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Subcribe to comment rss feedCheryl Hamer, David Taylor, Shona Grant & Roger backhouse.
Cheryl Hamer
Photography is my passion. I turned pro 4 years ago and now run my own photography workshops company offering workshops at all levels here in North Wales, Iceland and the USA. I really enjoy teaching people - almost as much as making my own photos - I love those 'light bulb moments' when i can see that people have 'got it!
David Taylor
Serious amateur photographer for over 30 years having worked with both Manual medium format and DSLR Digital. Mostly concentrates on Landscape photography mostly around his home area of west Oxfordshire and Wiltshire
Shona Grant
I grew up on the island of South Uist in the Outer Hebrides and now live in Aberdeenshire. I return to Uist a few times each year. I work as an illustrator and I am relatively new to digital photography but I have dabbled with 35mm film for many years.
Roger Backhouse
I am an amateur photographer living in Worcestershire. As an academic dealing with the history of ideas, my day job revolves around words: reading other peoples’ words and then writing my own. As a non-verbal medium, photography provides a valuable break from words. Most of my landscape images are taken close to home and Godwin’s studies of the Forest of Dean, not very far away, provide one source of inspiration. I prefer working in monochrome and have recently been experimenting with infra-red.
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!
Cherly Hamer
Coastal Moods
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- The Coming Storm
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- Sailing Home
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- Golden Days
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- Trebarwith Gold
I am fortunate enough to live by the coast in Anglesey, North Wales. This is no accident, but pure design as I am simply fascinated by the many and varied moods of the coast.
For me this is about much more than simply 'calm' or 'stormy' - there are so many shades of 'grey' in between. There is constant movement and change, huge varieties of colour and texture, and here on an island on the west coast of the UK a huge variety of weather as those westerlies stream in. I always strive to try and capture those moods and to use my camera creatively to express a feeling rather than simply a vision. I am privileged to have the opportunity to do so.
David Taylor
The Calming Coast
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- Sidmouth Calm
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- Exmouth Rock Pool
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- Smooth Sidmouth
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- Groyne at Dawlish Warren
My wife and I had four days holiday in the county of Devon in late February, where we were celebrating our wedding anniversary. The time there though did have to be shared with my beloved camera.
I had bought some filters sometime earlier and having not used the ‘stoppers’ before knew, with the coastal sea scenes in the south Devon area, that the opportunity should arise to get to use them.
I wasn’t wrong and with plenty of trial and error, mostly forgetting to close the viewfinder for very long exposures, I got some, what I thought to be, very good exposures using the big stopper and this series of images is the result of some of the shots at Dawlish Warren, with a number of groynes running along the sea front, and Exmouth, where on a windy day the slow shutter speed certainly gave a moody atmosphere to the clouds.
On both locations I was quite lucky with the tide level being very much where I would want them to be at the time the images were taken.
It certainly gave me a good grounding for using these filters with long exposures and I have since used them on a number of occasions to add a more creative edge to my photography.
Shona Grant
Atlantic Ocean – looking west
How do you make an image that gets across how you felt at the time you pressed the shutter release, when the subject is as vast, changeable and dramatic as the Atlantic Ocean? That’s what I’ve tried to achieve with these four photographs.
They were all taken in the southern islands of the Outer Hebrides at my preferred time of year between November and February when the weather can be foul and challenging and the days are very short. I know the Atlantic well having grown up with its daily presence. I know its many moods and the best places to be to photograph these moods.
Standing on the shore in North Uist looking across huge breakers rolling in from the west with the tiny islands of St Kilda far away in the distance is quite something to see. Watching the mesmerising movement of waves rushing up the beach to meet you. Noticing how the sand on the beach is shifted and moulded by the big winter tides and feeling v§ery small and insignificant as you stand on the shore with a winter storm approaching over the sea.
Roger Backhouse
Wyre Forest
These were all taken in a walk in the Wyre Forest, a great area of woodland near Kidderminster, last December. What was striking was the colour of the bracken, which seemed to be everywhere. Maybe the colours have been over-cooked a little (Lightroom and Viveza), but this was the only way to re-create the psychological effect of the intense orange brown, which we seemed to be walking through all day. In my view, it is the textures that make the images, yet the colour is essential to them. The log is the odd one out, but the colours blend in with the ones of the bracken.
In my view, it is the textures that make the images, yet the colour is essential to them. The log is the odd one out, but the colours blend in with the ones of the bracken.