Urban Landscapes - May 2018

Photographing the urban landscape makes a refreshing change from the Southwell Trail and the local woods and forests. The principles however are very similar. There is a wide angle view, an intimate landscape view, and then a close-up, detailed, possibly abstract view. I see it as a sliding scale of context where the wide angle provides maximum context and the abstract view has little or no context. 

When I started landscape photography I took mainly classic wide angle views. I enjoyed big vistas and often I found myself working out how to include more into my shots. These days, I tend to move in the opposite direction making decisions about what to leave out of the frame. Consequently, I now look for more intimate landscape compositions or details that represent the locations I am visiting. 

Interestingly though, for most of my urban photography, I apply the opposite approach. In fact, the majority of my city photographs to date are more abstract e.g. reflections in the canals, details of the building or monuments. Even in the arboretum I tend to zoom in for the compositions trying to avoid people, cars and mundane urban details which, in a city, is quite difficult to do. 

On this occasion, however, I tried to be more open with my compositions and embrace the features I normally avoid. Initially, I found it hard to select my shots but gradually I started to see the potential and in the end some of the results surprised me. 

For example, I find this first image really engaging. It has got something about it which is hard to describe. It is basically a picture of a concrete block under a metal frame which seemingly has no purpose. Neatly, some graffiti has been painted over with white and grey paint forming something that could pass for a modern art installation - and like much of modern art it either appeals or it doesn't!

Taking a more wide angle approach I took a couple of shots of an area of the city centre that is still redeveloping. It interests me due to a series of pictures I took of the Cornish Engineering door which I have recently republished on my website. 

Cornish Engineering on Popham Street was demolished a couple of years ago along with the partial remains of a railway bridge that used to carries trains from the tunnels under the city. Some of these tunnel entrances and exits can still be seen around the city (1) but it is hard to visualise how it may have looked before all the modernisation. I did, however, find this link to photograph of Middle Hill in the 1960 which I think shows the bridge near to Popham Street that was demolished and the path of the railway line that is now a tram route to Nottingham railway station:

The following two images might stray into the street photography genre but I would prefer to categorise them as people in the urban landscape:

Colour can also be a theme of urban landscapes as demonstrated in these images:

Another theme is dilapidation including the derelict building in front of the city incinerator (shown in the fourth image below):

And lastly, some images with a broad theme of lines and angles which progressively get more abstract as context is removed from the frame:

(1) This is a great article on NottinghamshireLive showing the old railway tunnels around the city of Nottingham together with some original photographs.

Sherwood Revisited (October 2017)

With autumn colours lacking in my Southwell Trail images and many grey weather days during October, I decided to re-try my luck in Sherwood Forest.

It had been just over two weeks since my last visit and whilst there were some signs of autumn progressing there was not the rustic colours I had hoped for. In addition, it was another grey October day but that was not necessarily bad for the photography.

Photographing in strong sunlight in the forest can constrain the compositions as the light tends to dominate, often becoming the subject. The exposures can also be hard to control. Flat light on the other hand opens up the forest for compositions based on tree shapes and more subtle differences in tone. The trade off for this compositional freedom is a lack of punch or the immediate impact that strong light often provides in a picture.

My favourite photograph from this visit and is a panorama comprising of three overlapping images. I like how the dead tree trunk and branches on the right balance with the large oak setback on the left. The right hand part of the panorama also works as a single image:

I really enjoy the shapes of trees in the forest and single tree portraits have started to be a feature of my woodland photography:

Making connections between trees using the lines of the branches or using the branches to frame parts of the image are compositional techniques that I like to use in woodland scenes as demonstrated in the following two photographs:

With small groups of trees I like to look at shapes of the trunks and how they interact. Pines, for example, tend to form regular rows with the occasional diagonal. Others might have a complimentary shape i.e. one trunk grows with a similar shape to one next to it. Alternatively some trunk shapes are like mirror images of one another:

Finally, the paths in the forest are always make good value for a composition or two:

Strawberry Hill - Photography Week 27 (2016)

Strawberry Hill is a nature reserve managed by the Wildlife Trust near Rainworth in the East Midlands. It is one of the few remain area of Sherwood Forest heathland and a site of special scientific interest (1)

Like many areas of the forest, Strawberry Hill isn't the most obvious place for landscape photography. The key challenge is being able to simplify the compositions by looking for shapes and tones that fill the camera's frame.

For example, when photographing single trees I like to line up the branches so they point to the upper corners of the frame. I feel that this provides balance to composition and strengthens the tree's role as the main subject of the photograph.

If there is more than one tree it is often better to make connection between them as part of the composition. This can be achieved by looking for lines and shapes that either repeat or mirror one another. Alternatively, connections can be made between intersecting trunks and branches. Using a long lens can often be beneficial in these circumstances as long focal lengths condense the perspective giving the impression that elements in the image are closer together than they are in reality.

These are some of the results:

(1) http://www.nottinghamshirewildlife.org/nature-reserves/strawberry-hill-heath/

Wheal Coates Mine - Photography Week 23 (2016)

Wheal Coates mine is one of the classic landscape photography venues in Cornwall. The Towanroath engine house composes perfectly on the side of the cliff with the coastal path providing the ideal lead-in to the picture. Evening is a good time to visit as the sun sets offshore bathing the cliff face in warm light.

It is not really a venue for original photography as most of the angles have been covered many times before. The only aspect of originality is the weather at the point of capture. For this visit I had some misty low cloud and broken sun which made for some enjoyable evening photography: