Join the conversation
Subcribe to comment rss feed
(Golden principle, useful guide or intellectual strait-jacket?) The Rule of Thirds (RoT) may well be the best-known, most-loved and revered, and equally hated and reviled ‘law’ in art and photography. There is plenty written about it, and some of this can be found on the internet, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thirds. But in my personal opinion, very little evidence exists that it is...
more
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...
more
In spite of my suspicion of competitions for photographers, I have still been coerced into a number of assessment committees and judging panels. So many competitions are there that, as in our judicial system, even the unwilling must serve in the jury eventually! Yet ‘judging’ pictures is also a terrific learning experience. One of my observations from this is that...
more
Do we have a Voice? And does being an outdoor photographer inevitably lead to environmentalism? And if so, what if anything are our responsibilities? I had better begin with a declaration. I am an environmentalist and have been all my adult life. But – regrettably – not in an activist sense. Yes, I’ve been on a couple of marches, and...
more
Year on year, digital sensors seem to improve, and with that, dynamic range expands. The figures look good with 11-12 stops being commonplace and the very best sensors capable of capturing 15 stops of dynamic range. This challenges or exceeds the previous benchmark, colour negative film. Landscape images are often made in challenging, high contrast conditions, yet on the face...
more
I was recently asked to come up with a definition of landscape photography by a learned society, a remarkable turn of events for someone with almost no academic qualifications. This proved both a fascinating and near impossible endeavour. Only very slightly altered, this is my final text in question: "The word, landscape, is more than territory, land, ground, or property....
more
Arguably, one of the hardest tricks in photography is to make genuinely different, interesting photographs of extremely well-known – iconic (for want of a better word) – places. An important question now that the world according to Instagram has only served to amplify the popularity of popular subjects. But isn’t it rather tedious to shoot well-known places? I recall telling...
more
When writing about the Sublime it’s first necessary to establish what we mean by it. In contemporary speech, sublime is often a slightly elevated version of delightful, or delicious, as in, “You look sublime in that dress/suit,” or, even more annoyingly, “The profiteroles are just sublime, darling!” This is an undignified home for a word which in its artistic origins...
more
For more than thirty years I have found inspiration in Paul Wakefield’s photography. Although our work has been published together in National Trust books, and we have met many times I remain in awe of Paul’s uniquely-seen images. Over the course of a long career, his style may have evolved somewhat, but even his earliest pictures still seem fresh and...
more
This End Frame features one photograph, from a 1996 book, Orbit, published by National Geographic and NASA. The majority of images within were shot from the Space Shuttle in the 1980s and ‘90s. There are some earlier ones from the Apollo programme as well. Most of the images are of the earth’s surface, with just a few concentrating on ionospheric...
more
