Beyond the grand landscape
Storytelling and smaller details
Hello, I’m Gill and I write a photography blog inspired by the landscapes of Suffolk and beyond. Please subscribe to read more of my writing and visit my website to view my images.
When I began my landscape photography journey 15 or more years ago I started by focusing on wide scenes and distant views. I was out to capture the landscape in all its glory and I presumed that meant shooting wide and getting as much as I could in the frame. I wanted to tell the story of the landscapes I was photographing but I didn’t really know how to do it effectively. I assumed that wide vistas told broad stories but I soon realised that I needed to be more focused than that.
Every landscape provides a structure for a story - the bare bones if you like. As photographers we are drawn to this, the coast, the rivers, the hills and mountains, the forests and trees. These are the prominent features that make up the landscape - the framework with which we construct our stories. But without looking any deeper, without looking beyond the main structural elements our images may not have that much to convey.
I think it is the stories within the story, the detail within the overall landscape that allows us to put the flesh on the bones and tell deeper and more meaningful stories.
It is the detail that brings a landscape to life.
I have been in Norfolk for a few days this week photographing an ever changing environment that is gradually being reclaimed by the sea. Crumbling cliffs, winter storms and rising sea levels have made the coast between Winterton and Cromer one of the fastest changing shorelines in East Anglia. Habitats range from vast dunescapes in the south, to the low lying crumbling cliffs of Happisburgh and further north the coastal town of Cromer with its beach fishing boats and intricate iron pier.
As is often the case with fragile environments its beauty goes deep. On the surface its character appears less natural than it should be, fortifications of iron, granite and steel can be found all along the shore, constructed to protect the land from the sea. These structures tell their own story of decay and erosion and now stand little chance of holding back the ever encroaching tide. They are battered and broken but cling on as a feature of the coast, gradually being reclaimed by nature.
Despite its sometimes industrial appearance I love photographing this coastal landscape. It is a dynamic place, always changing and no two visits are ever the same.
In landscapes like this one it is sometime hard to decide what story to tell. The sea is dominant, it can be destructive but it can also be benign, calm and beautiful. Should I portray the fragility of the coast or the beauty that I see on a spring day when the sunshine makes winter storms and coastal erosion seem very far away?
These two images were taken at the same time in the same location - one looking inland and one looking out to sea. They both tell a very different story.
I elected to remove all the colour from the first image as I felt sunny tones did not help portray the seriousness of the story or the fragility of the coastline. In the second shot I chose to give the image a soft dreamy look in post processing (by lightening all the tones) to emphasise the beauty I saw and felt.
Which image shows the real location?
I would say they both do, they just emphasise different facets.
This is one of the most important decisions we make as photographers - deciding what we want our images to say.
Landscapes have numerous different stories lying within their framework and it is our job as photographers to choose what we want to focus on.
The images above both show wider landscapes, the following shots focus on some of the smaller details.
I like to think of this structure as a metal wave meandering along the low tide line. I believe it is the remains of some sort of sea defence, the majority of which is buried deep within the sand.
I find these structures really interesting and they are great subjects for long exposure photography. As a whole the structure tells a story of failure and decay, of mans efforts to hold back the sea, unequal to the power of nature.
If I focus on another part of the metal structure further along the beach and look more closely I can tell a story that is more focused on nature itself and the resilience of the barnacles that now call these metal structures home.
And if I look closer still (at an old nail sticking out of the metalwork) I can tell an even more focused story about the resilience and beauty of nature.
Storytelling in landscape photography can be a difficult concept to grasp and I know it is something I have struggled with in the past. I now like to think about it in terms of composition and the elements I place within the frame. The story is created by how these elements interact.
Take the images below as an example.
The first shot shows Cromer pier at sunrise. This shot contains only the basic structure of the landscape; the sea, the beach, the pier and the sunset. The story is about the beauty of the sunrise.
The next shot was taken about 10 minutes later from the other side of the pier and this time I have chosen to include some additional details in my story. I have introduced some sand patterns and a small pool with a rock in its centre.
Now my story (and my image) has more interest. There is a visual relationship between the foreground sand patterns, the rock and the pier. The foreground has a structure to it and it tells us more about the beach than the top image. The colours and tones of both images help portray a feeling of peace and tranquility but for me the second shot tells a more interesting story.
Sometimes stories are best told in series rather than individual images. Here I have paired two images to tell the story of a pebble caught in a receding wave. The time differences between the two images help convey the motion of the sea.
How to tell a story with our images
Every landscape has multiple stories - it is up to us to observe them, be inspired by them and use the elements around us to convey what we have seen.
All stories come from a personal place - we put our unique spin on the things we observe.
Stories need a subject. Subjects are all around us and we just need to be observant and find something interesting to focus on.
Stories should be about something - they should have a theme. In landscape photography this could be something as simple as beauty, tranquility or solitude or it could be more complicated like truth, fragility or resilience.
Build a story using visual layers. The elements we chose to include should be considered carefully. The more elements we include the less impact each one will have.
Conflict lies at the heart of every great story. In photography conflict is represented by contrasts - eg. light and dark, large and small, manmade and natural.
When embarking on a story telling project the following questions may be useful:
What is my subject? Where is it? Why is it interesting? I have found these to be a useful starting place to generate ideas.
Telling stories can be something we overlook in the field and it is only once we get back to the computer that we assign a narrative to the image we have made. I think that storytelling is a natural part of the process of creating an image and our success at it comes down to observation and questioning what we see.
I spent a very enjoyable few days photographing the Norfolk Coastline. It is a location that has numerous stories hidden within it’s landscapes and one that would be worthy of a wider project sometime in the future.
Thank you very much for reading and until next week enjoy your photography.
Gill
How do you approach storytelling in your image making, it it something you actively consider when you are out in the field?
I would be really interested to hear your thoughts so please leave your comments below.
Thanks for another really interesting article. How do you do this every week? I really liked this piece and it made me think about how I need to spend more time looking and thinking about what is going on before racing to capture a scene that has caught my eye. Why did it capture my eye? What is really going on? Thanks again - great advice.
Thanks for another interesting and superbly illustrated article Gill. Will give us all food for thought. Your photography continues to inspire and certainly gives me ideas on where to go next.