Insignificance
A man standing before the wild Atlantic Ocean.
I was all alone. Just my camera and the cries of the raging sea beneath me for company. The only signs of colour in the landscape was a few escaping yellow buds of gorse, high up on the coastal path. The north-easterly wind had been howling all afternoon, and the tides were hitting the Devonshire coastline like a herd of charging bulls. At times, raindrops appeared to be falling upwards. It was grey, wet and completely miserable, as was I. Despite sitting that morning and compiling a list of all of the things to be grateful for, it appeared that I’d missed ‘wind’ off my list. Throughout my day so far, I had been sure to let it know about my feelings.
My morning had been spent trudging through miles of boggy ground in the middle of a bleak and miserable Dartmoor National Park. Many of the parks’ wild, naked hawthorn trees had provided shelter for me as I tried to escape the wrath of the 40+mph gales for a few minutes of silence and contemplation. I’d already seen my camera and tripod fall to the ground, narrowly missing some rocks. My feet were wet through and, after battling the wind for a few miles out here on the coastline, I had well and truly had enough. The lodge was calling my name. I wanted nothing more than to remove my socks and plant my cold feet firmly on the heated wooden floor.
My final stop of the day was a remote cove on the south coast of Devon, just outside of Plymouth. I had hiked for a few miles to get here and, despite my desire to walk on by and go straight back to the car, I descended the path and stepped foot out onto the narrow beach.
The rain was still pouring and the wind was showing no signs of letting up. Down here in the cove, it was relentless; a vicious onslaught of icy cold gusts and tidal spray combined with rain dampened any remaining enthusiasm that I had to create. Along the beach, my eyes were drawn to the mess and debris that had been washed up on the shore; wooden pallets, crisp packets, and broken plastic casing, despite the outstanding natural beauty that was all around me. Looking out into the sea, at the seemingly endless abyss brought some uncomfortable questions to mind. I stood and pondered my surroundings for a while, before trying, and failing, to find a meaningful subject to photograph.
Back in the comfort of the lodge, I sat for a while and reflected upon my first day in Devon. To say that I was disappointed with myself would be an understatement. I thought long and hard about the fortunate position that I was in to be able to create photographs, with an audience in different corners of the planet; people who are interested in the stories that I have to tell. Only a few days ago, I had been writing about ‘losing my sense of wonder’ when outside in nature, and about missing the feelings of childlike curiosity that I had at the beginning of my photography journey. Yet, here I was, with a new genre and plenty of opportunity to play and experiment without expectation, and I could barely muster the willpower to even pull my camera from my rucksack and look for a photograph.
I have been a student of Stoic philosophy on and off for a few years now and yet, I had allowed myself to forget one of the most important and repetitive teachings that has been so important to me:
“You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
~ Marcus Aurelius
“It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.”
~ Epictetus
That night, I sat and reminded myself that if I want to progress in my pursuit to add any kind of artistic merit to my photography, then I am going to have to show some level of discipline with my approach. If I took photographs only when I felt like it, then much of the year would go to waste. Every day brings a new chance for us to experiment and explore; both the landscape and ourselves, for new stories to tell, and isn’t that why we all pick a camera up in the first place?
In this case, I wanted a story to tell about introspection, perseverance and of dedication to my chosen craft. A few years ago, I told myself and my journal that I would create photographs as though my life depended on it. I made the decision that night to return to the cove the following afternoon to create something, anything, regardless of what the day might bring.
After a morning walk along the river, I packed up my bag with supplies and followed the calls of the sea back down to the south Devonshire coastline. My mind was much clearer this time round.
I have been a strong advocate of the power of a writing routine for a few years now and my journal has been a place for me to reflect, release, find new direction in life, and make sense of many of my emotions. Sitting at the desk that previous night helped me in many ways, and I came back to the cove with a completely new perspective and refreshed attitude. Despite what were, once again, some treacherous conditions, my perseverance paid off and I managed to come away with the following photograph.
The tide swirling in at Soar Mill Cove.
Photography, for me, is so much more about the lessons and the wisdom that I accrue throughout my journey, than it is about the gathering of the photographs themselves. Some photographs, like the above, serve to remind me of what I learn through the creative process. What they lack in aesthetic appeal; magical light, vibrant colours, mood, drama, or anything else that might, for example, make an image popular across social media platforms or in a competition, they more than make up for in the story behind them.
With my chosen form of art, what I am able to become through the journey harbours much more interest to me, than any form of extrinsic rewards such as likes, comments or sales. I create to express. I create to share my emotions. I create to make sense of and communicate what it means to me to be a human being. I create to feel understood. Anything else that comes from that is a bonus.
Out here on the Cornish coastline, during the final day of my visit, everything was put into perspective. As I stood up on the footpath to The Rumps, looking out over cliff faces that were as tall as skyscrapers, I was reminded of the insignificance of all of my annoyances, fears, hopes, desires and dreams. The wind was still howling. The waves were still crashing. The cliff faces continued to erode. Despite my concerns and complaints just a few days earlier, Mother Nature failed to relent. ‘All of this is impermanent’, I thought, and that moment was liberating.
With that thought in mind, I made my way to my final port. Here, on the north coast of Cornwall, I explored with feelings of freedom, excitement and curiosity. It was on this wonderful beach, one that had been formed over millennia that I learnt to ‘play’ with my camera again. I clambered over the huge rocks that had fallen out of the skies, I ran from the incoming tide, slipped on algae, studied the swirling patterns engraved in the rocks, and created freely, without any expectation in mind. It was here, at Trebarwith Strand, that my heart filled up, and I found a missing part of myself again.
“The great geniuses are those who have kept their childlike spirit and have added to it breadth of vision and experience.”
– Alfred Stieglitz
Seeking Stillness
As I walk along the dusty track, I pass by many of the wicked and wild trees that have been decorating this small corner of the Gwydir Forest for a century or more. There are a handful of oaks but the majority of them here are silver birch trees that love these damp upland moorland environments. I’m just a tiny speck of dust beneath most of the trees, and, despite my hair being a little thinner in some places than it once was, one glance at their weathering bark makes me appreciate my youth. The young should respect their elders, so I pause for a moment to think about how little I know, and how much I still have yet to learn from them.
'Well-being of mind is like a mountain lake without ripples. When the lake has no ripples, everything in the lake can be seen. When the water is all churned up, nothing can be seen.'
~ Pema Chödrön
As I walk along the dusty track, I pass by many of the wicked and wild trees that have been decorating this small corner of the Gwydir Forest for a century or more. There are a handful of oaks but the majority of them here are silver birch trees that love these damp upland moorland environments. I’m just a tiny speck of dust beneath most of the trees, and, despite my hair being a little thinner in some places than it once was, one glance at their weathering bark makes me appreciate my youth. The young should respect their elders, so I pause for a moment to think about how little I know, and how much I still have yet to learn from them.
Just a few miles walk along the winding track and I’ll be at my destination; a small and remote lake that is unknown to most people. It is only my second visit to this part of Eryri/ Snowdonia National Park, yet it already seems so familiar to me. I recognise many of the trees as I pass and offer each of them the softest of ‘good morning’s’.
A few weeks prior to this morning, I took a spontaneous walk on a beautiful summers’ day along yet another one of the national park’s hidden footpaths. The path carried me on an unforgettable adventure to this hidden paradise, guarded by towering, ancient beeches, with Moel Siabod watching over in the background. I had no idea what was waiting for me around each corner that day; my feelings of curiosity reminded me of what it was like to be a child once again. As I stepped foot around the final corner, I was awe-struck by the beauty of my new surroundings. That initial discovery of the lake was a special moment. I stood and pondered the scene below for an hour and felt a sense of connection to my home that I don’t remember experiencing before, and as time passes, the memories become even fonder. This photograph was my reward for shaking the dust from my hiking boots, packing up a day rucksack and finding the courage to walk through the door and out into the unknown.
‘Summer Harmony’ - A photograph by Brad Carr.
Today, I have a much clearer picture of what is waiting for me, although some of the leaves are looking a little more golden in comparison, and the wet soil is filling my nostrils with rich scents after some recent rainfall. The sight of the bright afternoon sun has been replaced by a blanket of high, grey clouds that are releasing a touch of light drizzle for the ground this morning, and I can hear a very soft pitter pattering of rain on the leaves in the canopy to the left of me. On the weather forecast last night, I could see predictions of patchy fog in parts of the Gwydir forest throughout the morning, and although I have been clear of it so far, I live in hope that the light easterly winds might carry some over the mountain so that it can thread itself between the silver birch trees and warm the sleeping lake like a blanket.
The world feels calm this morning, and that, for me, is perfection. It is the stillness that I seek. The only kind that can be found out here in these wild places; a far cry from where I started out in life when I would lie awake at night trying to silence noises that no child should have to endure. Out here, silence is plentiful, and I forget that the ‘real world’ exists for a moment. With each step that I take along the track, I leave one of my worries behind and it dissipates into the fog that seems to have gathered out of nowhere. It looks like I have been granted my wish. I’m filled with the ultimate joy and begin to imagine what photographs might be waiting for me. I approach the waters and feel my heart rate beginning to slow. I come into the present. For the first time in a long time, I feel like myself. I am home.
‘Silent Waters’ - A photograph by Brad Carr
When all is calm in my surroundings, I can hear my truest self. I know that the voice I need to listen to is the one that is buried deep inside, behind societies constructs, and limiting beliefs that have been passed on to me through generations and by my peers. When I am out here, in the wild places, beside Eryri’s tranquil lakes, beneath majestic mountains, with the branches of the pirouetting silver birch trees wrapping themselves around my weary body, my spirit feels a certain peace and the voice that I seek is free to speak.
Whenever I am beside silent waters like this, I always notice that first breath of air, filling my lungs and reinvigorating me. Out here, it becomes so much clearer to me how much of a necessity natures’ therapy is. Only when I come out and sense the stillness of these waters do I realise that I haven’t been myself for so long. My thoughts become lighter, my body is refreshed, and my breathing becomes so much clearer. My anxieties settle and all of my worries begin to disappear. I feel no fear. I am able to think, ‘so this is how it really feels to be a human being.’ We all belong out here in these wild places, and we need to make a commitment to seek them out more often for times of respite.
Before humans decided to build four walls around themselves and call it a home, our ancestors might have woken up beneath these silver birch trees every morning. Maybe they were able to bathe in the waters when they woke; to nourish their souls and cleanse their minds. They may have even gathered logs from a dying tree to stoke their fire, fished the water and cooked the catch of the day, before dancing together, socialising and staring out into the starry sky to dream and tell stories of adventure to their families. They certainly wouldn’t have been refreshing their social media feeds in isolation to subconsciously compare their lives with a family that lives half way around the world.
We are incredibly disconnected from nature in this modern, ever-increasing digital world. Far too many people would rather sit and watch others do the exploring for them whilst they hide away in the comfort and safety of their bedrooms. To experience these moments through a screen, is not enough. It is not the same as being out there in person and in spirit. To go on a journey into the unknown, to forget who we think we are for a day, to reflect, to give ourselves the space and opportunity to become something new; to build new neural pathways in our brain, there really is no substitute.
Mother Nature has the power to heal us in ways that are unimaginable and incomprehensible. What she has done for me over the last few years, I could spend a lifetime trying to explain. My wounds ran deep until she gently puts her arms around me and led me to her still waters. Here, I have found space to reflect upon my life. untangle some of the knots inside of my mind, make sense of who I am, and learn how to read the map that points the way towards where I am going. It is my hope that the photographs and stories that I share can inspire others to go out in search of themselves, find their own sense of refuge in these all important wild places, and embark on their own journeys towards healing.
Losing my Sense of Wonder - A Meditation on my Creative Journey
I’ve been feeling frustrated recently by my lack of experimentation. My feelings were accelerated when someone mentioned the dreaded word ‘style’ to me in conversation..
When I’m buried, you can put me in a box. I don’t want to be inside of one whilst I’m breathing. There is a big world outside of it for me to explore, and so many opportunities, yet I have recently found myself only going out with the camera when there is promise of some magical mist or Narnia-like wintery conditions. I feel as though I am losing some of my sense of wonder about the world, and I desperately need to get it back.
‘A Summer Harmony’ - A photograph by Brad Carr from Eryri/ Snowdonia National Park.
I created ‘A Summer Harmony’ back in August 2021. As you can see, there is not a hint of the mist that us photographers love all too much. This photograph is one of my personal favourites. It was one of the best days that I have had behind the camera, and I remember the entire day-long adventure around the Gwydir Forest like it was yesterday. I wrote very fondly about it in my 2021 zine ‘A Year Amongst Trees’, and I remember it even more sweetly since I wrote that last year.
The wild silver birch trees welcomed me into their home. Beside the tranquil waters I was free to stand and ponder my own existence here on earth for an hour with the late summer sun burning my left shoulder. The wind blew gently across the lake, and for a while, it was just me, my thoughts and the silence of a relatively untouched and unknown wilderness. With each breath of wind that passed, I would release one of my thoughts until my mind felt clear of the mental fog that had built up from a week inside my four walls.
Normally, the bright light cast from an overhead sun would be enough to prevent me from even thinking about creating a photograph. Not this time. The emotion that I felt took over and I was compelled by a force beyond myself to take out the camera, set up my tripod and compose a photograph, much to the interest of the passing family that I had met at an earlier point on my walk, who had now decided to join me in paradise for an afternoon of wild swimming. To them, these were probably just some trees. To me, this was a network of coexisting species providing life for me, as I breathed life back into them. It was a harmony. I had finally found a place to belong. In that moment, I felt at home.
In a wonderful book that I read recently by Diana Beresford-Kroeger called ‘To Speak for the Trees’, she writes passionately about an experiment that she performed earlier in her career that proved that trees possess a similar chemical within them, that we have inside of our own brains. The experiment proved that trees have their own unique way of thinking, and perhaps even know how to dream too. When I stood here in the summer of 2021, I witnessed these living organisms bursting with sheer joy at the thought of their own existence, and I felt as though I had stepped foot into their world of dreams.
What I loved most about the photograph is how spontaneously it appeared before me. I went for a walk outdoors with no preconceived ideas about what to expect. The footpaths were all untrodden in this new world. The next corner shrouded in mystery. My imagination was allowed to run wild. My heart and mind were both filled with a child-like curiosity; the kind of feelings that I crave so much to keep myself alive.
Someone I engaged in conversation with recently told me that there is a ‘consistent Brad Carr style’ to my portfolio now. I find it great that my work can be recognised, but also incredibly confining. Does that mean that I’m expected to produce something similar every time I go outside with my camera? Will it lead to disappointment in my audience if I go out and create images that are completely different to those that I already have? Am I, therefore, in danger of pursuing work based primarily on extrinsic motivations? Should I forget about my child-like desire to marvel at the world and experiment with my camera in pursuit of ‘safe’ photographs to please my audience?
‘A Summer Harmony’ isn’t a photograph that many people will ‘get’. It certainly didn’t harbour many likes on social media, and I don’t imagine that it would stand much of a chance of winning me any awards. What it does do is fill me with intrinsic rewards; and as an artist that satiates me more than any amount of social media likes or sales ever will. It’s a photograph, and an adventure, that fulfils me greatly. It gives me a story to tell and something that I can write about for years to come. It’s a story that only gets sweeter with time. I remember the conversation that I had with the family of wild-swimmers in the woodland as I passed them an hour prior to my discovery of this lake. I remember the sounds of the children’s laughter as they splashed around in the water whilst I continued to ponder my place on Earth. These days of complete presence are the ones that remind me of what it is to be human.
It would be very easy for me to fall back on my ‘style’ and continue to create these relatively safe photographs. Perhaps I could spend the next few years exploring places that I am already familiar with but I don’t want to fall into my comfort zone. That is a dangerous place for a human being that desires growth in order to live fully.
Being outdoors with my camera is my ultimate form of mindfulness. It is the only time that I feel truly present. The act of walking outdoors in the wilderness, pondering the beauty of Mother Nature and my place within it, whilst looking for potential compositions for my photographs is a process that leaves me with no space in my mind for the mental noise that most of us will know all too well. Just recently, that noise has been turned up to an all-time high. I have been finding myself not even bothering to look for photographs whilst out walking because the light is ‘too boring’ or the colours don’t sing to me. The mental chatter has taken over, and I begin to think about all of the things on my list of to-do’s. The purpose of being outdoors in nature has been lost.
I initially picked up the camera to go outside, to connect with and explore this world and parts of myself. Photography gave me an opportunity to forget about the limitations and labels that society had placed on me, experiment again and find that inner child that wants to play, wonder and ask questions of the world. It is about time I went outside to find him again.
A Landscape Photography Adventure into the Mountains of Poland
In November, I packed my camera and a few changes of clothes into a suitcase and flew over to Poland. A trip to the Tatra Mountains was in store… And lots of Polish donuts!
''We're so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it is all about.''
~ Joseph Campbell
I am living every day, but not always do I get to feel the emotions that ground me entirely, bring me into the present moment and make me feel truly alive. My first morning in Poland was one of those rare ones that allow me to feel that way, and what a truly incredible welcome it was. As far as a morning of landscape photography goes it doesn’t often get too much better.
The previous night, I had touched down in Krakow airport late into the evening. My friend Alek, with whom I had a lot to catch up with since he left Welshpool to move back to Poland a few years ago, had kindly picked me up. After exchanging some greetings and stories, we went together to meet his sister, Kaja; our mountain guide and, at times, motivator for the two days, at the train station.
Alek and Kaja near the summit of Wołowiec in the Tatra Mountains.
It was already so cold outside in the city when I arrived. We all sat in comfort together in the warm car laughing and joking, and in the back of my mind, I couldn’t help but wonder what conditions might be awaiting us on higher ground the following morning. I’d heard some rumours of snow on the mountaintops, and that is enough to excite any landscape photographer. I closed my eyes for a moment and allowed myself to dream as we whizzed past the bright lights of the city and out onto the open country roads.
We stopped for what was meant to be a quick bite to eat. Friends and family back home in Wales had sent me text messages saying that they could hear my belly rumbling from all the way back there after my long flight. Our ‘quick stop’ turned into a feast of burgers, fries and fried chicken. It’s not often that I treat myself to some unhealthy fast food but I was on a much needed break from my ‘normal’ life… And we had some huge mountains to climb!
We made it to our destination, a small town about an hour away from the Tatra Mountains late into the night and finally put our heads down at around 12.30am. Just a blink of the eyes later, me, Alek and his wife; Martyna woke at 3am, drank a quick coffee, wiped the collective sleep away from our eyes, and travelled to pick Kaja up just a few miles away before setting out excitedly on our journey into the thick fog.
An hour later, we arrived at our location. We quickly parked up, switched off the cars’ engine, and stepped outside into fog in the coldness of night. We equipped ourselves with headtorches, laced up our boots and made tracks into the deep, dark and mysterious forest. The Dunajec river was our companion for the first kilometre of our journey. We walked hastily beside her, and I couldn’t help but feel hypnotised by her whispers which called us forth towards her source on higher ground.
Following the whispers of the Dunajec, we climbed. Little did I know what was awaiting me at the summit of this 800m mountain; freezing conditions which woke me up and heightened my senses even further, icy rocks making each step more careful than the last and a sea of thick fog, hiding everything in sight, restricting my vision to a maximum of five metres in all directions.
It was only when the fog broke for a few seconds that I got a glimpse of a snow capped section of a magical mountain range in the distance, sandwiched between the fog and the clouds. ‘The Tatras!’ I exclaimed with joy. I’d heard so much about them in the build up to this trip and was very excited to see them. To add the cherry on top, there was snow on the peaks.
The scene was perfect. I stood there trying to pull my jaw from the icy floor. I was completely unprepared and my camera and lenses were still packed away tightly inside of my rucksack. The fog closed like a stage curtain and I missed a truly glorious photo opportunity.
Luckily for me, half an hour or so later while the light was still at its softest and most evocative, the fog began to dissipate, providing me with one of the best views I have had in my thirty one years on this planet. I opened the shutter to capture this magnificent moment, and then I stood again in awe for a while, admiring the craftsmanship of Mother Nature.
The Tatra mountain range above a sea of fog.
There is something that I have always found quite charming about a distant range of snow-capped mountains. These are the kinds of scenes that I could never get tired of. I spent much of my childhood escaping into films and books. When I step foot into a place like this one, it’s like I have teleported straight into the imagination of Tolkien, and climbed The Lonely Mountain in The Lord of the Rings.
When I am standing on a hilltop admiring such beautiful scenery at the breaking of dawn, I always spare a thought for where I started out in life. These blissful moments help to remind me of why I am out in the landscape creating photographs and telling stories.
A few years ago, I acquired a mission here on earth. I began to live my life in the hope of inspiring others to explore this world and find new parts of themselves along the way. It is my ambition to show people that time in nature can provide much needed healing, give them the space that they need for reflection, and perhaps help them to find their own sense of belonging and unique purpose on this planet.
“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.”
~ John Muir
My friend and mountain guide for the trip; Kaja with a backdrop of the Tatra Mountains.
Sun rising through the low fog in the Polish mountains.
You didn’t think that I was going to go all the way to Poland on a landscape photography adventure and not make the trip about trees in some way, did you?
I was lucky enough to have been guided by a friend who is as familiar with this area as I am with Snowdonia. She led me to this summit and en route, told me that there is a tree that bows to the Tatra mountains out of respect for them. It is something that I am going to do myself whenever I find myself among the mountains in the future. I owe them a great deal for what they have provided me over the past few years and I’ll remain eternally grateful that they have remained ever welcoming.
A lonely tree overhangs a clifftop in the Polish mountains.
It was during a hike on the following day that I regained my love for mountain adventures after nearly two years of photographing trees, lakes and rivers down in the valleys. After climbing 2,137m to the summit of one of the mountains, I decided to follow the example set by this tree and make my own bow.
A lonely tree overhangs a clifftop in the Polish mountains.
In a book that I recently read by Diana Beresford-Krueger called ‘To Speak for the Trees’, she writes eloquently about a study that she conducted earlier in her career during which she found similar chemicals within trees to those that us humans possess in our own brains. She writes that her study proved that trees have their own thought processes and perhaps even that they know how to dream, too.
I think that this one wakes up in a dream every day, don’t you?
A lonely tree overhangs a clifftop in the Polish mountains.
Autumn is a special time of year for many reasons. One of them is for these kinds of transitions in colour that you can see when first light meets with fog or frost, like in the following photograph.
To create this kind of effect in my photographs, I usually like to shoot directly into the sunlight, or across it slightly. In this instance, I was a few hundred metres above the copse of trees that over hang the valley, shooting down onto them, and towards the sunlight with a long lens.
The light was coming and going and the fog, also known as ‘the milk’ by my new friend, Kaja, was swirling around, thickening and thinning with every moment that passed, concealing and then revealing the trees. These kinds of mornings are the best for landscape photography and always some of my most memorable.
As I said in a photography talk at The Bookshop by The Sea in Aberystwyth recently; I find that I’m at my most present during these moments; tuned in to every little change that is occurring out there in the landscape, with nothing else in my mind apart from, ‘what is going to happen next.’ I guess that we are all chasing our own highs, and moments like this are mine.
Kaja climbing the steep steps towards the summit of Wołowiec in the Tatra Mountains.
At 2,100m up in the Tatra mountains, my friend Alek poses for a picture.
I spent four days in Poland; the first was dedicated to nature and landscape photography; the second mainly to hiking and simply taking in the sights of glorious Tatra Mountains when immersed among them at 2,100m. The third and fourth days were spent in Krakow itself, mainly walking around, practicing some street photography, doing my share of touristing and eating my bodyweight in Polish delicacies… *Ahem. Donuts. Ahem*.
I am planning to visit again in 2023 where I will be looking to spend more time hiking in the incredible Tatra Mountain range, which boasts some impressive peaks and layers upon layers of mountains that stretch as far as the eye can see. Next time, I will make sure that we get to the summit for sunrise. If you are ever looking for an alternative to Iceland, Norway or the Dolomites etc for a photography trip, then I can recommend a visit to this wonderful country.
A Simple Lightroom Trick to Transform your Landscape Photography
Sshh. I’m going to let you into a little secret. Don’t tell anybody, ok? This one small Adobe Lightroom editing trick that I’m about to share with you will literally transform your landscape photography. If you’re a beginner photographer, then I recommend that you give this trick a go today to impress anyone that might be looking at your photographs.
If you’re the type of person that spends hours scouring the Internet to look at landscape photography, then you are probably familiar with the term ‘dodging and burning’. This is a trick that photographers have been using for decades to give their photographs that extra little kick when being viewed by an audience. The late, great Ansel Adams made this technique famous in the days of film photography, when he would spend hours in the darkroom, applying physical ‘dodging and burning’ to his negatives.
What is ‘dodging and burning’?
Ok, so you don’t actually know what the term ‘dodging and burning’ means? Well, to put it in the simplest of terms, it is the act of lightening certain parts of a photograph and darkening others. It is a great tool that can be used to create some very high contrast, dramatic images, or to bring emphasis to certain subjects within a photograph.
The best part about this is that, compared to poor Ansel Adams who had to spend hours, if not days, locked inside of his darkroom, we now have the ability to dodge and burn a photograph within minutes, or even seconds once you are up to speed. In most of my own favourite landscape photographs over the past couple of years, I have used the same dodging and burning technique that I am about to share with you all.
Before dodging & burning
After dodging & burning
Why should you dodge & burn?
There are many reasons as to why you should dodge or burn a photograph. The main reason for me, as stated above, is to add shape, dimension and contrast in an otherwise flat and perhaps, lifeless photograph. In certain instances, dodging and burning subjects in the foreground can help you to direct a viewers eye to a certain place, and create a journey through your photograph. In the photograph at the top of the screen, you can see that I have added a dodge and burn effect to the rocks in the foreground, because I feel as though they are of particular interest within the scene; I want those to grab a viewers attention. This technique is particularly effective when you photograph using lateral light during sunrise or sunset. This is when you end up with areas of light and shadow, which can be emphasised using the dodge and burn tool described down below.
HOW DO YOU DODGE AND BURN PHOTOGRAPHS IN LIGHTROOM?
Introductions now aside, this is what you have all been waiting for. The one trick that is going to transform your photography and allow you to wow your audiences with mind-blowing photographs.
Lightroom Adjustment Brush Tool
Please note: I recently reverted back to an older version of Lightroom because of a catalog problem. I’ll upload a newer version of this blog for more recent versions of Lightroom once I manage to fix my issue.
Select the adjustment brush tool and set the exposure slider to around the 0.50 mark, this can be adjusted depending on the level of ‘dodge’ or ‘burn’ that you wish to apply to an area. For ‘burning’ photographs, you’ll want to move this slider into the minuses. As a general rule of thumb, I tend not to go over 1.00 either way because things start to look a little bit too extreme in my opinion. You should experiment and decide on your own formula to suit your style of landscape photography.
It’s also important that you adjust the ‘size’, ‘feather’, ‘flow’ and ‘density’ fields so that you get a lovely soft, gradual transition between your dodge and burn. The size will change depending on the area of the photograph that you want to dodge or burn. The other fields, however, should be adjusted to the following:
Feather: 100
Flow & Density: ~65
Again, you can experiment with these to see the different results that they produce. A stronger flow & density field will produce more extreme results and using a lighter feather will create a harsher transition between areas.
Once you have adjusted the brush to suit your requirements, you can proceed to paint in the areas that you wish to dodge or burn.
For extra fine tuning: Adjust the ‘range mask’ section to ‘luminance’ and increase the range slider to around the 60 mark. This will need to be adjusted to your own requirements. As you can see in the before vs after below, by adding the range mask this will ensure that the brush only applies to the lighter pixels. When applying the ‘burning’ to your photograph, this range mask will need to be flipped; the left slider will be moved all the way to the left of the bar and the right slider will be set to around the 40 mark.
Click to enlarge the images below.
Yep, that really is all there is to it. That is all bases covered; what is dodging and burning? Why use dodging and burning? And a simple and easy guide covering how to dodge and burn your landscape photographs in Adobe Lightroom. I was very surprised myself when I discovered just how easy it is to dodge and burn photographs within the editing software. Now, there is barely a day that goes by where I don’t use this trick in some way within my own photos. It really is amazing what can be achieved using this very quick, easy and simple Lightroom editing technique. Now it’s up to you to go away and see exactly what you have been missing out on this whole time. Have fun!
Brad
In Nature, I Belong
“I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.”
- Henry David Thoreau
‘Enlightened’
How did I end up here?
Out in the wilderness with nothing but my camera and the conversations in my head to keep company?
Wandering aimlessly, I find myself stumbling out of the mist onto a winding path that was lined with twisting silver birch trees, glowing in the glorious morning rays.
A sign.
Perhaps the light is reassuring me that I am moving in the right direction.
It may have taken me nearly thirty years, but I think I have finally found my way.
I'm tired but I can't stop now.
I hesitate.
Inhale.
The cold autumn air brings new life to my weary body and I scan the new surroundings with my icy blue eyes.
I keep on walking.
I place one of my feet in front of the other.
I'm scared.
This path shows no sign of footsteps.
I'm alone.
But none more so than in a crowded room, I remind myself.
My mind rests.
Safe in the knowledge that the trees would guide me home.
How My Love of Woodland Photography was Born
In this entry, I dig down to my roots to learn about why I enjoy woodland photography so much…
‘Into Silence’ by Brad Carr
The origin of my love of woodland affection is in Southwater, West Sussex in a little garden on Wealdon Close. It is in this garden, one that belonged to my Nan and Grandad until recently, that I have the fondest memories from my childhood. These walks into the woodland were a much needed escape from my reality and although my deep love for the adventure faded somewhat throughout my teens and early twenties, the embers for adventure have always flickered away inside.
I spent much of my time as a child looking forward to the annual visit to Sussex with my mother and sisters. If he wasn’t down the local watching the cricket, my Grandad would spend much of his time out in the garden potting plants and tending to his greenhouse. He wasn’t a man of many words but he would always come alive when me and my sister approached him in the greenhouse. He would wear his trademark smile as he introduced us both to the frogs and other wildlife that liked to shelter underneath the plant pots.
Between searching for frogs and playing board games, we would all head through the picket fence at the bottom of the garden and navigate our way along the path that ran through an old woodland to carry us all the way to the beautiful Southwater Country Park. We would have hours of fun in here playing on the zip-line and what seemed to be a never-ending slide before returning to my Nan & Grandads house through the magical woodland to eat our cheese and crackers before retiring to my favourite caravan to sleep beside that old picket fence.
As an adult, I can often be found wandering alone through the woodland, still in a daydream in much the same way that I was when I was a child.
‘Radiance’
If I’m not photographing or reading a book, I’m usually practicing what the Japanese call ‘shinrin-yoku’, the art of forest bathing. Breathing in the woodland aromas, soaking in the damp, misty air and listening to the tapping of distant woodpeckers makes for a rather therapeutic and meditative experience. The act of forest bathing and woodland photography has been responsible for my making sense of my life and particularly many of the experiences, trials and tribulations that I faced as a child.
Looking for and (sometimes) finding simplicity among a busy environment brings me much happiness and reflects much of the way that I try to live my life. The complex nature of finding a composition among the chaos is what draws me. It reminds me somewhat of the chaos that resides in my own life and the act of finding a photograph has helped me to find the meaning that is somewhere within. I encountered a series of unique challenges as a child, growing up around many changing faces, never knowing how long they might be present in my life and each one of them forcing me to become a different version of myself. I discovered a complete contrast in the woodlands that I’ve visited this year; the characters in each one of these remaining somewhat consistent and allowing me to be myself upon every visit.
12 Tips on How to Photograph Spring Wildflowers
In this article, I cover 12 of my top tips that will help you to create better photographs of the UK wildflowers.
It’s that time of year again when those beautiful and colourful wildflowers spring up from their long season of rest. I for one absolutely love the springtime after a long, cold and dark winter and I especially enjoy the new lease of life that I get for photography during the spring months.
In this article, I want to go over some of my tips that might be able to help you to improve your own wildflower photography so that you can go out and enjoy some beautiful hours in the woodland this spring.
The best thing about wildflower photography is that you don’t even have to travel far to come up with a diverse portfolio of photographs. All of the photos that I will be sharing in this article were taken around my local town of Welshpool here in the beautiful rolling hills of Mid Wales.
I hope you enjoy the following points, I will keep them very short and sweet which will give you more time outside enjoying the beautiful spring sunshine.
Ok, lets get straight into it:
Get Low for a Unique Angle
Don’t be afraid to get dirty. Drop down to eye level for a unique view of your chosen subjects. Pick a wildflower that has plenty of open space behind to create some beautiful depth in your photographs.
A snowdrop in the snow and early morning sunlight.
2.Use a wide open aperture
Something like f/2.8 or f/4 will help to soften the background, helping to add further depth to your photographs and bring the wildflower into clear focus. You can also place some subjects in the foreground to create extra depth and layers to your photograph.
A couple of snowdrops appear to be floating in the soft, morning light.
3. Find a Clear subject
Find a wildflower that stands out amongst the crowd. Here I picked out a rare white bluebell amongst a field of common bluebells. Everybody loves the misfit, right?
White bluebell among a field of bluebells.
4. Shoot in varying conditions
Early morning light is every photographers favourite, of course. Bright sunlight can often be hard to work with as the strong highlights vs dark shadows can be difficult to manage. If you head outdoors on a grey day, you’ll encounter some beautiful, even light which also provides some lovely photography conditions. What is even better is if you can use some raindrops or dew to your advantage, adding to that ‘fresh’ feeling of a spring day.
5. Play around with some different compositions
Sometimes, a photograph works best with a subject placed in the centre of a frame, other times it works best when you move the subject slightly left or right or even on ‘the rule of thirds’. It is up to you to decide how you think each photograph works best. This is your time to get creative and bring out the artist in you. You are free to play by your own rules.
6. Add depth by adding foreground subjects
I touched on this point before. Here, I made sure to compose this photograph with some droplets of water on the grasses in the foreground. When using a wide open aperture, the subject will be in focus, but the foreground and background will be out of focus. This kind of effect looks great in the frost too.
7. Use the soft, morning light to your advantage
Shooting directly into this golden sunlight can create some truly beautiful effects. It is also easy to manage the dynamic range between the lights and shadows of your photographs when photographing in these conditions. If you shoot into the light during midday, you often end up with an ugly, high contrast photograph with light parts that are too light, and darks that are too dark.
Greater stitchwort in the beautiful, soft morning light.
8. Choose your background colours carefully
When shooting at these kinds of focal lengths, getting very close in to your subjects, the slightest change of angles can bring in different colours to your background. Here, you can see that I composed one snowdrop in the light blue of the sky and one of them in the oranges of the light behind. These were microscopic changes in angles and I was holding my breath like a sniper in the grass to compose this.
Which leads me nicely onto the next point…
9. Shoot handheld for greater flexibility
With a wide open aperture this should ensure that you get plenty of light for a fast shutter speed. But for that extra fast snap of the shutter to ensure a sharp image when shooting at longer focal lengths, try pushing up your ISO to the 400 or even the 800 mark. In my experience, a shutter speed to match your focal length should be adequate to get a sharp photograph. So, at 100mm, a shutter speed of 1/100s should be plenty fast enough. Remember, hold that breath and act like a sniper in the grass. It’s much more fun that way.
10. Tell stories with your photographs
Remember that photography is a form of storytelling. Try to tell some stories with your photographs of flowers. To me, this wood anemone below offered some feelings of hops as it grew towards the dying embers of sunlight.
Wood anemone growing towards the burning sunlight.
11. Remove distractions from your frame
Things such as litter, broken twigs, sheep wool and loose mud can look ugly in your composition and distract the viewers eye away from your chosen subject(s). Spend a few seconds removing these from your frame which will make your life much easier when it comes to post-processing your photographs.
Buttercup in soft, evening sunlight.
12. Pick your wildflowers carefully
Find some of the flowers that are in a nice, attractive form. You can find symmetry between a pair, like I did below. But still show some love the ones that aren’t, of course :)
I really hope you enjoyed the article. Feel free to connect with me on my social media platforms if you want to see what kind of photographs I manage to create through the spring this year. You can find those at the bottom of the page.
If you would like to learn from me, be sure to join my newsletter to keep up to date with any workshops that I announce, or send me an email to enquire about my one to one tuition services.
Please feel free to add your comments below if you have anything to say or questions to ask :)
The Best of 2021: My Year in Photographs
Photos and short stories from some memorable photography trips. An entire years worth of photographs broken down into 7 categories.
There is no doubt that 2021 will go down in history in my life as a landscape photographer. I walked innocently into some of Wales’ most beautiful and ancient woodlands, yielding my Stanley flask filled with coffee, the Lord of the Rings trilogy and my Canon 5D IV. As I closed The Fellowship of the Ring for the last time, mounted my flask back into the side pocket of my bag and withdrew my camera, my hands rose to the heavens as beams of soft, golden light shone down on me through the canopy. It was an enlightening moment in my photography journey so far.
‘Awaken the Great Oaks’
1. Winter Woodland, Powis Castle, Welshpool
Local lockdown forced me to look deeper in to my home land for photos once again as I could no longer travel out to my favourite National Park; Snowdonia. What followed, was a project that probably played the biggest role so far in changing and evolving the way that I do photography. The following is from a short article that I wrote for the Welsh Country Magazine which went alongside some of my photographs from the area that I call home:
‘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.’
‘Royalty’
‘Ocean of Red’
‘The Orchestra’
‘The Enchanted Woodland’
The following tree caught my watchful eye as I took a hike onto The Golfa hill which stands between Welshpool and Llanfair Caereinion. In my mind, this tree was breaking rank and escaping order and it reminded me very much of myself as I made my escape from the rat race and typical 9-5 office job, or 7.30-5.30 in my case which meant that I missed every single sunrise and sunset during the winter months and in place of those, views of a computer screen and spreadsheets. At times, it felt like I was a child staring longingly out of the window for play time.
‘Breaking Free’
There is some potential for more photography on this hill and surrounding areas, with plenty of lone-standing trees and rolling, gentle hills that make for a picturesque backdrop, as shown in the photograph below.
I couldn’t believe my luck when I reached the summit of The Golfa and this snow-covered path left me with the perfect leading line into the distant rolling hills of Mid Wales and Shropshire. In my opinion, it’s one of the best ‘wide vista’ style photographs that I have captured of my homeland, timed perfectly as the last of the light sweeps across the tops of these winter trees and kisses the hills. The farthest hill to the right is Cornden Hill wearing its’ winter coat. I summited Cornden just a few weeks later for my first photo trip out into the famous Shropshire Hills. Probably a trip I wouldn’t have if it wasn’t for the lockdown measures in place here in Wales. Not a part of this series, but I will share the image below as I think it is a keeper from a special year of photography.
Picturesque view of Cornden Hill from the summit of The Golfa; a hill located between Welshpool and Llanfair Caereinion.
Layers of rolling Shropshire Hills as seen from just below the summit of Cornden Hill.
2. Bluebell season, Mid Wales
I just couldn’t resist heading outdoors during the spring months to photograph every UK photographers favourite wildflower; the bluebell. Hayfever aside, I absolutely love spring after a very long and dark winter. This year I really knuckled down and extensively scouted a couple of areas of beautiful and elegant beech and oak woodland here in Mid Wales.
My reward? Two of the best photographs from the year, both very different in styles. The first, a high contrast photograph that’s full of emotion and concentrates on that soft, golden glow of delicate sunlight and deep, dark shadows. The second, a soft, painterly, transient photograph that focuses on composition and a blend of perfectly complimentary colours. The blue/ indigo and lime green/ yellow are complete opposites on the colour wheel and the splash of brown/ orange on the fallen branch helps to amalgamate them flawlessly.
Twenty minutes: the time it took me to tiptoe my way through the beautiful bluebells to make this photograph possible.
‘Ethereal’ - A word that people often use to describe my photography seemed fitting for this almost cinematic woodland scene.
Bluebells as far as the eye can see. I wanted to shoot something a little different to the kinds of bluebell images that I had seen plastered across social media and this scene became apparent when I’d perched up against one of my favourite great oaks to read a book and clocked a young fawn hopping through the bluebells in the distance. Sadly, the fawn was obviously camera-shy and never returned to add a touch more magic to this composition but, as stated above, I think the colours in this photograph hold enough of that on their own.
‘Springtime Beauty’
3. The Great Oaks, Powys, Mid Wales
As you can probably tell by the colours in the first image, this photograph was created in the early autumn of this year and I had to wait patiently for it. The beam of delicious, golden light burning through the delicate morning for seemed fitting to illustrate the introductory paragraph describing the enlightening moment when I discovered a love for woodland photography.
I eventually went on the hunt for this specific beautiful old oak woodland here in Mid Wales after many conversations with my ex boss, who couldn’t stop singing the praises of his favourite location. A first visit to this area in the early spring months led to the ultimate disappointment as I didn’t manage to find the woodland in which these elegant trees reside. Instead, I spent hours wandering around some boring and very mucky farmland thinking about how the journey over here was a complete waste of time. This ‘failed’ visit served as another reminder for me that no trip outdoors is a wasted one just a few weeks later when I went searching once again and wandered into this forgotten land with feelings of complete wonder on a glorious summers evening; think of Sam & Pippin entering Fangorn Forest…
Fast forward a couple more months, after many mornings, a lot of words from J.R.R Tolkien and gallons of coffee, this morning was my reward for my efforts and zen-like meditation beneath these fantastic oak trees. I had scouted this scene weeks before and had progressed to photographing it at intervals over the following visits to document changes within a woodland throughout the year. It was obvious after a few visits that a panorama was going to be needed to really get the best out of it, as there were a host of trees I wanted to include within the photograph.
Weeks and weeks of practicing, nights spent observing weather forecasts, and making minor adjustments to fine-tune the composition and finally I got my shot. I’d have been happy if this was the only image that I gathered from the morning but it was when I looked within the scene, that my jaw hit the floor and I managed to capture two other very special photographs in this series.
The photograph:
‘Awaken the Great Oaks’
The photograph within the photograph:
‘The Breaking of Morning’
The photograph within the photograph that was within the photograph:
‘Radiance’
Snowdonia National Park
You didn’t think I could leave it out did you? The place where this whole dream was born produced some mind-blowing conditions for me this year and some of the resulting photographs will live on in my memories and portfolio for a very long time. I didn’t manage to make as many trips as I would have liked to, mainly because fuel gets expensive when you’re paying for it all yourself and not using a company car! Plus, of course, I found solace in some of the woodland that is close to home and realised that I don’t need to travel an hour and a half every time I wanted to take a photograph. This only comes through evolving as a photographer, however, and I think that travelling to some popular spots to take the ‘obvious’ photographs is essential as you go through your learning process. For me, I became very frustrated as I observed myself struggling to think too far outside of the box. I desired to be somewhat original and I believe that some of the following photographs are very much that. I’m sure that I’ll look back at this series of images one day and say ‘yeah, those are the ones that made me and helped to form my vision’.
I managed to find some beautiful hidden corners of Snowdonia thanks to a recommendation from a follower on Instagram (thanks, Elen!) who told me that the Trefriw area and the Gwydir Forest was a treasure island waiting to be explored. I finally left my comfort zone of the Ogwen Valley and plotted an 8 mile hike through the Gwydir forest and around Llyn Geirionydd. The lake itself was a haven for tourists and paddle boarders in the summer but they seemed put off by the cold weather that followed and I’ve enjoyed my visits there in recent months. Some of the surrounding areas are truly special, however, and this is where I created these photographs.
4. Out of the Morning Mist
Some of these photographs will be featuring in Outdoor Photography magazine in late January as I have written an article containing some of the best photography locations in Snowdonia. The first photograph is one that I can’t think of a name for just yet. It just screams ‘WILDERNESS’ and means an awful lot to myself in what has been a tough first year freelancing and year in general in fact, as I couldn’t help but pay attention to some of the things that have been going on in this world. My visits to this lake grounded me, reminded me of what’s important in life and provided something of a safe haven from lots of things that I can only describe as nonsense.
A gorgeous congregation of wild looking silver birch trees beside this misty lake in Snowdonia.
‘A Hiding Place’
‘Unwavered’
‘Enlightened’
5. A Timeless Welsh Woodland Scene - ‘Eden’ & Others
This is a scene that I’ll be returning to time and time and time again. There isn’t a trace of human here and it feels like something of a sanctuary in this modern, forever evolving and increasingly digital world. I’ve never felt more at peace anywhere than I do in here. I would say that this woodland probably looked very similar a couple of hundred years ago. Who knows, maybe I’ll be able to document some of the minor changes over my own lifetime. I have had a little dream to photograph it every morning through the course of a year and create a time-lapse of the seasonal changes. At the moment, I’m managing one photograph every few weeks and here is the series of images that I have been able to produce so far.
There is one photo of the scene that I just can’t stop imagining; a cold, frosty and foggy late autumn morning with a delicate sprinkling of snow on the branches and golden light burning through the fog behind the ancient silver birch trees. It might take me a lifetime, but I’m determined to capture it. Maybe this is why people get into painting instead!
6. On the Periphery - Snowdonias’ Mountains
It’s not been a year of great heights, physically speaking. I can count the number of mountains summited on one hand, instead I’ve preferred to spend my year amongst the trees and enjoying the views of mountains from lower ground. The views from the tops of mountains are wonderful of course and I follow some great photographers that tell their own stories from the summits but the challenge of engaging an audiences imagination is what interested me this year and I hoped to invoke feelings of awe and wonder in my viewers. Here are two of the standout mountain photographs from 2021 from low ground and one different view of the infamous Tryfan from a rare hike up to some higher ground.
7. Mystical Morning in The Black Mountains, South Wales
Beautiful. Magical. Mystical. Enchanting are just some of the words that I use to describe a special day in the Black Mountain region of South Wales. Situated just on the periphery of the Brecon Beacons, it’s an area that I very rarely venture to. That will be changing in the future. This trip pretty much rounded off 2021 and what a way to do so!
I had only visited the woodland once previously and that was two weeks earlier where I finally met up with a fellow photographer @nutsnath after many conversations about photography and life online. We cooked sausages, egg and mushrooms on my portable stove, hiked through some of these gnarly and twisted oak trees, silver birch and beeches to summit Sugarloaf on which we were battered by a snowstorm, 40+mph winds and rain for what was a memorable adventure.
Photo-wise, that trip didn’t produce many rewards for myself but it gave me a glimpse of what this magnificent area had to offer. Only when I returned two weeks later, after keeping an eye on the weather forecast avidly, did the woodland bear it fruits. I blasted some music and made the hour and a half drive south, through patches of heavy fog. With the full moon escorting me, I just had the feeling that everything was aligning for me. It almost felt as though my whole year spent practicing woodland photography had equipped me with the skills to make the most of this one day on which the fog just didn’t seem to go away. Maybe this was my final reward for a year of hard work, patience, persistency and consistency…
Medusas’ Gathering - a composition that I’d scouted two weeks prior. This meant that I was in prime position to take advantage of the conditions when they struck. Preparation in photography is crucial.
As I explored the first area of woodland during the initial hour of the morning, I noticed that there was very little potential for photos as most of the more interesting trees were higher up the hill. The fog was staying low in this part of the valley and my intuition told me to make a move over to the other side of the valley. I’ll say one thing on this… Always trust your gut!
After the short drive, I tightened up my walking boots, climbed a small hill and, finally, waded into some thick fog which lifted occasionally and very briefly while I gathered myself, only for it to drift back in over the rolling hills to engulf me and the trees once again.
‘Marching Orders’
The sun circled in its’ low, winter arc and its’ golden rays were diffused by the fog to produce this gorgeous, ethereal light. It was a photographers dream day and I’m not sure I’ll have many better ones for quite some time.
‘Ephemeral’
‘A Light in the Darkness’
Woodlands hold many stories if you allow your imagination to wander off. I spent a while with this congregation of beeches which appeared to me like a scene from Game of Thrones!
Photographically, it’s been a real year to remember and has produced so many images that will live on in my portfolio for a long time. If you liked this, maybe you would enjoy reading A Year Amongst Trees; a blog containing some of my thoughts and feelings about this year and my journey into photography in general.
If you would like to purchase any of my work as a print, many of these have been added to this years fine art print collection.
Thank you for showing interest in my work and the support that you have offered over the past year. I’ve had many great conversations with people in my emails, Instagram messages and many other platforms that I use. On some occasions, I’ve found that the conversations have kept me going through difficult times. It really helps to feel like what I do is for a bigger purpose than simply for my own gain. I’m looking forward to taking you all along with me as I continue this journey in 2022.
Brad
A YEAR AMONGST TREES
A Year Amongst Trees
Thoughts and reflections from a year exploring and photographing UK woodland.
Exactly twelve months ago to the day of writing this sentence, I would have been sat at home enjoying our traditional Boxing Day turkey stew, looking forward to my final shift as an employee of a international organisation which I was due to work on New Years Eve. If I had my way, I’d have finished at the beginning of December but I agreed to sacrifice a few more weeks of my life to allow the team some extra time to find my replacement. This delay only served to strengthen my desire to leave but, on the sharper side of the sword, allowed feelings about the fear of the unknown a little more time to manifest.
I’m generally very capable of remaining here in the present moment after many mornings practicing photography and years of bodybuilding and meditation whilst out in nature. After 10 years of consistent employment, however, I think even a Buddhist monk may have allowed some negative thoughts, doubts and fears about what challenges may be awaiting around the corner to creep in. I had a plan though and it was very simple; leave the career that left me feeling empty and create photographs like my life depended on it. I wasn’t about to go back on the promise that I’d made to myself, no matter how many times the logical part of my brain told me to ‘just wait a little bit longer’ and ‘save another £1,000 first’. As you can imagine, I’m 75% emotion and make most of my decisions based on what they tell me. Decisions are a long time in the making but once made, they are often impulsive and there is usually no going back.
‘A Hiding Place’ - See in fine art collection
I always liked to do things my way and, from day one, I had a desire to pursue a life of self-employment. I’d basically created this entire life in my head, wrote some notes out on paper and visualised and walked the path that was going to get me to where I wanted to be. I was going to be a bodybuilder, sip mango and chia smoothies and spoon avocados out of their shells in as many different countries as possible, all while teaching others how to transform their own bodies and mindset to help them to become better versions of themselves.
It’s safe to say that I now know better than to allow my thoughts to run too far into the future as you just don’t know what surprises life might be hiding around the corner. Especially if you allow curiosity to lead you. The camera hadn’t even found its’ way into my hands when I was drawing up my three year plan to become a personal trainer. Back in 2018, I was actually half way through my studies when my own curiosity led me to pick up my sisters Nikon D5200 and take it with me to Pistyll Rhaeadr, the place where I guess you could say that this whole journey started. I got home after an afternoon of photographing, loaded all of the photos onto my computer and couldn’t work out, for the life of me, why the photos were either completely black, white and/ or blurry.
I have to know ‘why’ to most things in life and so I asked Google the simple question; ‘why are my photographs blurry?’ And right there, it began. One rabbit hole led straight into a network of other rabbit holes. One week passed without studying, followed by a whole month. I just could not stop going outside and putting what I’d learnt into practice. Go out, take photos, come home, edit, review, watch the likes of Nigel Danson and Thomas Heaton on YouTube and then spend the week pretending to work while I sat and asked Google questions and studied photographs on the Internet.
Before I knew it, I had to make a phone call to extend the deadline for my personal training course. They could have granted me an extra couple of lifetimes to complete it, I don’t think anything would have changed. My love of photography blossomed with every week that passed and stole what little love I had left for my job and for studying the anatomy of the human body.
Photography opened my eyes to the person that I really was; the emotional and introspective human that I had sacrificed by trying to please the world and impress certain people in my life. It reconnected me to my inner child; a reserved boy who spent hours tangled up in his own imagination, buried himself under mountains of books and craved solitude, yet wished to be heard.
‘The Breaking of Morning’ - See in fine art collection
One of the books that, even twelve months ago, I could never have foreseen being in my collection this year is the Collins Tree Guide by Owen Johnson and David More. A lock down here in Wales early in the year led me to make regular visits to Powis Castle and I embarked on a project to photograph some of the wonderful trees and areas of woodland that are around the grounds. This followed a conversation that I had with my Nan who had encouraged me to connect with my imagination during my photography trips. I wrote about the project in an article for the Welsh Country Magazine, accompanied by the photographs, some of which are below.
Almost overnight, my love of woodland photography was born. The complex nature of finding a composition among the chaos is what drew me. It reminds me somewhat of the chaos that resides in my own life and has helped me to find the meaning that is somewhere within it, particularly that which I faced in the many different lives that I lived around the country as a child. I encountered a series of unique challenges, and grew up around many changing faces, never knowing how long they might be present in my life, each one forcing me to become a different version of myself. I discovered a complete contrast in the woodlands that I’ve visited this year; the characters in each one of these remaining somewhat consistent and allowing me to be myself upon every visit.
I felt a strong desire to identify these trees that I spent time with and photographed during the winter woodland project and so I resorted to the Collins guide in between shoots to increase my knowledge of some of the things that I found beautiful outdoors in nature. Scot’s pine, spruce, Douglas fir, sycamore, ash, silver birch, beech and rowan are just a few of the species that I’ve learnt to identify during a year of woodland photography. I’ve also learnt how spot to the differences between sessile & English oaks.
I still admit to knowing nothing in the grand scheme of things. I guess the real beauty of photography is that I never will, but I know so much more today than I knew at this point last year and that is enough of a reason for me to carry on in this pursuit. For me, it is all a process of progression and self-discovery and every trip into the Great British woodland provides the perfect opportunity to accurately place some of the small pieces into the gaps of my never ending puzzle.
There was a time, probably around eighteen months ago, where I would question just what on earth some of the UK’s woodland photographers were thinking when searching for compositions. I just could not understand what their feelings were and what exactly they were looking for and there was no way that I could find any meaningful compositions back then.
I loved walking through the woods as a child but with a camera in my hand, they did nothing but confuse me and caused my mind to wander as I tried to force a photograph. Here was a genre of photography that I never would have envisioned myself taking to and I had very little interest in pursuing it or building a body of work solely about trees and the UK’s varying woodland.
Since then, I regularly practice the Japanese art of shinrin-yoku (forest bathing) and I’ve learnt how to quieten my mind through meditation practices and deep breathing work which I believe is responsible for my improved ability to find and photograph meaningful compositions. Once again, I guess you just never know what to expect in life, here I am with a portfolio of work that contains a tree or two in 75% of the photographs inside and I just cannot bring myself to stop visiting woodlands.
There is no doubt in my mind that this year has brought me back in line with myself, spiritually speaking. I have a deeper understanding of who I am now and I’ve learnt to embrace both good days and bad, the highlights and the shadows. These somewhat reflect in my photography, too. I’ve noticed a clear theme of moods developing in my images over the past twelve months as I pour more of myself into my art.
I’ve been able to connect with my own guiding voice and silence the noise in the world that surrounds me. This same voice is the one that leads me into the beautiful and fascinating woodland in search of solitude and perhaps even some level of protection against the outside world; a world, or rather a population, that seems to be focused on shouting louder and louder and, increasingly more recently, engaging in conflict.
At one point in my journey, I craved the heights of a mountain top to gather my thoughts and find solitude but now it’s within the woodlands, a land of mighty oaks, twisting silver birch and elegant beech trees that provide the silence that I seek to allow this voice to speak. The trees are great listeners, and I’m learning a lot from them. Every day, my own ability to listen improves and I think this is what has allowed me to write this blog. There is no way that I’d have allowed myself to be this vulnerable once upon a time. I wrote recently on Twitter that I was feeling a little frustrated with social media not giving me what I want from this art. Posting photographs online often leaves me with a rather empty feeling. ‘Is that all my work is good for?’ I often ask myself. This is all just a part of my process for striving towards something more. It’s who I am; proud of how far I’ve come but never entirely satisfied. I guess that we are all greedy in our own way. Maybe I can take a lesson from the famous Lao Tzu quote;
‘Nature does not hurry and yet everything is accomplished’.
I think, upon reflection, that writing this blog shows that I am moving in the right direction and my use of social media platforms is just one of the tools that is moving me towards what it is that I seek.
‘Guardians’ - Oaks guard the perimeter of this local woodland.
This isn’t the first time that I have spoken about the woodlands providing me with feelings of safety and comfort. This has become evident as some of these feelings wane now that the trees have lost their leaves and the woodlands are somewhat exposed. Maybe there are some lessons to be learnt from trees and the way in which they reveal their true character and soul during the winter months. Perhaps this is a process that us humans must also go through from time to time as we strip back our layers and strive to show the world exactly who we are. The Japanese say we have three faces and only one of these do we show to the world.
A year that uncovered so much for me as an artist has also been one of the toughest of my life and I think that this has been reflected in some of my images. There was a time when I believed that my photographs were no real reflection of my feelings. Maybe that was true when I travelled to some of Wales’ most popular locations and took the obvious and easy photographs that required no thought. This year has most definitely changed that and I feel like the body of work that I’ve produced, especially within Wales’ beautiful woodlands, demonstrates my ability to think differently, packs an emotional punch and gives the viewer a glimpse into my mind.
I see joy, happiness and hope in some, sadness and emptiness in others and perhaps elements of longing in many of them, although I’m still not quite sure what I’m longing for. Belonging, maybe? Purpose and meaning? I plan to dig deeper and write a lot more about some of these feelings in the future as my work, and I, continue to evolve. I’m still coming to terms with some of these feelings that I've encountered since picking up a camera. The journey of self-discovery over the past few years has been an intense ride and I think I owe it to myself to be a little bit more ‘Lao Tzu’ and allow the evolution process to develop in the same way that nature would; patiently and without the exertion of too much pressure.
The transition into the life of a landscape photographer went a lot more smoothly in my head. It turns out that you can’t just pull the plug on your main source of income and expect the stars to align and money to start flying into your bank account. Building a business is hard. Building your first business, in the world of art, from nothing, in the middle of a global pandemic is a different challenge altogether.
I’ve had to stand and face the man in the glass every day this year, knowing that everything falls back on me now. There is no place to hide when things aren’t going in the direction that I’d planned. I do have high hopes for the next year and I can see light at the end of a long tunnel. There is a feature in the Outdoor Photography magazine to come in January which will get the year off to a great start. I have also decided that it is finally the right time to launch a small number of photography workshops. These will run alongside some more of my one to one or one to two lessons. I had a couple of fantastic mornings with clients last year and look forward to passing on some more of my knowledge in 2022. I’ve also added a number of new limited edition pieces to my fine art collection and hope to see more of these on walls around the world over the year to come.
It is my intention to write some more next year too, to offer more depth and meaning to the work that I create. I hope that this article has offered some insights into my thoughts and allowed you to understand somewhat, why I create. It’s a complex topic and one for which there is no definitive answer but please feel free to leave me some comments if some of this made sense to you, or you can write me an email and of course, you can always connect with me on my social media platforms. The links for these, and my email address is found at the bottom of this page.
‘Enchanted Land’ - I don’t like to look back too often in life, but sometimes, a quick glance over your shoulder to see where you came from, might result in a photograph just like this one.
Over the last twelve months, I have learnt not to get too far ahead of myself when it comes to making plans. Instead, I choose to remain open to any opportunities that life might throw at me and allow the wind to carry me in whichever way it wishes. But, like the trees that I study, I remain very much rooted in my own morals and beliefs.
Writing this is all a part of my process of remembering who I am and where I came from and not allowing myself to be distracted by the world and what it believes is best for me. Though I sometimes choose to look back to see how far I have come, I have been working hard on existing very much in the moment, choosing to keep one eye on the next days’ weather forecast before making too many commitments. Whatever I do commit to moving forwards, I just know that my camera wont be too far away from me. It’s going to play a huge part in whichever direction I choose to run in the future and there is no doubt in my mind that trees are going to be nearby to guide me.
Thank you very much for reading. I wish you the very best for the year ahead and look forward, with great anticipation, to what beauty might be awaiting just around the next corner.
Brad
‘Enlightened’ - see in fine art collection
You might like: How to Take Better Woodland Photographs
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‘A YEAR AMONGST TREES’
2021 Zine
How to Improve your Woodland and Forest Photography
Looking for ways to improve your own woodland photography? Dive in for some of my own tips from a year amongst the trees…
Introduction
There is nothing quite like the silence and peace of mind that an early morning walk through a woodland can bring. With camera in hand, photographs and stories, filling the mind, just the dawn chorus for company and, perhaps, a touch of mist or fog in the air, it really is a beautiful and rather therapeutic experience that might leave you wishing that you could build a treehouse and live among the UK’s great oaks and silver birch forever.
I was introduced to woodland photography at the start of 2021. Forced to look locally for photographs because of another lockdown here in Wales, I had no other choice but to photograph and make friends with the trees and now, after some of the best days that I’ve ever had outside with the camera, I’ve managed to find an incredible amount of gratitude for the opportunities that I’ve had to explore some of Wales’ beautiful and fascinating woodland.
It has always been a part of my vision as a photographer to inspire other people to get outdoors and make the most of their time in nature. Perhaps even help them to discover their own inner artist in the same way that photography has helped me to unearth mine over the past few years. It’s why I love writing these blog posts and articles. They act as a place for me to share my knowledge and do my part to help humanity in moving forwards by forming a more intimate connection with the planet that houses us all. I really hope that you are able to take something away from this blog in the same way that you might have from the last one that covered landscape photography as a whole. I’ll leave a link here for anyone that would like to read ‘Ten Top Tips to Improve your Landscape Photography.’
Understanding Light in the Woodland
Light. Where would we be without it? I wouldn’t be here to write this blog, that’s for sure. Light quite literally gives us all life here on earth and that is one of the reasons that I like to capture it. But how exactly do you capture it in order to create a compelling photograph? There are so many different ways and so many different types and even colours of light; think about the colour of ‘golden hour’ light at sunrise compared to the harsh, white light on a summers day or the soft, pastel colours during ‘blue hour’. It’s our job as photographers to understand how we can use light to create different effects in our photography. Shooting into the light, shooting with the light, shooting across the light, reflected light, front light, back light, soft light, harsh light, diffused light, dappled light, even light. These phrases might be familiar to you but do you understand the differences that each technique can make to your photographs?
Take a look at both examples below, taken just one day apart. Notice how different light can completely transform a woodland scene.
(click to enlarge)
Example 1: created at 10am on an overcast morning. ‘Even light’ means that there is minimal contrast between the highlights and shadows in the scene.
Example 2: created at around 8.15am just a day later when the sun was still close to the horizon. Low light creates strong shadows and the softness of the early morning light interacts with the scene to create some lovely colours throughout.
Can you tell from the areas of shadow which direction the light was entering the woodland?
It’s not that one form of light is necessarily better than another, it’s for you to decide which kind of lighting suits a particular scene, depending on the story that you’re trying to tell. If you’re someone that prefers a particular colour scheme or style to your photography, then it might be more important for you to stick to rigid rules when it comes to the times and conditions that you shoot in. For me, I like to make the most of a variety of conditions as I believe that there are always images to be created. We are in the UK after all and so you have to learn to embrace whatever weather Mother Nature provides. The example below is where I think the even light helps to tell a compelling story and overall feel and mood to the photograph that I recently created in Snowdonia National Park.
Diffused light is often a woodland photographers favourite kind of light. Early morning fog acts as the perfect diffuser, softening it as it enters into a woodland to cast a lovely glow onto the trunks of trees. This kind of light makes for some of the most delicate and atmospheric scenes, it adds mystery and helps to create a lovely transition from light to dark across the image.
2. CREATE SYMMETRY, PATTERNS & BALANCE
The use of the image above leads me very nicely onto this next point. You have spent enough time walking to get to your woodland destination, I’m sure you can expend a little extra energy to move a few steps around your composition in order to balance out those trees and create some symmetry in your photograph. This goes hand in hand with one of my later points. Slow down! The world moves fast enough these days and the woodland provides the perfect place to relax and centralize yourself. Don’t rush and click the button in the first composition that comes to mind. Take some time to look around the frame to see if there is anything in there that you think catches your eye and distracts you from what you would like the viewer to look at. This is why I set my tripod up nine times out of ten in the woodland and it’s usually after I have given myself time to take a good look around the scene before even thinking about the camera and settings. Some of the things that I am looking for:
What, if anything, is my main focus? Is there a particular subject that I would like to isolate and how can I remove any distractions that might surround it?
Where and how is the light falling and how is this going to change within the time that I am there? Is it worth holding on in anticipation of the light moving into a better position?
Does my scene look balanced with the subjects given enough space between each other? In the above photograph, the scene as a whole was my subject and I have tried to space the trees evenly throughout, allowing the central trees in the distance enough room which I hoped would give the woodland some depth.
3. HEAD OUT FOR SUNRISE
There is no two ways about it, sunrise brings the best conditions for woodland photography. Not only do you get to enjoy the song of the birds with a coffee in hand while everyone else is sleeping but you will also get to witness the most incredible, atmospheric light as it pierces through the fog. This kind of light makes for the best photographs and if you ask any woodland photographer when they like to go out and shoot, the chances are that they will tell you to be out while it’s still dark to ensure that you are on location and ready for the first light of the morning. I guarantee you that a walk in the woods will always get your day off to the best of starts. A short and sweet one for point number three. Get out early and watch your photography level up!
4. SLOW DOWN & BE PRESENT
I touched upon this point earlier in the blog post and it was also one of the points that made up my ‘Ten Top Tips to Improve Your Landscape Photography’ blog. I really can’t emphasise enough how much this has transformed my own photography. Nigel Danson, one of my favourite photographers talks regularly about how he takes an apple with him on every photo trip, which gives him a good reason to stand there, slow down, eat the apple and just take it all in. For me, I like to take a flask of coffee, a book and give myself ten or fifteen minutes away from all things photography while I’m out on my missions. The stories that I read, whilst out there living my own story, enable me to form a deeper connection with the places that I visit and I am sure that this has been a major influencer in changing my photography over the past year or so. I will also force myself into the habit of observing a scene before I set my tripod and camera up. This is all well and good, providing that you get to location well before the best light arrives.
5. FIND A WOODLAND AND DON’T STOP PHOTOGRAPHING IT
The six photographs above are part of a collection that I have been working on over the last few months from the same oak woodland here in Mid Wales. Long gone are the days of driving 70 miles up to the Ogwen Valley at every opportunity. The past couple of years have made a lasting impact on me and my photography and I choose to stick to many of the local areas that I hadn’t even visited until 2020. Not only have these local explorations made a huge difference to the quality of my photographs but each photograph holds sentimental value as they were created within 15 miles of my home. Frequent visits to a woodland will give you the opportunity to get to know it intimately. You might form a strong bond with certain scenes that bring you inner peace. You might make friends with some of the ancient trees that provide you with shelter from the rain during a storm. This ties in with one of my earlier points too; more time spent in the woodland will mean more opportunities to study light. None of these photographs would have existed if I hadn’t been in the woodland twenty-something times before, standing in many of the same spots, observing how the light moves through the scene. All of this will lead to a deeper connection with the woodland, which will in turn lead to much better photographs.
Do you want to Create Better Photographs?
Check out My New e-Book on Composition
This is Volume 1 of my comprehensive 125+ page eBook that contains insights into my creative approach to landscape and nature photography. Each section has multiple examples and is applicable to all standards of photography. Whether you are looking to make a step change in your photography, or just looking for ideas to improve your compositions when out in the field, this e-Book contains the tools to help you.
The eBook contains detailed information on:
How to use different focal lengths to help tell meaningful stories in your photography.
Understanding of ‘rules’ in photography and how to break them to find and develop your own creative style.
Creating depth in your photographs using foregrounds, different apertures and light.
And many many more useful tips including bonus sections on understanding light and using emotions and storytelling.
Purchasing volume 1 of this comprehensive e-Book will give you lifetime access to further volumes that will be released as my knowledge increases and I receive feedback for customers. If you purchase this, please feel welcome to review and provide feedback so that I can make improvements to future volumes.
6. Analyse Your Photographs
You probably have your own contrasting opinions concerning the good and bad of social media, as do I, but one positive thing that platforms like Instagram provide us with is the opportunity to regularly look over and quickly analyse our portfolio of photographs. I’m a little guilty of doing this perhaps a little too often but I feel like this obsession coupled with an analytical mind has enabled me to progress quickly as a photographer in my journey so far. I’m also making lots of judgments, sometimes subconsciously, about my photographs as I import them onto my computer and begin the editing process. It is here that you are able to zoom in to see all of the smaller details around the frame; maybe you can spot a tree in the distance that needs to be brought to attention on your next visit or you realise that the distorted look from your wide angle lens makes your finished composition look a little strange or off balance. You can then focus on correcting this by using a different focal length or you might decide to try something completely new when you decide to visit the woodland again. Analysing photographs is just as important as getting out there and creating them, in my opinion. Especially as progression is one of my major philosophies in life and is something that I am always striving for in my own work as I move through this journey.
7. Look for Frames and Pathways THAT LEAD the Eyes
A photograph can be many things. In some cases, it’s the magical lighting that makes it special. For others, it’s colours or a certain mood. For many photographs, the journey into the image and then around a scene is what makes it special. In many of my woodland photographs, I try to include windows and frames between tree trunks and branches that can act as a place for the eyes to travel and sometimes I like to portray the idea that the trees are guiding us towards somewhere or something. You might often hear photographers talk about ‘leading lines’ as being one of the most important elements in a photograph. There are times where I agree that they are but I feel like they can be overused and this statement sometimes makes people feel as though a photograph fails if it doesn’t incorporate them. I believe that this is especially true in woodland photography, where I don’t believe that leading lines play much of a role in creating a compelling image. The story of the trees and the mood that you capture is far more important element than any of these rules. There are many ways to take the viewer on a journey in your photographs and incorporating frames is a great place to start.
8. Timing
Photography is a never ending process of learning and just recently, I was reminded of the importance of waiting for the right moment when opening the shutter on my camera. This woodland is one that I have been visiting regularly since discovering it in the summer of 2021. The first photograph below is how the woodland looked under normal light on that overcast autumn morning. Compare that with second image with its rich, vibrant colours and soft pink, orange light that was cast for a few short moments on the ferns and trunk of the large ancient silver birch tree. This light was cast from the sunrise as it reflected off the low clouds after a brief clearing on the horizon. It serves as another reminder to me to always be attentive of what is happening around me as I am outdoors searching for photographs. We often only have a brief moment in time to capture the best light and quite often, once this light is gone, it is very difficult to find any like it again.
9. Minimise Distractions
It is always worth paying attention to the smaller details when you’re composing your shots. Get things right in your frame while in the field and it will mean less time cleaning a photograph up in your post-processing software.
The main distraction that I find I have to deal with when composing a woodland image are patches of bright white (over-exposed) sky that appear because I’m exposing for what is usually quite a dark scene. These patches of white sky can take the viewers eye away from where it is meant to be. This is why mist or fog is a photographers best friend when in the woodland as it helps to create a soft graduation between lighter and darker parts of the image and helps to accentuate focus on the target subjects within a frame.
Other things to watch out for, in order to keep a viewers attention where you want it, are stray branches, leaves and other foliage that might creep in at the edges of your frame. I always ensure that I take a few moments to weigh up whether something adds to my composition and provides further interest, or whether it takes away from it and acts as a distraction that I need to find a way to remove. This can be done by moving around or by using the zoom function on your lens. There may be times where you are unable to remove an unwanted object within the frame, in which case Photoshop’s ‘spot healing’ tool is great to use in your post-processing workflow.
10. Introduce Characters & Use Them TO Tell a Story
This gigantic oak tree is giving orders out to these young beech and oak trees that surround it. Can you see? I think that I understand where J.R.R Tolkien got his inspiration for the Ents in Lord of the Rings now that I have spent enough time outdoors in nature. Imagination has added a whole new dimension to my photography and I wrote about how a conversation with my Nan at the start of this year forced me to look within my photographs for a storyline more often. You can read about that here. When it comes to trees and woodland, there are always old and characterful trees to be found and these are some of the first things that my eyes are drawn to upon my searches around a new area. The oldest trees often tell the greatest stories as they contain centuries of history. I regularly get up close and personal with some of these trees to see some of the fascinating species that they act as a home for. They are vital for our own continuation as a species and so these veteran trees and our countries ancient woodland must be respected. My documentation of some of these trees that I stumble upon on my journey through life, is my way of appreciating their beauty and showing my respect to them for giving me life here on Earth.
11. Find Interactions and Capture a Relationship Between Trees
Anthropomorphisation, the attributing of human characteristics to non-humans, is extremely effective and, for me, capturing trees’ relationships with each other is one of the most powerful elements when creating woodland photographs. How about the image above which I duly named ‘The Orchestra’? It tells the story of a young conductor at the front composing a final piece with the snowfall appearing as confetti being thrown from the audience during the encore and rapturous applause. Below, is a photograph that I named ‘First Dance’ which tells the story of one tree leading the other across the ballroom. I placed my camera in such a way that meant the trees appeared to be holding hands and waltzing into the light.
12. Get off the Beaten Track
It is very rare that a stunning composition will hit you in the face as you walk along the footpath. Besides, if the composition is that obvious then the chances are that it wont be a very original one. In my opinion, the most rewarding photographs have been found when I explore and head out into some of the more unknown parts of the woodland. This is often where you will find some of the more gnarly and interesting trees hiding and things tend to look that little bit more wild. Every woodland has its own characteristics and unique qualities. It’s your job to go and find them.
13. BUILD A PORTFOLIO OF THE SAME SUBJECTS
Perhaps the biggest change in my photography has come as a result of my focus on creating diverse portfolios of the same subjects. This congregation of silver birch trees in Snowdonia National Park has been my favourite project within a project. I fell in love with the harmonious nature of the lakeside birches during a walk last summer, and I haven’t stopped photographing them since. So far, I have 8 or 9 photographs, all very different in their look and feel. Each time I visit, I am tasked with creating something different to what I have already in the portfolio. This challenges me to approach the subjects in a changing manner; either working with a new angle, focal length, or by photographing at a different time of day. It will be interesting to observe how I am photographing these trees in years to come, as I look to push my own creative boundaries and evolve my ideas even further.
14. Leave the Area as You Found It
Pick up your rubbish. Try not to tread on delicate plants, fungi and the rest. Be quiet enough that you don’t disturb animals. And absolutely don’t break things that might be in the way of your composition. I also try keep to a minimum the moving of objects such as fallen branches. I’ve made the mistake of moving one before only to find that I had disturbed habitats underneath. It is not a nice feeling and I now restrain myself from doing it. There are far more important things in this world than photographs.
Summary
I hope that you found this blog post on how to take better woodland and forest photographs helpful. Woodland photography can be frustrating at times and you’ll often ask questions of yourself and find yourself scratching your head wondering where the next photograph is going to come from. But when the conditions strike, boy does it make the whole process worth it. In those moments, you need to sit back and soak it all in. Bask in that golden light and breath the fresh woodland air into your lungs. Those are the mornings that make me feel most alive, and I hope that they are now able to do the same for you as you take some of these tips onboard and get out there to create.
I would love to see what you are able to come up with when you venture out into the woodland and forests in the coming months. You can find me in the following places where you can feel free to share your photos with me via dm’s or tags:
You might also like: A Year Amongst Trees
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How Lockdown Project in Welshpool Changed My Photography for the Better
Part one of my local area photography projects that I adopted through the lockdowns here in Welshpool, Mid Wales.
Part One: Swan Family on the Montgomery Canal in Mid Wales
It’s often said that the best photographs appear right on your doorstep. This is a statement that I didn’t believe once upon a time and I would regularly find myself driving up to a hundred miles in search of the perfect photograph. I would do anything I could to escape the confines of my local area, regularly hopping between the popular spots, hoping to find that unique angle and light that would get me attention as a photographer. I guess I was a little guilty of playing the ‘Instagram game’; seeing a location on the app and doing everything I could to visit when the sun was low and the colours were ‘popping’. This was, of course, how my love of photography started and I have that app to thank for many reasons. It introduced me to so many amazing photographers, it gained my work lots of admirers and it had enabled me to spend some time in the most beautiful places that our country has to offer whilst meeting some amazing people along the way.
It might be a controversial statement, but I also have the last eighteen months of lockdowns to thank too. Up until April of 2020, I’d been working so many hours with juggling a full time job that demanded ten hours of my time each day, gym and personal training commitments and trying to squeeze in photography trips over the weekend too. It wasn’t a healthy way to live. Lockdown gave me a much needed chance to slow down and think about my life and its’ course.
For those of you that have been following for a while now, you might have had a close eye on my Facebook page during the spring of 2020. It was a time when people needed hope and my local stretch of Montgomery Canal duly provided. Whist taking a walk along the canal, just outside of Welshpool on the first day of my fourteen week furlough period, I met a couple of loved-up mute swans who also appeared to be out enjoying the scenery too. This was the first of what turned out to be a whole portfolio of photographs that I took of these beautiful animals.
I shared it to my Facebook feed and received some great responses. One reply was from a local lady who was delighted that I’d shared this photo of her favourite part of her early morning running route, as she was now unable to visit because of the lockdown rules.
What followed during the next morning was the birth of my favourite photography project so far and one that made me realise that photography is about so much more than hoarding photographs of famous landmarks, and posting them to social media in exchange for the 21st century currency; likes!
For six weeks, I visited these swans every day bar two on my allocated daily walk. I watched on as the swans guarded eight eggs with their lives. This was the next photograph that I shared with my Facebook audience and I also decided to post this into one of the Welsh photography communities too. Many people in that group left some lovely words for me, as they were stuck in big cities and unable to make it out into the countryside. This gave me some much needed motivation to continue with the project, as I realised that, for a change, this wasn’t just something that I was doing for myself. I realised that other people needed to see these photographs for their own sanity while the world descended into chaos.
I watched on as the eight eggs soon turned into six. I’m not entirely sure what the culprit was but mum was on high alert from here on in.
Whilst the pen (mum) spent most of her time sat guarding the nest, the cob (dad) would parade the waters nearby, chasing away any intruders that might dare to encroach on his stretch of canal!
With the eggs laid and the intruders wisely keeping their distance, there were a few quiet weeks for my photography and people were mentioning that they hoped I hadn’t brought the story to an end already. Of course, there was only so many times that I could photograph a swan sitting on a nest and so I decided to make use of some of the beautiful sunsets to create photographs that would help to keep the story going.
Even though things were a little quiet on the swan front, my love of walking this stretch of canal definitely hadn’t died down. My daily walk to Belan locks became something of a ritual. If I wasn’t out at sunrise (or close to it at least because 4.30am is a little early to be up every day), then I’d make sure that I walked the two mile stretch in the evening. Sometimes I would take a book and spend ten minutes sitting down at the picnic area while listening to the bird song. I remember starting and finishing Ernest Hemingways ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’ during this period.
It was during this first lockdown that, for the first time in my life, I began to show some interest in the species of birds and their songs. The sound of the song thrush quickly became one of my favourites and it was a far cry from the usual sound of the office telephone and demanding customers on the other end.
It was also during this time that I started to see how our life as humans was meant to be lived. There was no worrying about money, no power balances and minimal time sat staring at a screen (I say as I write this on my computer on a beautiful summer afternoon). It was complete bliss and somebody I met along the canal even picked up on the fact that I looked much more relaxed than my usual self. If that is what more time in nature can do to a man, it should be prescribed for every body.
In between the swans, moments like this with these great tits provided a much needed escape from news in the real world and my love of photography just grew and grew. Somewhere around this point in the year came the moment that I knew that I had to try to make something out of my passion for photography and the lifestyle that came with it. I’d been trying to decide between making a career out of one of my two passions for a while; fitness and photography. In being alone outdoors in the wilderness and with the wildlife, I felt more like my true self than I ever had before and my decision was made; this was going to be the future for me.
While I was busy thinking about my future and photographing away at the other end of the canal, things were developing with the swans. Dad had returned from his patrols and was on guard just a few yards away from mum who was sitting tightly on her nest. It was at this point, that I had a feeling that something was about to unfold. I began to think about some of the shots that I had been visualising for weeks and I began to update Facebook with some developments, much to the relief of my followers. The story was back.
I decided from here on in that I would visit in the morning and again in the evening so as to not miss a thing. Sometime in the afternoon of 13th May between my two visits, the first of the cygnets hatched. This is what was awaiting me when I reached my vantage point beside the A458 overlooking the Montgomery Canal. New life and new hope in a time when this world most needed it.
The following morning brought with it even more. I couldn’t quite count how many there were but my guess was that all six cygnets had hatched and were hiding underneath mum. I left them alone for the day with a big smile on my face and visited again that same evening, although all that awaited me was a sleeping family. They must have all been exhausted after a busy day. The lack of action that evening was soon forgotten about on the morning that followed…
I made sure that I didn’t hang around in bed because I just had one of those feelings that hits me as a photographer from time to time. It’s usually when I know that something special is just around the corner.
Mum was not impressed at this little one trying to show off already.
I stood and watched as the cygnets left their home of the last six weeks for the first time. Much to Mums disappointment. Here she is giving her first ‘sshh, you’ll wake your Dad up’ look.
Too late. All six were up and dad couldn’t sleep in much longer. At this point, I was beginning to wonder just what the next step of this journey was going to be. Surely they were too young to be entering the water already weren’t they?
This was similar to the photograph that I’d been picturing. Although I was expecting the cygnets to be on the nest and not queuing up to enter the water just two days after hatching. The photograph itself became Countryfile’s Photo of the Day and also won me a prize in a competition that I entered just a few weeks later. It proved to me that some of the best photographs need a story to go with. The photograph, and overall project, was responsible for changing the way that I think as a photographer.
No longer was I going to hop from destination to destination, leaving a lasting mark on this planet with lots of unnecessary travel. Don’t get me wrong, I will still be travelling around for photographs on occasions but I have learnt that there are stories to be told everywhere, including a local area that you might describe as ‘boring’, as I once did. If you’re a photographer that is reading this, I implore you to give it a go. Pick a part of your local area and explore it thoroughly, I bet you’ll be surprised at what might be on your doorstep. This is something that I carried over into the rest of the year and well into 2021 too. I’ll be writing some more to talk about these in the future.
Although I’m well and truly back into my landscape photography after this swan project, I’m now focusing my efforts on much smaller areas, choosing instead to explore these in depth and detail, which I hope will allow me to tell better stories as I write about these in the future.
The project and lockdown, I should add, also changed me beyond measure as a human being. It gave me time to connect with my home and the species that inhabit it, away from screens, telephones, talk of finances and credit limits. All of the stuff that now hurts my head when I think about them. My time alone gave me the chance to ask many questions about myself and my purpose here on this planet and it is here that my dream of educating others was born. I’m now developing some photography workshops that I will take into the world in the near future, as well as leading some one to one lessons that will help others to tell their own stories through the lens too. I don’t class myself as a wildlife photographer by any means as most of my time is spent in the mountains and woodland, but this is one photography project that I will take with me forever and I’m so glad that I have the photographs that help to tell this story.
Diary of a Landscape Photographer | Entry 7
Perhaps I’m too young in my photography journey to put myself into a box and call myself a ‘landscape photographer’. Truth is, I love all kinds of photography but I feel a constant obsession with my task at hand and I’m not sure where this comes from. At the moment, this task is to create the best landscape photographs possible and it has taken over my life. What if this attitude is actually a hindrance?
And by that I mean, what if I am putting too much pressure on myself to create ‘better’ photographs all the time? Rather than just enjoying the ones that I am able to create at the moment because they are 10x better than those that I was creating once upon a time.
Do you see my conundrum?
I often feel unfulfilled with the photographs that I make because I know that there is going to be another one just around the corner. It’s part of who I am and who I always have been. It’s even meant that I have refused to sell a piece of work because I knew that it wasn’t the finished piece. I think I might be programmed to never be completely happy with what I have.
There are so many ideas floating around in my head about the kind of photographs that I want to create, most of which take time, patience, a better understanding of light and a whole lot more maturity than that which I currently have. Three years behind a camera is not a long time in the grand scheme of things.
I know that there are so many other things that I could be doing in the mean time, while my vision develops and matures but I’m scared that these might detach me from where I think that I need to be.
I have so many questions and nobody that I know who can answer them.
An Epic Landscape Photography Road Trip To Lake District & Scotland: Part 2
Part two of this epic road trip sees me head all the way to Scotland where I wave my long lens around in Glencoe and on the Isle of Skye.
Hello again and welcome back for the second instalment of my epic landscape photography road trip. In part one, I transported you to the summit of Catbells where I bathed in that delicious golden sunrise light, I went on the hunt for a photograph of Windermere to show to my nan, in the hope of bringing back some fond memories of her own adventures with my grandad, and I visited Ashness Bridge where I photographed away during a beautiful sunset that will stay with me forever before capturing the moment that an adrenaline junkie took a giant leap of faith from Falcon Crag.
Part two took me back onto the open road as I headed further north in my Vauxhall Astra-come-makeshift-camper to Scotland; one of the places that I had been dreaming of visiting since I first picked up a camera a few years ago and began scouring the Internet for landscape photography inspiration.
Morning mist hangs low in the Trossachs above Loch Lomond in Scotland.
LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY IN SCOTLAND: GLENCOE
No amount of blogs or videos could have prepared me for what I was about to experience. This was one of the greatest welcomes that I have ever received. The arms of the Trossachs wide open and outstretched. I felt like a child being guided towards the fun house at a fairground. I still remember that drive around Loch Lomond like it was yesterday. I was getting tired after a solid three hour drive and that long stretch on the A82 around Loch Lomond felt like an eternity. It was around 6am and I had been driving in the dark for three hours, so I’d barely seen a thing to stimulate my mind. After taking a right turn in Tarbet onto that final stretch of tarmac, things changed. Quickly. Approaching the top end of the loch, past Blairannaich and towards Inveruglas, the dark night began to turn into purple dawn, and the feint silhouettes of mountains were starting to appear. From the mouth of the River Falloch, I could see fog spewing into the loch. That was all I needed. My soul punched me awake and straight into a landscape photographers dream.
Morning mist rolling over Ben More in the southern highlands of Scotland.
I have to admit that I wasn’t acting like a photographer with much experience at this moment in time. I ditched my car at the roadside above Loch Lomond and jumped out with my 70-200mm attached, proceeding to fire off shots in similar fashion to a WWII gunner. There was no time for a tripod. Not even time for me to take a breath for that matter. Everything I’d taught myself about slowing down and taking a moment to gather my thoughts and feelings before opening the shutter went out of the window. I knew exactly how I felt and it was just pure, childish excitement. Nothing could contain me, I was in Scotland and my photography senses were firing on all cylinders.
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The Lagangarbh Hut at the base of Buachille Etive Mor.
Of course, I had to stop and grab a photograph of the legendary white cottage. When in Glencoe hey?! To catch the top of The Buachille protruding through the low mist like this was just too good an opportunity to miss. In all honesty, after taking this photograph, I did not have a clue where to go. I was in unfamiliar territory and that was without the mist hiding everything from me. Not such a bad thing however because I managed to get the following photograph of Buachille Etive Beag, which was just a stones throw away, a little further up the road towards Glencoe. The perfectly pyramidal peak and mist combine to make a mysterious and intimidating photograph.
Buachille Etive Beag partially hidden behind the morning mist.
I moved around the area for a while on foot, taking one of the paths through the mist and deeper into the mountains. Having hiked for a few miles without managing to find too much in the way of photographs, I made my way back towards the main road in the late morning. The daunting posture of Buachille Etive Beag from this angle fascinated me so I waited around for a little while as the mist cleared and the sunlight pierced through the clouds to create some interesting drama. The lonely path adds a subtle and simple extra story to this photograph.
For anyone following me on Instagram, you will probably remember watching me perform a quick workout while waiting for this light.
Clouds roll over Buachille Etive Beag in the late morning light.
I’m not usually one for photography in the bright sunlight but I couldn’t help myself as I walked along this picturesque little lane that leads to Glen Etive in the late morning and into the early hours of the afternoon.
The winding narrow lane to Glen Etive in the Scottish Highlands.
Narrow lane leading to the mountains in Glencoe.
I fired up the portable stove and ate my usual adventure meal; tuna, pasta and sweetcorn, no nonsense on-the-go food, giving me more time to get back out there with my tripod and camera. For my final photograph of the day, I found this beautiful little setting which provided a lovely end to my first day in Scotland. This was a particularly tricky photograph, I found the scene to be rather messy and the light was difficult to manage. I ended up taking three shots and blending them into one to create a HDR photograph. It’s one to look back on in the future to remind me of the time that I sat beneath this mountain getting eaten alive by midges and talking to a fellow photographer about out passion for this art. The photograph isn’t going to win any awards but these are the evenings and conversations that are worth remembering.
After two days hiking and photography in the Lake District, followed by a full day in Scotland, I decided that more nights in the car just wasn’t going to cut it this time around. I booked myself in to a beautiful little cabin in North Ballachulish for a couple of nights in order to recharge. Torn between spending one or two nights in the cabin, I’ll be forever thankful for that I chose the latter as I’d clumsily left my Meindl hiking boots outdoors in the rain throughout the first night. After another full day of hiking around Glencoe, in what can only be described as a mini monsoon, my boots and body were completely soaked. Turns out that skin isn’t waterproof in Scotland! I desperately needed that second night in a warm and dry cabin, a real home away from home. Below, I’ll share some of the photographs from the second day.
White cottage in the Glencoe mountains.
There was only one thing on the cards for photography after a night of heavy rain… Flowing water! There is, of course, plenty of that around Glencoe and so I was spoilt for choice. I’d seen the waterfalls beneath Buachille Etive Mor on many occasions across blogs and YouTube. I’m delighted that I got to see it for myself while standing in the same spot as some of my favourite photographers from over the years. The light wasn’t exactly striking on the day, but running around the mountains like a drowned rat was great fun and something that I won’t be forgetting anytime soon.
Waterfall beneath Buachille Etive Mor.
Panoramic view of Blackrock cottage and Buachille Etive Beag.
One of the many small streams that flows from the mountains and into the Glencoe valley.
I tried my best to make the most of the conditions on day two in Glencoe and in hindsight, I’m actually very happy with what the photographs that I managed to create. Of course, in a perfect world, the light could have been more dramatic, it could have kissed the tips of mountains and fallen on the ground creating some lateral light and dark contrast. it doesn’t always happen like that thought and landscape photography is about making the most of what we are given. Similar to life in that sense, you can only play the cards that you are dealt. This is what gives me the drive to keep getting up and getting out there. Because when those conditions are ‘perfect’, I am all the more grateful for it. I remember the disappointments and respect them all the more, because they make the opposite all the more special. It’s all a balancing act.
Looking down the Glencoe valley towards Loch Achtriochtan.
The Meeting of the Three Waters in full flow after heavy rain.
That was just about enough photography for day two. I went back to the cabin to refuel, dry out and charge the batteries ready for the final two days of my trip. Save the best until last they say. The legendary Isle of Skye was my next destination, with a quick stop en route to catch the Hogwarts Express crossing the Glenfinnan Viaduct.
Glennfinnan viaduct with the Jacobite train passing from Fort William to Mallaig.
The following photograph caught my eye en route to the Isle of Skye. The colours combined with the recurring patterns stood out. Photography doesn’t always have to be super complicated in my opinion.
LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY IN SCOTLAND: ISLE OF SKYE
There are just no words to describe how epic this unusual rock formation in the Trotternish region of the Isle of Skye really is. You could see the old man, the leaning piece of land farthest left in this photograph, himself from the south side of the island, around 5-10 miles away at a guess. From here it appears to be just a tiny pinnacle in the distance and it’s not until you make your way along the final mile of the path leading up to the Storr that you really gauge the scale of this magnificent landscape. Luckily for me, there was a tiny human standing dwarfed beneath the old man which adds a much needed human element to my photograph. This place is enough to humble any person.
With the light quickly fading after a long drive up to Skye, I found a home for the night in the car park at Mealt Falls on the north side of the island. There aren’t many better places to wake up then next to a 55m waterfall that drops straight into the sea. From here in the morning, I would proceed to travel around the island, stopping off at the famous Neist Point Lighthouse and legendary Fairy Pools.
Mealt Falls on the Isle of Skye.
While travelling round to my next location, I couldn’t help but stop to check out some of the Isle of Skye’s impressive coastline.
Fishing boat providing the scale to some of Isle of Skye’s magnificent coastline.
Rugged Isle of Skye coastline.
It’s no wonder photographers travel from all over the world to photograph this lighthouse that lies at the most westerly tip of the Isle of Skye. The Neist Point Lighthouse is spectacular with rugged coastline adding drama to photographs here. I would love to have caught a sunset at the lighthouse but the weather conditions weren’t looking too promising and I had plenty of other things to see on the island. I’ll leave that one for the next visit.
Neist Point Lighthouse on the Isle of Skye.
Taking a walk towards Neist Point Lighthouse on the Isle of Skye.
Next up, it was my final planned stop of the trip; the legendary Fairy Pools with its’ turquoise water. The Black Cuillin mountains provide a menacing backdrop to the pools.
Flowing water in the Fairy Pools, Isle of Skye.
Turquoise-blue water in the Fairy Pools, Isle of Skye.
The Fairy Pools were everything that I had imagined when reading about the Isle of Skye. Dark, intimidating, beautiful and calming.
Waterfall in the Fairy Pools, Isle of Skye with the black Cuillin mountains behind.
The long road home escorting me through the deep, dark Cuillin Hills. Sadly for me, this photograph marked the end of my visit to the Isle of Skye with the best landmarks now firmly behind me.
Rain sweeping across the Black Cuillin hills, Isle of Skye.
I stopped off for a quick pit stop to photograph the Sligachan Old Bridge, another of the beautiful locations that I’d watched some of my favourite photographers visit on YouTube. The usual shot of this beautiful location is usually in the opposite direction towards the mountains behind but I wanted to try something a little different.
Sligachan Old Bridge, behind stands Sgurr Mhairi.
Pastel sunset captured with this artistic intentional camera movement photograph.
My final stop of an epic landscape photography road trip to Scotland; Eilean Donan Castle provided perhaps one of my favourite photographs from my time up north. I attached my Gobe ND1000 circular neutral density filter and used a one minute long exposure of the castle illuminated during blue hour.
Eilean Donan Castle illuminated in the blue hour light.
This definitely won’t be the last time that I visit Scotland. There is still so much more to see. Scotland is a country that is just steeped in history, culture and natural beauty and I feel like I only scratched the surface of what this magnificent country has to offer. My photography skills were definitely put to the test up here. With so many famous locations that have been photographed many times, I certainly found it a test to find some unique landscape photographs but in hindsight, I’m more than happy with my results. There is of course, plenty more to be had when I decide to visit again.
I really hope you enjoyed reading this blog post. Maybe it has inspired you to pack your bags and head off on your own adventures. It would be great to know if it did, that’s the whole reason I do all of this. I just love inspiring people to live better lives. Please consider following me on social media, tell me all about your adventure and keep up with all of my own photography adventures… There are some even epic-er ones incoming.
I’m looking forward to taking you along for the ride on the next one.
Gear used for this trip:
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If you liked the photography in this blog post, you should consider checking out my Top Tips for Improving you Landscape Photography post next.
Just Some Late Evening Photography Thoughts
Just some random late evening thoughts after a bit of inspiration to write.
I love paying attention to the contrast that is included in my photographs. Photographs, after all, are all made up of contrast. Contrast is something that comes in all forms and this photograph has bags of it. Contrasting colours in the blue vs gold, strong contrast in the lights vs darks and, in this instance, contrasting weather conditions. The more time I spend out in the landscape, and the more I learn about photography, the more I see that there are photographs everywhere in this world, it’s just a case of to learning how to look again. This world has a way of teaching us to move through life with our eyes closed. Look around yourself, listen to most of the conversations that occur in your daily lives and it becomes clear that a high percentage of our population is unconscious. I don’t hear many questions. Or rather, I don’t hear many important questions. Questions about who we are and what we are doing here. Questions about our deepest fears and our most vivid dreams. I for one, will forever be grateful that I picked this camera up. It taught me how to see again. It forces me to look at this world with a childish naivety. Something that went missing for a long time, and I’m sure lots of you have experienced the same feelings. They occur to me regularly these days. Mainly while I’m lying down in the mud trying to get the perfect angle of a wildflower, or as I’m running around on the top of a hill, skipping over rocks to ensure that I don’t miss the final light of the day. I don’t know where I would be right now without photography and I certainly hope that this love for the art remains for the rest of my life.
An Epic Landscape Photography Road Trip to Lake District & Scotland: Part 1
One man, his camera and two days in the Lake District landscape.
I think it goes without saying that I absolutely love an adventure! More than anything. Maybe even anyone for that matter. Even more so when photography is involved, which seems to be all of the time at the moment. It’s great. I live for those days where I leave my normal life behind in a cloud of smoke and head off spontaneously into the wilderness armed with nothing but my camera and a few tins of tuna in tow. If you’ve been following on Instagram, you’ll see that not much gets in the way of me and my tuna pasta while on location.
Packing up my hiking essentials for an epic landscape photograph trip to the Lake District. A bag of Morgan’s Brew to keep me going of course.
In September 2020, I set off on what was my most exciting solo adventure yet. I’d been ‘planning’ a trip to Scotland for a while. It’s in inverted commas because there’s never a great deal of planning that really goes on in this head, it’s normally a few weeks of, ‘ hmm, I might go to Scotland soon’ and then a , ‘yea I’ve had enough of this, I’m going to Scotland… Like… NOW!!’ That’s exactly what happened back in September. En route to Scotland I thought it would be very rude not to pit stop in the Lake District, and kill two birds with one stone to make it a maiden visit to both of these stunning UK landscape photography locations.
LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY IN THE LAKE DISTRICT: CATBELLS & DERWENTWATER
I arrived in the Lake District at around 7am after a 3am wake up call to leave my home in Welshpool. Those are the kind of alarm clocks that I don’t mind and I was quickly up and out of bed to be on my way. There was not a soul on the road throughout the whole journey bar me. It wasn’t what I’d call lonely though, I had my favourite adventure playlist for company and blasted it loud for the whole drive. More so to keep me awake than anything. In typical fashion, I hadn’t planned a thing. The YouTube photographers that I love to watch have always mentioned Catbells and Derwentwater as fantastic spots for landscape photography and so I decided to pull up beneath Catbells; a modest 451m hill to make this my first location ever in the lakes. Modest, however, it certainly was not. The route that I picked was a few degrees shy of vertical and in my excitement to beat the sunrise I exhausted myself on the climb. But, I was quickly reinvigorated upon getting to the top with a view over Derwentwater towards Keswick and Skiddaw, as you can see in the photograph below, that was simply magnificent. Not bad for my first morning in the Lake District don’t you think?
First of the mornings’ light kisses the face of Catbells in the Lake District.
Looking a little further east towards Blencathra over Derwentwater and watching the light pour into Borrowdale valley was just a beautiful and humbling experience. I still remember the feeling of those first rays of light on my face to this day. It was just after this photograph that I filmed one of my first vlogs to launch a print giveaway via Facebook & Instagram.
Glorious sunrise view of Blencathra over Derwentwater.
The views in the other direction were not to bad either! I love this time of the day, with not much else around for company, I get to enjoy watching the soft golden sunlight slowly painting the landscape all by myself. It really is my idea of bliss and now I’ve found it, there is no going back.
First of the mornings’ light kissing the tops of the Lake District fells.
I spent a few minutes running to and from the camera to get this self portrait of me admiring the incredible panoramic views. This process is always one of my favourite parts about a solo adventure. And no, no one has embarrassingly caught me in the act just yet!
I take a few moments to sit and admire the view of Derwentwater and Blencathra.
In the photograph below, I witnessed another truly spectacular sight as those beautiful golden sunlight rays poured over the other side of the Borrowdale valley. I didn’t know it yet, but on the evening of that day over there is where I would find myself taking one of my favourite ever photographs which I’ll be sharing with you later.
Golden light pouring into Borrowdale valley.
The route down from Catbells provided some magnificent opportunities to pick out compositions like these with the Canon 70-200mm f/4 - a must have lens for any landscape photographer that loves climbing mountains. This first shot actually turned out to be one of my favourites from the trip. I edited a black and white version too which I will share below. I think it looks fantastic.
Layers of hills in the Lake District.
First morning light shines on the landscape in the Lake District.
Layers of hills in the Lake District.
And that was pretty much that from my first morning of landscape photography in the beautiful Lake District. I had heard some wonderful things on YouTube about the woodland in the area and so I decided to spend the afternoon exploring around the woods that line the west side of Derwentwater. Afternoon light, and especially bright, sunny, blue sky and strong afternoon light have never been my favourite conditions to make photographs. The light is generally very harsh and colours look particularly strong, especially in woodland and so I barely even took a photograph until a little later in the day. I did however, manage to take a few upmarket selfies of me enjoying a nice cup of Morgan’s Brew in the woods.
LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY IN THE LAKE DISTRICT: GUMMER’S HOW & WINDERMERE
I spent a little time in the afternoon wandering around Windermere without a care in the world. There was nowhere for me to be and it was such a liberating feeling after a few months at work. As I strolled around Windermere I started thinking about how my grandparents always loved visiting this part of the world, they would normally visit once or twice a year and call in to see us in Welshpool on the way home to the south of England. I saw a beautiful photograph of them together above one of the lakes on my Nans’ kitchen cupboard and that is what initially planted the seed for me to visit the Lake District. I decided that I would find a viewpoint above Windermere and try to capture a photograph of the area for her. On scouting the map for a viewpoint of Windermere, I could see that there was only one place for it; Gummer’s How.
I captured this intimate moment between calf and cow on the walk to Gummer’s How. I thought it would make a great print and so I listed it here: Lost in Nature Collection. Sometimes, I wish I had the chance to do some more animals and wildlife photography but at the moment, the landscape and nature has a firm grip on me and doesn’t show any signs of letting go!
A calf and its’ Mum in the grass en route to Gummer’s How. Available as a print in the Lost in Nature Collection
I made it to the top of Gummer’s How and wow, wasn’t I treated to one of the best views in the house? These aren’t my preferred conditions for photography but this photograph served its’ purpose well. Gummer’s How is one spot that I will definitely revisit with some better light upon my next visit north. I’ve learnt many lessons through my photography so far though every time I head out with my camera, patience seems to be a recurring theme throughout. I normally have to visit a place three or four times before I get a photograph that’s truly portfolio worthy.
Panoramic view of Windermere and surrounding fells in the Lake District.
LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY IN THE LAKE DISTRICT: ASHNESS BRIDGE & SKIDDAW
Onto my next location for sunset and it’s one that really needs no introduction and talking of portfolio photographs, this is one that I was delighted with upon returning home. This photograph will be staying in my portfolio for a long time.
Ashness Bridge, a tiny packhorse bridge that crosses a stream and one can only begin to imagine the stories of old horse and carts crossing over as they made their way into Keswick carrying goods and messages from far out villages. There isn’t much that could have stopped me from sitting here for hours and hours. Until….
The view of Skiddaw from Ashness Bridge has to be up there among the most spectacular in the country.
There I was, just slowing down and taking my time, making a relaxing photo of this beautiful little scene when out of nowhere I hear the sound of tyres squealing. Here he comes. Getting ever close. In sight now, the driver swings his car around the tight bend in shot and hurtles over the bridge appearing to forget that only a sixpence would have fit between either side of his car and the old stone. Clearly this guy was in a rush and wasn’t hanging around for anyone. I was trying to get back in my flow state and make a few photographs of the bridge and mountains in the fading blue hour light when this guy starts making his way towards my direction. At this point, I’m thinking I’m about to get mugged. Camera and photographs gone forever. No, he’s a thrill-seeking base jumper and he’s making his way to ‘Falcon’s Crag’ to hurl himself into the oblivion below and he asks me if I’d like to follow him up there to bag a shot of him in action.
I still remember how excited I was to have nailed this photograph. I shared a video of my reaction to me scrolling through my camera roll for the first time on Instagram and I believe it’s still saved to my ‘highlights’ section if you want to take a look.
A base jumper hurls himself off Falcon Crag into the abyss below.
And that was me pretty much done for day one. What a superb end to a crazy day it was. I remember wondering how it feels to be a full time travelling landscape photographer as I made my way back to the car park to cook some tuna and pasta. How amazing it would be to do things like this to earn a living. I was even more determined to make this little dream of mine a reality after an incredible day behind the camera. After eating, I converted my car into camper van for the night and set my alarm for 6am in order to make my way west to Wastwater, a beautifully tranquil lake that lies beneath some of the highest mountains in England; Scaffell Pike, Great Gable and Lingmell.
In typical fashion, I spent a night in my car. There’s always time to read a book before bed.
LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY IN THE LAKE DISTRICT: WASTWATER
A kayaker makes his way across Wastwater with Scafell Pike making for a quite spectacular backdrop.
My first task when I arrived at Wastwater was simply to wander around the lake to find my bearings. I didn’t exactly know what to expect here, though I did know that the best place to be was somewhere towards the south west of the lake which provides a magnificent view of the three mountains that sit over towards Wasdale Head. The conditions weren’t providing me with the most spectacular displays of light and low cloud covered the majority of mountains. I was stuck with some of the worst conditions imaginable for a landscape photographer, flat, grey and, dare I say it, a little boring. I’m not one to complain though and this didn’t stop me grabbing some photographs that I was happy with, like this one of a beautifully constructed old stone boathouse.
An old stone boathouse lying at the south westerly point of Wastwater in the Lake District.
Landscape photography for me, is a little bit like life to be honest, we have to just play the cards that we are dealt and make the best of them. Sitting around with a bad attitude and complaining about things has never taken me far, I don’t know about you? And so I pressed on, in search of the next photographs. Most of these won’t be portfolio photographs, of course, they are simply being compiled in this blog for documentary purposes, for the thought of one day looking back one day to see how far I have come. I’m sure that I’ll revisit these same spots many times throughout the course of my life and one day, I know that the ‘right’ light and conditions will be there waiting for me and for that, I will make sure that I am very grateful.
After a brief pit stop for breakfast which consisted of beans and scrambled eggs cooked on my trusty camping stove, I made my way to the other end of the lake via this beautiful little winding road that runs beside Wastwater. I’ve always had a bit of a thing for these old country roads, more so for the thought of what they once were and what they perhaps once carried than for the thought of what they are now.
With some better light, I’m sure that this photograph would be transformed into something magnificent. The little road makes Kirk Fell look quite daunting and I’d love to have the chance to do this scene some justice. I just need to invent that weather remote. But then again, that might soon get a little boring.
Old winding road runs beside Wastwater in the Lake District.
I used a bit of time in the afternoon to head into the waters for a bit of a wild swim, though I’ll use that term loosely because I won’t be entering the Olympics anytime soon, that’s for sure. As a fish is out of water, the same I am in it. You can just about see the little beach area that I swam from in the photograph below. I could think of many worse places to live than this beautiful little cottage that sits at the foot of Scaffel Pike.
Lone white cottage beside Wastwater sits beneath the giant Scaffel Pike.
So that was pretty much all from my hectic little road trip around the Lake District. Overall, I was delighted with my whole experience in the north of England. This was definitely a great taster of what is to come from the area and I’m thinking about making a visit for round two sometime this year. After my day around the beautiful Wastwater, I found a place to park my car up for the night. I cooked some food while watching the sunset and then proceeded to lay the drivers seat back for six hours sleep before making the four hour trip up to… Yep you guessed it… Scotland!!
Part two of my Epic Landscape Photography Road Trip coming soon.
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Snowdonia, North Wales: A Magical Place For Landscape Photography
Photography, mountains, legendary giants and Excalibur are just a few topics that I discuss in this blog post.
Brad Carr taking a photograph of the Glyderau mountains at sunrise from Pen yr Ole Wen.
Introduction
Have I reached heaven? Not quite, it’s Snowdonia National Park in north Wales and it’s an absolute paradise for landscape photography.
An 827 square mile area that attracted 4.48 million people in 2018. It contains 9 mountain ranges, 1,497 miles of footpaths, 250 lakes, 23 miles of beautiful coastline, numerous spectacular waterfalls and whatever else you care to imagine. That’s not to mention the many stories and legends that are tied to the area. Rumour has it that one of 3 of Snowdonia’s lakes; Llyn Dinas, Llyn Llydaw or Llyn Ogwen contains King Arthur’s Excalibur.
A view from the Snowdon summit; sunrise paints the landscape in Snowdonia National Park
The name ‘Snowdonia’ derives from the tallest mountain in the park and the highest point in the United Kingdom, outside of the Scottish highlands; the great mountain of Snowdon. In Welsh, the area translates as ‘Eryri’ (Eh-ruh-ri) which, as some recent evidence suggests, is related to the Latin ‘oriri’ (to rise). Talking of which, while standing on top of Snowdon, you will have risen a whopping 1,085m.
You certainly won’t struggle for things to do around Snowdonia. A popular place for hikers, climbers, wild swimmers, cyclists, stand up paddle boarders, you name it and Snowdonia will probably have it. It is one of three national parks in Wales and has been like a second home for me and my camera over the last 3 years. I have spent many a weekend wandering around its’ lakes (‘lake’ reads ‘llyn’ in Welsh) and over the countless mountains that the park has to offer, sometimes forgetting that I actually have a life outside of my walking boots too.
Once you’ve visited this magnificent part of north Wales enough times, those famous roadside signs that you’ll see dotted around the country as you enter into this area of tranquil beauty, will begin to hold a new power. Every time you pass, a new memory of ‘that time wild camping’ will bring with it a special feeling of nostalgia or the Welsh word ‘hiraeth’ as is commonly quoted across social media pages within Welsh communities. It’s a feeling that can’t quite be explained except by the words on Wikipedia, ‘a deep and irrational bond felt with a time, era, place or person.’ Whatever it is, I’m certainly missing it as I write this while heading towards the 3 month mark on our lockdown here in Wales.
Always remember that if you do decide to visit, the locations that I write about come with many dangers of their own and they are not to be taken lightly. Humans are nothing when matched against the sheer power of nature and we must respect it at all times. Snowdonia is home to some of the wettest spots in the country, so be sure to pack sensibly, especially if you’re planning to hike into the mountains. The weather is unpredictable, to say the least and can change in an instant around the park. I’ve been on top of mountains where the visibility has been perfect one minute, only for me to blink and find myself surrounded by fog or being pummelled with a sudden downpour of torrential rain.
The following list has been compiled with the aim of inspiring you to visit a part of the world that has become a second home to me over the past few years. I often run out of words to describe the possibilities and magic that Snowdonia holds, which is why it is much easier to let photographs do the talking. Hopefully a combination of my attempt at both in what follows will do it justice.
Llyn Ogwen
This fantastic ribbon lake is situated alongside the A5 in the Ogwen valley between two of Snowdonia’s finest mountain ranges; the Carneddau, where you’ll find the mountains of Pen yr Ole Wen, Carnedd Llewelyn and Yr Elen, and the Glyderau, containing the famous mountains of Tryfan, Glyder Fawr and Glyder Fach, the two latter being from where the name ‘Glyderau’ derives. The 78 acre lake offers some of the finest mountain views in the whole of Wales. It is the view on the west side of the lake, closest to Pont Pen-y-Benglog, which is probably the most famous. It’s from here that you can’t help but marvel in the beauty of Snowdonia as you cast your eye beyond the Llyn Ogwen boathouse towards the north face of Tryfan and away from the Ogwen valley. This is an absolute must on your Snowdonia itinerary.
You’ll want to have a good pair of walking boots with you because from Llyn Ogwen, you’re spoilt for choice for with hiking routes taking you in any which way you desire. There is a fantastic little circular walk that I discovered last year which will take you north from the boathouse on the path that runs alongside the A5 towards Bangor. You’ll cross Pont Pen-y-Benglog and walk for a couple of miles at the foot of Pen yr Ole Wen until you reach the Ogwen bunkhouse, at which point there is a footpath that crosses some vast and rugged farmland to the other side of the Nant Ffrancon valley. If you’re lucky, you might even see some of the magical and wild Carneddau ponies that have wandered the landscape for hundreds of years as you cross this land. If you’re unlucky, it might be rain season and you’ll find yourself battling through knee deep mud!
A beautiful old stone wall and narrow, uneven lane that is just oozing history will guide you for part of the way back along your return journey as you make your way up the valley. I’m always left wondering just how many other people have walked along this lane, marvelling at the natural beauty that surrounds them. What was life like here once upon a time and how long have these man-made features been a part of this landscape? The mountains would laugh of course and scoff, ‘no where near the length of time that we have been here!’ These lanes around Snowdonia make for some fantastic photography opportunities. There is just something very magical about a road that leads into some distant mountains.
Talking of mountains, you’ll be walking beneath some giants on your return journey, with Carnedd y Filiast, Mynydd Perfedd and Foel Goch forming the mountainous wall alongside which you’ll hike. Why not stop at Pont Pen-y-Benglog at the end of your journey to grab yourself a photograph of the wonderful Rhaeadr Ogwen, the point at which the Afon Ogwen falls into the lower part of the Ogwen valley; Nant Ffrancon.
The elements all combine to give plenty of photographic opportunities here, with lots of features providing you with an array of interesting focal points. You’ll have trees, mountains, moving water, varying seasonal colour and, on the right day, changing light, which should ensure that you have maximum opportunity to capture something unique from this special part of north Wales. You can try to use the landscape to your advantage to look for subtle frames and leading lines, this environment will provide you with plenty of both.
2. Llyn Idwal
I couldn’t write a guide about landscape photography in Snowdonia without including this wonderful lake that is situated beneath the Glyderau mountain range. I have spent many a day just wandering around the calming waters of Llyn Idwal with no real direction or purpose in mind, except maybe the purpose of getting lost beneath a formation of rock that is commonly known as ‘The Devil’s Kitchen,’ which you will find at the south side of this small but mighty 28 acre lake. This legendary and unmistakeable dark black crack is a feature that is simply known as ‘Twll Du’ which translates as ‘Black Hole’ and splits the rock of Clogwyn y Geifr (Cliff of the Goat) between Y Garn and Glyder Fawr.
The lake itself is synonymous with medieval folklore legend. It is named after Prince Idwal Foel. As legend has it, Idwal was the son of the 12th century prince Owain Gwynedd. Idwal was a bright and beautiful child but didn’t have the makings of a warrior like his father, and so was sent away to the safe haven of his uncle Nefydd’s home, while Owain was at war. Nefydd was a jealous man and didn’t appreciate how his own son, Rhun, appeared witless, dull and without charm in comparison to his nephew. Unable to live with the bitterness that consumed him, he took the boys for a walk around the lake. From the paths around the very Llyn Idwal that we see today, Nefydd pushed Idwal into the waters. Without the physical abilities to match up to his intellect, Idwal drowned while his uncle and nephew stood beside the lake laughing. Owain, when returning from war was, of course, devastated and proceeded to banish Nefydd from his lands before naming the lake after his son in order to carry on his memory. The largest glacial moraine within Cwm Idwal is known as Bedd y Cawr (Giant's Grave). It is in here that Idwal was supposedly buried, with his spirit guarding the lake from any further tragedies.
You’ll probably want to keep one eye over your shoulder as you approach the lake from the visitor centre at the magnificent mountain, Tryfan, who’s ridge-like east face looks both spectacular and a little intimidating at the same time. Check out the photo below which was taken during a summers day in Snowdonia, where the small figure of a human provides some fantastic scale in this epic and dramatic landscape.
On the north of Llyn Idwal lies the seventh highest mountain in Wales; Pen yr Ole Wen, which belongs to the Carneddau mountain range and at 978m, it measures the same height as Scafell Pike, the highest point in England. Following the path to the south side of the lake as you approach along the main path from the Ogwen Visitor Centre will carry you above the lake for a fantastic view of Llyn Idwal and Pen yr Ole Wen, a scene which wouldn’t look out of place in a fantasy film.
While hiking along this route you will pass the unmistakeable Idwal slabs, a paradise for climbers containing many routes, one of which is known in the climbing world as ‘Suicide Wall’. The slabs can make for some great photographs that show the impressive geology in Snowdonia. In places like this, I often find that it’s important to show the sheer scale of the landscape too, something that I feel the photograph below does very well.
Research shows that the igneous rocks at Cwm Idwal were formed during the Ordovician period, around 450 million years ago. In 1831, Charles Darwin visited the area to carry out a study on the scattered rocks and boulders at Llyn Idwal which he determined contained marine seashells and fossils of sea creatures and plant life. He then came to the conclusion that the rocks must have formed within an ancient ocean and were therefore, the rocks that lay on the bed of the lapetus Ocean. This study went on to become a part of his famous publication, ‘On the Origin of Species’, a piece of work that is widely acknowledged to be the foundation of evolutionary biology.
Can you spot the trio of climbers ascending the Idwal Slabs in Snowdonia?
Follow the path on the south side of Llyn Idwal and you’ll eventually be faced with two choices; play it safe and stay low to continue your walk around the lake, or choose the adventurous route and navigate your way over rocks, clamber over boulders and manipulate yourself through cracks while attempting to follow a loosely identifiable path up into the Devil’s Kitchen, for what could be one of your most memorable hikes to the summit of my next location.
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3. Y Garn
Forming a part of the Glyderau mountain range in Snowdonia is the impressive peak of Y Garn which stands just shy of the 1,000m mark at 947m, making it the tenth highest mountain in Wales. Still, it’s tall enough to be classed among the Welsh 3000’s, meaning that it’s one of 15 summits in Wales measuring over 3,000ft.
Y Garn is difficult to miss as you drive along the A5 through the Ogwen valley from Capel Curig. It is the fearsome wall-like structure that takes the shape of an arm chair straight ahead as you approach the Ogwen visitor centre. It is from the summit of this mountain that I have enjoyed some of my finest days of landscape photography so far. On a clear day, you’ll see miles upon miles of the fabulous north Wales landscape. The view to the east from up here has to be among the best in the area on a clear day and makes for a truly spectacular sunrise photograph, as you’ll have golden sunlight just pouring into the Ogwen valley. In the opposite direction, breath-taking views of the Irish sea and Anglesey await.
I like to try to find some interesting foreground elements in my photography, in order to give my images that extra depth and perhaps try to provide the eye with something to follow. Ideally, I’d arrive at my location a little while before the sunrises in order to scout out potential photographic opportunities. On this occasion, I was running a little late and didn’t have time to set up properly. However, I still managed to take this handheld photo with some interesting rocks that catch some of the first light of the morning in the foreground.
There are no end to potential compositions on the summit of, and on the routes up to Y Garn. Keep an eye out for any natural elements that could help to tell more of a story of the landscape and get to know what recognisable features need to be included in your photograph. This is where your research and location scouting will come in handy. In the photograph above, I’ve been sure to include Pen yr Ole Wen, Tryfan, Llyn Ogwen and Llyn Idwal.
The summit of the mountain can be accessed via many different paths, the route via the Devil’s Kitchen and the east facing ascent will require a reasonable level of fitness to complete. They both form the circular route that I highly recommend and ascending the mountain in either direction will probably take you between 1-2 hours, depending on your experience and general fitness levels. There are, of course, some fantastic places to stop for a brew along your route.
As I specified earlier in this post, make sure that you have done your research about the weather conditions in the area and up high on the mountain tops. They can change very quickly. It’s vital that you know just what to expect and always be prepared that what you expect, might not even be what Mother Nature has in store for you. Winds can, and probably will, be stronger up high. Rain can, and probably will, be much heavier up high. And guess what.. If it’s cold down low, it’s probably a whole lot colder up there. Pack sensibly, tell somebody where you are going (especially if you’re going solo) and know both your route and your limits.
4. GANLLWYD & Rhaeadr Ddu
This beautifully quaint little waterfall in the southern region of Snowdonia translates as ‘Black Falls’ due to the appearance of the black stone over which the two-tiered waterfall descends. The short walk from Ganllwyd will lead you along a path next to which the Afon Gamlan runs through the Coed Ganllwyd National Nature Reserve. You’ll walk for no more than a mile, at which point you’ll be transported into a real life fairy-tale, surrounded by some ancient oak trees, with the sound of the ever-changing waterfall for company. Visiting through different seasons will bring with it new conditions, as the water levels can change rapidly depending on rainfall in the area and surrounding mountains.
My favourite time to visit this fantastic and somewhat, underrated location has to be through the autumn. I was lucky enough to capture the photographs below during the peak autumn weeks in 2020 when the colours were at their vibrant best.
Waterfalls tend to look at their most spectacular after a few days of heavy rain, which does make for some great photographs. However, I prefer to shoot them when the conditions are a little calmer due to the look and feel that I tend to like in my photographs. My style reflects the more calming and peaceful moments as opposed to any chaos and drama. Perhaps this is how I feel when I’m outdoors in nature and therefore that is how I like my viewer to feel when looking through my portfolio.
I think that it’s very important to try to gain an understanding of yourself and some level of self-awareness as you progress through your photography journey. Spending time in beautiful places like this should make self-reflection incredibly easy, giving you plenty of time to think about the stories that you’d like to tell through your photography.
When photographing waterfalls, it might be worth attaching a circular polarising filter (CPL) to your lens. There are many places that CPL’s will work wonders for your photography but none will be transformed quite like an autumnal waterfall scene, where the effects of twisting the filter to your likening will bring out those beautifully vibrant orange, yellow and red colour tones and reduce the glare on the surface of the water, helping to add depth and mood to your image.
I have another blog containing Ten Top Tips for Landscape Photography.
I like to keep my eye out for natural frames in the scene when photographing waterfalls like Rhaeadr Ddu. In the first image, you can see that I have been sure to include those twisting tree branches in the top of my frame, which help to keep the viewers eye pinned on my subject; the stunning waterfall.. In the second photograph, I got down low to find a subtle leading line and natural path through the rocks to lead the viewer towards the waterfall, also making sure that I included those lime green spring leaves to add to the overall balance and story of the image.
Waterfalls have to be up there among my favourite things to photograph. There is nothing quite like the feelings of your excitement building as you hear the sound of the crashing water gradually getting louder as you approach. This little gem in Ganllwyd provides some really special ancient woodland with moss covered trunks and dry stone walls too, all of those will make for some fantastic subjects to photograph aside from the waterfall itself.
You’ll probably want to keep your eyes peeled for wildlife while you’re here too. The distinctive Welsh woodland migrant, the pied flycatcher makes these ancient trees home and throughout the summer it can be seen along with a host of other woodland birds. While I was photographing away, one passer-by told me to keep my eyes peeled for the unique diving and underwater swimming bird; the dipper.
5. Snowdon
Last but certainly not least in my list of the best places for landscape photography in Snowdonia, a place that simply could not be left off any such list just has to go to the tallest mountain in the United Kingdom, outside of the Scottish highlands; Snowdon. After all, over 600,000 people flock to Snowdonia to take on this fantastic mountain and hike along one of its’ 6 unique and interesting routes every single year hoping to enjoy some of the most spectacular views in the whole country. On a clear day, you can see England, the Isle of Man, Ireland and apparently, even Scotland (if you believe some stories on the Internet). From the summit, some of the things you’ll see include; 24 counties, 29 lakes and 17 islands, while also catching views of the mountains in the Peak District and south Pennines. Binoculars would be a great idea if you are planning on heading up.
The routes range in difficulty with the easiest being the long and gradual climb from the village of Llanberis which will take you alongside the train track on the west face of the mountain. The most difficult route up to the summit, is along the legendary ridge of Crib Goch. Though climbing it is an exhilarating experience, it’s probably a little risky to be setting up your tripod for photographs along the ridge where several people have fatally fallen over the years. My favourite path for photography would have to be the miners track which begins in the Pen-y-Pass car park and proceeds to lead you up to the summit via the two beautiful lakes beneath Snowdon; Llyn Llydaw and Glaslyn, the latter of which you can see in my photograph below as the last light of the day kissed the south face of Y Lliwedd.
The English name for Snowdon derives from the Saxon ‘snow dune’, which means snow hill. Snow is not uncommon on the mountain and has even been seen as late as June in previous years. The two lakes named ‘Llynnau Mymbyr’ that you’ll see in the Dyffryn Mymbyr, the valley as you leave Capel Curig en route to Snowdon, provide the perfect place to photograph the mountain range that is commonly known as the Snowdon Massif. The range is made up of Garnedd Ugain (right), Crib Goch (central), Snowdon (left) and Y Lliwedd, out of shot to the left in the photograph below. A circular polarising filter (CPL) could, again, be a great addition to your arsenal of gear as you photograph lakes and clouds, with the effects proving to have great results for me over the years.
The Welsh name for Snowdon is Yr Wyddfa, meaning burial mound, or grave in English. It is believed that the legendary giant Rhita Gawr was buried on the summit of mountain beneath the rocks and falling snow after being slain by King Arthur. Rhita Gawr had a reputation for killing men and claiming their beards in order to fashion himself a cloak. King Arthur was the next name on Gawr’s hitlist in yet another fantastic story of Welsh folklore. Arthur himself is rumoured to have died later on Bwlch y Saethau (Pass of the Arrows), where a cairn marks the place of his own grave. Isn’t it fantastic to imagine a great medieval battle happening in the scene below?
In Conclusion
I hope that I have done enough with my words and photographs to inspire you to visit this beautiful little corner of the world that is just steeped with history, interesting landscape and beautiful walks. There is so much more that Snowdonia has to offer and I feel as though I have only just scratched the surface myself over the 3 years that I’ve been exploring this land. As I wrote earlier in this blog, Snowdonia National Park contains nearly 1,500 miles of footpaths and I’ve probably only covered around 3% of those here.
I’ll also urge you to do some more reading and undergo some of your own research about some of these fantastic places that we are lucky enough to be able to visit during our lifetimes here on Earth. The stories that I have shared have added a whole new meaning to this wonderful place for me and I’ll feel like I’m entering a new land once again when I return.
Now, it’s probably wise that you grab yourself a map and get out there to write your own stories about the magical land of giants, kings and dragons.
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Sources used throughout this article include:
https://www.geolsoc.org.uk/GeositesCwmIdwal
https://www.snowdonia.gov.wales/visiting/ogwen/cwm-idwal/the-making-of-cwm-idwal#:~:text=The%20deposits%20and%20igneous%20rocks,of%20dust%2C%20ash%20and%20lava.
https://www.thecrag.com/en/climbing/united-kingdom/snowdonia/idwal-slabs-and-walls
https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/carneddau-and-glyderau/features/tales-of-cwm-idwal
https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/carneddau-and-glyderau/features/darwin-discoveries-at-cwm-idwal
https://www.visitwales.com/en-us/attraction/nature-or-wildlife/coed-ganllwyd-nature-reserve-928248
https://www.visitsnowdonia.info/myths-and-legends
Diary of a Landscape Photographer | Entry 6
Just some spontaneous thoughts noted down today…
I'm just updating my website home page with some of my recent local area photographs and it got me thinking about just how one Earth I have found myself standing in fields, pointing my camera at trees and flowers in different lighting conditions. It's so strange where this life takes us sometimes.
I have been doing some soul searching recently, seeing as I have more time on my hands, as to what actually makes me want to wake up and do this, day in, day out.
Is it a love for the landscape, trees, colours and light? Or just being outdoors in nature where everything is so peaceful? Is it the process that I love? The planning, the Google Earthing, the adrenaline rush when things turn out just how I imagined... Or the feelings of disappointment when they don't of course. Maybe it's the people that I've met throughout my journey so far, both in person and through social media platforms. Or maybe it's the person that I'm becoming through this whole creative journey.
These are all questions that I ask myself on a daily basis. It’s kind of like when someone asks you to explain exactly why you love your Mum. I don't know that I'll ever be able to put my answer into words that do justice, no matter how hard I try. Maybe it’s why I became a photographer so my pictures can do my talking.
Diary of a Landscape Photographer | Entry 5 | Art for Arts Sake
Just some more thoughts…
I know, this might not look like much in comparison to some of my other photographs. But to me, at the moment, this photo is everything. I’ve been reading a lot over the last few days. I’ve found myself deep into Guy Tal’s essays from his book ‘More Than a Rock’, and I have never read anything that has made me question myself as a photographer quite like this book has.
I often feel like I’m just uploading images to the Internet just for the sake of keeping the Internet happy. Obviously I like to share my work with the world but I especially love it when it has some meaning. Sometimes I don’t feel like that is the case and these feelings have been getting stronger recently. I don’t know if it’s because of the lockdown here in the UK and I’m just a little tired of everything right now, or whether I’m going through something of a growth period or I’m perhaps pivoting as a photographer.
The thing is, I don’t just want to be just another one of those social media photographers. The whole idea of social media has left me feeling rather annoyed recently and sometimes I don’t want to be a part of it. Someone called me an ‘influencer’ once and that really didn’t sit right. This is about much more than selling cheap products that I don’t believe in to naïve youngsters.
You see, I try to pour pieces of myself into the images that I take. I strive for them to be unique and hold some artistic value so to then just go ahead and put them on a digital ‘grid’ to watch them almost disappear from peoples sights and thoughts the next day sometimes leaves me with a really empty feeling. I’ve always wanted this ‘hobby’ to be about more than just a social media and Internet popularity contest and more about me figuring myself out as a person and making some sense of my complicated early life. Just over the last few days, something has been blocking me from getting outdoors to take photos. I haven’t been feeling particularly adventurous or creative or enthusiastic. So maybe, just maybe, this is the image and afternoon behind the camera that I needed in order to get me back on track. Or perhaps even, to follow a new track.
I hadn’t planned this part but perhaps you can take this as the first instalment of a ‘Why Photography’ series; something that I’ve been wanting to do for a while.
Winter Woodland Photography in Mid Wales
A recent series of winter woodland photographs that I submitted to feature in the Welsh Country Magazine.
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.