A New Way of Thinking

Over the last few days I have come to a realisation about the ways in which I work. A lot of my landscape image feature wide and bold compositions and vivid, saturated colours. Now before I go any further I would like to stress that there is nothing at all wrong with that kind of image, in fact I am quite partial to strikingly saturated images. However it is the way in which these images are viewed, whether consciously or not, that I find quite interesting. Read more.....

A lot of the images I am referring to are very dramatic, that along with vivid, saturated colours makes for a very arresting image that immediately grabs the viewers attention. Imagine a photograph of a waterfall, nicely composed foreground rocks leading up to a spectacular waterfall. While this may make for a very attention grabbing image, it has little substance. What I am trying to say is that the image tells the whole story and that there is little for the viewer to work out for themselves, as a result, the image may only stay in the viewers mind for a few hours, maybe a day, after which it is filed away at the back of their mind along with all the other imagery we are bombarded with every day. Subsequently the image may be forgotten. With this in mind I traveled to Pontneddfechan to visit Sgwd Ddwli, a location I have been to countless times, with the aim of creating something new, a different view if you will. I wanted to create images with a sense of mystery and intrigue, if the images I talked about before were the whole story, consider these an unfinished book.

Canon EOS 40 D | Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM @ 35mm | 2.5 sec | f/8 | ISO 100 | CPL

The above image was taken at a small waterfall just upstream of Sgwd Ddwli. I was initially drawn to the curve of the water flowing around the rock and as I got closer I also noticed the subtle patterns that the flowing water was creating on the surface. I framed the shot without the waterfall in frame and used a polariser to cut reflections from the waters surface, allowing me to capture the pebbles on the riverbed as well. I chose a shutter speed of 2.5 seconds to capture just enough movement in the water without allowing it to glass over completely. I think there is something very fascinating about this image with the pebbles below the surface obscured by the water rushing over them and the wonder of what lays upstream.

The next image is of Sgwd Ddwli itself, the conditions at this locations were not what would normally be considered god wheather for photography. Dull skies and rain. However in conditions like this you get a very nice quality of light, very soft and diffuse, offering vibrant colours and more subtle tonal gradations than you would find in direct sunlight.

Canon EOS 40 D | Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM @ 35mm | 30 sec | f/22 | ISO 100 | CPL

So to compliment the quality of light I created a simple composition, balancing not just the physical elements within the frame but also the tonal aspects of the image. I like the simplicity in the arrangement of the foreground rocks and the intrigue created by the bottom of the waterfall just visible at the top.

Canon EOS 40 D | Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM @ 35mm | 0.6 sec | f/4 | ISO 100 | CPL

This last image was taken in the river between the two falls. There was a very nice quality of light here with the soft light from the overcast sky filtering through the trees overhead, giving the scene a very subtle green tint. I like the simplicity of the composition and I already know what you're thinking. Did I place the leaf? Maybe I did, maybe I did not. Either way does it really matter? I know a lot of people who would disagree with that kind of practice, if I moved the leaf I would not be creating an accurate depiction of the scene would I? The way I see it is that a photograph by it's very nature can not be an accurate depiction of what a photographer saw. For the simple reason that even before the image is taken, conscious decisions are made about how the scene is going to be manipulated, a photographers choice of viewpoint, focal length, film/sensor, aperture and shutter speed all contribute to this. But is that even the point? And just for the record, I did move the leaf.