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JamesK
26th August 2011, 09:40 PM
Does anybody think that, in general terms, the South of England is better than the North for photographic locations?

I know there's the Yorkshire Dales and Northumbria, but the North Yorkshire Moors, and Pennines, while majestic, are a little too sublime and devoid of detail, in my opinion, for photography. Similarly, the Yorkshire Wolds are nice to go to, but not to photograph.

As they say "a good view does not neccessarily a good picture make".

The South, by comparison, seems to have more "classic" landscape elements, and just seems to be more picturesque, in both the strict and general senses of the word.

Although it could be the usual bias towards the South in such publications, my collection of Batsford Colour books seems to bear this out, with a "straw poll" of the various books of Britain / England in general only having about 4% of the pictures from Yorkshire, bearing in mind that taken as a whole, Yorkshire is the biggest county.

(This is, of course, ignoring the volumes devoted to specific counties of England.)

Should anyone think I'm doing a "grim oop't North" put-down, I have to say that I'm from the North myself, and, this being the case, it could be that I feel "the grass is always greener".

This is a serious question that I'd like to hear opinions on.

Alan Clark
26th August 2011, 10:02 PM
James,
You are joking of course.
And it's the "North York Moors" by the way, not the "North Yorkshire Moors" ....

Alan

B&W Neil
26th August 2011, 10:10 PM
In my experience more or less anywhere in England / Scotland and Wales will provide fantastic image making opportunities. I just wish I could live long enough to get round them all. But in the mean tiime I will put up with West Cornwall :D

Neil.

paddy
26th August 2011, 10:17 PM
If your on about landscape photography, then the whole of the uk is
good enough, you will find somewhere to photograph the great outdoors
almost anywhere
paddy

Mike O'Pray
26th August 2011, 10:45 PM
I take it that for some reason we are excluding Wales and Scotland, some areas of which may be closer to photographers in England than other areas in England with comparable scenery? Is this an academic debate attempting to get to a decision by opinion/vote on which is best, North or South, overall in one country or are we trying to decide what aspects of what kind of photography are best represented in different regions of England?

Depending on what you want to take pictures of and where you live then it might be entirely practical to cross the border and go to Scotland or Wales.

We can offer info on what we know to be represented in areas we have been to or debate for fun, as long as it remains fun, whether the South( ending where?) is better than the North( ending where?).

Dave lives in middle England, the best bit, as he says and for many reasons it is but if mountains and lakes are your thing then it might fail to live up to this description of best.

I am a middle England resident as well. A great county is Northants. The canals are great and the village churches are superb but of course the water's too hard to mix with whisky. Still nowhere is perfect :D

My last paragraph tells everyone that I do not think this N v S scenery fpr photography can be or should be taken seriously.

My last word on the subject.

Mike

Bob
26th August 2011, 10:50 PM
Go North for drama, South West for rolling countryside, East for skies, and London in order to buy the materials and get out again as quickly as possible (spoken as a born Londoner...).

:)

Les McLean
26th August 2011, 11:22 PM
Regardless of whether you are in the north, south, east or west it's the light you are photographing so why bother about making pedantic statements.

Jon Butler
27th August 2011, 04:39 AM
Go North for drama, South West for rolling countryside, East for skies, and London in order to buy the materials and get out again as quickly as possible (spoken as a born Londoner...).

So London is not for living in or taking pictures then, so that's where I've been going wrong.
I agree totley with Les.
J.

Bill
27th August 2011, 06:05 AM
James, what happened to the Lake District in your list for the North?

To me the best places are the North and Cornwall/Devon.

East Anglia is too flat and the SE corner of the country just too built up.

However I think Les and Jon have made the best point. At the end of the day it is up to the photographer to make the best of the area he/she is in.

Bill

mono
27th August 2011, 06:50 AM
It is in yourself to make the most out of it, wherever you are.

Alan Clark
27th August 2011, 09:13 AM
I blame all those glossy photo magazines! They are always running articles about the "best" photographic locations. They even list the "best" times to go! As if...... No wonder we see so many photographic cliches - usually in colour for some reason.
Dorset - Durdle Door and Lulworth Cove.
Yorkshire Dales - Swaledale barns, Aysgarth Falls.
North Yorkshire coast - west pier at Whitby, wreck, Black Nab.
And so on. There is no harm in this trophy hunting approach to photography if it's what interests you, but it does lead to a lot of anonymous, and it has to be said, rather superficial photographs, and areas of the country being judged according to how many photographic honey pots they contain.
Personally I am much happier photographing things that mean something to me, usually through long association. I try to make photographs that say something about how I feel about the subject, and for other photographers with this personal approach every square mile of the country is of potential interest. North, south, Rast and West. Even Wales and Scotland! Even Teesside! (where I was born)
Earlier this year I went on a walking holiday to the Pembrokeshire coast. My first visit. A wonderful place, but I didn't take any photographs. I wasn't there long enough to get to know it.
For me geting to know somewhere can take years. I have lived near the Yorkshire Wolds for eight years but only started to take photographs there a few weeks ago. James mentions the Yorkshire wolds in his original post. He says they are an interesting place to visit but not to photograph. This made me smile. I have become abslutely bowled over at the prospect of photographing there, but it is not an easy place to deal with.

Les makes an interesting point about light being the important thing. I'm not sure I entirely agree with this Les, if you mean that you want a certain kind of light. At the moment I am happy to photograph the Wolds in any light, just to be absorbed in the process of doing it; which is as important to me as the end result. So far my best pictures of the Wolds were take under dark ominous skies, with cloud shadows and patches of sunlight running over the huge fields. But I am more than happy to explore other lighting conditions.

Alan

Tony Marlow
27th August 2011, 09:58 AM
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Tony

les dix
27th August 2011, 10:00 AM
I agree with what Alan says. I have lived near a particular spot for over twenty years but I only started seeing its photographic potential in the past five years or so and this has turned into a project (some pics are in 'landscape in transition' in the albums section).

This summer I went to Skye for a week and had a lovely time and some good weather but got very little out of it photographically.

Les

Dave miller
27th August 2011, 10:02 AM
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Tony

But some are myopic. ;)

Alan Clark
27th August 2011, 10:07 AM
Thanks Les. I'm pleased to know it's not just me then!

Alan

Richard Gould
27th August 2011, 10:16 AM
I have to Agree with Les, it is great light that makes a great photograph, wherever you are there are terrific photo oppertunities just waiting for a camera and film, just wait for the right light, Living in Jersey I am blessed with some tremendos scenery and for three months of the year some great light almost all day, and good light in Summer, and France is just 12 miles away, close enough to just hop a ferry for an hour,so I have the best of both worlds,
Richard

Alan Clark
27th August 2011, 10:29 AM
Many years ago John Blakemore told me that he spent two years photographing a small stream in Derbyshire. He only went in Winter, and he went every Sunday morning and made photographs in whatever light prevaled at the time. He didn't wait for "great" light, but he produced what looked to me like wonderful photographs.
There is a parallel here, I think with the Impressionist painters. They painted the effect of light on their subject, but Cezanne, an associate of the Impressionists, concentrated on the subject itself.

Alan

big paul
27th August 2011, 10:49 AM
the whole of the uk is the best place to make great images we have got it all. obviously I like to take photos in the place that I live because of the personal connection.
by the way essex is a very underrated county.



essex the last resting place of the cockney

Les McLean
27th August 2011, 11:12 AM
Les makes an interesting point about light being the important thing. I'm not sure I entirely agree with this Les, if you mean that you want a certain kind of light. Alan[/QUOTE]


That's not what I meant Alan. I've always been happy to photograph in whatever light there is when I go out, the only exception is that I hate very bright, brittle sunlight although I will explore those condidtions if I think the subject will benefit from them. I have to say that when I have made exposures in bright sunlight I'm often unhappy with the result. Perhaps it's my eye and not the condidtions!!!!!!

Alan Clark
27th August 2011, 11:53 AM
Thanks Les. I understand what you are saying.
Best wishes for your retirement by the way, and not too much "brittle" light!

Alan

Paul Mitchell
27th August 2011, 12:22 PM
I personally think it's up to the photographer to make something out of what they have on his or her doorstep. I also think that it's the less tripod hole ridden areas that one should consider rather than the photographic honey pots that Alan quite rightly points out. I lived and grew up in the Yorkshire Wolds and return whenever time permits as it is still relatively untouched by people armed with all their DSLRs and Photoshop filters! Indeed, one of our greatest living painters David Hockney now lives in Bridlington and the Wolds is now the subject for many of his recent paintings. Have to go as the cloudscape over Slough's twin cooling towers is beckoning! ;)

Paul

Alan Clark
27th August 2011, 04:53 PM
I hope the cooling tower picture was a masterpiece, Paul.
You are quite right about the lack of photographic interest in the Wolds. Not sure why. Maybe it's the lack of "features". Very few walker either, despite the excellent network of long-distance paths. And very few people live there, as you will know. The whole place is a huge deserted landscape.


Alan

JamesK
27th August 2011, 08:33 PM
First of all, this was a question, not a statement.

What I wanted to know was if anyone else believed, as I do, that the opportunities for traditional English landscape photography are to be found more in the South than the North.

I suppose I should define what I mean by traditional. In this sense, I'm probably talking about what today may be considered a more sentimental rendition of the landscape in the work of such photographers as Noel Habgood, Kenneth Scowen, J. Allen Cash and A.F. Kersting (although the latter was better known for his architectural work).

While the North does have certain dramatic qualities, it just seems, to me at least, that it lacks the more intimate, gentle countryside of some Southern counties, in addition to which the villages of the North seem to have less character. Note that these are general, rather than absolute statements.

These are, of course, the result of geological and climatic considerations such as the lack of the warm Cotswold stone in the Pennines, and the fact that the winds up there would blow any thatched roofs off! Similarly, there are (relatively) few areas of deciduous woodland compared to the South.

My own view, certainly of Yorkshire, is that a lot of it is either "all or nothing": the hills and moors or the unrelentingly flat Humber Headlands, with some exceptions, of course.

There seems to be relatively little of the picturesque, in the classical (pace Gilpin, et al) sense of the word.

The sublime exists in abundance in the hills, of course, but the sense of scale that contributes most to this is lost in a reproduction measuring at most tens of inches across. Similarly, to give any indication of that size reduces any detail to a microscopic level in a print.

The Yorkshire Wolds, which I may say I know intimately, are a peculiarity in terms of topography, in that they're essentially an elevated plateau with valleys carved into them, resulting in an inversion of the usual pastoral / arable use of the land. Thus the high ground is thus mainly devoted to field after field of crops, and the narrow valleys to sheep and cows, giving, in terms of look, an un-typical landscape.

Alan is right: they are not an easy place to photograph, as photographers based on or near the Wolds state on their various web sites. Looking at such sites (e.g. Paul Moon, Jon Brock, etc.) will show that there seem to be only a few favoured locations that such photographers visit time after time. Yes, David Hockney can produce great paintings of the Wolds, but he has the compositional freedoms of his medium and he is a great painter. (I didn't know he now lived in Brid, by the way.)

(Talking of painting, and bearing in mind the forum I'm discussing this in, what about compositing various landscape elements d***ally, in a similar way to how some painters combine elements from more than one actual scene in their paintings?)

Alan is also right about the "Cooks Tour" of photographic locations given in most magazines.

I think if anyone has hit the nail on the head it's Bob: "Go North for drama, South West for rolling countryside, East for skies..."

It wasn't basically a "one's better than the other" argument I was promoting, although I realise it came across like that, but rather the difference, and the lack of the opportunities for traditional landscape photography (as clumsily defined above) in the North due in the main to the topographic, geological and climatic nature of the region.

I left out Wales and Scotland as I have no personal knowledge of the former and little of the latter.

I did forget about the Lake District. Sorry.

While I also thought about the caveat of a good photographer finding photographs anywhere, I thought this wasn't relevant as we're discussing specific locations.

Finally, if we're making statements (pedantic or otherwise) regarding whether we're North, South, East or West, why have a locations section of the forum at all?

I hope I've clarified what I was trying to say.

DaveP
27th August 2011, 08:42 PM
So in fact, when you say "the north", what you actually mean is the bits of Yorkshire that you're familiar with.

It strikes me that you don't know the north, or indeed Yorkshire, as well as you think you do. Not that I'm complaining, it keeps the place quieter for the rest of us ;)

Dave miller
28th August 2011, 07:10 AM
Personally I think that good photographic opportunities can be found just about anywhere, the quality of the light in relation to the perceived picture being of critical importance.

JamesK
28th August 2011, 09:19 AM
No, DaveP, I mean the North, including those bits that aren't in Yorkshire. I know most of it at least reasonably well.

To try and elaborate, what I'm probably referring to is the character of the landscape being different between the North and the South, a quick glance at the topographical and geological maps on the wall behind me seeming to confirm this.

I'm not saying one's better than the other in itself, but merely asking the question as to whether or not one has the edge in photographic terms in what may be described as picturesque terms.

I agree with what the other Dave said, that you can get good photographs anywhere. (I've taken good photographs on the landing at the top of the stairs which I can't post here as they're digital.)

The point that's relevant here, however, is that, for a certain type of landscape photograph that I've made somewhat inelegant efforts to describe, the South would seem (note the caveat) to offer better opportunities.

In one respect, this is self-evident I know, as any particular location offers different photographic opportunities, but I think I've made myself clear on what I mean.

Alan Clark
28th August 2011, 10:35 AM
James, I have to say that I do welcome your posts. They have certainly made me think about how I perceive the landscape in terms of how others - photographers, painters, film makers - portray it.

With regard to the Yorkshire Wolds I think that your analysis of its unusual "inverted" topography is spot-on. I can also see why Paul Moon and Jon Brock concentrate on the dry-valleys, because of their easy access and abundance of "features". My own interest seems to be in the man-made abstract shapes that have been imposed on the rollong chalk plateau above the dry-valleys. Your ideas about borrowing strategies from painters interests me. I am actually a painter first and a photographer second and have already concluded that the Wolds are probably easier to paint than to photograph! So far I am enjoying the challenge of doing both.

Alan

JamesK
28th August 2011, 11:13 AM
Alan

Thanks for your comments.

Due to how the dales (in the Wolds) were formed - essentially cracks in a plateau - I always view the Wolds as a plaster cast taken of a hilly region which was then inverted, giving broad uplands and narrow lowlands.

I love the Wolds, although I have to admit they're not an easy place to find a photographic opportunity. (I intended spending time up there last week, but the effects of a bad cold on my already decrepit health put paid to that.)

I know I'm probably going to get my wrists smacked for invoking the d-word, but it seems to me, with the advent of digital, the compositional advantages that have been the preserve of painters, namely that you can leave out or put in what you want, are now open to photographers.

Of course, brave souls like Hag have been doing this for years with film photography, but in a rather obvious, surreal way.

Digital post processing (of film scans, Mr. Moderator!) allows you to do this in a seamless, more realistic way.

Please note that I don't view this as a shortcut to good photography, but rather a way of enhancing an already good photograph, or having a photograph that one would not have due to compositional reasons, e.g. good background but no foreground, or vice versa, plus the ability to remove distracting elements such as chimneys, sign posts, etc.

Let me say again that this is no substitute for good photography, and the danger is that you spend days turning a third-rate image into a second-rate one. I know, I've done it, but, by the same token, I've been able to make an image I couldn't have got by "straight" photography.

This been said, I don't think digital cameras give you anything like a good an image as you get with film. Even scanned film can come out streets ahead of digital originals.

You are, of course, then left with the accusation of "cheating" which would be valid in a reportage / journalistic sense but not, I feel, in an artistic one.

I think this is where we find that "digital imaging" is not just a synonym for photography, but a term that recognizes the broader interpretation of a photographically-derived image as something beyond literal representation. (Ooh, that sounds clever!)

I'd love to continue this discussion, but, as we're going off-topic and discussing things frowned upon in this forum, please feel free to send me a private message on the subject.

Trevor Crone
28th August 2011, 11:23 AM
I feel we should never forget that a photograph is an 'interpretation' of the thing photographed but as such has its own reality and existence beyond the thing photographed.

Reading this thread for some reason reminded me of Aaron Siskind's, 'Glove, Gloucester, Massachusetts' (attached). It could have been taken anywhere, but it wasn't, he photographed it in Gloucester, Massachusetts';).

Alan Clark
28th August 2011, 12:00 PM
When I first started photographing the Wolds I looked at the wide-open spaces and thought - wide -angle lens. Then I discovered this doesn't alwys work because it reduces the size of imprtant distant details, as James has pointed out. So I switched to a 203mm lens on my 5 x 4 camera, which is about the equivalent of a 70mm on a 35mm camera, and this seemed to work better by bringing distant details foreward somewhat. Then I made an interesting discovery. Cropping to a letterbox format - I used a ratio of 2:5, made the picture look as though it had been taken with a wide angle lens. Not the perfect solution for everything of course, but a start.

My next move may be to buy a lens of even longer focal length; maybe 300mm.
Alan

JamesK
28th August 2011, 12:52 PM
Alan, I know what you mean!

I went up there earlier this year with my Bronica intending to re-photograph some locations I'd done digitally, not realising I'd had the zoom on the digital racked out when I did them.

As the longest lens I've got for 120 is 135mm, I couldn't go.

Having looked at the price of longer Bronica lenses (something like £600 for a 200mm lens), I think I'm going to have to pass on these shots, or use my 35mm cameras.

In Practical Pictorial Photography (1902), Alfred Horsley Hinton recommends the use of a relatively long lens for landscape photography but I agree with you in that the first lens you think of when contemplating landscapes is a wide angle.

Alan Clark
28th August 2011, 01:07 PM
I recently discovered a photographer called Roman Loranc.( He was new to me but no doubt Trevor has a book of his photographs!) He uses a 5 x4 camera and, mostly, a 210mm lens, and produces wonderful landscapes. Well worth looking up.

Alan

Dave miller
28th August 2011, 02:31 PM
Alan, I know what you mean!

I went up there earlier this year with my Bronica intending to re-photograph some locations I'd done digitally, not realising I'd had the zoom on the digital racked out when I did them.

As the longest lens I've got for 120 is 135mm, I couldn't go.

Having looked at the price of longer Bronica lenses (something like £600 for a 200mm lens), I think I'm going to have to pass on these shots, or use my 35mm cameras.

In Practical Pictorial Photography (1902), Alfred Horsley Hinton recommends the use of a relatively long lens for landscape photography but I agree with you in that the first lens you think of when contemplating landscapes is a wide angle.

Ffordes have a couple of 200mm Bronica SQ lens for £129 ea.

Trevor Crone
28th August 2011, 02:36 PM
I recently discovered a photographer called Roman Loranc.( He was new to me but no doubt Trevor has a book of his photographs!) He uses a 5 x4 camera and, mostly, a 210mm lens, and produces wonderful landscapes. Well worth looking up.

Alan

Alan, sadly not (there is a finite # to how many books one person can own;)) However I have seen his work in ViewCamera magazine (a copy of which I have somewhere:))

Alan Clark
28th August 2011, 03:47 PM
So I was nearly right Trevor. I'll settle for that!
I have a feeling that his prints may be a little dark in tone for your taste, having seen some of your prints...but he did an interview which is somewhere on the net which is very interesting.

Alan

JamesK
28th August 2011, 08:36 PM
Ffordes have a couple of 200mm Bronica SQ lens for £129 ea.

Thanks for this, Dave - I'll have a look.

I noticed today there were a few on e-bay, but still much dearer than this.

Dave miller
29th August 2011, 06:48 AM
Thanks for this, Dave - I'll have a look.

I noticed today there were a few on e-bay, but still much dearer than this.

There are a couple here (http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/kameratoridotfi/m.html?_trksid=p4340.l2562).

JamesK
29th August 2011, 09:44 AM
Dave

Thanks again for this. I probably should have mentioned that I have the old Bronica S, but I've 'mailed Ffordes to see if any of theirs will fit as it's unclear if they're SQ or S.

Steve Smith
29th August 2011, 05:32 PM
and London in order to buy the materials and get out again as quickly as possible

Mail order - no need to go to London at all!


Steve.

Rob Archer
29th August 2011, 05:57 PM
I think, as some here have said, familiarity with an area is the key. For some, that familiarity may mean they rarely find anything worthwhile to photograph, whereas for others it means they know the locations wich benefit from particular kinds of light etc.

Most of my best (for me, anyway!) images have been made in a very few locations that I know well. In particular, the Black Isle and the Isle of Arran in Scotland, and the North Norfolk Coast, just a few miles from my home are places that often yield pleasing results for me, despite their familiarity.

I sometimes find the wealth of subjects in a new area intimidating. I've just spent a week in Morar, on the west coast of Scotland - somewhere I'd never been before. I made plenty of negatives, some of which look quite good, but I doubt they will have the 'power' I like in a good landscape image. To get images I really like I will need to go back (and probably will as it's a fantastic area).

So 'North or South?' - for me it doesn't matter. It's what I know and love that makes the best images for me.

Rob

Tony Marlow
29th August 2011, 06:16 PM
Mail order - no need to go to London at all!

Your loss, London is a great place, you don't know what you are missing. I'm going to the Olympics next year another changing scene with something new despite working there for forty years.

Tony

Dave miller
29th August 2011, 06:18 PM
Your loss, London is a great place, you don't know what you are missing. I'm going to the Olympics next year another changing scene with something new despite working there for forty years.

Tony

Good for you; what event are you competing in? :)

Tony Marlow
29th August 2011, 06:24 PM
Good for you; what event are you competing in?

Unarmed combat versus the Security team!

Tony

Steve Smith
29th August 2011, 06:54 PM
Your loss, London is a great place, you don't know what you are missing.

I don't really mind London and I have a few friends there who I visit occasionally and I always try to visit a few galleries and Aperture near the British Museum. It's nice to get home after a few days though!

Most of my best (for me, anyway!) images have been made in a very few locations that I know well. In particular, the Black Isle and the Isle of Arran in Scotland

Arran is one of my favourite places. My wife used to go there every summer when she worked at a local high school. One year we took a big gamble with the weather and went in October and it was fantastic. I took my first medium format SLR with me, a Bronica ETRS, which Ffordes had posted to me from Scotland the day before we left - so it travelled the length of Britain and back again in two days!


Steve.

Graeme
30th August 2011, 12:07 PM
Interesting thread, thanks all.

Personally I photograph any where I go, our individual responses will always be different to different places.

Interesting to see that most of the discussion was about wilder, or isolated places; personally I've had pleasing results in cities north and south too, including London.....

Jon Butler
30th August 2011, 12:33 PM
I don't really mind London and I have a few friends there who I visit occasionally and I always try to visit a few galleries and Aperture near the British Museum. It's nice to get home after a few days though!

Steve.

Yes it's aways good to back to your home, I went to the IOW once and was well pleased to get back to my London home.
J.

PS. Tony do enjoy the Olympics that I'm paying for, hope it rains for the whole fortnight.;)

JimW
30th August 2011, 05:06 PM
Olympics-never could see the sense in running fast to get back to where you started from. And why throw something even farther? All you have to do is walk farther to go and retrieve it....:confused:

JamesK
31st August 2011, 08:23 AM
Nice to know that when people are losing their jobs and homes left, right, and centre that we can still afford to pay for something as vital as running round in circles.

Tony Marlow
31st August 2011, 10:12 AM
enjoy the Olympics that I'm paying for, hope it rains for the whole
fortnight
never could see the sense in running fast to get back to where you started from
we can still afford to pay for something as vital as running round in circles.

I thought this thread was about where to take photographs, not politics etc. Making silly comments about other peoples pastimes usually attracts retaliation and an unseemly argument where nobody gains. I mentioned the Olympics in the context of a new place for photo opportunities. Politics are for other places or why not stand for election?

Tony

RH Designs
31st August 2011, 10:17 AM
Dragging it back on topic, having lived in the Yorkshire Dales for nearly 10 years now I've found the interest photographically speaking lies in the details, not in the expansive views I suspect the OP is thinking of. I personally find the north in general more interesting than the south, although there's plenty to have a go at in most places. I'd just like longer summers up here ;).

Nabhar
31st August 2011, 12:45 PM
I'm unsure of the term ''classic landscape elements''.

''Classic'' landscape elements are for me just that.....elements, i.e. earth, wind, fire, and water, which both the North and South of England have in abundance (well.... maybe not the fire).

Or, as I fear, are we declaring our preferences for a specific regional cliche, that could be forwarded as a representative ''classic'' English landscape ?

Comment #7 put it best I think......'' Regardless of whether you are in the north, south, east or west it's the light you are photographing''

JP

Carl V
31st August 2011, 01:23 PM
Personally I love the Peak District, especially as I can drive there in less than an hour from where I live. To tell you the truth, anywhere in the UK I've travelled to, I've never had any problems finding beautiful landscapes to photograph and I think we are fortunate here in the British Isles in having wonderful photographic opportunities. The weather is certainly an important factor. ;)

I only really know the western side of England and North Wales, going right down to Devon and Cornwall. On my previous visits to Cornwall, I have always photographed local villages and the people living and working there as well as general landscape vistas.

I'd like to see the eastern half of Britain one day when the opportunity arises. Many years ago I did travel up the western coast of Scotland but only reached as far as Oban because my holiday was coming to an end. Without doubt, the scenery was stunning.

Martin Aislabie
6th September 2011, 05:50 PM
The whole country seems to be full of photographic opportunities.

Those opportunities vary across the length and breadth of the country - some will be excite while others won't.

However, there is nothing to say that one set of landscapes are better than any other - they are just different.

In the right light almost anywhere and anything seems to be photogenic.

What I find endlessly fascinating, is trying to match the available quality of light to the right subject.

Martin

MarekStyczen
24th February 2012, 05:46 PM
I have heard of swarms of photographers travelling to Yosemite only to find disappointment. They fail to photograph anything meaningful because it is too difficult to detach oneself from the ‘magic’ of a location.

BTW, I thought Yorks were down South? :p :p :p

Argentum
24th February 2012, 06:45 PM
BTW, I thought Yorks were down South? :p :p :p

You are right. All things are relative. I live in Devon but being born in Northumberland I do have to remind those from Yorkshire that they are just "Pseudo Northerners" and are really midlanders just as the Scots have to remind us Geordies we are not Northerners. But we are talking about England here so the Scots don't count, especially since they seem to want to divorce themselves from us. :p:p:p