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Twelve Significant Photos
In this new regular post, Tim Parkin - our editor - will write about his own photography and things that are happening in the making of the magazine or his own wanderings with a camera. It seems quite a meme in recent years to draw on Ansel Adam's "Twelve significant photographs in one year is a good crop" and produce your own 'best of 20xx' and so I thought I'd take an alt and I've spent a good while trying more
Judge Dread
We were chatting with Stephen Byard who judges in clubs in the North of England and into Southern Scotland and were interested in what he thought judging was about to give us an inside track. Here was his response.. In the aftermath of the furore of the 2012 Landscape Photographer of the Year, with other landscape photographers posting me their thoughts and questions on the winner, and the, er, second winner, an interesting one ticker-taped its way into my day from more
The Royal Landscape Photographer
The Duchess of Cambridge, or "Creative Kate" as the Daily Mail have patronisingly called her, turns out to be a landscape photographer and has been posting her pictures on the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge website. more
Frank Hurley’s Antarctic
Frank Hurley (1885-1962) was an Australian photographer. This short note aims to show some of his beautiful work primarily from Sir Ernest Shackleton's Antarctic expedition between 1914-1917, and to explore how he managed to make such emotive and exceptional images, as well as the immense challenges he faced and how he might have overcome these. This isn’t an attempt to review his life or work more broadly. I’ve used a number of quotes from relevant diaries; these might break more
Be Prepared
hat preparedness can relate to physical parameters (being in the “right place at the right time”) or to heightened visual receptiveness or to a combination of both – whatever works for you! more
The Future of Landscape Photography
The phone rings. It is Mr P, chief finance officer (and every other officer) of the On Landscape Corporation… "How about a piece on the future of Landscape Photography?" Tim suggested brightly. "Hmmm, great idea, I'd love to read something on that. Obviously a job for the Professor (David Ward)." "He's off to Tasmania so you'll have to do it. Oh yes, and I am going online with the redesign of the magazine monday so it needs to be in before then. more
Social Media versus Photography
Social media! It’s one of those things that has now become a part of day-to-day life for everyone and for a photographer it is no exception. Back when I started learning photography things where very different; For example, we respected our lecturers talents because of the time they put into each shoot from loading film through to the dark room processes. Nowadays it seems that everyone on social media sites has a friend who can do it cheaper with more
Yes, But is it Art?
When I was at art college, I considered ‘artists’ to be a pretty odd bunch – I can say that because I didn’t consider myself to be one of them; I was a ‘designer’ which was a whole different kettle of fish. It appeared to me that art, back then in the late 80’s, consisted of collecting small quantities of bodily juices of varying degrees of unpleasantness, putting them in small containers and displaying them to a backdrop of more
That Sinking Feeling…
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away… well, not quite; back in the early nineties I was a big fan of the Acorn Archimedes computer. By many experts reckoning at the time, the plucky Brits had produced a machine that was more powerful and more user friendly than anything from across the pond. I fell in love with its beguiling operating system and its beautiful graphics more
The Trouble with Conservation Photography
The truth is that “conservation photography” is green only in the very shallowest of senses. It smacks, unfortunately, of “do as I say, not as I do”. more
Going with the Flow
From a photographer’s viewpoint, at times it’s been hard even to plan local trips when you can’t see the fields, let alone the hills, for low cloud and rain more
On Golden Rules…
The great American landscape photographer Ansel Adams wrote, "A good photograph is knowing where to stand." Well, not the most specific tip on composition that I’ve ever come across! For artists of all kinds, mastering the problems of composition seems at once fundamental and tantalisingly out of reach. Little surprise, then, that there is a strong urge to codify composition, to provide not only practical instruction but also, in some cases, a theoretical basis to underpin this. The basic more
Joe Blogs – Manipulated?
I was asked the question, “Do you manipulate your images?” There remains a deeply-held suspicion about photography’s relationship with ‘the Truth’ more
Giving Beauty a Bad Name
On the 14 October 2010 this image by German photographer Thomas Struth sold for £169,250 at an auction in London (the pre sale estimate was £90,000). Thomas Struth - El Capitan (Yosemite National Park) Now many of the readers of this magazine might think this a vastly over-inflated price for a rather dull snapshot! I want to look at why a loose affiliation of people that more
Travelling Light?
On a long walk or if I'm engaged in a non photographic activity (like dog walking) then schlepping a DSLR outfit becomes impractical and a tripod a non starter more