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  #21  
Old 27th August 2011, 12:22 PM
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Paul Mitchell Paul Mitchell is offline
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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!

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  #22  
Old 27th August 2011, 04:53 PM
Alan Clark Alan Clark is offline
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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.


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  #23  
Old 27th August 2011, 08:33 PM
JamesK JamesK is offline
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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.
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  #24  
Old 27th August 2011, 08:42 PM
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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
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  #25  
Old 28th August 2011, 07:10 AM
Dave miller Dave miller is offline
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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.
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  #26  
Old 28th August 2011, 09:19 AM
JamesK JamesK is offline
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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.
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  #27  
Old 28th August 2011, 10:35 AM
Alan Clark Alan Clark is offline
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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
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  #28  
Old 28th August 2011, 11:13 AM
JamesK JamesK is offline
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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.
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  #29  
Old 28th August 2011, 11:23 AM
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Trevor Crone Trevor Crone is offline
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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'.
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  #30  
Old 28th August 2011, 12:00 PM
Alan Clark Alan Clark is offline
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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.
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