We’ve had some pretty variable weather so far this winter, with it being unseasonably warm at times but also days with sustained heavy frosts. Unfortunately for most of the latter days I’ve either been working, unwell or had other commitments,… Read More »Sherwood Forest Frost 2023
Over Christmas 2021 I was staying in Richmond, North Yorkshire for a few nights with my parents and family. It’s a beautiful part of the country that we’re lucky to get to visit regularly, at least in normal times.
I always tend to take my camera kit with me when we visit, but in recent years have rarely used it whilst there. Partly as we’re often only away for a couple of days and with two kids the focus is really on the family time. Especially with it being Christmas I thought the chances of photography would be even lower than normal, but given hints of snow on the forecast I couldn’t help hoping a brief opportunity might present itself.
Read More »Snow and Fog in Yorkshire
I’ve recently spent a week on a family holiday, staying just outside Embleton in Northumberland. The last time I visited the area was around 4 years ago and you can see the images from that trip in a previous blog post here.
That previous visit had a mix of fairly traditional landscape images and more abstract impressions which was a reasonable reflection of my style at the time. I had some specific evenings taking the camera out for photography and was treated to decent weather with some nice evening light.
Read More »Embleton Bay
It’s been a quiet spell on the photography front for me, motivation has been pretty low in general for a year or so now. In March I had a week on a workshop up in Ardnamurchan which was fantastic to get the mojo going again, but we came back home pretty much right when the UK was going into lockdown, not the best time to keep the creativity up.
Read More »Foggy Woodland
Having spent a lot of time photographing Sherwood Forest, for my yearlong project and beyond, I was delighted to be contacted by the RSPB at the start of this year about their project to restore the old visitor centre area within the forest.
For those who aren’t aware, the RSPB took over management of Sherwood last year, and part of the changeover was working alongside Natural England to relocate the visitor centre, as the old one built in the 1970s was within a Site of Special Scientific Interest, with the buildings, car parks and footfall all having an impact on the ancient oaks nearby.
Read More »RSPB Sherwood Commission
For years I’ve seen photos taken with infrared converted cameras and loved the look and feel, but never had the money to buy or convert a camera body myself.
I recently decided just to pick up a cheap infrared filter for the kit lens on my Fuji X-M1 which I use quite a bit for abstract work, and see how I got on with it.
Read More »Infrared Filter
On Friday I was at Kew Gardens for the launch of the IGPOTY exhibition, more on that in a future blog, but I decided to take my little Fuji X-M1 with the fantastic 27mm 2.8 pancake lens along to take a few snaps of the exhibition, plus I’d left myself a couple of hours extra before my train in case there were any photo opportunities.
A lot of photographers would relish the opportunity to have a couple of hours in London with a camera, but I couldn’t be more uncomfortable at the thought of street photography, architecture isn’t my bag either and flat midday light plus a wide angle lens isn’t what I’d usually choose for photographing trees.
Read More »Palm House
My local Nottinghamshire landscape isn’t the most exciting for a photographer, especially when you’re seeing epic vistas posted on social media every week from people who can travel a lot, or live with the Highlands on their doorstep. It’s easy to get jealous and blame your surroundings for lack of inspiration. We have plenty of good forests and woodland which I love to shoot, but I wanted to create something different.
Having tried some more abstract techniques including multiple exposures and intentional camera movement over the past year or so I had been playing with the idea of trying to make an alternate landscape from my local area. I’ve done a couple of small projects recently and put some focus into the idea of creating something from nothing, but I wanted to do something bigger this time, I wanted to transport the viewer to one of those epic mountain vistas.
Read More »Mountains from Molehills
I recently had a well earned break in Keswick in the Lake District, it was a family occasion to celebrate me turning 30 and our 8 month old daughter’s first holiday so photography wasn’t top of the agenda, but I knew I could squeeze in a couple of outings with the camera and was hoping to make the most of this to bank a few shots with the amazing scenery that we don’t have here in Nottingham.
We stopped with my parents in Yorkshire on the way there and back and on the first of these I suggested a drive to West Burton as I wanted to check out the well known waterfall there. The weather wasn’t brilliant but there was still good potential and I spent a while trying some different angles, it was also my first use of the new Manfrotto 190XPROB tripod in the field which did a great job. I’ve seen some beautiful autumnal shots of these falls so tried something different with a dark black and white take on the scene.
Read More »Keswick
Most people get excited at the prospect of snow round here, especially photographers as it transforms the landscape and opens up lots of different shots which wouldn’t normally work. We only seem to get one day with a decent covering each year recently so you have to make the most of the opportunity!
It wasn’t exactly a blizzard but we woke up this morning to a light dusting, enough that out in the countryside it had settled well, so I set off at 7:30 to catch first light and spend a couple of hours walking round a local spot near Calverton, Nottingham where there’s an area of woodland and the old colliery spoil heap to get some views from.
Read More »Snow Photos