Movin'

I guess that the time has come to announce that we've moved to Malvern in Worcestershire. The images in this post were made during a walk to the Beacon on the Malvern Hills on a foggy Sunday morning recently.

A Tree In Winter

Another image from the Burtle set. Once the sun had set, a mist started to rise.

Four Trees

How much longer can this go on?

Two Trees

Following the runaway success of the previous image, here's another of trees at Shapwick.

One Tree

This image fits my rules that I've previously described for images of trees. I went with a sepia tone to match the other images in this series. It's also the first image made this year that I've posted. Pity that its not more prepossessing.

More trees next time. 

Back to the Source

Over the New Year we found ourselves at Lacock Abbey for a trip out on the one day of the holiday with decent weather. There was bright sunshine and no breeze to speak of.

For a change, I took my Alpha 77 with my Tamron super-zoom attached - it usually lives on my Alpha 550, which I use as my landscape camera. I don't really know why I did this - it may be that I felt that I should visit Fox Talbot's home with nothing less than my best camera.

Whatever, round the back of the brew house, I found this pond where I made a number of images. I made a few with the wrong ISO setting before I realised and corrected it. This is one of my favourites. I'll post some of the others shortly.

The Trees Outside the Academy

This is one of those images - I like it, but I really don't know if its a good image or not.

We were walking back down from the island when I saw this shot - I say saw, but it was at the extremity of my zoom lens, I've had to crop it still further and I still think that it could do with a bit more in that respect. And I can't decide if I should've cloned out the seagull or not.

Sun, Sky, Shapwick

Another image from the visit to Shapwick.

Five Trees...

...are fifteen.

Its been a while since I posted anything to do with trees. Some of you may remember that I wrote a piece about the particular kind of image that I was trying to make.

I made this image a few weeks ago, standing on the village green in Priddy, and I think that I'm approaching some approximation of the image that's in my head. But I'm not quite there yet.

Somerset Skyline

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.