Landscape Photography: The Moment Of WOW!

It is far too easy to ruin an otherwise beautiful shot by overthinking it.

How do I know this? I’ve done it, loads of times! And quite often, I’ve done it in pursuit of things unnecessary for the shot the landscape has presented.

Yep, I’ve been that photographer. You know the one….attempting to cram every technique I’ve ever learnt into one photograph, making landscape photography a tick box checklist. There’s a reason why I got like that, although perhaps that is one for another blog.

There's so much to consider for any given photograph. But you really do need to be aware that, in doing so, moments can be missed and shots can become convoluted when you start to overthink the shot.

The moment of wow! Tarn Hows, Lake District National Park, UK

Take the photograph above of the trees at Tarn Hows. The light fleetingly kissing the leaves on an otherwise stormy day with thick dark clouds as far as the eye can see. Overthinking really wasn’t an option.

When I first noticed the cloud breaks shining some light on the trees I was up on the Eastern side of the tarn. Up a hill (for those that know Tarn Hows I was by the memorial stone) creating a much wider photograph of Tarn Hows. Scouting the clouds I could see some further breaks heading towards the tarn. The light traversing across the land as if by magic, you know the kind of light you only really experience during a break in a storm, stunningly beautiful.

There was no real way to capture what I envisioned from where I was stood. Looking down at the tree line from up high would have captured a rather flat image of green on dark blue water. It had to be from the Southern shoreline.

Having tried this composition on earlier trips, I knew that this kind of light would work well, as long as it hit the trees. Lighting the subject matter whilst leaving the further shore treeline in shadow.

Grabbing my camera and bag I ran down the hill and around the path. I’m not built for running at the best of times, never mind with a bag and camera in hand but shockingly I made it to the shoreline just before the last break was about to hit the trees and instinct took over.

It was a moment of WOW, and just a moment, nothing more. No time to think, no time to overcomplicate it....Long telephoto lens to pull the background in, 1/200 of a second as I was going to hand hold, f/7.1 at 135mm. I bumped the iso to 200, underexposing by a stop so that when the light hit, it was just focus, click, create. Within two exposures, the light had passed.

I had worked hard to get it….but not with the camera. Yet it wasn’t sheer luck. In order to envision the shot to begin with required all the experience I had photographing Tarn Hows, otherwise I wouldn’t have been aware of the potential from my lofty position much higher above the tarn.

Lots of journeys out in less than suitable conditions had given me an eye for breaks in the cloud, experience had taught me that if there had been one break, there was likely to be others. The instinct borne out of countless times exposing manually, the camera in auto or semi-auto likely to have exposed for the trees in shadow before the light hit (perhaps not, but I’m glad I didn't have to rely on it).

Everything that had come before had led me to be able to capture the shot as it happened….quick! No option but to just do it. And certainly no option for overthinking.

Simplicity.

Sometimes the light and the land present a scene that demands nothing more.

Dave

Landscape Photography: The Endless Pursuit

One of the bad photography habits I've gotten myself into over the last few years is 'whatifid-ism'. Basically the habit of looking back on a photograph, a photograph that I'd once been really happy with, and had loads of great memories of creating, and tearing it apart as I now have new found knowledge or a different way of doing things.

Self-critique is a good thing to do in landscape photography, but it can easily lead into a thought process of 'that's no longer good enough'.

This photograph of one of the waterfalls at Tarn Hows in the Lake District National Park is a great example of this.

At the time, and in the years since, I’ve been really pleased with this photograph. And it would seem that other people enjoy it too, a few prints have been made and sold and it’s garnered social media likes and loves. But there’s no doubt that there are things I could have done differently on location…..some ‘whatifId-isms’:

'What if I'd' tried a wider lens?

'What if I'd' closed down the aperture to get more clarity on the bottom right?

'What if I'd' spent a little longer searching for a slightly different angle?

‘What if I’d’ given over a little more room to the flow on the left?

Asking questions like these, after the emotion of the day and attachment to the shot has passed, is a great way to learn and improve on your photography. Analysing the shot, mulling over the composition, thinking about other ways you could have done it, are all vital tools in the journey of learning that we undertake through our photographic endeavours.

But asking these questions and finding the flaws within an image doesn't make it a bad shot. One of the biggest lessons in photography is that art is rarely ever (if ever!) perfect. Perfection is not something that you can control anyway. Perfection depends on the photographs relationship with the viewer, not with the artist. Post about a photograph that you think reaches perfection on the internet, you’ll soon find someone willing to tell you that perfection it is not!

But it is the strive for perfection (and this is the goal that we will never reach) that keeps many photographers going. But it is an ongoing push and pull between what is in our heads and our final creation.

So, yes, this shot has some flaws. But it is the shot that I created in that moment. A brief fleeting moment that can never be repeated. So,

'what if I'd' not taken it?

‘What if I’d’ missed that speckled light because I was busy swapping lenses or searching for a better angle?

'What if I'd' closed down the aperture and lost texture in the water?

Then it wouldn't be this photograph. And I like this photograph. And if I'd never taken it, then I wouldn't have been able to ask those questions anyway.

Learning is so worthwhile, yearning is not.

Dave, April 23

Landscape Photography into 2023 and Beyond

The beautiful view from midway up Chrome Hill in the Peak District National Park - my first shoot of 2022

Hello again, it’s been a few months since I last wrote. I hope that you rounded off 2022 with some amazing landscape photography.

Like I’m sure many of us do, as 2022 drew to a close, I found myself taking a retrospective look at my landscape photography from the previous twelve months.

2022 had got off to a flyer in many respects. My first shoot of the year atop Chrome Hill in the Peak District National Park was a beautiful morning. It was cold but clear other than some lovely haze covering the sun as it rose. This really aided a beautiful winters morning glow over Parkhouse Hill and the River Dove valley.

And then, the following week it was off up to the Lake District to run a one-to-one landscape photography workshop for a client at Tarn Hows (on an aside, I was very chuffed to see that said client has recently been awarded a ‘Highly Merited by the Judges’ award in a landscape photography competition - well done!). The year was well under way for Landscape Photography.

I adore this view, even when you can’t really see through the mist - Tarn Hows in the Lake District National Park

At the start of the year I had made a list of just a few (five in actual fact) locations I wanted to visit in the first half of 2022. There were four in the Lake District and one in the Peak District. By June, I had ticked off all but one. On the completed list were Hallin Fell over Ullswater; Kelly Hall Tarn near Coniston Water; the duo of Derwentwater and Latrigg Fell in Keswick; and Higger Tor in the Peak District were all ticked off. This left me with only Side Pike in the Langdale Valley to go, plus some other locations I had recce’d during the early months of the year. Added to the list for late summer and autumn were Watendlath Tarn; Aira Force Waterfall; a return to Wastwater; and a hike up High Street over Haweswater.

However, having been to the Lake District half a dozen times in the first six months of the year, I only made it to the Lake District once in the second half of the year. Even that was on a very wet day in October when conditions for Landscape Photography were just not in my favour. The day itself had been chosen due to having a morning shoot for a restaurant in Lancashire. Already half way to the Lake District with a free afternoon, despite the weather not looking great, I decided it was time to venture up to Blea Tarn and Side Pike. The conditions had other ideas though. On arrival I found the visibility down to nothing and a very wet mountain climb. Sanity prevailed and I decided that it really wasn’t the day for this landscape photographer.

The view from Hallin Fell looking out over Ullswater towards the snow capped Helvellyn in Spring

The beautiful Kelly Hall Tarn in the Lake District National Park. I almost missed this shot completely as I didn't think the cloud would break

The main reason for my lack of activity in the Lake District in the second half of the year was very simple. The cost of living crisis in the UK. What had always been a fuel bill of around £22-£25 to do the return trip to Cumbria was now well over £40. And it wasn't just the cost of fuel. Everything had gone up in price. As a professional photographer I was feeling the pinch. Clients began to cut back on shoots and there was no real opportunity for me to up my prices. This meant having to take on more clients (and being able to do that is something I’m very grateful for) and do more work.

The four hour round trip to the Lake District was not only costly in monetary terms, but costly on time, of which I now had less spare. It was an easy decision to make. The second half of the year would see more Landscape Photography for me in The Peak District. Quite simply, from my home in South Manchester, the Peak District is half the travelling time and a third of the distance. A literal saving of time and money vs trips to the Lake District.

The Millennium Stone at Derwentwater which celebrates 100 years of the National Trust. This was one of my spring shoots in the Lake District in 2022

It’s still Derwent, but it’s a Dam site closer! Derwent Dam in the Peak District

Not that the Peak District was ever second choice. The Peak District National Park is awe inspiring for a Landscape Photographer and has absolutely loads to offer in terms of subject matter. I do like my seclusion though and, whilst I love the Peak District, I have always felt a little more ‘away from it all’ in the Lake District. I’ll be back there in 2023 for sure, although I’m getting ahead of myself there.

A very windy and cold sunrise on Higger Tor in the Peak District National Park. This formation of rocks overlooking Carl Warks is nicknamed the Kit Kat stones

The truth of the matter is that I did far less landscape photography in the second half of the year than the first. There is no doubt that I lost some of my mojo for it. I love the adventure of landscape photography as much as the actual photography itself. Going somewhere I’ve never been before. Exploring and finding a view point that makes me go wow! That’s the part I love, far more so than pressing the shutter on my camera.

But, with all of the extra workload I was carrying; commercial shoots, family photography, wedding photography, brand shoots etc, it was all beginning to weigh me down. I didn’t feel like I had time to do landscape photography the way I like to. And so each shoot became a time saving exercise. Planned out locations, shots picked before I got there. Working late into the evening the night before and getting up for sunrise, surviving on a few hours sleep. None of it was motivating me to get out. And I wasn’t getting out. Not as much as I had been anyway.

The Roaches in the Peak District National Park. Truly one of my favourite landscape photography locations. I saw it an awful lot though in the second half of 2022

Of course, these are not real problems in the real world. Poor photographer, having to chose one national park over the other. It’s a non-problem. And, with all the above being said, I did have some fabulous moments out and about in the second half of the year. Plus, I ticked off a location, and a shot, that had been a couple of years in the mind. So it wasn’t all that bad, just perhaps not what I had planned in my head as 2022 started. First world problems indeed!

In early Autumn I finally caught a cloud inversion up on Mam Tor over the Hope Valley. Whilst I didn’t actually got any great shots, the experience of seeing it happen first hand was more than fantastic and that in itself was enough. Of course, I created some images, but upon review, they didn't really do justice to the magnificence of the view.

One of my better shots from the morning on Mam Tor. I blame the cloud inversion for being too distracting!

A couple of weeks later and a shot that I had been wanting to take for a long time. I had seen a stretch of woodland way back around the end of 2020/start of 2021 on a walking group. Nothing particularly special. But it had stuck with me and I was determined to go there and try to capture the shot I could imagine.

So, on one of my more motivated mornings. I headed to the location, in a part of the Peak District that I had never been before. A location that isn’t/wasn’t (I had barely seen anything about it until I went, now everybody seems to be going there….coincidence?!?!) too well known and not overly publicised, researching it had been tricky.

Driving up I had that real feel of adventure and was really excited to get out of the car, strap on my pack, stock up on water and start the trek through what I imagined to be overgrown woods, in search of a hidden stretch of woodland path. The reality was a little different. Out of the car, I headed to the little gate at the side of the road, and found it within about two minutes. So no real adventure, but the shot I had in my minds eye for well over a year was finally in front of me. Fantasy Forest.

‘Fantasy Forest’. Upper Moor near Matlock

It is through this kind of retrospective view that I start to realise that it wasn’t a bad year for my landscape photography after all. Sure, it wasn't how I thought it was going to be, I definitely missed my monthly adventures in the Lake District. But I am looking now at some of these shots and thinking, yeah, you did alright. And the year wasn’t quite over yet, there were still a couple more shoots to get out and do. And it was about time I revisited a certain North Wales lighthouse.

Talacre Beach is home to the Point of Ayr Lighthouse or simply Talacre Lighthouse. Decommissioned but still looking over the bay.

So what are my plans for 2023. Well it’s my aim to hit the Lake District a few times this year. We’ll see how things pan out with that. But I am approaching the new year with a new vigour. I am excited to start to do some different things. I have been interested for some time in exposure manipulation in camera and spent a lot of time in the later part of 2022 practicing this technique. Finally I managed to create something worth sharing whilst visiting the above lighthouse for a second time in December. It’s a work in progress but I’m really excited by it and think it will form a couple of projects to work on for the coming year. The below images should give you an idea - although neither of them are fully formed yet. Still a lot of work to be done on my technique for both.

An image that was inspired by being uninspired. Location boredom can sometimes produce something a little different. The Barn on The Roaches

In camera exposure manipulation is a genre of photography I want to explore further in 2023

Plus, I’m becoming really interested in photography at night. Not of the skies above, but of the landscape under the cover of darkness, so I’m hoping to do a few shoots in the landscape under nothing but the light of the moon.

As I review 2022, I hit upon the realisation that I should not be waiting for the landscape to inspire my photography. Rather that I need to be capturing the landscape in a more inspired and unique way. There is beauty where you find it. And, for me, I think I will start to look rather differently at each landscape in 2023. It’s time to let my creative spirit out. To stop being safe with my photography. It is time for my landscape photography to have something to say.

Wishing you a very happy and prosperous New Year - here’s to all the photography adventures we will each experience in 2023.

Dave