cook and eat something and return to Gjógv in the evening for Aurora shooting.
Gjógv Minimalism, Pastel colours at dusk.
To be honest, I don't like taking pictures in the near dark. Composing an image at night is extremely difficult. At least for me. You can't see the horizon through the viewfinder. You can't see crap. When shooting at night, the horizon on most of my pictures is not straight. I have to fix that in the post. It's annoying!
I fiddled with my headlamp, turned it on and off and tried to compose pictures. The sky put on quite a show.
Amazing display of auroras dancing in the night sky of Gjógv.
"Green shit“ galore! Tim would've been a happy chap! As the moon shone brightly, I had to be careful not to have any shadows of my tripod or myself in the images. Furthermore, I had to watch out not to break my neck on the slippery, algae-covered rocks. At least I came away with some pictures that I felt pleased with.
A huge aurora over the mountains of Kalsoy
It got quite late, so I wanted to take it easy the next day.
I drove to the Northern Islands once again. This time further up north through the island of Borðoy to the island of Viðoy. Viðoy is the northernmost island of the Faroe Islands. The road ends in Viðareiði. Mount Villingadalsfjall (841 m) towers over the village in the north. I was more interested in the rocky beach, though, where you get some nice views of the island of Kunoy.
As there was plenty of time till sunset, I lay down on the rocks and took a nap. There was no need to rush around looking for compositions.
A couple of hours later I set up my tripod and put my camera to use, capturing the last light of the day. That was pretty much it. I drove back to the cottage.
The island of Kunoy seen from the rocky shore of Viðareiði at the last light of the day.
Vágar is the most westerly of the large islands of the Faroe Islands. The airport is located there. I was interested in the sea stacks that can be seen from the picturesque village of Bøur. Drangarnir and Tindhólmur have been depicted on many paintings. It's a well-visited location and maybe a bit iconic. At least it hasn't gotten a hotspot for landscapers yet. I hope it stays that way. I wandered around the small stretch of sand beach looking for compositions. It was the only afternoon; the sun would set in about four hours.
Instead of lounging about, I decided to head to Gásadalur, only a ten minutes drive from Bøur. Gásadalur is most famous for its waterfall; it's probably the most photographed location in the Faroe Islands. A true hotspot for landscapers. I was not surprised to see a landscaper hanging about with his group waiting for sunset. They were going to photograph more of the same. If you type in “Gásadalur waterfall” in any search engine, you get hundreds of images with the same composition. There's not even variety in the shots. What drives photographers to take pictures of the same over and over again? Maybe it's an ego thing? Look! I've been there too! The Faroe Islands has much more to offer than just this waterfall.
I headed back to Bøur for sunset. As the end of the day approached, I set up my gear. Sunset wasn't all that great, so I turned to the Little Stopper for some help. The three stones in the bottom should “depict” the three sea stacks on the horizon. It's a bit far-fetched, I know, but I liked the idea.
The sea stacks of Drangarnir, Tindhólmur and Skerhólmur, from left to right.
Everything comes to an end. Tomorrow would be my last day in the Faroe Islands, which I spent in Funningur. Funningur is situated on the island of Eysturoy and is surrounded by the two highest mountains in the Faroe Islands, Slættaratindur (882 m) in the west and Gráfelli (856 m) in the north-west. The village has a small harbour. However, there are no boats. I went down to the shore. To the northeast, you have a nice view of the island of Kalsoy. I spent some hours there and fell into musings. [Photo 19] It's been a lovely two weeks in the Faroe Islands. The country has so much potential photography wise. Mountains that rise high directly from the sea. Huge cliffs, a stunning coastline, impressive sea stacks, rocky and sandy beaches, however, the latter is rather rare, thundering waterfalls, picturesque villages. You could spend weeks photographing the Faroe Islands, and you would have still only scratched the surface. Fortunately, the country has not been overrun by photographers like Iceland yet. It's still relatively untouched by landscapers. I just hope that the Faroe Islands won't suffer the same fate like Iceland. That would be a real shame!
A dull and grey day in Funningur. I've waited hours for this shot and got rewarded for my perseverance.
It's been a lovely two weeks in the Faroe Islands. The country has so much potential photography wise. Mountains that rise high directly from the sea. Huge cliffs, a stunning coastline, impressive sea stacks, rocky and sandy beaches, however, the latter is rather rare, thundering waterfalls, picturesque villages. You could spend weeks photographing the Faroe Islands, and you would have still only scratched the surface. Fortunately, the country has not been overrun by photographers like Iceland yet. It's still relatively untouched by landscapers. I just hope that the Faroe Islands won't suffer the same fate like Iceland. That would be a real shame!
Our 4x4 feature is a set of four mini landscape photography portfolios from our subscribers, each consisting of four images related in some way. You can view previous 4x4 portfolios here.
If you would like to submit your 4x4 portfolio, please visit this page for submission information. We are looking for contributions for the next few issues, so please do get in touch if you're interested!
These four photographs were shot of the amazing Isle of Harris Scotland. I believe all photographers feel the same about Harris and Lewis; it's a stunning place with the constantly changing weather, light and mood that keeps you constantly wanting more. This makes for an awful lot of photos of this Isle...............so when I was there last in the winter, I wanted to create photos that were good pictures not just images of dramatic scenery.
I focused on light and dark parts of the image in terms of colour and tone and mood. Two shots were shot quite clearly at the end of the day and two early mornings in a gale that had me digging the tripod deep into the sand! Each shot focuses on the essentials in the image, e.g., the beach curve and the curve of the mountains or the waves and the beach. They are processed to best demonstrate this using curves in Photoshop CS6 and some simple adjustments in LR6. Hopefully, these four photos show the mood of Harris as well as the drama of the landscape.
Not long after having travelled in Scotland for three months (see my earlier 4x4), my wife and I decided to move house. We left the densely populated western part of The Netherlands to live in De Achterhoek, literally translated as the Back Corner. At least for Dutch standards, this is a beautiful area and living here allows me to create work without having to travel. There are even a few hills!
It has become a habit to visit the woods around our house at least once every week. I already feel very attached to my environment and to see the woods change on an almost daily basis is truly fascinating and inspiring. Photographically speaking, my style has changed somewhat. Whereas in vistas I tend to prefer front to back sharpness and lots and lots of crispy detail, my woodland pictures generally lose focus towards the distance. I find this painterly effect helpful in suggesting depth, emphasising the soft quality of the light that I favour, and in reducing the enormous amount of data.
I was lucky enough to visit Namibia in April this year, and one of the highlights of the trip was capturing sunrises and sunsets on the dunes, both at Sossusvlei and further north. Some of the dawn light produced razor-sharp shadows at Sossusvlei, while sunsets gave a softer result on the more rounded dunes elsewhere in the country. These images seemed to work together as a set.
As a lover of simple landscape compositions, I have always been attracted to winter conditions. It seems, however, that prolonged snow has become a rarity in Scotland where I live so the appeal of northern latitudes is considerable. The prospect of guaranteed pristine snow and ice is, I find, irresistible, and a recent visit to the Lofoten Islands in February provided the conditions I find so appealing. The four images here will, I hope, provide a snapshot of the type of photography I greatly enjoy.
Laki is today a quiet photogenic area in the Icelandic highlands. Together with the 565 square kilometre Eldhraun lava field, it reminds you of a place which was once hell on earth. I have always found this place and its history remarkable. I can just dream of how this once looked when the eruption was in full action. Unfortunately or maybe even fortunately, today we can only observe what is left of it.
Never before had people seen lava coming out with such power. Lava fountains measuring 800-1,400 meters filled the air with poisonous gases spreading out all over the northern hemisphere.
On the 8th of June 1783, the earth opened up a 25km long fissure with 130 craters in the Icelandic highlands. Fourteen cubic kilometres of basaltic lava was spewed out from the inside of mother earth.
I saw Dylan's work on a recent fund-raising auction for Marc Elliott where he had contributed the snowy tree photo "Winter's Stand" below. I immediately took a look at his website and was impressed at the range of photography on show (although I think a bit of editing might be in order - 520 images is a little too much for people to trawl through and most people will only see the top selection and probably miss some of the best photographs). Anyway - I hope you like the photographs as much as I did.
Can you tell me a little about your education, childhood passions, early exposure to photography and vocation?
Born in South Lanarkshire, Scotland, I left school with 3 Highers and 7 O’levels. I, like many others, fantasised about becoming a professional footballer. I played at a decent level and had played for the Scottish Schools National team but, to be honest, I hadn’t the proper desire or dedication to take it any further. I grew up influenced by my father who is a successful Scottish artist and songwriter. I may have inherited some of his drawing skills but like football, I didn’t have any desire to develop it in any way. Although it was while studying Art & Design for my Higher that I first got introduced to photography by my teacher Mr McBride. He showed me the basics of camera operation and B&W developing/printing. His stay at the school was short though, and I was soon left to develop my photography on my own as none of the other teachers had any experience.
I briefly studied Civil Engineering at University before taking a year break, hoping to return and complete the degree. On this sabbatical, I worked here and there to pay my way and stumbled into a job on the railway. Expecting it to be a short experience I find myself still there 23 years on, driving freight trains around the country. It might be ‘Every boys dream job’ but it was never mine, although, it’s a job and a job that has been very kind to me in many ways.
What are you most proud of in your photography?
There isn’t anything specific I would say I am particularly proud of but perhaps I’m more surprised that I have managed to progress and develop my photography mainly through determination and desire. I was always the type of person that would easily lose interest in something after a short time but throughout my year's photography has been firmly in my mind. When I started working full time, photography took a bit of a back seat, though, while I enjoyed the social side of my 20’s.
It was in my 30’s I made a decision to catch up on everything I’d missed over the previous ten years. I bought a cheap point and shot digital camera and got acquainted with basic developing software. I still used the 35mm film camera to an extent, but I’d play around with the PC similar to my darkroom days at school I suppose. I later studied two photography courses on a Saturday morning at Glasgow’s College of Building & Printing and eventually got my first Digital SLR (Nikon D80) and then studied Photography from home on an OCA course. It has been this continued interest and desire that has allowed me to learn and find direction in my photography to a point I feel settled in the path I am on while excited at the mystery of where it will lead.
In most photographers lives there are 'epiphanic’ moments where things become clear, or new directions are formed. What were your two main moments and how did they change your photography?
I for the first time got completely caught up in the moment and when the buzz hit me I distinctly remember standing up looking around with the wind and sea spray battering my face, saying, ‘This is what I want to do’
I have quite a vivid moment where landscape photography hit me like a train (ironic). I had been plodding along trying many aspects of photography, studio, portraiture, still life, etc. but nothing was entirely satisfying me. I had obviously taken the odd landscape photograph but more in a point and shoot manner with a huge amount of ignorance to technique. I had begun reading more on the technical side of Landscape Photography and decided to make a conscious effort to have a day in the Landscape. It was to be on Croy Beach on the Ayrshire coast in late February 2014 that would have a lasting impact on my photography. The wind was blowing wildly, and it was bitterly cold, the sea was pounding the shore, and I was equipped with a Nikon D80, a tripod and some very cheap plastic filters. I fumbled around for a few hours with nothing on my mind except to experience the landscape and try to capture something of that feeling on camera.
I for the first time got completely caught up at the moment, and when the buzz hit me I distinctly remember standing up looking around with the wind and sea spray battering my face, saying, ‘This is what I want to do’. I hadn’t produced anything memorable, but I eventually left that beach grinning like a Cheshire Cat, my path was clear and the excitement was like a drug. *See image Croy Shore* It is not a memorable image, but this shot is special to me as it’s about the effect the afternoon had on me and not it’s quality.
Another moment that sticks in my mind was when I was 16 and in Italy visiting family. I went for a wander with my cousin and had taken my 35mm Film Praktica. We stopped at Il Duomo in Barga, a small town in the hills of Tuscany where I took a shot of the view out towards La Pania della Croce, the predominant mountain of the area. It was a subconscious moment with no thought involved just a quick snap and move on. It was when I got home and developed/printed the shot in my makeshift darkroom/shed that it became memorable. It was to be an image that I first remember receiving praise for, especially from my artist and art teacher Father. He raved about the composition and how it had been framed, the shapes of the trees and their position in the shot, etc.
This was the first time I was made aware of composition before hand I didn’t understand it or had even consciously used it. The praise I got, triggered the first thought of consciously trying to make an image through the use of a camera, before hand I had simply pressed the shutter and hoped for the best.
Tell me about why you love landscape photography and what impact it has had on your life.
I love experiencing my surroundings and observing light in its many forms and this for me is what landscape photography allows me to do and hence why I love it. From viewing others work, checking the weather, locations and observing light shaping the landscape, being out in remote places all alone and in all conditions, choosing lenses and filters that may help capture the scene as desired, to seeing the images come to life in processing. Train driving through all hours of the day in all kinds of weather and through a variety of landscapes helps feed this passion.
I love experiencing my surroundings and observing light in its many forms and this for me is what landscape photography allows me to do and hence why I love it.
The buzz I get from the whole process is in a way like a drug, I get a little anxious if I can’t get out but there is always a spring in my step if I do and I get my fix. I don’t find this to be a hindrance in any way, more like a constant rush, which is a huge appeal and something that has had a huge impact on my life.
Could you tell us a little about the cameras and lenses you typically take on a trip and how they affect your photography?
My main camera is the Nikon D810 accompanied in my bag with the Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8, Zeiss 25mm Distagon f/2.8 ZF2, Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8, Tokina Macro 100mm f2.8 and a newly acquired Nikkor 50mm f/1.2 Ai which is fast becoming a favourite. Generally though if I’m going wide, I love the Zeiss, it’s fantastic although recently I have been consciously trying to tighten the crop hence the 50mm purchase. From afar the Sigma is good, it can help narrow the view to bring out little details that may be lost in a grand vista.
This year I also managed to get a hold of an Infrared converted Nikon D80 which has squeezed into the bag too and can be very useful when the light has become too harsh, I’m still experimenting with it but so far its good for a fresh perspective when my creativity has maybe become a little exhausted. I also have a Sony RX100ii that comes with me almost everywhere and is especially good for work down time.
What sort of post processing do you undertake on your pictures? Give me an idea of your workflow.
90% of my editing is done in Lightroom CC. I don’t spend too long on an image if I do I usually bin it realising it’s obviously not right to start with as I’m trying too hard to make something from it. Very generally I will start with Lens Corrections, adjust Highlights/Shadows, adjust white balance and Hue to suit, push whites and blacks to just within their limits and crop to preference.
I would then tidy up any dust etc. and if a colour image would export to Nik Color Efex Pro 4 to give a small colour boost with Pro Contrast and a very very slight adjustment to Colour Contrast Range, overall to just lift the image a little. For monochrome images, I use Nik Silver Efex Pro 2 for initial conversion then finish off in LR CC. I don’t use Photoshop that often unless trying to create a multiple exposure which is quite rare.
Do you get many of your pictures printed and, if at all, where/how do you get them printed?
Last year I purchased an Epson R3880 printer, and it has been a dream to be able to print at home again. Possibly since my initial introduction to photography was in the dark room, printing helps complete the process for me. I don’t print every image, but when there is one I particularly like, it can be good to see it on paper, it can go either way, though. Sometimes it compliments the image, and I feel huge satisfaction but on the other hand, the screen to paper transition can on occasion highlight the images deficiencies that can be hidden on the screen. For me, you have to print to experience the whole process of image making.
Who (photographers, artists or individuals) or what has most inspired you, or driven you forward in your development as a photographer? What books stimulated your interest in photography?
I have a broad appreciation of photography, and I am easily inspired by many images I see, this can be in magazines, books or social media. My first memories of inspiration are the street/candid photography of Henri Cartier-Bresson, I would often gasp at his use of shape and space, images you can often get lost in.
My first memories of inspiration are the street/candid photography of Henri Cartier-Bresson, I would often gasp at his use of shape and space, images you can often get lost in. .
I’d be lying if I didn’t say Ansel Adams had a huge influence too, it’s often said and may sound like a cliché but his work is a must see for any landscape photographer and I often sit with a glass of red looking through ‘Ansel Adams 400 Photographs’ where I find it hard to get past his ‘Aspens’ from New Mexico, I love the lines the tones and the subtle reflective light on the trunk of the Aspens. I’m also a fan of portraiture and street photography, with Oscar Marzaroli’s ‘Glasgow’s People’ and Harry Benson’s ‘Photographs’ particular favourites.
But in the last 2 years where I’ve been on this Landscape whirlwind the books and photographers that have driven me forward and inspired me in my constant desire to develop my photography are many but to name a few books in particular, Dav Thomas ‘With Trees’, Colin Prior ‘High Light’, Marc Wilson ‘The Stand’ and all the work in LPOTY and SLPOTY books. Most recently though one book has stood head and shoulders above the rest in inspiration and it is ‘This Land’ by Joe Cornish & Roly Smith. As soon as I opened it and saw the first few images I realised this is going to be one book I go back to for years, to recharge my aspirations.
The stand out theme to me is the strength of the landscapes in Portrait format. Greg Whitton has often kindly advised me about using portrait but seeing the power of these very natural images has only reinforced his advice which I do my best to put into practice a lot more now. One last mention has to go to Doug Chinnery who has been extremely helpful, kind and hugely encouraging both on and away from his workshops, giving me the belief to be confident in what I want to do with my photography, emphasising that photography should be made for the photographer himself and no one else and certainly with no limits.
Can you choose 2-3 favourite photographs from your own portfolio and tell us a little about them?
Winters’ Stand
My first image ‘Winters’ Stand’ I particularly like because of the manner it was taken. I had photographed this tree before when it had a smaller neighbour still standing next to it. It has always appealed to me, but I had struggled to separate it from the background as it sat on the North bank of Loch Chon in The Trossachs, Scotland. On this occasion, I was returning home from an early wander further up towards Loch Arklet and Loch Katrine in early February of this year. There was some lying snow higher up, but it was mostly passing sleet that was falling this low. As I was driving back towards Aberfoyle after being disappointed with what I had captured, I looked over as I passed this tree again and noticed its smaller sibling had fallen and snapped high in it’s trunk probably as a result of one of the previous winter storms.
I stopped and got out to quickly take a snap but realised one of the many passing showers was coming in, and it appeared to be snow or sleet. I ran back to a slightly better vantage point and shot handheld with my 70-200mm. With the wind and poor light, I had to bump the ISO way up to 3200 and shoot at f4. I fired off a few shots and ran back to the car as the thick sleet soaked me. When I got home and processed the image, I started to like it, especially liking the mix of grain and sleet complimenting each other. It had to be mono in my mind, and a quick conversion confirmed it. So this image reinforced that you should switch off as you never know what awaits round the corner.
Crooked
My second image is one that highlights the benefit of my day job. This is a location near Beattock Summit I would have been very unlikely to every come across, hidden along a small dead-end farm road that requires crossing the west coast mainline at a small crossing. I had passed it for years and seen different conditions, but frustratingly it was never when I was off work and out shooting. I did visit once before in late spring 2015 which allowed me to get a good look around and see where could be best to shoot if I got back in the right conditions.
So one morning in mid-February 2016 snow was falling in South Lanarkshire, and I had a list of locations I wanted to try and get to, and this was high on that list. I got there and got set up just as another passing flurry was falling and giving the place a fresh dusting. The snaking wall was my focal point, and I moved around slightly to find what I felt was a complimentary composition that would incorporate the Scots Pine. As I settled a small flock of sheep must have heard the farmer over the hill and decided to move quickly through the open gate. Knowing this could only add interest to the image I grabbed the opportunity and fired a few more shots. The snow stopped falling shortly after this, and a thaw began, leaving the scene a lot less appealing, so the timing was kind to me on this occasion.
Holy Water
My 3rd image reinforces the need to explore your local area. This was shot less than a mile from my home just off a small back road to East Kilbride in South Lanarkshire that I had driven for years. Since I have focused my photography on the Landscape over the last 2 ½ years, I often struggle to get time to venture far afield with the commitments of family life. So when I get the odd hour I have found myself exploring local woods and marshlands.
This particular morning in late September, the forecast had promised some light mist, and I didn’t have much time so went to some local fields with woodlands on their boundary. I got a few shots I liked, but as I explored more, I heard some water running. On investigation, I stumbled upon this small waterfall into a local burn, surrounded by a small gorge with steep rock sides. The rising mist had filtered in through the foliage and created some nice light trails that gave shape and direction to this shot. It is a location I have realised suits sunset better and a little later in the year when more leaves have fallen to allow just a little more light in from the opposite direction as here.
How easy – or difficult – do you find it to fit your photography around work and other commitments? When you travel for work, are you able to devote any time to either photography or researching new places?
With two girls under 8 and working shifts at extremely odd times, my very understanding wife is extremely lenient in giving me some time to get out. Although most of my work is done while they are all fast asleep as I sneak out early morning making sure I’m in before they rise and need to get ready for school, and my wife can get off to her work. It’s a constant challenge, and the majority of my weekly stuff is done close to home, where I have been amazed at the beauty I have blindly passed, sometimes daily before I began to see the landscape differently. I try to arrange at least a full day away every so often, but it can be hard, although I did manage two separate weeks away on Doug Chinnery workshops to the Cairngorms and Harris & Lewis last year.
What are the ingredients of a fine art photograph of the landscape?
Following a career as an engineer, researcher and university lecturer he made a dramatic change of career as a nature and landscape photographer, his true passion and vocation. Today, he travels extensively in search of those fleeting moments when light and land combine to create something very special.
His work has been awarded in many international photography competitions, including the prestigious Master Hasselblad Award, several First Prizes in the International Photography Awards (USA), Px3 Prix de la Photographie de Paris and Px3 People's Choice (France), Nature’s Best (USA), International Conservation Awards (USA), European Nature Photographer of the Year GDT (Germany), MML International (Spain), Trierenberg Super Circuit (Austria), Panoramic Photographer of the Year Awards (Australia), etc. Ironically, the more awards his work obtains, the less Rafael likes his photographs!
Rafael Rojas is co-director and one of the founders of the company WHYTAKE - The Global Community of Nature Photographers TM, a global, free and multicultural inspiring community of nature photographers.
Cooking up a Classic
Rafael will explain how landscape photography is a creative way of personal expression is not just capturing pretty pictures of beautiful scenery, using advanced cameras or travelling to exotic locations.
Rafael will tackle the different aspects which take part in the photographic process of an artist confronted not only to the outer landscape, but also to the inner one.
[vimeo https://vimeo.com/163737008 w=556]
GREEN ROOM INTERVIEW
[vimeo https://vimeo.com/162565669 w=556]
ON LANDSCAPE MEETING OF MINDS CONFERENCE 2016
Making photographs of the landscape is often, necessarily, a solitary pursuit. But that doesn’t mean we want to be hermits. What we want is the company of like-minded people. We want a place to view the photographs of others and, perhaps, somewhere to show our own work. We also want a place to find new ideas – both aesthetic and technical.
On Landscape provides the ‘virtual’ place where all of those things can happen, a place where the disparate community of landscape photographers can meet and exchange ideas. It’s the perfect environment in which to share our passion. But wonderful as the online magazine is you can’t beat meeting people face-to-face.
The most noble kind of beauty is that which does not carry us away suddenly, whose attacks are not violent or intoxicating (this kind easily awakens disgust), but rather the kind of beauty which infiltrates slowly, which we carry along with us almost unnoticed, and meet up with again in dreams; finally, after it has for a long time lain modestly in our heart, it takes complete possession of us, filling our eyes with tears, our hearts with longing. ~Friedrich Nietzsche
Like many of my peers, I was first drawn to photographing the natural landscape after seeing spectacular vistas of wild looking places featured in coffee-table books and glossy magazines. The natural world fascinated and inspired me since my earliest memory, and seeing such images sent my imagination soaring. I wanted to see these places with my own eyes; I wanted to journey to those imposing mountains, to those vast deserts, to those craggy coasts; I wanted to float those great rivers and to push my way through those dense verdant forests; I wanted the adventure of hiking and climbing and paddling and encountering natural wonders in the raw, without fences and walls and windows, without signs and tour guides and the buzz of human machinery; and I wanted to make images as impressive as those I’ve seen in publications. As I matured, however, I found more and more reasons to pursue a different kind of photography—intimate, nuanced, subtle, thoughtful, at times abstract—which I ultimately came to appreciate as more satisfying than the pursuit of grand vistas and eye-popping colours.
‘A picture is worth a thousand words’ goes the adage. And that’s certainly true for photography which, as a descriptive medium, has always been used to tell stories. Whilst the single image can communicate meaning instantaneously, stories come into their own when a selection of images is put together as a series. A sense of narrative. But the meaning of the narrative depends on the viewer’s ability to link the images: “Unlike film, which is truly plastic and continuous, a series of photographs is a sequence of arrests in time; the interstices are filled by the viewer” wrote John Szarkowski (Director at Moma, NY) in Looking At Photographs in 1973.
How much more difficult does it become, however, for the viewer to link the images when they are abstracts as we see here in these shots by Edward Burtynsky? Our desire for meaning is so strong that even though it is difficult to know initially what these images literally represent, we still look to link them up into a story.
Our desire for meaning is so strong that even though it is difficult to know initially what these images literally represent, we still look to link them up into a story
What do we actually see? A series of geometric shapes, squares, circles and lines. There seems to be a progression from one image to another implied by the repeated shapes contrasting with the changing colours and tones. The first image is green and fresh, the second is predominantly brown and grey, in the third the circle seems to be flaking off the surface, and the lines in the circle have decomposed by the fourth image. From bright green fertility to dirty grey/green decay – it doesn’t take us long to suspect that this is a representation of the flow of time and the natural world, even though the shapes in these images seem anything but natural.
Location guides are both a great idea and an abject failure, they promise a world of photographic opportunity but typically deliver the same old worn out locations with vague guidelines on which equipment to take and what month to go there (like Ashness Bridge only works with a 50mm at 5:30 on 23rd of September 2015 - sorry you’re too late and far too wide!). The descriptions are either too short to be of any use whatsoever, for example here’s one of my favourites found whilst researching this.
Iceland
A place which has somewhat mild temperatures for it’s latitude, relatively untouched landscapes, and a small population, Iceland provides a photographer with the perfect environment for taking great photos. You won’t have to go far to find open spaces, waterfalls, mountains, rivers, and amazing views.
Well!! … or they’re full of pointless facts gathered from a half hour Googling (and that you could find just as easily).
The problem is that making really good location guides are hard work and the truth is that there are so many places to take photographs in this country that in order to do them justice, you’d end up with a Brittanica-esque multi-volume set of tomes that would be more useful as ballast for your tripod than guides for photography.
Even when they are done well, you have to accept that what would be good for a beginner wouldn’t really satisfy someone more advanced and something interesting for the more ‘mature’ photographer would probably miss out all the icons that the beginner wants to have a go at.
So when it comes to reviewing location guides, you have to approach it with a certain persona in mind. We’ve reviewed a couple of location guide books in the past, a set by Long Valley Books and an almost FotoVue book by James Grant that ended up self-published.
Long Valley Books were great quick guides to key locations and James Grant’s epic guide to the Peak District was authoritative but the images more documentary in nature than inspirational (this could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your viewpoint).
I received three new books by the publisher FotoVue a couple of weeks ago and have been spending a few evenings perusing them and trying to form an opinion. I’ll cut to the chase on two of these - Stuart Holmes’ guide to the Lake District and Simon Kitchen’s guide to North Wales. Both of these are reasonably well researched and have indicative pictures of what to expect throughout and if you’re new to the area, they undoubtedly give you useful information to familiarise yourself with some of the classic locations. As such they’re pretty much what you’d expect and you won’t go too far wrong.
The book I’d like to spend a little bit more time on is Adam Burton’s guide to Devon and Cornwall. FotoVue are onto a winner here - you really couldn’t want for a better photographer for a book like this. Adam’s work is well above par for this sort of book, he’s very familiar with the locations and from the looks of the images he’s visited most of them on more than one occasion and he’s an experienced writer who has obviously spent more than a few hours working on the project.
The result is a book that works in a range of ways. It’s pack full of decent photography, the suggestions and descriptions of locations provide an intriguing layer of trivia and finally the text provides a photographically relevant description of the opportunities of each location (something lacking in many guides). Nice work Adam!
Covering an area as vast as Cornwall and Devon in a book such as this has all of the problems raised at the start of this article but if we approach the book as ‘Grand Tour’ guide of the region for the unfamiliar then it works as well as it can. The only things I might suggest to improve matters would be some more detailed maps showing the locations described in the text.
If FotoVue can continue to contract photographers like Adam Burton to create their guides, they’re definitely onto a good thing.
You can buy the guides directly from the FotoVue website for around £20.
I've been photographing Dungeness and the decline of its traditional fishing industry for the last 20 years. Lately, I've become fascinated with the effect of time and the weather on the fabric of the derelict boats and net huts.
These images are details from one of the much photographed net huts taken in April this year.
I love the area where I live on the border between Northumberland and Tyne and Wear. It feels like a duty to give a true and authentic representation of the beauty of the area. These images are the record of walks though local woodland as such they are the documentation of a process of contemplation. They represent a strand in my work which seeks out the shapes cast by trees where they can exist as both bodies and abstract forms, and light both enhances details and creates stark shadows.
These four pictures are part of a series called 'Silent Waters'. In this series, I tried to capture places at the shores of lakes where men can meet / enter the water: sort of quiet bridges/gates (in the off-season) between the land and the nearly infinite water ahead. These places are typically busy with bathing people; with this series I wanted to show these places from a different perspective, in their 'quiet' mood.
Our 4x4 feature is a set of four mini landscape photography portfolios from our subscribers, each consisting of four images related in some way. You can view previous 4x4 portfolios here.
If you would like to submit your 4x4 portfolio, please visit this page for submission information. We are looking for contributions for the next few issues, so please do get in touch if you're interested!
Many people are probably only aware of Julian Calverley for his iPhone photographs and subsequent book. These gained a huge amount of coverage for Julian, so much that I think he's a little fed up of the iphonographer label. However, Julian's work is so much more than just the mobile phone and a bit of post processing. His bread and butter work are in high end advertising photography for clients such as the car manufacturers Land Rover, Aston Martin and Mercedes or well-known brands such as Marks and Spencer, NatWest and Santander “
He also uses a 'proper' camera for his landscape work (the iphone started as just a way of taking notes), and the results are more impressive and equally expressive as his iphone photographs.
Julian joined us at the Photography Show on the Linhof Studio stand in March 2016 and will be giving a talk at our conference in November 2016 (click here for more information).
About Julian
Julian has been creating imagery in one form or another since he was old enough to hold a paint brush. Born in Hertfordshire in 1964, he very quickly demonstrated a love and natural talent for drawing and painting, in particular, watercolour landscape work.
After a brief and uninspiring spell at art college, Julian realised it was the mix of photography and traditional darkroom skills that would allow him to express himself most effectively. The next few years saw experience gained with various studios and in 1988, at 24 years old, Julian set up his first studio and darkroom.
Commercially he is represented in London, New York and Hong Kong. His work has been featured in the Association of Photographers awards, and regularly in the ‘Lürzer’s Archive 200 Best Ad Photographers Worldwide’ annual. He is the author of the book ‘#IPHONEONLY’ A book of landscape photographs made entirely on an iPhone.
A Journey Into Landscape Photography
Julian Calverley talks about his advertising photography, his passion for making personal landscape work, and how he enjoys shooting with both his ALPA camera and his iPhone.
When I was first asked about doing an article for end frame, my first question was if it has to be a landscape image. To my delight the answer was no and was given several examples. I probably wouldn’t have managed to pick one landscape image to talk about. There are so many great photographers out there (both amateur and professional) with so many great images. Plus, as landscape photographers we deal with landscape images everyday, so I thought something different would be interesting for everyone!
I guess one could argue my selected image is a landscape as well – just on a grander scale. This is an image of Rho Ophiuchi Nebuale in Scorpio constellation by Scott Rosen in California. There are several reasons why I chose this image over many others. First of all it is taken with a DSLR instead of a temperature controlled CCD camera (sure it is modified to detect a wider spectrum of light but I guess it’s no different than an IR camera and IR photography).
It is also taken with a 200mm lens instead of a telescope. So these two factors put it more into the realms of “regular” photography as I like to call it. It is much more accessible for photographing (unlike the famous eagle nebula for example where you need 1000mm or even longer to capture the details). It is also one of the finest examples I have seen. Astrophotography is full of images that look good in small size but looks full of noise & artefacts when you zoom in. This particular image has a great 3D effect such that the nebula pops out against the background of stars when you view it full size. It is also processed perfectly; it is full of details in the delicate nebulae yet it is not overcooked (which is so easy to do when you are trying to extract as much detail as possible). And finally it looks really pretty – it has a nice mix of different nebulae with different colours and complexity… and to think the space is full of objects like this!
“Treescapes” is my latest exhibition and is on display at Ocean Terminal, Leith, Edinburgh, which runs from 21st July till 31st August 2016.
Ocean Terminal’s open gallery space is a new initiative being run by the Image Collective that was launched in 2015 to showcase the work of both known and first-time exhibitors.
The exhibition brings together a small selection of photographs of trees in the landscape that I have been studying for the last 30 years. The exhibition also doubles as a preview for my book of the same title “Treescapes” which is due out in September 2016.
I was brought up in part of the Scottish countryside that is very rich in tree life and because my family were farmers, I had a fantastic arboreal playground lose myself in and I subsequently developed a deep fascination for trees. It was when I received my first camera however, a Kodak Instamatic, for my 14th birthday that my fascination with trees was to grow into an obsession. From that day onwards, every penny of my pocket money was spent on 126 film so I could go outdoors to capture images of the trees where I lived, and it wasn’t too long before I’d filled up a few albums with 2 inch square prints.
At every opportunity, I would be outdoors seeking the most interesting specimens to capture on film but back then I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t know how to compose, I never waited for the light and I ended up photographing many of the same trees over and over again, so I ended up with a fairly uninteresting collection of images. I was too young to realise it at the time, but whilst I was capturing these same trees many times over, I was actually laying the foundations that would document their transformations as the seasons and years passed, and I would come to realise this several years later.
Photography took a back seat for a while and it wasn’t until I was about to go to University that I bought my first slr camera, and began to learn photography properly. I was originally primed to go to art college but at the last minute I decided to switch and study the sciences instead. I’m ever so glad I did because it was to have a huge influence on my photography from then on.
Thanks to a physics class, where the subject was ratios and fractals, all my tree photographs made sense and this was to be my epiphany moment. With this new found knowledge, everything I looked at in nature became more beautiful than I ever thought possible. Ratios were everywhere and it dawned on me that they weren’t just numbers or something in an exam question any more, they were the tools I would use to teach myself composition and stamp my own identity on my images.
I’ve chosen to present them as a diverse collection of unique trees where the viewer can notice the bent trunk of the rowan tree covered in sheep’s wool or look at those scorched branches of the sycamore and imagine how it might have looked before its transformation.
I spent many years applying ratios to my compositions and I still do today, but never just for the sake of it. The ratios I applied were always carefully considered and they had to have a sincere emotional connection to the trees, otherwise the image wasn’t likely to connect with the viewer. In the exhibition and book, the emotional connections come from the various transformations I’ve captured over the years. Trees undergo constant transformations day after day but they are barely noticeable unless you document the changes over a season.
But these images aren’t about a single season, they are about many years of study and many different types of transformation so I’ve specifically chosen not to present the trees as a before & after series. I’ve instead chosen to present them as a diverse collection of unique trees where the viewer can notice the bent trunk of the rowan tree covered in sheep’s wool or look at those scorched branches of the sycamore and imagine how it might have looked before its transformation.
Do you have an exhibition, project, trip report or location review that you would like to submit an article on to On Landscape? We'd love to hear from you! Please submit our submissions form and we will get in touch.
Clashach Cove, sometimes known as Cove Bay, is in the North East of Scotland and is situated on the Moray coast to the East of the little town of Hopeman. It is a location close to my home in Lossiemouth and only a ten-minute drive away by car. My photography in the location has developed into a personal project.
It's hard to believe that it was about forty-five years ago when I was first introduced to Clashach Cove. Two school friends and I had left school 'early', if you follow my meaning, and had driven down from Elgin on a warm early summer afternoon. The year was 1970, and we huddled precariously beneath a sandstone overhang fairly high up on the sandstone cliff which forms the Western edge of the cove and there read J R R Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings. A magical book in a magical location!
To us humans forty odd years may seem like a long time ago but it's not until one realises that the 'Old Red Sandstone' found in the area was formed around 360 to 415 million years ago and that the relatively young 'New Red Sandstone' in this area was formed a mere 200 to 300 million years ago that our notion of what a 'long time' pales into insignificance!
Following that first introduction, I visited the cove on countless occasions, but it wasn't until around eight years ago, when I first looked at it and the surrounding area with photography in mind, that my idea for the project was formed.
The location is of interest to geologists, and it is not unusual to observe groups of university undergraduates on field trips to the area. I am not a geologist, but I do find the geology of the area fascinating, and indeed it was the geology which took my interest in the first place.
The 'Cove' itself is roughly 120m wide and, from the high tide mark, stretches back inland for about 100m. Slightly to the West lies a smaller area known as Prieshach Cove.
Above the cliffs at Clashach and very slightly to the East lies Clashach Quarry where sandstone has been extracted for building use since the early 1800s.
Above the cliffs at Clashach and very slightly to the East lies Clashach Quarry where sandstone has been extracted for building use since the early 1800s. The sandstone has more recently been used in the construction of the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, the extension to the National Gallery in Edinburgh, the 9/11 memorial in New York, Barcelona Cathedral and in the ongoing construction of Antoni Gaudi's La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.
Landscape photographers are drawn to the cove and nearby areas and over the years I've had the pleasure of meeting some of them. Neil Gove, Douglas Griffin and Grant Willoughby spring to mind and of course Ian Cameron who, certainly, in my opinion, has made some of his best photographs in and around the area. Joe Cornish has also made photographs at Clashach which he included in ‘Scotland’s Coast – A Photographer’s Journey’ (Pages 138 – 141) and Paul Wakefield told me only recently that, although he hasn't been there for a while, it is a location that he likes visiting.
My project is predominately centred in a small area which is sheltered from the sun by a high North facing sandstone overhang located on the Eastern boundary of the 'Cove' and accessed during periods of low tide via a natural arch which leads under a large geological fault. The overhang excludes the sun for most of the year and so, apart from during the sunsets and dawns of mid-Summer, I mostly work in reflected light when I explore the relationships between that light, the smaller round stones, larger sandstone rocks and walls, rock pools and the algae patterns and the colours found in that area.
The smaller round stones grind smooth patterns into the base rock and these, in turn, provide holding areas for those same different coloured stones. The area changes with every tide, sometimes quite dramatically, bringing new compositions to explore.
The smaller round stones grind smooth patterns into the base rock and these, in turn, provide holding areas for those same different coloured stones. The area changes with every tide, sometimes quite dramatically, bringing new compositions to explore. Sandbanks come and go filling small caves and covering rocks. Kelp arrives one week and has gone the next. Algae patterns intensify or die back at different times of the year. Fulmars nest in higher cliff ledges and the sound of the sea is always there and always changing. It's a dynamic little area where everything changes but at a different rate with some changes taking place in hours and some changes taking many millions of years. Some 250 million years ago the 'new red sandstone' formed part of a desert dune structure and dinosaur footprints and tail drags were revealed in the quarrying process mentioned above. My project examines a tiny and minuscule slice of time really, something which is so very obvious to me both when I'm writing this and when I'm standing there.
For the project, I tend to concentrate mostly on an intimate landscape approach and try to restrict myself to a 24mm focal length. I never use my polarising filter preferring to photograph the light and colours as they are and I use a tripod mounted Nikon D800 with a cable release. Images are processed in Lightroom and Photoshop, and I sometimes use a ColorChecker Passport target on-site. This then allows me to build custom DNG camera profiles in Lightroom via a plug-in.
I also sometimes make 'wider' photographs in the most general area of the location during those periods when maybe the light is harsher and when the contrast becomes too great or when the tides prevent access to the location. Of course,, I also visit other locations, and I find it beneficial to move inland and away from the coast sometimes to get another perspective on the landscape. I also try to get over to the North or West of Scotland on at least a couple of occasions per year for a complete change, and I'm already looking forward to another Poolewe based visit planned for late November. I've also recently started to explore the vastness of Culbin Forest which has a different beauty and equally interesting history. I'll always have a special interest in Clashach however. It is a special place.
I would like to thank George G Meldrum BSc, MSc, Honorary Fellow of the School Of Geosciences, the University of Edinburgh, not only for his knowledgeable input about the geology of Clashach but also for his friendship and encouragement of the project.
The project is on-going, and I update the set on my website regularly.
Links to additional information about Clashach Cove:
Do you have a project, trip report or location that you would like to submit an article on to On Landscape? We'd love to hear from you! Please submit our submissions form and we will get in touch.
For this issue, we’re delighted to be able to bring you an interview with Sandra Bartocha. It’s taken a little while to do so as Sandra has been busy bringing to completion Lys - An intimate Journey to the North, her joint project with Werner Bollmann, but I think you will agree that it has been worth the wait.
Was there a sense of inevitability about your becoming a professional photographer – your father was one?
Yes, absolutely. Sometimes it is interesting how life paths are chosen. My dad worked as a photo journalist and joining him on assignments was always interesting. For me, it was very clear that I didn't want to sit behind a desk day by day ... I’d rather be out, meet people and have exciting challenges.
During your studies in media and English literature, you worked as an assistant to a studio photographer. How did this influence your photography? Did it give you a particular appreciation for and understanding of the importance of lighting?
It did influence me in a way, in that I did know that I didn’t want to be a studio photographer! It was a kind of an old school studio, and I was so bored by the stereotypical portraits they did that it was not a good choice for me. Of course, there are always many influences that shape a vision ... so it might help me that bits and pieces of lighting scenarios remained subconsciously in my head.
When I started out, I just tried to learn as much as possible. I read any magazine I could find; I bought every photography book I could gather ... and experiencing many different genres of photography definitely helped me in finding out where I belong as a photographer.
There seems to be a marked contrast between many of the European nature images that I see and those from the UK. Composition and use of light tend to be more creative, and there’s often a sense of the ethereal. Do you perceive any difference in emphasis between the two? If so, where do you think this stems from?
My impression is that images often reflect the weather, the landscape and the general mindset of a culture. Of course, this cannot be generalised ... but there is a tendency.
In that case, we first have to answer the question what creative is? ;-)
I believe that there are regional differences throughout Europe. It's not only the UK vs. mainland Europe. There is a lot of difference between the colourful and decorative imagery from the Mediterranean countries vs. the self-reflective art of the Scandinavian photographers. My impression is that images often reflect the weather, the landscape and the general mindset of a culture. Of course, this cannot be generalised ... but there is a tendency.
In my opinion photography in the UK is a bit influenced by the classic American landscape photography. The greater nature and landscapes are ... the easier it is to fall into the trap of taking just beautiful classic images. I always say that the more boring your surrounding is, the more creative you have to be to produce interesting photos. But I feel that in the past years the image styles have become more unified in general ... maybe by the democratising nature of image exchange on social media platforms.
I think I’ve read that for your photography is about the sensory experience as much as the end product? What is its appeal? What draws you to a place – home or away?
It definitely is the feeling of being alive when I'm out. It is hard to describe. I am a very emotional and deeply connected person when it comes to nature. Being in nature, feeling warm sun rays or ice needles on the face ... rain, mist, hail ... hearing the wind whistling in the leaves ... this is the magic of being outside. And the results are personal images that reflect these feelings ... no matter where they are taken.
Where do you look for inspiration? Who or what do you consider has influenced you most?
I am a sponge ... or input junkie. I get inspired by daily life. Social media channels are ever-present with inspirational content, but I am actively striving for more input in many situations ... visiting photography festivals, art museums, etc. This is not an active search, though ... it happens en passant.
I am a sponge ... or input junkie. I get inspired by daily life.
When I look back, there have been great mentors in my local photo club and when I was 18 I spent a year as an au-pair in Minnesota and got acquainted with the works of Jim Brandenburg. His 90-day journey along with his way of emotionalising images impressed me deeply and surely influenced my work. (MG: Interestingly I see that the book of this, Chased by the Light, is now available as an iPad App.)
How important are competitions? You were involved in judging the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition last year. What was it like to be on the other side of the fence?
When I started out as a photographer, I took competitions much more seriously than I do now. In the beginning, it was only "for the money". Later I learned that being successful in a major competition helps put your name out. I've been judging or sitting by in competitions for many years now ... be it as a judge and RAW control for the GDT European Wildlife Photographer of the Year or the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, and I really enjoy the curating process of selecting great images for an impressive exhibition. Being at the other side of the fence makes you more aware of the fact that apart from a few mega outstanding images it is a matter of pure luck whether you end up winning or not. And of course, that introverted, calm images have less chance of winning.
Photographers tend to criticise juries for their taste and most of the time it is because their pride is wounded by not being successful. I don’t look at selections anymore and discuss the stupidity of jury decisions. I just take it as THE selection of the year and am happy with the ones that inspire me and put my images in as a lottery ticket in the draw ... and when I'm winning, I'm lucky and if not I know that it is not because I'm a bad photographer. In the end ... personal work and consistency always pay off more than producing images just to win competitions.
There is definitely an urge in me to create something that reflects my vision of the world. But I do enjoy the crafting side of producing a classic sellable image as well.
Do you think of yourself as a photographer or as an artist?
Good question. Both I think. There is definitely an urge in me to create something that reflects my vision of the world. But I do enjoy the crafting side of producing a classic sellable image as well.
Your exhibitions have recently included some of your more abstract work. How are you finding this is received? I’ve been told that abstract doesn’t sell well, though when I show work alongside artists I’ve not found this a limitation. What has been your experience?
Honestly. I'm not sure what does sell these days. Photography is a tough business when it comes to exhibitions and selling prints. And I can understand. It's either that you invest in art ... or have a free patch of a wall inside your home. To invest a large sum must coincide with really deeply falling in love with a piece. So just liking something is not a sales trigger.
Therefore, I do enjoy exhibiting as I find that an image printed on a beautiful paper ... displayed in a top quality frame ... is just the best way of celebrating photography. That does not mean I'm selling a lot ;-).
I prefer to exhibit my more abstract work because I would hang this on my walls. I'd never display a classic flower or landscape shot in my home. Adding to this is another even more important reason which is to say that my intentions in producing series of abstract work comes more from my artistic side than the pure technical ability to produce a well-exposed photograph.
Although it is expensive to produce exhibitions, I would never make the audience and the reception of imagery be my guide for a selection.
Working with stills, videos and audio can form an alliance that is highly emotional and visually challenging for the audience. I've often had people come up to me after a screening telling me how deeply moved they have been. .
How do you choose to print and present your work – for clients, and for exhibitions? I believe that you also mix images and music (recorded, but also on occasion live) for audio visual presentations?
I love exhibitions (see above), and the tendency is to present my work large (40x60"). I am lucky that my boyfriend has specialised in fine art printing so I have complete control over the quality of my prints. But I do love the combination of music and images. I'd rather call it a visual concert.
Music is a very important part of that, and I enjoy working very closely with composers who are inspired by my work. It is not only about finding an appropriate soundtrack for one’s images ... it is more about combining two mediums that work perfectly on their own to form a symbiosis that is even better than either alone. Working with stills, videos and audio can form an alliance that is highly emotional and visually challenging for the audience. I've often had people come up to me after a screening telling me how deeply moved they have been. This is an amazing reward for one’s work.
Can you choose 2 or 3 of your own images that have particular resonance for you and tell us a little about them?
There are three images that are kind of my key images - one being The Magical Forest; the second is the Light Show image and third is my Tree Vision image.
The Magical Forest
Light Show
Tree Vision
We do take nice images all the time but it is very seldom that we produce images that everybody is connects with. In all three cases I knew that they were special in the second, I looked at the camera display. In all three situations, I was able to transfer what I felt into an image where the audience connects.
One of your favourite images - Light Show – was taken with a basic camera. Is equipment important? What combination of camera and lenses do you favour?
Yes and no. It is not important to the extent that you can create amazing work with the most simple cameras. You just have to have a vision. Look at the quality of iPhone images.
I don’t always use the latest equipment but I'm looking for cameras and lenses that suit my way of working. Equipment that makes it possible to visualise my ideas properly.
I don’t always use the latest equipment but I'm looking for cameras and lenses that suit my way of working. Equipment that makes it possible to visualise my ideas properly. In that sense I want to have a camera that I can adjust manually ... that is robust in heavy weather ... that can produce high-quality files for printing big. With the Light Show image, I didn't have my familiar camera equipment, and it helped me by pushing my creativity beyond the stereotypical approach ...
I believe from time to time this can help to break up hardened mindsets ... but in general I love working with my Nikon D810 and Nikon lenses ranging from 14-400mm. :)
How has the transition from transparency film to digital capture affected your image making?
I still like to compose images perfectly in camera and adjust everything perfectly on location so that I don't have to work on the computer to make an image work. But the freedom of being able to take more images is liberating as it provides the room for experimenting more and of course controlling the outcome is much easier. I remember film days when I shot 1-2 rolls of water movement and sometimes there was not one that worked perfectly. Today I sometimes shoot up to 1000-2000 images of a promising situation.
You still like your images to be ‘pure’ (created in camera) and I know that you’re happiest in the field rather than at the computer. Have you found a time efficient way of processing your images?
No. :-) I guess I'm totally old school when it comes to processing. I know ways of making it more efficient, Lightroom probably being one of these easy-to-use tools. But I still prefer using Nikon View for converting RAW to TIFF and working with Adobe Bridge and Photoshop for selecting and a short fine tuning of images. As I don't spend too much time on my files, it works rather well for me right now.
Many argue against working ‘for free’ but I read that you’ve found that it can pay off?
One has to differentiate what kind of free work can help. I'm definitely not a fan of giving away photography for free. What I meant is more to engage oneself in voluntary work that can lead to paid work in the end. I often receive emails asking how you become a professional photographer and I cannot answer this properly as there are hundreds of different biographies that can be successful.
For myself I have noticed that being involved voluntarily in local camera clubs or photographic societies, putting a lot of unpaid effort, time and expertise into organising meetings, festivals, exhibitions, competitions or anything ... has helped me grow as a person and as a photographer, has helped me become part of a community and has therefore probably helped spread my name amongst decision makers. But of course, it has to be backed by professional work and great photography as well.
Tell me a little about your role as Editor of the GDT’s magazine Forum Naturfotografie. Is there any prospect of it becoming available in English?
I've been working as the editor of the magazine since 2008 and I thoroughly enjoy the process of working with photographers around the world. Most important for me is finding people with a distinct style or interesting project/story. There is so much great work out there but unfortunately many of it is interchangeable. I prefer to print only unique work.
LYS is the Norwegian and Danish word for light and this is what defines photography as such, our style especially, and it is characteristic of Scandinavia on so many levels.
As many of the interviews and texts originate in English anyway and are only translated into German we have been thinking of including a downloadable PDF with the English texts, but until now time issues have always prevented this step. Another idea was to partner with other nature photography societies in Europe to have a collaborative magazine that would allow us to have both an English and German edition - but again ... this has to be planned accordingly. Maybe in the future, together with a digital edition.
You’re working with Werner Bollmann on a long term project about the essence of the north called LYS. Tell me a little about this - how was this conceived and how did you establish its scope and extent? Has it presented any particular challenges?
At first, we had this idea of working together - we both have very similar aesthetic values and as we both have a deep connection to the North it was clear that this would be an ideal subject for us. LYS is the Norwegian and Danish word for light and this is what defines photography as such, our style especially, and it is characteristic of Scandinavia on so many levels. We knew that we had to deal with the great masters of Scandinavian photography as well as the huge numbers of photographers travelling there to take pictures, so our approach was more holistic.
We wanted to photograph our personal journey from the southern plains of Denmark up to the ice cold glaciers of Svalbard - leaving the stereotypical sights behind and concentrating more on the biomes as such - the big landscapes of the North. Everybody who loves the North should feel at home when they browse the images. From the beginning, we knew that the outcome should be a book and an audio-visual presentation.
We knew it would involve a lot of travelling as the distances are huge, so we originally planned three years. In 2011 we started with a concept, brainstorming ideas and collecting ways of representation. The project’s aim was not only to work together but to develop as photographers as well. Werner was known for his clean animal portraits and I have always been connected to flowers and plants. So the intention was also to challenge ourselves and depart from beaten tracks.
In 2012 we began with the "easier-to-get" chapters and worked our way up to the more advanced ones. Looking back I believe we were quite naive with many things. We totally underestimated the work (physically and emotionally) and money that goes into a project like that - especially because we approached it more on a personal than commercial level. There are so many conceptual ideas behind our story and there is so much thought put into details that it is almost self-destructive.
Five years later we are finally approaching the finishing line. I think the result is amazing. The book and the show will premiere at the International Nature Photography Festival in Lünen in October and I really hope that both will be well received by the audience.
You’ve been involved in a succession of projects since 2008 and I read that this almost led you to ‘burn out’. How did you get past this?
I am probably not past it yet. Every day I wish I could just enjoy a really free day without thinking of the workload and forthcoming deadlines waiting for me. I think when you start as a professional photographer it is a bit like running in a hamster wheel. It goes faster and faster and because you always fear to miss out on an opportunity you take on every project, you accept every invitation and so on. Just because you think if you decline they won't present this opportunity again. And often enough this really would be the case.
Right now I'm totally involved with voluntary work for the GDT as their vice president as well as finalising and promoting our LYS project ... while trying to earn money with sellable photography in order to be able to allow myself the luxury of doing both first mentioned. :)
My plan is to find time for myself ... to break out of the hamster wheel and balance work and life a bit better in the future.
Looking back now, is there anything you would change or do differently?
Hard to say. I guess there are people out there who have a better ability of defining borders. I'm too easily engaged with interesting projects that I'm jumping on with joy ... and later I often regret this decision - not the being part of it ... but the time involved. I have a ‘help syndrome’ and people know that they always can rely on me. It's not that I want to change that ... but I definitely have to look out a bit more for myself.
Do you manage to find much time for personal projects? Are there any particular themes that you are keen to explore in future?
I don’t separate work and personal projects too much as most of the time I'm working on projects and subjects I enjoy, and I try to sell these afterwards. With LYS it was a bit different as it involved long periods of travelling and a lot of planning. I don't know if this was a once in a lifetime thing as I'm sure it's not easy to repeat to that extent.
There are a few ideas whizzing in my head. Small ones and more regional ones. I need some time to breathe and have new ideas and inspiration. What advice would you give to photographers who want to create the quieter, more personal, work but find it hard to be seen or heard against the online tide of oversaturated high drama?
The most important thing is to keep following your vision and passion ... no matter what others think and say. I know it's not easy, but I am a firm believer that it pays off, in the end, to stay true to yourself and not adapt to what seems popular.
The most important thing is to keep following your vision and passion ... no matter what others think and say. I know it's not easy, but I am a firm believer that it pays off, in the end, to stay true to yourself and not adapt to what seems popular. Popularity and success are defined differently by everybody. Some people need the enthusiastic feedback of an online crowd to move forward ... others are happy to express themselves solely for the sake of reaching new ways of expression. It’s crucial that you are happy with what you do.
I was sorry that the Whytake community ended so suddenly. I found it a great way of broadening my horizons. Are you aware of anything that comes close to it?
I found it a bit strange to close the site completely, especially considering the huge amount of work and effort people put into building their online portfolios there. I didn’t visit the site regularly though as I am flooded with visual content on so many levels, so I don’t feel I’m missing something. When I'm up to a bit inspiration, I usually go on my Instagram feed as this provides me with non-stop images.
Which photographer(s) do you think we should feature in a future issue? (They can be amateur or pro.)
I'm a bit dizzy in my head after such a long marathon of questions ... Additionally, I'm not aware of the many names you have probably already featured in your magazine. Thinking of landscapes, there is Kilian Schönberger who has interesting thoughts and great images.
Thank you very much, Sandra, for completing the marathon….. I have no doubt that readers will enjoy reading your answers.
Art instructors often speak sagely of positive and negative space. One might consider that such a concept is only useful in an additive art form like painting, where the practitioner works from a blank ground. This is a useful educational tool applied to photography. Loosely defined, positive space is, ‘object’; Negative space is the area between ‘objects’. Hence the title: Form (positive space, not space at all!) and Void (negative space).
It is easy to imagine an empty studio environment with two figures, and how their relationship can be understood and enhanced by controlling the (negative) space between them, a space that lacks detail, and is just plain tone (whether light or dark). In such an environment it is easy to grasp the idea that the shape of that space might have significance, an identifiable shape. But what of a landscape? Many landscapes lack a single or obvious object/subject, or there might be a chaotic crowd of them, in woodland for example… and what of all the textured, coloured space between them (i.e. the land) is that form, or space? The sky may be an obvious example of space, but what if it is a key component or even the main subject of the picture? How does this relate to the positive/negative space concept?
In truth, I have always approached the positive/negative space theory with a dose of scepticism. It appears to oversimplify what is ultimately a matter of tonal, colour, spatial and linear relationships. And yet this simplification process may be valid when trying to get to grips with the building blocks of picture design. Indeed, graphic design is a field where form and void have to be constantly addressed – think of page layout. This is then immediately linked to ideas of ‘breathing space’, flow, balance and proportion. Try isolating any visual concept and invariably it tends to be hitched to all the other aesthetic considerations of picture-making.
You can read the previous articles in the series by Joe:
I have always been passionate about black and white photography and printmaking, and the first time I experienced infrared photography was as a seventeen-year-old photography student. Back then it was a way of trying something new that gave startling results. Of course, the only way to explore infrared in the early eighties was to choose one of the different films that were available. The two main films were Kodak High-Speed Infrared or, for medium format photographers, Konika Infrared.
The difference with using this type of film was that the resulting prints showed a marked tonal shift making the greens of trees almost white and the blues in skies almost completely black. If you made your exposures with a polariser fitted to your lens, the results were even more extreme! As a very young photographer, I thought these extreme tones and high contrast photographs were fantastic, and it also felt like an adventure trying to load your film in complete darkness otherwise you could run the risk of fogging it.
This fascination soon wore off, as I was eagerly studying the work of Ansel Adams, Paul Strand and Edward Weston and their photographs oozed with smooth, subtle tones and overwhelming three-dimensionality. I remember looking at Edward Westerns classic photographs of peppers and thinking how much infrared would have ruined the tones. I left the world of infrared photography behind and set out to test my film speeds and practice fastidiously on my darkroom skills both at college and at home.
In the last episode of our metering series, we talked about what type of meters were available (excluding in camera matrix style metering) and how they work. We also covered the basic ideas behind the subject brightness range.
In summary, we have spot meters that take a reading of a specific small area of a scene and incident meters that measure the light falling on a scene. The typical subject brightness range (SBR) of a non reflective scene is from -3 to +3 stops.
Now we’ll take a look at how you would use each type of meter to measure the brightness of a scene and how you would choose an aperture and shutter speed based on this.
Firstly, to make this simpler, we’re going to work in EVs (actually LV but we’ll explain that in a bit).
An EV translates as an ‘exposure value’. It’s an arbitrary unit that is 1 when the aperture is 1, the shutter speed is 1 and the ISO is 100. Real EV values vary when you change the ISO but most light meters that read EV’s don’t change when you change the ISO and for correctness we should say that these are measuring LV (light value). The advantage of LV is that if you have a given value of LV it defines the intensity of light and hence becomes a single value that you can remember in the future (after some time working with meters you’ll know what the LV of a white cloud is on a sunny day for instance).
NB: Modern light meters like the Sekonic use EV instead of LV. If you want to work in EV then change the ISO to 100.
OK, now we know we’re working with absolute light levels in units of one f/stop we can look at how each type of light meter works.
Incident Meter
The incident meter should be considered your go to meter for typical photography. It is more likely to produce a well exposed picture than any other form of metering. This is because, as we have learned earlier, the typical brightness range of a non-reflective subject is +/- 3 stops and nearly all film is capable of recording +/- 3 stops of light; hence if an incident meter is placed next to a non-reflective object and in the light that that object is illuminated by, then you will get an exposure reading that will give good exposure from shadows to highlights.
The problem starts when your subject matter is sitting in a different light than that in which you are currently standing. This is why you should walk up to the subject and place the incident meter as close as possible to the subject with the meter pointing back at the camera. This is what you will typically see in most portrait photography - the photographer will walk up to the model and place the meter in front of their face with the meter pointing back at the camera.
In many situations you have a problem that you can’t walk up to the subject and perhaps the subject is being lit by point light source or sources. Let’s take these one at a time
You can’t walk up to the subject
In this case you have a couple of options.
If your subject in the distance is in the same light as you
You can just take an incident reading where you are.
If your subject is in direct sunlight
Then find a bit of direct sunlight and place your incident meter in it (pointing back at the camera)
If your subject is in the shade
You can just cast a shadow on your meter (try to cast a shadow with your hand at a distance from the meter - we’ll come back to why in a bit). This should work as long as the type of shade is the same.
How do I know if the type of shade is the same?
Well, you need to work out in your head where the majority of the light is coming from.
For instance, on a cloudy day, the main light will be coming from all parts of the sky and so you need to make sure your light meter sees all of the sky (apart from the direct light).
However on a blue sky day in desert canyons (for a somewhat forced example) the majority of light for shaded areas is probably reflected from the ground around you; the blue sky won’t be contributing much at all.
Your subject is lit by point light source(s)
This could be problematical, especially if the the lighting is point source based which falls in intensity as you get further away. Your best bet is to find a light nearby which you can place your meter under to get close to the values. This is where you could do with a spot meter..
The biggest problem with incident meters
As landscape photographers, the biggest issue with incident metering is that you can’t take a reading of the sky (or part thereof). There are heuristic workarounds for this but they’re not simple and will be part of a future instalment.
In reality, if you’re taking pictures that include the sky and you want to be accurate then you really need a spot meter.
NB If you’re using colour negative film, you probably don’t need to worry about the sky readings as colour negative has such a large dynamic range. As long as you get the shadows right you should be fine and so it’s best to take a shadow reading. If you’re worried about underexposing, shade your incident meter and use that reading.
The Spot Meter
The spot meter is undoubtedly the best way to take readings of scene luminosity. A one degree meter can accurately place tones throughout the range of your scene and you can look around for the darkest and lightest parts of your scene and place them according to your film or sensor.
The biggest problem with spot meters
The main problem with spot meters is working out a good exposure point. It’s easy to measure highlights and shadows but to work out where mid-grey is can be very difficult. This is because there are rarely nice grey areas in a landscape and our eyes/brain are notoriously bad at working out the relative luminosity of different colours. Even if you have a grey, people are notoriously bad at guessing a 12% (or should it be 15% or 18%) grey (more on that later).
The main way to resolve this is to carry your own middle grey with you. This doesn’t need to be amazingly accurate but if you can easily afford one, an X-Rite Colorchecker Passport is useful in many other ways. Otherwise you can pick up a grey card set from ebay for 99p.
If you hold this facing the camera and take a spot meter reading from it, it’s a good substitute for an incident meter reading.
A Good Workflow for Exposure Metering
After speaking to a range of photographers, we would highly recommend that you purchase a spot meter and, if possible, buy one that has an incident meter built in as well. If not it’s not the end of the world as you can always use a grey card as mentioned above.
Using both incident and spot metering your workflow would go like this.
Take an incident reading in the same light as the subject you want to be normally exposed.
Measure the brightest highlight and work out whether it will end up overexposed on your film/sensor or not. If so, modify your exposure or use a graduated filter.
Measure the darkest shadow that you don’t want to be black. Work out whether it will be underexposed based on the meter reading from step 2
And there you have it. The real world often doesn't behave and we'll come back to some of those problems in future installments. In the meantime the best way to describe the process is by showing example photos and the steps I took to get them onto film.
Example Photos
Stokksnes
This was taken using a 5x4 camera on Fuji Velvia so not much dynamic range to play with - for most uses we would say between -4 EV and +2 EV
As I was waiting for the best light for about an hour, I was mostly keeping an eye on which graduated filter I was going to need.
Firstly I took an incident reading with the meter held in the air so it caught the direct sunlight. This gave me a reading of 11 EV
Then I took a reading whilst shaded by the dunes behind me. This gave me a reading of 9 EV
This suggests a brightness range from 6 to 14
How?
The dark area in the shadow is 9 EV and the darkest part of that will be 3 EV below so will be 6 EV
The brightest reflected area in sunlight is 11EV +3EV which gives 14EV
This gives a total dynamic range of 8 stops (EV6 to EV14) and it suggests that a 2 stop graduated neutral density filter is needed.
If we look at the spread of these values on our exposure scale it may make more sense.
Spot Metering
Now we can make some spot meter readings to check the darkest and lightest values and also see what value the sand and grass has.
Darkest (Sand in corners) = 6 EV
Brightest (Light patch in sky) = 15 EV
Grass = 12 EV
So if we put these on our chart we can see that we need to have at least a two stop filter.
In my case I used a two stop and adjusted the exposure down another stop to catch the light in the sky as I knew blue over exposes easily on Velvia 50 (and looks ugly when it does). I also knew that I have a drum scanner and should get away with -5 stops on Velvia 50.
Rannoch Moor
In this case I only had one type of light to deal with and this was the dawn glow about half an hour before sunrise. The incident reading gave me a value of 6 EV. This suggests that the dynamic range of the normal parts of the scene range from 3 EV to 9 EV.
Using my spot meter I read the following values from the scene.
This gave a couple of values outside that range, although not by much. I think the 2⅓ EV in the bottom right is because it's totally shaded from the light (i.e. it's both dark AND shaded).
The big problem is the direct source of light with 10⅔ EV. Here are the values placed on our Velvia 50 range.
In order to bring the brightest part of the sky down to within the Velvia 50 range, we've had to use a two stop graduated ND. This brings the 10⅔ EV value down to 8⅔ EV and given this we just lose the very darkest parts of pictureblack by ⅓ of a stop (which actually turned out OK on a drum scanner).
Conclusion
I could have forgotten about the incident reading for these tests but next issue I'll show some situations where having an incident reading gives extra information about where to place your tones. Mostly, in these cases, the incident reading gives you good feedback on whether your overall exposure will look 'correct'.
You may have noticed that in both examples you could have almost gotten away with just the incident reading, using a two stop graduated filter and underexposing slightly. For many cases where you aren't looking directly into the sun or you have bright sunlight on white clouds, this quite often works. These sorts of 'heuristics' are something we plan to look at in future articles.
All endframe articles start in the same way, well, nearly all. Everyone tends to realise it is a ridiculously hard thing to do, plucking one image from the endless cloud of inspiration. There will be other 'better', 'greater' and more significant photographs produced, but to me this is the one that I can't escape from.
I realised that in choosing one image, it needed to have more than a superficial appeal. It needed to be intellectually as well as visually stimulating. It needed to represent a philosophical standpoint in photography for me. Peter Dombrovskis is a favourite landscape photographer for many people, and I think this is not only due to his photographs. His commitment to his work, and his belief in the value of what he was photographing permeate his images. His photography literally made a difference, and I have a tremendous respect for someone able to change his environment for the better through the medium.
I set about choosing an image by simply closing my eyes and seeing what images came to mind. I immediately thought of this one and another of Peters of the rainforest. Other images came and went, and I realised of all the multitude of pictures I have seen, only a few seems to stick in the mind. I don't know of a photograph quite like it, and that probably made it lodge somewhere in the dark and most would say dim recesses of my mind. I then sat and waded through my expanding library of photography books to see if I could better it. Christopher Burkett, Joe Cornish,Hans Strand, Fay Godwin, Shinzo Maeda, Michael Kenna, John Blakemore, Elliot Porter and many more came and went. I couldn't find an image despite their great appeal that made me feel quite so deeply. It is interesting that images on social media are not nearly so accessible as the ones in books.
Our 4x4 feature is a set of four mini landscape photography portfolios from our subscribers, each consisting of four images related in some way. You can view previous 4x4 portfolios here.
If you would like to submit your 4x4 portfolio, please visit this page for submission information. We are looking for contributions for the next few issues, so please do get in touch if you're interested!
One person’s junk is another’s subject material. A friend and fellow photographer, and I like to photograph the urban landscape i.e. scrapyards and auto wreckers, where there always seem to be images to be made. While there, I find it helps to think about David Ward (for inspiration, of course).
I try to hike the trails of my local forests as often as I can. I love trees and have been trying to photograph them for a while now. Recently, I decided to get in closer for more intimate portraits so I used a longer lens. This helps isolate interest from the usually chaotic scenes. I think the images work well together, perhaps it will lead to a more elaborate project in the future.
‘Bolerium’ explores the physical and psychological landscape of Penwith, an isolated region in the far west of Cornwall. Situated on a granite peninsula reaching out into the turbulent Atlantic, a sense of the primordial co-exists with extensive traces of humanity. Relics of early Neolithic man, a past of heavy industry, a present of farming, fishing & tourism, all present amongst the region’s raw geology. A tumultuous history has created a rich local folklore of giants, witchcraft and ghosts that are still palpable.
The images draw from these themes exploring narrative landscapes which evoke the ‘sense of place’ that is so distinct to Penwith, discovering the region in a way that moves beyond the familiar picturesque postcard vistas.
You don't realise how many factors you need to consider when you are in the air, but shutter speed and Iso are two very important ones. Composition may look easy from the ground but as soon as you start to be above the stunning scenery becomes even more beautiful, and you almost want to enjoy it with your mind and it's easy to forget to shoot! Keep shooting was what was advised that I did, only when back and looking at the images do you realise how stunning nature is, and how abstract our world is.
You don't realise how many factors you need to consider when you are in the air, but shutter speed and Iso are two very important ones. Composition may look easy from the ground but as soon as you start to be above the stunning scenery becomes even more beautiful, and you almost want to enjoy it with your mind and it's easy to forget to shoot! Keep shooting was what was advised that I did, only when back and looking at the images do you realise how stunning nature is, and how abstract our world is.
Over the years of photographing my local landscape I’ve witnessed some wonderful natural displays. I’ve often stumbled upon swathes of wild flowers and grasses but my favourite time of year is around the middle of May when the hawthorn trees and bushes fill with white blossom.
Dug Dale
The hawthorn is a native species of Northern Europe and before the invention of barbed wire it was used extensively for hedging fields. Many of the mature hawthorns forming rows around my area are the remnants of these ancient hedges. Its sharp thorns make it virtually impossible to graze and its dark red energy-rich berries are ideal for birds to gorge on before winter. The birds inevitably sow seeds making it an invasive scrub plant. If left unchecked it can overtake areas of land destroying diverse habitats.
Unfortunately what we call progress is nothing but the invasion of bipeds who do not rest until they have transformed everything into hideous quays with gas lamps—and, what is still worse, with electric illumination. What times we live in! - Paul Cézanne
It seems odd that, at a time when photography is more popular and more widely practised than ever, and on the heels of some of the greatest advances in photographic technology, some adamantly proclaim that photography is dead. More bizarre is that fact that we continue to see such baiting headlines despite the fact that similar proclamations were made many times in the past, often in times of marked increases in the popularity and ease of making photographs, and proven false time and again.
Clearly, in the minds of some, photography has lost some of its luster for a variety reasons—whether it is the ease and abundance of phone cameras or the proliferation of selfie-sticks; or because someone paid an egregious amount of money for a picture of a potato; or because someone tried to hype a common image of an oft-photographed view as an original masterpiece of fine art. To those perturbed by such things, I suggest considering a simple question, which is this: why should these have any bearing on the way that you practice photography?
Clearly, in the minds of some, photography has lost some of its luster for a variety reasons—whether it is the ease and abundance of phone cameras or the proliferation of selfie-sticks
This issue we're chatting to someone who has only recently given landscape photography a concerted effort (his oldest photo on Flickr is from 2014) but he's done pretty well in that short period of time. Matt's also a dedicated proponent of the Fuji X system. I can't put my finger on it but his photographs have something distinctive that I really like...
Can you tell me a little about your education, childhood passions, early exposure to photography and vocation?
I was born on the island of St Mary's, Isles of Scilly and spent much of my formative years surrounded by beautiful scenery and golden sandy beaches. I think my love of the outdoors stems from this early experience. As for education, well, I really could have done better, my school reports were littered with phrases like "must try harder, more effort required" and so on and so forth as I found little to inspire me at that time.
Although my Dad dabbled with photography, mainly Black and White and home developed portraits, my only interest was with motorcycles in my teens.
My career path has been nothing if not diverse....from joining the Army at Seventeen, HGV driver, Manufacturing Director of a small pallet company right through to my present position as an industrial instructor/examiner, teaching forklift truck and gantry crane use in a large Engineering firm.
What are you most proud of in your photography?
I started my photographic journey quite late as it happens, around 9-10 years ago. I suppose it's a bit of a cliche now, but it was the disappointing results from my little compact camera on a trip to Scotland that made me decide I needed to do better, that and the chance discovery in a bookshop of Joe Cornish's "First Light". I'm completely self-taught, so it took a few years to understand the fundamentals of Landscape photography but over time my abilities along with my confidence grew. Last year I plucked up enough confidence to apply to the Royal Photographic Society for the LRPS distinction, a very nerve-racking but eventually positive achievement of which I'm very proud.
They showed me what was possible with a camera, how the landscape could be rendered to the viewer and the atmosphere and emotion, depth and feeling that could be displayed in printed form.
In most photographers lives there are 'epiphanic’ moments where things become clear, or new directions are formed. What were your two main moments and how did they change your photography?
Along with many others, I would think, my first real epiphany was when I came across the work of people like Joe Cornish, David Ward and Charlie Waite, it sounds a bit of a cliche now, but these three alone must have inspired the photographic journey of hundreds of photographers. They showed me what was possible with a camera, how the landscape could be rendered to the viewer and the atmosphere and emotion, depth and feeling that could be displayed in printed form.
The second Epiphany was when I decided to make images in any conditions instead of waiting for the "right" conditions. I found that although a vibrant and colourful sunrise may still be very appealing, there are also great images to be found in rain-soaked woodland under an overcast sky. I now find myself just as comfortable working under an umbrella as I do in sunlight.
The only images I make nowadays are landscape images, that's when my passion lies. I love the way it takes me into the unknown, the fact that you are quite often alone at sunrise with only the dawn chorus as company, the way it makes me disconnect from the mundane and strive to connect fully with the landscape around me. I love the compositional challenges it presents, the frustrations and the triumphs, that real euphoria when it all comes together, and you know you have got the photograph you came for.
Could you tell us a little about the cameras and lenses you typically take on a trip and how they affect your photography.
I found that although a vibrant and colourful sunrise may still be very appealing, there are also great images to be found in rain-soaked woodland under an overcast sky.
I used to shoot with Canons 1DS mk111 and L lenses but was an early adopter of the Fujifilm X-Mount system. I now use a Fuji XT-1 and various Fuji XF primes, along with their excellent XF16-55mm zoom. The image quality from this combination is nothing short of remarkable for its size. I never leave home without a full set of Lee graduated filters, polariser and Big Stopper. I always develop my images from Raw files, mainly with Photoshop CS6 and have no hard and fast rules when it comes to editing. In my opinion its the print quality that matters ultimately and I am happy to use any tools that I feel are needed to this effect.
Who (photographers, artists or individuals) or what has most inspired you, or driven you forward in your development as a photographer? What books stimulated your interest in photography?
Along with the three photographers mentioned above, I find that my main inspiration nowadays comes from my circle of friends on social media. There are so many talented photographers out there at the moment producing fantastic work, the likes of Joe Rainbow, Pete Hyde, Mike Prince, Mike Parr, Brian Kerr, Geoff Woods, Marc Elliot, Karl Williams and Darren Ciolli Leach to name but a small fraction.
Can you choose 2-3 favourite photographs from your own portfolio and tell us a little about them? [please state the name and when sending in these images can you mark these as featured images.
The Old Friends
We passed these derelict and abandoned trawlers at Salen Bay while on holiday on the Isle of Mull. There is, in fact, three trawlers here but I deliberately composed the image to hide the third. I just loved the juxtaposition between the vibrancy of the remaining paintwork and the rotting timbers. Forlorn and abandoned, I imagine them grumbling at the world as It drives past their final resting place.
Rain-Soaked Woodland
A very cold and very wet day in the Yorkshire Dales. A mammoth struggle ensued between my golf umbrella and me as I fought to keep the wind-driven rain of the camera. I was determined to get this woodland photograph as the overcast conditions and rain seemed to make the colours in this composition just sing.
Perseverance
We sometimes talk about four seasons in one day in the Lake District, on this occasion, they all came within the hour. The pre-dawn walk up the side of Holme Fell was made in drizzle, the wait at the top was marked by an increase in the wind, as first light broke it was accompanied by hail and sleet. I had spotted this composition a week before and was determined to wait it out. Then, just as I was thinking about calling it a day, a brief gap in the cloud let the light through.
How easy – or difficult – do you find it to fit your photography around work and other commitments? When you travel for work, are you able to devote any time to either photography or researching new places?
I do sometimes find it quite hard to make enough time for my photography, juggling work and home life dictates that I may not go out with a camera for weeks at a time. I feel that this can also be seen as a positive, I have learnt to make the most of my time and rarely come home without a picture or two nowadays.
At first, I used a fairly regimented approach to my photography, plan it to the Nth degree, time, place, Google search et al. I find that lately I'm far more relaxed in my approach. I'll still do some research, but I'm far less likely to worry about a specific image. Why march past half a dozen potentially great shots just to get to a specific location?
If my mind's not peaceful, the camera stays in the bag. I have to be able to connect with the landscape around me if my mind is on other things I just can't find that special something. The picture should just flow, not be forced.
How important do you find it to be in the right frame of mind? Have you found ways to work around periods when your mind is busy with other things?
I think it is essential to be in the correct state of mind to make good images. If my mind's not peaceful, the camera stays in the bag. I have to be able to connect with the landscape around me if my mind is on other things I just can't find that special something. The picture should just flow, not be forced. If you try and force things, it shows in the end result.
If you had to take a break from all things photographic for a week, what would you end up doing?
I don't think I'd do much different, I'd still go out into the landscape, it is that feeling of curiosity, harmony and wellbeing that exploring the countryside brings to my everyday life that's the real driving force behind what I do. (My wife would say that like a young child I still can't resist wanting to see just what's around that corner, over that hill...
What sorts of things do you think might challenge you in the future or do you have any photographs or styles that you want to investigate? Where do you see your photography going in terms of subject and style?
I think I need to work a little more on consistency, to try to gain a greater understanding of why some of my images seem to work so well when others that should work equally as well seem to miss the bar somehow. I would also like to start printing my own work at home so as to take full control of the whole creative process.
Which photographer(s) – amateur or professional - would you like to see featured in a future issue?
There are so many excellent landscape photographers out there it's hard to know where to start. I would like to see more of Dave Fieldhouse, Brian Kerr, Pete Hyde or Mike Prince's work as they all inspire.
You can see more of Matt's work on his website and Flickr page.
As a child, my father instilled his love of nature and Andalusia in me. We had a house in the countryside, and I remember spending hours playing outdoors there. I always followed my father in his search for hidden natural landscapes while he conveyed to me all his knowledge. This knowledge gave me an important foundation in an understanding of the environment, which was very useful in my beginnings with nature photography. In fact, something that keeps attracting me as much as the photography is the discovery of new natural environments.
However, it was not with landscape photography with which I began my wanderings. I live in Seville, a few minutes from one of the largest nature reserves in Europe where you can observe more than 300 species of birds a year, being a mandatory stop for migratory birds on their way between Europe and Africa. Doñana National Park offers endless possibilities for wildlife and landscape photography. It is a biological reserve where several species remain endangered, such as the Iberian lynx.
I love its beauty, its light, its sunsets in the marshes or dunes. When I discovered this paradise, I spent years obsessed with this place. At that time I had always thought that wildlife photography was much more complicated than landscape photography. However, I realised that to publish an article about birds, it was necessary to add images of the natural environment in which they lived. It was then that I discovered that it was not at all easy ...
It was not as simple as to place the camera and take the picture. I found a whole world of possibilities, and I understood that this type of photography that I had perhaps underestimated technically in my early days, was infinitely more complex. First, because you never know how a sunset will be, what colour the sky is, the light, the colours of nature ... every day is totally different from the day before. And of course, on the other hand, one sees the landscape before it, admire it, but then when you try to capture it in an image is not easy. Thus, a long process of learning and research began.
Andalusia and my Evolution
I began to explore this area and found that Andalusia offered me endless possibilities. I also began to notice that I sometimes saw photographs of important foreign photographers, points of reference known to all, and tended to find a similar place in Andalusia. Was I getting obsessed? Maybe a little ... but what it really happened is that in Andalusia you can find a wide variety of landscapes; we have 20% of the planet's biodiversity, which is a great percentage .. This is one of the largest protected areas in Europe. A fact that we often forget as Andalusian people but I think it is very important to develop that awareness of value and respect towards our own land.
Few places in the world can offer this landscape and biological diversity in such few kilometres. You can see the coast, the Mediterranean forest, the Atlantic forest, the jungle, the mountain, high mountain areas, the desert, sub-desert, the countryside.
Few places in the world can offer this landscape and biological diversity in such few kilometres. You can see the coast, the Mediterranean forest, the Atlantic forest, the jungle, the mountain, high mountain areas, the desert, sub-desert, the countryside.
That is perhaps one of the best claims of Andalusia as a destination for nature photography, in just 30 minutes we can go from shooting a spectacular coastline to a foggy forest that can move us to Costa Rica, with lots of relict vegetation. Or go from doing mountain photography with snow covered trees to move to a sub-desert in less than 40 minutes, with a landscape that can move us to Utah in the United States or even in some areas, too much better-known canyons that we have here but whose features are strikingly similar.
These possibilities led me to explore all kinds of landscapes and not to specialise in a particular one but the challenged me to explore what I could draw from each type of scenario. I wanted to portray the Andalusian landscape, and that vision forced me to learn to photograph inside a closed forest, from a mountain or on a beach. More than an obligation it was something that I wanted, I knew I wanted to capture with my camera that diversity of landscapes.
The truth is that at first what seduced me most was the great landscape, open environments that transmit a lot. But soon, Rio Tinto appeared on my way.
For me it was a revelation; It is a unique place in the world, no doubt, a genuine realm of colour where I began to discover a landscape of closed frames; textures, details; sets of colours were transformed into abstract paintings or aerial photographs. Rio Tinto is the colour lab for the photographer.
Rio Tinto for me it was a revelation; It is a unique place in the world, no doubt, a genuine realm of colour where I began to discover a landscape of closed frames; textures, details; sets of colours were transformed into abstract paintings or aerial photographs.
Here I learned to notice details, and this moved to other environments and landscapes. It made me forget the great landscape only with wide angle lens and start using other lens. It helped me to open my vision and showed me that there were not only landscapes made with a wide angle lens, but there were also landscapes with 70-200mm or even with a 400mm lens. I began to see new images where there was nothing before. It was an evolution in my view and my photographic style. (Read more about Diego's photography in our featured photographer interview)
So, I continued to develop my technique in this line. Later, I had the opportunity to meet great European photographers, thanks to Wild Photoescape, the photographic nature tourism company in Andalusia that I manage. Throughout the three short years of life of this project, we have had the opportunity to perform various collaborations with other foreign photographers, organising photo expeditions both in Andalusia and in their countries of origin. In one of these collaborations, I met my friend and passionate landscape photographer, Patrik Larsson, who has undoubtedly been an influence on my photographic perspective.
Patrik has a very marked and personal landscape style; I noticed that his pictures transmitted a lot, I discovered another vision I was not aware of. This meant for me an immersion to a more intimate and closed landscape. Patrik is also a very technically prepared photographer that gave me a lot of knowledge.
It is curious that we are constantly exposed to different stimuli through the network; different trends, styles, techniques and ways of understanding this art and yet has nothing to do with the fact that a person shows you his perspective face to face, on a site that you have been photographing your whole life and yet within minutes one can make you change your focus, your vision ... showing you those details that you have never seen and you could probably never get to internalise both through a computer screen and outside the own natural environment that surrounds you.
That is why I organise and enjoy so much the collaborations between professionals from different backgrounds, styles and ways of understanding the nature photography. I think the site can not only make us evolve in our style, but also the vision of others in our own environments may be crucial. Patrik is an example of how a Swedish photographer can interpret Andalusia.
Patrik Larsson
Before I got in contact with Diego Lopez and saw his landscape images from Andalusia, I only associated the region with sun, white houses, almond trees, beaches and sangría. I think most people do.
Nothing could be more wrong, though, and I am so happy to have met Diego and to join him on several tours in different parts of Andalusia.
What strikes me the most about this region is that it offers so incredibly diverse landscapes.
After spending a week in Andalusia you get back home with images from untouched fog forests, the wetlands of Doñana, photogenic coastal areas with the Moroccan mountains in the background, desert areas, mountain views from Cazorla and Grazalema; and of course from Río Tinto – the very spectacular red river that you don’t find anywhere else. And if you are into intimate landscape photography like me, you’ll find plenty of opportunities for great images.
The best places in Andalusia for photography are not as easy to access as in other places, but it is absolutely worth the extra effort it takes to get to these places.
I would definitely recommend everyone to visit Andalusia for landscape photography. In fact, I think I had one of the best hours of photography in my life in the fog forest of Los Alcornocales.
Agreeing to stage a solo exhibition always seems like a good idea at the time. It is flattering to be asked. The request often comes many months, if not a year or more in advance and so all the work involved seems so far away as to be inconsequential. However, as we all know too well, time flies, and before we have taken breath, the launch date is fast approaching. There are a million things to be done, and our decision to do the exhibition seems increasingly foolhardy with each passing day.
There is also the nagging, creative self-doubt. The cloud that haunts most of us, the voice in our head that whispers endlessly that our work is just not good enough. The closer the exhibition gets, the louder that whisper becomes until it is a screaming voice pleading with us to run away and hide. At least, I assume other photographers feel like me? Maybe I am the only one who looks at my work and sees it morph from images which originally delight into ones which seem dull and lacking originality. Familiarity kills confidence. It has always been this way for me.
I have been through this before with each exhibition I have held, and I am guessing if it were going to change, it would have by now. I always admire artists and photographers who are prepared to show their work in an exhibition. It is one thing to put an image up on social media; it is quite another to hold an exhibition. Social media is a casual forum for displaying our work. Any feedback seems to tend towards the generic and bland. Our work sits in amongst thousands, if not millions of other images. Usually, it is soon forgotten, often in a click-beat. If we hold an exhibition, we are asking people to take the trouble to come and visit a location to see OUR work. We are printing and framing it, hanging it on the walls and saying, in effect, that we feel our work is worth your investment of time and money to come and view it, to perhaps even buy it. We must feel, whatever creative angst is waging war inside us, that the work has some merit and is worth looking at.
I admire anyone who takes this step, whatever I might personally feel about their work, I know it takes bravery and commitment, as well as a not inconsiderable financial investment, to exhibit.
So I admire anyone who takes this step, whatever I might personally feel about their work, I know it takes bravery and commitment, as well as a not inconsiderable financial investment, to exhibit. All who do so are opening themselves up to criticism. Everyone who comes to see the work will make a judgement of some sort. The more innovative the work, perhaps the less likely that the majority of visitors will like what they see.
Thinking in terms of landscape photography, it is easier to hold an exhibition of crowd-pleasing, generic, chocolate box views than to exhibit more personal, less cliched work. I say ‘easier’ from the point of view of listening in covertly to visitors comments as they browse. Such images tend to wash over most people, are accessible and don’t offend or turn people off. However, for the photographer who presents work which is not as mainstream, listening in to those gallery conversations might be a bit harder to take. If the work is not as accessible or has narrower appeal, they have to accept that approval will be narrow too. However, those that do love the work will likely really love it, will be more likely to invest in it and perhaps, become collectors of the photographers work on into the future.
Over the years I have been privileged to be part of group exhibitions around the country, usually hanging some of my images alongside the work of photographers far more talented than me. I have also had the opportunity to hold some solo exhibitions. Here, the pressure increases exponentially. Everything rests on you. On those past occasions I have, I must admit, taken the safer path and exhibited work which I knew would be more commercial, work which was more accessible to my potential audience. For my current exhibition, I decided to break with this pattern and display a collection of really personal work, no matter what the audience reaction might be.
Last year I was honoured to be invited by the great team of landscape photographers who run The Peak District Photography Gallery, which is housed in the beautiful Old Market Hall Peak District National Park Visitors Information Centre in Bakewell on Bridge Street, to hold a solo exhibition of my work. The gallery is run by and holds a permanent exhibition of the work of five professional landscape photographers - Ian Daisley, Graham Dunn, Karen Frenkel, Chris Gilbert and Alex Hyde, so there is always some beautiful work on display. The group has had the foresight to put about a third of the gallery floor space over to a rotating exhibition of exhibiting photographers. This has many benefits. For the visiting photographers, it is a beautiful space to exhibit their work with great footfall in a busy tourist town. For the gallery, it brings fresh visitors who will view, not just the exhibition, but also the photographers in residences work. Everyone benefits. The staff of the visitors centre take payments on sales and for this service they take a commission on all sales.
When they contacted me, I had been working for just over a year on a project which had become very important to me, based around a scruffy little woodland a few minutes walk from my home where I take my Cocker Spaniel, Stan, for his walks. Here was an opportunity to put on display some of the work from this collection. I knew it was a commercially brave decision. The images were not going to appeal to the majority of visitors, especially in a gallery based in visitors centre where many would be tourists looking for pretty pictures of the Peak District as a reminder of their holiday. In fact, I expected most visitors to be a bit baffled by the images as, in common with a lot of my work, they are soft, blurry and quite abstract in nature.
The woodland, although unremarkable and seldom visited by others, except the odd dog walker, had become very important to me. I had become so familiar with it over the last eight years of having Stan. The fact it was so untidy, unloved and left to its own devices enhanced its appeal.
The woodland, although unremarkable and seldom visited by others, except the odd dog walker, had become very important to me. I had become so familiar with it over the last eight years of having Stan. The fact it was so untidy, unloved and left to its own devices enhanced its appeal
It had become ‘my wood’. I decided to record it with my camera and set about doing ‘my thing’ in the usual way, diligently setting up the tripod in nice light and hunting for compositions. However, as I reviewed the results, I felt flat and disappointed with the results. No matter how hard I worked, no matter how good the light or conditions the results didn’t move me. They seemed to me to be simply record shots. They could have been of any woodland. I knew I wasn’t getting it right.
Then about two years ago I had one of those photographic epiphanies that change us. I was on a ‘proper’ holiday, with Liz and Stan, in Snowdonia. I had been working intensively for many months before going and despite being in the midst of such beauty, I felt I needed a break from the camera. I had no desire to pick it up at all. Indeed for about 10 or 12 days I didn’t make a single image. We just sat and rested outside the camper van, we took long walks, I read books and just relaxed.
Then on one morning we planned to take the steam train from Porthmadog to Caernarfon and back. I decided to take my camera. All the way there I didn’t use it but on the return trip, I suddenly got the old urge back. I was facing backwards in the carriage. We were in third class, as we had Stan, so the carriages were open sided. It was a clear blue sky day and as the train descended through the Aberglasyn Pass woodlands the steam from the train was being held under the tree canopy, sunlight sparkling through the leaves - it was magical. I set my camera to manual focus and prefocused about three meters outside the carriage. I set the camera to square format, mono and had a 35mm prime lens fitted. I then held the camera just out of the train window in one hand at arms length, and as things entered my peripheral vision catching my eye, I fired the shutter. It was very random. I was making no attempt to compose. I was simply allowing my brain to be stimulated by something almost unconsciously into making an image. Every few minutes I would quickly review what I was getting, and it became apparent that, although many shots were awful, that in amongst them were images which I found exciting and inspiring. I just kept shooting all the way back down.
On reviewing the images back on my laptop at the camper van, I set myself some rules. Because I had made the images almost unconsciously, I didn’t allow myself to crop them. I simply converted the raw files to monochrome with a slight warm tone and vignette using the entire square frame captured by the camera. From the 400 or so images I made, I ended up with a complete project of about 100 images recording the journey. I entitled this collection ’Taeth Tren’ which means, I am told, “Train Journey” in Welsh. Each image is entitled with the exact time to the second that it was taken, and the set is viewed chronologically.
So when I returned to my woodland at home I realised I could apply the same technique here (without the steam train, obviously). I set off as soon as I got back, the camera set up the same, firing the shutter in the same, seemingly random way. Each walk would yield 300 to 700 images. Each time there would be lots to delete, but in amongst them would be images which now captured ‘my woods’, not as they looked to me, but as they felt to me, and this is what was most important.
I went on later to begin adding some images made using multiple exposures, some are shot on film, some have a little more thought put into the composition, but the vast majority are made using this technique.
The entire project is called ‘Whipmans Wood’, named after the woodland. My exhibition is entitled ‘A Walk in the Woods’ and consists of 20 of my current favourite images from the project. All are monochrome, all are uncropped and use an identical tone. The majority have a slight vignette, but not all. I have found that many of the images in the project do not work well as stand-alone photographs. Seen in isolation they are weak. However, when brought together with others in the collection, their purpose becomes clear and viewed in this way they gain strength. However, images like these I would be reluctant to show in an exhibition. They may work well when seen on a wall with other images but if purchased and then hung alone I feel they may lose much of their power or effect. It is images like this that are ideal in books or portfolios or pdfs and so on. They add weight and interest to a project despite not being stars in their own right.
If you are thinking of exhibiting your work, think long and hard. It is expensive - the printing, the framing, the administration, travelling, etc. You are very unlikely to sell anything, or enough to even get close to recouping your true costs for staging the exhibition. In the UK landscape photography does not sell well. People tend to place a low value on it. They feel they can take similar images themselves, or they think they can go to Next or Ikea and get some wall art for £30 so why pay gallery prices. It is warped thinking, but it is the way it is here. I hear that in the USA it is quite different, and a greater value is put on good landscape photography as art. So, if you can afford to cover the costs and can do it to raise your profile, for vanity and for the satisfaction of seeing your work on the wall (because it is a nice feeling, a sense of achievement, when the work is hanging, just before the doors open and you run and hide) then why not do it?
I would always recommend working with galleries who DO NOT charge a fee for the wall space. I much prefer galleries who let you stage the exhibition for free and then take a commission on all sales. The commission is likely to be between 40 and 60% and this is fair (yes, it is - consider all of their overheads and the risk they take, giving you their wall space with no guarantee whatsoever that your work will sell - this is why they will vet your work much more heavily before allowing you to exhibit. They have to be confident your exhibition will be a success financially). I prefer this because the fee charging galleries have no real incentive to publicise your exhibition or to sell your work. Their money is made and their job done the day you sign up and rent the space. That is their business model. They sell wall space, not art. For them, it is a zero risk model (you are investing in yourself by renting the space and taking the financial risk) and as such very understandable that they use it. Galleries that work on commission have a very strong incentive to sell your prints. If they don’t, they go bust; it's as simple as that. In either case, you have all the upfront costs of getting the work printed and framed, etc. Once you have a batch of work framed it then makes sense to try and get it exhibited in several locations. The main costs have been born; now you need to maximise the exposure of your work and thus opportunities to sell it to recoup your costs and raise your profile to enable you to do more work.
If you happen to be in the Bakewell area between now and the 30th August 2016, it would be lovely if you would pop in and see my exhibition. Don’t make a special trip - I’d hate it if you made all that effort and then didn’t like it - you do remember my creative angst, don’t you? Of course, there is also all the work of the other photographers to see and buy too, so it is well worth a visit. I would encourage you to go anytime you are in Bakewell as there is always new work on display.
The gatekeepers of photography – the gallerists, the publishers, the editors – must be rather weary by now of reading some variant of these words: "this project involved repeated visits to the same site for x years". It's become one of the mainstays of project-based photography, a simple, semi-mechanical way to invest one's ingrained photo-habits with aesthetic significance.
The cycle of the seasons, the spirit of place, serendipity, entropy... It's all there, if you keep going back, keep looking in the same place. So, it is with a certain reluctance that I must declare that, yes, my own recent photographic project, "England and Nowhere", involved repeated visits to a small area near Winchester over five years.
Fallen tree in the Dongas trackway on Twyford Down
The gatekeepers of photography must be rather weary by now of reading some variant of these words: "this project involved repeated visits to the same site for x years"
In fact, most of my photography has been of this sort. I developed the habit of serial chorography because for 30 years I had a 9-5 office job. I would spend my lunch hours walking the university campus where I worked, visiting and photographing the same few sites. This resulted in several bodies of work which explored some very unspectacular places, looking for those small but significant differences, day by day, year by year, that excited my eye.
At the time – this started in the mid-1990s – it felt like a radical new approach, a nod in the direction of the grids and multiples of contemporary art, and an implicit critique of the apocalyptic grandiosity of much "single image" photography. Although there was a down-side: being small-scale, low-key and extremely localised – I had become the assiduous documenter of a single pond, and even certain well-favoured windows – such repetitive, sequenced images of nothing much were often damned with the faint praise that "they help open our eyes to the little things we fail to notice in our everyday lives"; a dispiriting formula that drains the juice out of any art by turning it into a facile moral fable, an annoying tendency I think of as The Gospel of the God of Small Things.
Valley Garden greenhouse, from The Garden
Old Dairy Allotments, from The Garden
So, for the last five years I have been visiting a cluster of locations south-east of Winchester, just where the infamous saw-cut of the M3 motorway slices through Twyford Down. It's a pinch-point in the landscape where for millennia transport routes have converged, linking the ancient capital of Wessex with London to the north and Southampton on the south coast. This new work came into sharper focus as a project while we were entertaining an American friend.
I took him out on one of my habitual walks and, as we stood opposite St. Catherine's Hill, I pointed out the landmarks, like a native guide. Look: the Iron Age hillfort, the Norman cathedral built on a Saxon site, the mediaeval hospital and plague pits, the Mizmaze – possibly ancient, possibly some antiquarian's folly – and over there the chalky tops where the detectorists find Roman coins and Saxon brooches. I felt like Puck, the Oldest Old Thing in England.
But where we were standing was within earshot of the Twyford Down cutting, where 5 acres of downland and 50,000 years of history were blasted away in the 1990s, to smooth the path of traffic from Southampton to London. Back then, protesters camped out on Twyford Down to halt the destruction of this landscape – heritage to some, quasi-sacred to others – and, despite failing to stop the road, became the focus of a new awareness of the ecological and archaeological price of progress. Government and developers have to tread more carefully now. Puck is watching.
M3 slip-road at Hockley Viaduct
Itchen Navigation canal and M3 flyover
In its day, of course, the hillfort above the cutting must have been equally appalling. Dug out by slave labour, an eyesore of chalk rubble and palisades, it was a place of domination and violence. No doubt its construction violated immemorial holy springs and groves, and there will have been protests, brutally suppressed; mutilated human remains have been found in the ditches. In their turn, Saxon abbeys were demolished to raise the Norman cathedral; more domination and brutality. Later, slums were cleared to build housing estates, and fields were ripped open, scattering flints and coins and Roman roof-tiles, to pipe water and electricity.
Before the motorway, there were the railways. Competing schemes to drive a line from London to Southampton resulted in two lines, one running immediately alongside St. Catherine's Hill that ran out of funds, and the triumphant mainline over to the west. The Hockley Viaduct was constructed in 1888 to link the two lines, but abandoned in the 1960s. It still stands, thirty-three brick-clad concrete arches going nowhere, stranded parallel to the M3 in a water-meadow and straddling the river Itchen, which is itself not a natural waterway at this location: it was extensively canalised in the 18th century to transport goods from Southampton to Winchester.
Hockley Viaduct in snow
Hockley Viaduct brickwork
It was clear that the Hand of Man was everywhere, here, and I resolved to make this the core of my new "landscape" project
It was clear that the Hand of Man was everywhere, here, and I resolved to make this the core of my new "landscape" project. My hope is that both a sense of the way these cycles of disruption patinate over the years into "heritage", and also of the way a certain pervasive, watchful spirit of place persists beneath it all, can be seen to underlie these photographs. You might say that these few square miles adjacent to Alfred's Saxon capital are a library and laboratory of English history, as written, unwritten, and extensively revised by succeeding generations.
St. Catherine's Hill
Itchen water-meadows
Someone once characterised my approach as that of a "street" photographer at loose in the landscape
From a technical point of view, the majority of the images were made using either a Panasonic G3 or a Fuji X-E1, both usually fitted with a "kit" zoom, and hand-held. Always hand-held, I'm afraid; like so many virtuous practices whose benefits I acknowledge, I have never found carrying or using a tripod a life-enhancing experience, and I am sure the consequent pictorial imperfections are only too obvious. Someone once characterised my approach as that of a "street" photographer at loose in the landscape, looking for angles and juxtapositions rather than views. Although the opposite charge might also hold – a landscapist rambling the streets – as the work resulting from my ten-day residency in the city of Innsbruck, Austria in 2014 (A Tourist from Mars) may demonstrate.
The world turned upside-down, Universitätsstraße, Innsbruck
I have self-published England and Nowhere as a book using the Blurb "on-demand" publishing platform, as I have done with a dozen earlier projects. Publication is an impossible dream for most photographers. Publishers and booksellers need to make a profit, and to publish, distribute and sell a book with suitably high production values by anyone, let alone an "unknown", is a gamble. Conventional self-publication is an even bigger gamble, requiring large up-front expenditure – thousands of pounds – with no guarantee of sales. I have seen 1000 copies of a book, and it is the stuff of nightmares. However, on-demand publishing is an exciting alternative model, and if you're unaware of services like Blurb, I urge you to take a look. It's a glimpse of a future where low-cost, small-scale self-publication can exist realistically alongside mainstream publishing and bookselling.
Page-spreads from England and Nowhere
Increasingly, I think, we British photographers are celebrating our British landscapes for what they are, and not for what we wish they were. The cities where most of us live, with their monumental buildings, suburban streets and rubbish-strewn edge lands, are as much our landscape as our mountains, moorlands or coastline. The picturesque and the sublime are, after all, not places on a map, but states of mind, and most "nature" is as shaped by humanity as any weed-grown traffic-island. Even the most tranquil spots once rang with the noise of vanished local industries; foundries, mills, quarries and mines. Most of us recognise this, now, and as a consequence are more inclined to angle a shot to include that intrusive pylon or road sign rather than to wish it away, or even to seek out the touch of wilderness that flourishes beneath a busy traffic intersection. Not so much "the little things we fail to notice in our everyday lives", then, as the dynamic, long-term processes that constitute our real environment.
Trackway and Camp and City lost,
Salt Marsh where now is corn –
Old Wars, old Peace, old Arts that cease,
And so was England born!
I saw Alan Ranger's blog post about photographic journeys and his own personal journey that culminated with some one to one tuition with David Ward and wanted to find out a little more about him. In between his corporate work and leading his own tours, Alan answered a few of our usual questions.
Can you tell me a little about your education, childhood passions, early exposure to photography and vocation?
Tim, you ask the most awkward questions: So I will give you an honest response though I doubt it will be of much interest to your readers.
Education wise, well that’s pretty easy and “simple” in that I didn’t really fulfil it academically. I was too busy and interested in the political struggle going on in the decade of Thatcher to care much about education or the established pathways, so easily and quickly dropped out at the age of 15.
I opted for an education from working and living life, concentrating my thoughts and efforts on the things that mattered to me in that era. My passions during the 80’s were similar to many of my generation.
We were highly politicised by events going on in the world like the anti-apartheid movement, the strike of the Miners, followed by those in Wapping and the dockers and then the introduction of the Poll Tax among the many other struggles that we felt a sense of injustice about and disconnection from the establishment.
That upbringing probably had a deeper impact on my visual references than anything since. I think, in that period, I started to understand how an image could tell a story on one hand but also deny the viewer of context on another.
I quickly learnt that the power of an image could tell a story and evoke an emotion, be it false
I recall the scenes I personally witnessed in the Miners and Print Workers strike, then saw how the media portrayed something different in newspapers and I began to feel a sense of anger and misrepresentation. Be it Hillsborough, South Africa, Syria, Ireland, or other places and situations where a struggle exists I quickly learnt that the power of an image could tell a story and evoke an emotion, be it falsely or not.
That’s not to suggest outright that photographs are a deception but I quickly learnt that an image could depict accurately, or not, a situation that I was witness to, could be portrayed differently to how I perceived events and experienced emotions.
That “mind-set” set me on an early path of being fairly rebellious but also tenacious and determined to challenge the “norms” and accepted views but also to strive for something better not just for me but for society generally.
I cannot say that my early career and first job in accountancy was a natural step in that direction but it led me onto roles in business transformation, change management consultancy and many contracts working with blue chip and medium-sized organisations that trusted me enough to hire my challenging mind to help implement change.
My photography started with wanting to take home photographic memories from travelling in South America – following on from that, and all the total failures I had managed to create, I decided I wanted to learn how to use the camera more proficiently so I could portray more of the feelings I experienced rather than just having visual references.
What are you most proud of in your photography?
That I have now reached a stage where I don’t question my ability/competency so much – don’t be get wrong, I am not saying that like most photographers there are not dips in my mojo at times or that I don’t make a picture that I later question myself about.
However, in the main I do not have to think too much about camera settings, exposure and so on – the technical side is now a bit like autopilot and my energy and concentration pretty much all goes into the design, subject, narrative and light to create something that reflects my interpretation.
In addition to that, the decision to leave the corporate world of work and make photography my a full-time profession was a big decision at the time. Having established my photography business, I am proud that three years on I am still doing it, loving it (most of the time) and still have an appetite and the resilience to keep expanding the tuition services I provide to support an evolving client base.
In most photographers lives there are 'epiphanic’ moments where things become clear, or new directions are formed. What were your two main moments and how did they change your photography?
Well I guess by the fact that it did not take me very long to think about this suggests that they were ‘epiphanic’ or I do not know what that word means!
There were in fact three such moments for me in life. The first one signified the biggest change in life, not just in circumstances but more importantly outlook and perspective. Having been diagnosed with cancer at the age of 27, I went through a very tough few years and faced some enormous hurdles that I had to overcome. Cancer, sadly, is common so I know this will resonate with many who have been touched with directly and indirectly, it really did change my perspective and sense of purpose in life.
At 30, I wasn’t sure of the direction I wanted to go in but knew I wanted to make some big changes. Travelling and experiencing different cultures and continents was a big part of that and it led me into photography so I could say I was blessed in that sense and was able to use it positively.
I also believe it had profound and deep effect on the images I’ve made since then. I am frequently told there is often a serenity about them and on some images (particularly the bark study) a real sense of macabre to them.
The second 'epiphanic’ moment was the realisation that the camera really was just a recording device and to “make” a photo that I felt proud of. I not only needed to master camera operation but I also needed to acquire the skills and experience to be able to process images too.
Like many of my beginner clients, I initially had the perception that the image came out the camera as the finished article and I just did not own or have the right stuff to make that magic happen.
I could not afford the latest and greatest anyway, so I was persuaded to learn how to use the digital darkroom and then accepted that this was part of the workflow for photography.
I do not think I can honestly say that I had made an image in the previous year that I was happy with, or had created an image for me rather than marketing one or leading a workshop demonstrating a shot to a client.
The third moment came more recently, a year ago in fact. Having run over 300 evening classes, over 100 workshops, numerous mentoring sessions and many other forms of photographic tuition it is fair to say my own mojo and time to make my own images was being challenged.
At that point, I do not think I can honestly say that I had made an image in the previous year that I was happy with, or had created an image for me rather than marketing one or leading a workshop demonstrating a shot to a client.
Frustrated by this I chatted to David Ward to discuss how I could get my own mojo back and start producing work again that engaged me and excited me.
After several Skype sessions with him looking at some of my historic work, I latched onto an idea for a new body of work. The seed of which had actually been sewn a couple years back on some early attempts to shoot tree bark and rock formations.
We did not agree any specific brief for the work other than that I needed to make time in my diary for my own photography and also that I should try and break the workflow that was common to me from running so many workshop events.
David suggested, and then helped me source a film camera, to help with this aim. So off I went with a Bronica ETRSi, a roll of film and with a little in trepidation but also excitement about totally getting outside my comfort zone.
That experience returned me back to the early days of my photography experience and that feeling of “not sure” but the sense of “isn’t this great fun” kick-started a period where I felt rejuvenated and creative again.
Has using film and a film camera surprised you in any way?
At this point Tim this question is a little harder to give a definitive response too. Partly because I haven’t made enough time to get out on my own with the film camera to experiment, enjoy and assess how its working for me.
My initial experiences informed me that it definitely slowed me down to spend even longer than usual considering every aspect of a shot but then I have never been a rapid shooter anyway.
The gear was considerably lighter so that was a positive but on the negative side (excuse the pun) the cost of developing/scanning the negs is also prohibitive and I have yet to feel motivated to buy all the gear to do it myself.
So whilst I haven’t abandoned the idea of using the medium format more regularly I haven’t yet found the burning desire to make it happen with any frequency and consistency.
Tell me about why you love landscape photography?
The landscape is where I fell in love with photography. Therefore, for me the landscapes came long before photography did. They were my weekend retreats, away from the world of corporate work and chance to unwind, destress and ground myself.
Being in the outdoors has always been a passion for me, even as a child I would go fishing for, as many, hours (and my parents) would allow. Just sitting there observing nature, quietly contemplating or even thinking about nothing felt very natural to me.
I remember on my return my parents would always ask me how my fishing trip went and I’d always reply “amazing, brilliant and so on” they naturally followed up with, “great what did you catch?” and I more often than not happily replied “Nothing!”
That was the point, even then, it didn’t matter to me if I caught fish or not, I didn’t feel any pressure to catch whilst others around me were, and to be honest I was happy just relaxing and probably didn’t pay enough attention to what I was doing to ever increase my chances of the big catch!
Maybe this early lesson/approach has carried through to my photography adventures too. Most of the time I am just content to be there and experience things and if I make a good photo then that’s a bonus, but I certainly don’t go out thinking right today I will make a masterpiece!
What is, for you, the appeal of landscape photography? What impact has it had on your life?
My inspiration simply comes from the natural world, particularly how the light plays on land and sea. The seasons, weather, time of day all play a part in how we experience the outdoors. I hope my photography reflects my own interpretation of these scenes and evokes the emotional connection for others that I feel when making them.
In terms of impact then the opportunity to be out regularly enjoying the landscape is of course wonderful. Even in bad weather and at times bitter conditions, it makes me feel rejuvenated. (Once I am back in the warmth with a pint in my hand and reflecting on the outing.)
To be able to turn your passion and love into a job is of course precarious and I know many have done so and then lost their appetite for the thing they loved most.
Most of all though, the fact that my love of the landscape and subsequently making images led to establishing myself as a full-time photography practitioner running my own workshops, courses and mentoring services.
To be able to turn your passion and love into a job is of course precarious and I know many have done so and then lost their appetite for the thing they loved most. Fortunately I haven’t experienced that enough yet and continue to feel inspired by landscape locations and sharing those and my experience with clients.
Could you tell us a little about the cameras and lenses you typically take on a trip and how they affect your photography.
I have been a Sony shooter since 2001. It wasn’t an educated choice by any means, more a case of what felt comfortable in my hands and head rather than doing any research or listening to the endless diatribe from Nikon and Canon shooters who felt the need to justify their purchasing decisions.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have any issue or indeed preference to camera makes, I just get bored with the boasts and counter boasts from photographers who spend 90% of their time talking about their gear and not the reason and thinking behind their image.
Currently I own a Sony A900 and A99. I actually use the A900 more often than not as feel the result is richer than the A99 though in terms of operation the A99 is much easier to execute. Lens wise I own Carl Zeiss 24-70 and 16-35 both F2.8 that are both great lenses.
In addition, and my go to lens for the majority of shots, is the Sony 70-200 F2.8. Why is it the lens I would take out without exception? It simply gives me the ability to isolate my subjects and tighten my compositions, so works in the majority of situations for me.
What sort of post processing do you undertake on your pictures? Give me an idea of your workflow..
My workflow is probably standard. I import directly into Lightroom, make the majority of adjustments in Lightroom and generally that’s it. If I want to create some additional effects or convert to mono then I use the Nik suite.
I encourage others to avoid the one click effects treatment, as believe your image should reflect your own interpretation and final output rather than look like it is computer manufactured to a pre-set that anyone can press.
To me it’s critical to have a good idea of how your image will finish up before you start processing it, so I am pretty tough on myself when it comes to the PP stage and won’t start to edit until I am clear in my head about what it is I want to achieve.
Do you get many of your pictures printed and, if at all, where/how do you get them printed?
I wouldn’t say I get many printed. It’s more a case of printing when the need arises rather than it being part and parcel of my workflow. So for instance, if I am exhibiting in a gallery then I will get printed whatever is needed for it.
I use a professional print lab for printing as don’t believe I could the job better for less money.
Who (photographers, artists or individuals) or what has most inspired you, or driven you forward in your development as a photographer? What books stimulated your interest in photography?
This is a tough question because there are so many talented photographers, past and present, different styles, some famous some not. So it’s hard to just pick one or two over so many talented people. Then, when I think about the world outside photography, the list just gets bigger.
I also came to photography and art later in life so in all honesty I can’t claim to be well read or indeed knowledgeable when it comes to photographers or painters.
Book wise then the all the books by David duChemin were a great source of encouragement as I resonated with so much that I read. David Wards Landscape Within and Beyond also inspired me to move away from the bigger vista shot and be more selective and considered in my compositions and subjects in the landscape.
Therefore, I hope this doesn’t come across as avoiding the question but I’d feel more comfortable answering it more generically by saying these people, artists and individuals had a greater influence in my life, which in turn must manifest itself somewhere in my images and thinking.
The Smiths and Cure – they echoed my disenfranchised feelings from the establishment in my teens. Damien Rice because of the rawness and incredible expression I feel when I listen to his songs.
Obviously my parents and of course my children have been a big influence on me though I suspect like most people I don’t always make the connections between what I do and how I think any of them influenced the images I have made over the years.
Can you choose 2-3 favourite photographs from your own portfolio and tell us a little about them? [please state the name and when sending in these images can you mark these as featured images.
Erm… That’s another hard one. I don’t really have favourite photographs so I’ll show 3 images that represent something significant in my portfolio
Desole
This was the first photo that I really worked on in Lightroom that I changed a long way from the original image. I am pretty sure I wouldn’t do the same to it now but at the time I was learning how to edit and what was possible so wanted to make an image that had real impact.
The original shot was mainly yellow/orange and some green leaves and whilst the sculptural trunks caught my eye the canopy above and below didn’t do enough for me.
It’s an image that has done well for me in competitions and various other ways. Some say it’s my signature image, I just see it as representative of a stage of the journey I was at when I made it. So it’s here because was a significant milestone in my understanding.
The Future
This is not an image that has had the successes of Desole but is an image that I hold dearly. Not because I think it’s remarkable or was hellish conditions to make. It just holds an energy and a sense of tranquility that I felt when I stood there and experienced it. It’s one of those you make every now and then that will probably only resonate with you and that’s ok with me.
Blea Tarn
Blea Tarn is one of my favourite locations in the Lake District and I think it is at its best on a mizzly, damp and still day. I was fortunate enough to be there leading a workshop on such a day and could see the slight looks of the uninspired client faces as we stood there in the drizzle.
This image came as a result of showing clients how to make use of those conditions to produce something different from the usual reflection shots of the Langdales made there with foreground rocks to “lead the eye”.
For me, the diffused light helps to capture the mood and soft autumnal tones beautifully.
How easy – or difficult – do you find it to fit your photography around work and other commitments? When you travel for work, are you able to devote any time to either photography or researching new places?
Since making photography my full-time occupation I find it incredibly hard to find and make the time to go out and shoot for me. It’s never a case of not wanting to because I do that for my job because I can assure you being a full-time professional photographer and tutor means probably 60-70% of your time goes into running your business, giving lectures and not actually shooting.
The times I do get to go out on my own are when doing location scouting for new workshops but then I invariably end up making images that I think will help to promote those workshops to a cross section of clients so you are never really in a creative zone just for your own work.
How do you like to approach your image making? Do you pre-plan and go out with something in mind, or do you prefer to let your photography flow from your explorations on foot?
It varies, depending on the reason for going out. If it’s scouting a location for a workshop then it’s seek and find as I explore whilst thinking about the range and type of shots that are available for clients.
However if it’s for a project I am working on, like the bark study, then I will plan to an extent in terms of location, time of day, weather and so on and then focus all my energy on looking for those shots and ignoring (if that’s possible) anything else I happen to spot.
How important do you find it to be in the right frame of mind? Have you found ways to work around periods when your mind is busy with other things?
Getting into the right frame of mind is, of course, a key ingredient in making considered images that you feel a connection to.
Getting into the right frame of mind is, of course, a key ingredient in making considered images that you feel a connection to. Personally, I try to practise what I preach to my clients about taking time to observe more than shoot, consider and then attempt to create something in your mind from what you are observing before applying too much thought to the technical execution of camera and equipment.
There are of course plenty of occasions when your mind becomes blocked by busy thoughts of all sorts of things and sometimes you can even try too hard. In those situations I try and look for inspiration from other sources, be it other people around me, a different subject or just quiet contemplation alone.
What sorts of things do you think might challenge you in the future or do you have any photographs or styles that you want to investigate? Where do you see your photography going in terms of subject and style?
In terms of challenges, being a full-time professional photographer and workshop tour leader always presents challenges to stay relevant, attract new business and be motivated to inspire and teach others our craft.
I don’t have any fears about any of that but know the market is saturated with people trying to do it on many levels so rising above that mass to be still practising in years to come requires constant attention in both a creative and business sense.
There are many “landscape” photographers out there that I hold in high esteem, some doing, as I do, running workshops and others who do it purely as their hobby.
I am always interested in the images of those people but most importantly it’s their dedication to their style that inspires and interests me more. Valda Bailey, Doug Chinnery, Hans Strand, Rob Hudson the list goes on and on.
I still often feel I am juvenile in comparison and am still discovering enjoying the exploration of style and keeping an open mind about where it leads. I feel it’s good to remain playful and experimental in photography and not become too narrow in what you take and how you take it.
Like life, you need to evolve your photography as your life evolves around you, or as I say on my website:
Images are the expression of the photographer; they reflect perception and individuality, portraying a journey through life. CAPTURE LIFE...CREATE A JOURNEY
How do you coach people who have reached a stage where they feel like they have mastered the camera and post processing aspect of photography and in your professional experience, what do you think is the top thing that most photographers have problems with?
I have many clients who have been with me from the beginning that have progressed tremendously and some that joined me already understanding the camera craft and processing skills. Many of those clients have gone on to do my “intermediates” course.
Aimed at intermediate photographers, “Intentions” tasks students with creating an individual body of work, cohesive in subject-matter and style; taking students from concept to completion, including image making, processing, printing, hanging, exhibiting and selling a finished product. The course culminates with a public exhibition of the student's work in a high street gallery, complete with VIP, by invitation, preview opening night. I am now on my fourth iteration of this course, it has enabled individuals to experience and stretch to complete the whole photographic process.
In addition on a more generic basis I encounter and coach clients at all levels and can say without reservation that the most common question from a beginner and more advanced photographer is to do with composition.
It’s an endless discussion that has no definitive answer for me, because, to my mind, composition is something personal and should remain an individual interpretation and reflect the relationship between photographer and subject.
Whilst I can point out the obvious principles, visual design elements and input into balance and sensitivity, the thing I try to encourage more than any “rule” is the need for more observation and consideration of subject and the photographer’s intention for making the image.
Often, I find that people can make images simply because they have seen something similar from someone else that they like. I guess that influence and inspiration is fine to a point but doesn’t allow the photographer to grow beyond technique because they are using someone else’s blueprint.
I also try to encourage, as much as possible, the process of experimentation with technique and composition. Maybe because it’s something I have become more interested in doing myself but using the camera in a more illustrative way rather than literal sense. That could be allowing movement to be represented as we experience it or introducing movement in a way we don’t…
Dancing Blues
In order to try and coach an understanding that can be used, on a practical level, I still try to give clients a framework that can be applied as feel many of us seem to learn quicker when there is something to check against.
A simple triangle of subject, narrative and light is usually sufficient to explain the main components of composition and allows discussion to delve into the many dimensions that can be considered and used, or not, in designing your image.
What is the hardest thing about being a photography tutor full-time?
Being a professional photographer and running numerous photography classes and workshops for all levels of photographer can take its toll on your own work and energy to create something beyond the purely illustrative and often literal interpretation of the landscape subjects.
That well-trodden path to honey pot locations and vista's is, of course, a rite of passage for the adolescent photographer who aspires to grow and become an adult, but for the tutor it can become hard parenting task if he/she doesn't take time out for themselves and remember they too need to continue to grow and mature.
It's all too easy to end up just making images that help promote your workshops and show people the usual visual opportunities that can be linked to a location. However, if your own interpretation is more of an abstraction from those places then the reality is there is no obvious context of where the image was made, and importantly, it is not actually relevant most of the time.
So, when I decided to enter into a collaboration with David Ward to help me regain some mojo, look for a different direction for my own work and go back to the art of experimentation and a different output from the tried and tested shots it was aimed at helping me to stay enthused about my direction and maybe developing my own style but also to feel good about making images that didn't necessarily have any context to place, time or location.
To try and a little context to that project - I wanted to be able to create a body of work that had coherence but also reflected my personal interpretation of the landscape - It was important to me that this came deep from within me and also from "within" the landscape.
Suggesting that this is a personal vision or style feels to grandiose but I am comfortable saying that it feels like "my authentic expression". The series was born from seed images I took several years back of close-ups of wood/bark and rock formations - little did I know at the time of creating those images the role and influence they would have on my evolutionary step.
I was also very comfortable with the idea that this collection had no "red" lines or parameters when it came to post processing. I wanted the images to express something deep and not be constrained by some arbitrary judgement about how they compared to the original subject or how much post processing had been applied to transform them from how I witnessed them without that sense of how they would finish looking.
Method, equipment and process are just tools to produce the outcome, I really wanted to be unshackled from these thoughts so that those strands of creative thought could be weaved together to manifest themselves a single but unified body of work.
Which photographer(s) – amateur or professional - would you like to see featured in a future issue?
Tough one as I am sure you have featured many if not all of the one’s I’d like to read more about.
In addition to those mentioned in the last question then I would add. David Ward because though he writes regularly for On Landscape I can’t recall ever seeing him as a featured photographer.
Graham Cook because I admire his abstract work and still marvel at what he can achieve with an iPhone. But take your pick there are so many great ones to choose from, Pete Hyde, Joe Rainbow, Joe Wright, Richard Childs, Paul Mitchell…etc
A big thanks to Alan and we look forward to seeing more results from his personal series. You can see more of Alan's images at www.alanranger.com
I've been following Nicholas's photography since he started publishing his 'Militarisation of Dartmoor' series and when I saw he had started a new series on our bothy system I was intruiged to meet up and find out more.
Tim Parkin: Tell us about yourself then Nick
Nick White: Hi I’m Nicholas White, I’m a landscape photographer based in Dartmoor National Park in the South West of England. I’m 26 years old, graduated from Plymouth College of Art studying Photography in 2013 and ever since frantically tried to carve some sort of career in photography and still trying.
TP: Why photography originally and why study for a degree?
NW: Originally photography was born out of a love of the outdoors. I grew up in Dorset but my grandparents lived on Dartmoor and every single holiday was in Dartmoor National Park. I didn’t go abroad till I was 18 or 19 years old and even then I have only been abroad twice in my life unless you count Scotland!
Every holiday, Easter and summer holiday was spent on Dartmoor, walking, hiking and letter boxing. Do you know letter boxing on Dartmoor? It’s where geocaching came from, but it works with stamps and books,
I used to borrow the family camera and snap away. A bit of a cliche story! As I got older, I found it was a great way of documenting those walks and experiences, which felt like massive adventures at the time. Being able to bring them back and relive them again and show friends and family what we had done. Over time, that grew to the point where the walking element became secondary to the photography element. That then became the reason I was going out.
TP: Did you do art at A Level?
NW: No, I never planned on being a photographer at all. I wanted to be a musician, which was all I what I wanted to do; I played the drums and still play the drums. I studied A Level music, sound engineering, music technology and media. Photography at the time was a hobby, and then I found that by studying music, the thing I loved, it took the fun away. It became something I had to do.
My brother is a musician, and he went to university to study music, and he dropped out for that same reason. It became something he didn’t enjoy anymore. So I looked at that and saw that my brother was falling out of love with his music, leaving university and doing it for himself. He then fell in love with it again.
I finished A Levels and said, "I don’t want to do this, I want to keep it as something fun, what else have I got?". That’s when I looked at my photography and then went back and did another two years doing BTEC Photography at Plymouth College of Art. That progressed on to a three-year degree at Plymouth College of Art - to the point now where I don’t have the time to make music anymore; my photography has taken over!!
TP: I know Jem Southam is in Plymouth - have you got to meet him?Jem Southam is in Plymouth - have you got to meet him?
NW: I chatted with Jem a couple of weeks ago as I curated the Dartmoor Open exhibition at a local gallery. I volunteer for the gallery anyway, and Jem was one of the judges, and I bumped into him. We had a few teething problems with the emails, and he was quick to point them out. He’s a good guy, and we chatted about the On Landscape Conference, and he said the same thing I said. There’s this weird split in landscape photography between guys like Jem and guys like Joe Cornish. Two very different styles of landscape photography.
TP: How useful was that BTEC?
NW: The BTEC and the degree served two different purposes. The BTEC was more technically focused, how to construct a photograph, how to use a camera, which was beneficial for me as I had only really picked it up and fumbled about a bit. So understanding the relationships between the settings and where to position things according to the rules. The degree moved away from that and more about how you think about photography and the research side of it. It wasn’t a commercial photography degree; it was straight photography. It was more about the meaning behind things, the reason why constructing projects and narratives. A lot of people dropped out because of that.
TP: People found that difficult did they?
NW: I think they found that were sitting in a room, reading and couldn’t understand how that fitted in with them taking photos. For me, I did the three years, and it helped me massively. I still apply bits of that now, like the research that goes into my work.
TP: There is a point where you get past the basics of operating a camera where you ask “What am I doing this for?”. You could think photographers get past this stage quicker than painters because of the ease of getting competent, but that often isn’t the case.
NW: I question this, even when I’m out there doing it, and you’re standing there up to your knees in a peat bog having dropped my loupe in the mud! It’s minus five, what am I doing!! It’s always good to question it.
I think that, combined with the fact that I made that shift over to film, it was the degree that helped me. I initially made that move as I wanted to break away from the ‘pretty pictures’ and think about why I’m doing my photography.
TP: What happened when you moved over to film? Brave move some people would say!
NW: I know! When I was at the college I never even knew when I started that people still shot film. It was 2008, and I just assumed that digital was everything. At the college, there was this equipment store there, and I started renting out Hasselblads, the normal 6x6 but also the XPan; All the way up to Leaf digital backs - although I never got excited about digital backs. I remember I took out a Mamiya RZ67, with the revolving back. Just using it was amazing, forget the technical benefits, just setting it up and the clunk felt great. The move to 5x4 was arguably for technical reasons but mainly for the aesthetic look of film, and ultimately I love using those cameras.
On the degree, the digital guys were really into their Petapixels and were asking “why do I want to shoot film when digital is so much better?" I was like ‘fair play’, but I just enjoy the film experience. Even when I’m sitting there and I’m scanning them in, and I’m dusting it. I love the whole process.
You have such a close relationship with the final result when you see it in print, like at a show. It’s like, I spent hours walking to that location, waiting for it, and then sitting there dusting it away, etc.
TP: Can you remember every single picture you’ve taken?
NW: Every single one - I don't shoot many, so each one counts.
TP: I’m told one of the things that comes out of an art degree is your networking and the ability to start getting on the show and exhibition circuit. How did that go for you?
NW: There’s an opportunity for that to happen, but you have to make it happen for yourself. You have to build your momentum on the course as it’s easy to go out drinking every night, then finish, and all of a sudden no-one knows who you are. People then ask ‘no-one is looking at my work, why not?’ it’s because they don’t care, you have to show them and make them care.
For the final two years, I shot the same project, which was the Militarisation of Dartmoor. I started looking more at land use rather than pure landscape, and I was very into Simon Norfolk’s work. I chatted with Simon when I started the project so that you can pick up on that link between the military and the landscape. Not copied, but it inspired me massively. Richard Misrach and the project Bravo20 was another influence. It's an amazing story about this naval bombing range where he makes a mining claim, and he worked the area photographically but also had plans drawn up on how he could convert it into a national park. It’s an amazing book.
I’ve shot my project on Dartmoor for the past two years. In the second year, I shot the camp, the home of Dartmoor training and moved out into the landscape and did the three designated ranges in the National Park. I find it interesting how places so beautiful which are designated as having National Park status are also used as a practise area for war. You look at Salisbury Plain, which is an area of scientific interest because of the chalk, but tanks trail on it every day. It’s that weird combination.
The island off Cape Wrath that’s used for a bombing range which is now a bird nesting ground. It’s that weird juxtaposition between beauty and military.
TP: Did that open doors for you?
NW: I did that for two years, and I was pushing, pushing through social media. We were scouted by this local gallery which is where I had my show, as I had a massive amount of research and body of work. As soon as I knew the gallery were there, I latched onto them, like a sloth. I got a solo show off the back of that about six months after I graduated.
The way I saw it, I didn’t spend two years doing a project for it to sit on a hard drive and then to do something new felt like a waste of time. So I spent a massive amount of time making a press release of it and firing it off everyone and anyone I wanted to see it.
More often than not, when you walk up into the moors, the red flags are flying, and you can’t go. When you’re filling up with petrol at the petrol station, you can see the trace rounds on the north moor. So you’re very aware of the military training going on.
Off the back of that, I picked up some work for the Financial Times Weekend magazine and won a couple of competitions. It gained some momentum to the point where I was getting a bit fed up with it. The same photos were getting selected for publications again and again. It does open doors regarding my network of people I can contact for this new project. I could make the contacts but knowing how to approach them, having the confidence mattered.
TP: Shall we talk about militarisation and the Dartmoor project - Where did that start from? You obviously have a relationship with Dartmoor historically. When did you first start noticing these locations?
NW: The whole of Oakhampton Moor, Merivale and Wilsworthy are all military between Oakhampton and Princetown. My family came from Okehampton, and that’s where I grew up. More often than not, when you walk up into the moors, the red flags are flying, and you can’t go. When you’re filling up with petrol at the petrol station, you can see the trace rounds on the north moor. So you’re very aware of the military training going on. While I was on the degree, and I was thinking less about single beautiful landscapes, I was spending more time thinking about projects and narrative about the landscapes and land use. This landscape was where I went for walks.
TP: So you couldn’t not think about it?
NW: At that time I was reading a lot about Simon Norfolk's work, and I was thinking these landscapes that were damaged by war - many thinking about his Afghanistan work and Bleed. I started noticing things and then started thinking, could I transfer that to my landscape that I’m surrounded by, thinking about how that is used for this dual purpose.
TP: Summarise the project for me. If you were going to someone who didn’t know anything about it - how would you describe it?
NW: The main thing I was trying to look at was that juxtaposition between a landscape which is so beautiful, which has a sinister undertone to it which is the military bit. This project doesn’t get across this reflection, which I would have liked to and it’s this: When they are firing up there, and there’s a firing timetable, and there’s an old lady with her dog waiting at the gate. As soon as the army trucks come down, she goes up and walks her dog. Sadly I just don’t get that across.
I think ultimately it’s that dual use of the landscape whether you see it as a positive or negative as there are obviously environmental side effects such as boot prints, bullet casings, mortar rounds, and left over ammunition shells.
TP: Pick two or three pictures out of the project for me.
Bullet casings under ice
NW: This was on an anti-tank range which is about 1.5 hours walk from the road. At the very far end of the range, they have the targets and the landscape between the far end and the target is just pitted with holes and craters. This is also the area where they find unexploded ammunition from the rest of the range, they transport it here and detonate it here. They’ve built a pit and detonate it in there. Therefore being they’d rather have one area that is completely polluted than spread it around.
TP: I was going to say the pollution must be a big thing, with some rounds going off. Talk to me about the Green doors
Wickham target trolley shed
NW: This is a - it was an amazing day to be out. This area is usually pretty battered by the wind and on this day there were loads of snow. It was freezing fog and not a breath of wind - I was shooting on a 5x4, so it made that easy! I already knew about these green doors - I knew it was foggy, so it was the right weather for this photo. This shed used to have a trolley that sat inside. It had a fake tank that sat on this trolley, and it got remotely sent along these tracks around a figure of eight. These guys would launch shells at it from the camp. It’s now just a storage hut that I’ve rarely seen opened. So it’s defunct in many ways and turning into a relic, but people know about it, it’s on the map. Hikers use it for navigation; it’s below Yes Tor which is one of the highest points.
Observation Huts
NW: These along with the next one which are observation huts. Each designated firing range has got one of these huts on it, that they’ve tried to build to merge into the landscape. Which looks like something out of The Hobbit or something. There used to be about twenty of these, but they were instructed to remove them as they are a blot on the landscape. How did they remove them? They chucked them full of dynamite and blew them up!! So there are now about eleven craters.
TP: Are these the same things?
NW: This is now an observation hut but these used to be a train track that came in. The target used to live in that too, and it came out and was pulled by horses down by the camp. There were ropes and pulleys - but from one side you don’t even notice it.
TP: When I am looking around these there is a range of detailed shots and interiors, wild landscapes. Regarding the editing process, how many pictures did you take for the whole project would you say?
NW: There are about fifty in the camp, which are my building shots, and those are shot on medium format. That was my second-year project. The third year I think I shot about the same again regarding sheets of film for 5x4. Originally they were two separate projects and when I finished the second one I edited it right down into one study. With the intention of giving a rounded view of the landscape out of the moors but also the relative comforts inside the camp. In terms of shooting on film, I’m already editing it while shooting it.
I'm a fan of building narratives, telling stories through a series of photographs which lends itself more to the conceptual arena of landscape photography.
It was painful to remove some of the shots as I like to think that they were removed for a reason. So it’s made the project stronger by removing them.
TP: Aesthetics - we talked earlier on about conceptual and sublime / romantic photography. Are you thinking about aesthetics when you’re taking these pictures? Are you trying to bridge the divide? Engage the audience?
NW: Bridging the Divide is a good way of wording it. I enjoy shooting in bleak conditions, embracing a much softer and more subtle aesthetic. This worked especially well for the Dartmoor work. I'm a fan of building narratives, telling stories through a series of photographs which lends itself more to the conceptual arena of landscape photography. I enjoy the works of Southam, Schutmaat and Soth. But with that said, because of the origins of my photography I'm still a huge fan of romantic landscape photography and adore the work of photographers such as Joe Cornish, David Ward and Charlie Waite. I don't think there's a need to take sides, or exclude an entire movement of the genre. I think it's ridiculous that this divide even exists. I hope that my latest work highlights my passion for both styles.
My dream project would be something that has this story/narrative that ties it all together. It tells you a story but at the same time, someone who doesn’t buy into any of that, can pick an image out and have it on their wall. You can’t do that with this, as no-one is going to want a military shelter in mist on their wall.
TP: Tell me about the black dots project then as that sounds like it might fit.
NW: I have this habit of getting excited on social media - as I want to show someone the project I’m working on. So I’m sitting on a load of scans at the moment. This project is the next series on from Dartmoor, which has taken me probably two and a half years to start a new series.
TP: Is this when you got fed up of promoting the last one?
NW: I wanted to make something which was purely about embracing things that I loved. I didn’t want to be "that military landscape guy", I want to go into the landscape and explore these wildernesses of the UK. But then it was "how am I going to do that and tie it into a series". I then found out about bothies.
TP: They don’t have bothies on Dartmoor?
These bothies represent a whole way of people who find joy and fulfilment going out into the wilderness.
NW: They have shelters that are locked so you have to get permission to get into. I fell in love with bothies by accident as I was looking into walking holidays in Scotland and looking at accommodation options and saw these things called bothies. A lot of photographers I know start with an idea and see how they can bring this to life. I see something and then thing about if it’ll work as a project. I saw these bothies and thought these look incredible; they are so primitive and remote.
I looked at the landscapes they sit within and read that they are left open all of the time. You can go in and be on your own for a night or meet a complete stranger. That tied it all together - so the protagonist is the bothy, it’s about mountain bothies, it goes deeper than that. It’s more about how we use the landscape and how we enjoy the landscape. These bothies represent a whole way of people who find joy and fulfilment going out into the wilderness.
I’m in the early stages really, and I’ve photographed Lake District, Snowdonia, Cairngorms and Skye. Already the people I’ve met, and the friends I’ve made from it are amazing. I’m mixing portraits in with this project of people that I meet. I’ve made portraits of people from German Alpine climbers to an ex-SAS Sniper Rifle chap to an author who’s written books on Morris Dancing in Castles and everyone in between.
These people who come from an entirely different walk of life to you. It doesn’t matter who job they have or what car they drive. When you go out there, and open the door and you have a fire and a gas stove on and a cold beer in your bag, you’re best mates already! You can just chat about what Monroes they’ve been up. You look at maps, routes and the next day you shake hands and sometimes make a portrait if they are willing. You then go your separate ways - I find that extraordinary.
TP: Are you joining the portrait aspect with the landscapes or keep them quite separate.
NW: Absolutely, the bothies wouldn't exist if it wasn't for the people. It's the first time I've shot portraits for a personal project, but they're quickly becoming an integral part of the narrative.
I don’t go with any rigid plan, sometimes the bothies look amazing, but they don’t work as an image, but then there might be something inside it that works. There was someone in the Hutchison Memorial Hut that had written a poem and drawing pinned it to this wooden clad wall. That sums up this bothy for me. I go out with a box of film and shot what I feel needs shooting, and at the end of it all, I’ll group it all together.
TP: How long do you see this going on for?
NW: I want to shoot through this winter - I want to avoid Scotland in summer as I’ll get eaten alive! Then shoot through autumn and winter, with the intention of beginning of 2017 that’s when I’ll start the editing process.
TP: Can we see a couple of pictures from it?
NW: Yes, I’ve got quite a few to share! What my thoughts behind this journal were, that when I finish the project, you don’t get a sense of my story. The story of the guy called Andy who comes out with me and documents the process with me - you don’t get a sense of that. When you see an image of a bothy, as a viewer am I standing in a lay-by? Have I hopped over a fence? This journal acts as a behind the scenes to get the message across and the process of the project.
people want to feel that they’ve been a part of it, and they’ve been on the journey. It’s a glimpse into the life that you lead on the project.
TP: The Attenborough programmes have proven there is an interest in that.
NW: The frames at the end? Yes, people want to feel that they’ve been a part of it, and they’ve been on the journey. It’s a glimpse into the life that you lead on the project.
I see a lot of projects, and I think about how I want to know how he did that. Not what his settings were, or what lens, but the thoughts behind it. How did he get to that? This gets across the lengths that we go to for two shots.
On one of the days in an area, I’ll leave the 5x4 in the car, and we’ll do a days climbing in the area that we’re shooting. Which ends up on the journal as it’s part of the project.
Crib Goch we did the whole ascent in the dark. We planned to get to the summit for nightfall and do the descent with head torches. It was a ropey walk back.
It’s a tradition of ours to carry out a bottle of Jail Ale from Dartmoor to each bothy, and we’re going to send the photos to the brewery as a memento.
TP: I can see from the photos the amount of equipment you take.
NW: I’ve got a people carrier and have taken out the back seats as I have slept in the back of it when I couldn’t make it. Obviously, I could stay in bothies but the amount of photography equipment I’m sometimes taking it’s not possible to take out everything you need for a couple of nights in the mountains as well. Having that worry that it’ll be trashed as well, I get funny about it, so I used to sleep in the car. Now we hostel where we can or book a hostel room a week and not stay there, but it’s somewhere to store the kit.
I’ll take the camera kit and put the outdoor kit in a trunk in the back. We don’t travel too light!
TP: What photographic gear do you use?
NW: Large format I use a Chamonix 045N-2. It's taken a bit of battering, but it’s beautiful. Lens wise it’s a Schneider 150, but I haven’t just stuck to Schneider. Most of the stuff has been shot on a 150. It’s a natural perspective, but I do have Nikon 300mm in there too. It’s not the heavy one it’s the M one. Schneider 210 as well and a 75, but it never really leaves my bag.
Digitally I travel with a D810 with a 24-70 and some Lee Filters if I see something I want to shot.
TP: You shoot neg film?
NW: Kodak Portra 400 is my go to. The tonality of it, the amount you can push those highlights if you want to especially if I’m shooting the white out conditions. The high end of the film is incredible. I’ve got an Epson V800 scanner just mainly for contact sheets and then use an Imacon from the University once I’ve decided on the ones I want to use.
TP: So you wanted to make money when you left university - you had to make a choice about how you approached your projects. Get a good job that has a good wage so I have a small amount of time but I’ve got the funds to do stuff. Or do I have a job with a lower wage, but the time to do the projects.
NW: The time versus money argument, you can’t have both. I’ve been fighting with this for a while. I’ve been lucky enough as I’ve won a few things through ideatap and the magnum professional practices weekends I won one in London and one in Birmingham, that’s when I got to know Emma Birkett from the FT weekend.That was one of the main topics which were how to fund your practice, and everyone was saying that they worked full time so they had the money but not the time. A lot of guys said they had taken the leap of faith and stock piled funds and worked on odd jobs.But I’ve found myself a full-time job in photography which had made it harder for me as I live in Devon, and I have a full time in photography, which doesn’t leave much time or a good location to access bothies very well!
TP: How did you get that job in the first place?
You have to give it everything I think, so I’ve moved home, sacrificed my independence, and selling my drum kit, my other passion after photography.
NW: When I graduated I carried on pulling pints for a year in a local pub. I got a job working as a retoucher for a company called Seasalt Clothing in Cornwall. I worked there for a year retouching and on stock photography and then moved to Dartmoor for another job where I am now. I am on a creative photography team as there’s six of us, and we do the campaigns and web stuff. So I’m entirely grateful for having a job in photography and making my money through photography, but it’s not the area of photography that I want to be moving in. I know I’m going to have to take that leap of faith at some point.
I’m working full time as a photographer, I take on web stuff and website building and do bits and bobs. Some commission and freelance work, and I save, save, save. I moved back home with my family who are fine with it after I’ve explained it to them that I want to focus on my photography career. I’m in the process of selling my drums and all my music stuff off. You have to give it everything I think, so I’ve moved home, sacrificed my independence, and selling my drum kit, my other passion after photography. Eventually, I’ll have to cut it off and live out of my car for a bit as I finish off this project. I’ve been so inspired my people I have met on the road doing this, especially European travellers, travelling on their own. I ask how they survive. They say they sleep in their cars or bothies. They do it, just do it. As soon as you start doing it you have to roll with it; it’s what my brother did with his music, and what I intend to do with my photography.
Insurance on a car is less than rent, so that will inevitably be a deciding factor. I’ll keep all my computers back home and head off. I’m running out of bookable holiday anyway and have got ten days left plus weekends for the rest of the year. That’s not a whole lot to finish off the project? I’ve already invested so much in this project - all the outdoors equipment and photography equipment. It deserves so much more than ten days, so it’ll be a case of slogging through the summer and then beginning of Autumn plunge into it.
TP: When the nice light starts?
NW: Yes that’s so right. There’s nothing worse than leaving work and it’s wonderful light. Everyone says you won’t make money in landscape photography, and I always say "have you tried it? How do you don’t know if you haven’t tried it?" I’d rather look back and say I’ve tried and failed rather than never tried at all I think.
TP: It’s not necessarily about making money, you can always live somehow
NW: I am and I can. I met this German guy who was doing it, and he said I don’t eat what I want, I eat what my body needs. He’ll spend so little money when he’s travelling as he eats what he needs, no luxuries, no treats and gets it done. That’s what I intend on doing.
People all over the world do it. It’s that initially leap of faith and just doing it. Civilisation is a trap, it is.
TP: The more you earn, the more the trap closes.
NW: The more directdebits you have, like a photo contract, it’s hard to get rid of them. That’s my plan anyway. It will make an interesting story to blog about.
TP: It’s an impressive plan, and we'd love to hear more from you in a year or so!! Thank you very much for your time.
I first came across the name Bruce Barnbaum when I bought his book “The Art of Photography: An Approach to Personal Expression”. I remember sitting on the platform at London Bridge Station, waiting for the train home and reading the first pages. I was approached by a stranger who said, “This is the best photography book you’ll ever own.” He was right. I’ve bought dozens of books on photography since then, but this one is still the best.
Born in Chicago in 1943, Bruce now lives amidst the majesty of the forests of the North Cascade Mountains in Washington State. A mathematician who worked as an analyst and computer programmer for missile guidance systems, he gave it up to become a full-time photographer in 1970. Known for being an environmentalist as much as a photographer and master printer, he studied under Ansel Adams and won the Ansel Adams Award for Conservation Photography (which honours photographers who have used their talents in conservation efforts) in 1974. Bruce is known for especially for landscapes, but also for architectural and abstract photographs.
Bruce documents the beauty around him on 4x5 TriX film using his trusted Linhof Technika, sharing his feelings through his black & white and colour photos. In his own words, “my entry into photography came via hiking and backpacking in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The monstrous river canyons with crashing waterfalls and cascades below 14,000′ granite summits and forests of enormous sugar pines, themselves dwarfed by giant sequoia trees, were so exciting to me that I was inspired to ‘capture them’ on film. That was in the mid-1960s. Today my attitude has completely changed”.
“First, I don’t think you can ‘capture’ anything. I think you can document where you’ve been and what you’ve seen. If you’re really serious about things, you can go beyond mere documentation and try to convey your feelings about what you’ve seen. But how can you possibly ‘capture’ a 3,000′ granite cliff on the 16″ side of a “large” 16 x20″photograph? You simply can’t. Even Ansel Adams didn’t ‘capture’ Half Dome or Bridalveil Fall in Yosemite. What he did, however, was convey the essence of those monumental forms so well that some people who have seen his photographs first, and then go to Yosemite to see the real thing, sometimes walk away disappointed. That’s a monumental achievement on Adams’ part and an exceptional demonstration of the power of photography when it’s done really, really well.”
I had the great privilege of attending one of Bruce’s black & white darkroom workshops and seeing the master at work. Watching him transform a flatter-than-flat 4x5 contact print into a rich, powerful 16x20 image was like watching a master sculptor and painter as he shaped the light with his hands and fined tuned the highlights with potassium ferricyanide. That day he printed Boulder & Metamorphosis Wave and I’m still inspired by what I saw. Every time I step into my darkroom I try to remember what he taught me during that magical week. Bruce’s encouragement is also the reason I moved from 35mm to the 4x5 format.
When faced with writing an endframe, I knew I was going to choose one of Bruce’s images, but I found choosing just one a difficult task. In the end I settled on Basin Mountain, Approaching Storm. Made in 1973, it has all the geographical elements that most speak to me: mountains and flora. The photograph is titled Basin Mountain, Approaching Storm because Bruce first saw the mountain and the approaching clouds, with the meadow in the foreground almost a backdrop to the real essence of the image, which is the approaching storm that is about to engulf the mountain.
Although there is a stillness to the image, I can feel the movement of the wind picking up and the heaviness of moisture in the air as the storm gathers and prepares to unleash itself.
For me, the image is a study of contrasts. When I first saw it in the flesh (so to speak) I was struck by the drama of its tones: the ominous clouds, the luminous snow-capped mountaintop, the mystery of the dark valley and the light brush against the fence in the foreground. My eye is drawn up the image from the scrubby bottom to the peaks about to disappear into the dark clouds. There is so much depth I can see myself climbing over the fence and tromping across to the foot of the mountain. The mountain itself looks a little remote and forbidding, as though it’s telling me I’ll never be able to climb it (and I won’t!). Contrasting textures are abundant too. The dark clouds, with their feathery edges almost brush against the sharp lines of the mountain and its striations. The crinkled texture of the plants lies against the smooth edges of the hills in front of the mountain.
The repeating curves bring a sense of calm to an image that is otherwise overflowing with energy. Although there is a stillness to the image, I can feel the movement of the wind picking up and the heaviness of moisture in the air as the storm gathers and prepares to unleash itself. Hidden in the drama of the overall image, there are subtleties – the gentle tonal range on the half-mountain on the right and on the left. Like every great image, every time I look at it, I see something new, so I haven’t tired of it even after three years.
Our 4x4 feature is a set of four mini landscape photography portfolios from our subscribers, each consisting of four images related in some way. You can view previous 4x4 portfolios here. Please click the images to see them in full.
If you would like to submit your 4x4 portfolio, please visit this page for submission information. We are looking for contributions for the next few issues, so please do get in touch if you're interested!
Andrew Mellor
On the Fringe
Prior to the arrival of the tourist industry, the population of Benidorm numbered only 3,000 and its main economy was fishing. In the early 1950s, the industry started declining. Faced with an economic struggle the town council approved the ‘Plan General de Ordinacion’, employing all the town’s resources into tourism. A mass building programme was orchestrated to accommodate the influx of visitors.
Tourism was the path to development, yet it also contains the danger that development will destroy the very thing people have come to enjoy. With tourism, it is not clear whether rapid development is in the locals' economic interest.
The proliferation of all-inclusive hotels has been the subject of much debate over the years with local businesses struggling to keep afloat. The infamous catchphrase if you want to get drunk show us your wrist certainly rings true, with the reasoning that if they have already paid why go out.
“The fundamental characteristic of tourist activity is to look upon particular objects or landscapes which are different from the tourist’s everyday experiences” (Gaffey 2004).
Janet Salmon
Beauty in the Abandoned
I have been fortunate to visit the Isle of Lewis and Harris recently. The landscape is pitted with abandoned structures, whether it be crofter's cottages, farm buildings, shielings or vehicles.
They have a beauty of their own. The stone built relics appear to merge into the landscape itself. I am unsure why I am drawn to these, but it may be related to the realisation of the relatively short time we have to share these stunning landscapes.
John Erskine
Emotional impact of the environment
Tranquility
Tension
Conflict
Expectation
After walking on a beach one evening on an island (La Digue) in the Seychelles, last year, I set myself a challenge: return to the beach with one camera body (Sony A7r), one lens (Sony FE f/1.8 55mm) plus tripod and Lee ND filter, and capture the interplay between light, immobile rocks (shape/texture) and moving water, to show how an appropriate juxtaposition of the three elements (light, rocks, water) in an image can create different emotions in the mind of the viewer.
Sensation and perception are stages of processing of the senses (such as vision and auditory) in humans systems. Sensation is the function of the low-level biochemical and neurological events that begin with the impinging of a stimulus upon the receptor cells of a sensory organ. It is the detection of the elementary properties of a stimulus. Perception is the mental process or state representing awareness or understanding of the real-world cause of the sensory input. The goal of sensation is detection; the goal of perception is to create useful information about the surroundings.
In other words, sensations are the first stages in the functioning of senses to represent stimuli from the environment and perception is a higher brain function about interpreting events and objects in the world. Stimuli from the environment are transformed into neural signals which are then interpreted by the brain with the possible production of conscious awareness or perception.
With sensation and perception together, a person experiences a personal reality that is other than the sum of the parts. In the case of observing and hearing the interplay of various components of the immediate environment, the human brain is capable of creating emotions (feelings) relating to that interplay. In the case of my exposure to and capture (with my camera) of the sight and sound of the interplay of light, rocks and moving water in the late evening on a secluded beach on the island of La Digue, some of the emotions created in me were tranquillity, tension, conflict and expectation.
Peter Williams
Bolte Bridge
I've long been fascinated with Melbourne's Bolte Bridge. It's towers aren't a functional part of the bridge and they are visible from many of the surrounding suburbs. It's an interesting looking bridge and it lies in interesting surroundings, industrial, port and former dock areas.
I've made occasional pictures of it over the years, but this year I've made an effort to photograph it from many viewpoints and different weather and lighting conditions with the aim of making a proper project of it. I'll probably make a Blurb book when I've finished the project.
The tradition of the Sublime in landscape has existed since the 18th Century. The most common understanding of the sublime is when the landscape inspires awe and wonder, even dread and terror. However, that particular representation has fallen out of favour, partly, I suspect, because it was overdone in artistic painterly circles and rapidly degenerated into cliché, partly because photography democratised the making of images which meant that virtually everywhere got photographed. Thus an image of the Alps no longer excited the 19/20th century viewer, let alone the 21st, as it had done in Turner’s day.
To make images of the Sublime, therefore, has got harder. We have already seen in On Landscape that there are some regions of the world that can still be seen as Sublime in this original Burkian sense, but they are few and far between.
If the dynamic sublime evokes terror, the mathematical sublime reflects a quieter but equally powerful emotional response to the immensity and beauty of nature.
William E Ewing, in Landmark, The Fields of Landscape Photography (Thames & Hudson, 2014) notes that photographs of deep space may well have vestiges of this feeling of man’s insignificance, or that images of nature in extremis (hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, etc.) can evoke fear, it is almost impossible to make straightforward images of the landscape that are going to create terror. We are so exposed to how our landscape looks that dread is a highly unlikely reaction to it.
David Ward was born in England in 1960. Childhood holidays in the Lake District and Cornwall led to a love of landscape and a desire to try and express his sense of wonder through art. He became fascinated by photography in his late teens and was accepted for the prestigious Film & Photographic Arts course at PCL in London, where he was a student of Victor Burgin. David graduated with a BA Hons in 1983. He has now spent thirty years travelling the world with his large format camera. His eye for colour and form is without equal and he produces work that is startling in both its clarity and intensity.
As well as numerous articles, David has written two critically acclaimed books on his craft; Landscape Within (2004) & Landscape Beyond (2008). In these, through a series of essays, he explores the medium’s history and looks at deeper philosophical questions about art and photography. He is fascinated by the gap between vision and photography and seeks to explore this through his work.
Chromatic Scales
Our understanding of colour is on the one hand instinctive and innate. We know what looks 'good' when we see it but most of us know very little about why we see colour the way we do and the ways in which artists can leverage that knowledge in understanding their photography. David Ward has a quiet obsession about the ways in which we see and articulate colour ideas and discussed some of the more interesting and useful facts about the chromatic world.
GREEN ROOM INTERVIEW
Following the talk, we interviewed David Ward in our Green Room.
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TIM PARKIN
KAREN THURMAN
THOMAS PECK
ALASTAIR ROSS
COLIN BELL
JOE CORNISH
GREG WHITTON
MICHELA GRIFFITH
ALEX NAIL
RICHARD CHILDS
![The setting sun illuminates the chain of mountains of the island of Kalsoy. [14 Gjógv Minimalism] Pastel colours at dusk.](https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/13-Mountains-Of-Might.jpg)
My project is predominately centred in a small area which is sheltered from the sun by a high North facing sandstone overhang located on the Eastern boundary of the 'Cove' and accessed during periods of low tide via a natural arch which leads under a large geological fault. The overhang excludes the sun for most of the year and so, apart from during the sunsets and dawns of mid-Summer, I mostly work in reflected light when I explore the relationships between that light, the smaller round stones, larger sandstone rocks and walls, rock pools and the algae patterns and the colours found in that area. 
When I look back, there have been great mentors in my local photo club and when I was 18 I spent a year as an au-pair in Minnesota and got acquainted with the works of 
For myself I have noticed that being involved voluntarily in local camera clubs or photographic societies, putting a lot of unpaid effort, time and expertise into organising meetings, festivals, exhibitions, competitions or anything ... has helped me grow as a person and as a photographer, has helped me become part of a community and has therefore probably helped spread my name amongst decision makers. But of course, it has to be backed by professional work and great photography as well.
