The trials of the past year have meant that I have spent large parts of the year unable to do what I have been doing for 25 years – taking photographs of people. I have always felt that using a camera is very much like playing a musical instrument. If you don’t practise, very soon your skills are going to get rusty. The COVID guidance for professional photographers has been vague to say the least. Studios that serve the public have had to close while commercial studios can stay open. Ask a group of photographers what you are and aren’t allowed to do and you will get a raft of different answers. I decided that I had to keep producing work but that I wanted to limit my contact with other people. Landscapes seemed the obvious answer, they offered a chance to get out of the house and combine my daily exercise with a bit of creativity
Landscape photography is the search for serendipity. The alignment of place, light and weather. Most of the time these things don’t cooperate and if you are strong minded you won’t take a picture. Usually will find myself taking test photos if conditions aren’t perfect. Checking angles and viewpoints and trying to work out the best time of day to come back. If the image is by the sea I have to factor in tide times as well. I do more planning than shooting most of the time.
I am working to a couple of themes, but they are changing and evolving as I go. This will be a long journey I don’t know the destination…yet.
