Start of Summer

It’s beginning to feel like Summer. I was never really a big fan of the season but in recent years, I’ve grown to love it. I embrace warmth, long days, sheltering from the hot sun in cool shade. My photography seems to be reflecting that which is around me. Fields and meadows bursting with delicate flowers.Long grass dancing in the summer breeze.

All the images on this post are made with the Pentax K70 and various lenses. It is a joy to use, reliable and with great image reproduction. My main gear is as ever, evolving. I won’t be updating on any changes in gear as I would prefer my work to be judged on its creative merits rather than any fancy camera or lens. You see the world through the eyes of a photographer as you do with a painter, illustrator and in general, all artists. It is an interpretation of that world which the recipient is able to make a connection. Photography is as much of a valid art-form as any other. We as photographers, try to capture moments and produce our interpretation of that moment.

These images aren’t all the sharpest I could provide. The camera, lenses and photographer are all capable of producing pin sharp photos but I chose to not go for that. Summer isn’t always the sharpest season, in that light and nature are sometimes more of a feeling than an observation. A field of wildflowers with a hazy background can be as evocative as a clinically in focus photo of a flower, tree or landscape. Cloudless skies, strong shadows will make sharp images and I’m a fan of those ; but just because of that admiration, it doesn't exclude more subtle images. Maybe this is part of my creative evolution? I know I can do sharp, I choose not to do so.

The other thing I’ve noticed in the last week or so is how much green there is. All shades of green, some subtle, some vivid but there’s a lot of it. We endure winters where trees and shrubs are stripped of foliage, preserving their energy for surviving in cold, dark inhospitable conditions. These couple of months when trees come into full bloom are the greenest they will be. Later on in summer, the trees show signs of having too much of a good thing.

I like summer. I really like summer, it’s probably my favourite season partly because autumn follows on from summer. Autumn, with its oranges, yellows, browns is often thought of as the top landscape/nature photography season. So many Lightroom presets are created to help you find the perfect edit for your autumnal images. I get that, I understand the allure of those photos. I love capturing them, eating them, printing them. Summer however, is a great time to be out in nature. You wear less, you have longer days to work with. I am fair skinned and the sun likes me. I burn easily but these days, I learn to live with it and compensate for it. I really love observing hot sun from a shady spot. I get all the visual benefits of summer without the downsides of being out in full sun. Ultimately as creatives, we have to work with what’s available and within the confines of our environment and season. The start of summer is a good time for me and let’s hope it continues for the next few months!

Autumn Walk.

Birch Tree - Panasonic S5 + Panasonic 24-105mm f/4

I have a lingering, annoying cold. It has been here nearly a week and it’s getting me down. I have missed opportunities to go out and capture the majestic displays of autumn. I haven’t been feeling overly positive of late, and having to sell my Leica to recoup some funds, only made this worse. As someone who suffered with clinical depression for several years, it is always a worry. Am I slipping back into the darkness again? Is the black dog trotting his way up the garden path? I think it feels more physical health related this time and hopefully when this bloody cold goes, I’ll perk up. That’s the excuses out of the way and now onto one of the two photowalks I have managed this week.

I stopped at Chellowdene on the outskirts of Bradford on Thursday this week. It is a place I have been to many times in all weathers, lights and times of year. Autumn is maybe where it is at its finest however. The rambling woods lead to two reservoirs constructed first in 1844 and then 1853, were built to supply fresh drinking water to the city of Bradford. They are very popular with dog walkers and locals wanting to stretch their legs. My late mum played in these woods as a child in the 1930’s. I wandered through the woods to the upper reservoir, stopping frequently to capture the beautiful burnished colours, crunching over a carpet of leaves. I felt pretty dreadful butt also determined to not turn round and get back in the car. The lure of capturing some seasonal colour was too much and also, I wanted to give my Panasonic S5, a runout.

As I have owned one of these cameras before, it felt familiar and comfortable. I forgot how well it performs and the level of detail you can recover from the raw files. It made me wonder why I had sold it for the Leica, given that they do share certain internal components, thanks to the Panasonic/Leica hook up. I was grateful for the in-body image stabilisation as my hands were particularly shaky thanks to the cold and general feeling of feebleness. It pairs very well with the 24-105 lens which also has image stabilisation. The Lens is probably the nicest kit lens of any manufacturer I have ever owned. Simple, effective and not overly heavy. It does the simple things well.

I am glad I managed to get out and get some photos. I am always happiest when I have a camera in hand. This is only marginally better than looking and processing the raw images. To see your photos come alive in Lightroom is a joy. The greatest moment for me in any photography, is the split second before the shutter goes. Can you capture what is not only before you but what you see as being before you. These for me are very different in that one is how the scene is and the other is how you envisage it could be portrayed. I am not a landscape photographer in any way. I don’t want to recreate the scene exactly as it is. I know many landscape photographers will manipulate their raw images to create a certain mood or bring out facets in the composition which I guess is where I am. I went for a darker moodier vibe this time, wanting the colours to pop but the skies and shadows to also predominate. When I’ve shaken this cold, I hope to get out again and do some more photos before the trees lose all their leaves and winter sets in. Sorry for the moaning and thanks for reading so far. Enjoy your Sunday!

Autumn Has Arrived!

I’m not a landscape photographer. I tend to find that most landscape photographers think like landscape photographers. They have a love of nature, of painting a scene with an image. I am in awe of many great landscape photographers for both their work and their dedication to it. To be fair, most types of photography attracts slightly obsessive people. You put a camera in the hand of photographer and they begin to imagine the perfect scene. I do have that need to create but I’m not fixed or have a strong preference to any form of subject. Autumn however, does bring out the landscape photographer in me. The mixture of vibrant colours as the deciduous trees, turn their canopies of green into browns, yellows, orange, red. The light is different this time of year as it can be bright but not as intense.

I like the freshness, that slight nip in the air. It can also be more of a lottery as to whether it pours down all day, blows a gale or produces a frost. I went out yesterday morning up above Gibson Mill in West Yorkshire. I had no intention of walking to the mill but knew that the path down offered several opportunities for some compositions. I went armed with all manual lenses as there was no need to focus quickly. My Voigtlander 35mm f1.4 Nokton Classic is proving to be a wonderful addition to my kit. It’s small, easy to focus and very sharp even when fully open. I also used my old faithful Pentax SMC 135mm f3.5 and Olympus Zuiko 50mm f1.4. The 50mm is proving to be a lovely sharp lens even though the focus throw on it is quite a lot more than my Voigtlander. The beauty of shooting manually on the Leica is that often, the process is quicker than trying to nail autofocus (an issue I discussed in my previous blog post). The beauty of using old lenses is the way they render colour. Pentax lenses seem almost tailor made for autumn as they can be slightly more subdued than the exuberant depths of colour you can get from Zuiko lenses. One advantage of shooting manually whilst out amongst abound rich colours and mist is that you take your time more. I am naturally impatient but autumn tends to slow me down. Less desire to nail one photo and then move on.

Early autumn is often my favourite time of year. There is still enough daylight to explore without the worry of darkness appearing. You don’t have to get up at a silly hour to capture a sunrise. There’s something more respectable about 7.30 am than the 5am starts in Summer. As a photographer, you have to be able to adapt to whatever season or weather condition you’re faced with but we will all have a preference. Mine is now and for the next few weeks before winter grasps us in its foreboding icy clutches. I’m determined to capture the moments before the weather/lack of light and general stupidity of the festive season, takes hold.