I've been trying to photograph trees for a while now, with little success. This is frustrating because I find trees to be the most sculptural elements in the landscape. However, this continued failure may result from the very strong sense that I have of the image that I want to make, and it's entirely possible that the reality of such an image is less prepossessing than I imagine. In fact, the evidence is starting to point in that direction.
So, what is this image that I'm trying to make? Well, I think that the best way to to describe it is to outline the rules that it has to conform to.
Firstly, the photograph must be of trees on the horizon, with only sky for background. In Somerset, this is harder than it sounds. When I first started trying to make landscape images, I was obsessed with removing every sign of human habitation and it was only at that point that I realised just how cluttered the skyline round here is. Currently, there's a local pressure group campaigning against the building of new electricity pylons on aesthetic grounds. They obviously haven't spent much time trying to find somewhere were you can't see the existing ones.
Secondly, whilst the tree can be - slightly - in front of the horizon, it mustn't be behind it i.e. the while tree, from base to top, must be visible and form part of the image.
Another consideration is that bare branches look better than ones with foliage, so the image has to be made during winter, or the tree needs to be dead. A late Spring helps, also.
The image above was made a couple of weeks ago. I'd spotted this pair of trees on my way to work, passing over the Mendips, so one morning I stopped. In retrospect, I should have left it until the afternoon as I don't like the backlighting - I'd prefer more detail in the subject and foreground. Still, this is the best that I've managed so far and it will have to do for now. I expect that I'll return to the subject at some point in the near future.
Bit of a stop-gap, this one. The spring flowers, including the daffs, are over now. This image was taken a couple of weeks ago in our garden in Somerset. I'm not even sure what sort of flower it is, but the brilliant blue attracted me.
I was back out there this weekend as we've some tulips that are coming up and I had a weekend off from Liverpool and the in-laws. But I haven't processed the results of that session, in fact they're still on the camera. Life in the fast lane and all that...
Back in Liverpool this weekend and the builders have started work in my father's house. They've stripped the hallway, the stairs and the landing, removing the carpets and revealing layers of paint on the floorboards.
When my grandparents had the place, fitted carpets were the exception. There was a strip of carpet running up the stairs, held in place with brass stair rods, with the bare boards either side gloss painted.
Funnily enough, a couple of years ago we decided to recreate this look in our own house. The idea was eventually abandoned due to cost as the edges of the carpet need to be braided and that was expensive. Strange how a style defined by thrift gets acquired by the affluent becomes the very opposite.
Finding things to do over the Easter bank holiday was a bit of a challenge, given the freezing weather. On the Monday, we found our way to Westonzoyland pumping station, were there's a steam museum. The thinking was that its a steam museum, so it's bound to be warm, right?
Well, sort of. It was damned expensive to get in - £5 a head, although our five year old went free. And the place was basically a bunch of steam engines, which aren't really my thing, in an old shed. Who'd have thought?
But we set about the 'I Spy' quiz and whiled away a couple of hours. At three o'clock they fired up the main pumping engine and another half hour disappeared. Then tea and cake in the cafe, and off home to get warm.
The image above is of the main pump, taken using my Alpha 550 and Tamron super-zoom, which is really slooooow at the telephoto end. I'm inordinately proud of this photo, not because of the composition or the exposure, but because it was taken handheld at 1/10th. There's another image below, of the engine in operation, taken at the same shutter speed, just to prove that it wasn't a fluke.
Back in Somerset and one last image from the Spring garden - a crocus open in some of the recent sunshine.
