Wilderness and Countryside are things that i typically find difficult to Photograph, i find landscape photography quite amazing because its not something i have ever been very good at.
For this reason i plan to research first, which isn't my usual approach to work- i tend to photograph first then find relevant examples to fit with my work. But with this i think the research will help me to understand what can be done with Landscape Photography.
I love the work of Ansel Adams, he is considered the Pioneer of Landscape photography and his work was concentrated on areas of un-touched natural beauty, places that hadn't been spoiled by man made objects and installations. When he was Photographing these places years ago this would have been a slightly easier task, now almost everywhere contains some evidence of man, even a pylon in the distance of a beautiful landscape, or tiny dots that are houses in the distance.
Photo By Ansel Adams
Photo By Ansel Adams
I also like the work of Faye Godwin. She doesnt seem to have an overall style in the way she photographs things, she shows us places using glimpses of small personal items, people signs and buildings as well as the landscape type image. But she doesnt concentrate on the beautiful landscapes and instead gives us a more 'real' view of what she saw.
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Photo by Fay Godwin
I also like the work or Joel Meyerowitz- his book cape light is the best selling colour photography book of all time and despite the lack of appreciation for it at first, i now think his use of colour and light in landscapes are beautiful. His images are an example of just how well an everyday place can be taken and turned into a work or art. His work is also very pleasing on the eye compared to some of Fay Godwins work as hers is more contextual.
Photo by Joel Meyerowitz
This is my favourite image of his, mainly for the creative use of mixed lighting- the moonlight, car headlights, the streetlight and the red glow coming from the interior of the car. The vibrant colours and sky give a sense of a warm summer night. Although this isn't quite wilderness or countryside it leads me on to this other image as coastal is also included in this part of the brief:
Photo By Joel Meyerowitz
Here are a few examples of my work, this image was taken when we had the really bad snow recently from my bedroom window, it was taken around lunch time, i had noticed the light on the landscape and the snow made a beautiful view. I have since converted it into Black and White because in high contrast the tones are more noticable so it is easier to appreciate.
It was taken with my Canon 50D shot through the glass of my window.
F14, 1/100 Sec, ISO 100
I used a reasonably small aperture to give the image a good depth of field, this is the original crop, i have also shown a further image which is the same but i have cropped this to cut out some unwanted detail in the bottom of the image. I found it difficult to decide which one i preferred so decided to put them both on my blog for now.
After doing this i decided this was an area i would try to experiment with a little more- having met the learning outcomes on the brief Katy advised me that it wasnt compulsory to show work in each of the 4 areas. But as i find this so challenging i wanted to at least attempt to experiment in this area of Photography.
I went for a walk up this hill a few days ago as i wanted to practise and it was a beautiful day, the clouds in the sky were so defined and i wanted to produce an image that showed the landscape as close to what i saw as possible- i usually find with landscapes that the image doesnt come close to being as pretty as the real thing.
So i decided i would either use HDR or layer the images to enable me to expose correctly for the sky then correctly for the land, i did this by producing several images of each scene, they are shown below on the contact sheet:
After looking through the images i selected one of the scenes and chose the image where the clouds were most pronounced, i then chose an image from the same scene where the land was correctly exposed. I took them into Photoshop and increased the clarity and vibrance on both images and the contrast on the one i was using for the sky.
Before i used HDR i decided to try layering the two images, to do this i started with the image i was using for the sky, then layered over this the image i was using for the ground. Then using the eraser tool i went over the sky and deleted it, revealing the vibrant and pronounced sky from the background image. It took some time to carefully erase the top layer but this is the final image i produced:
F6.3, 1/800 Sec, ISO 100
I am really pleased with the result and this has made me realise just how much an image can be enhanced using Photoshop, in future though when photographing landscapes i will use a smaller aperture to get a greater depth of field- rather than changing the shutter speed, i think i did this without thinking.
Despite using a shallow depth of field i dont think it has spoilt the image as its not overly clear that certain areas are out of focus.
Overall i think this shows an improvement from my previous landscape images.
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