alan frost photography

Alternative views of the Dorset landscape

The great appeal of landscape photography is the vast variety of subject matter and how just a few steps and a change in viewpoint, can yield two entirely different images.

This is well illustrated by the two pictures in this post. The first, is I guess, a fairly classical treatment of the rolling Dorset hills and fields of barley, taken towards the end of the day on the longest day of the year. It was the shot I had wanted to capture when I returned to this particular location just south of the village of Cheselbourne. The view is of Warren Hill as the road snakes southwards on its way to Puddletown. I used a 3 stop ND filter to slow the shutter speed down to 1/6th of a second to blur the movement in the foreground. The camera was mounted on a tripod.

Fields of barley at Warren Hill

The light was constantly changing as the clouds circled around me. There was a period when I didn’t think the sun would break through. As I waited I walked across to the other side of the road, turned to look the other way, only to see the sun on the grasses, the telegraph pole and the grey clouds behind. So very different to the first shot, but for me it still has a story to tell about the Dorset landscape. For me the telegraph pole with its insulators at the top could be trying to mimic the stems and flower heads of the cowslips below.

Telegraph pole

Two very different views of Dorset from virtually the same position and both taken within an hour of each other. It has made me think more about the type of photographs I wish to take. Both styles have their merits and personally I enjoy both of them for different reasons. The main lesson is ‘look around’ there may always be an alternative picture to be taken just over the shoulder.

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A fleeting glimpse and an instinct to return

Something has changed since I started to take my photography more seriously. Quite simply I look at everything around me and consider whether or not it offers an opportunity for me to get out my camera. Inevitably some of these occasions arise when I am out and about, in the car and driving from one place to another. I will fleetingly see a possible composition but without time to stop. I then think to myself whether or not the ‘opportunity’ is worth a return visit. I also try and pre-visualise the light and more importantly the direction of the light at a particular time of day.

Three chimneys and a field of barley

This happened to me the other day when I was returning home from a rather long and tiring day at work. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a field of barley and a house on the horizon. It wasn’t the house itself that grabbed my attention but its three chimneys silhouetted against the sky.

The next day I knew that I would be passing the same location, so armed with my camera I returned to see whether or not my fleeting initial glimpse could turn into something worthwhile. I took a number of shots from different positions but I was unsure whether or not I was going to be happy with any of the results.

I returned home only to decide that I would like to go back later in the evening when the light might be better. I explored the location for a second time and felt no more inspired by the composition I was after, so I walked a little further and noticed how the late evening light was shining through the field of barley.

It wasn’t until the following morning that I downloaded the files from the memory card to the computer. To my surprise the earlier shots of the ‘three chimneys’ were the most promising and the best of the bunch is shown above. The light on barley field which was catching one particular ear in the foreground is below.

Barley in light

Having now had the chance to look more closely at these two images I really am pleased I made the effort to return to this location, following what I had seen out of the corner of my eye. I guess my eyes are learning to see – it’s such an important part of photography, perhaps the most important part in fact. You can possess the best equipment, have been trained in all the technical skills but unless your eye can truly see, then your ability to take a good image will be severely restricted. That’s not to say these are great shots but the fleeting view, combined with my instincts and a desire to return, then I would never have taken these images in the first place.

Both shots were taken hand held, with the Olympus EM5 and Panasonic 35 to 100mm f2.8 lens.

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Happy First Birthday to my Blog!

Today this Blog is one year old!

It hardly seems possible that a year has passed since my very first ‘blog entry’ – ‘Finally happy with the design’. It was not the most inspiring of entries and didn’t even include a photograph, which is a bit odd for a blog about photography……but I had to start somewhere!

In the twelve months which have followed there have been a total of 72 posts; an average of 6 posts a month. At the outset I really didn’t plan or indeed think there would be this many, to the contrary a new idea often turns into a stale one after a short period of time. What has happened in practice is quite the opposite in fact. I have thoroughly enjoyed writing these entries, the vast majority including some of the many photographs I have taken during the course of the year.

The past twelve months has seen a shift in my style of photography, mainly to black and white, and hopefully an improvement in the quality of my work. Looking back I know that I have learnt a great deal, both in terms of the taking but also the making of an image in post production. This now includes some of the skills and equipment required to produce a good print. The more knowledge I have acquired, the greater my realisation that there is even more to learn and that’s a big plus, because there are always going to be new challenges to look forward to.

I wanted to mark this day with an image taken just a few days ago. It had been a glorious summer’s day and the evening light was just beautiful, as it illuminated the trees lining the footpath and the yellow field of oil seed rape. This is now a common scene across the country, a really colourful feature of the English landscape at this time of year. In a few days time the flower heads will be gone but they are sure to return again next year.

Evening light, Idsworth

I can’t be sure how many people have read this blog over the last 52 weeks, however, irrespective of the number of visits, writing a blog was always intended to be a journal about my photography, which I could look back on as I chart my photographic progress. It was never about reaching out to a wider audience. After all I have no control over who does and who doesn’t visit the site anyway.

My enthusiasm for this hobby has grown and grown, so I will continue to post more entries as I learn fresh skills, try new techniques and make more images. This way, when I celebrate it’s second birthday, I will be able to review another year to see how far I have come. All I do know is that if the second year is as good as the first, it will be a lot of fun…..and that’s what a good hobby should be all about!

Thanks for reading.

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Flying in a new direction perhaps?

As far as my landscape photography is concerned I consider myself to be something of a traditionalist. I tend to adopt a rather ‘classical’ approach which may produce a very pleasing image, (I hope so anyway!) but it may not cross the boundary into something which might be remotely described as artistic.

Having given this a little more thought, I remembered an image I took back in February which might lend itself to a different and arguably more artistic treatment . So here is the result of my attempt at being a bit more arty!

In Flight
The crow flies away from the gorse, which is surrounded by the dune grasses
of East Head on the West Sussex coast.

As well as using my normal processing in Photoshop I have also applied ‘grain’ using Silver Efex Pro2, which I think adds something to this particular shot. It wouldn’t work for every image but I was keen to create a more atmospheric look, as well as having a bit of fun in the making.

I have to say that I was inspired to take a fresh look at my work by the work of the Welsh photographer, Chris Tancock, and in particular his on-going project called Beating the Bounds, where he explores ‘five fields over a period of five years’ and documents the changes which take place over time. Chris describes himself not as a landscape photographer but as a rural documentary photographer. I would simply call him an artist, who through his excellent work tells an intimate story about the world that surrounds him. If you have not come across his work then do click through to his website on one of the links.

Does this mark a photographic change in direction? Probably not, but I do think its very important to try new things, be willing to experiment and to challenge established techniques. At the same time it’s essential to enjoy the whole process, irrespective of the end result. Is it art? I don’t know, but I do know that I had a lot of fun making the image and that’s what really matters as far as I am concerned.

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First colour print from the Epson 3880

In a recent post I wrote about how pleased I was with the black and white results from the Epson 3880, not to mention how easy it was to set up and select the right settings. Whilst I expect most of my prints will be in monochrome, there will be times when I want to print a colour photograph, so I thought I would run a test print.

As opposed to using Lightroom I opened the image in Photoshop CS5, resized the image for A4 paper and selected the ‘Photoshop manages colours’ option. I also selected the ICC profile for the Fotospeed Platinum Lustre fine art paper which I had chosen for this first print.

The settings are shown in the screen shot below.

The print settings in the Epson print driver is shown below.

The printer started doing its job and the result looked quite promising. The printed colours were as I had hoped, although the clouds in the sky were rather more grey than blue when compared to how they appeared on the screen, but arguably more true to the scene itself.

I have taken a shot of the finished print standing against the iMac. A camera will never satisfactorily capture the true colours of a back lit computer screen so it would be wrong to compare the print with this image below, so its purely for illustrative purposes. Having said that the screen does appear to have a ‘blue’ cast, so this is something I need to look in to in the future. It may well be the iMac needs calibrating which is something I have not done for quite some time. So in colour terms the print isn’t perfect but it’s more than acceptable and frankly if it wasn’t standing alongside the monitor no one would know the difference anyway.

Having seen the results of this first test print I decided to print another version of the image with the same paper, ICC profile etc but using Lightroom instead of Photoshop. Lightroom has a ‘sharpening’ algorithm built in, so I wanted to compare the results both in terms of sharpness but also to see whether or not there was any noticeable colour variation.

In the print module in Lightroom I used the settings below, selecting ‘glossy’ paper for the print sharpening.

When laid side by side the colour rendition of the two prints was very similar. I could not detect any difference in the greens and oranges of the foreground and middle distance, nor could I see any change to the colours in the distant hills and the clouds. It’s pleasing to know there is no discernible difference when printing between these two programs, with one notable exception. The big difference between the two prints was the sharpness. I had not applied any extra sharpening when I printed from Photoshop, whereas Lightroom had applied it’s own sharpening for the size of print. There is no question the additional sharpening applied by Lightroom improved the image considerably. The grasses in the foreground now had real impact. The same can be said of the wall and the branches of the trees.

Given these were the first colour prints from the Epson 3880, I am very pleased. It really is quite a printer and in no way am I disappointed with any aspect of the product. Having read so many excellent reviews before deciding to purchase the 3880, there is always the possibility that it wouldn’t have met with expectations. This is far from the case. It’s a first class printer which more than meets my requirements and whilst it’s expensive at nearly £1,000, it fully justifies the cost in my opinion.

I now need to make sure that the quality of my photographs are up to the quality of the Epson 3880; after all, ‘rubbish in and rubbish out’, as the saying goes!

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