Dorset | alan frost photography

Posts tagged ‘Dorset’

Churches Project no 20 – St Cuthbert’s Old Church, Oborne

St Cuthberts's Old Church-3

This tiny church in Dorset was built in 1533 and has historical and religious connections with Sherborne Abbey, which lies to the west. The name Oborne derives from the Old English words, woh and burna, and means a crooked stream. Although the above photograph would suggest a tranquil rural setting, the church is actually sited alongside the A30, a fairly busy road between Yeovil and Shaftesbury.

St Cuthberts's Old Church

The rustic simplicity of the church and the lovely light appealed to me, which resulted in these two internal pictures.

St Cuthberts's Old Church-2

I am particularly drawn to the light but also to studies of one aspect of a church interior. I don’t wish to record or capture everything in the one frame, and for this reason the image above of the light coming in through the open door and illuminating the altar rail and step appeals to me.

Like so many of these small, rural churches it is no longer used for regular parish worship and is cared for by The Churches Conservation Trust.

Dorset in the snow

The number of times we experience snow in southern England are relatively rare, although we have had two quite significant falls in the past few weeks. What perhaps is more unusual, is for me to be in the right place and have the time to make some photographs of a ‘white’ landscape which is so well suited to monochrome.

In the past few days we have had the ‘Mini Beast from the East’, a lesser version of ‘The Beast from the East’ which took place at the turn of the month. I have read this morning that ‘The Beast from the East 3’ is being forecast for Easter. I am not a great fan of this naming of weather events, but the media machine clearly benefits.

Yesterday I was in Dorset and virtually all the roads were passable with care. I only had to turn round once where drifting snow had blocked the way ahead. I was fortunate to have good cloud cover as well. I was pleased the sun didn’t shine, as this would only have increased contrast and made setting the correct exposure even more challenging.

I thoroughly enjoyed a cold but photographically productive few hours finding suitable locations and compositions.

The snow simplifies the landscape. Shapes, lines, form and texture come to the fore. The snow helps to emphasise all these ingredients which are always important to a black and white photographer.

Do click on any of the images to view a larger version.

If at first you don’t succeed…..

……..then try, try, and try again.

Milton Abbey

It goes without saying that any outdoor photography is weather dependent. Sometimes the conditions are just right, and at other times they work against you.

This was very much the case during a recent workshop in Dorset with another photographer – Anthony Blake. Throughout the day it had been overcast and misty. As we approached our final destination before the sun set, we walked up a hill to the site of St Catherine’s Chapel in the hope that we would enjoy a great view of Milton Abbey through the trees. On arriving unfortunately the Abbey was nowhere to be seen. A veil of mist had descended in the valley and obscured its view. We waited a while but if anything the mist was getting worse not better.

We returned to the car and drove around looking for different viewpoint without any success. Unfortunately the light was fading fast but we decided to try one more time and return to the first location in the wishful hope that the mist might have lifted.

Much to our surprise and delight the Abbey could now be seen and you can see the result in the image above. An ethereal view of the Abbey with the mist hanging in the valley but with a clearly visible outline of the hills in the distance. I was very fortunate to capture this view…….and in doing so I couldn’t help but be reminded of the saying which I have used for the title of this post.

The Beech Avenue at Kingston Lacy

Beech Avenue

It’s been quite a while since the last entry on this blog. Regular readers will know that I had my first exhibition last month and I will be writing about the experience very soon. For now I thought I would share with you some images taken and made just before the exhibition took place back in the early part of November.

Bracken – when an overriding instinct prevails

As hard as I try I can’t break out of my comfort zone. Whenever I find myself in a beautiful location which is full of colour, my instinctive monochromatic mind gets the better of me. As I explore the autumnal woodland of Arne Nature Reserve, near Wareham in Dorset I have a perfectly acceptable colour subject in front of me but in visualising and later processing the image I soon strip away all the colour, and work on a black and white conversion, and here is the result. A shot of ‘Bracken’ in amongst conifers.

I am not colour blind but I do seem to see the world in black and white and of course all the shades of grey in between. I am drawn to a pleasing composition, shapes and lines, strong textures and different tones. I believe my creativity improves once the distraction of colour is removed from the frame. I start to see things more clearly and whilst you cannot tell by looking at an image on a screen, a well printed black and white image on a suitable photographic paper is hard to beat.

Do click on the image to view a larger version and truly appreciate the level of detail in this shot.

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