These four images represent a series of interconnected new directions in my photography over the last year: a move up (again) to 8x10 and the challenges involved; a move to black and white and alternative processes (cyanotype and argyrotype); dedication to a specific project.
These four images are part of a new project on emotional responses to trees in the (literary/artistic) landscape via forays locally to me in Oxfordshire and Warwickshire, and sometimes elsewhere too. It is inspired by an interest in evocations of landscape in ancient poetry, and by discoveries of graffiti on trees - both fit via the mythological lover Acontius, a significant figure for ancient pastoral poetics, especially in Virgil. The idea of writing on trees and connecting with the landscape fits with the idea I have of photography as a quiet dedicated kind of mark-making, something I’ve thought about via e.g. Sally Mann, and, differently, Alys Tomlinson’s Ex Voto project. I hope to bring this out further and more interventionally through 8x10 and alt-pro.
I’ve only really just begun this new journey but as a quest to make my photography personal to me it is particularly enjoyable and rewarding.
The first three images are on 8x10 (Chamonix 810V with Nikkor super-wide and normal lenses), contact printed on 11x14 Bergger Cot 320 paper. The final is a scan of a 6x6 negative shot on Hasselblad 500CM at Elleric in Argyll.
Through conversations and collaborations over the past few years, I’ve begun to consider what it might mean for me to make landscape work that engaged with more than purely the aesthetic of my images and ‘simply’ capturing a sense of place in a given moment. Let me be clear, I am not wanting to belittle the motivations of a photographer to capture a moment of the sublime through their camera, I’m well aware that this requires great skill and perseverance. However, through a series of self-initiated projects, I’ve begun to dig beneath the surface to explore our connections to places, what makes them special for the individual and how that manifests itself in our lives. For many, that connection takes the form of visiting on a regular basis through either habit or fondness. Others hold places with affection due to particular memories which have been made there, perhaps through a childhood, holidays, maybe a proposal, a loss or even a photograph which draws us back there. There are multitudes of reasons for which we form these emotional connections, and the recent literary boom of writers exploring this proves that we are not alone, far from it, it seems the nation is united in our affection for the landscape around us.
For the many of us who explore with our cameras, myself included, these landscapes offer us inspiration, a reason to create, to express and to share our affections for these places.
For the many of us who explore with our cameras, myself included, these landscapes offer us inspiration, a reason to create, to express and to share our affections for these places. Ours is a tangible connection, in that it will often result in an artwork that the viewer can discern as a specific location, perhaps even hazarding a guess at the time and precise spot from which it was made. Photography also has the capacity to present more abstract representations of place, and this led me to consider how other artists and creative beings, who aren’t using a camera, process and disseminate a sense of place into their work.
I’ve acknowledged the writers, (and I don’t feel equipped to make comment on painting or sculpture!), but having spent much of my life working with music, I was drawn to consider the many composers and musicians who utilise their experience of a place to inspire their creations. Historically, classical composers attempted to capture the sublimity of vast landscapes via the breadth and depth of the orchestra, but in more recent years, other forms of largely instrumental music has begun to approach the notion of landscape in a significantly more subtle and often more abstract manner.
Many of you will be familiar with the music of Brian Eno, some less so, but in the broadest sense, he is a pioneer of ambient music, largely synthesized, merging layers of sound to construct atmospheres and cinematic soundscapes that for some, will be soothing and transcendental, for others, may feel alien and unsettling. For me, Brian Eno’s music offers a window into other realms, a connection to emotional responses and thoughts that may otherwise have remained hidden. His 1982 album ‘Ambient 4 : On Land’, was brought to my attention by a previous collaborator, artist Tom Musgrove. The album includes tracks titled, ‘Lizard Point’, ‘Lantern Marsh’ and ‘Dunwich Beach, Autumn 1960’. My interest was piqued. Where were these places, and what did they have to do with the music?
Monochromatic Lens is the system I use and teach photographers wishing to explore monochrome photography. I would refer to it as Black and White Photography (as we did traditionally when we were using black and white film), but today that implies limiting ourselves from other tones and tints that give monochrome photography so much depth.
I believe in keeping things simple. Predictable and knowable. I believe that by limiting ourselves we can be more creative within the artificial walls we create.
This is a suggested starting point for you. It is my current endpoint. Well, more accurately it is the system that I use today, yesterday and will use tomorrow. This is the system I use for creating my monochrome photographs. It hasn’t changed much over the years once I got it to where it worked for me.
In the age of mirror free digital cameras with electronic viewfinders, visualisation takes on a new meaning. It is suddenly much easier to see what you are doing in the viewfinder than trying to imagine it in your head. Today I can see the monochromatic conversion, the crop, a simulated colour filter, helpful changes to contrast and sharpness, all in the viewfinder. This leads me to only consider and purchase cameras that facilitate my way of working. Unfortunately, this has knocked a few brands and many cameras off my potential shopping list, in favour of ones I can set up and use the way I prefer.
This method is very prescriptive as it is meant to help beginners and others understand my process. I suggest you give it a try and see if it works for you? Alternatively, take what interesting things I say and do, then adapt them to your own photographic procedures and workflow. I teach people to develop their own procedures and workflows. We are all different people, we all see differently, therefore it is not surprising that we all prefer to work in unique and individual ways. I encourage you to develop your own.
Among the many things that came up while talking to Stephen Segasby was the role of perspective. Early in the interview, Stephen mentions that as well as needing time to attune ourselves to a new place, leaving the familiar allows us to re-evaluate what we have done there. We all have a tendency to be too close to our own practice, for the making of images to be our paramount concern. In his answers, Stephen gives you plenty of other things to consider, and hopefully, after reading the feature you will be prompted to think about what you do, and why you do it and may gain some insights of your own.
Can you tell us something about where you grew up and live now, and the extent to which that has shaped you and your interests?
I grew up and lived in Norfolk for most of my life. That was until 3 years ago. Being outdoors was something I was brought up with and outdoor leisure was a way of life to our family whilst growing up. I have many early memories of Wales and the coast especially. Camping holidays and camper van life is in my blood but I have only just realised that having bought my own camper. I think this has had a significant impact upon my work as I like to travel and journey making work as I do so.
The Norfolk landscape is a fascinating place; it has a multitude of environments, landscapes, waterways and coastline that offer an awful lot of interest but granted not the awe of more mountainous regions. Being able to ‘absorb’ a place and ‘consider’ it fully is something I really learned in Norfolk. I closed off my time in Norfolk walking across it from North to South along the Peddars Way and this features at the centre of a large body of work I am currently editing.
Leaving Norfolk for Cambridgeshire for a short period was not that much of a shock to the system. I have always been fascinated by the Norfolk/Cambridgeshire fens which kept my interest and I often made trips to the borders of the 2 counties.
I have found myself ‘learning’ all over again about a new place if that makes sense? It has allowed me the space to really consider all my previous work from Norfolk.
Moving to Yorkshire 2 years ago has been really interesting. I have found myself ‘learning’ all over again about a new place if that makes sense? It has allowed me the space to really consider all my previous work from Norfolk. Several series I worked on whilst in Norfolk have now come together and being separated has allowed a fresh perspective on the work I was making. It has been a tremendous learning exercise and I am busy pulling all the Norfolk work together. The landscape and historical culture are so different in Yorkshire, a big reason we moved here, and although I am making work I don’t think I have really got to the soul of the place.
Back in March, Joe Cornish wrote an article about "A question of responsibility ~ Does being an outdoor photographer inevitably lead to environmentalism?". Continuing this theme we interviewed J Henry Fair, who is an American photographer and environmental activist.
On the Edge is a collaboration between J Henry Fair and the Coastal Conservation League who, in this project, bring our attention to the beauty of, and the impending threats to, our coastal regions.
Tell us about why you love landscape photography? A little background on what your first passions were, what you studied and what job you ended up doing.
Landscapes first enter my thinking from the Dutch Renaissance and parallel the rise of capitalism and the alienation of man from nature. The association with “Paradise Lost” is inevitable. Fascinating that thinkers of the time felt the implications of what was happening as it happened. I studied journalism in school.
What sparked your passion for photography?
Aside from having no skill in music or drawing, photography attracts me because it is the modern art form, and I like to make images and tell stories.
You talk about in the book your connection to the landscape in your childhood a few times in the book, one which stood out was 'Our playgrounds growing up were the coastal rivers and wetlands of the Low country'. How did this experience influence your views about the environment, pollution, etc.?
Growing up playing in nature inevitably affected my outlook on the world. Studies have repeatedly shown that exposure to nature changes a young person’s view. But it was entirely subconscious, so I can’t elucidate. But even my own images of those winding rivers and marshes make me yearn...
Why did you choose landscape photography as opposed to other genres especially the environmental activist aspect and how you've used your photography to convey the narrative about the landscape?
“The Landscape” is such a wonderful genre. As soon as there is a person or a trace in an image, it is no longer Eden. The Industrial Scars series plays with that idea especially. In the coastal series, I wanted to find some real remaining paradise. There are not many, and they are small.
Tell me about the photographers or artists that inspire you most. What books stimulated your interest in photography and who drove you forward, directly or indirectly, as you developed?
It’s important to me to study as much art as possible, both to reinspire and re-mind. One can also study it to stay current. No art is created in a vacuum, we are all responding and commenting on the predecessors whose work we admire. And my favourites change. Being in a time of great technological change, I often look to Dürer as one who understood and utilised the rapid technological changes of his time.
Other favourites in the visual realm would certainly include Giacometti, DeChiricho, Canaleto.
Your previous project and book 'Industrial Scars' explores the detritus of our consumer society which has gained a lot of exposure. How did this influence your next project? What knowledge or reflections did you take from this?
In imagining my next project, I wanted something timely and relevant that would logically follow from the last, and even intersect. I do love aerial photography, though that is by no means my speciality or only focus. But it is a great way to look at the world and show viewers something they have not seen. And it allows the creation of wonderful abstractions from landscapes. I quite like that the Coastline pictures have the same abstract quality as the Industrial Scars, though they are of course both landscapes.
"Comprising less than 10% of the United States’ land area, coastal counties house 39% of the US population and are responsible for 45% of its GDP." With this and the impending climate-induced changes in mind, you have undertaken an ambitious portrait of the coasts of the USA." Tell us a bit about the project and the first chapter 'On The Edge: From Combahee To Winyah'. What inspired you to choose this as the topic of your next project?
As a society, we are heedless of the changes that confront us. The water is rising quickly, and still, we rush to build on the coast. I wanted to create a statement about that incongruity and make a portrait of the current status, hopefully, to encourage a rethinking of the current migration.
As a society, we are heedless of the changes that confront us. The water is rising quickly, and still, we rush to build on the coast. I wanted to create a statement about that incongruity and make a portrait of the current status, hopefully, to encourage a rethinking of the current migration. I had started the series when the state art museum asked me to do an exhibit on the South Carolina coast, which was perfect in many ways: it is my homeland, Charleston is one of the USA cities hardest hit by ocean rise, and South Carolina is the state where the Pliocene Coastline (the last time atmospheric CO2 was the same level as today) is most visible, about 100 miles inland from the present coast.
How did the project evolve? Did you have to refine the vision of what you wanted to achieve?
After the success of Industrial Scars, I was thinking about what project could follow it logically and stylistically. The general lack of climate crisis preparedness in the developed world, and the population migration toward the coasts, precisely when we should be moving away gave me the idea to make a project of the topic.
How did you go about researching the locations in the book?
In fact, since the objective is to photograph all of the coasts, with this project, I fly first, then research specific facilities afterwards.
A lot of the images are taken from an aeroplane - what were the challenges of aerial photography? How did you plan the trips?
Shooting from the air is exhausting, mentally and physically. One sits for many hours in a cramped jostling seat, twisted in an uncomfortable position. One of the greatest challenges is dehydration, due to the limited intake of fluids as the result of having no bathroom. How long I shoot depends on how much there is to shoot, and how far we must go from our launch spot to get there. One can spend a lot of time circling over the location to get the right shot, especially if it is windy.
Weather and season are determining factors as well, in the south, it’s hard to get good shots in the summer, and it’s bitterly cold shooting in the north from an open window in a plane in the winter.
How did you decide on the mix of aerial and ground based photography?
The mixture of aerials and terrestrials was organic. Some of the stories could only be told with a ground-based image. And sometimes luck presented a picture that demanded inclusion.
You say in the book 'Photography is about telling stories, and it’s the narrative that interests me, more than the technical aspects of the medium.' What was the overarching stories or narrative that you wanted to convey to the reader?
The primary story of this coastal series is that the ocean is rising at an ever-accelerating pace, and we need to prepare now. Natural systems absorb storm impact much more effectively than built structures, and much of our infrastructure is on the coast and must be moved. Doing so in a timely organised way will be much better than doing it in haste. There are local stories in this, the first book of the series: the impact of rice agriculture and enslaved peoples in shaping the South East USA coast, and the distorting effects of antiquated building codes and planning board which are susceptible to monied interests.
"That the essential Charleston endures is remarkable, in a city that has been destroyed and rebuilt so many times. War, fires, floods, earthquakes, and hurricanes have ravaged it periodically throughout the city’s long history" Do you see this book as a record of how the landscape around Charleston and South Carolina currently is before any further substantial changes to the landscape? Is it a historical milestone or a call to preserve?
Change is inevitable. An orderly, considered response is preferable to panicked retreat. This book is both a look at the past and present and a call to preserve the natural systems on which we depend.
Change is inevitable. An orderly, considered response is preferable to panicked retreat. This book is both a look at the past and present and a call to preserve the natural systems on which we depend.
"Two of the state’s most valuable bird breeding sites are in such estuaries: Deveaux Bank and Bird Key Stono, small islands in the mouths of the North Edisto and Stono Rivers where many species of birds flock to feed and mate. In the process of creating this series, I tried to record every inlet in the state." You documented the inlets in the book, how did you research these and plan the trips around them?
The intersection of river and ocean are critical historical places for human settlement for so many reasons: food, transportation, resources, waste disposal and water for myriad purposes. But they are also critical breeding ground for many species, which needs often conflict with human uses. I keep a thorough database of what I'm shooting, so it was easy to check off the inlets against a chart.
The intersection of river and ocean are critical historical places for human settlement for so many reasons: food, transportation, resources, waste disposal and water for myriad purposes.
Many photographers have stopped adding locations to photographs but you have included detailed map coordinates for each photograph. What was the reasoning behind this and was there any worry about sharing locations?
I guess the reason some photographers withhold location information is so no one can go back and take the same picture?
Many of the locations in the book are inaccessible except by boat or air, and it seems that this series is very much about geography, so I wanted to make a specific place a part of it.
Were there any of the locations that you found particularly challenging to photograph?
The most difficult image was actually 1,000 images and did not make it into the book.
I had the idea to make a continuous panorama of the coastline, stitching together a consecutive series of pictures taken as I flew at a constant speed and distance up the coast. Prior consultation had indicated that the post-production could be done with artificial intelligence. Sadly that proved not to be the case. So we assembled the 1,000 pictures into a continuous picture that wrapped around the exhibit space, about 325 linear feet.
Interestingly, it is a piece of art that only works in an exhibit context. The confines of a book or internet would render it meaningless.
Photographically, what most surprised you about the project?
What surprised me the most about my idea, was how hard it is to tell any story well. One must be always reexamining one’s starting point. A third of the way into this project I started to get a collection of beautiful abstracts of wetlands and rice fields. They made a nice series and logically followed my “Industrial Scars” series.
But then I realised that it did not tell the story the way it had done in that previous series. And of course, someone else had done it very well already.
Tell me what your favourite two or three photographs from the book are and a little bit about them.
One of my favourite places in the world is one of the largest undeveloped areas on the USA east coast. The ACE Basin is named after the conjunction of three rivers: Ashepoo, Combahee, and Edisto, which join to form St Helena Sound. Their sinuous shapes are so calming.
Growing up as a child of the south entailed accepting the dominant narrative about the history of slavery and the disastrous Civil War, which was a masterful historical revision.
This picture, of a hurricane-proof building in the middle of a rice field for safe containment of the enslaved people forced to work there, exposes that falsehood. I have digitally removed the modern buildings built around the structure.
This fragile piece of land is called Captain Sam’s Spit which provides crucial habitat for many nesting and roosting birds and is one of the only places where bottle-nose dolphins strand-feed, aside from being an essential recreation area for the region. Of course, developers want to build expensive houses and have battled the Coastal Conservation League in court for years. I like for my pictures to be catalysts for change.
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The introduction was by Dana Beach Founder and Director Emeritus of The Coastal Conservation League. How did you decide to collaborate with this organisation?
The Coastal Conservation League is a very efficient and effective organisation with which I have worked for many years. More than once I realised that I was photographing the beautiful, special places the CCL had been working for years to save.
How did you manage the flow of the book with the images and the narrative?
It was a difficult problem how to create the order of the book and then I discerned the essential elements in the story, and it fell in to place.
Did you manage the project yourself or did you work with an editor?
Alex Papadakis and the Conservation League both provided essential input along the way.
How did you decide on the format of the book e.g. size and paper, print type?
They convinced me that smaller was better in this case, and I must say I like the result. I’m a stickler on image quality, but design elements I leave to pros that I trust, like Aldo Sampieri.
Where was the book printed and how was the experience of working with a printer?
I love the printing press. In our romance with the virtual world, we forget that it was the first mass-communication technology, and far more disruptive. This book was printed at a Tennessee. In the end, they did a good job. I was travelling and missed most of the trauma.
Could you tell us a little about the cameras and lenses you typically take on a trip and how you came to choose them?
In the modern world, cameras are high tech computers, and thus improve constantly. So I try to stay fluid and not be too invested in any one brand. The pictures in this book were done with a mix of cameras and lenses.
Of course with aerials, vibration is always a problem, especially when using a long lens to photograph details. For this, I often use a gyro.
What sort of post processing do you undertake on your pictures? Give me an idea of your workflow.
The largest component of my workflow is research before and after. But I am also a rigorous adherent to an efficient production process.
Everything is organised in a database, from the moment I identify my targets. After shooting, all files are renamed with a number, which remains its file name in every instance, and identifies that image in the database. That database entry grows over the years as I collect more information. The database also records every print, exhibition, editorial usage and all other information about the image and the subject shown.
To really tell a story, one must know everything about it, in order to understand which are the essential components of the narrative. So it must be something about which the teller is passionate, or the necessary time will be prohibitive.
If one of our readers were thinking about embarking upon a large project similar to yours, what insights and learnings would you give them?
To really tell a story, one must know everything about it, in order to understand which are the essential components of the narrative. So it must be something about which the teller is passionate, or the necessary time will be prohibitive. Also, I am repeatedly rewarded and enabled by my efficient method of storing and recalling information in databases.
What is next for you? Where do you see your photography going in terms of subject and style?
The coastline project is important to me and suddenly has developed legs. So I will continue with that. I feel a little trapped in the niche of being an aerial photographer, which just happened to be a method I used to tell a particular story. But I have learned in my life that niches are not necessarily a bad thing.
I will probably do a project on race and slavery if I can find the time from my other projects.
The book is published by Papadakis and is available from Amazon.co.uk for £45.
If you want to share your ideas or suggestions, or feel you could write or contribute a piece on what we as a community can do collectively to help the causes of landscape, ecosystems and the wild world then please do contact Tim and Charlotte (via the contact page), who are keen to spotlight what has become the issue of our time.
In a recent piece for On Landscape on Reflecting on Minimalism, I included a couple of images from a series called Creation by Passing Ducks, all taken one evening by the Duck Pond in Williamson Park in Lancaster (some more of the series are included here).
In that article, I rather cheekily suggested that these might be considered a sort of watery analogue to the cloud “equivalents” of Alfred Stieglitz, except that I had some doubts about inferring any deeper significance or equivalence of such images in the sense of Stieglitz or Minor White. This idea of equivalence has since come up again as expressed by John Paul Caponigro in a recent article where he states: “The photograph can be much more than a material trace of another material; it can even be much more than a trace of light and time; it can also be a trace of spirit, the energetic confluence of body, mind, and emotion, either single or multiple.”1
Creation by Passing Ducks #1, 2019
I am happy to accept that my scepticism about this spiritual essence is my problem (with my scientific background) rather than theirs. That is not to say that I do not have a serious involvement with the images that I make. I also hope that some vestige of the intent in making the images will be conveyed to the viewer looking at them.
They certainly represent a trace of light and time (I happened to be passing just after the sun had fallen below the level of the surrounding trees but there was a clear sky and very little wind, so perfect if transitory, conditions for this type of image)
Thinking about this issue (in response to also reading some other recent articles2) has made me realise that part of my intent is to reveal something about the real world, even if that something is only to highlight observations that might otherwise pass unnoticed by passers-by. The Creation by Passing Ducks images falls into that category. They certainly represent a material trace of another material (a simple digital image of a water surface); they certainly represent a trace of light and time (I happened to be passing just after the sun had fallen below the level of the surrounding trees but there was a clear sky and very little wind, so perfect, if transitory, conditions for this type of image); they have certainly been carefully selected to have the most satisfactory (to me) impact in representing the scene viewed, in so far as that is possible in this case when the perturbations of the water surface and reflections were changing so quickly. What then is required that they should have any deeper emotional meaning?
The pictures are not of particularly high quality (they were taken while I was testing a new add-on telephoto lens on a little 12 Mp Olympus TG5 and were recorded as simple SOOC jpegs since the light was fading rapidly and I did not think to change to a RAW setting at the time). They have had minimal post-processing. While recognising that they have been recorded as digital numbers which have been subjected to in-camera processing using parameters selected by some remote Olympus colour science team, to my eye they are a good representation of the reality of the water surface as I saw it, even down to the hint of sky colour that can be seen in some of the images (they are all in colour).
Creation by Passing Ducks #12, 2019
Thus, they correspond to my experience of reality at that moment, even if my memory of that experience will already have been influenced by viewing the images after the event. That is something that we cannot escape; moments are fleeting whereas images can be viewed at length and consequently have a progressive impact on our perceptions. That equally applies to images that have been heavily post-processed. Such images, viewed at length, can change the expectation of reality to the extent that some photographers will be disappointed to not match images they have seen of a place when visiting for the first time (or they will try post-processing in some way to achieve the expected result)3. Indeed, I am sure that I am not the only person who, on seeing some remarkable (and sometimes rather artificial looking) landscape image, plays the game of trying to work out what the scene might have looked like to the eye before the application of colour gradient profiles, HDR stacking, luminosity masks, gradient filters, etc4. I am not at all suggesting that all images should be “photo-realistic” – they are necessarily analogues and there may be very good reasons for post-processing to achieve a particular mood or intention or some (emotional) satisfaction on the part of the photographer5. That seems to me to be a bit different, however, to suggesting some equivalence or trace of spirit by which: “The visible can be used to reveal the invisible; the external can be used to reveal the internal” (John Paul Caponigro again).
Despite three centuries of experiment, however, the application of scientific principles in representing water flows in the real world remains rather inexact for rather good reasons.
Creation by Passing Ducks #9
And yet …. perhaps there can be something more to even rather realistic images if we think about them more as experiences than equivalents. There is perhaps a sort of analogy here with the introduction of experiment into science in the 17th Century, leading to a questioning of relying primarily on intellectual deductive reasoning that had been dominant since the Greeks. Following Francis Bacon (1561 -1626) and René Descartes (1596-1650), science started to make much more use of direct experience as a way of learning about the world. In the Age of Enlightenment6, the use of experiment was developed in many areas of science, including that of water. Pierre Perrault (1611–1680) in France did experiments on the subsurface flow of water and was perhaps the first to demonstrate that rainfall over a catchment area was sufficient to maintain the discharge of water in rivers. Edmund Halley (1656-1741) in Oxford did experiments on evaporation of water (in addition to astronomical and other observations) but disagreed with Perrault; he argued that some condensation of rising water vapour in the subsurface was required to sustain river discharge. Blaise Pascal (1623 – 1662) in France established his principle of fluid dynamics also around this time. The science has, of course, progressed a lot since then. Direct experiment and visualisations of flows in both the laboratory and the field have continued to be used in the development of hydrology and hydraulics to the present (in addition to both deductive and predictive use of computer simulations). Despite three centuries of experiment, however, the application of scientific principles in representing water flows in the real world remains rather inexact for rather good reasons.7
What does this have to do with Creation by Passing Ducks?
These images (as with very many landscape images) can also be thought of as a form of a record of direct experiences with reality (with real water surfaces in this case). They are found experiences, and therefore rather different from the planned experiments that we might do in the laboratory where we try and control the boundary conditions to an experimental flow as far as possible. Controlling ducks, or other elements of the environment, is a much more difficult problem.
In particular, they can reveal how complex the nature of reality can be, and how dependent what we see in the image is on what we cannot see outside the frame.
But as records of direct experiences, even if imperfect records, such images can, as experiments, reveal something about the nature of the world. In particular, they can reveal how complex the nature of reality can be, and how dependent what we see in the image is on what we cannot see outside the frame (we see no ducks; we do not see the trees throwing the shadows onto the water, or the sequence of weather systems that produced the clear sky)8. What is deep about these images is the way they reveal that complexity and the incredible variety of patterns that might arise from simple causes, here of just a few ducks swimming around on a calm clear evening. That recognition can, of course, evoke an emotional response about the wonder of nature in the viewer (although perhaps in this case only of that limited class of viewers who are also hydrologists!). There are, of course, much more dramatic and proficient images that reveal that wonder even more strongly. Such images can be studied for insight about the natural (just how do these patterns arise) but that does not seem to be the same as revealing some inner emotional essence of the subject of an image itself.9
Creation by Passing Ducks #4, 2019
Philosophers distinguish many different types of realism (and many different types of anti-realism and idealism). As landscape photographers we probably mostly tend towards a common-sense or pragmatic realist view, i.e. we are happy to accept that the things that we make images of exist in reality and that the light emitted or reflected from them can be used via the means of a camera to create something real (especially in the more tangible form of film or prints) even if any image can be only an abstracted representation of the original. In this sense, landscape images can record experiences and can, therefore, reveal something about the nature of places over a range of scales and about what happens in those places. This implies that the final image should maintain some relation to what the eye experienced at the time.
Landscape images can record experiences and can, therefore, reveal something about the nature of places over a range of scales and about what happens in those places.
Creation by Passing Ducks #7
Being realist clearly does not preclude being artistic, however. The evidence is surely there in the many landscape as art images by many fine landscape photographers that are convincing in the sense that reality could have been experienced like that. The artistic is in the challenge of choosing an image in space and time from the huge variety of the real landscape. It is the selection of just what is in the frame, and just when and how the image is captured (light is all important) that creates the art, whether that is the result of prior planning or purely serendipitous. How the image is captured can be important: a ND grad might well make the overall image look more realistic to the viewer.
I suggest only that if an image is to have any deeper meaning in the realist sense, then keeping a strong link between image and the real landscape is important.
I stress that this is not an argument against the creative taking or post-processing of images, (as Guy Tal has pointed out, the “natural” can still be a deception10 and there will be many different types of experiment that can record the experience of individual photographers). I suggest only that if an image is to have any deeper meaning in the realist sense, then keeping a strong link between image and the real landscape is important. I know it is important for me (even if I am also happy to produce black and white images11 and colour and slow shutter speed images of water that go a little beyond the immediate experience of the eye; see Singine #10, Glâne #3, and Falls below Griesalp, #2, all taken in Switzerland in 2019). However, I remain reluctant to stray too far in post-processing from my (imperfect) memory of the original perception and visualisation.
This is, of course, rather in conflict with the ideas of Jean Baudrillard (and his images12). He suggested that the modern saturation of communication with images, and the potential for the construction of images means that there was no longer a link with reality. The image now precedes the real: the real is dead13. Clearly, since Baudrillard was writing in the 1980s, the number of images being produced has continued to multiply. As noted earlier, we are affected by our consumption of those images; we can reflect on them at length, and explore those taken and manipulated by others before visiting a place. This certainly changes our expectations, but should not necessarily change our experiences of the real when we are actually out in the world. We can still create our own experiences and reflect them in our images, such in those created by ducks.
Singine, Switzerland #10, 2019
Or is this all just another manifestation of C.P. Snow’s two cultures14; landscape with the regard of the scientist rather than that of an artist? Guy Tal, in his recent article on Beyond Equivalence15, suggests that equivalence can be used by an artist to “communicate ulterior, subjective, meanings beyond objective appearances; it can also be a means of communicating in photographs meanings that cannot be communicated in any other way.” So perhaps I am just demonstrating the limitations of my perceptions. Happily, it can still prove to be really rather satisfying in revealing and recording experiences that might otherwise be passed by, even if that special equivalence might be missing.
[2] For example, Deception by Realism and Beyond Equivalence by Guy Tal in On Landscape, and articles by Tim @ Leicaphilia including Life imitating art, or reality imitating images, and Being an Authentic Photographer.
[3] See the concept of “the death of the real” in Jean Baudrillard, 1981, Simulacra and Simulation
[5] Guy Tal gives a good account of the arguments in Deception by Realism
[6] Bacon’s Novum Organum (1610), in which he outlined a methodology of science based on experience, is sometimes suggested as the starting point of the Age of Enlightenment; Decartes Discourse on the Method (1637) was an important contribution that was rapidly distributed around Europe.
[7] See my article on the Science and Art of Hydrology in On Landscape at https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2017/04/the-science-and-art-of-hydrology/, and Towards a methodology for testing models as hypotheses in the inexact sciences, Proceedings of the Royal Society A, 2019 (doi: 10.1098/rspa.2018.0862).
[8] In sub-atomic physics science has also progressed to domains that cannot be directly experienced, but are rather studied by means of indirect visualisations.
[9] Albeit that scientists will often use image manipulation to try to reveal detail in the original to aid interpretation and further understanding, e.g. satellite remote sensing images, presentation of radio and Hubble space telescope images, polarized rock thin sections etc.
[10] See Deception by Realism On Landscape, Issue 188
[11] Even if, as a user of monochrome film for over 50 years, and more recently a user of infra-red monochrome film, it is difficult to argue that such filtered images are realist to the eye. Perhaps these still feel “natural” to me having grown up at a time when monochrome was the norm. Colour infra-red is, however, definitely a step too far for me!
[12] See for example http://chateaushatto.com/exhibition/ultimate-paradox-the-photography-of-jean-baudrillard/
I was approached by ‘On Landscape’ to contribute to this month’s end frame. As I understand it, the photographer has an almost impossible task of choosing their one favourite image and then write about their reasons why. I think from my point of view, and only having been a keen landscape photographer since 2012, I was rather daunted by this opportunity.
Rather than spend a long time brainstorming accomplished photographers, whose work I know well or even those I know less well, or well-known images others have perceived as exemplary, I decided to choose an image from a photographer that inspired me to pursue landscape photography (even with its immense highs and also repeated disappointments).
The photographer that set me on this road the most is Alex Nail. I guess I feel somewhat akin to Alex in the sense that I also started capturing landscapes on Dartmoor. I remember one of his first ‘constructive’ criticisms on one of my images was ‘your horizon is wonky’. That was it. He’s never been afraid to speak his mind and through the years it has been both beneficial but also sometimes hard to swallow. However, I have admired his work for many years and after leaving Dartmoor, to pursue a professional career, taking him to far flung places, we have kept in touch.
I have recently moved from Dartmoor to Scotland, partly for lifestyle reasons, but also the draw of the Scottish landscape. I have to say this is partly due to Alex’s photographic influence. Having visited Scotland many times over the years, and now being a resident, I have started to see for myself its unique charm and splendour. Dartmoor, for me, really came alive, with saturated, striking early and late light or layered mists and fog, perhaps the odd rainbow. However, the grandeur of the Scottish landscape, it’s peaks, troughs, lochs, tundra and rocks means that it has its own unique sense of drama, even in flat or diffused light or in dreich conditions.
The Equivalent is one of those ideas that in practice grows by the efforts and accomplishments of the people who explore it. ~ Minor White
In the late 1920s, Alfred Stieglitz coined the concept of equivalence in photography, suggesting that photographs may have expressive powers beyond just representing the appearances of things. In particular, he was referring to photographs that are, at least to a degree, abstract.
The abstraction Stieglitz referred to is not the same as what we generally think of as “abstract art” today (i.e., art that is mostly, or completely, devoid of recognisable elements). What Stieglitz has shown is that by obscuring or omitting obvious reference points in a photograph (things such as uniquely interesting subject matter, prominent faces and figures, or other elements that viewers may consider as the obvious subject of a photograph), the subject of a photograph may become a mood, or a feeling, rather than a thing, or a view. The goal is to design a photograph such that the experience one will have when viewing it, will be equivalent with the experience of the photographer when making it.
What Stieglitz has shown is that by obscuring or omitting obvious reference points in a photograph (things such as uniquely interesting subject matter, prominent faces and figures, or other elements that viewers may consider as the obvious subject of a photograph), the subject of a photograph may become a mood, or a feeling, rather than a thing, or a view.
Although perhaps not immediately obvious, the importance of equivalence is quite profound: it is the quality that allows photographs to venture beyond objective representation, and instead (or in addition) also express subjective experience. As such, equivalence can also be said to be the quality that makes photography a suitable medium for art (art being a deliberate, subjective, creation), rather than just a technology for recording objective views.
The landscapes I capture on the remote Scottish Islands are a reflection of solo time in nature, being still and embracing quiet. This forms the basis of my new solo exhibition that will open at The Bosham Gallery on the 5th October.
I thrive in quiet. I need stillness to revitalise and to heal. Part of that is possibly my introvert nature wanting balance in a world that seems to value extroversion. One of the greatest gifts of introversion is the ability to harness the hidden power of solitude.
There’s a freedom is being alone, not needing to respond to anyone or be a version of myself other than my true nature. It allows me to be purely myself and that feeds into the landscapes I take.
A few people recently asked if I would mind them painting from my landscapes. I realised that I did mind. I wanted them to make their own journeys, to paint totally from their own hearts rather than filtering through my interpretation of the landscape.
When you’re creating, it’s important to travel your own journey. You need to be conscious of who you are and create from that place, taking photos that truly speak to you. That’s the case for all kinds of photography including landscapes or, in fact, anything creative. It gives you your own unique style and a strength to your portfolio.
I travel around Scotland in my sprinter van which I’ve converted for sleeping and cooking on the go. It means I can stay in the remotest of locations and am self-contained. I often stay on the islands for up to a week at a time, waiting for conditions to be right.
The Scottish islands are the embodiment of all the values I uphold in my life and work. Their quiet, beautiful stretches of landscape touch the soul with their raw beauty.
The contrast of the stillness of my mind, standing yards away from 12-foot waves crashing down is almost ironic. The process is complete when an image is created which represents the state of mind rather than the literal translation of the scene.
An exhibition celebrating the untouched beauty of the Scottish Hebrides, its remote rugged coastline and endless white sandy beaches. As an introvert who specifically visits these remote islands extending in an arc off the west coast of Scotland in search of solitude, Soraya’s work questions the cultural bias towards extroverts that exists in today’s western society, its obsession with personality over character, and reminds us of the healing power of solitude as the antidote to being constantly connected in today’s frantic digital world. ~ Luke Whitaker, Director Bosham Gallery, September 2019
Exhibition details
See Margaret Soraya’s landscapes from the Outer Hebrides, Inner Hebrides and Orkney Isles in her exhibition ‘Quiet’ at Bosham Gallery, 1 High Street, Bosham, West Sussex PO18 8LS from October 5-December 7, 2019.
Saturday 5th October | PRIVATE VIEW | 6.30-8.30pm
Sunday 3rd November | COLD WATER SWIMMING In Chichester Harbour With Margaret Soraya
Monday 4th November | LADIES DAY | Finding Solitude Through Photography
Wednesday 6th November | INTROVERT DAY | Are You An Introvert Or An Extrovert?
Can you tell me a little about your education, childhood passions, early exposure to photography etc?
I used to draw a lot as a kid, but generally, I was interested in writing more than imagery. I wrote my first novel when I was nine or ten years old, though I doubt it’d be much of a read now.
My dad filmed weddings on weekends to make extra money, and there was gear around the house, including video and stills cameras. He also occasionally painted landscapes and a few of his paintings were on the walls, so maybe that was a start point.
I started experimenting with cameras in my teens and got more into photography when I moved to Glasgow. I walked around the city and headed out to places like Loch Lomond, using a basic Canon camera with black and white film.
The appeal of photography then was much the same as it is now: a chance to walk around, to explore, to be creative, and to spend time really looking at a place and soaking it up, from big scenes to small details. It’s good to get away from the mental white noise of modern life, to slow down and find things that interest you or give you a feeling of stillness and calm.
What are you most proud of in your photography?
It’s difficult for me to say. I think the qualities of your work are probably for other people to decide and point out. But what I try to do is have a sense of ‘life’ in my photos. With people or wildlife, that’s often about capturing authentic moments or a sense of character. With landscapes, it’s about giving a powerful sense of being in a place; light breaking through cracks in the clouds, the stillness of the water, the movement of wind, the crashing of waves. I like a sense of wildness in landscape photos.
A great landscape photo should have some kind of emotional power and get a response from the person looking at it, rather than just being a representation of a location.
A great landscape photo should have some kind of emotional power and get a response from the person looking at it, rather than just being a representation of a location.
Creativity’s important - the photos I’ve taken that I find most satisfying are ones where I feel the composition is original and personal. Some landscapes are simply beautiful and many people could produce a decent representation of that in a photo. But I really want to feel I created the photo, rather than just took a picture of a landscape.
Dingle – the very name conjures up visions of traditional Ireland: folklore, humorous stories told in busy pubs, and song and dance. A very welcoming picture indeed! And so it was that the second half of March 2019 saw four photographer friends meet-up at Cork airport and start the 2½ hour drive to Dingle in County Kerry, one of the five “fingers” in the South-West of Ireland. The gentle Irish landscape was a soothing sight for a city-dweller like me; rolling hills followed by mountains in the distance and finally the coastline as we approached Dingle. Having settled into our rented accommodation, we had time to explore some of the closest coves and later that evening decided on a series of possible locations to visit over the coming week.
My friends are passionate photographers, primarily landscapers, yet with differing photographic interests and different ways of seeing and making images. As often happens in groups, at any one location we usually went off in various directions looking for our own images and probably never had our lenses pointing in exactly the same direction and set to the same focal length. The coast was the main feature, but we also photographed rock details, rust and dereliction, woodland and classic landscapes. There was plenty to do for all of us and we all had the opportunity to be challenged outside our normal comfort zone. In this article I have chosen my own favourite images from the 3 locations we visited most often, namely Coumeenole Beach and Clogher Head and Beach on the western coast and Kinnard Beach in the south. I also show some images from Inch Strand on the south coast, which we visited just once but which worked out better for me than I had hoped, and one image from each of three other locations.
Coumeenole Beach
We went to Coumeenole Beach a couple of times, apart from a recce at the start of our week. On our first proper visit the skies were moody with intermittent sun and I decided to work in monochrome. I made an image that I particularly like for the light over the distant headland and the reflections off the nearby wet cliffs.
We returned a few days later, in what turned out to be even worse conditions: an ever-changing mix of low cloud, mist, fine drizzle and outright rain were the main challenge, later compounded by the incoming tide lapping around our feet. Despite this, we were all quietly working away at making photographs with almost nobody else around to disrupt us. Only at the very end did a group of tourists arrive, leaving footprints everywhere on the sand but by then we were almost done. I am quite pleased with two images I made depicting the miserable conditions, one monochrome and one colour. I think that the moody and mysterious feel comes across in both.
Clogher Head and Clogher Beach
Further over at Clogher Head, there are great views over to the Blasket Islands and Skellig Michael, location for many Star Wars scenes. I found the dramatic coastline here, enhanced by the stormy skies, irresistible and not wanting to miss the light, rather than look for a strong foreground I settled on a simple view out to sea. Although I risked a 2-dimensional result, I felt that the dramatic light was mesmerising. A long focal length allowed me to isolate the pointy rock which stood out all the more against a bright creamy-yellow patch among the clouds. Well, those heavy, brooding and very ominous blue-grey clouds did come in and we found ourselves absolutely hammered by a sharp rain and hail squall!
A long focal length allowed me to isolate the pointy rock which stood out all the more against a bright creamy-yellow patch among the clouds.
We came back here another day, this time to the eponymous beach and once again we found challenging conditions – this time it was bright sunlight and a strong wind churning up big waves that came barrelling into the cove, driving sea spray straight into our lenses. I chose to forego the wider views and thus avoid the spray, concentrating on details. The beach has a good selection of jagged rocks, rounded boulders and sand patterns which kept me happy for an hour or so, especially as more clouds began to appear and diffuse the light.
The beach has a good selection of jagged rocks, rounded boulders and sand patterns which kept me happy for an hour or so, especially as more clouds began to appear and diffuse the light.
On an evening visit near the end of our trip, I was down on the beach again, whereas my friends had gone up onto the An Drom headland at the other side of the bay. As the sun disappeared behind the headland and apparently into a cloudbank (which I couldn’t see) all hope of a sunset faded. In the dying light I packed my bag and went back up to the car park to await my companions. It was beginning to get dark when quite suddenly the sky lit up with an amazing display of pinks and magenta… Disaster! I had no worthwhile subject matter near me, going back to the beach and setting up again with tripod and filters would risk missing the show altogether! Then the thought struck me: shoot hand held from where I was and use the unavoidable long exposures for ICM. Shooting from above the beach with longer focal lengths, I made a series of images of the sea foam coming in over the boulders below and of the headland and pink-magenta sky above. The ICM mixed the blues and magentas to create new colours; I also blended some of the frames in-camera after shooting. To my delight all this worked rather well: the colours and lovely textures due to the in-camera blending created fascinating abstracts, yet I think still recognisable as coastal scenes. I found the whole experience exhilarating. I know others have done this and it’s becoming a popular way of photographing, but to me this was new and it worked. I felt like a child discovering something and having a great time doing so!
We went back to the Clogher area one more time on the last day and this time I too went up the An Drom headland from where my friends had been shooting that amazing sky the previous evening. The top is a bizarre other-worldly landscape of jagged rocks that are really difficult to walk across, requiring constant care to avoid tripping up and possibly twisting an ankle. It is also a difficult area to shoot, but I managed to compose one vista that I rather like and various rock details, using focus stack on some to ensure sharpness throughout the frame.
I managed to compose one vista that I rather like and various rock details, using focus stack on some to ensure sharpness throughout the frame.
Kinnard Beach
Kinnard Beach on the south coast was close to home, perhaps 15 minutes’ drive. On our first exploratory visit the weather was stormy and the tide too high for photography, but we could see that the location offered good potential. Two days later the wind was still quite strong, whipping up the sea, but we had good afternoon sun on a nearby sea stack and on the clouds over the distant mountains across the bay. I have been playing with a bit of ICM over the last couple of years and having hitherto been a rather purist photographer, trying out these new techniques (at least they are new to me) has been good fun and I am starting to produce images that describe the different elements and, perhaps more importantly, the mood and “feel” of the scene before me. The image here is a single exposure of a wave breaking on sand with that of a different wave breaking over the rocks. It’s hand-held so there is some inevitable softness visible in the rocks, but I don’t think that this detracts from my attempt to portray the crashing waves almost making the rocks shudder.
We came back again at the end of our stay, this time in rather flat lighting and drab skies. Although there was some good movement in the sea, once again I felt happier working on details. Right at the end of the evening just as it began to drizzle, I came across wonderfully coloured pebbles higher up on the beach; I shot a series of detail images with the intention of selecting three for a triptych.
And then on my way back up to the car I noticed some bright but pastel-coloured pebbles scattered on the reddish-brown rock face at the back of the beach. The colours, shapes and textures were too good to ignore and I made another composition, using focus stack to ensure sharpness throughout the frame.
The colours, shapes and textures were too good to ignore and I made another composition, using focus stack to ensure sharpness throughout the frame.
Inch Strand
Inch Strand is a vast expanse of beach and low dunes and on our visit we were rewarded with amazing evening sun, battling with constantly changing but predominantly low cloud. I headed into the grassy dunes (reminiscent of Seilebost on Harris) but struggled to find a good foreground. I thought of going down to the water where my friends were shooting, but was worried that I would miss out on the light which could disappear at any moment. I decided to stay more or less rooted to the spot and shoot the play of light on the clouds as my main subject. I was aware that this could turn out to be rather flat, but with the changing light I hoped that something better would result and that sheer joy of just being there would come across. As the scene changed, I again experimented with long exposures both on and off the tripod (up to 10 secs, hand-held), ICM and multi-exposures. Once the sun had disappeared, I headed back to our car but as the others were still shooting somewhere out of sight, I changed to a telephoto and played further with different settings. I am pleased with my images and rather surprised at how the different techniques gave me a range of pictures which really do reflect my experience and memories of that wonderful evening.
Finally, I am also showing four images from some of the other locations, most of which we visited only once. The first is from a small area of forest that had been cleared, leaving a line of denuded pine trees. The stark graphic scene with limited colour made me think in monochrome, but distilling it to the elements that piqued my interest was less easy than I expected. Perhaps the tile should be II I/\II X rather than Trees?
We also headed inland to the isolated but rather pretty Lough Annascaul, where I was taken by the reflections at a quiet part of the lake. Wonderful abstracts came and went as small wavelets developed in the breeze, distorting the reflected tree trunks. I spent an enjoyable half-hour or so, watching the water and exposing a few frames of the changing shapes.
Wonderful abstracts came and went as small wavelets developed in the breeze, distorting the reflected tree trunks. I spent an enjoyable half-hour or so, watching the water and exposing a few frames of the changing shapes.
Lastly there was Brandon Bay where at Scraggane Pier we found an array of details related to fishing: lobster pots, rusty boats and weathered wooden crates that were empty save for some lobster claws. With blue sky above, the partially covered crate I photographed was very blue inside, contrasting nicely with a red claw and part of a leg. A somewhat bizarre and macabre subject, almost malevolent as though the claw might come scuttling across to me… Perhaps my favourite image from there!
On the way back from the pier we saw a fantastic display of distant clouds and rain showers back-lit by the sun. The contrast was very high and I opted for black-and-white as the scene rapidly changed before our eyes. The image shown here gives a flavour of the drama as the clouds moved across the bay; one of my family said it reminded him of a tsunami charging towards us.
All in all, despite at times uninspiring light conditions and locations where I found composing a vista really difficult, for me this was a successful trip and in great company too. I developed my use of the camera in less conventional ways and have extended my photography into new areas. As always, whether on organised workshops or in a private group of friends, the evenings spent reviewing and chatting about our work are a rich source of learning and sharing ideas with each other. I would like to thank my companions for their friendship and supportive manner throughout the trip and their generosity in sharing ideas and images and their encouraging critiques.
I feel my arms begin to tire, forearms pumping with lactic acid as I make another hard move up the crack in the overhanging rock face. I smear my toes on little edges and look down to see the rope snaking away below me, perhaps some 20 feet above my last piece of protection. Falling twice that height and adding rope stretch puts me pretty close to the ground. I look at the gear hanging from my waist harness and consider placing another ‘runner,” but as I look up at the next 15 feet of climbing I realise the effort required to do that could mean I fall off before I get safe.
I lock the first joint of two fingers into the crack above my head and get my feet higher on the wall,the next step up makes a ground fall guaranteed. Again, again, again, adrenalin pumping, arms saturated, brain on fire. Momentarily I imagine hitting the ground from 60 feet, and a smile crosses my lips. I’m alive, really alive. A couple more moves and the lip of the cliff appears in front of my face, one more long reach over the top to find a good edge and suddenly I’m up. The world stretches below me; the misty glens of the Scottish Highlands, smoke from wood fires drifts lazily from chimney stacks, a Willow Warbler sings passionately from a nearby birch tree, I smell the sap rising and the taste of spring. I notice everything, as if for the first time; opening my already open eyes. (As I write these words, even after all these years I can vividly remember every move, little nuances of the rock, even individual holds! How uncanny it is to have experiences burned so deep in our minds.)
I make my belay and start bringing up my brother, who, with the safety of a top rope makes short work of the pitch, powerfully cruising the moves, absorbed in the ballet of movement on rock. How different the experience is depending on what end of the rope you’re on.
On another day, on another route, a different outcome. I fall from a hard move high on the cliff, the gear I’d placed for my protection ripped from the thin crack and I slam downwards, ripping the next piece as well. My brother jumps off the ledge he’s belaying me from to take in some slack rope and I get brought up on rope stretch with my feet brushing the ground. After nearly 100 feet of free fall, I laugh maniacally as I realise I’m alive.
It was these experiences over 30 years ago that focussed my will, absorbed my attention and demanded engagement. With the cost of failure being terminal, the consequences were a very real motivation.
It was these experiences over 30 years ago that focussed my will, absorbed my attention and demanded engagement. With the cost of failure being terminal, the consequences were a very real motivation. No matter what was going on in my outside life; university exams, being dumped by my first girlfriend, or dealing with growing up a loner, once I was on rock, it meant nothing. With extreme climbing, there is no room for thoughts, no space in your attention for irritation, heartbreak or insecurity. This was where I was in control, here I was me, in total, complete.
A few days ago, I walked along a beach, cliffs rising above my head. I’ve been guiding 4 participants on a workshop to the Spanish coast and they are jubilant in their epiphanies. I smile as they engage with the world in new ways, finding themselves in nature and flowing. I notice an overhanging corner on an outcrop, rising perhaps 30 feet above the shingle beach. My fingers itch and I wander over to “take a look.” As my fingers touch the rock, my focus narrows again; I search for a place to smear one foot, twisting it to make it stick. A step up and my hand rises to another hold, then another, I raise my feet, surging upwards. Even after all these years, my body instinctively leans and twists to keep in balance, finding its place in space to be. Hitting the ground from 30 feet hurts, and I was motivated to stay up, not down! Moments later I’m sitting with my feet dangling over the edge, a client glances up and smiles at me, we return a look. He knows, I know.
I am a member of the Society of Scottish Landscape Photographers and following on from a series of successful group exhibitions, it was decided that the society would hold a series of regional exhibitions to allow more members to exhibit in their local area.
As a member of the exhibition committee, I accepted the task of organising two of these exhibitions. One of the venues I sourced was the Birnam Arts Centre, which is based in the quaint village of Birnam in Perthshire. I identified it as an ideal venue in which to hold the exhibition due to the location and beautiful hanging space which is filled with natural light.
Following a series of discussions with the venue, it was decided that the exhibition should consist entirely of black and white images, based on a mix of traditional landscapes and images with a more ‘creative’ edge.
The venue has held a series of 'traditional' colour landscape exhibitions in the past and wanted to offer its clientele something different, therefore the concept for 'monochrome' was born.
Initially, the exhibition was meant to feature photographers from the Tayside area, namely Davie Hudson (Society founder and Chairman), Katherine Fotheringham, Andy Clark, Donald McKenzie, Annette Forsyth, and myself. However, given the space available, we were able to open the exhibition to members based further afield, and Stuart Lamont and John Thow joined us.
Each photographer was allocated a space in which to showcase their work. The decision of layout, frame sizing and image selection were left to each member.
However, to add cohesiveness to the exhibition it was decided that all the frames should be black, and the work priced with the venue's clientele in mind, therefore a ceiling price was introduced.
The brief was embraced by some and found to be a welcome challenge by others who predominantly shoot in colour (myself included).
Back in the days when I attended college (nearly 30 years ago.... gulp!) and I was film-based, I shot, processed and printed in black and white, but I haven't, until recently, produced many black and white images from a digital file, therefore the remit really challenged my processing skills.
I began searching my archives for images to convert to black and white. I initially chose a random set including seascapes and mountain studies. I didn't feel that they 'gelled' as a set however and felt that I wanted my images to have a strong narrative, rather than just a random set. I am increasingly shooting more tree-based images, and that is an element of landscape photography that I enjoy the most, therefore I chose one image from my archive as a starting point, which was almost monochrome when I shot it, therefore it felt a natural step to convert the file to black and white.
I was hit by a stroke of luck in March when the weather turned unusually wintery and we had a full day of heavy snow, and the perfect conditions materialised that I had envisaged to shoot the remainder of my images.
During the summer months, I do a lot of location scouting and I knew the exact location of the trees that I wanted to shoot....it was just a case of waiting for the optimum conditions. The shoot turned out to be better than expected and I managed to produce four images, which completed my desired set of five.
I envisaged a 'fine art' feel to my prints, so I selected Hahnemuhle photo rag as my paper choice, as the textural quality really suited the images.
Each member of the group worked tirelessly to prepare their work, and the exhibition opened on the 31st of August to a welcoming crowd.
Here are some thoughts from the other exhibitors:
Davie Hudson
When the remit for this exhibition was announced I couldn't have been happier. With me having a leaning for the darker side of imagery I do a lot of work in monochrome, add to that the quirky aspect and in my mind I was doing a happy dance. The problem I was going to have was whittling down my large portfolio of Black and Whites down to the space I had, a space I’m happy to say was quite large due to my enthusiasm for the remit.
As with any exhibition (this is now my tenth in total) the knack is to suitably mix the images to both show the whole gamut of your work and have a 'crowd pleaser' and with my 7 images I think I have achieved that and I'm really proud of what I have produced and hung in the gallery.
Donald MacKenzie
Taking part on the exhibition was a gift for me as Black & White is what I do. Whether it’s because of my colour blindness or not, I just find it so much more satisfying to work in Black & White than in colour.
I am a Highlander and want to display the highlands as they really are to local people. So my images are not great landscapes with mountains sweeping down to the sea, they are of things like passing places and single track roads, dry stane dykes that wend their way over a hill .
I am not interested in making images that have huge popular appeal or induce the ‘wow’ factor. I follow the writings of Guy Tal and find he gives expression to all the things that I have felt but didn’t have the skill to state them. For example, he speaks of how the inner rewards of creating anything are “… much more powerful and enduring than short lived spikes of happiness rooted in such things as productivity, popularity, sales, etc.” That’s so true.
Andy Clark
When I first heard the exhibition remit I was a little apprehensive! I decided I wanted my images to work together as a group, complimenting each other and with a similar feel. I love taking photos of trees and foggy conditions so felt for me those images were an ideal fit. I edited quite a few images that I felt fitted my remit and also worked in B&W, and three of my four images were all taken the same winter within three weeks of one another and just felt right together. The fourth image, "on the edge of the field" I felt really complimented the others, as they all have an atmospheric, almost fairy-tale quality to them.
Stuart Lamont
My passion for Landscape Photography came about when I joined my local Camera Club some 18 years ago, this also fuelled my interest in Black & White photography after seeing some of the work club members were producing. I decided I wanted to take it a stage further after seeing some Infrared work in one of the monthly magazines and therefore I decided to convert an old Nikon D200 to Infrared.
The shots below were all taken during the summer months which are particularly good for Infrared as the trees are in full bloom and there is a good contrast with the blue sky behind. If you get the right subject matter you can produce some lovely images.
When the Black & White Exhibition was announced earlier this year I immediately thought that showing some Infrared work would give the exhibition an added extra dimension which I hope the viewers will enjoy.
Annette Forsyth
While I mostly work in colour, I have always enjoyed creating black & white images for their timeless quality and slightly more abstract nature and was delighted to be part of the exhibition at Birnam. For my final choices I decided to go for mountain scenery and coastal images as I knew a few of the other photographers were into treescapes.
Two of my chosen images “Shifting Light on Beinn a’Chearcaill” and “Torridon Wilderness” were taken on a very atmospheric day in February when the cloud lifted and descended at will. “Lower Falls, Glen Nevis” and “The Needle, Quiraing, Isle of Skye” are images from more well known locations that I personally enjoyed. Sometimes it can be a good idea to include a few images that people recognise and may have a connection with.
John Thow
To match the exhibition brief I chose ‘Shimmering Birches’ captured using ICM (Intentional Camera Movement) which gives a blurred and mystical view of some magnificent silver birch trees in Glen Lyon.
‘Fogbound’ is an image of the new Queensferry Crossing over the Firth of Forth. A fleeting moment in time captured by a hand held shot when I spotted a bank of fog rapidly approaching the bridge. I enjoy the simplicity yet complexity of the moody monochromes captured in black and white photography.
Katherine Fotheringham
The brief of black and white images struck fear and horror into me as it wasn't something that I dabbled with too much. I already had one black and white image, 'The Frandy Tree' that I was keen to use, so it was just a case of taking two more images that would complement this image.
'The Praying Hands' is one of my favourite places to visit and I was keen to include it in this exhibition so when I was in the area with snow falling and an atmospheric mist flowing down the glen I grabbed the opportunity to bag the second photo of my three for the exhibition.
My third photo came on an equally miserable cold and snowy day. I had Ossian's Hall at The Hermitage in mind, so when I woke to heavy flakes of snow falling, I headed up to the location to capture the envisaged scene.
Final note....
Preparing a solo exhibition is hard work (as most photographers will identify with), but having to collaborate with seven other photographers was more challenging. Luckily they were a great bunch of people to work with which made my life a lot easier!
Communicating back and forth with the venue, printers, framers, exhibitors, and collating all the information, organising all the press releases, promotional activity etc was not without its challenges and was a very time-consuming but enjoyable experience which I have relished. Will I do it again?.....yes! We have another exhibition coming up in November!
The ‘Monochrome’ exhibition is open to the public until Saturday the 28th of September, from 10am until 5pm, at the Birnam Arts centre in Perthshire. Entry is free.
My latest project ‘Wiltshire,’ is fundamentally about the heritage in our landscape. Kept, lost or rediscovered, our landscape is brought into question more than ever before; how we try to preserve our heritage and natural aesthetic, but also how we try to utilise our land for new uses.
The UK is a small island with a large population, which naturally has created many questions for us today. Our land is at a premium and at times is treated like currency, changing hands and uses on a regular basis. Seen as one of the most viable long-term investments to make, our landscape has been turned into a bank for many.
With lack of space and our continually growing need of land, areas are being reused and reutilised for different purposes.
With lack of space and our continually growing need of land, areas are being reused and reutilised for different purposes. Creating a layered history that sometimes is invisible for us at the surface.
Creating a layered history that sometimes is invisible for us at the surface. But this is nothing new for us to contend with, it is just happening at a higher frequency and we have become better educated in the optimum ways to utilise the land.
Our landscape has forever been changing, historically most drastically during the Industrial Revolution. Work changed from rural activities to urban industry, population moved into the towns creating cities and conurbations, which the country or the world had never seen before. During this growth, there wasn’t a thought for what was there before, as it was seen as a necessity for us to succeed and profit.
For the most, Victorians still believed in urbanisation, industrialisation and carried the same lack of respect for our everyday past in our cities and towns as preserving or nurturing was not in their nature. By the mid-19th century, there was a growth in the new middle class and a creation of leisure time. Their wage was rising and the hours of work were falling. Annual holidays were also created alongside inexpensive travel and cheap hotels, people were able to leave the places they lived for the first time and see more of the nation.
The Light and Form Group’s inaugural ‘Where the Land Meets the Sea’ exhibition takes place at the New Ashgate Gallery in Farnham, Surrey, from 17-28 September 2019.
It features more than twenty works by landscape photographers Phil Edwards, Lisa Mardell and Jo Pannifer, inspired by that magical space where sea, sand and sky meet, and also showcases contemporary silver jewellery by Tracy King.
Ahead of the exhibition, Phil Edwards shares his thoughts on why the group is so drawn to the sea.
"Almost all of us first encounter the sea from the shore, and our response to it is inextricably bound up with that relationship, with how the ocean interacts with the land. That is the shared thread in the work amongst the three photographers on display.
While principally drawn from locations around the UK and Ireland, and, on occasion, made when all three of us were present together, the specific places captured are rarely identifiable. Nor do they need to be. Instead, the images capture a representation of that recalled, unique and ephemeral moment when the act of witnessing the sea and the shore meeting leaves an indelible impression that it itself is informed and layered from previous encounters.
With the unifying palette of the colour images the many hues of blue that the sea possesses, a balancing contrast is present in the the sand, the sunsets and the shadows represented which act to bring harmony to the compositions. For the monochrome works on display, the subtle gradations of light highlight the ethereal sky and the texture of stone and shore.
The use of long exposure and Intentional Camera Movement in several of the images has been employed to recreate the collected and compressed moments of watching the sea and coast interact, and the indelible impression on our memories that this leaves.
In other works, the presence of a bird or a lighthouse figure prominently, but not dominantly, always anchored to that interplay of light and form that is the coast."
Tidal Lines by Phil Edwards
Storm Approaching by Lisa Mardell
Sea Curves by Jo Pannifer
‘Where the Land Meets the Sea’ is being held at the New Ashgate Gallery, Wagon Yard, Farnham GU9 7PS from September 17th–28th 2019. The gallery is open from 10am–5pm but will be closed on September 22nd and 23rd. For more information on the gallery and for more on the photographers see www.lightandform.co.uk
Someone once said to me “Writing about composition is a bit like dancing about architecture”. A large amount what we tend to do is instinctive, both during capture and in post-processing, and it’s very hard to put these things into words. Fortunately, there are a few people out there willing to take up the challenge and over the last week, I’ve been reading a book by one of them. Alister Benn has been writing for On Landscape for a while now and I know he can string an articulate sentence together and it’s plainly clear that he can recognise, capture and present a great photograph and I’m pleased to say he’s done a pretty good job of combining the two into an educational resource about the subject.
It wasn't until just over six years ago that I had not even heard the words 'Digital Single Lens Reflex'.
'Digital Single Lens Reflex, what? what does that even mean?'
The Apple iPhone 4 had just launched in 2010 bringing revolutionary specs to the handset:
Backside-illuminated 5 megapixel rear-facing camera with a 3.85 mm f/2.8 lens with LED Flash.
A true step forward for smartphones. I was very fortunate to own one. The brand new Apple iPhone 4 - white with 16GB of memory. It was mine, my prized possession and I was excited.
An application called Instagram was entirely in its infancy, having just launched the same year on the Apple app store. Word was spreading that it is going to be the next big thing since Facebook.
For me, I truly think this was where my passion for photography began. It was the very fact that I was able to take a photograph, edit it in the app with sliders and then finish it with a personal touch ( that being a film like a border which everyone was doing at that time ) to then upload to this social media application via 3G...It was liberating.
I could express myself via a 5MP digital image ...it was apparent anything was possible with the device I had in my hands.
My best friend of twelve years now - I owe an awful lot to. Ryan Introducing me to The Peak District in Derbyshire. I had known of The Peak District however I never really had the desire to visit only being just over an hour's drive.
One evening over a beer and a burger, he did an excellent job of talking me into walking Kinder Scout. A moorland plateau and national nature reserve in the Dark Peak of the Peak District. The location sounded fanciful - too good to be true.
As both Ryan and I made our way up Grindslow Knoll, through the moorlands both being overwhelmed with every step - memories were captured with each press of the digital shutter button on the screen of our iPhones. They were secured and those photos were ours forever. To show everyone where we had been and what we had discovered.
That was it, landscapes and photography was all I wanted, needed.
Three years later, our knowledge, passion, and desire for hill walking - mountain climbing and the outdoors, in general, had converted us. No longer did we want to spend our weekends in pubs, clubs, and cities - it was the mountains where we wanted to be. Quiet with solitude.
Various mountain paths conquered on Snowdonia and The Lake District, all captured with my smart device. After extensively using the camera on my iPhone for three years - I began to understand it's limitations. I wanted more control - more creativity and to improve my photography. I was ready for the next step.
Fast forward to the present day. Landscape photography and photography, in general, is huge - it's massive. Instagram is the second biggest social media platform after Facebook. We also have Flickr - 500px & Twitter which is also fantastic to share our images online - converse with fellow friends & like-minded people.
And of course, not forgetting YouTube. YouTube is used by 1,300,000,000 people. 300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute! Almost 5 billion videos are watched on YouTube every single day. YouTube gets over 30 million visitors per day. Each one of us uses Youtube if we want to know something? reminisce? be inspired?
Being inspired is important. It drives us, motivates us - it is what makes us as photographers get up at a ridiculous time in the morning to see the day start and have it all to ourselves whilst everyone is still sleeping.
For some time now I have been watching the likes of Thomas Heaton, Ben Horne, Simon Baxter and more, for education, entertainment, and inspiration.
Whilst they are firm favourites, professionals who go to the best locations with the best gear and sometimes capture images that you can only dream of, it can be a little doubting and unrelatable.
''Oh, I am never going to be able to afford to go to Patagonia?''
Out of the blue whilst browsing on Flickr, I discovered the work of Matt Oliver. I was instantly drawn to his account. I found myself scrolling through his images frantically. One thing I had noticed straight away was that he photographed in The Peak District. I had now fallen in love with The Peak District after numerous visits time after time in all weather conditions with a greater understanding.
If I wanted to see heather in The Peak during the summer, Matt had nailed it. If I wanted mood and drama during Autumn, Matt had nailed it.
It was becoming clear time had been spent with the subject Matt was photographing by really studying the landscape - using his foreground effectively to draw you in immediately.
It was becoming clear time had been spent with the subject Matt was photographing by really studying the landscape - using his foreground effectively to draw you in immediately. Beautiful light splashed against the far distance to make the image come alive. These images were taken, they weren't just a quick snap for a meaningless upload to Instagram for likes, the image had story and heart behind them.
Matt Oliver's work is fantastic but why? Personally, for me, this is the one image I find myself coming back to. One glance and I am instantly transported to Padley Gorge in Autumn. The millstones that have been left behind years and years ago are now 'Reclaimed' by mother nature. The vibrant green moss and what looks to be dead bracken slumped next to an old stone wall barely supported. As a viewer of the image, I have so many questions but I don't want the answers, I'm transfixed by the mystery.
Which brings me to my final thought, my final emotive feeling. I am instantly spired to pack my camera bag to head to The Peak the following day, not because I want to copy this image - not because I want to try to do better than Matt, simply because it is accessible, it's relatable, it's my very own Patagonia.
Location guidebooks are something I have a mixed reaction to. Being directed to the exact location of an image and sometimes being given the tripod holes to work with is something I feel is anathema to the creative aspects of our trade.
However, I can understand that many of these are already common knowledge and so the books merely compile what is already available. This Idaho guide intrigued me, however. The idea is to provide information on off road drives in the area that can be accessed without 4x4 vehicles. There is no real UK equivalent as far as I can tell (these aren't the green lanes of our bucolic countryside for instance) and this sort of off road travel seems a given if you want to explore in the US. I asked the authors, professional photographers and artists Linda Lantzy and Shari Hart for some more information.
Idaho is packed with gems of breathtaking photogenic scenery that can't always be found on a freeway drive, or even scouting the back roads. Unless you know where you're going, you might never get there. The solution, we concluded, was a thoroughly researched, comprehensive guide with detailed directions to little-known areas, complete with colour photographs of what you'll likely find when you go.
With that in mind, and after photographing the wonders of Idaho for more than 10 years, we decided to share our experience in finding these hidden locations in a new guidebook.
"As seasoned back-roads artistic photographers, our experiences have led us to hundreds of photographic gems. Among these are old barns, abandoned antique vehicles, and pioneer cabins, along with many other unforgettable locations," Linda said.
The book is designed for travellers who want more from their treks than museums or tourist traps. Most of the selected routes can be followed without the need for high-clearance vehicles, and none require four-wheel drive vehicles. But they do take you to locations most folks don't know, she said. Expect to find waterfalls, canyons and mountains, farms and ranches and iconic landscapes among the destinations.
Most route directions include the ideal times to start your journey for the best morning light and end with the best sunset locations available. Inevitably, some will be passed during less than ideal light, so Linda recommends marking those locations on your GPS for a return visit.
The authors have driven every route to ensure each trek's accuracy and attractions, from breathtaking scenery and landscapes to barns, antiques, railroad trestles and artefacts that still occupy these unique spaces and speak to Idaho's fascinating history. Journeys can run from 2-6 hours, and some recommend overnight stays to get the full value of the experience.
The authors have driven every route to ensure each trek's accuracy and attractions, from breathtaking scenery and landscapes to barns, antiques, railroad trestles and artefacts that still occupy these unique spaces and speak to Idaho's fascinating history.
The routes guide you from the nearest highway exit or town while providing valuable advice on the best vantage points. They also include cautions and warnings for trickier routes and other suggestions for making your journeys as safe, rewarding and comfortable as possible.
The guide is conveniently separated into regions. To the north, you'll find alpine lakes and hidden waterfalls, and winding rivers draining the snowpack from forested peaks, among other attractions. Central Idaho is a land of contrasts, with towns such as McCall and Stanley anchoring a region featuring some of Idaho's highest mountain peaks. To the south and west, the Owyhee Mountains and desert, towering sand dunes and deep canyon views, and a historic ghost town dominate the journeys, with showy spring wildflower displays to add delightful colour. To the east, the majestic Teton Range and Caribou Mountains reveal their secrets, along with a wildlife refuge and historic Chesterfield. It's a geological smorgasbord.
Shari has served as the Artist in Residence for the Idaho office of the Federal Bureau of Land Management in the Owyhee backcountry. She covers 10 routes in the guide, primarily in the south central region. Her wonderfully evocative images take viewers on "visual hikes" that reflect her deep love of the outdoors.
"I love the high desert, wide-open spaces and our deep canyon ravines with rivers and creeks to explore," she said.
Linda cites her deep love and appreciation for her home state and its geographic diversity for driving her passion.
"With every spare moment I can muster, I head out with my camera gear and my 4-wheel drive into Idaho's least-spoiled places," she said. "It is here, in solitude, where I gather my inspiration to find and photograph new routes and beauty along the way."
A North Idaho native and Coeur d’Alene resident, Linda began her photography career as a young teen and has been immersed in the medium ever since. She attended the Commercial Photography program at Spokane Falls Community College in 1987-1988, but gets her best training in the real world, in the field. Linda explores the roads less travelled, often in solitude, to capture the wild beauty and diversity of her home state. Her images reflect the region’s most breathtaking scenes, captured with striking and dramatic composition.
"I've wanted to be a landscape photographer for about as long as I can remember. As a 12-year-old I would take my little Kodak 110 pocket camera and climb the hills on our eastern Washington farm. From the top, I had a fantastic view of the valley where the mountains converged near the bottom and the mighty Columbia River was barely visible on a good day. My parents weren't too keen on paying for developing countless pictures from a 12 year old, so I learned to be selective about when was a good time to take another photo."
Light, of course, is the most important element in a photograph, and "nothing is as exciting as being in a great location and having amazing lighting conditions. I hope that this is translated to the viewer through my landscape photographs."
Family time pushed photography to the back burner for the next 15 years while she raised two boys.
Looking back at this time in my life I realise how I continued to learn, by always studying light and practising compositions in my mind even without a camera in hand.
"Looking back at this time in my life I realise how I continued to learn, by always studying light and practising compositions in my mind even without a camera in hand," she said. "When the time finally came to that I could re-devote my time to photography, I was more than ready. The next step was adapting my knowledge to the digital world. I spent three years making that transition and building a portfolio before testing responses to my work in different venues. Today I have many art clients that include medical facilities and corporate offices. I conduct a limited number of destination photo workshops in Idaho and continue to produce my yearly Idaho Scenic Calendar."
Like most photographers, she said, "I've always wanted to produce a book of my work, one that appeals to a large audience. The idea just evolved from there to become a photographers guide to help others see what I have seen and share the locations of photographic interest in our great state. As I drive its back roads in solitude, the new routes and photographic finds I make inspire me."
Linda said this book is the culmination of many years of work in Idaho.
"I plan to travel farther and let creativity dictate what and how I photograph," she said. "I do have a new project in mind, but plan on taking a breather before embarking on that journey."
Written and photographed by Linda and fellow Idaho photographer Shari Hart, "Discovering Idaho's Scenic Drives and Backroad Treasures" will take travellers along 48 lesser-known routes into Idaho's most scenic and iconic locations. The book is packed with detailed, turn-by-turn directions, key features along the way, and what to expect when you arrive at each location.
"It's written and designed with photographers in mind, but anyone wanting to see Idaho beyond the highway will find this guide invaluable," Linda said.
The book is 11x8.5 inch, softcover, 48 driving routes, 288 full colour pages, includes non-expiring coupons, QR codes to online maps, detailed driving directions, photo tips, and more!
Over seven years Tina has photographed the Louisiana wetlands and the glacial landscapes of the Arctic and the Antarctic. The project Lamentations is a series of diptychs that function as stories about climate change, ecological balance, and the connectedness of things across time and space. We talk to Tina to find out about the project and how it all started.
What sparked your passion for photography?
My father was an avid amateur photographer, and my grandfather made early 35mm films of his travels (unfortunately on nitrate-based stock, so they self-destructed). During our family outings, my father always had a Leica with him, and later a Minox. When I was twelve, someone offered to teach me how to use a darkroom. I jumped at the chance, in no small part because the offer came in the middle of the hot New Orleans summer.
Tell me about the photographers or artists that inspire you most. What books stimulated your interest in photography and who drove you forward, directly or indirectly, as you developed?
My parents subscribed to National Geographic, but it was the black and white images in Life magazine that captured my imagination. I would devour Life as soon as it came through the mail slot, especially savouring the work of Margaret Bourke-White and W. Eugene Smith.
While I was at the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, I became enamoured with Western photographers: Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham, and, to a lesser extent, Ansel Adams.
In my early twenties, Irving Penn’s sumptuous work—still lifes, portraits, platinum prints, and his voluptuous nudes—called to me. In about 1977 Henry Geldzahler introduced us at lunch in the curator’s dining room of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, an elegant room to the left of the entrance, where the coat check is today. I had been making colour Xerox prints of my work and showed them to him. Penn seemed a bit horrified at the idea that the color Xeroxes of the time, which were far different from the colour copies we have today, might be around forever.
When Penn offered me a job as an assistant, I instantly accepted. But the universe conspired to complicate my decision. Shortly after the meeting, the New Orleans Museum of Art offered me the curatorship of the photography collection. Strangely enough, I don’t remember my process in deciding to go back home, but I did.
Your background is in interior and architecture photography. How and why did you engage with landscape photography and what inspired that move?
After I graduated from Art Center, I felt portraiture was the most challenging area for me, so I embarked on photographing just about everyone I met: David Hockney, Andy Warhol, Diana Vreeland, Paloma Picasso, and many more. Then at some point, I realised the interiors surrounding the people also made a type of portrait. I began to make portraits without the people, hence the beginning of my interiors.
I was working primarily in black and white. Then, in the 1980s, I began to do commercial magazine work, and the editors specified that I use transparency film. My first assignment came out of a cold call to Connoisseur, the jewel in the crown of Hearst publishing. I decided this was where I wanted to work; I made an appointment, and they hired me. My first assignment turned out to be a cover and 13 images of a chateau in France.
What set me apart in those days was my use of what looked like natural lighting. I was striving to make the interiors look like they did when you were in the room. The overall style then was to over-light, balancing the exposure inside with the view outside the windows. By contrast, I would use a very small Dyna Lite strobe box with three heads to ensure that I filled the shadows a bit. When I shoot interiors today, I still use this same strobe.
Who has helped you in realising your photographic ambitions over the past few years?
The University of Louisiana at Lafayette Press published the Artist Spaces book as well as Lamentations. The Ogden Museum of Southern Art and Curator Bradley Sumrall, as well as the Paul and Lulu Hilliard University Art Museum and Director LouAnne Greenwald, exhibited Artist Spaces.
Susan Taylor, Director, and Russell Lord, Curator of Photography, at the New Orleans Museum of Art have nurtured the Lamentations project from its beginning, deciding a couple of years into the project to exhibit it and co-publish the book.
Your book "Artist Spaces New Orleans" gives a comprehensive portrait of the city's artists and their relationship to space. How did this series make you think about your photography and how interconnected that is with other aspects of your life?
I began shooting artists and their interiors in the 1970s. It was mostly portraits of the artists, but I was very aware of the interiors as well. In October of 1988, my photographs of Man Ray’s studio on Rue Ferou in Paris ran in Art and Antiques magazine: six images plus the cover. In August of 1988, in Connoisseur magazine, I photographed the very same interiors that J.M.W. Turner had painted in watercolours. This amazing assignment changed the way I saw my own spaces.
I photographed many other artists’ spaces before the book, but they were on film. It was easier to layout a book with digital images, so I used my first pro-level DSLR, starting in 2005 before Hurricane Katrina, and worked until 2014 on images for the book.
I was Curator of Photography at NOMA from 1977-1982. It was a heady time to be collecting photographs. The National Endowment for the Arts made a number of large grants that helped the museum purchase contemporary photographers’ work.
You were the Senior Curator of Photography at the New Orleans Museum of Art. What did this role entail?
I was Curator of Photography at NOMA from 1977-1982. It was a heady time to be collecting photographs. The National Endowment for the Arts made a number of large grants that helped the museum purchase contemporary photographers’ work.
I mounted numerous exhibitions including Diverse Images, an overview of the collection of the museum as it stood in 1978.
I was responsible for producing the following books:
Leslie Gill: A Classical Approach to Photography. New Orleans, La: New Orleans Museum of Art. 1984.
The Photographs of Mother St. Croix. New Orleans, La: New Orleans Museum of Art. 1982.
Diverse Images: Photographs from the New Orleans Museum of Art. Garden City, NY: Amphoto. 1979.
Also, I was responsible for numerous contributions to Arts Quarterly, New Orleans, La.
The photography collection in the NOMA is extensive, tell us more about the collection and a bit about the role of New Orleans in the history of photography.
The first documented photographs of New Orleans are daguerreotypes by Jules Leon made in 1840, only one year after Daguerre went public with the process in 1839.
My primary source for the following information is Russell Lord’s excellent 2018 book on the photography collection of the New Orleans Museum of Art, published by Aperture: Looking Again.
In April of 1918, the museum exhibited An Exhibition of Pictorial Photography by American Artists. The museum began its own collection of photography in 1973.
In 1932 there was an exhibition of Margaret Bourke-White’s work, and in 1936 and 1949, Clarence John Laughlin, the American Surrealist photographer, exhibited at the museum.
There were numerous exhibitions of photography in the 1950s and 60s. In 1973, John Bullard became the Director of the museum and began a collecting programme and by 1974 had a permanent Curator of Photography, making The New Orleans Museum of Art perhaps the first southeastern regional museum to have a permanent collection of photography. I was the second Curator of Photography.
The collection now numbers over twelve thousand images.
Over the past seven years, you have photographed the Louisiana wetlands, Arctic and Antarctic glaciers in your project "Lamentations" Where did it all start?
When I was about four, I went on a summer vacation with my parents to the mountains. The air was warm, however, pockets of snow remained in the shadows. I was terrified: this cold, white stuff made no sense. Perhaps this started my fascination.
When I was about four, I went on a summer vacation with my parents to the mountains. The air was warm, however, pockets of snow remained in the shadows. I was terrified: this cold, white stuff made no sense. Perhaps this started my fascination.
After working on Artist Spaces I was looking for another project. This series started with a trip to Antarctica in 2011 with about 80 other photographers. The undertaking was a huge commitment, but it opened the floodgates. I was utterly smitten with Antarctica and ice. I went on to visit Iceland, Greenland, Spitsbergen and again Antarctica on two more occasions.
I made the first wetland photographs on January 1, 2014, after a wonderful New Year’s Eve party at a duck camp near Morgan City, Louisiana. That day was magical, misty and mysterious. From that day I knew that the Louisiana wetlands were an under-appreciated subject and I wanted to do more work there.
In the project, you pair images from each place in a series of diptychs that function as stories about climate change, ecological balance, and the connectedness of things across time and space. How did you go about working out the pairings?
As I scoured the photographs I’d made of the wetlands and the ice fields, the pairs began to make themselves known. I had made hundreds of 4” x 6” commercial “drugstore” type prints, and I started matching pairs. Some that are in the book and exhibition are some of the first pairs and others were made as recently as a few months ago.
I taped the first groupings into a sketchbook, then I put them on my magnetic wall. For a year, I worked on them methodically.
How did you plan the images that you wanted to capture—both in terms of locations and messages that you wanted the stories to tell?
When I started shooting on location either in ice or wetlands, I was looking for a specific type of image. This iceberg is one of my favourites. I went looking for a pair and found it in.
The two locations tell the story without much interpretation. Louisiana‘s three million acres of wetlands are disappearing at the rate of about 75 square kilometres annually. Sea level rise is one of many factors. The melting of the glaciers contributes to sea-level rise.
The two locations tell the story without much interpretation. Louisiana‘s three million acres of wetlands are disappearing at the rate of about 75 square kilometres annually. Sea level rise is one of many factors. The melting of the glaciers contributes to sea-level rise.
Lamentations makes plain the crucial, threatening, and global dialogue between water in two physical states. How did this theme evolve as the key story of the project?
I am a native of Louisiana. When I was young, I went fishing with my family. We stayed on a boat in the marsh between forays into open water. My deep appreciation for the abundance, fecundity, and beauty of “my” wetlands started back then. As I became more enamoured with the places that produce ice, I realized the very close connection between the two landscapes.
For several years I sat on a national committee for conservation. As a member, I wrote two reports a year – for part of my time I reported on toxins and air quality. In researching the topic and listening to other reports, I became more and more aware of the changes that are taking place. I continue to write and present on the environment.
You have spent the past seven years on the project. Tell us more about how you managed the time on the project? What took the longest? What challenges were there?
When I photograph, I can never gauge the amount of time I have been working: Time seems to stand still.
The most significant investment was committing the financial resources to travel. Travelling for work was integral to my commercial photography in the 1980s. Because I was a location photographer, my clients were footing the bill. It was a shock to write that first check for my initial trip to Antarctica.
Perhaps my biggest challenge was learning to use my digital gear. There continues to be a learning curve, and I continue to swear I will go back to my trusty Hasselblad or 4 x 5 view camera. I am not ruling it out.
How did the project evolve? Did you have to refine the vision of what you wanted to achieve?
The pairs needed a lot of refining and repairing. Some images have up to three possible partners. At one point I wanted to maximize the number of pairs so I “speed paired” as many images as quickly as possible in about 24 hours. Most of those pairs didn’t work out. Several times I woke up and another pair had come to me in the middle of the night. The lasting work began to take shape after methodical processing. Eventually ah ha moments revealed an indelible communication between certain pairs.
What's your personal interest in this subject?
I was born in New Orleans and have lived here most of my life. When Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, it became obvious that the storm surge was caused by the loss of wetlands and barrier islands. If we hadn’t lost 25 miles of our coast, south of New Orleans, the storm surge would have been 10 feet lower: every 2.5 miles of wetlands mitigate 1 foot of storm surge.
Your project Lamentations is exhibiting at New Orleans Museum of Art. Tell us more about the exhibition. How did it come about?
Originally the University of Louisiana at Lafayette Press was going to publish the book. As we were readying for publication, Susan Taylor, Director of NOMA, and Russell Lord, Curator of Photography, offered to partner with UL Press, and mount an exhibition of the images.
Could you tell us a little about the cameras and lenses you typically take on a trip and how they affect your photography?
Getting used to the enormous kit usually carried by digital folks is difficult. That first trip to Antarctica I had a 24-70mm and a 100-400mm lens; that was it. I now generally have the 24-70mm and a longer lens and, lately, a wider lens. Changing lenses is a real problem due to dust on the sensor (yes, Antarctica has a lot of dust) so it is best to have two bodies. I have started renting the second body and quite often a long lens. That is the smart way for me, since I rarely use very long lenses, and the gear seems to change so quickly. That first trip to Antarctica was the first time I had shot serious images without a tripod.
How do you create the 'look' of your images (i.e. film, post processing, etc.)?
Having shot Fuji 400 ISO Provia for so long, I try to make my images look like the images I saw printed from transparencies; less sharpening, less contrast and less saturation than the typical digital image. I did a book on colour in 1992 (Color: Natural Palettes for Painted Rooms. New York, NY: Clarkson Potter) and after testing many transparency films, this one rendered the most accurate colour to my eyes.
Tell us more about the printing and framing of the images for the exhibition. E.g. paper, size, etc
There are 52 images printed in pairs on Moab Entrada Rag Natural paper – 26 prints of pairs, each pair printed on the same piece of paper. The prints are sprayed and mounted on Dibond and then framed without glass or plastic.
I want them to think about why the images are in pairs, and finally, to realize that the frozen water in one frame may soon end up inundating the wetlands in our backyard.
There are three groups of sizes: Large (31.375 x 81.375”), Medium (19.775 x 51.075”), and Small (12.175 x either 26.775 or 31.275”), plus one extra large image (21.875 x 89.375”) and one single image (27.275 x 36.075). There are 7 small images, 15 medium images and 4 large images along with one single image in the exhibition.
In the introduction Susan Taylor, Montine McDaniel Freeman Director of NOMA says “Living in South Louisiana, we are all familiar with the reality of a rising sea level and the impact that it has begun to have on our lives. Lamentations is not NOMA’s first project to address how our relationship to water here in the Gulf region links us to a global concern, but it is the first to define through images our connection to faraway glacial regions." Through photography, are you hoping that the urgency of climate change will influence people's actions? What messages do you want people to take away from the exhibition and book?
I want the images to seduce the viewer: first, I want them to see the staggering beauty of what surrounds us, to fall in love with our Earth, to view her fragility and seeming timelessness. Second, I want them to think about why the images are in pairs, and finally, to realize that the frozen water in one frame may soon end up inundating the wetlands in our backyard.
Tell me about your favourite or most significant two or three diptychs from the book.
The first pair I used for my cover mock-ups, until the very end when we chose another image, which I love. The left is a tabular iceberg in the Weddell Sea, famous for these huge bergs. The image on the right was taken on the first day of my formal shooting of the wetlands.
Ice seemingly seeking its pair in the water field. The iceberg on the left is one of my favourites, perhaps due to its odd sense of movement. I have printed it in many ways: Platinum/palladium, salt, B&W and colour.
If one of our readers were thinking about embarking upon a large project similar to yours, what insights and learnings would you give them?
As cliché as it is to say, it is mandatory to follow your passion. The passion is what makes it work.
I don’t know when it started for me, but I lose myself in the shoot. I once had an editor that said to me that I was the only photographer he had worked with that didn’t drive him to take Prozac.
I am grateful for an outside eye to edit. I have always known this, and I could not have done the series all by myself. I am especially thankful to Russell Lord at the New Orleans Museum of Art.
What is next for you? Where do you see your photography going in terms of subject and style?
For the last five years, I have been working on very large platinum/palladium prints with a master printer (due to the size). The plan is to have ten different images of icebergs.
For the last five years, I have been working on very large platinum/palladium prints with a master printer (due to the size). The plan is to have ten different images of icebergs.
The beautiful thing about icebergs as landscape subjects is that no matter how iconic they are, they change on a relatively constant basis. You can go to a museum or gallery or online and see an image of the “Yosemite Half Dome” and go photograph it for yourself. But you can’t do that with an image of glacial ice, it just won't be the same. I love that.
I am a “straight photographer”: what is there is there; what is not is not. Photographing the wetlands has its challenges — for instance, lack of an object like mountains in the far distance. Therefore, clouds and an interesting sky are mandatory. We have a lot of pure blue skies here in Louisiana that will rule out shooting on those days.
Generally shooting from equinox to equinox in the summer is not possible because of the sky, the heat, and the light. Being at 30 degrees north latitude, we are at the same latitude as the pyramids in Egypt. In the middle of the summer, there are no shadows; the sunlight comes straight down, and the shadows disappear – Fall and Winter are the only times to shoot. Then we go out at dawn and are generally back by 10 am.
I plan on continuing to make smaller images that will be palladium and gum prints. I want to change the tone of the prints subtly – the problem with printing icebergs with palladium is warm tonality; I am trying to shift that very slightly to cool.
I don’t feel I have been successful with printing the wetlands in platinum/palladium. Perhaps salt or another medium would be more appropriate.
I have always liked to tackle areas of photography that are a challenge to me. Some shots of birds were in the original pairs in Lamentations. They didn’t make the cut because they just weren’t as good as I wanted them to be, which prompts me to say that I might do some work with birds.
My friend and boat owner John Williams and I plan on continuing our exploration of Louisiana’s wetlands. Also, I am not finished photographing ice. Next summer I will be back in Greenland.
To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing. ~ Elbert Hubbard
We live in an era of easily won praise. Post a photo to any of the online forums and you are guaranteed that some people will like it – your partner and your mother at the very least. Bingo! Our brains get a little hit of dopamine and our reward pathways are stimulated. Yay, we feel good! Well, so what? It’s natural to assume that this means your photograph is ‘good’. After all, likes are equivalent to a score. Right? It’s an easy leap to further assume that posting images that score better than the first will mean that you’re on the ‘right path’. You can discount those that garner fewer likes – even if it was only because your mum’s computer died.
Sadly none of that is true. More likes doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a better photographer. The image above is the most liked photo on Instagram. What this proves to me is that the ability to build social networks is more important than the artistic worth of an image. More likes might also mean that you’re good at making images with widespread appeal. Popularity doesn’t automatically equate to artistic ability. It may do, but it’s much more likely that it doesn’t. Indeed many in the art world consider the opposite to be true. One of my college lecturers told me that if thirty percent of my images receive popular acclaim I would be doing really badly. A five percent approval rating would be a much better sign of success. He was making the point that we shouldn’t be striving to be liked but rather doing our utmost to be the best photographer we can be.
The question is, how? Measured against what? The answers may not be popular…
Some consider this the ‘snowflake’ generation. Most people in the self-styled First World have grown up in an age without real hardship. Wars are distant affairs, famines even more so (in the West we are many times more likely to die of obesity than starvation). Hard manual work is rare, exercise a choice. Anything we want is just a few key presses away. Political correctness guards against our fragile self-worth being dented. (Don’t get me wrong, some things should NEVER be said.) Consequently, we are thought to be less resilient, more prone to taking offence than previous generations and less able to take criticism.
Fear our work is not appreciated leads to us being risk averse. A lack of “Likes” is seen as an implied criticism, although often with little justification. Yet we can only truly be creative if we take chances with our work.
Fear is the mortal enemy of originality. Fear our work is not appreciated leads to us being risk averse. A lack of “Likes” is seen as an implied criticism, although often with little justification. Yet we can only truly be creative if we take chances with our work. These phrases may be clichés but creativity is “thinking outside the box”, “pushing the envelope”, and “risking all”! There are no easy options for innovation; no failsafe recipes exist for making interesting and moving art. Any recipe is implicitly unimaginative. At least some of the time we should all opt to explore regions unknown to us, employing techniques untested by us.
There’s another fear that’s equally damaging: the fear of explicit criticism. The fear of critical comments about what we have created is also normative. This fear is closely allied to the fear of not being liked but subtly different. They are like opposite sides of a coin with two tails; whichever way up it lands you lose.
Canary Wharf – a mini metropolis, a civic transformation, an urban district, a home… however, we describe this unique east London enclave it is undeniably a feat in construction. Having celebrated its 30th birthday only last year the transformation from derelict wasteland to skyscraper city is incredible.
Over the last 6 years, I have studied the ever changing architectural landscape of Canary Wharf. I have not however sought to visually re-represent the buildings that confront us on a daily basis. Instead, I have looked to Canary Wharf’s other identifiable feature, and its raison d’etre; the mass of water that surrounds it.
Abstracted:Architecture is a study of the buildings in and around Canary Wharf as they relate to the bodies of water that surround them. Initially starting as pure reflections, already abstract in themselves, I have sought to extend the abstraction to create something the eye can’t immediately recognise. Using in camera multiple exposures and blending modes, my resultant images are intended to be peaceful and meditative – a stark contrast to the chaos inherent to the buildings from which they are derived.
The images themselves are produced purely from within the camera. Their abstraction a result of the prevailing weather, patience, skill and an understanding of subject matter for a successful image. My intense levels of vigilance enable me to notice things that would normally get missed. The whole process is a form of meditation and reflection, I often photograph the same area of water for 3 or 4 hours and producing over 1000 multiple exposed images just to get one “perfect” image, without the use of photoshop. Post production is limited purely to contrast and levels adjustments with the intention of presenting the viewer with an honest representation of what the camera saw.
Abstracted:Architecture will coincide with Anise Gallery’s participation in Open House London 2019. I will be giving two free tours of the exhibition as part of Open House, the details and times are below.
Artist talks as part of Open House London
Saturday 21 September: Artist Tour 3pm
Exhibition Open 10am – 5pm
Sunday 22 September: Artist Tour 12pm
Exhibition Open 10am – 1pm
Anise Gallery is located on historic Shad Thames near London Bridge station just past the former Design Museum building and opposite Conran’s head office. It is situated near to Bermondsey Street, the home of the Fashion and Textiles Museum and White Cube and within 5 minute walk of the fantastic Maltby Street Market.
Nearest Transport
London Bridge (10 mins) for Underground and National Rail
Where we start in photography is rarely where we end up. Education and career choices don’t always favour or follow our interests; the important thing is to maintain these until life and time combine to allow us to pursue them more single-mindedly. For this issue we’re returning to Colorado which is home to Dan Baumbach, to find out more about his photographic lives and loves, and how he is finding life after work as a full-time artist.
Would you like to start by telling readers a little about yourself – where you grew up, your early interests and studies, and what that led you to do as a career? How did your father being an artist affect what you did, and didn’t, want to do?
I grew up in Brooklyn, NY, USA. My father was an artist and though he brought in some money from art sales and teaching, my mom was the main breadwinner of the family. I think that affected me a lot in that I initially went into commercial photography and then became a computer programmer and earned a good living for my working life.
Art was extremely important in our household. My parents would go to Manhattan most weekends to visit art galleries. For the summer we often vacationed with other artists in places like Woodstock and Provincetown. I was exposed to a lot of painting and painters, but I never saw myself as becoming a painter. Cameras and taking photographs always appealed to me, beginning when I was about 8 and my mom gave me her Kodak Brownie box camera. When my older brother took a photography course in high school, I too became more involved and started playing with candid photographs of people on the street.
I knew very little about the history and art of photography but I would use my 127 film SLR to shoot candids. One day when I was 15 I met this boy with two Nikon Fs on his shoulders doing the same. I was just playing, but Stephen was very serious. Steven turned out to be 16 years old Stephen Shore. He became a mentor and friend to me for a number of years, encouraging me to get better equipment, and opened up the world of street and art photography for me.
I loved the art of photography, but from my father and his friends, I wanted nothing to do with being an artist so when the opportunity to assist one of the top advertising photographers in NYC came up, I grabbed it.
This early love led initially to a career in commercial photography. What prompted you to move away from that, and then to again pick up a camera after a prolonged period away from photography?
I realised that success in my pursuits was not going to bring me happiness. Happiness or really contentment came from within and I was sorely lacking in that kind of happiness..
For a few years, I made a good living freelancing as an assistant to different commercial photographers. It was a lot of fun and it also gave me time to work on a portfolio. I was attracted to fashion photography because it seemed the most creative area of commercial photography. Even though I thought I was going to be a businessman, I was still more interested in doing art. I just didn’t want to be a suffering, broke, artist.
Today, a chilly autumn afternoon, I am taking one of my favourite walks. I’d like to say it is a regular walk but I take it perhaps only two or three times a year. Despite this, the focus of the walk is often in my thoughts and always in view as I draw closer to the village in which I have made my home in rural Aberdeenshire in the North East of Scotland. That focus is Barra Hill, an iron-age hill-fort that defines the landscape surrounding the village where I live, rising up a few hundred feet above the old cottages, narrow backstreets and new estates that make up the community’s housing. Even the name of the village – Oldmeldrum - is drawn from the prominent flattened dome of the hill.
The presence of the fort and the association with Robert the Bruce – first king of an Independent Medieval Scotland – lead some place-name interpretations for Oldmeldrum to mean old royal hill.
Meldrum is likely a derivative of an old Gaelic conflation of meall-droma, or the Celtic Mealldruim, both of which mean hill of the ridge. The original settlement was located on the hill from around 500 BC up to 400 AD. The presence of the fort and the association with Robert the Bruce – first king of an Independent Medieval Scotland – lead some place-name interpretations for Oldmeldrum to mean old royal hill. And regal it is, rising in a dignified sort of way above the village and clearly flattened and ridged at its crown: remnants of the ditch and earthen wall fortifications encircling the crest of the hill.
Once I leave the modern private housing estate in which I live, with the signature cul-de-sacs, driveways, neat frontages and expensive cars of suburbia, the view begins to open out and the full expanse of the hill lies before me. From here the flattened top is very obvious, and the old network of ringed ditches and walls surrounding it. On its western flank, a ring of trees sprout from a tumulus marking the burial ground of the long decomposed, prehistoric dead.
Before crossing the busy road leading to the centre of the village where I can pick up a farm track heading toward the hill, I pass a large boulder perched on a grass verge at the roundabout linking the B9170 from Inverurie and the road giving access to a small industrial estate. This is ‘Bruce’s Seat’: reputedly the very boulder Robert the Bruce sat upon to survey the progress of the Battle of Barra, and moved from its original position on the hill.
The Battle of Barra, also known as the Battle of Inverurie due to its closeness to the larger market town a few miles to the southwest, was fought on 23rd May 1308. Traditionally associated with the wider Wars of Scottish Independence, it was more accurately part of a bitter civil war fought for the Scottish Crown. It was a victory for Robert the Bruce over his enemy, the third Earl of Buchan, John Comyn, but amounted to an ignoble burning of the homes and farms of the district by Bruce’s men in the infamous Harrying of Buchan. And here lies his seat, from which he may have watched the proceedings of the battle that led to this slaughter, and to which we now attach the stories of bloody history. Here, it says. In this place, remember.
Leaving Bruce’s seat behind, I head for the farm-track which gently climbs away from the road and up toward the woods at the base of the hill. The air is cold, and my breath billows out ahead of me before being swept back and away across the fields, dispersing quickly to invisibility. Before too long I reach the end of the farm track and join a minor road heading roughly southeast to connect with another single track road leading to Bourtie, circling the woodland at the base of the hill. Another tree-ringed tumulus sits aside from the woods, and just visible, crowning the rise of a distant hill beyond a farm, are the heads of low stones arranged in a deliberate fashion.
This is Sheldon stone circle. Only six stones in the circle itself remain upright, but its total diameter of over thirty metres and its prominence on the hill suggests the location was an important place from the late Neolithic to the early Bronze Age. Originally it is thought that up to fourteen stones may have been in situ, and speculation exists about the possibility of there once being a Recumbent stone as seen in other circles close by.
The design is thought to be associated with beliefs and rituals centred on the moon since their alignments coincide with the arc of the southern moon. There are over two hundred such stones currently known in these two enigmatically linked regions, and the absence of one at Sheldon makes it relatively unique in the area.
Recumbent stones, that is, large monoliths placed lying on their sides within a ring of upright stones, are found only in Aberdeenshire and in Cork and Kerry in southwest Ireland. Why this unique feature should exist only in these two seemingly unconnected regions is still a mystery: whether there was a sharing of ideas between the peoples of these two areas in the Neolithic, or the parallel usage of Recumbent stones only a coincidence. The design is thought to be associated with beliefs and rituals centred on the moon since their alignments coincide with the arc of the southern moon. There are over two hundred such stones currently known in these two enigmatically linked regions, and the absence of one at Sheldon makes it relatively unique in the area. Two of the outlying Sheldon stones are known to align tantalizingly with the sunrise on the Celtic festivals of Beltane and Imbolc.
Beltane is the anglicised name for the Gaelic May Day festival, known in Irish Gaelic as Lá Bealtaine and in Scottish Gaelic as Là Bealltainn, occurring about mid way between the spring equinox and summer solstice. The May Day festival features in some of the earliest medieval Irish Literature and Mythology and marked the beginning of the pastoral season when livestock would be driven out to summer pastures. A great bonfire would be lit, the smoke and ash of which was thought to have special protective powers. The fires in the hearths of all the homes would be doused and relit with flame from the Beltane fire, and it is tempting to imagine the early people of Sheldon following similar rituals at the turn of the season, marked by the rising sun over one of these two outlying stones beyond the circle.
Imbolc marks the beginning of spring, midway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox at the beginning of February. It was a festival widely observed throughout Scotland, Ireland and the Isle of Man. Like Beltane, Imbolc is mentioned in the earliest Irish Literature and has ancient roots in the pagan worship of the fertility goddess Brigid, later Christianised by being morphed into the celebration of Saint Brigid. At Imbolc, it was said that Brigid would visit each home. Folk would make up a bed for her, leaving out food and drink. A Brídeóg, a figurine representing Brigid, would be paraded from house to house to protect homes and livestock. Feasts were laid on and holy wells visited, themselves originating in the pagan worship of natural springs.
The road now steeply climbs in a southwesterly direction, skirting managed forestry land to the west and hilly open fields to the east. On reaching Bourtie, rather than turning off to head for the hill itself I continue on to the little kirk set back from the road. Bourtie is a tiny hamlet tucked away amongst trees and the folds of the fields. The humble kirk there claims over eight hundred years of Christian worship but the current building dates from 1806. Many of the stones extant in the small graveyard surrounding the church trace local families from the present day back to the 17th century. However, I have come to try to get a glimpse of a stone with older markings still. Built into the coursework of the church itself is a faded Pictish symbol stone, set high in the right hand corner of the south wall.
These enigmatic stones, incised and carved with symbols and other, more complex designs, are all that visibly remains of Pictish culture. The stones are found generally north of the Firth-Clyde line, east of the country to the Moray coast and into modern day Inverness-shire and Caithness. They reveal a transitional period in history between a now lost pagan culture and early Christianity, with earlier designs of unknown meaning becoming incorporated with Christian symbology in later examples.
I find the stone in the wall, but can barely make out the incised markings, which apparently consist of a crescent and ‘V-rod’ shape, along with a double disc symbol and the so-called commonly found ‘Z-rod’. There are also the remains of a comb and mirror outline. What these symbols mean is anyone’s guess, though studies carried out on common symbols by mathematicians at the University of East Anglia may suggest a form of writing which yet remains undecipherable. After squinting unsuccessfully up at the stone for some minutes, I leave the churchyard and Bourtie’s kirk to head for the hill.
The hill is steeped in mythology and lore, said to be the intersection of the country’s ley lines, and once held a colony of crofters on its lower flanks until the late 1800s. Tap o’ Noth, or ‘Hill of the North’, is another hill-fort with evidence of occupation from around 2000 BC to around 800 BC.
The summit is visible ahead, its dome rounding away from me toward the peaks of Bennachie and Tap o’ Noth to the west and northwest. Bennachie is the most famous hill of the area, and its most prominent peak amongst the three that make up distinct summits along the high ridge of the hill, Mither Tap, is the site of a once powerful Pictish hill-fort. The hill is steeped in mythology and lore, said to be the intersection of the country’s ley lines, and once held a colony of crofters on its lower flanks until the late 1800s. Tap o’ Noth, or ‘Hill of the North’, is another hill-fort with evidence of occupation from around 2000 BC to around 800 BC. It is a scheduled ancient monument, and with an elevation of 563 m is the second highest hill-fort in Scotland: the highest being found in total ruin at the summit of Ben Griam Beg in Sutherland. The stone foundations of more than one hundred houses have been found within its expansive vitrified walls, occurring through the after-effects of intense heat. This is a phenomenon found at many hill-fort sites; once believed to be the result of burning of the timber and stone wall structure in an attack, it is now thought that it was a technique used to strengthen the ramparts, fusing the rocks together in deliberate heating.
Bennachie
After passing through a short section of young woodland along the Meldrum-Bourtie community footpath, I climb the last rise across the open flank of the hill towards the summit. As I approach, the eastern entrance to the hill-fort through the earthen banks and ditches becomes visible, clearly defined in the ridges around the hill. I have an uncanny feeling of trespass as I move from the open hillside into what was once the fort, as though the ghosts of Pictish warriors still guard the ramparts, and there’s an eeriness to the emptiness of this old enclosure.
The slope of the hill falls away steeply on its western side down to the old battle site of Bruce and Comyn, now farmers’ fields, furrowed and ploughed. Oldmeldrum is also laid out at my feet: its old village centre, the new houses at its outskirts, and the small industrial estate slowly growing at its southern borders. Silent cars make their way around the new by-pass and I watch a passenger-jet traverse the sky in a wide circuit for the airport at Dyce as if in slow motion.
I think about the people that lived out their lives on the slopes of Bennachie, the Neolithic farmers at Sheldon and Bourtie gazing at the heavens, marking the seasons and their dead, the Picts, the medieval soldiers and householders who lost their lives here: the almost unimaginable thread of life stretching back, through and beyond this landscape. Then I stand, grab my rucksack and camera, and head down the hill back toward modernity and home.
I don’t know if it was before or after my trip to London that I decided to write an article on ticks and Lyme disease but since I did start writing, my level of Lyme disease paranoia has been a bit scary. As a photographer, I’m out and about in the landscape quite a lot and in the Highlands area where we live, we’ve had specific warnings about the prevalence of the disease. I’ve taken some precautions, I’ve treated my socks and trousers with Permethrin and rarely wear shorts (and have horrendous pale blue legs as a result) and thankfully have not had any ticks in the past couple of years. However, after hearing about a handful of locals being treated for Lyme disease and recently discovering that it’s the smallest, almost invisible nymph stage of ticks (about the size of poppy seeds) that are the most likely to give you Lyme disease, I thought it worth investigating further.
I mentioned London earlier and it was on this trip to help with the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition that I think I started my worry about Lyme disease. The day after arriving I suffered from a horrible case of sinusitis which included raised lymph glands and a stiff neck. During the journey back I picked up my ‘to do’ article list for On Landscape and picked out the ticks/Lyme article to develop (was this subliminal? maybe). As I worked my way through this I started to discover some quite scary things about ticks and the disease.
Lyme Disease and Ticks
Despite the rumours that Lyme disease was introduced by the US government, it is thought that it actually has a very long history, along with many other tick distributed infections. In fact, it is probably safe to say that ticks have been one of the primary distributors of illness in history (after mosquitos). We discovered the association between ticks and these infections early in the 20th Century but we only really learned some of the idiosyncrasies of how these infections work more recently. The type of bacteria that causes Lyme disease is called a spirochaete, a spiral shaped bacteria that is also behind Syphilis and other relapsing fevers i.e. illnesses that recur many times. It is also, possibly, the bacteria that cause Alzheimer's! Spirochaete have an extraordinary ability to hide within the human body (due to lack of proteins on their surface inhibiting immune response for instance), and they can also mutate away from immune reaction and return in force. It is also difficult to culture them outside of the body (two reasons why diagnosis is difficult - tests may take place between bouts or may not return enough material to diagnose).
One of the scariest aspects of Lyme disease is its resistance to antibiotics. Even if you catch the signs early and your doctor is aware enough to provide a rigorous course of antibiotics, there is still a chance (about 10%) of seeing symptoms for many years after (see Post Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome). The reason why isn’t totally understood but it could be the ability for the bacteria to get past boundaries within the body that are supposedly resistant to infection (the meninges for instance) which can give neurological symptoms even after strong antibiotics or it might be leftovers of the bacteria or neurological damage. And the symptoms can be awful, in some cases deadly. Memory loss, palsy, muscle failure, dementia, heart disease, coma, paralysis - you name it, Lyme disease seems to be able to cause it.
That such a virulent disease has no vaccine is quite odd. In fact, Lyme disease did have a vaccine but the ‘anti-vaxxers’ were so vehement and combined with the modern litigious nature of society, it soon became uneconomical. The only vaccine available now is for your pets - which is quite insane!
Symptoms
So, after my sinusitis and the start of my article, I started to feel odd aches and pains, especially an odd ache in my shins. As I was researching Lyme disease anyway, I looked up both sinusitis and shin pain and lo and behold, they are both symptoms! “OK”, I’m thinking, “Get your head together, you’re being paranoid. If you had Lyme disease you would get the target mark (see photos below).”. However, it turns out only about 60% of people get the classic bullseye mark. Oh dear - now I’m worried. Then I find an odd mark on my ankle with a bite in the middle which has a sort of ring shape. Fortunately, the aching and the marks could easily be explained by the large amount of climbing I had done in the previous week and I had also been shifting of logs from a forest nearby so is probably one of a bunch of bruises I got. The ring-shaped mark on my ankle could just be one of those bruises and the bite is almost certainly a midge bite (just like the other two nearby). As I’ve mentioned, the non-specific nature of Lyme disease just makes you paranoid. I wondered if I was just a victim of confirmation bias and so picked a random set of symptoms that I’ve had over my life and checked whether they were also symptoms of Lyme disease - and yes they were. It turns out that Lyme can cause a vast number of symptoms.
Here are the range of possible Lyme disease rash patterns. Not all instances of the disease have the bullseye rash!
The progression of the bullseye rash takes multiple weeks. A growing rash is the main thing to look out for if it's not a bullseye
Geography of Lyme disease
Lyme disease may have got its name from a town in Connecticut in the US but it’s a worldwide problem from the UK to Australia. It’s odd that it does have a geographic distribution within these countries (i.e. some places ticks carry it, some don’t) which is probably to do with the environment for the disease pool, small mammals, and the weather conditions for ticks (not too dry). Shown below are distribution maps of the US, Europe and details of the UK drawn from various sources. Within these country boundaries, the hotspots are probably grassy areas with leaf litter i.e. woodland and brackeny paths.
Preventing Lyme Disease
I now realise that because Lyme disease is so hard to spot, diagnose and treat and it’s subsequent debilitating symptoms, it’s absolutely essential to spend the time trying to prevent getting bitten in the first place. And don’t think that because you don’t walk in the wilderness that you’re not at risk. It seems the most dangerous activity is walking your dog in semi-urban areas! Many guidelines say to avoid grassy areas and stay on paths - like that’s going to work for us landscape photographers!
So what can we do to help prevent getting bit. The good news is that the transfer of enough bacteria to cause a problem takes an average of about 24-36 hours and so you have enough time to check for them and remove them. Symptoms don’t normally appear for a couple of weeks either so if you do get bitten, make a note of when you did so you can check later.
Understanding how Lyme disease hosting ticks find you might help also. Unlike many insects, they don’t chase people, jump or swarm, etc. In fact for most of their few years alive they just hide in the leaf litter. When they want to eat, once a year perhaps, they climb up the nearest plant, probably a blade of grass or a branch of a shrub, and wait for something to pass. They detect the heat, lactic acid and/or carbon dioxide and then wave their arms in the air in a process called “questing”. At the end of the arms they have articulated hooks. If you get within range, they ‘velcro’ themselves onto your clothes or hair. Once attached, they spend a few hours climbing, trying to find a nice warm crevice, quite often just a place where tight clothes meet skin, underwear line is common or a crease in the skin behind a knee or armpit. Once there, they then start of “dig in”. If you’re sitting in one place however, you may also encounter some nymph ticks as they wander in the undergrowth. Here’s a good video about how ticks ‘work’.
Avoiding Getting Bitten
You can take some reasonable steps to prevent them latching on in the first place. The most effective repellant strategy is to treat your clothes, especially your socks and trousers, with Permethrin and also to spray your ankles with DEET (or Picaridin e.g. Smidge but it doesn’t work as well as DEET against ticks). On top of this, be wary of picking up ticks from your rucksack or coat as you sit down to take a break. A buff treated with permethrin goes some way to preventing ticks reaching your hairline (where it’s hard to check for them).
This isn’t meant to be a comprehensive guide on what to do, I’ve decided to post this article just to raise some additional awareness of a few facts I’ve discovered that weren’t obvious from the literature out there.
You don’t have to be an adventurer to get ticks, more people encounter them in semi-urban areas and parks than in the mountains
You’ve got 24 hours to find those ticks after any activity so check (and try to get a partner to check perhaps - even if only occasionally for bullseye marks).
You’re more likely to have a problem with nymph stage ticks and they’re very easy to overlook. Wearing light clothing helps you spot them.
Permethrin on clothing is incredibly effective in killing ticks or making them drop off or quickly die if not. You can buy pre-treated clothing from Craghoppers - Nosilife brand socks, pants and trousers make sense, Buff also make treated Buffs. Alternatively, you can spray on Sawyer’s Permethrin to make any clothing insect repellent (be aware it can kill cats until it is completely dried out though).
Finally, don’t get paranoid like me, just be wary of odd, unrelated symptoms and keep an eye on odd skin marks (marking their boundary with a pen is useful. If they grow then see a doctor).
I’m 99% certain my own symptoms are unrelated but the power of the mind to make you worry is incredible. The vast majority of the time you’ll be worrying unnecessarily but it’s worth being aware of these things just in case.
I chose to write about this photograph quite simply because it is in my eyes completely beautiful. Sometimes as photographers we are so busy creating ‘the image’ that we forget to really appreciate the beauty of what we see as we take the image, surrounded by nature at its best, whatever the weather. Hengki Koentjoro is evidently very in-tune with his surroundings in Indonesia and the charm and atmosphere that surrounds him. As he writes about his gallery Altitude: ‘It’s one of the utmost forms of joy in life: the delight of waking up in the youngest hour of the morning, racing with the break of dawn to ascend the height of the earth.’
What I love about this particular image, Altitude 2, is the delicacy of the leaves, which contrasts against the solidity of the tree trunks as they rise up through the image while the light spreads mist-like down through the trees. This type of composition is seen often but rarely captured with such skill where the features work together to create an image which is greater than the sum of each part. It creates a sensation of warmth and air and has a gentle ephemeral feel. From a more technical point of view, I like the way this two-dimensional image creates three-dimensional space, moving the eye up and through the trees into the dawn light above. In this image, Hengki creates both movement and texture. The image draws you in and holds your attention so you look through and around the frame again and again. It’s the sort of image I would never tire of looking at in my own home or elsewhere.
Welcome to our 4x4 feature which is a set of four mini landscape photography portfolios submitted from our subscribers. Each portfolios consisting of four images related in some way.
Submit Your 4x4 Portfolio
Interested in submitting your work? We're on the lookout for new portfolios for the next few issues, so please do get in touch!
I visited Dail Beag bay on the West coast of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides on a dull grey day. Rather than the broader view, I found myself looking at the near landscape and more specifically an area a few meters square. Breaking waves and the subsequent receding water meant the golden sand and contrasting black rock grains were constantly rearranging into an infinite variety of patterns.
Taking around two dozen shots, I'd stood in more or less the same spot for only five minutes. Despite the restriction on time and location, the scene was incredibly dynamic, endlessly shifting with the rhythm of the sea. Not my usual type of images, but always aware of the need to match my photography to the conditions I was happy with them as a set.
While I still enjoy taking shots of grand vistas in dramatic lighting conditions my recent work has tended towards more intimate details of the landscape. I find this approach more personal and that it provides for better individual expression. These shots are taken in a number of locations including Glen Affric, Forest of Dean and Yorkshire arboretum but hopefully have a common feel about them. It is the relationship between the images that is more important to me than the particular location. I often use multiple exposures and ICM in my photography and unsurprisingly have been influenced by the work of Valda Bailey, Doug Chinnery, Sandra Bartocha and Nel Talen.
When I came to Alaska in 1981, a trip to Portage Lake to see glacial ice up close was a treat that everyone took for granted. The Portage Glacier was rapidly receding. It had retreated from its submerged moraine in Portage Lake and with nothing to support it, the portion of the glacier in the lake was breaking up. I began a project to photograph the Portage valley in the mid-1990’s with the intent of demonstrating that the valley was of visual interest even without the glacier itself.
Even after the glacier itself was no longer visible, I think that everyone assumed that icebergs would be discharged into the lake forever. Climate change was not part of our vocabulary then. Most people, myself included, didn’t realise that the glacier would continue to retreat until its terminus was sufficiently far from the shoreline that it would no longer calve into the lake except in rare circumstances. So it’s unlikely that anyone will make photographs similar to these for hundreds if not thousands of years.
The value of these images for me goes beyond their documentary value. I’ve always been moved by what I’ve seen in the valley, and I hope that you are, too.
From the time of the Vikings onwards, the settlements of man have been dwarfed by the magnificent mountains of Greenland.
Hvalsey is the site of Greenland's largest, best-preserved Viking ruins. Erik the Red, a Viking explorer, sailed to "a somewhat mysterious and little-known land" in 982. When Erik returned to Iceland, he brought with him stories of "Greenland". Erik deliberately gave the land a more appealing name than "Iceland" in order to lure potential settlers. The farmstead of Hvalsey on the south west coast was established by Erik the Red’s uncle in the late 10th century. The church, dating from about 1300, can just be seen as a tiny ruin the bottom right hand corner of the image, which shows the magnificent scale of the mountain behind it.
Aappilattoq is the only settlement in Prins Christian Sund, a waterway that separates the mainland from an archipelago at the southernmost tip of Greenland. The settlement was founded in 1922. Today there are about 150 inhabitants and their average age is just over 30. They make their living from hunting and fishing. The colourful settlement has a local authority service house, general store, general repairs workshop, fire station, school, church and heliport. The peaks that dwarf the village that clings to the water's edge are almost 2000m high but are unglaciated.
Over the last 30 years, many of the isolated smaller settlements without modern amenities have been abandoned and people have migrated to larger towns. This unnamed Inuit hunters’ colony in Kangerdlugssuak Fjord in East Greenland was abandoned in July 1987 (according to the graffiti). The people probably moved south to Tasiilaq, which is the largest settlement on the east coast with 2000 people and growing fast. The surrounding mountains were formed by magma from the earth's interior, forced into the earth's crust.
Nuuk is the largest city of Greenland. At 18,000 inhabitants, it accounts for one third of the population, and it is also growing fast. It is the most northerly capital in the world, just south of the Arctic circle on the west coast. The area was occupied by pre-Inuit people by about 2000BC. The Vikings settled there between 1000 and 1400. More recently it was inhabited by the Inuit. The modern town was founded by the Danish in 1728. The summit of Sermitsiaq, a 1210m tall mountain, is visible from most places in Nuuk.
If there is something I love about landscape and naturalistic photography, especially the most intimate, it is the possibility of being able to describe my mood in the images; the result of which is a photograph that fully describes my current or long term mood. I spent the last few years trying to study the best conditions in the field that could best describe my feelings and moods, such as fear, joy, happiness, sadness, etc., personal feelings and general sensations, which reflect private life, values and social relationships.
And here is how an expanse of sunflowers at sunset, which with its bright colours could mean happiness, can take on different colours, tones and meanings. Using the backlight, and with certain focal points that isolate the subjects, one can describe the solitude of some sunflowers full of life in contrast with other sunflowers that have completed their life cycle. The contrast that many of us live with constantly - a sense of surviving in a world surrounded by the collective malaise (perhaps thanks to political and social conditions, the human being towards self-annihilation). The photograph will be distressing, almost catastrophic, but at the same time, thanks to the subtle light that caresses the flowers, it will be wrapped in a veil of hope.
Technology has a way of getting in the way of our appreciation for our surroundings. It can be a constant distraction, practically requiring a short attention span in order to keep up with the rapid flow of information and imagery. More often than I’d like to admit, my wife reminds me to put my phone away when I should be paying attention to the beauty – or the company – around me. This is why going to remote places, where the option to connect is not there, is a healthy practice to help us refocus our attention. While some people can put away their devices and be really present, even given the constant option to connect, the majority of us can use some help in achieving this! Seeking out even bouts of life with no signal can help us to slow down, focus on the experience, and connect better to a place. This, of course, is likely to result in more meaningful images.
I strive to practice a slow approach to photography, enough to have recently launched a collaborative effort with other photographers centred around this idea Slow Photography Movement. Hence, I like to find places that force me to disconnect. One such destination is the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness of northern Minnesota. In the BWCAW, you can lose yourself in the wilderness for days at a time, and cell signals don’t work, forcing those of us with mild (or less mild) addictions to our devices to turn them off… or better yet, to leave them behind!
Recently I spent four nights in the BWCAW, a significant accomplishment for someone who used to state, almost belligerently, that he didn’t like to “rough it.”
The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness encompasses over a million acres within the Superior National Forest and includes over 1,000 lakes, 1,500 miles of canoe routes, and over 2,000 campsites.
When I first learned of my wife’s family’s camping tradition, I made sure to drive that point across! I didn’t want to create expectations that this air-conditioning-loving urbanite was going to turn into a carefree backwoods’ adventurer. It didn’t sound very appealing: you work really hard paddling and portaging all your things around, and stay at first-come-basis campsites which provide minimal facilities, while being devoured by mosquitoes. Yet now here I am, doing it. So, what changed? I became a photographer! Suddenly I developed a newfound willingness to step outside of my comfort zone if it meant waking up to the sunrise in a pristine, beautiful landscape. Not only have I survived our yearly BWCAW visits, but I’ve quickly discovered a deep fondness for the serenity of this place, which makes it feel much more remote than it is.
The BWCAW encompasses over a million acres within the Superior National Forest and includes over 1,000 lakes, 1,500 miles of canoe routes, and over 2,000 campsites. Permit at hand, you paddle in and get lost in the wilderness, alternating between canoeing through pristine waters and portaging all your gear between lakes. You have to carefully weigh the benefits of every item you are bringing in order to minimize the load you’ll bear on portages. Even so, since photography is the reason why I became amenable to this type of adventure, one camera body and a couple of lenses - plus my tripod (obviously!) - are essential parts of my expedition outfit.
The beauty of the BWCAW is in the experience as much as the landscape; everyday life quickly feels like a distant memory when you are surrounded by such peace and stillness. It makes you look around and recognize your surroundings, it forces you to be present, and it naturally encourages a slowing down of your attention to fully grasp its beauty.
Capturing this beauty, it turns out, can be challenging; the BWCAW is not about dramatic landscape elements and easily Instagramable locations. Its beauty is often in the details and in the subtle variations of natural elements that might seem very homogenous, even repetitive, at first sight, while paddling from lake to lake. My initial attempts often resulted in relatively boring captures, images which I felt failed to convey the serenity and the experience of this not-so-distant wilderness. Sometimes you need to get to know a place better, to identify what it is that makes it special to you, in order to better represent it. Then, you can say something about it through your photography.
Its beauty is often in the details and in the subtle variations of natural elements that might seem very homogenous, even repetitive, at first sight, while paddling from lake to lake.
For me, the BWCAW is about being enveloped in nature, and being observant of every variation and detail in the subtly changing landscape around you. As I’ve paddled along lakes with picturesque little islands scattered about, I’ve attempted to identify what I’m seeing and to understand what I want to capture.
Would the BWCAW be the same if cell phones worked? It would be challenging to enjoy it the same way. The lack of access to social media makes it easier to connect and foster real experience
The subtle layering of elements and the contrast in textures have jumped out at me: pebble beaches alternating with large smooth rock formations, deep evergreens juxtaposed with the delicate white lines of birch, and jagged cliff edges set against gentle forested hills. The often-crystal clear water adds another layer, as underwater boulders and driftwood play peek-a-boo through the surface, and the glimpses of submerged rocks and logs are juxtaposed with the reflection of pine tree shorelines above. Over the course of my trips to the Boundary Waters, I’ve come to realise that for me it’s about subtle discoveries, about observing patiently and seeing more - noticing more - the longer and closer you look. After a few visits, I feel that my images are finally capturing the layering of these elements and the almost meditative feeling that they provoke.
Would the BWCAW be the same if cell phones worked? It would be challenging to enjoy it the same way. The lack of access to social media makes it easier to connect and foster real experiences. Still, I do bring other technology with me: my photographic gear. While I often put it away when the sun is high, I focus intensely on the photographic pursuit at times, especially at dawn and dusk. This intensity makes me wonder, am I really enjoying this moment and place? Can I truly say that I left technology behind, or am I too focused on camera settings?
Most of the time I am indeed enjoying the moment, possibly even more than if I wasn’t photographing. If it weren’t for photography, I probably wouldn’t be in the BWCAW at all! And even if I were, I wouldn’t have crawled out of my tent at 5 am to see the sunrise. Photography sends me to places I otherwise wouldn’t be, at times I once would have found surprising. So maybe, it is possible that some technology, when used carefully, can make us feel more connected to the natural world; the Boundary Waters is the perfect setting to practice reaching that delicate balance. When done shooting, the option of immediately sharing an image and engaging on social media is not there. This makes it all that much easier to put the camera away and enjoy the company of your fellow campers, sitting around the bonfire beneath a beautiful night sky. After all, the only thing better than capturing the beauty of the Boundary Waters is to experience it firsthand, quietly and without distraction.
I find the keynote to whatever I have done has been unpreparedness. In reality, the only thing in which I have been actually thorough has been in being thoroughly unprepared. ~Alfred Stieglitz
When starting a photography workshop, my co-instructors and I ask participants to introduce themselves and to share with the group what they hope to gain from the workshop. Interestingly, some themes seem to recur more than others. Among these themes is an expressed desire to “learn to be more creative.” This is always music to my ears. I can’t think of many worthier goals for a photographer who has already gained a degree of technical proficiency and experience than to wish to produce more novel, original, and personally-expressive work. More important, that people recognise the value of pursuing such work, is validating. Whether they know it for a fact, or by intuition, being more creative can influence their lives in ways far and beyond just improving their photography. Upon further prodding, some express concern about not being creative (interestingly, often blaming such deficit on monotony in their chosen vocations, which is not entirely unfounded). If you are among those who fear you may not be creative, rest assured that you are. Creativity is a trait of the human brain—it’s not a gift that only some are fortunate to be born with; it’s a built-in feature. However, it is true that not everyone is equally creative, not because of any cognitive deficit but because of lack of practice. Creativity, like most skills, is a trait that can be nurtured and improved with deliberate and repeated engagement.
Creativity, like most skills, is a trait that can be nurtured and improved with deliberate and repeated engagement.
I will propose here some suggestions for improving creativity, but at the outset, I think it’s important to acknowledge two other built-in traits of the human brain that may get in the way of creativity, and that we often are reluctant to admit having. Resisting and transcending these traits consciously is as important to creative success as training yourself in any other skill that may improve your creativity. These traits, that we all possess, are these: laziness, and the desire to conform. Both traits likely resulted from the evolution of the human brain. Minimising brain activity was a priority when humans had little free time, and sometimes insufficient nutrition, to engage in complex thoughts and flights of imagination (by weight, the brain consumes more energy than any other part of the body). The tendency to conform improves social cohesion, which, in turn, improves a group’s odds of survival by encouraging teamwork, minimising internal conflicts, etc. Today, most of us have no existential reason to be too concerned about taking time to think creatively about our photographs, nor do we have to be too concerned about any existential consequences that may result from breaking with common sensibilities and expectations in our artistic pursuits.
Following on from our previous wander around Cornwall (via a relaxing chair in the Highlands), Joe is talking through some of the images taken on a workshop with David Ward. We cover a few topics including bits of Capture One and Lightroom, the use of Polarisers, black and white conversions and a few other bits and pieces.
We spend a lot of time plotting our escape from cities and towns, without necessarily recognising the role that they play in shaping us. It’s easier to say what we don’t like about them, rather than what we do, and to overlook what they can offer. Seeing the images that Verity Milligan shares online, her love of the rural and the remote is clear, but look a little deeper and it’s also apparent that the city that she calls home – Birmingham, UK - is very important to her too. Cars can give us freedom, but also often mean that we ignore what is on our doorstep; an inability to drive (at the time) led Verity to seek out Birmingham’s open spaces and green corridors and fostered an affection for the city as a whole that remains today. Add to that the mutual support offered by the city’s creative community and it’s easy to see how Birmingham and its people have helped to foster her career as a photographer.
Would you like to start by telling readers a little about yourself – where you grew up, your education and early interests, and what that led you to do as a career?
Hi. Well, I grew up in Corby in Northamptonshire under the shadow of the steelworks and their inevitable demise. It was a very industrial setting, a new town made of concrete and the sweat of Scottish immigrants of whom I’m a proud descendant. The town itself wasn’t much to write home about, but it backed onto rural Northamptonshire and I was given free rein as a child to explore. In that respect, although it was very humble, I had an idyllic childhood. My father, who was a steelworker, had a keen interest in nature and we would go birdwatching regularly. He also taught me how to watercolour, and I spent much of my youth drawing and painting the birds and landscapes I’d witnessed. Unfortunately, being quite a literal artist, I lost a lot of confidence during A-level art which encouraged me to be more abstract in my approach. I floundered amongst painters who were far more dynamic and ended up with the only ‘D’ I’ve ever got in my entire life. The experience broke my heart and all my dreams of becoming an illustrator or painter fell away. However, I was the first in my family to attend University and I’m still grateful to this day to my parents for breaking the wheel and facilitating my education despite having very little. I took a very academic route with a plan to become a lecturer (which I did), but I was always undertaking some creative endeavour, whether that was writing or drawing.
Forests are the breathing lungs of cities, therefore landscapes should be thought of as models for biodiversity.
As an architect, it is important for me to know how things around me are perceived. However, as a photographer, I try that my photographs portray a further aim. I believe that it is important to show people outside my profession what it is that they are really engaged in, and how unthoughtful ideas and decisions can have their effect on the environment when the balance between man and nature disappears.
Are there any borders in the first place? Where does excavation end?
Today, the tool is no more architecture, but rather a “consciousness architecture” where a more sensitive mindset is introduced. It is said that one way to understand a man-made environment is by examining the level of sensitivity put into that environment. It is also said that the measure of a place’s greatness is found in the quality of its planning. Unfortunately, by doing that, and despite all the advocating against climate change, global warming, deforestation, the reduction of carbon emissions and plastic consumption in addition to several other pressing environmental issues, unconscious planning still exists.
The complex notion of man-made settings in relation to their existing natural landscape has thus been misconceived. In a highly urbanised world that we live in, geography has become the modern element for the creation of conflict. When political and economic factors are involved, this often results in a framework with an undesirable outcome. The construction of this dam located in Mseilha, North Lebanon, is one example.
Aerial views show the irreversible damage that Mseilha's artificial dam has caused to the Lebanese natural heritage. There seem to be no limits for the excavation borders that are continuously expanding and eating up the surrounding existing landscape. The scale of the stone wall built to support the dam is, by itself, massively huge.
So my photos aim to raise awareness. They are boldly a reaction, a response to the profit-based distribution of supremacy in the governmental realm. Close-up photos stand alone to expose the radical disparities between natural and man-made borders, where the landscape’s parcelisation is slowly being transformed into one huge man-made grain clearly gaining prominence.
A “Terrain Vague” as Ignacio de Sola Morales would describe it, a discontinuity or an “urban negative”, call it what you want. Landscape territories must be reclaimed… from shapeless voids to fertile terrains, borders that portray “lines of resistance” against forceful landscape planning implementations.
The Lebanese heritage is at risk, not only in Mseilha’s dam, but in many other sites as well. We need new protocols, not only in legislation but also in developing “conscious” man-made environments, protocols that take into consideration the management of those kinds of landscape processes.
So, the question remains: what next? Little is left to say. We need to recover the place that has remained. There is no Planet B, fellow people, at least not yet.
Place: Mseilha, Lebanon Project Type: Construction (Ongoing) Camera: DSLR Canon EOS 200D EF-S 18-55 mm lens
From the earliest days of my journey in landscape photography, John Sexton has been an inspiration. As one of Ansel Adams’ former assistants, his dedication to producing fine art, black & white imagery using traditional materials is legendary. His workshops are always highly in demand. If you’re lucky enough to meet John, you’ll find him to be generous with his time, gregarious with a great sense of humour, ready with amazing stories and anecdotes about some of the photographic greats of our time and thoughtful and compassionate with his print critiques.
I can’t remember exactly how I became aware of John but when I acquired his first book Quiet Light, the images quickly resonated with me and definitely set a very high standard for composition, quality of light and technical excellence.
John’s second book Listen to the Trees was a revelation. I was spending a lot of time trying to photograph forests and trees so they were a favourite subject anyway and to have an entire book dedicated to them was very helpful and motivating.
It took me a while to realise that qualities of light are different in various parts of the country and the grand landscapes from the western US would probably not happen in Ohio.
One of the nice things about all of John’s books is he gives the technical details of each image: film type, development, filters, focal length and exposure settings. So careful study of the image along with that information can give a lot of insight into how to approach a subject.
Growing up in the midwestern state of Ohio in the US, I wasn’t getting the hoped for results in my images, like those I was seeing from the popular western photographers. It took me a while to realise that qualities of light are different in various parts of the country and the grand landscapes from the western US would probably not happen in Ohio.
We’ve got a couple of books to review in this issue, both by Kozu and both related to each other Paul Kenny has been featured in On Landscape before and it’s no secret that we love his work. His creations with saltwater, flotsam and jetsam are both fascinating and exquisitely crafted. Doug Chinnery has also been featured in On Landscape previously and has made no secret of the fact that his photography has been influenced by Paul Kenny’s artworks (amongst others).
Paul Kenny - O Hanami
All art must move forward to survive. I’ve had this conversation with Paul Kenny a few times and with many other artists (and musicians for that matter). Finding a popular success is as much a curse as it is a crutch; the pressure to continue creating works in the same vein (from your fans, your agent, your gallery representation, etc). Paul’s Seaworks struck an aesthetic vein that gave him crossover success. Both critics and the public liked the work, but possibly not for the same reasons. Paul has made it clear that his work follows its own path and if it leads away from commercial popularity then so be it.
The good news is that Paul is still producing work that is aesthetically beautiful and that reflects his ongoing joy in creativity. The new work is less alchemical (to borrow Francis Hodgson’s words in the foreword) and less transformational than the Seaworks chapter and has shifted toward the observational. Many of the pieces are re-presentations of found objects in Paul’s garden or objects found on walks, etc. The overarching theme is one of ‘transient beauty’, inspired by a trip to Japan whilst the cherry blossom celebration was happening. From geometric arrangements of flowers and buds to clean-cut and arranged leaves in various states from fresh to skeletally decomposed. This is a natural progression in his work and the book includes images from the 1996/7, 2011 & 2015 in addition to the work from last year (2018).
Paul Kenny’s work continues to evolve and contrary to the usual public opinion on artists, they don’t work in ‘periods’ or change style suddenly, they typically have many parallel ideas which ebb and flow at different rates. Some of these ideas mature into bodies of work, just as O-Hanami has, and I look forward to seeing many more in the future.
The book itself is exquisitely printed and Kozu should be proud of the reproduction and binding.
Doug Chinnery - Abstract Mindedness
When we look at the lives of historic artists, we often discover in retrospect that they suffered from mental illness of one sort or another. It seems that something of the self-analysis, the maniacal periods or the altered states are as stimulating creatively as they are destructive both physically and mentally. However, in most cases, we would have known little about these problems during the artist's life. Fortunately, in the last few decades, mental illness has included less societal stigma and today it is possible to admit to suffering without being shunned by society. It is only possible, not guaranteed, however. Some people will still attach irrelevant labels to those who do admit to such ailments and so it is not without a great deal of trepidation that people do ‘come out’.
Doug’s book is a bold artistic statement about the dark periods in his own life. Don’t expect all dark and gothic outlook though. There are as many images of resolution and recovery as there are inward contemplation and loss and the seasons passing ride along Doug’s presumed ascent out of the worst of his hurt.
To use Francis Hodgson’s words from Paul Kenny’s book, Doug’s images are alchemical in nature but not the physical alchemy of the salt and rust of Paul’s work but the digital alchemy of the camera sensor. The combination of layered images using blend modes found in the Canon range of cameras to juxtapose shape and texture to create something new, unclear, abstract, hidden. Leaves against water, plants against architecture, paint texture layered anew. These images work best for me when they hint at their origins but become something compositionally new, where textures and colour complement and contrast.
Kozu Books have again created a quality product for which all the proceeds will go to a mental health charity (Young Minds).
Both books play at the verges of the landscape and as such may not be to our readers liking but such is the way of all art. We form our own private tastes in life - whether it be our preference for jazz over rock, alt-folk over math metal, some preferring Aphex Twin to Kylie Minogue. Playing at the boundaries of the music industry for some time, I realised that I could appreciate and enjoy the best of all genres of music, even though I had my private tastes. As a photographer, I can see the quality of the work in both of these productions and am happy to have both on my bookshelf (as catholic a filling of Ikea bookshelves I challenge you to find).
Welcome to our 4x4 feature which is a set of four mini landscape photography portfolios submitted from our subscribers. Each portfolios consisting of four images related in some way.
Submit Your 4x4 Portfolio
Interested in submitting your work? We're on the lookout for new portfolios for the next few issues, so please do get in touch!
Every year the melt occurs at a different time in the Highlands of Iceland. Depending on the weather and snowfall over the winter the patterns and textures can vary wildly.
On a camping and photo tour of South Africa’s North Cape State (North West on the Atlantic and South of Namibia) I spent several nights in the part of the Richtersveld National Park that is home to Quiver Trees (Aloidendron dichotomum).
The park, with its desert, mountains, varied geology and unusual vegetation affords the photographer many opportunities to capture interesting compositions. I was particularly taken with the Quiver Trees.
In spite of its scenic interest, the park was deserted when I was there in March, a far cry from the hordes that visit better-known locations. The remoteness, searing heat, need to camp and truck in all supplies, and the challenging roads all, undoubtedly, contribute to the absence of visitors.
I took up photography when I retired a little over ten years ago. For the most part I press the shutter button as a sidelight to other activities, be it a morning walk, a holiday trip or a concert. Images of musicians playing in Mexican bars, sea lions as well as of landscapes are among my favourites.
This portfolio is about the journey of the two souls, who have found each other. The images express the process of the relationship between two souls, expressing their love in time and space. Their sincere and pure love made them who are today and helped them find their way, which they will go together.
Now they have a new life simple and peaceful. They have each other that's all it needs!
Humanity has an unsatisfiable appetite for exploration. And we are able to create tools that take our inadequate bodies further away from the limits. Both cameras and vehicles are instruments that facilitate freedom. My passion for travelling away from the frantic chaos of the cities has enabled me to find a satisfying experience many people can only dream of.
Since I was young, freedom was something that I was pushed to embrace. As we build such a connected world, feeling free gets scarcer every day. I've been close to nature my whole life, but photography really assisted in appreciating things from a fresh perspective. It was learning not only to see but also to breathe, feel, smell and hear differently. Nature itself became a complete aesthetic experience for me thanks to being able to record life in the format of an image.
Doing landscape photography is a humble endeavour that made me look at the environment in a novel way. We all know that nature is massive. But capturing it in a way that even light gets invited inside the scene is a whole different experience. If I was asked to pick one single theme from nature, seascapes would be it. The massive force of the sea striking into the shores makes you feel literally like a mere grain of dust.
Waking up way before dawn has never been a problem for me, and that is quite fundamental for a nature-oriented photographer. Getting up at early hours makes me feel like being ahead of everyone else in the world. The whole process of sort of commuting between my bed and the ocean at times where pretty much everyone else is still sleeping is a powerful relation.
We are surrounded by chaos, but we can record it. And that is the true power of photography. We can record everything in ways that are simply impossible for our eyes. The aspect that moves me the most about shooting seascapes is that I can't predict what will happen in the end. I simply can't. It is beautiful how I can be in control of everything, but the actual photograph. I can be certain of where the sunlight will be coming from, I can measure light, I can frame my scene meticulously. I can even try to control my shivering body, but I can't control how the waves will swirl and crash in front of my camera, and that's what I love most about doing seascape photography.
Here I've selected some of those photos that have made me feel free. I wish I could share with the world the huge joys behind what many consider to be a sacrifice or a luxury. Nature shouldn’t be seen in that way. Beyond the adventurous theme of this selection of images, I’m taking the liberty here of using the power of photography to at least make one single human being more aware of our environment. Many campaigns are now showing us dead creatures and plastic flooding us, and trust me, it is happening. Finding pollution free seascapes is starting to be a problem. And photography is the best tool I have for making others aware of the beauty of our planet.
Every single image that you can see here has a story of its own. And I bet they look quite peaceful in your screens. What I really wish I could share with you is all the huge adrenaline rush I get every time that I'm in front of these cold waters. Photography pushes me into savouring seascapes in an unmatchable way. Photography enables us to remember and to build identity. Let's start taking photography less granted. My memories get more vivid every time I have the opportunity of revisiting these photographs. These are small pieces of my visual treasure; so please, enjoy!
Our next two featured photographers are notable for their determination to improve their landscape photography, and their drive in doing so, although they have chosen different routes and, for now, outcomes (for one photography remains a hobby to fit around the day job, for the other photography is their livelihood). Both are active on social media, notably Twitter, which has witnessed and encouraged them both along the way.
In this issue, we catch up with Neil Burnell. If you still mostly associate Neil with long-exposure photography, you’ll learn how extended application in the form of year-long competitions has benefitted his skill set and broadened his interests and portfolio.
Would you like to start by telling readers a little about yourself – where you grew up, your education and early interests, and what that led you to do as a career?
I grew up in Brixham, Devon, and I’m still here today! It’s a lovely town on the coast of South Devon and I’ve never felt the need or wanted to move away.
Growing up, my interests were always sports, mainly football, but any competitive ball sports really. I also had a keen interest in sea fishing which would eventually lead me to a love for photography later in my life. At school, there were very few lessons I enjoyed in all honesty, but I did love Art & Design and decided to pursue a career as a designer at South Devon College by undertaking a Design & Photography National Diploma course. I did really enjoy the Photography part of the course especially the darkroom development side of it, but at this stage, I didn’t consider it as a career. Looking back now I kind of wish I had, although things could have turned out so differently and who’s to say I’d be enjoying photography now if I’d taken that career path.
I’m now working as a designer within the food industry, employed by Caterfood, a foodservice distribution company.
How did you first become interested in photography and what kind of images did you initially set out to make?
I’ve always owned a camera but I really lacked direction with my photography. It wasn’t until I started taking the camera fishing that I thought about shooting seascapes and landscapes. Initially, I shot images of friends holding fish they had caught, this then led to people fishing within the landscape and eventually I was looking for compositions purely of seascapes and it was at this stage I decided to put more time into photography rather than fishing. Before I knew it I had purchased a tripod and was experimenting with filters.
It’s not often that you can shoot amazing landscapes indoors, but the ghost town of Kolmanskop, Namibia, is just that kind of place.
The Namib Desert is relentless. On the drive into the little seaside port town of Lüderitz, sandwiched between the South Atlantic Ocean and the high dunes, sand blows and drifts over the highway like a scene from Mad Max, threatening to swallow it whole. Heavy equipment stands a way off, waiting to push the voracious dunes from the road. Give the Namib a chance, and it will quickly reclaim anything that human hands have built.
The diamond mining ghost town of Kolmanskop, a collection of skeletal buildings a short way off that same highway, is a testament to just that fact. Abandoned with structures and possessions largely intact by its inhabitants in a rush to a richer set of diamond fields to the south, for more than 60 years the Namib has been reclaiming the town, the desert now as much a part of the buildings as it is a setting for them.
That the Namib Desert gave this southern African country its name is no mere coincidence. Taken from an indigenous Khoekhoe-language term, ‘Namib’ loosely translates as ‘immense’ or ‘vast and empty’, which might qualify as the geographic understatement of the century.
Taken from an indigenous Khoekhoe-language term, ‘Namib’ loosely translates as ‘immense’ or ‘vast and empty’, which might qualify as the geographic understatement of the century.
Stretching for more than 2000km in a 200km-wide band spanning the country’s entire coastline, nothing defines Namibia more than this, the oldest and perhaps most spectacular desert in the world, its 400,000 square kilometres of area almost completely uninhabited.
I've taken up climbing in the past 2 years, so when Hazel sent some information over about her recent project which was inspired by Gwen Moffat the first woman mountain guide and her book ‘Space Below My Feet', I was intrigued. After an email conversation, I was delighted that Hazel agreed to an interview about her project and she talks about how she approached visiting these locations and creating her own experiences based on the stories from the book.
You studied a BA (Hons) Photography at Blackpool and the Fylde College (2006-2009) and undertook a MLitt History of Photography at St Andrews University (2012-2013). Tell us about how you chose this as a study path/possible career and how this shaped your approach to photography.
During high school I became interested in photography and built a darkroom in the loft at my parents' home. I quickly chose this as a pathway as I was fascinated by the power of photography. White balance blew me away! I later progressed to the local FE college to start my studying and soon was trapped in the journey.
Education allowed me to explore both the practical and theoretical aspects of photography and gave me a positive grounding. I am very thankful to every tutor I have had for their advice and direction. It also led me to develop a complex relationship with photography, through questioning the purpose and motive in image making. This fuelled my interest into the history of Photography but left a significant time gap in my portfolio of work. Only recently have I re-ignited my practice; this time I have ownership of it.
You are a lecturer currently teaching across a range of levels at North Warwickshire and Hinckley College, including delivering on the BA (Hons) Visual Media, in affiliation with Coventry University. You obviously lecture in different formats of visual media, so what drew you to landscape photography rather than other media or genres?
My greatest inspiration comes from literature. I always have a book about the environment on the go, and this fuels my energy to get out and explore.
For me, photography needs to be a natural act. With the fast pace of education, I enjoy escaping on weekends and holidays into the quieter hillsides. My passion for photographing in the landscape was ignited when I heard Jem Southam speaking at the Responding to a Landscape Symposium in November 2017. The symposium elevated the status of landscape photography providing the reassurance I needed to chase my own project. I previously had been struggling with building my physical strength to take on the outdoors walking and climbing challenges, and as such had no space for the photographic practice. As my physical strength has developed, my photographic practice has taken centre stage.
How do the other genres/approaches to photography inform your landscape work?
I feel like I react to the landscape in a similar style to a street photographer. I like to capture as I go. My greatest inspiration comes from literature. I always have a book about the environment on the go, and this fuels my energy to get out and explore. I am currently reading Robert MacFarlane’s Underland, and can already see my photographs are seeking out shelter and darker areas!
Tell me about the photographers or artists that inspire you the most. What stimulated your interest in photography and who drove you forward, directly or indirectly, as you developed?
I must give a great level of credit to Thomas Joshua Cooper. I was lucky enough to meet Thomas and see his studio space whilst I was studying in Scotland. I interviewed him for a paper I was writing on The Philosophy of Time in Photography. We discussed the concept of time, specifically human experience of time, in his own photographic practice. It is only recently that I have looked back on this meeting and realised its significance. Thomas’s approach to his subject reminded me of how important it is to take the photos instinctively, void of external influence.
Your previous work has fallen into two key themes; social limitations and expectations, and the function of man-made spaces. Was this by design or accidental? Tell us more about these two key themes and why they are important to your photography and narrative.
I identified these two themes when I was trying to categorise the bodies of work I have created for my current website. I am forever questioning the purpose and actions of mankind. I use photography to understand the world around me and as a tool to question. Recently this has been focused on the environment, and how this environment has an emotional and mental influence. Previously I have explored childhood and the way society impacts on individuality. In many ways, all these themes both seek a comprehension of how we can be most true to ourselves.
I am forever questioning the purpose and actions of mankind. I use photography to understand the world around me and as a tool to question. Recently this has been focused on the environment, and how this environment has an emotional and mental influence.
Your work is mostly project based with a number of different projects displayed on your website. How have you gone about forming, researching, working and finishing a project? (Big question, sorry!)
I don’t always create my photographs for a series, but I do like to share them in collections. I keep my Instagram account much looser and more of a visual journal. I feel a series helps present a narrative. John Blakemore describes images being choreographed. Each move works alone, but when they are put together, they can have a much greater impact. Although weak choreography is also a risk!
Is there a part of the process in a photography project that you like the most? If so what is it and why?
Yes, I like to be out in the environment. I like the moment before I take the photograph the most. The imagining of it. Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to press the shutter.
Tell us about your current project ‘SPACE ----- MY ——‘ which was inspired by Gwen Moffat the first woman mountain guide and her book ‘Space Below My Feet’, first published in 1961.” How did you find out about her? What inspired you to do a project based on the book?
I found Gwen’s book in a book barn, just by chance. I like to go there because they do a great cake and have a roaring fire in the winter! I hadn’t heard of her before. I started reading it, and so did my husband Dan. She had been to so many of the locations we love to visit. We started discussing her when we visited these places. It wasn’t until later that I realised the connection between my images and her texts and began producing the outcomes for ‘Space ----- My ----.’
How did you go about researching the locations and which places to visit?
The places she went to are the places we naturally end up going so I haven't had to research or specifically target anywhere. Although, I have been known to enjoy hours crawling around the OS Map hunting for names of places in her book. The exact location is not of utmost importance. I have spent some time trying to work out where her cottage near Dolgellau is without any success, but every time we see a derelict building in the area, we joke that its Gwen’s house. I prefer it this way, not knowing! Our next trip is to the Isle of Skye, another one of her stomping grounds.
The places she went to are the places we naturally end up going so I haven't had to research or specifically target anywhere. Although, I have been known to enjoy hours crawling around the OS Map hunting for names of places in her book
You say about the project “Through delving into their personal encounters they encourage me to visit the landscape and create my own experience.” How did you go about this? Did you take the book on the trips and think about Gwen’s narrative and reflect on that?
Absolutely. There is always a book in my bag. Gwen, Robert MacFarlane, Nan Shepard, just to name a few. The links are never literal, just dancing away in the background. Gwen also wrote murder mysteries; I find these equally interesting. The way she writes has enabled me to see a more human side to her character; she likes a good gossip, or the village people in her books do!
I love your “What would Gwen do?” approach to life experiences. Please tell us about a couple of “What would Gwen do?” moments.
Mostly they involve me in tears! These environments that we go to explore deliver both mental and physical challenges. Edmund Burke’s theory on the ‘sublime’ scaffolds the project; the notion that romantic grandeur, intertwined with horror and terror, is never far away. The ‘Gwen’ moments can start fifteen minutes into the walk; this for me is always the hardest part when I remember it's going to be hard work. As my legs and lungs scream, I visualise Gwen stomping her way up, without stopping. Then when the routes get tough and I question if I can do a move on a climb, Dan shouts to me ‘Could Gwen do it?’ I imagine Gwen leading her way up the same bit of rock, and re-focus.
How do you approach the post processing of your work?
Bringing together the images and the text is my second favourite part of the process. I print out the images and I photocopy out the pages from the book, I spread it all out over the table and simultaneously delve back into the walk and literature. I revisit the pages and redact the words that don’t match my own experience of the walk, leaving behind the words that I share with Gwen. I initially used Tippex, but I was getting through too much, so I now circle the words and do a digital redaction afterwards. I have made a little paper frame that I use to select a fragment from the page. The image that syncs up with the text tends to reveal themselves without much thought.
Tell me what your favourite two or three photographs from the project are and a little bit about them.
Half-hearing the conversation
Very early on in Gwen’s book, she speaks of ‘Ordinary Route’, one of her first climbs in the Ogwen Valley, Snowdonia. She didn’t seem particularly taken by it, describing it more like walking than climbing. This would usually put me and my husband, Dan, off, but as my first wet, winter climb it became a whole new challenge! This image was created towards the end of the day following the climb. The route descended to the same area as the approach. Looking back up at the route we had just climbed, and seeing the clouds rolling in, I feel this image has captured all of my fear, elation and cold fingers! I did laugh as I redacted the text and found the phrase ‘hearing half the conversation’. This was such a true statement from the day, as Dan had led the way, and the wind and valley echo had prevented our communication!
Bewildered
Gwen walks at night, the dark does not deter. I have been terrified of ending up walking or climbing after sunset and can often get fixated on needing to be back at the car well before dark is on us. This winter I have made a conscientious effort to address this fear and have found the beauty of dusk almost an addiction. It’s amazing how our eyes adapt. After a walk up Cadair with Dan, we returned to my Dad’s house, in a nearby village, just before dusk. Dad was just leaving to take the dog out for a walk, so I said I would go to the edge of the forest to get a few images; an hour later I was still walking. The phrase ‘I don’t remember making any decision to go’, alongside the other three phrases, summarises this walk perfectly!
What is next for you? Are there any other projects, another exhibition or are you focusing on your teaching?
In the summer, the tables will turn as I become a student at Dartmoor Summer School of Photography. I have the origins of many projects fluttering around and hope this experience will help me focus in on my approach. Trees seem to be screaming at me for some attention!
The North Wales Project, of which I am grateful to be a member of, are collectively exhibiting at The Northern Eye Festival in October this year. As a collective, we aim to raise the voice of documentary photography in North Wales.
A significant proportion of my practice is created in Snowdonia. I hope my work will bring a comment about the rural environment into a genre that predominantly focuses on the streets.
In January of last year, I began photographing a body of work documenting Romanian NGO ‘Foundation Conservation Carpathia’ (FCC) as they strive to create a new European Wilderness Reserve in the heart of the Southern Carpathian Mountains. The project, entitled ‘Carpathia’, was initially funded by the Royal Photographic Societies annual Environmental Bursary scheme in association with The Photographic Angle. I intended to publish a project diary here at On Landscape after each seasonal trip. However, I was unable to publish any of the photographs until the Royal Photographic Society ran a ‘Carpathia’ feature in the print journal this year. Now that has been published; I can continue to release the work elsewhere. So, although the work was made throughout 2018 and early 2019, I still intend to publish my project journal here – albeit retrospectively…
Targului River, the proposed location for Beaver reintroduction programme, Raul Targului Hunting Area
About the FCC
When it comes to economic data, Romania is nearing the bottom of all of the statistics in the European Union. However, when it comes to environmental statistics, the county comes out on top. Boasting 6 million hectares of forests, it has the largest surface of virgin and unfragmented forest in the Union; the most significant population of large carnivores, where bears, wolves and lynx are still commonly seen in their natural environment; and over 3700 plant species, many of them endemic to the region.
It is said that “the forest is Romania’s brother”, however in recent years, this innate connection to the forests is being put under incredible strain. The restitution of formerly nationalised land, a process that began in 2004, eventually resulted in a new ownership structure of two-thirds of Romania’s forests. Communities and landowners associations received larger, contiguous properties, while the majority of private land consisted of smaller parcels with less than 50 hectares. In the years that followed, logging companies bought many of the privately-owned forests, and tremendous deforestation was the outcome. This resulted in large clear-cuts that have painfully scarred vast mountain slopes, leaving the area deserted. The only viable solution to protect these areas from greed and corruption was via direct purchase.
Farmland perimeter in Ciocanu Village
Founded in 2009, Foundation Conservation Carpathia (FCC) is spearheading efforts to protect and restore a significant area within the Southern Carpathians through the creation of a new European Wilderness Reserve. By purchasing large tracts of forests and meadows, FCC ceases logging operations and lease hunting rights to guarantee full protection of all natural elements. Over the past decade, FCC has succeeded in acquiring over 21,000 ha of forests for protection and has managed to create an entirely hunting free area of 36,000 hectares, in addition to planting over 1.5 million saplings and restoring more than 500 hectares of clear-cut land.
Founded in 2009, Foundation Conservation Carpathia (FCC) is spearheading efforts to protect and restore a significant area within the Southern Carpathians through the creation of a new European Wilderness Reserve. By purchasing large tracts of forests and meadows, FCC ceases logging operations and lease hunting rights to guarantee full protection of all natural elements.
The Romanian Carpathians provide a home to an incredibly diverse mix of wildlife – over 3,500 animal species thrive there, many of which are strictly protected by European law. With few exceptions such as bison and beaver, the entire mammal fauna is still present in viable numbers, including the large carnivores. After the fall of communism, however, numbers of large mammals have suffered from overhunting, poaching and disturbance through logging. I became fascinated in the story of FCC and after meeting the team on a reccy in September 2017, I returned to their project area in January 2018 to begin making photographs. These trips are covered in my On Landscape article, here.
Although there can be unique and broad interpretations, landscape is a major theme in all forms of art. One of them is photography. Landscape photography is a means to represent the places in which we live and a way to portray what we see around us. A landscape is rarely defined by its size but rather the phenomenon or ecological mosaic that is presented for us to consider. The physical elements often include landforms such as mountains, hills, lakes, or the sea. It could also encompass vegetation, buildings, structures, or even, transitory elements like weather conditions. Bottom line, it represents how we see and interpret our space from many perspectives. It can be as broadly varied as forests, tundra, deserts, cities, farms, ruins and riverbeds. However, what makes a landscape image emotionally effective is how it resonates within us, conjures a memory, or allows for a momentary escape.
Recognising that, there is something more than the traditional landscape that we see with our eyes. What I am referring to is the landscape that our mind recognises and interprets. It often appears at times and in places when and where least expected. It is one that once we chance upon it, we can barely see anything else. It is like the clouds passing overhead which present us with a dynamic display of subjective images that call to us and our imagination.
Imagine a sweet summer morning. You walk along the beach where the sparkling water meets the sand, breathe in the fresh air, hear the waves lapping along the shore, and feel the sand squish between your toes. The grand scene takes your breath away but there is also undiscovered magic happening beneath those sandy toes that can be equally beautiful and totally mesmerising. Like the clouds above, the scene is ever changing, developing, and disappearing. You take a closer look.
Over millennia, rock is broken down in tiny and varied particles of minerals which make their way to the shore by eroding rivers, glaciers, volcanoes, moraines and bluffs. These ancient minerals amalgamate with newer ground up shells and invertebrates to create one-of-a-kind blends of colourful sand and oxides reflecting each beach’s local geography in a magnificent palette. Every beach is eternally restless and adapting and is as unique as a fingerprint.
For me, as a photographer who loves creating abstracts, my core photography began with landscapes. It is impossible for me to walk past this natural and evolving sand art without seeking out the landscape. Hills, valleys, aerials, and abstract visions form and morph before one’s eyes as the water washes back and forth.
For me, as a photographer who loves creating abstracts, my core photography began with landscapes. It is impossible for me to walk past this natural and evolving sand art without seeking out the landscape.
The incoming waves and merging spring fed streams play with the often vibrant colours of the mineral particles and the reflected colour of the sky to shape and craft magical and dynamic abstract designs and illusory landscapes.
To the discoverer, this offers endless possibilities and fun. Camera in hand, or not, the display can be spellbinding. This experience is reminiscent of childhood hours spent rotating and flipping a frame of coloured sand sandwiched between two sheets of glass to create new and wondrous designs. Suggestions of magical lands emerge as the sand slips into shapes of mountain peaks and gorges only to be turned over to start again.
But it is not only the beach which conjures up such scenes. The suggestion of landscapes can be found in close-up photography of more static or slowly evolving subjects such as the rusting metal on abandoned cars, peeling paint on neglected walls, or decaying surfaces on old boats or buildings. There is so much that you can allow your mind’s eye to peer into and discover with merely a closer look.
Rust, another name for iron oxide, occurs when iron or steel is exposed to oxygen and moisture for a long period of time. As years go by, oxygen combines with the metal and eventually weakens the bonds of the metal itself. Although slower moving than that of a beach, the corrosion and decay forms unique designs in the paint and the metal beneath it. This is what makes the discovery of a single abandoned old vehicle in a field or an entire car wrecking yard so exciting. Amongst the deterioration and the incessant and tenacious recall by nature, there is a bounty of landscape illusions to be discovered.
Wood and glass of abandoned buildings and structures, long exposed to the elements of weather and time itself, takes on a patina that is unique and inviting to the mind’s eye. The organic enzymatic changes that occur in the wood as it rots change its composition while the addition of mould and mildew alter and decorate surfaces and form new and tangible textures. Cracking, peeling and bubbling of paint and varnish not only reveal the past before the ravages of time took charge but also show us that nothing is constant. It also reminds us that perhaps we should look at the old and decaying with a fresh perspective. There is often more than meets the eye. For me, as a photographer who loves creating abstracts, my core photography began with landscapes. It is impossible for me to walk past this natural and evolving sand art without seeking out the landscape.
Cracking, peeling and bubbling of paint and varnish not only reveal the past before the ravages of time took charge but also show us that nothing is constant. It also reminds us that perhaps we should look at the old and decaying with a fresh perspective.
When I first began photographing, I often sought out the traditional landscape. I now see landscapes appearing everywhere. Recognising this has led me to a deeper exploration of the landscape illusions that I stumble upon. The visual images that merely suggest a landscape, yet seem totally out of context, are what really tug at my wild imagination. I strongly believe that the subliminal part of our minds is also very busy at work in the background when we are making the image. Often it is in the review of the scene later during editing when the discovery takes place. Forests appear in the rotting boards of an old building offering a glimpse into its woodsy beginning. A seascape develops on the side of a drydocked fishing boat reminiscent of its life on the sea. A desert scene can be found etched on a piece of glass that has melted and fused in the blazing sun. A winding road can suddenly materialise on the fender of a rusting automobile. And a sand sculpted scene of hills and dales tells the story of the minerals that have wound their way down to water’s edge to decorate the beach with their kaleidoscopic colours. As paint peels and reveals the past beneath its surface, a new life takes hold. It is no longer just an ordinary wall with peeling paint. It is a land to be discovered and explored as history reveals itself, a coincidental connection is made, and a story waits begging to be told.
We spend a great deal of time rushing from one place to another, seeking the iconic shot, ticking the bucket list boxes. Sometimes in our haste, we even forget to breathe. We miss the moments that we don’t even know we are striving for. The connection with the world around us has become so tenuous and fleeting. In our quest for the next Instagram selfie, we fail to go below the surface and look inwards. We overlook the fact that we have a beautiful, curious mind that craves non-electronic stimulation of the senses and a chance to explore on its own untethered terms.
It takes discipline to slow down and smell the roses.
It takes time to see beyond the obvious. If we allow it, an enchanting world can be conjured up from something totally unexpected. But we need to allow for the unexpected to happen.
It takes time to see beyond the obvious. If we allow it, an enchanting world can be conjured up from something totally unexpected. But we need to allow for the unexpected to happen. Something as simple as the fleeting brush of light on found glass can send our imaginations soring, if only we take the time to notice it.
So, next time you go for that contemplative beach walk, remember to stop, look down, take some long slow breaths. Enjoy the moving magical show of nature’s sand art right at your feet. Breathe in the moment. Explore the details of the abandoned barn on the country roadside. Discover the drydock yards at the end of the harbour. Seek out the car graveyards being reclaimed by nature. Just let go and unleash your imagination. You won’t be disappointed.
I started photography a few years ago and have been following a select few photographers over this time who have always given me inspiration to me. I follow them purely because of their love and passion and skill in photography.
One of these is Erin Babnik. Her limitless exploration and intensive work in French Alps and Dolomites is extraordinary. Her endlessly amazing work has always given me the strength to go out and explore the outdoors for myself. The photograph shown here is a personal favourite and is an example of her profound work and her love and dedication to the craft.
As she says elsewhere, this photograph wasn’t an easy one to take and was caught in the glimpse of a sunray as it passed over the mountain. As a viewer and a photographer, it shows a beautiful combination of foreground and background. Those leading lines of wildflowers reaching towards the peaks along with its moody nature combine to give something truly enchanting. The photograph speaks for itself and whatever the weather was, there was much hope in capturing that special moment.
As a photographer myself, I understand that it is only possible to truly capture these moments when you enjoy your surroundings and are in tune with mother nature. If you have ever heard Erin talk, she has spoken about “The Balloon Story” a few times.
Welcome to our 4x4 feature which is a set of four mini landscape photography portfolios submitted from our subscribers. Each portfolios consisting of four images related in some way.
Submit Your 4x4 Portfolio
Interested in submitting your work? We're on the lookout for new portfolios for the next few issues, so please do get in touch!
These are the well-known mountain peaks surrounding Canmore, Alberta. A frequent site for travellers driving alongside the highway to Banff. I was pleasantly surprised when I found by accident the perfect weather conditions for some amazing photos. Combining the quality and direction of light, the type of lens, along with the perfect angle of the sun allowed me to show off the full textural detail of this remarkable mountain range.
The windy, cloudy weather of the mountains ensures that your shot will always be changing. Sometimes you’ll have a clear sky, twenty minutes later you might not. While this affects the background, it can also affect your subject, as the shadows of any clouds above can completely change how the mountains look. For the aspiring photographer, a cloudy day in the mountains can yield a cornucopia of photos.
The choice to convert in black and white is one that I’ve been experimenting with for a while. Without the distraction of colour, black and white photography allowed other aspects of the shot, such as the texture of the mountains, the light peeking through the clouds, and more.
It starts with that sound. At first, you can barely make it out, is that the wind? But as you get closer the subtle music becomes clear. The air is cooler. The moisture envelops. What only a few months ago chilled you to the bones, now feels delicious after the exertion. As the light starts to come up and bounce down the walls of the chasm, the contrast of white water and granite starts to emerge from the darkness.
While the mountains in Massachusetts lack the size required to produce waterfalls of the impressive scale of our neighbouring states to the north and west, I am entranced by the more modest intimacy of the falls of my home state. Each has a certain unique quality that makes it special.
The Icelandic south and east coast are varied, stunning, and formidable in its natural formation. I cannot say whether this mini portfolio gives a true image of Iceland, but it is my contention that Iceland can only be witnessed. It is an island that is full of natural events which awaken you from an unconsciousness to the huge forces at play under our very feet. Iceland experiences the full symphony of such events: glacial, tectonic, biologic, geologic, cosmic. These events manifest themselves most evidently in water all over the island. It flows seasonally through a multitude of forms: ice, snow, rain, river, glacier, steam, ocean. Its impact on the landscape is clear, as is its necessity to sustaining human life.
Iceland was the last major island to be inhabited in about 900AD, leaving the landscape mostly unscathed from human intervention. My experience of Iceland was, therefore, a real connection to the elements. These four images demonstrate the juxtaposition of the landscape: the scale and force with which these natural events occur, carving and shaping the landscape; versus the fragile cyclic symbiosis of the Icelandic environment. I do, however, find Iceland at such odds with itself - it places a high economic importance on tourism, ironically thereby endangering the very nature which people travel to see. I think these images tell the story of just how important it is to preserve such a beautiful, yet fragile, natural environment.
Last year, and unknown to me at the time, I was fortunate to get a place on what I believe became the last National Trust photography day that allowed participants to access inside the old Atomic Weapons Research Establishment (AWRE) buildings at Orford Ness.
Tours now – the next is in August 2019 – do not permit interior access due to safety concerns. The buildings are certainly unstable.
All arts have their limits, and I admit that the limits of photography are rather narrow, but in good hands it can be made to lie like a Trojan. However much truth may be desirable in the abstract, to the artist there is no merit in a process that cannot be made to say the thing that is not.~Henry Peach Robinson
We’re all familiar with photographs showcasing magnificent natural-looking scenery, majestic and timeless and free from human incursions. Most of us also know that many such photographs depict places that are often crowded, managed as tourist attractions, where a wild-looking view may only exist in one direction while a raucous crowd may be just outside the frame.
Photographers working in such places, wishing for their images to convey impressions such as wildness, remoteness, or peaceful contemplation, often compose their photographs deliberately to exclude people, roads, and structures that might betray the true nature of the place and the true experience of being in it. Such photographs—even if presented as “unmanipulated,” or as, “straight out of the camera”—may cause viewers to accept as true an impression that is patently false. The Merriam-Webster dictionary uses the phrase, “causing someone to accept as true or valid what is false or invalid,” as a definition for the word, “deception.”
Photographers working in such places, wishing for their images to convey impressions such as wildness, remoteness, or peaceful contemplation, often compose their photographs deliberately to exclude people, roads, and structures that might betray the true nature of the place and the true experience of being in it.
Does it matter that a photograph is not “manipulated,” if the viewer is? In art, the answer is easy: manipulating the impression of the viewer is the very goal of art (at least of most art). But what of the vocal mob who decry manipulation of photographs with such terms as unrealistic, unethical, or immoral, but who have no qualms about deceiving their viewers, so long as some idea of purity of process is held sacrosanct? How is that ethical?
Sometimes you just need a little help. In this case, it was building a shed and who better to recruit than a top landscape photographer! Fortunately, the shed didn't take too long to build and so Joe was available to help me create some video content for you lovely readers out there. We managed to record two such videos in between trips out into the Highlands and the first is from his trip to Cornwall where Joe has some great light and beautiful Spring conditions.
For this issue, we’re slowing down and wandering around with Sarah Marino, a photographer, educator and writer who together with husband Ron Coscorrosa splits her year between home and a nomadic life in a trailer. From the latter, you might expect a portfolio full of iconic American scenery, but over time Sarah has found greater fulfilment through the changing conditions, intimate scenes and delicate details for which she is best known.
Would you like to start by telling readers a little about yourself – where you grew up, your education and early interests, and what that led you to do as a career?
I grew up in a suburb of Denver, Colorado in the United States. Although I did well in school and had a lot of ambition, I didn’t have a strong sense of what I wanted to do with my life and made some poor decisions as a young adult. I was the first person in my family to go to college and initially enrolled at a prestigious engineering school. I succeeded on the academic side but the cutthroat culture of the school was not a good fit. I transferred to another university and graduated with two degrees – one in American history and one in business. I was involved in political advocacy at the time and found my first professional job on a congressional campaign, with the plan of going to law school soon thereafter.
After an intense and mostly unpleasant experience on the campaign, I again realised that highly competitive environments are not a good fit for me and I decided against law school. Feeling rudderless, I applied for a wide range of positions and ended up accepting a job offer at a large nonprofit organisation. Finally, and mostly by accident, I found a culture that was welcoming, collaborative, and mission-oriented – a much better fit. This job led me to a happy, wide-ranging career in Colorado’s nonprofit community, including owning a nonprofit and philanthropy consulting business for almost a decade. While I still work with a few long-term consulting clients, I am getting closer to working as a full-time photographer each year.
A recent rain smoothed out and softened the surface of formerly weathered mud tiles in Death Valley National Park, California.
How did you become interested in photography and what kind of images did you initially set out to make?
About five years into my nonprofit career, I decided that I needed a graduate degree since I wanted to become a CEO and lead a large organisation. I finished a master’s degree in public administration while working full-time in an intense, high pressure job.
During those two stressful years, I tried to get outside for hiking and camping as much as I could because it was my only break. I started taking along a camera and soon realised that photography offered a chance to give my weary brain a rest.
During those two stressful years, I tried to get outside for hiking and camping as much as I could because it was my only break. I started taking along a camera and soon realised that photography offered a chance to give my weary brain a rest. The contemplative process of exploring, observing a landscape, setting up a composition, and crafting a photograph offered a chance for my racing mind to slow down. My initial photographic interests were quite similar to what I focus on now – small scenes, patterns, plants, trees, and an occasional grand landscape.
As I started taking my photography more seriously, I also started experiencing the thrill that can come with external validation. At the time, Marc Adamus was emerging as a driving force in the US landscape photography community. I decided that I wanted to take photos like Marc’s photos, mostly because those types of photos received the most attention. I completed three workshops with Marc and they were instrumental in my development as a photographer. During the first workshop, observing Marc’s adventurous spirit motivated me to build my outdoor abilities and skills (and I learned a lot from observing his creative process). During the final workshop about a year later, I realised that copying Marc’s photos and style offered little in terms of personal satisfaction and I started the slow journey back to focusing on the types of subjects that were among my initial inspirations.
Lightning strikes the mountains behind the Great Sand Dunes in Colorado.
Who (photographers, artists or individuals) or what has most inspired you, or driven you forward in your own development as a photographer?
My interest in nature is the driving force and inspiration that has propelled me forward as a photographer. As I spend more time outside, I find more things that fascinate me. The feelings of discovery, wonder, and awe inspire me to get outside more often, explore the same places more deeply, and experience new places.
While I admire many nature photographers, I actively try to keep the work of others from directly inspiring or heavily influencing my own work. When it comes to photography, I have an impressionable mind, especially with regard to visiting specific places. This led me to partially adopt a practice that photographer Cole Thompson calls photographic celibacy.
As I analysed how I was working, I came to the conclusion that when I studied another photographer’s work, I was imprinting their style onto my conscious and subconscious mind. And then when I photographed a scene, I found myself imitating their style rather than seeing it through my own vision. To overcome this tendency I decided to stop looking at the work of other photographers, as much as was practically possible.~ Cole Thompson
For about a year and a half, I spent very little time looking at nature photography, with the exception of occasionally seeing the photos shared by friends on social media.
I stopped looking at other photographers’ websites and never researched locations by looking at high-quality nature photography of the places I would be visiting. I decided that if I wanted to create photos that are more reflective of me
I stopped looking at other photographers’ websites and never researched locations by looking at high-quality nature photography of the places I would be visiting. I decided that if I wanted to create photos that are more reflective of me, I needed to stop spending so much time allowing other people’s visions to get imprinted on my own. This practice helped clear my mind and gave me the mental space to figure out what I wanted to photograph and how I wanted to photograph it. I cultivated internal motivations and developed significantly more confidence in my work during this period, as well. Now, I spend a bit more time looking at nature photography but still avoid looking at photos of a place that I will be visiting in the near future.
Almost every time I discuss these ideas with other photographers, I get strong disagreement so I know that this practice doesn’t work or isn’t compelling to most people. However, when I consider my biggest breakthroughs and periods of progress with my own photography, this approach was essential.
How have your experiences over the last 10 years changed your perspective on life and the necessity of making a living?
My only sibling passed away after a bicycle accident when I was 14 years old and it was an incredibly traumatising and consequential experience. I can trace most of my ambition and the constant feeling that I need to fit in as much as possible to this experience. This initially manifested as a drive to be a top achiever in school and then morphed into a desire to accelerate professional accomplishments. While this approach produced an impressive resume, it also left me feeling emotionally tattered and constantly stressed. I daydreamed about taking a year off to rest and focus on photography but given my situation at the time and my addiction to work, making it happen seemed impossible.
In 2011, I met my now-husband, Ron Coscorrosa, during a photography trip in southwestern Colorado. Ron had saved up so he could take a sabbatical from his work as a software engineer. While I initially had no romantic interest in Ron, I found his life choices to be instantly inspiring because, at home, I was surrounded by people who only defined success through career-oriented achievements. Getting to know someone who defined success in terms of enjoying life was a revelation and it motivated me to start making different choices. At the time, I had a busy consulting practice and selected projects based on things like prestige and visibility. I started instead of selecting projects that allowed me to work remotely and maintain a flexible schedule. I also went through a long, difficult process of crafting a new identity – one that wasn’t based solely on traditional career success but instead of actually enjoying life.
Getting to know someone who defined success in terms of enjoying life was a revelation and it motivated me to start making different choices. At the time, I had a busy consulting practice and selected projects based on things like prestige and visibility.
Ice formations on a backcountry lake in Colorado's San Juan Mountains.
Once we got married, we significantly reduced our expenses, moved to a small town with a lower cost of living, and figured out a way to travel a lot more (finding remote work, buying an RV, and introducing our cats – successfully! - to travelling). While I make a lot less now and still feel self-induced pressure to cram in as much as possible, I am much happier living a simpler, slower life with more time for travel, being outdoors, and photography.
Across the breadth of your portfolio, which places, projects or themes have the most resonance for you?
This is a hard question to answer because every natural place I have visited resonated with me in some way. Still, I feel most at home in wide-open desert landscapes. Exploring is easy since cross-country travel is allowed in many places. Desert landscapes also seem to hold more surreal surprises than other types of ecosystems. It is exhilarating to head out to a familiar place and not know what we might find since some desert landscapes can change dramatically after flooding or extended periods of dry weather. As noted in 1-star Trip Advisor reviews for places like Death Valley National Park, these landscapes can look like desolate expanses of brown at first glance. With a closer look, however, such places are often full of life and are transformed under different lighting throughout the day. All these things come together to make such landscapes feel magical.
I also spend a lot of time seeking order among chaos. This is probably the most common theme in my photography, as I find the greatest pleasure in finding patterns and repetition in nature. It is fascinating to see patterns repeat in all different kinds of subjects and at all different scales. Finding these subjects, being able to photograph them, and then presenting them in cohesive collections bring me a lot of joy.
Would you like to choose 2-3 of your favourite photographs and tell us a little about why they are special to you?
Edge of Light
The edge of a sand dune catches the last light of the day at a remote dune field (Death Valley National Park, California).
When comparing my black and white work to my colour work, I think my black and white work is a better representation of my interests in and affection for the natural world. I always feel constrained when working with colour photographs and my perfectionist tendencies often get the best of me. For example, I took this photo in the late afternoon. The shaded sand dunes took on an unattractive shade of brown. By portraying this scene in black and white, I could get past my issues with the brown dunes and accentuate the strong contrasts in a way that would look artificial if rendered in colour. This photo remains one of my favourites because of the frill of wind-blown sand – a little detail that makes the photo for me.
Seaweed Patterns
Glistening seaweed in a tidal flat in Iceland
I took this photo across the street from one of Iceland’s busiest photography spots. This is an interesting place to observe photographers because most people get out of their car, walk the short distance to get “the shot,” get back in their car and drive away. It is sad to see how few people explore since the area offers many subjects for photography – tidal flats full of this seaweed, extensive sand ripples, areas of standing water that reflect the surrounding mountains, and a series of pretty cascades all within five minutes of walking from the parking lot. When people ask me about my photography style, I say that I photograph by wandering around and my photos are the result of what I find while on these meanders. This is an example of how easy it is to find subjects just by wandering around. I continue to enjoy this photo because of the repetition of the beautiful, intricate patterns in this seaweed. The slight wetness also adds a bit of a silvery sheen, which I love.
Many photographers work in a solitary manner – at least while in the field. Can I ask you about the dynamic of working jointly with your partner Ron? How much do your vision and style have in common, and how do they differ?
Ron and I are fortunate to have remarkably similar interests when it comes to being in nature, like our mutual affection for desolate landscapes and spending a lot of time seeking out tiny subjects. Since our interests align, we are able to easily choose places to visit that interest us both. If we are visiting a place that requires hiking to access the spot we are planning to photograph, we almost always hike together and then split up once we arrive at our destination. If we are photographing from the car or a parking lot, we sometimes spend a little time exploring together but much more commonly go off in our own direction.
One of the most common questions we are asked is, “Who is the better photographer?” This question is confounding since we never think in these terms, as we are not territorial or competitive at all. If I see something interesting, I am often as excited about sharing it with Ron as I am about photographing it myself.
Fuzzy grasses capture fallen autumn cottonwood leaves in Zion National Park, Utah.
A frilly desert plant at the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Florida.
Ron is a carefree person and just enjoys being outside. He never puts pressure on himself and rarely brings expectations to a place. I, on the other hand, sometimes feel the pressure of a moment. This last winter, we made a detour to Zion National Park because of a forecasted snowstorm. I have wanted to photograph this area with a coat of snow for many years and this happened to be the first time that everything aligned for us. The snow was magnificently beautiful but was already melting by the time we were up for sunrise.
I enjoy photography a lot more when I can move at a slow pace and just see what a place has to offer without the pressure of rare conditions or a lot invested in a once-in-a-lifetime trip.
Instead of enjoying the experience, I ended up feeling a lot of pressure and stress because of the uniqueness and fleeting nature of the conditions. Ron, with his more low-key approach, enjoyed it a lot more and is happier with his resulting photographs. This dynamic is why I am most happy showing up at a place without a lot of expectations or a plan I enjoy photography a lot more when I can move at a slow pace and just see what a place has to offer without the pressure of rare conditions or a lot invested in a once-in-a-lifetime trip. Comparatively, Ron can excel in both situations. The more time I spend with him, the better I am getting at adapting my inclinations to his style and it has improved both my photography and experience as a result.
Which bits of gear have survived you ;-) and can most often be found in your camera bag?
A few years ago, I had a rough phase with gear: dropping a lens onto a sidewalk, watching a lens slowly roll out of my bag and down a 30-foot hill before plopping into a cascade, and ruining a camera in heavy waterfall spray. Since then, I have tried to be more careful with my equipment although I do still joke that it is not the smartest move to buy used gear from any nature photographer…
I use Canon equipment including the Canon R mirrorless camera, plus 16-35mm, 24-105mm, 100 mm macro, 70-200mm, and 100-400mm lenses. With the exception of the 70-200mm lens, which I reserve for longer hikes since it is lightweight, I always carry the other four lenses in my camera bag and use them in similar proportions.
Extensive badlands in the early morning in Death Valley National Park, California.
Death Valley National Park’s flooded salt flats, which looked like ice on this cold morning in the desert.
Can you give readers an insight into your workflow from the point of image capture to output?
In the great debate about Photoshopping and “fakery,” I fall somewhere in the middle of the continuum. I want to present my subject at its best and will accordingly fine tune things during processing but also want to stay grounded in reality. For me, the power of nature photography is rooted in the idea that the photographer actually experienced the moment they are presenting. While dropping in a better sky or perking up a mountain might be a fully valid creative choice, learning that the photographer didn’t actually experience the moment of awe as they are presenting it takes away something valuable for me as the viewer. Thus, I want to maintain what I see as authenticity when presenting my work, especially with my colour photography.
Conversely, one of the things I enjoy most about black and white photography is that the starting point itself is a departure from reality. This provides significant creative freedom – a freedom that I more fully realise when processing my black and white photographs. This typically means building significant contrast into the scene, with strong light and dark tones, using levels, curves, and basic luminosity masks as my primary tools in Photoshop. My process also includes emphasising or deemphasising specific elements of a scene through dodging and burning. I use many of the same tools for my colour photography, just with a much lighter hand. I generally want my black and white photos to be visually striking and more aggressive whereas I want my colour photos to convey grace and elegance.
Layers of colourful mountains emerge from a clearing storm in Iceland's rugged and remote interior.
Workshops, done well, are an important source of income for many professionals but is there a danger that their proliferation encourages learners to think that everything they need to know or do can be achieved via this route? We learn a lot from experimenting and failing and following curiosity and resisting the pressure to get it right and show the evidence of this. Where might a balance lie?
The opportunity to learn from an experienced professional in the field can be invaluable and even transformational.
I think the field of nature photography and individual photographers would be better served if more workshop leaders took less of a checklist approach and offered more education on personal expression, how exploration can create unexpected opportunities, how to see beyond the obvious, how to cultivate curiosity, and how to adapt to changing conditions.
Unfortunately, a lot of workshops heavily focus on a checklist approach or have instructors that are too reliant on pre-determined plans or ideas. While this approach can result in a nice collection of photos at the end of a trip, it can also encourage some practices that are contrary to creativity and personal expression – adaptability, flexibility, curiosity, and an orientation toward exploration.
As an illustration, we were photographing coastal scenes one evening in Olympic National Park. We came upon a workshop taught by a well-known photographer. He planted his ten students in one spot, all facing the same direction and photographing the same subject in the same way. There were no clouds behind “the shot” but there were interesting clouds in other directions, plus a lot of other potential scenes and subjects up and down the beach. In watching this scene unfold, I was frustrated for his students that they were being taught such a narrowly focused approach to nature photography. In other settings, I have seen a similar approach to teaching, with workshop leaders talking about how a location always has one composition that is the best or telling students to focus on what they came for (the grand landscape) rather than what catches a student’s eye (some shiny mud patterns).
A good number of students want to be brought to the best locations and instructed on the best compositions. I fully understand that this approach meets the needs of a lot of instructors and their students. However, I think the field of nature photography and individual photographers would be better served if more workshop leaders took less of a checklist approach and offered more education on personal expression, how exploration can create unexpected opportunities, how to see beyond the obvious, how to cultivate curiosity, and how to adapt to changing conditions. The latter helps instil a set of skills that is perpetually useful and can help set a photography student on a more personally fulfilling path in the longer-term.
How would you advise readers who feel that you must have a plan – about where to go and what to photograph?
I always think about a particular story when discussing this topic because it is such a dramatic example of how expectations can eliminate opportunities and stifle creativity. A student came to a friend’s workshop with the goal of photographing waterfalls. The conditions were not conducive to photographing waterfalls but were excellent for forest scenes showcasing fall colours. The student ended up leaving the workshop early because she couldn’t see past her expectations while the rest of the participants enjoyed one of the best autumn seasons in memory. The simple lesson: minimise expectations, keep your plans flexible, and you will likely be happier as a result.
While this advice is simplistic, I think it is a key to finding more satisfaction in nature photography (excluding certain types of photography which require a lot of planning, like night photography). I offer this advice because following it has been transformative for me since I used to be heavily driven by expectations and pre-conceived ideas. Now, I try my best to minimise my expectations for a place, free my mind of specific photos I might want to take and open myself up to what I see one I arrive. I slow down and wander around, photographing the things that catch my eye along the way. I do not always succeed (see: Zion example above) but generally, have found this approach to be much more fulfilling than the alternative.
Many of the people that we’ve interviewed have come to photography through a love of the outdoors and outdoor pursuits but I guess it may now only be a matter of time before someone does admit that they got into photography through what they saw on social media. Visual outputs have always influenced us but they weren’t previously so obviously linked to statistics (popularity and ‘success’, whatever that means). How can we moderate the risk that nature once again becomes something to exploit for our own end? Is photography still a force for good, or are we now becoming part of the problem?
At least in the United States, nature photography has historically been a major force for good. Many conservation campaigns have been propelled forward and achieved success because nature photographers have helped create a compelling visual record of what could be lost without preservation. For previous generations, even photographers without a personal conservation mission often came to photography first through their love of and experience in wild places. This meant that a photographer would learn about Leave No Trace and other wilderness ethics along the way.
Now, many people are coming to nature photography through social media, especially Instagram, which has created the dynamic in which nature is seen as an expendable commodity. The recent poppy bloom in southern California is an illustrative example of how social media encouraged a lot of people without grounding in outdoor ethics to visit a place, treat it with disrespect (sometimes unknowingly and sometimes intentionally), and cause irreparable damage in the process. While it might not seem like a big deal for one person to step off a trail, the cumulative effect of hundreds of people doing so can be significant.
Bright maple leaves and a few green oak leaves stand out among a less vibrant bed of fallen leaves in Zion National Park, Utah.
Increasingly, individual photographers can reach thousands of people with a single post. With reach comes responsibility and the need to acknowledge one’s ability to impact behaviour for the good or bad through our photographs and messaging. Beyond individual photographers, news organizations, commercial brands, and tourism agencies bear a lot of responsibility for these trends, as well. For example, one major camera brand posted many photos of people frolicking in wildflower fields during the same super bloom, often with hashtags inviting people to share their own similar photos. This sends the message that such photos get attention and thus should be imitated if you want to be featured by that brand in the future.
To start addressing this swirl of complex issues and negative impacts, a group of Colorado-based nature photographers came together to create the Nature First movement, starting with 7 Principles that nature photographers can follow to help minimise our collective impact. The 7 Principles include:
Prioritise the well-being of nature over photography
Educate yourself about the places you photograph
Reflect on the possible impact of your actions
Use discretion if sharing locations
Know and follow rules and regulations
Always follow Leave No Trace principles and strive to leave places better than you found them
Actively promote and educate others about these principles
After launching on Earth Day in late April, more than 1,200 photographers from 40 countries have joined the Nature First movement. If your readers would like to learn more about the initiative and join for free, they can visit www.naturefirstphotography.org. Since we spoke about workshop leaders above, I also want to mention that the Nature First organising group offers some specific advice for workshop leaders and those with large audiences since we believe that such individuals have a special responsibility in modelling and educating others about these practices.
Steam from a nearby geothermal feature helps simplify this scene and show off the structure of this tree which has died due to its proximity to an encroaching hot spring. Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming.
Do you have any particular projects or ambitions for the future or themes that you would like to explore further? A while ago you mentioned that you would like to move from eBooks to producing a printed book.
One of the best things about working as a photographer today is being able to reach an audience without going through traditional gatekeepers. We started self-publishing eBooks in 2013 and eventually added video tutorials. The ability to develop and sell these products has been a key part of being able to transition from my consulting career to making a living through photography. We plan to continue expanding our offerings in the future; this summer, we will be working on three digital portfolios and possibly new video tutorials.
One of my goals is to publish a printed book – either educational or a portfolio book - but it feels like a daunting endeavour at this point. I have started researching and writing a book on composition and have considered approaching some publishers to gauge their interest. Still, I keep on feeling the pullback to self-publishing since I would have more control over the final product and it would likely be more financially viable. Even if the composition book doesn’t turn into a printed book, I still hope to publish something other than digital products in the future.
Is it important to you that other people see your work in print, and if so, how do you choose to print and present your pictures?
Printing has been my single greatest source of frustration with photography and remains the area in which I have the most to learn. I love photography because I find great joy in being outside.
Printing is an extension of the things I do not like about photo processing – it can be highly technical, entails a lot of time in front of a computer, and requires iterations that are expensive and frustrating without an on-site printing set-up.
I go through waves where I almost enjoy photo processing but generally see it as a less appealing part of the digital photography process. Printing is an extension of the things I do not like about photo processing – it can be highly technical, entails a lot of time in front of a computer, and requires iterations that are expensive and frustrating without an on-site printing set-up.
Without regularly sharing prints of my work, I know that I am missing out on a critical part of the photography process. We recently purchased a large format printer and one of my primary goals for this year is to significantly increase my knowledge of fine art printing and get to the point where I can confidently print any of my photographs.
A misty morning in Mount Rainier National Park.
If you had to take a break from all things photographic for a week, what would you end up doing? What other hobbies or interests do you have?
My main interests beyond photography include cooking and hiking, often while socializing with friends and family. I have slowly perfected my ability to bake a loaf of artisan bread, can now make an almost perfect pistachio gelato and have significantly expanded my ability to cook a good vegetarian meal from a broad range of worldwide cuisines. A few years ago, we moved from urban Denver to a town of about 1,000 people in southwestern Colorado so we spend a lot of time exploring this area. We have been choosing a region each summer and then hiking as many trails as we can, often without camera gear.
And finally, is there someone whose photography you enjoy – perhaps someone that we may not have come across - and whose work you think we should feature in a future issue? They can be amateur or professional.
Michele Sons. While I really enjoy Michele’s more traditional nature photography, as she has a talent for creating photographs that capture the elegance and grace of the places she visits, I find her Feminine Landscape series to be especially well done.
Thank you, Sarah. It’s been great to catch up with you.
If you’d like to see more of Sarah’s images, you’ll find her portfolio at https://www.naturephotoguides.com; she’s also on Instagram. You can read the blog post that Sarah wrote about minimising the impact of your photography here.
An up-close look at a Joshua tree in Joshua Tree National Park, California.
Glistening seaweed in a tidal flat in Iceland
The edge of a sand dune catches the last light of the day at a remote dune field (Death Valley National Park, California).
Steam from a nearby geothermal feature helps simplify this scene and show off the structure of this tree which has died due to its proximity to an encroaching hot spring. Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming.
A small waterfall flowing through moss-covered rocks in Iceland.
A high-up view of the amphitheater surrounding a waterfall in Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge. The area surrounding this waterfall was heavily damaged in 2017 due to a massive wildfire started by careless people playing with fireworks.
A recent rain smoothed out and softened the surface of formerly weathered mud tiles in Death Valley National Park, California.
Colourful rocks below textured ice in winter in Zion National Park, Utah.
A tiny section of pretty moss growing on a downed tree in Olympic National Park, Washington.
A misty morning in Mount Rainier National Park.
Layers of colourful mountains emerge from a clearing storm in Iceland’s rugged and remote interior.
Lightning strikes the mountains behind the Great Sand Dunes in Colorado.
A frilly desert plant at the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Florida.
Ice formations on a backcountry lake in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains.
Bright maple leaves and a few green oak leaves stand out among a less vibrant bed of fallen leaves in Zion National Park, Utah.
Fuzzy grasses capture fallen autumn cottonwood leaves in Zion National Park, Utah.
Extensive badlands in the early morning in Death Valley National Park, California.
Death Valley National Park’s flooded salt flats, which looked like ice on this cold morning in the desert.
Dappled light travels across a dense tropical forest on the Hawaiian island of Kauai.
Gibraltar was a place I wasn’t overly familiar with, aside from the cultural icons we all associate with the place from the stories of others; Barbary Apes, Brits abroad, red post boxes and telephones boxes and the vernacular. I didn’t go to Gibraltar intending on producing a body of photographic work, it was an incidental meeting, but it has always been the concept of place which dominates the focus of my work.
A couple of years ago my fiancé and I went to visit a friend in neighbouring Spain, and we flew into Gibraltar as this was the closest airport. We’d heard horror stories of the landings there due to the Rock and the Strait and how this impacted upon the weather. We needn’t have worried, the landing was fine, but the Rock gave for a rather imposing and monumental greeting, its north face stands prominent next to the airport as if to assert its presence to you as soon as your feet touch the tarmac. From that point on I was captivated. We hadn’t planned on visiting Gibraltar as part of our trip, it was acting merely as a transitory place, somewhere to pass through. Looking back now, it’s hard to understand how I could have been so dismissive, but I didn’t know then what I do now.
It is quite difficult to describe the oddness of being in a foreign country, with my Euros, suntan lotion, travel insurance and Mediterranean climate to then drive twenty minutes along the coast, park our car and walk back into the UK. The familiar sights of Morrisons supermarket, Debenhams department store and the Union Jack flag anchor you right back at home, but there is something which disrupts that anchor from fully settling, such as the Gibraltarian flag alongside the Union Jack, the warm and balmy climate, the sound of locals conversating in their local dialect of Llanitos (a rather beautiful linguistic blend of cultural influences such as Spanish and Jewish) and the Spanish street names. It is an eloquent synthesis of those who have come and gone over time as a result of its military history, as well as those who move back and forth across its border with Spain every day for work and pleasure.
The familiar sights of Morrisons supermarket, Debenhams department store and the Union Jack flag anchor you right back at home, but there is something which disrupts that anchor from fully settling, such as the Gibraltarian flag alongside the Union Jack, the warm and balmy climate, the sound of locals conversating in their local dialect of Llanitos
Owing to its land border with Spain, it is no surprise that families are very commonly a mix of Gibraltarian, British and Spanish. A tight-knit residential community of just under 33,000 at the last count in 2012, and an area which measures approximately 2.6 square miles it is a place where people know each other well and are in close proximity. When General Franco closed the border in 1969 in an attempt to strangle the Gibraltarian economy, the family relationships were tested and owing to the ties with neighbouring Spanish communities, families of mixed cultures were forced to choose which side of the frontier to remain on when it closed, either detached from their families and friends or from their places of work. Franco’s attempts to bring the place to its knees was not successful and his actions only solidified the bond within the community, but the scars and trauma from that period of time still remain to the point where some have refused to cross the frontier since it reopened in the early 1980’s.
On my day trip to Gibraltar on that first visit, my initial observations were that it was very much a political landscape. Evidence of the multitude of battles and siege attempts is embedded in the land and terrain. We set about immersing ourselves in the popular tourist attractions, but I was more intrigued by everything other than these aspects. I wanted to unearth the parts of Gibraltar which we may not already know, and which offer an additional dimension to the place.
When I returned back home to mainland UK my interest didn’t fade. I spent a considerable amount of time doing research into Gibraltar whilst planning a return trip. I didn’t have a pre-conceived basis for a project, I always prefer to be in the place and to document what I see and what interests me and allow the narrative to unearth through the images. All I knew at this stage was that I was very interested in the place and wanted to be better informed before I returned to explore further.
Upon my return to Gibraltar some six months later I set about exploring the peninsula and chose to do this all on foot. I find it a much better way for me to absorb my surroundings and Gibraltar is not so big that this is too much of a challenge, or at least I thought! The evening of my arrival a storm arrived which demonstrated the ferocity of the infamous Easterly wind across the Strait. I could lean into it at times and it would support my full body weight. Walking and photographing with these weather conditions was a real challenge but I was on a tight timescale with a logistical plan in place to cover as much ground as I could whilst I was there and so hiding in the hotel was not an option; instead, I considered it part of the experience and embraced it.
Tunnel Exit
The strong winds lasted for 3 days but eventually gave way to bright sunshine and warmer temperatures, but this posed its own challenges as well. It was in this direct and intense sun that we hiked to the summit of the rock along roads with gradients so steep I felt I would fall backwards if I stopped. Much to my amazement, locals were running and cycling up these same roads. I watched them with an immense amount of respect and disbelief. I was lucky enough to have my fiancé with me as my support and assistant for this trip and we managed to hike the full height of 1,398ft with two full camera kits on our backs. I carried a digital and 35mm kit and my fiancé carried the large format kit. It was brutal and challenging, but very much worth the effort. There is a route you can take known as the Med Steps but the locals felt this would be unsafe with our equipment on our backs and so advised us against this and we listened to them, after all, they knew this place a great deal better than we did.
When reviewing the imagery from my trips so far, I became overwhelmingly interested in the information that the landscape held within it, what it could reveal. I had captured dynamite blast scars in the walls of the rock and discovered that there is a vast network of tunnels inside the rock for defence purposes which spanned from the Great Siege of 1779 through to the Cold War era.
When reviewing the imagery from my trips so far, I became overwhelmingly interested in the information that the landscape held within it, what it could reveal. I had captured dynamite blast scars in the walls of the rock and discovered that there is a vast network of tunnels inside the rock for defence purposes which spanned from the Great Siege of 1779 through to the Cold War era. The World War Two tunnelling activity saw the network extended from around 7 miles to 25 miles and even contained a five-storey hospital and the military occupants had to pass messages by motorbike.
Blast Scar
Europa Waterfall
Through the imagery, I had taken and through the research and information I was able to find, my project and the narrative really started to lean towards an interest in how the landscape had been utilised and shaped for the occupation of the peninsula and the subsequent defence of it. It was a constant jutting together of a natural force and a manmade force. The terrain also revealed to me the challenges in terms of water management and flow and how this also played into the natural forces and how our determination to occupy the peninsula meant finding ways to control this flow. There are no lakes or rivers in Gibraltar and so historically drinking water was obtained by water catchment on the slopes of the rock in addition to wells.
The Eastern side of the rock, owing to its flat surface, had at one point been covered in corrugated metal sheeting to catch rainfall as a water source but was to the demise of the plant life and wildlife which called it home. This area of the rock has now been restored and brought back to its former state, but remnants of this metal sheeting can still be seen today. Rainfall catchment soon became insufficient to support a quickly expanding population and so a desalination plant was formed, and the vast reserve tanks are contained within the rock. The waste product from this is sent back out to sea via a waterfall known as Europa Waterfall and despite being a manmade feature, appears entirely natural. The rock itself plays host to huge rooms of computer servers, taking advantage of the cooler temperatures and low fire risk and has more recently started to be used for wine storage but, it also offers spaces within it which are formed naturally such as St. Michaels Cave which provides us with a visual of how nature forms its spaces at a much slower pace and with a Cathedral-like finesse which far exceeds the brutal blasts of dynamite.
Forbes Quarry
The more significant discovery for me was surrounding the traces of the Neanderthals found in Gibraltar. At the back of an apartment, block carpark was a quarry by the name of Forbes Quarry. It was the site where a full adult Neanderthal skull was found in 1848 and was the first ever found. Traces of their lives were discovered in Gorham’s Cave where historic etchings were also uncovered. The quarry is now fenced off due to rockfall risk and is not accessible to the public. I felt profound sadness that this site was not able to be celebrated for its significance, it told us so much about ourselves, who we are and where we came from. This, for me, really underpinned the importance of what our landscapes can provide us with in terms of information, traces, remnants and scars. I hope at some point this site is given the status it deserves.
The longer-term goals for the project are that it is still ongoing, and I will continue to return to Gibraltar to conversate with its landscapes. There is still so much for it to reveal and this will always hold my interest. I have begun to exhibit some of the work this year and will be looking to expand on this in the near future.
Wearing a dress and high-heeled boots, I grabbed my camera, jumped in my truck, and took off down the street. I could no longer bear to watch the low clouds wrap around the mountains and the shadows dance across the sand dunes from my hotel room in Death Valley National Park in California. I had been waiting for a group of workshop participants to arrive but had just received a text message saying they were delayed in Las Vegas. I had time to chase the light. I had to hurry. The storm was clearing.
After turning up a dirt side road, I started making images. First, I made a tight vertical composition to add visual tension to what was already a dramatic scene. I did a little dance, waving my arms and hips from side to side, in pure delight. I waited. The light changed. I made a different image, a horizontal one with extra sky to emphasise the isolation of a distant peak shrouded in fog. I danced. I waited. The light changed again. I made 72 frames in a half hour during a blissful spell I didn’t expect to have.
My workshop participants finally arrived, and I started the workshop the same way I start most of my sessions, with an introductory presentation encouraging participants to connect with the landscape in their own way. As usual, I opened with my definition of what I believed a good photograph was: “An outward expression of what an individual photographer deemed meaningful enough to notice.”
As usual, I opened with my definition of what I believed a good photograph was: “An outward expression of what an individual photographer deemed meaningful enough to notice.”
I ran through key concepts like the Wallas Creative Model, conceptual blending, pareidolia, and metaphorical associations (e.g., “What else is it?”) hoping to trigger personal responses to scenes and subjects. We played an improv game to not only help get the creative juices flowing but to also get into the mindset of taking the current situation into account and building an orderly response from chaos—something we face when photographing nature.
During the next four days, we practised these ideas and techniques to achieve more deliberate, contemplative photographs in various locations, some iconic and some off the beaten path. The first goal of our outings was to simply enjoy and appreciate our surroundings. Then, if a scene moved the participants to make an image, we’d approach it with more engagement and less aimless spraying-and-praying (taking a bunch of photos and praying, usually at home while sitting in front of the computer, one turned out well); to go beyond the “I-was-here” snapshot that thousands, if not millions, of people, already had captured; and to acknowledge that an expressive photograph originates from the mind of a photographer and incorporates weather, light, and location but does not depend upon them. The act of photographing would then be a deliberate one, one resulting from an individually-defined deeper relationship with a place.
This photograph appears with the introduction to TJC’s book ‘Dreaming The Gokstadt’, (and if I wildly paraphrase) in which I think he describes the difference between elemental landscape that demands conventional immediacy, to catch a cloud, a ray of sun perhaps, against landscape outside of a conventional chronology of the moment, where the necessity is to gaze and absorb the landscape and to make a photograph to reflect this moment of contemplation.
At least that is what I get out of reading his introduction, that gazing is a way of seeing without expectations, and where composition and meaning are revealed by the place itself in gazing past the immediacy of the place.
‘Snowbird’ was made at Stanton Moor in Derbyshire, and I was there that very day as a student on a field trip organised while TJC was a visiting lecturer at Sheffield School of Art and Design, now Sheffield Hallam University. Just out of the minibus we students were trudging through the snow probably wondering how far we had to walk to get away from each other when I swear TJC let out an exclamation and encouraged everybody to ‘just move along’ while he set up his camera. To quell the general bemusement he had to show us all what he’d seen, and yes, it was ‘Snowbird’. So much for gazing and contemplation Tom, it was a photojournalists reaction to an event! But boy-oh-boy did it get me thinking about the landscape in a different way from that day to this.
Welcome to our 4x4 feature which is a set of four mini landscape photography portfolios submitted from our subscribers. Each portfolios consisting of four images related in some way.
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Interested in submitting your work? We're on the lookout for new portfolios for the next few issues, so please do get in touch!
These images represent an ongoing project exploring the River Darent in Kent. The Darent is an ancient chalk stream that emerges at Greensand Ridge in Westerham. After passing through the Darent Valley, it eventually joins the Thames at Dartford. Whilst over the centuries, there has been a human imperative to interfere with the flow (through building bridges and watermills, etc.), only limited control over its power is ever achieved. In contrast with these infrastructural efforts, the flow of the river remains awesome and at times terrifying.
I have excluded any reference to context or scale within these images to make them generically representative of the flows that have supported life on earth since the beginning of time. Although the project is focused on a particular geographical location, I hope that the images of the river’s natural force take on a more metaphorical meaning, reminding us of our individual and collective journeys.
For many years I've been fascinated by country churches. They are some of our oldest buildings and are everywhere - there's always a list of those that I want to visit and photograph. Interiors I usually photograph in colour but I often convert those images to monochrome. Exteriors I photograph using a camera converted to capture infrared (830nm for the technically minded).
I find that infrared is the right medium to show the beauty of them and also adds an air of mystery. Many years ago I used infrared film to photograph churches but I find digital infrared much more satisfying in that, using Elements and Nik software, it enables me to produce the images that I want. many country churches are in villages but some stand apart from their associated villages, surrounded by countryside - hence "Churches in the Landscape".
Visiting the Isle of Arran last year on a lone photo trip, I enjoyed the sea and the hills but found my highlight at dawn two miles down the coast from my hotel at Corrie. Horizontal slabs of grey and red sandstone were washed by the retreating tide, leaving a miniature landscape of ridges and pools, ambiguous in shape and scale.
These are photographs taken over twelve hours during a brief visit to the Moroccan end of the Saharan Great Sand Sea. There were ideas and inspiration everywhere and show both the cool and warmth of late and early sun. We were just far enough into the dunes to forget that the hotel and my lovely bathroom were only a half hour camel ride away!
It’s interesting how circumstances can combine such that even if you have what others might consider to be iconic landscapes on your doorstep, your photographic curiosity takes you away from the obvious through a choice of composition, photographic technique, and/or print processes. Stuart Clook’s work mixes places beloved by 21st century filmmakers, audiences and adventurers with 19th century photographic and printing processes, exploring the way that colour can influence perception and deliberately making room for error and discovery. We had a taste of Stuart’s ‘Precious Landscapes’ for our subscriber’s 4x4 portfolio feature back in 2017 and as he prepares for his first solo exhibition of the work, we thought it would be good to find out more.
Would you like to start by telling readers a little about yourself – where you grew up, your education and early interests, and what that led you to do as a career?
I grew up and went to school in Llangollen, North Wales and from an early age, my interest and passion was fly fishing for trout and salmon in the local rivers and lakes. At 15 and 16 I represented Wales in the junior fly fishing team and had no thoughts for photography. I left school at 16 with a scholarship to go to Manchester and study Polymer Science and then continued my studies in London for a further three years before returning to North Wales to work as a material scientist in a new research facility for BICC cables. Seven years later, and a decision to go find some adventure, I decided to move to New Zealand. I have worked in various Manufacturing and Operations management roles for the past 25 years and now look after quality and regulatory affairs for a medical device company that designs and manufactures mobility equipment for adults and children with physical and mental disabilities.
How did you first become interested in photography and what kind of images did you initially set out to make?
I didn’t pick up a camera until moving to NZ, and then only as a way to record my fishing and tramping adventures using a disposable waterproof camera that took 24 pictures. Very much a point, shoot and wind on. I would drop it off at the local camera store and pick up my negatives and prints a week later. My photographs of smiling faces and big fish were just that and were great for keeping memories and for bragging at the local fishing club but I was never really satisfied with my other photographs of the rivers, valleys and incredible scenery that I was fishing and camping in. Coming from a similar size country with some 55 million people to one with 3.6 million and with only a third of those living on the South Island the landscape is huge in comparison.
Largely untracked and with remote and wilderness areas it was breathtaking, and it wasn't long before I bought my first proper camera, a Nikon F60.
Largely untracked and with remote and wilderness areas it was breathtaking, and it wasn't long before I bought my first proper camera, a Nikon F60. That's how it all began and over the next several years the fishing trips turned into photography trips, the photography improved and the landscape images I was printing onto canvas and fine art inkjet papers were starting to sell through a local gallery which helped fill the petrol tank and kept the ink and paper flowing through my printer.
What’s your local area like and which places are you drawn back to, time and again?
I live about 20 minutes out of Christchurch over the Port Hills at the top of Lyttelton Harbour on Banks Peninsula. Banks Peninsula is the remains of two long extinct volcanoes that have been claimed by the sea resulting in two large harbours with numerous bays and coves. I enjoy photographing along the coastal tracks and on the tops between the bays where there are what remains of native bush and totora forests that had not been totally cleared by the early European settlers. An hour’s drive away is the Southern Alps, a mountain chain that runs the length of the South Island. Here there are beech forests and alpine meadows in the valleys and rivers and lakes that drain the year round snow covered mountains. I make many day trips into the mountains exploring new ground and revisiting familiar places at different times of the year. I especially enjoy making longer trips in the autumn and winter when the light is not as harsh as in summer and when there is a good chance of a gathering or clearing storm.
What changes have you observed – for good or bad – as film and social media have popularised the landscapes of New Zealand?
I have been in NZ for 25 years and yes the numbers of visitors has increased significantly in that time. I don’t see it as a bad thing; the dollars the visitors bring with them are a big part of our economy and our walking tracks and back country huts are being renovated and improved as a result for the enjoyment of all us, locals and visitors alike. NZ’s South Island is still largely unpopulated and with the extremes of our geography there are not many roads to get around on, hence it can be quite crowded and busy and is why you see a large number of images on social media that are of the same scenes and locations. Recent films like the Lord of the Rings and The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe have only further raised the number of visitors coming and as a result there are visitors and tour groups jumping from one film location to the next and it is not uncommon to have dozens of tripods and cameras clicking during peak times in the iconic locations and roadside rest areas. This does of course make it difficult if not impossible to make a unique photograph of the scene without being influenced by those you see on social media or in magazines and is actually one of reasons I started to look at other ways to make my photographs and particularly in the printing of them.
One of the images you have chosen for this interview is of the Wanaka tree and is a good example of this. This tree has been photographed thousands if not millions of times and I can hear my kiwi friends groaning at ‘not another Wanaka tree’ image. This photograph was taken several years ago when I first started to explore alternative printing techniques and it really helped to open my eyes to what is possible.
This is a cyanotype print that has been bleached and then re-toned using several exposures of watercolour pigment using the gum bichromate process. A work of labour, yes, but tremendously satisfying when it comes off.
This is a cyanotype print that has been bleached and then re-toned using several exposures of watercolour pigment using the gum bichromate process. A work of labour, yes, but tremendously satisfying when it comes off. To get to the final print that you see here took many failures over several weeks before I had a print I was happy with and it was this process of making prints that I started to fall in love with as much as working with the camera in the field.
Who (photographers, artists or individuals) or what has most inspired you, or driven you forward in your own development as a photographer?
The artist and writer Austin Kleon writing on how to be more creative published a book titled ‘Steal Like an Artist’ and - along with a quote I have written up on a ‘post it’ note above my desk from the film director Jean Luc Goddard, who in a response to criticism he received for a new film said “it’s not where you take things from, it’s where you take them to” - it is very much my philosophy when looking for inspiration and new ideas. I will dive down all sorts of rabbit holes, be it in camera techniques and gadgets, to variations in the printing processes I am using, to completely new printing processes.
When I first started making ‘serious’ pictures I would find ideas and inspiration in the photography and art books and magazines in the local library. A couple of photographers that were a great inspiration at the time were Peter Eastway, Andris Apse and Craig Potton who set a very high standard to aim for in terms of composition and technical excellence.
My appetite though to take my photography to a new place led me to explore the historical and alternative printing processes. The change from chasing so-called technical perfection and the precise nature of digital processing and printing, to a hands’ on and often long process of nurturing a print through successive printing exposures and development, to finally holding something that has a unique beauty is extremely satisfying.
I’m learning about and making full use of what’s called the photographic syntax. This is not just the choices made with the camera as to the subject, composition, lighting, contrast, colour, etc., but how the physical print materials and tools influence the final result. For example, how the choice of paper and texture affect the way the light reflects off the print surface and the type of brush used to coat the paper. I am discovering a whole new way to help me express what I see and feel.
I’m also very much in awe of the photographers from the early years of photography when much was unknown, and how experimentation and mistakes led to new discoveries.
I’m also very much in awe of the photographers from the early years of photography when much was unknown, and how experimentation and mistakes led to new discoveries. My influences include the style of the Pictorialist photographers of the late 19th and early 20th century and the many artists today using these same processes. Photographers such Robert Demachy, Imogen Cunningham and today Peter Liepke with his ‘Above and Beyond’ series of gum bichromate prints, Diane Bloomfield’s gum over cyanotype prints and Beth Moon’s sublime platinum prints also come to mind. I study how they use their cameras and how they make prints that are full of atmosphere and mood. I have to mention Edward Steichen as well, and his use of combination printing of gum bichromate with cyanotype and platinum is something I work with quite a lot in my current work. One of my all-time favourites is his 1904 print of the Flatiron building in New York.
Have there been any especially decisive moments for you or has anything changed your relationship with the camera, or your approach to photography, over time?
A key decisive moment in my printing has been to let go of perfection which was a hangover from my digital processing and printing days. I spent far too long when I began using these Alternative processes in making step wedges trying to achieve a ‘perfect’ calibration between my digital negative and the final print. Making my first prints with a ‘good enough’ calibration and feeling my skin tingle as the image appeared through the developer was all I needed to give up on step wedges and start making real prints.
Another ‘ah-ha’ moment has come recently with the move to using a medium format and a large format film camera. The isolation from the world when using a dark cloth or waist level viewfinder has made an enormous difference to my composition. You become completely absorbed in the process, much more so than when viewing a scene through a DSLR viewfinder. These are also fully manual cameras and I really enjoy the problem solving and mental gymnastics that I go through, working back and forth between how I think I will print the image and working out the exposure I need using an old Minolta spot meter. It doesn’t always work out as intended but that again is all part of the enjoyment of it to me.
Would you like to choose 2-3 favourite photographs from your own portfolio and tell us a little about why they are special to you?
Well this is really hard, but if I look back over the last several years then these prints are very much like mile markers in my understanding of how to use them in finding my “voice”
Marching trees
My first really satisfying print using the style of the Tonalist painters and selecting a colour to help create a mood in a print.
I was exploring the bottom of the South Island in my small camper van in late winter. The photography had been good and I was pleased with several images I had been able to capture. On my last full day, the weather had turned pretty foul with a full on southern storm and knowing it would be another day at least before it started to clear I decide to head for home. A few hours later I could see on the distant horizon a series of pine trees along a ridgeline and they looked very much like they were following each other. As I drove closer, I knew I had to find somewhere to stop and see if could make something of them. I ended going up and down a 400m stretch of road several times before finding a farmer’s gate that provided just enough room to get off the highway. As it was raining heavily I decided to set up the tripod in the back of the camper van and open the sliding door on the side of the van. With my longest lens at 200mm and timing my exposures in between gaps in the traffic to minimise vibration, I made three or four exposures. On returning home and processing them through Lightroom and Photoshop as normal I then used a new technique that I had come across for making duotones for the gum bichromate process. This is similar to split toning where you can add a different colour hue to the warm and cool tones in the image. This is done by using the channels function in PS to split the RGB image into it's component Red, Green and Blue greyscale separations. The Red separation is used to make a digital negative for the cooler tones for printing with platinum and the warmer tones are printed using yellow pigments and the gum bichromate process with a digital negative made from combining the Green and Blue separations.
The final print is a platinum print with several layers of gum printed in registration over the platinum to build up the colour and depth in the image. I also used a yellow pigment that contains mica in the last couple of gum layers so that as you view the print the specular highlights from the mica bring the print to ‘life’.
Icy grasp
I have lots of failures in what I do and this series of prints and this one, in particular, is a reminder to me that persistence can pay off in the end.
This is a platinum print on vellum with silver leaf gilded onto the back of the vellum. The image is of a small stream in mid-winter that makes its way down a scree slope towards the main river a km away in Canterbury’s High Country. The stream is no more than 5 or 6ft across and at its deepest maybe only 12 inches, and I could see that it was freezing at night and thawing during the day depending on how warm it got. This cycle must have been going on for several days or longer and the resulting ice patterns were like windows into the depths of the icy world below. I had my Bronica with me and with its square frame I had a ball and used up a whole roll of film making 12 exposures in all.
Printing onto vellum (which by the way is made from plant materials, not the traditional animal skins) is technically challenging and even now I never quite know if it’s going to work. As soon as you apply the liquid platinum salts to the vellum it starts to buckle and roll up like a scroll. I have made many experiments and explored dozens of different vellums in trying to learn how to control and tame the vellum to make a print that I was happy with. After developing and drying the platinum print and once I have it somewhat flat again I then using guilder’s size to apply the silver or gold leaf to the back of the print. When this is then varnished the vellum becomes translucent allowing the silver leaf to shine through the lighter tones in the print and combined with the unevenness in the vellum surface it creates a three dimensional feel to the print.
Andalusia
The image is from our holiday though Spain in 2017 with my wife Louise. The small barn was seen from a long way off across the valley in the evening and by the time I got back to the location the following day it was already well over 40degC and with a 200mm lens I made a couple of exposures. Several weeks later after getting back home I was ready to print and knew that I should use palladium only in the print and that with the right paper humidly during exposure I should get a warm toned print, perfect for how I remembered the day. The straight palladium print was very nice but by adding a gum print over the top and adjusting the ratio of pigment, gum, dichromate and exposure I could add additional depth and texture to the darker tones of the trees on the ridgeline and the shadows in the ploughed fields. This was perhaps one of my first successful uses of the gum process to target specific tones in the print to add depth and ‘richness’. I find the gum process to be one of the most creative processes I can use in my printing.
Which cameras and lenses do you like to use? Do you have a favourite format or film?
Up to around 2 to 3 years ago, I was using a Nikon D800e and my go to lenses were a 24mm and a 45mm tilt-shift and an 80-200mm f2.8 zoom lens. Today I am using film almost exclusively and I find the whole experience totally consuming and although frustrating at times it is highly rewarding and satisfying.
The two cameras I use today are a Bronica S2 from the early 1960s for which I have 3 lenses; a wide, normal and long lens equivalent to 28, 50 and 110mm on a full frame sensor. It produces a square format 6x6cm negative and I love it. If I want to, I can put the main subject of the scene in the centre and use the symmetry of frame to help with my composition to focus the viewers’ attention and not worry about thirds or golden circles etc. I have earlier this year bought a 4x5 Chamonix large format camera. A gorgeous camera made of teak, aluminium alloy and carbon fibre and also the lightest camera I have ever owned. It has asymmetrical movements on the rear standard which along with its reasonable price was the main reason I chose it. These movements make it a lot easier and quicker to control depth of field in the image, particularly if I’m in a hurry when the light is changing, and although I have only been out with it half a dozen times so far I am really enjoying getting to know it.
Film wise I only use black and white film and mostly Ilford’s Delta 100 due to its low reciprocity which helps keep my exposure times to a minimum.
How popular are analogue and alternate processes in New Zealand?
Film photography like most everywhere is having a resurgence, particularly among the younger generation. We have a couple of new film labs popping up in our two largest cities and we even have a small group of dedicated enthusiasts raising funds to set up a community darkroom in Queenstown. As far the alternative or historical processes go, I would say they are still very much off the beaten track and perhaps seen as a little eccentric.
There are a handful of photographers using wet plate processes for portraiture and I know of a couple of artists through social media working with cyanotype, lumigrams and gum bichromate.
There are a handful of photographers using wet plate processes for portraiture and I know of a couple of artists through social media working with cyanotype, lumigrams and gum bichromate.
I provide a platinum printing service to other photographers and artists and I have also started delivering workshops in the last nine months in using digital negatives with the cyanotype and platinum process so there are a small but growing group of fellow kiwi practitioners.
For readers who are not familiar with alternate processes, can you give them an idea of what they offer and what is involved?
The majority of the alternative processes are contact printing processes that use a negative of the image that is the same size as the final print. Most people use Photoshop to make the ‘digital negative’ and print it onto an inkjet transparency or photo paper using an Epson or Canon printer. Depending on your chosen process the light sensitive chemicals are measured out and mixed following a recipe. This is then brushed onto your chosen paper or substrate and allowed to dry in the dark. The digital negative is then placed on top of the dried sensitised paper and held tightly together using a sheet of glass and clamps and exposed to UV light, either by placing it outside on a sunny day or inside using UV lamps. Once the paper has been exposed it is then developed, washed and allowed to dry.
What would you suggest to those who would like to try some of these processes but are put off by their perceived complexity or cost?
These processes are not necessarily expensive; yes if you go straight to Platinum and Palladium then these are at the expensive end of the spectrum but there are many processes like Gum bichromate, Cyanotype, Kallitype and Salt printing that use very inexpensive materials.
To really get a good understanding of what is involved and to see if it is for you with a minimum of the cost I would strongly recommend a workshop. This will not only save you money, but considerable time and you will come away with a good understanding of what is involved and several finished prints to review and hopefully enjoy when you return home. If you are handy with some basic tools you can make a lot of the equipment yourself. For the UV exposure unit, you can find DIY plans on the internet or like me find a second hand sun tanning bed in an online auction for no more than the cost of a Sunday lunch.
You refer to the fact that with the techniques that you use, results are never guaranteed. Is the margin for error from something that you can’t wholly control and the chance of serendipity part of their appeal to you?
I love the fact that it doesn’t always go to plan. It’s a big part of the creative process for me and makes each print unique. I’m also working with chemistry that is affected by many variables, for example, our water at home comes from a volcanic spring about 1km up the valley and it can change in the level of iron and calcium impurities which interfere with some of the processes I use. If it’s really bad, particularly if I am making cyanotype prints, I will collect water in several 25 litre tanks from the nearest petrol garage in Christchurch for processing my prints. Finding solutions to problems can often take me in different directions.
I love the fact that it doesn’t always go to plan. It’s a big part of the creative process for me and makes each print unique.
You have a couple of forthcoming exhibitions, including a solo exhibition. What work will you be showing for these and where can people see your prints?
Yes, I’m very excited and yet full of dread and self-doubt at the same time. These are my first shows on my own and I will be exhibiting prints from the last couple of years. The first one is in July at Chambers Art Gallery in Christchurch and then in September and October at Gold Street Studios which is about an hour north of Melbourne, Australia. These will all be New Zealand landscapes printed in platinum/palladium, cyanotype and gum bichromate. I also have an exhibition planned for July next year at Photospace Gallery in Wellington where I am also planning to run a couple of print workshops to accompany the exhibition.
Do you have any particular projects or ambitions for the future or themes that you would like to explore further?
My vellum prints are a larger body of work that is slowly coming together. Finding the right image and conditions means it will be one of those projects that will likely keep running in the background.
My vellum prints are a larger body of work that is slowly coming together. Finding the right image and conditions means it will be one of those projects that will likely keep running in the background.
With my new 4x5 camera and a 10-inch enlarger that I was very kindly given last year, I’m starting to explore silver gelatin printing and after taking a Mordancage workshop late last year with Elizabeth Opalenik I’m currently experimenting with the process for my landscape images. Mordancage is a bleach and etching process that lifts the silver emulsion from the shadow areas in a traditional darkroom silver gelatin print to create veils which can be removed or rearranged before redeveloping to create a print that is quite unique and one of a kind.
If you had to take a break from all things photographic for a week, what would you end up doing?
I haven’t been fishing for probably three years and have recently promised an old friend that this season coming he needs to come and rescue me from my garage darkroom and go bush.
And finally, is there someone whose photography you enjoy – perhaps someone that we may not have come across - and whose work you think we should feature in a future issue? They can be amateur or professional.
Well, this is really a hard one as there many great landscape photographers. Looking at my bookcase I see several Joe Cornish and David Ward’s but I also see New Zealand’s Andris Apse and Craig Potton, two great traditional NZ landscape photographers. Andris goes to enormous lengths and planning to photograph the NZ wilderness and will have many stories to tell you. For someone a little more contemporary I’m sure you will also enjoy viewing and reading Tony Bridge’s insights and landscape photography.
Thank you, Stuart, and good luck with the exhibitions.
Stuart will be showing ‘Precious Landscapes’ at the Chambers Art Gallery, Christchurch, New Zealand from 9 – 27 July 2019, and at the Gold Street Studios in Victoria, Australia, between 28 August and 27 October 2019.
If you’d like to see more of Stuart’s work, his website can be found at http://www.labrettophotography.com/
In the start of a hopefully regular series, we are taking advantage of the many passing photographers by bribing them into the house with tea and biscuits in return for a quick chat about photography. In the first edition, we're talking to Paula Pell-Johnson of Linhof Studio and our own Joe Cornish where we cover ground from megapixels to film and some of the new products that Paula is excited about in the coming months. One of these 'interesting' new products is the Hasselblad CFV II 50C.
As a drop-in back for old Hasselblad medium format cameras, it's a little bit interesting but once you introduce the tiny 907x body adapter which will take X1D lenses and with converters for Hasselblad mount (and via other converters to Mamiya, Bronica, LF lenses, large image circle 35mm lenses, etc) we have a system that is incredibly flexible. The final inclusion of an electronic shutter means you could mount it to a coconut and use it as an organic pinhole camera if you really wanted! It's the first really flexible MF back which should appear at a top-end DSLR price. We hope to get our hands on one in the coming months.
We should apologise for the slightly less than perfect sound. The recording was made last-minute via our Macbook microphone. Future instalments of "Passing Through" will hopefully sound a little better.
If you are on a mobile device please click here for the podcast as there's an issue with the mobile version of the site.
Are you passing through Glencoe in the coming weeks or months? Why not pop in for a cuppa tea and a catch up? We're looking for other stories from our community, whether it's talking about a trip, a project, some of your favourite images. Drop us a line and we will get in touch!
I remember the feeling of proud excitement as I walked past the headmaster’s office and first spotted a picture of mine stuck to the wall with 4 drawing pins. It was an 8”x 8” picture in a rather tatty mount, the type that used to get sent with an enlargement from Trueprint at the time. I had won the school photo competition and it was the first time I had seen my work exhibited in public.
The picture was of a sunset taken on a school trip to Blackgang Chine in the Isle of Wight. It was shot on a Kodak Instamatic that my sister’s boyfriend had given me, having felt sorry for me after I’d spent a year shooting 120mm film on a plastic camera that I had won in an amusement arcade crane machine. My dad had always made an effort to capture moments from our family holidays on his camera, so I was excited to follow in his footsteps. A real camera took me that much closer to doing this, and I started using it to take photos of my mates, family days out and sunsets (which always seemed to be good in my little corner of Leicester). The camera produced square format images which I diligently stuck into a scrapbook that I still have to this day. That camera and the sunset picture in the Isle of Wight started me on my road to becoming a photographer.
In my teenage years, I loved wandering around the countryside, getting up at dawn and walking across to the fields near my family home to capture whatever I could with my new camera. The landscape wasn’t particularly inspiring; it was fairly flat with a few small clumps of trees and hedgerows around the farmer’s fields. I could always find something interesting to shoot though, whether it was a single tree stood alone in an open space or the dew on the young wheatgrass with the sunrise backlighting the droplets of water.
Forty years later I am working as a photographer still, having managed to persuade a few art colleges I was good enough to give a place to. My work these days is mostly lifestyle photography and video shot for advertising and corporate clients. My paid work is a long way from the landscapes I used to take as a kid but luckily I get to work on my own projects between commissions and landscape photography still fascinate me.
The Triptych
The word ‘Triptych’ originates from the Greek adjective meaning ‘three-fold’ and was adopted by Christians in the early modern period to display altar art on three relief-carved panels. In this period, and as the technique was adopted into Gothic architecture, the centre image was often larger, clearly the intended focus of the work. More recently, however, artists have begun to place equal emphasis on each panel by making them all the same size. I was attracted to the triptych in this form and sought to further the balanced outcome by having each piece focus on the same landscape. In this way, each image is of equal importance but provides new information by showing the subject from a new angle. With each changing frame, I hope that a sense of movement is created that more accurately portrays the changeable scenic reality.
The first time I had the opportunity to use the triptych form was when I was photographing a beach on the Northern coast of Fraser Island, Australia. A very remote area, the beach was deserted, meaning I was able to shoot the environment stripped bare of people. I was shooting on a Hasselblad (the love of the square format hasn’t left me) but wanted to simultaneously capture the detail in the sand and water, along with the distant breaking waves and the remoteness of the scene. Working on a wider lens meant sacrificing at least one of these elements, so I ended up shooting closer segments. Having shot a few polaroids and looked at those in unison, I had the idea to put them together with the skyline acting as a constant. This made the group more of a recognisable set, and my first triptych was created.
Planning Shots
Narratively speaking, the main aim of the triptych form is to show change. This comes with a number of factors to consider in the planning process, as there is a lot to play with when deciding how to present such a constantly changing environment in only a few moments. An important factor to be planned then is the time element. I am amazed by how a landscape can change so strikingly over just a few hours, and this can be accentuated by putting multiple images next to each other. This is particularly powerful in landscape photography, as the slow movement of the weather is emphasised when placed in comparison with a scene from only a few hours before. There is something very powerful about seeing three versions of the same landscape next to each other that could never be witnessed at the same time in reality. Emphasis is placed on the extremity of a change that would usually seem minor.
The change of time can, of course, be just as noticeable when confining the shoot to a few short minutes. Waves crashing on a beach, for example, change through the lens constantly and the transitioning sand and water can be brought to life if seen in triplicate. It gives you more options for getting your message across. Even when a landscape is seemingly static, time is considered in planning the consistency of the pieces. In open areas such as large vistas, triptychs can act almost like a panoramic view, providing more information on the landscape with the only change in pieces being the perspective. Still, though, time is important. If you wait too long to take all three pieces the landscape with inevitably change. If you happen to take one shot when a cloud has gone overhead, that shot will have different lighting to the others. This must all be considered when planning a triptych.
Symmetry is another factor that must be considered more significantly when planning a triptych. Sometimes you can achieve this simply by making the central image more distant, with the side images being more detailed. However, even when they are the same size, three images together will often feel like the central image is the most important with the two images to its side being supporting players. It is important to me that each image could stand up for itself if it were viewed individually. If you have two good images but a third that isn’t quite up to scratch the finished result won’t be as powerful. It's important to make sure all three are strong in their own right. Sometimes triptychs don’t work out as planned and I end up using just a single image on its own. “If in doubt leave it out” is something I repeat to myself often when editing!
Locations
I’ve been very lucky over the years to have worked for many travel companies which have taken me all around the world. I’ve seen some amazing locations and often shot them with a lifestyle element. The jobs are commissions of course so I can’t go off taking up client time on personal projects, however, I have managed to sneak a few shots here and there while travelling around. The images of clouds were mostly taken while travelling between jobs, as were some images I have of the sea taken from a cruise ship job. Many shoots come while on a holiday, wandering around my garden or local countryside locations. I find that gardens and garden wildlife can be great for photographic studies and can work just the same as large landscapes. My project tends to make me look closer at what’s around me, to look for opportunities wherever I might be. My image of the clouds at sunset was taken in Australia too, but could really have been taken anywhere with the right weather and time of day.
I think the most important thing about any sort of photography is simply being out there trying things out. I have never been too technical- the best camera to have is the one in your hand as they say. I tend to be a photographer that will watch the light and how it interacts with the landscape. I love shooting water and clouds for this reason. Shooting any body of water twenty minutes after the sun has gone down always works well when the failing light in the sky is reflected in the water rather than direct harsh sunlight hitting it earlier in the day. The soft muted colours come through to the fore, creating a much nicer atmosphere. I find there is a particular headspace you can inhabit when out watching the changing weather on a landscape. Its incredibly relaxing to put some time aside to be immersed in your natural surroundings.
Social Media
Having been shooting triptychs for many years, I have been newly inspired by imagery-based social media and how this offers up a whole new range of artistic opportunities. In my professional life, I have taken on Instagram and Twitter as an important element of marketing and have looked closely at what constitutes a successful post. The immediacy of taking a photo one second and having it viewed by the world the next is in many ways challenging for a professional photographer, as content becomes diluted by the sheer number of images being posted every second. However, I am not one to turn down a challenge and I have found that triptychs can be used incredibly effectively in this new social media environment. When posted over a short period of time, each ‘panel’ is first viewed respectively and can generate interest as the overall image slowly comes together. The fact that your Instagram page presents posts in a three-across formation provides the perfect opportunity to exhibit multiple triptychs, allowing the viewer to see them as a whole, and then to further inspect them individually if they choose.
Smartphone images posted on social media are often taken closer to the subject, with less consideration of overall composition, due to the fact that they can focus a lot more closely than many consumer cameras. Again, this creates new opportunities, as it results in images that often have a different point of view, lower angles, twisted horizon lines and movement that previously would have constituted a failed image. I try to use these alternative photographic principles in my photography, to keep imagery fresh and avoid too much of the obvious. This is not so simple to do with landscapes of course, but it might mean taking a different viewpoint or just getting in there on the ground and amongst the daisies.
If you ever see me on my hands and knees, drenched in early morning dew and with a phone in my hand, I'm probably trying to find that unusual angle for the final shot of another triptych!
I am not often known for including manmade structures in my photographs and I could be considered guilty for the determined exclusion of them most of the time. The reason for this is, to me, I find them distracting in what I am trying to say with a photograph, which is often my appreciation of the landscape. The inclusion of manmade structures such as buildings seems to draw attention away from this and, in part, the hand of man commands recognition once again.
This however changed when I made my first trip to the High Plains of Montana and the Dakotas in the USA recently. Strangely, I have been somewhat fascinated by the open, flat vastness nestling beneath huge skies for many years. For a photographer that is dizzy with inspiration beneath mountain spires, lakes and at the coast, this place could not be further from the norm for me. Along with the landscape, the remains of times long ago also had me returning to the pages of many books again and again to gain an appreciation of why this was. Where and why did everybody go, or more importantly, why did they come in the first place?
Prior to 1900, the High Plains of the USA were generally regarded as a bleak wilderness, not suitable for settling families or communities. This was all about to change when the powerful railroad companies wanted to extend their tracks across these vast plains and the trains needed to be serviced regularly for this to succeed.
Prior to 1900, the High Plains of the USA were generally regarded as a bleak wilderness, not suitable for settling families or communities.
The federal and state governments of the time gave the railroad companies millions of acres of land and they wanted to get on with the job. A massive campaign was launched by the railroads to attract incomers and promised virtually free land in the vicinity of the railway lines where they could farm and become prosperous, and come they did!
A chance perusal of Lizzie Shepherd’s website in 2018 had me quickly booked for a return visit to one of the most beautiful places on earth. I am not usually one for hyperbole but there are few places that stir up the emotions more than a visit to the Outer Hebrides (also known as the Western Isles), a 200km chain of islands lying a mere 20 miles off the north west tip of Skye in Scotland. When Mother Nature is at her worst, the Outer Hebrides have that “edge of the world” feel, where a dramatic but unprotected coastline meets the full force of the Atlantic.
The chances of a rewarding photographic sortie north of the border looked excellent. With the workshop booked, I recalled the withdrawal of Bonnie Prince Charlie from the islands in the mid-1700s and that infamous tune had me tapping my fingers with drum beat anticipation:
Loud the winds howl, loud the waves roar,
Thunderclaps rend the air; ~ extract, The Skye Boat Song
With the workshop booked, I recalled the withdrawal of Bonnie Prince Charlie from the islands in the mid-1700s and that infamous tune had me tapping my fingers with drum beat anticipation.
And so, late March had me travelling with Lizzie Shepherd and Alex Hare to a place I love and a chance, perhaps, for photographic redemption; my images from a 2015 visit were OK but I knew I could do better, much better. With white sandy beaches, turquoise-blue seas, rocky foreshores, abandoned crofts and one of the best-preserved standing stone circles in Europe, I relished the opportunity of a return visit, especially with the possibility of changeable weather and potential for storm light.
Arriving at the CalMac ferry terminal at Uig on the north west tip of Skye, I was rewarded with a punctual ferry and calm seas. Once boarded, the 100-minute traverse of the Minch (that narrow stretch of sea between Skye and the islands) passed quickly as I flicked through Iain McGowan’s excellent “Hebridean Images” (1993), a superb, mood-setting collection of 35mm black and white photographs evoking island life and the landscape beyond. On disembarkation, I was greeted on the dockside by the Isle of Harris Distillery - a good start! A few hundred metres up the road had me nestled snugly within the arms of our very comfortable and conveniently-located hotel - the Harris Hotel - which I can heartily recommend without grace, favour or recompense. March into April is statistically one of the drier periods in the Outer Hebrides (and mostly midge-less) but the forecast was for mixed weather - ideal! - and possibly snow flurries at the end of the week. With the thoughts of snow-capped mountains at the back of my mind, I was in high spirits as the group convened.
Such a great challenge and honour for me to write an end frame article for On Landscape magazine. Thank you for the opportunity.
Recently, I have started to wonder less about how an image is taken and more about its power of striking a chord. This way of approaching an image, from an enthusiast photographer’s point of view, can be very useful to improve as a photographer and to understand photography more as a creative art.
I am pretty sure that everyone can list several favourite images for the most various reasons. Sometimes it is because of the light, sometimes it is thanks to the gorgeous subject or sometimes it is an original composition. However, we are not always able to explain why an image means so much to us. This happens (at least to me) when every part of the image spreads emotions and feelings towards the viewer. Well, despite the different tastes and preferences I think that the majority of us aims at making this kind of images. Of course not an easy task…
The image I choose has exactly the power of summarizing most of the feelings and emotions I feel when I am in the mountains and in nature in general. Above all, it is “responsible” for my transition from grand landscapes to more intimate landscape photography (together with other much appreciated artists such as Guy Tal, Hans Strand and Theo Bosboom among others).
Welcome to our 4x4 feature which is a set of four mini landscape photography portfolios submitted from our subscribers. Each portfolios consisting of four images related in some way.
Submit Your 4x4 Portfolio
Interested in submitting your work? We're on the lookout for new portfolios for the next few issues, so please do get in touch!
These images form part of a body of work that will focus on the river Dart in Devon.
Using Alice Oswald’s award winning, long form, poem “Dart” as a guide I am hoping to interpret the river as it flows from its source on the high, floating bogs of Dartmoor, through south Devon to the sea.
These four images are taken around the Dart’s source, high up on the mires and peat bogs of central Dartmoor. Oswald herself refers to this area of Dartmoor as having an “amphibious vagueness, neither pool nor land”. It is an area devoid of feature, where a thin layer of grasses cover a sodden earth. It is a primordial landscape, an Ur-landscape, whose power lies in Blake’s sublime or Nietzsche’s void rather than the picturesque.
It is an unforgiving space. The lack of physical features, the constant wind, the wet everywhere make it both physically and emotionally exhausting. In Oswald’s poem one of the “voices” deliberately imagines a figure on the horizon so as to quell the sense of isolation and vulnerability. In three visits to the area I’ve yet to see another soul.
Walking on a little mountain pathway, in a cold spring morning in Abruzzo, even a slab of ice can hide fancy shapes and profiles. Just for a moment, it is worth stopping and admiring this wonder.
Perfect squaring is repeated like fractals, making nature more and more fascinating. A thousand bubbles enclosed and hidden in the cold, motionless, seem to want to escape and free themselves.
Like a sun, ice shows its perfect, linear, sharp rays too, forming incredible geometries that are sharp and perfect in their symmetry. Even a face hidden behind the tiny ice seems to look at me and whisper to keep its secret.
Like many in artistic pursuits, I am plagued by the question of validity. In the last few years, I have found something approaching quiet confidence thanks to a way of working (rather than through choice of subject or its presentation). I was spurred on by my rediscovery of the technique of reversal processing, which in short, consists in the creation of positive images from standard silver gelatin emulsions layered on paper or film. I put a sheet of photographic paper in the back of the camera and expose it; after some relatively quick chemical processing, it is good to go into my album. The prints are definitive and final because the only parameter I can control is exposure; the rest is tied to the chemistry. There is no post-processing possible.
The prints are physically connected to the place and time of their creation. This is one of the great attractions of slide film, especially in any of the sheet film formats. I used to shoot 5x4 a lot. Their disadvantage is that you can't just put them in an album to enjoy as prints. Sheet film is also, most commonly, enlarged to create the print. Creating prints in camera means the end size of the print is known, which in turn means that the aperture can be set to create a definite depth of field. I am an artist in control of my output.
I have used the reversal process to create a visual autobiography, a diary in pictures. This has freed me from more commercial constraints and, I feel, has brought me closer to the Truth. Much of this work follows a quest for the typical and the topical. I am also constrained by practical reality. Thus it is, that I take a lot of pictures in my home town. This series is taken in woodland just a few minutes from my front door.
I have recently come to the conclusion that my past obsession with truth and reality in my photography was causing me headaches. The notion that a photograph doesn’t lie is such unfortunate fallacy. Even the notion of documenting I have had to throw out. Now, instead, I reframed my thinking and approach to photography as one of creative expressionism. I am an artist. For me, my photography is one of abstraction, something to be celebrated and not be condemned. There are so many layers to this notion of ‘Truth’ that I will explore in this article.
I think the first time this really came into my head, that I need to let go of truth was when I first started to wrestle with accurate colours. I learnt to print my colour work in the darkroom with negative films with RA4 process type C prints. Getting what I thought was accurate colour was helped along with viewing filters. I didn’t really stop to think about the colour palette I was using, nor about how accurate my colours were. You tried as hard as I could to get each photograph resolved. I was just so excited to be printing in colour. If I got them anywhere near nice I was happy. Next, I started printing my transparencies onto Cibachrome. There wasn’t many transparency films to choose from at that time particularly for those of us who loved greens. I don’t think at the time I even had an understanding of the different exposure latitudes of the different films I was using. For me choosing a film has always revolved around what I perceived as the film having truthful colours in the green spectrum. Transparency film seemed to win every time. This eventually led me to settling on Provia transparency film as my preferred medium for colour photography.
Later, I do remember the angst I experienced in getting satisfactory prints when it comes to colour. This has extended over the years into my digital photography. It is one of the reasons I have avoided colour photography for the last few years. A few years ago I decided to let go of the notion that I had to have truthful colours in my work.
Perfect colour accuracy as a truth is very difficult, neigh impossible for me. Therefore I should pursue the abstraction of colour as part of my photography as just part of the course.
I was at Kiama on the south coast of NSW. I started to intentionally abstract the colours in my work. So once I started playing with them, I soon had satisfactory work. Later that year in a workshop I was running with Mark Littlejohn and Tim Parkin in the Lake District, I was educated in Mark’s approach of actively abstracting his colours with split toning. Hmmmm, someone else, whom I admire, who actively abstracts their colours.
One of the things that prompted me to approach Adam about an interview at this particular point in time was the campaign that sought to prevent the planned hydro schemes in Glen Etive. Adam has for some time been considering in photographic terms the structures that we tend to avoid or overlook, including the many hydro-electric dams built in the Scottish Highlands in the 1950s and 1960s. The massive scale of these prompts me to wonder whether our views (in both senses) of such interventions in the landscape change over time, as nature does her best to try to mellow them. We live with a legacy of constructions, sometimes happily, sometimes less so. What will our successors’ and descendants’ views of today’s proposals be in 50 years’ time? It wouldn’t be fair to expect Adam to answer this, but perhaps through his eyes we can re-evaluate – and perhaps in some cases where the hand of man is now less obvious – fully realise what we have already done to the Highlands.
Would you like to start by telling readers a little about yourself – where you grew up, your education and early interests, and what that led you to do as a career?
I was born in Birmingham. I didn’t stick around though, my family left within three months to live in Lincoln. At five years old after another move, I ended up in Edinburgh. My whole childhood from then on was spent living on the outskirts of Edinburgh. While I lived in the city I had access to the countryside and I spent much time exploring it on my bike. Well that was until the early 1980s when home computing became a reality. From then on I spent most of my teen years in a darkened room playing computer games and then writing my own. When I left school I went onto Leeds University to do a Maths degree, followed by an MSc in the then trendy subject of Chaos (Non-linear mathematical systems) at Heriot-Watt University back in Edinburgh. My first job and in fact my only job was at the video games company DMA Design as a programmer. I spent 23 years there. During that time it morphed into Rockstar North and I slowly made my way up the ladder, eventually becoming the Technical Director. Much of my time at Rockstar was spent working on a little known game called Grand Theft Auto. In 2015 I left. Working at Rockstar was all consuming; I had very little time for anything else and I had this other thing I wanted to do, called Photography.
How did you first become interested in photography and what kind of images did you initially set out to make? How much time are you now able to devote to photography?
In my childhood, my father was a keen photographer. But being a contrary kind of kid I showed no interest at all. My sister was the one to take on that mantle. She was the one messing about with darkroom chemicals in our bathroom.
It wasn’t until 2009 that I took up a camera with the intention of taking more than snapshots. I had a year’s sabbatical from work and we spent it living in the Pyrenees. While there I purchased an iPhone 3GS. Suddenly I had a camera in my pocket all the time. I started taking pictures around the ski resort we were living in. This was a bit of a revelation. The joy I got from trying to get the right composition was something new to me. The iPhone camera had many limitations and I started to hit them more and more. So when some friends visited and one of them had a DSLR I realised that was what I needed. After that, I was lost. All I could think of was Photography. If I wasn’t out taking photos, I was processing them on the laptop, reading up about technique or perusing websites for the latest equipment.
I have come to realise photography can be so much more than pretty pictures or pleasing compositions. It can inform, tell a story, evoke an emotion.
Initially, I took photos of everything. But given at the time I lived in the mountains the obvious thing to take photos of was the surrounding landscape. This would become my concentration. The majority of my photos were of either mountains or the local woodland.
Nowadays I am lucky enough to be financially independent so I could spend all my time devoted to photography but I probably split it evenly with various programming projects I have running at the same time.
Who (photographers, artists or individuals) or what has most inspired you, or driven you forward in your own development as a photographer?
Given I have had no formal education in photography my first inspirations were various photographers I found on social media. Initially, my inspiration came from a number of photographers who were doing black and white long exposure work. This included people like Joel Tjintjelaar, Julia Anna Gospodarou and Russ Barnes. This would lead me to the work of Michael Kenna.
Since then though I have come to realise photography can be so much more than pretty pictures or pleasing compositions. It can inform, tell a story, evoke an emotion. This came through following people like Rob Hudson, and the work of the collective Inside the Outside, of which he is a founding member, and Iain Sarjeant whose imprint Another Place Press is releasing some of the more interesting photobooks within the landscape genre. My own work now comes from a mixture of influences including the New Topographics (Bernd and Hilla Becher, Lewis Baltz, Robert Adams) and some of the more recent landscape work from the likes of Mark Power and Toshio Shibata.
What is it that draws you to document our interventions in the landscape rather than adopt the more prevailing romantic view? Looking through your Journal entries, visual form and structure are recurring themes, whether you’re looking exclusively at man-made forms, or comparing and contrasting these with natural features.
I want to tell stories. The stories the landscape tells on its own I am not so interested in. Rocks move, seasons change and repeat, plants grow and die. These can become interesting when used as metaphors for the human condition, but on their own do not provoke anything strong in me.
The stories the landscape tells on its own I am not so interested in. Rocks move, seasons change and repeat, plants grow and die. These can become interesting when used as metaphors for the human condition, but on their own do not provoke anything strong in me.
I’m no good at metaphor so stick to documenting humans interacting with the landscape. Much of my work tends to centre around environmental subject matter. I try to find a space within the conflict between conservation of our environment and the development of it for our needs. This leads me to make images of landscapes formed by man.
Outside of my long term projects, repeating forms and geometric structures are something I like to play with. These don’t necessarily have to come from the man made. If nature is ready to present these to me I’m happy to point my camera at it. But in general, the geometry of buildings provides a source for this more frequently.
What reaction, interpretation or value do you hope to provoke in viewers in response to the man-made and the monumental?
Life is complex. My images represent complex situations where difficult decisions are being made between the value of a landscape in itself and the value of developing it. When I am documenting these, I’m not setting out some doctrine. I don’t generally have a solution to the issues I am highlighting. I hope I can encourage people to investigate further and also not respond in such a dogmatic way which can so often be the case when it comes to conservation issues.
When standing in front of some of the large infrastructure man has placed on the landscape it is hard not to be in awe. The fact that we can build at this scale and push nature around to this level is quite something to behold. Unfortunately, we are also very good at destroying at the same time and what we lose is sometimes of more value than what we gain.
Would you like to choose 2-3 favourite photographs from your own portfolio and tell us a little about why they are special to you?
Demolition Sequence #1
The sequence is from the destruction of the chimneys of the Cockenzie power station in East Lothian. The project was about nostalgia, looking at a structure that many people had some attachment to. They were part of the horizon line when viewed from Edinburgh. Driving north up the A1, when you saw the chimneys you knew you were nearly home. At the same time though Cockenzie, when running, was the dirtiest power station in the UK. Not something to be so nostalgic about. The project was also about our industrial heritage. The power station represented a point in our history when we were dependent on coal. It was also considered an important modernist building. None of this was thought to be important enough to conserve and the power station was demolished in 2015.
Trotternish ridge in Skye
This is a landscape shot and it is of rather a well-known spot. It could be a landscape photography trope. I hope not. This is late April snow looking down the Trotternish Ridge in Skye. I like the detail the snow brings out in the mountains. The flat light and fog have turned them into cutout cards placed on top of each other. They seem to exist outside of the real world. For the rest of that visit to Skye, the only thing I made photos of were snow covered mountains, trying to repeat what I had here.
Lawers dam
The image is part of a much larger project. I have spent the last few years documenting the hydroelectric infrastructure built in Scotland post world war 2. This also shows off a format I have been using quite frequently. I call them broken panoramas. I initially used them because of limitations of my equipment. The Hasselblad camera I use has a 6x6 square negative. Dams don’t tend to be square. They are long and thin, much more suited to a panorama image. I started to take two images to generate a panorama. But because I had been taking the images on film it felt wrong to try and stitch them together in Photoshop so I just present them as separate images. Later I did buy a panorama camera but liked the aesthetic so much I continued to present the panoramas in this way.
Most of my project work is done on a Hasselblad 503CW film camera. Many people talk about how film slows them down and that makes them think more about what they are doing.
Can you talk a little about the cameras and lenses – and film – that you like to use, and whether this has changed over time?
While I started out using digital exclusively, for the last four years I have been using a mixture of film and digital cameras. Most of my project work is done on a Hasselblad 503CW film camera. Many people talk about how film slows them down and that makes them think more about what they are doing. Even though I know I take approx. 10 times the number of photos if I’m using a digital camera and still come away with the same number of keepers as when I’m using film I actually think one of the main advantages with film is the enforced gap between taking the photo and seeing the results. When I come to review the negatives may be a few days later or even up to a month later I come to them with fewer preconceptions. I’m less likely to choose a shot because I wanted it to be good.
Black and white negatives are developed by myself and printed in my home darkroom. Darkroom printing is such a magical process. Everyone should have a go at it. Colour negatives are sent off to the lab to be developed and I scan the results when they return. I do really like the colours you get from a colour negative and have found it difficult to replicate these with a digital camera. It adds another parameter to your decision making as well, as different colour films have quite different looks. Colour negative film is incredibly forgiving and can handle high contrast scenes much better than digital.
At the time of writing, the future of the Stills Gallery in Edinburgh seems uncertain. How valuable a resource has it been to you in developing your practice, and what can photographers do to support such facilities?
The City of Edinburgh Council is currently proposing to triple the rent Stills Gallery pays for its premises. This would damage its ability to deliver its programme of exhibitions and events. Stills is one of the longest established photography galleries in the UK and has brought groundbreaking photography to Scotland for many years. While this in itself is enough of a reason to ensure its survival it is also a great resource for local photographers. Stills has a large darkroom facility and an extensive digital suite. It gives photographers access to top of the range equipment that most would probably never see outside of college or university.
Personally, I have been on a number of courses that Stills run. I have learnt both B&W and Colour developing and printing at Stills. I have also made extensive use of their darkrooms to practice and improve my printing skills. It has given me skills I use every day in my photography practice.
The first thing photographers can do to support such facilities is use them. Many people just never find the time but if you want them to be available you need to use them. Go to their exhibitions, use their resources, take one of the courses. If the facilities aren’t used then that gives councils, arts bodies, reasons to not support them. If you are interested in helping Stills you can sign their petition.
What role does digital play for you in making, processing, or printing/presenting images? You’ve developed a modern-day digital alternative to the viewing frame that allows a preview of a specific camera and lens combination without the need to remove the camera from your bag?
I work with a lot of bulky old film cameras, but this doesn’t mean I have left technology behind completely. I am finding frequently my photographic eye is a lot more optimistic than it should be. Many times I find a composition I like, but after spending 5 minutes of getting my camera out of the rucksack, setting up the tripod and framing the shot, I find it wasn’t worth the effort. To short circuit this process I wrote an iPhone app that did the pre-visualisation for me. You set what camera and what focal length you are using in the app and just point the phone at what you want to photograph. You will then get a preview of what you would see through your camera viewfinder on the iPhone screen. If you like it, then get your big camera out. Otherwise, move on. The app is called Viewfinder Preview and is available on the iPhone App Store.
We met back in 2016 on a bookmaking and sequencing workshop co-hosted by John Blakemore and Joseph Wright. How much difference has seeing their creations, and learning to make your own, made to your photography?
My favourite part of that workshop was when John opened up his box of treasures and produced all these photobooks he had made. They came in all sorts of formats and sizes. Photography can be so much more than just making an image. John showed that how you present it and how you sequence it within a group of other images opens up many paths for creativity. Not always, but there are many times now when working on a project I am already thinking about how I would present it in a book form right from the start. This will define what images I take and what format they are in.
My favourite part of that workshop was when John opened up his box of treasures and produced all these photobooks he had made. They came in all sorts of formats and sizes. Photography can be so much more than just making an image. John showed that how you present it and how you sequence it within a group of other images opens up many paths for creativity.
How important a part of the process for you is printing an image, by whatever means, and the trials and tribulations that we encounter in getting it wrong, before we get it right?
Printing is a very important part of the process. The physical object, the photo, holds so much more than the ephemeral digital image. A printed image is part of this world, you can hold it in your hands, have a much closer relationship with it. And it can add another layer of creativity in how you present your imagery.
I print a lot of my B&W film using traditional darkroom methods. Most of these are on small 10x8 papers and are for personal consumption. I am still learning when it comes to darkroom printing. It’s a much slower way to process and print film than scanning and moving some sliders in Photoshop but the resultant silver gelatine prints are really rather nice. The tonal quality and depth of black from a darkroom print is so much better than an inkjet print.
When I am printing inkjet prints, it is generally for a book. I don’t tend to print single images as I find the process quite frustrating. I never seem to get the result I’m looking for. If I need prints for sale or exhibition I tend to use professional printers as they do a better job than me.
Transient is newly formed; we are still trying to work out what we are. We formed because we felt there weren’t enough opportunities for Scottish photographers and we were looking to make them for ourselves.
You’ve recently exhibited as part of the Transient Collective. What role does the group hope to play, and how important is it for photographers to work together and interact beyond the online community?
Transient is newly formed; we are still trying to work out what we are. We formed because we felt there weren’t enough opportunities for Scottish photographers and we were looking to make them for ourselves. This initially formulated itself in our inaugural exhibition ‘Landmarks’. Six of us presented bodies of work under the theme of landmarks. These could be physical, personal or temporal. The exhibition featured quite a disparate subject matter including epilepsy, childhood trauma and my own hydroelectricity work. The advantage of being in the group was the responsibility, pressure and stress of setting up an exhibition was spread across six of us. At the same time, we still had enough space each to present a good body of work.
The collective has also provided us with a forum to present work in progress, and receive more honest feedback. This is something I think all photographers/artists need. Sometimes you need to be told what you are doing isn’t working, but then also having someone you know critically look at your work and give positive feedback is equally helpful. Feedback can also include new possible directions for what you are doing. Social media has pretty much proved it is incapable of any of this.
You’ve spent a lot of time visiting and photographing - and presumably researching - the structures associated with the 50+ hydro-electric dams built over the 20 year period following the Hydro Electric Development (Scotland) Act of 1943. What was it that drew you to this?
For the last few years, I have spent the majority of my time on a project documenting the hydroelectric schemes built in Scotland post World War Two. The initial reason for starting this project was an aesthetic one. I like the contrast between these large masses of concrete and the Scottish glens they are strung across. Especially in the remoter areas of Scotland, they have quite some presence. This evidence of so much human endeavour while there isn’t a soul in sight.
After doing a bit of research I found the story behind their construction was as interesting. The government body created to do this was set up in such a way that its priorities were the people of Scotland, instead of profit. Much modernisation and investment were needed in the Highlands. Any profits made supplying electricity to the Central Belt of Scotland were used to construct smaller hydro schemes in the remoter areas of the Highlands. They also had a duty to encourage socio-economic development through investment in the region. The politic will that created this body would go on to build the NHS a few years later.
I don’t think the romantic view of Scotland’s wild landscape has really changed much over the last 150 years. It is still the main argument for conserving our landscape.
What have you learnt from it that is relevant to both our present-day relationships with the physical legacy and our reactions to current infrastructure development?At the time fears were voiced about the ruination of the landscape and detriment to tourism, but publicly these were perhaps tempered by the social vision to bring power and improvements to the Highlands, and the employment that it created? It probably helped too that it was delivered at no cost to the tax-payer.
There was much opposition to the hydro schemes initially. This came from the landowners, salmon fishing interests, the coal board, the tourism industry and conservation bodies like the National Trust and the Association for the Preservation of Rural Scotland. In the end, either alterations were made to appease, or the social vision overrode those concerns. Many of the concerns over the ruination of the landscape were overplayed and nowadays one of the biggest tourist attractions in Pitlochry is the dam.
I don’t think the romantic view of Scotland’s wild landscape has really changed much over the last 150 years. It is still the main argument for conserving our landscape. The likelihood of someone coming down on the side of a development versus conservation is generally related to how much direct benefit they would receive from that development. The photographer who spends two weeks’ holiday in Scotland is probably more likely to be interested in the conservation side of the argument than the individual who sees investment in his local community. The modern day equivalent of the hydro-scheme development would be the many wind farms that are being constructed in Scotland. For many communities that direct benefit is not so obvious anymore. In general, the electricity being generated is sent down to the Central belt of Scotland or even onto England and the profits go to a public company and mainly benefit shareholders. Of course, now this is all tempered by the fact we need to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. So many people, regardless of locality, see a direct benefit of developments like wind farms because they can relate them to a reduction in greenhouse gases.
Do you have any particular projects or ambitions for the future or themes that you would like to explore further?
I would like to release my hydroelectricity project ‘Neart nan Gleann’ in book form at some point. I have been building book dummies recently looking to get the right form and testing out various sequences of images.
Regarding projects and themes I have one more idea to investigate related to electricity production in Scotland. I would also like to look into the Forestry industry. When travelling around Scotland it is hard not to notice the industrial woodland installed to generate timber. The scars of the recently felled, that interrupt this spruce monoculture, could never be considered beautiful. I am still attracted to them and want to investigate further. Of course as well as excluding much biodiversity these woodlands are also a carbon sink and we should be looking to increase our forestry coverage, but maybe with a little more variety.
If you had to take a break from all things photographic for a week, what would you end up doing? What other hobbies or interests do you have?
If I suddenly managed to lose all my cameras, I would probably spend more time coding on one of my many little programming projects. Most of the apps I make are small tools I use during my photography, so if that counts as photographic, I would get on my bike. I love cycling. I have cycled all my life. It is one of the best ways to leave the world and your worries behind. Being able to get out of town and sail down small country lanes is a wonderful thing. It is also the best way to investigate your local countryside. A bike is fast enough to get you somewhere, but not so fast you miss everything on the way.
And finally, is there someone whose photography you enjoy – perhaps someone that we may not have come across – and whose work you think we should feature in a future issue? They can be amateur or professional.
I’ve recently come across the work of Frances Scott. She is currently exhibiting as part of a group exhibition at Stills Gallery in Edinburgh. She is presenting three images from her project of walking the coastline of all the islands in Orkney. Her imagery is a mixture of the manmade and coastal details. Along with this, she has a series of images which are the GPS tracks of various walks she made along the Orkney coastline. Each one includes a couple of comments from her notebooks about the walk. These images are really intriguing. They give away very little, but enough such that you want to know more about these walks.
Thank you, Adam. It’s been great to find out more about what you get up to when you disappear, and we look forward to seeing ‘Neart nan Gleann’ in book form – keep us posted!
To clearly express my feeling for life with photographic beauty, present objectively the texture, rhythm, form in nature without subterfuge or evasion in technique or spirit, to record the quintessence of the object or element before my lens, rather than an interpretation, a superficial phase, or passing mood – this is my way in photography. It is not an easy way. ~ Edward Weston, 1927
There are a number of highly photogenic dune systems in the United States. The best known include Mesquite Flat Dunes in Death Valley National Park in California, the White Sands National Monument in New Mexico and the Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado; but there are also others that are somewhat less well known and less often visited such as the Oregon Sand Dunes National Recreation Area; the Algodones Dunes in the far south east of California; the Dumont Dunes in the Mojave Desert in east California; and (perhaps) the Oceano Dunes on the coast of California, situated between Santa Barbara and Monterey.
The Oceano Dunes are but one section of the Guadaloupe – Nipomo sequence that stretches for some 29 km along the coast from southern San Luis Opisbo County to the northern part of Santa Barbara County. It includes the highest coastal dune in on the west coast of the U.S., Mussel Rock Dune at 150m, just south of Oceano. The sequence includes the Pismo Dunes to the north and the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes National Wildlife Refuge and Rancho Guadalupe Dunes Preserve to the south. There are also areas where sand buggies and other All Terrain Vehicles can make a lot of noise, including the Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreational Area. The size of this permitted area has been reduced over the years but if you Google the Oceano Dunes you will find much more about riding the dunes than about photography.
The Oceano Dunes are but one section of the Guadaloupe – Nipomo sequence that stretches for some 29 km along the coast from southern San Luis Opisbo County to the northern part of Santa Barbara County
However, I qualified the Oceano Dunes with perhaps less well-known because while they may not attract so many photographers today 1, the area has an interesting history and has been the subject of some classic photographs, most notably by Edward Weston, his son Brett Weston and Ansel Adams. Nancy Newhall in The Photographs of Edward Weston2 published by the Museum of Modern Art in 1946 wrote:
Considered by many to be Weston’s most accomplished series of images, the twenty-nine Dune photographs that resulted from his time at Oceano certainly show the artist at the peak of his creative powers. Weston first visited the area briefly in 1934 but returned two years later with his lover and muse, Charis Wilson, for an extended period of photography.
He found the undulating landscape perfectly suited to his interest in form and pattern and produced work that encapsulated many of the ideas he had been developing about the photographic image.
Much later, in 1948, Edward Weston was filmed at Oceano by Willard van Dyke as part of a film about him called The Photographer produced for the US Information Agency3. Van Dyke had studied as an assistant with Weston and was a founder member (with Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham, Ansel Adams, John Paul Edwards, Sonya Noskowiak and Henry Swift) of the f64 group. He later gave up still photography in favour of film making. In a 1982 documentary, he said that this was so as not to compete with his good friend and past mentor Weston.
I’ve been hearing a LOT about filters lately. It seems half the photographers on my social feeds are brand ambassadors for one filter company or another and boy do they make sure I know! Recently our own Tim Parkin has unwittingly made On Landscape part of the hype train. Kase Filters are the MOST COLOUR NEUTRAL FILTERS! Shout it from the rooftops! Or don’t use filters at all.
For those of you, like me, who are ‘in deep’ in the landscape photography world it sometimes feels like you are living in the Twilight Zone. Gear discussions about almost totally irrelevant specs “an extra 0.5 stops of dynamic range” soon turn heated and we forget about the photography itself. But nothing has confused me more than the modern obsession with Graduated Neutral Density Filters, or grads.
An admission
Before I really lay into the use of grad filters I thought I would undermine myself by explaining my bias. When I started photography 12 years ago I did washing up through my university holidays to finance my first SLR. All my gear was second hand, and there was no way I was going to buy a filter set when I could exposure blend for free on my pirated copy of Photoshop CS2. Back then blending exposures was time consuming and complex. I made many mistakes along the way, but I quickly reached a level that matched the effects of grads and later exceeded them from a technical perspective. When I became a backpacker the reasons for the digital process multiplied - I didn’t fancy carrying that extra half kilo or looking after a load of delicate bit of resin in challenging environments. That is to say, I have never used filters and, barring a foray into film, I never will.
Setting aside my own experiences there are many reasons to make the case for a “gradless” capture process.
1. Getting It Right in Camera
If you ask photographers why they use grads you’ll get a mix of answers, but chief among the explanations is ‘Getting it Right in Camera’.
On the surface, this is the reason I understand most of all. As someone who greatly values realistic photography I completely understand the satisfaction that comes from capturing a scene as it is.
That warm fuzzy feeling you get when you press the shutter button and you know you have The Shot™. On the surface, this is the reason I understand most of all. As someone who greatly values realistic photography I completely understand the satisfaction that comes from capturing a scene as it is. You also get the instant feedback in the image itself, you can see then and there on the back of the LCD that you have succeeded. Unfortunately using filters can be problematic. There are better digital methods.
Selecting and placing grads is almost an art in itself. The photographer can look at a scene and judge the luminance balance between the sky and ground (commonly) as well as how quickly that light transition occurs and then select a grad that roughly does the right thing. The grad must then be positioned correctly in accordance with the scene (usually now using live view because it is the most precise method). Ideally, the lens should be stopped down to the selected aperture in order to see most precisely what the final effect will be. Select the grad incorrectly or position it poorly and you’ve just done the opposite of what you intended. You are “Getting it Wrong in Camera” (do you see what I did there?). “Getting it Right in Camera” is, of course, shooting an exposure bracket.
A thing is not what you say it is or what you photograph it to be or what you paint it to be or what you sculpt it to be. Words, photographs, paintings, and sculptures are symbols of what you see, think, and feel things to be, but they are not the things themselves.” ~ Wynn Bullock
While looking through Paul Caponigro’s book “Seasons” I was surprised and delighted to discover it contained an autobiographical text to accompany the portfolio. As an admirer of his work, I was interested in learning about his journey and philosophy regarding photography. In reading his autobiography I became particularly interested in his experience studying under Minor White. He mentions White’s method of reading photographs, and how students were often put alone in a room to look at his work until they could get past the obvious subject and discover what deeper implications might be conveyed by the images. Over time Caponigro became disillusioned with White’s approach. Beyond recognising that a photographer should impart some of her or his self on their work, he questioned if every image “needed to be so excessively burdened with ‘meaning’”. He came to find Minor’s adherence to Zen too intellectualised and formulaic. After a time he yearned to free himself of rigid dogma and simply open himself up to experience and to make expressive images that were “the results of quiet action and discovery”. He advocated less thinking and more doing.
I happened upon this autobiography at a time when I was questioning the idea of meaning in my own work. As photographers, we talk often of meaning and making photographs that are personally expressive. But, what does this really mean? I know the common definition is that expressive images are those that are not of things, but about things. As White himself said, “One should photograph objects, not only for what they are, but what else they are.” Of course, the operative and somewhat ambiguous word here is the “else”.
I happened upon this autobiography at a time when I was questioning the idea of meaning in my own work. As photographers, we talk often of meaning and making photographs that are personally expressive.
But, does this mean that every photo must be a metaphor? With regards to my own work, was I truly making meaningful images? And if so, what was I trying to say in those images? Are my images metaphors or simply pretty or interesting photos bereft of any deeper meaning or message? I feared being guilty of fraud, of talking the talk but not walking the walk. Troubling questions indeed.
We have already covered a previous project of Theo’s with “Autumn Leaves” and we were very pleased to hear that he was taking on a more substantial project that covered multiple countries including the coast of Scotland. The project can be summarised as covering the tidal zone of Europe’s Western coastline. Theo humbly says “It was never my intention to cover Europe’s entire Atlantic coast” as if this was perhaps a passing thought, discarded at the last minute. What he did do was to find a judicious sampling of fifty beaches across nine countries including the Faroe Islands, Scotland, Norway, Iceland, Ireland and Northern Ireland, Portugal, Spain and France. The goal was to show the diversity of this transition zone and portray some of the dynamism everyone can experience when visiting the Atlantic coastline.
Theo gave a fantastic talk about the project during our Meeting of Minds conference in 2018 and it was sometime later that I realised I hadn’t bought a copy of the associated book (I must have had something else distracting me!). I have since bought one and have been enjoying sampling from it from time to time over the last few months.
I’ll skip to the chase on the recommendation as I can heartily recommend purchasing it and the book itself is very well printed and hardbound (which I’ll come to in a moment). The book needs little written narrative to explain itself and is a great case study in how to create a body of work that walks the line between a documentary approach and an interpretation. Each photograph is an aesthetic work by itself but the accumulation of many visual fragments adds up to a very personal take by Theo.
And it is the closer details that make the book special to me. Many people would make the main part of the project about the bigger views and include smaller details as asides. Theo’s work makes these smaller fragments the main story and uses larger views to place them in context.
Distilling a project like this into a final ‘product’ sometimes benefits from using an external editor and designer and Theo was very lucky to have a very talented colleague to help with this, Sandra Bartocha. As a photographer herself (and a very good one) and with her own experience of book and magazine publishing, Sandra was able to create an eye catching, professional design and I’m presuming she also helped with the sequencing which is excellent (some inspired facing images and a good sense of cohesion across the chapters).
If you want to support Theo, you can buy "Shaped by the Sea" directly from his website (click here) or if that's not possible you can get it from 'all good book shops' (or horrible ones if you really want to)
I’ve picked a few of my favourite photos to demonstrate these different aspects.
Every photographer has an image that means a lot to them, even if it's not the most successful on social media or one that friends and family don't 'get'. Images that stretch the edges of compositional norms, that show well-known places in different ways or that reflect a moment that means so much personally in your progress as a photographer or just in life.
If you have a personal favourite photograph of yours and a story behind it and why it means so much, then why not share that with our community. Submit your favourite image here.
It's interesting that this series is all about my favourite photo, rather than my best photo. To some extent, the two are interchangeable but by no means always. I'm sure that we all have pictures that we really like, even though secretly we admit that there are technical flaws such as the picture is less than tack sharp, or the composition is a bit imbalanced etc. Some time ago I read in a response to "What do you consider to be your best photo" the photographer replied "it's the one I have yet to take" or words to that effect. Fair enough, we all strive to do better...
For this piece, I have chosen an image that I made in September 2015 and it remains both my favourite photo as a successful outcome from what was a difficult location for me, but also as probably my best in technical terms. It is sharp, well exposed, has a decent composition (well, to my eye at least!) and I think it shows what I felt that morning.
The location is Veidivotn, arguably the "Lake District" of Iceland and a truly stunning alien landscape, far removed from what I would expect to see on this planet. We arrived just as it was getting light and as I got out of our vehicle, an eerie silence enveloped us: although we were a sizeable group of nine we were all very quiet. I felt overwhelmed by the magical, mystical and incredibly rich scene in front of me. In fact, to be honest, I was so overwhelmed that I couldn't see a single subject to take, there was so much choice that I suppose I just froze, I literally didn't know where to turn. The group dispersed in different directions and I too wandered off along a ridge, but with little idea what I might shoot.
A good 45 mins or so later, having shot two mediocre frames, I started wandering back to the minibus. I noticed that the sun was soon going to pop-up over a ridge and I saw 3 or 4 of my companions lined up ready for their shot. I felt somewhat despondent at my lack of success, especially as I knew that there were subjects all around me - if only I could see them amongst all this beauty! Having no better ideas, I decided to join the group.
Lovely curves leading deep into the scene, great contrasting light and dark shapes, wonderful colours against the black lava ash and, to cap it all, intense pre-sunrise colours in the sky.
As I walked up, the shapes in the landscape changed relative to each other and began to come together; the light was beginning to intensify and I hurried further on to find a spot of my own, looking for a slightly different view. Suddenly the hills of lava and ash, the lakes and the distant valleys all snapped into place. At last I felt that I might get a half-decent shot!
Lovely curves leading deep into the scene, great contrasting light and dark shapes, wonderful colours against the black lava ash and, to cap it all, intense pre-sunrise colours in the sky. I had to work fast to expose my shot before harsh sunlight flooded the scene; to add to the pressure, I could already feel tiny drops of drizzle floating around as a rain storm approached. I lined up and adjusted my composition, set the focus and attached the grad filter. First click, check the histogram, make a small adjustment to the exposure and re-set the focus. Click again, the histogram looked OK. Check the filter - just a few small drops of drizzle, quickly wipe and shoot again. And then it rained, hard. I had shot three frames in the space of about 2 minutes; I wanted one more to capture the light filtering through the rain, but the filter was covered with raindrops. Game over.
When I got home and processed the files, that third image had just two tiny drops which were easily dealt with. A few weeks later I had the photo printed in a lab at 24" across and it is on my wall to this day. I have several other pictures taken subsequently that I really like, but none have usurped its place. For over 3½ years it has remained my favourite - and I still think it’s my best.
Welcome to our 4x4 feature which is a set of four mini landscape photography portfolios submitted from our subscribers. Each portfolios consisting of four images related in some way.
Submit Your 4x4 Portfolio
Interested in submitting your work? We're on the lookout for new portfolios for the next few issues, so please do get in touch!
As a young child, the superstitions and folklore I experienced staying at my grandparents in the mountains of County Sligo left a lasting impression on me. Living in a thatched cottage beneath a 2000 foot tall mountain with no electricity and running water set the scene for a magical setting, particularly when sitting around an evening turf fire listening to my grandmother’s stories of fairies and ghosts. All the time the oil lamps flicker straining for its golden light to reach into the darker recesses of the kitchen. The mountain range that dominated this region is steeped in ancient history and Mythology. I felt when I was breathing in the air with a soft mist on my face I felt connected to an older time, sharing this space with the seen and the unseen.
The Red man
Sculpted in cement I created this fairy character that is known as the Red Man. The Red Man is another similar version of the leprechaun, in that he is a small creature about half the size of a man. His name is Irish for ‘red man’, given to him because – you guessed it- he dressed from head to toe in red, including a scarlet hat and cloak. He is also usually depicted with long grey hair and a wrinkled face. Like the leprechaun and Clurichaun, he is a fan of practical jokes, usually leaning towards the more gruesome kind. His appearance is also a sign of impending bad luck.
Banshee Tower
The Banshee Tower, Ducketts Grove Castle, County Carlow, Ireland. It is believed that the voices of the past and the ghosts of their owners haunt the high tower and the grounds of the roofless shell of Duckett’s Grove. The eerie atmosphere and spooky stories that shroud the skeletal ruins of this once magnificent Gothic mansion, built in the first half of the 19th century, are probably the main reason for the mystery and fantasy that arise from these beautiful remains.
Celtic Merrow
Celtic Merrow is another of my sculpted cement figures. It should not be assumed that merrows are kindly and well-disposed towards mortals. As members of the sidhe, or Irish fairy world, the inhabitants of the Land beneath the Waves have a natural antipathy towards humans. In some parts of Ireland, they are regarded as messengers of doom and death.
The tower at Kildavnet
The tower at Kildavnet on Achill Island is thought to have been constructed by the Clan O’Malley in about 1429, but is associated locally with a descendant of the original builders, Grace O’Malley or Granuaile. This legendary pirate queen is thought to have been born around 1530 and died in about 1603. The Tower at Kildavnet is one of a series of such strongholds that Granuaile established along the western seaboard (she is said to be buried in a similar tower on Clare Island) as she dominated the waters during the 16th century.
These 4 images form part of a larger series of images and probably my favourites so far. The project initially started without any intent, and after venturing out in similar conditions, a collection of images started to come together.
To me, they represent a quiet moment of mood, all the images were taken at times when there is no sound, perfect silence, a time to reflect and recharge. Having this thought process has allowed me to just go out, no plan, no pressure, a rewarding mindset.
Having been to Iceland several times over the last 10 years I was aware that my collection of images tended towards the big vista. I decided that my 2018 visit would feature more detailed images. The reality was that the big vista was hard to resist but I did come away with some detailed images. This 4x4 collection, all from 2018, features different textures of rock found in the Western Fjords of Iceland.
Lofoten is the place where mountains and ocean meet together. A small archipelago where every day several villages preserve history and tradition. Hamnøy is the oldest and most iconic of all Lofoten Islands, favourite place for photographs from all over the world. Sunrise is probably the best moment to capture its quietness and the magical colours surrounding the "rorbu", the traditional fisherman's cabins.
As I write this, the buds are visible fattening on the trees, and the landscape in the northwest Peak District is greening up. It’s a good time of year to head for the woods, but then any time of year is a good time to do so. Even the most unpromising scrap of woodland offers an escape from everyday life and an opportunity to reconnect with the sights, scents and sounds of nature. Paul Mitchell has become well known for his complex and beautifully lit woodland scenes, though this is by no means his only strength as a look at his website will reveal. Hopefully, our Revisited feature will allow you to catch up with his work, and may even give you an insight or two if the complex patterns of branches and stems leave you lost for a place to start. Even if you venture into the woods, find a place and simply sit, it will be time well spent at any time of year. You can read the original featured photographer interview from 2011 here.
What has changed for you, photographically speaking, since Tim spoke to you way back in 2011, or given you the most enjoyment?
What I perceive to have been the biggest change for me over the last eight years is my gradual, but inevitable, slide towards digital capture. I’ve certainly not abandoned film completely as I do still enjoy venturing out with my pinhole camera on a fairly regular basis. Indeed I still have all my large and medium format cameras and intend holding on to them as long as possible. Why the change though? In a nutshell… convenience. My increasing appreciation of the countryside and woodland has made me realise that you have to react quickly to the ever changing seasons and weather conditions which is why I keep my camera bag handy next to the front door. I very often just pop out for an hour or so at dawn and can still be sitting at my desk by 9am. I can then download, review and process my images on an ad hoc basis without waiting to finish off a roll of film. It is also fair to say that digital has ‘come of age’ and has now equalled, if not surpassed, the results I was obtaining with film.
Have your tastes in photography changed at all, or what you find inspiration in? (Either in terms of your own work, or what you enjoy looking at.)
As with my taste in music I’ve always considered my interest in photography to be quite eclectic in nature. I appreciate a well-crafted Joe Cornish landscape image as much as I do an Alex Soth or Andreas Gursky. I often feel that those who confine their interest to a small number of genres are missing out somewhat in their total appreciation of photography. Indeed my own interest in woodland compositions has led me to seek out inspiration from some of our traditional landscape painters such as John Constable, Paul Sandby and John Sell Cotman. The more contemporary work of Christopher Burkett and Shinzo Maeda always continue to inspire.
If you're reading this then you're probably a disciple of the quest to explore nature in all its forms; hiking, discovering, conquering and escaping into mindfulness. We would argue there's a human need for photographing in these places. We want to sometimes tame them and idealise them, set ourselves a compositional challenge and bend the location to our will. It's about unearthing something unseen, to create surprises, offering a wider acknowledgement that our own way of seeing is unique to us, that we are different. Though perhaps that's not quite enough.
Last autumn I visited Spain, once again in search of wooded scenes making use of the autumnal colours. It was on my list of photographic things to do; always looking for a less well-known location and places that challenge me as a photographer. I found the experience enjoyable and intense at times, which is an ideal state. The subsequent set of photographs produced was also satisfying. However, once the images were in a set, I felt something was missing. Whilst interesting and perhaps pretty, they did not convey to me anything other than the natural forms I had recorded, however skilfully. There was no narrative. There were no layers of meaning.
Mystery in photography is often seen as a sign of artistic endeavour. The more we can ask the viewer to seek an understanding of the image, the longer the image is in their presence, the more successful the photograph. With this in mind, some photographers seek to obfuscate their photographs through processing hoping that this will give them artistic credibility (harking back to Pictorialism perhaps). They imbue mystery, believing it will offer meaning. It's the wrong road and one which I suggest you shouldn't take. Look at the work of the masters such as H.Callahan and E.Weston for guidance on this issue.
Fotospeed has announced that they will be hosting Foto Fest 2019 as the festival heads into its fourth year. Once again, the festival brings together 4 talented photographers to deliver talks about the inspirations, techniques, and stories behind their images. You will also have access to the market place featuring industry leading brands and take advantage of some very special offers. The market place is open and free to anyone who wishes to visit with or without a ticket for the talks.
Read on to discover everything you need to know about Foto Fest 2019, including details of the talks. If you have any additional questions, you can contact the Fotospeed team at sales@fotospeed.com or 01249 714 555.
Event details
Where is it?: University of Bath, Bath
When is it?: 8th September 2019
What time?: 9.30am – 5.00pm
How much are tickets to Fotospeed talks?: £40 day pass
How much is the Market Place? FREE with or without a ticket to Fotospeed Talks
Speakers
Martin Parr
Arguably one of the most legendary documentary photographers of his generation, Martin Parr will be headlining Foto Fest 2019. With over 100 of his own books published – and another 30 edited by him – Parr is most noted for his humorous and anthropological observations of human habits through the lens of social class structures.
At Foto Fest, Parr looks at his long career in photography and finishes with work from his recent National Portrait Gallery exhibition earlier this year.
Rachael Talibart
Award-winning photographer Rachael Talibart is most known for her Sirens portfolio, critically acclaimed photographs of stormy seas, named after creatures of myth and legend. Her work has been exhibited around the world, and she delivers photography workshops and tours as the owner of f11 workshops.
For Rachael, the coast isn’t the end of the land; it is the beginning of imagination and possibility. In her Foto Fest talk, Rachael will explain some of the techniques – from the conventional to the experimental – that she uses in her own work, why she makes the images that she does, and how she generates the ideas behind her work. In an age when it sometimes seems as though everyone is a photographer, Rachael will encourage you to create coastal images that stand out from the crowd.
Tom Way
Tom Way is an award winning professional fine art wildlife photographer who has been awarded in various international competitions including the European Wildlife Photographer of the Year. Spending the majority of his time overseas, Tom’s main passion is Africa where assignments have seen him focus on Elephants and Lions in Kenya, and Leopards in Zambia.
In his talk, Tom will discuss what it takes to be a Wildlife Photographer, tackling the issues of light, angles, and how to compose a sellable image. You’ll hear stories of Tom’s adventures abroad and how he went from working in a gym to taking and exhibiting wildlife images around the world.
Nigel Danson
Nigel Danson became a full-time landscape photographer after a life-changing accident at Yosemite Park, which caused him to leave his job as CEO of a software company he founded – something he describes as the best decision he ever made.
In his talk, Nigel will look at the tips, tricks, rules, and processes that he has learnt through making over 100 landscape photography videos that will help you improve your images and create prints that you’ll want to hang on your wall.
What's Included with the ticket
4 incredible talks from 4 world-renowned photographers
FREE all-day parking
FREE entry to Fotospeed Market Place - access exclusive show deals for one day only
Live demonstrations, technical advice and all the latest equipment
Marketplace
There will also be an opportunity to get help and advice from our experts and enjoy some amazing event only deals. We will be featuring these top brands and more:
Fotospeed, Kaiser Fototechnik, Clifton Cameras, Sony, Lee Filters, Rotolight, Canon, The RPS, and more
