How a recent conversation with my Nan may have changed the way I do photography.
As much as I love spending my time photographing some of the well-known beauty spots here in Wales, I have been finding a great deal of happiness looking for photographs that are completely unique while outdoors in nature.
I was challenged by my Nan recently (it didn’t get physical, don’t worry) as I showed her some of my travel photographs from Scotland. She was not drawn to the photographs because of their pretty colours or recognisable landmarks or pleasing compositions, as I usually am. Instead, she drew attention to some of the things that she saw within each photograph that were personal to her. My Nan saw faces where I saw rocks. She talked of stories and memories of her past which I found quite beautiful.
This got me thinking about the photographs that I have been taking over the past couple of years or so and inspired me to use my own imagination a little more when I have a camera in my hand outdoors in the landscape. I feel like the modern world has a way of taking this child-like way of thinking away from us, we are perhaps encouraged to think more practically instead of imaginatively – something that I am working hard on to rediscover.
I never thought I would be the man to stand alone in a field in the middle of the snowfall, pointing my camera at a tree but hey, life can throw curveballs every now and then. There I was, in the grounds of Powis Castle and on the hills that surround my home here in Welshpool capturing this series of winter woodland photographs that, I feel, hold some great stories within them.
All of the following photographs were taken in the grounds of Powis Castle, Welshpool unless stated otherwise.