Colours, pairs and grids

Going beyond the single image, part 2.

Jun 03, 2024

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.

I had some lovely feedback from my post last week, so this week I thought I would expand on the theme a bit more. But first I wanted to talk a little about my choice of landscapes.

I have been making the most of some of the flowers that are in bloom across the county of Suffolk. These are some of my favourite subjects to photograph but they are not always easy landscapes to work in and compositions can be challenging at times.

At the weekend I visited a small area of woodland which sits precariously on the crumbling cliffs at Dunwich. This tiny village which dates back to Anglo Saxon times was once the capital of the kingdom of the Eastern Angles. It was a thriving port on a par with London and had over 3000 residents before much of it was washed away by the sea in the 13th century. The little wood sits on the edge of the crumbling cliffs adjacent to the remains of Greyfriars Monastery. Between the two lies a small strip of land - all that protects the ruins and the wood from the sea. The cliff has been eroding inland since the end of the last Ice Age and about 700 meters of land has disappeared in 700 years. As the process continues the wood and the monastery will eventually be lost to the sea forever.

In early spring the woodland floor is a carpet of snowdrops but now it is a forest of foxgloves. Hundreds of white, pink and mauve flower spikes fill the available space between the trees and the sound of bees fills the air. The scene looks amazing, but it was much harder to photograph than I imagined.

I chose to visit just after sunrise when the cloud cover created some diffused light perfect for this type of photography. Direct light creates dappled shade which can look nice but it sucks all the colour from the flowers and they get lost amongst the green of the trees.

The biggest problem with woodland photography, besides simplifying the chaos, is adding depth to the scene. I liked the flat light because it made the colours pop, but it created a problem with depth as there were no shadows to use in my composition.

In the end I settled on one scene that had a mix of planting and two large trees that I could use to create structure within the composition. I think the area of bright green at the bottom of the frame helps to accentuate the depth in the shot because the same colour tones link the foreground and background. I might not have had any shadows to play with but I could use colour in a similar way to create a visual pathway through the frame.

Later in the week I headed out to Mellis Common, an area of grazing land that is still managed as a traditional hay meadow. I had been here once before and found it a challenging place to photograph as there are no obvious natural focal points within the wider landscape.

On arrival the common looked beautiful with a mix of buttercups, oxeye daisies, clover and knapweed adding plenty of colour to the overall scene. As luck would have it the weather was very showery with big cumulous clouds scudding across the sky. This resulted in some lovely moody light and I found that I could use the shadows created by the sun to add depth to my scene.

These are successive images captured as the light changed. The first was taken in full sun and the second as the clouds covered the foreground. I prefer the second shot (full version is above) because I feel having the front of the image in shadow and the background in the sun gives a greater sense of depth to the scene.

I spent several hours exploring the common and came away with a series of images which I used to make a montage from the morning. This was created in Adobe Indesign using a detail image for the background (at a reduced opacity) and a series of vertical images laid over the top to produce the grid. I wanted to create this to show that not all grids need to be uniform and sometimes working with a more random design can be just as successful.

Mellis Common Montage produced in Indesign.

As part of my work I have also been looking at something that I call companion shooting or colour pairs. Basically the idea is to produce and display side by side two images from the same location, one a landscape shot and the other a detail shot.

This idea was inspired by photographer Ian Lawson and a book that he produced about Harris tweed. Within the book are images of wonderfully coloured woollen yarns and woven Harris Tweed sitting side by side with images of the landscapes that inspired them. The colours of each pair of images match perfectly.

Gestalt theory is the principle that “the whole of anything is greater than the sum of its parts” and that is what I am aiming for with my companion shots. They tell a bigger story about a landscape than just one shot but they look visually appealing when combined and displayed together.

I tend to look for small details from the natural world that could make a really nice intimate image to compliment my landscape shots. Because these shots are intended to be displayed side by side they need to sit in harmony with each other. So I am looking for both shots to contain similar colours and tones and to come from the same environment.

This is my colour pair from Mellis Common, but I have also produced others from different locations and will show a few of them below.

I like combining images that speak about the natural world but the process also works well with the built environment.

How to take companion shots

Work in the same landscape at the same time

When thinking about images that fit naturally with each other I feel it is important to capture them in the same environment and usually at the same time when the lighting conditions will be similar. This often helps me match the tones across both images.

Be observant

I like to look for the smaller details that can become the focus of my intimate images. Finding these details also helps me put together compositions in the wider landscape. I will often look for details like flowers, rocks, seashells or interesting geology that I can incorporate into my landscape scenes usually by shooting in portrait orientation with a wide angle lens.

Post Processing

There is a quote by Marcel Proust that I feel is a good guide when it comes to putting together companion images or any grid…

‘The beauty is not in the colours, but in their harmony.’

For these diptychs to work they need to look like they belong together. This is where good post processing skills will come in useful. It doesn’t matter if I take two images at the same time in the same location the camera may not always render the colour temperature and tones of both images exactly the same. So I may need to change specific things, like white balance or colour grading to get the images to harmonise. This might feel like cheating but at the end of the day I am trying to produce something creative - I am not trying to replicate exactly what I see. If you would like to read more about post processing for colour pairs please download my free PDF which you can find on my website.

Why is this useful?

Not everything we do creatively has to have a purpose but thinking in pairs in terms of subject and colour tones is a really useful exercise for project work and compiling panels, zines and books. It takes our image making beyond a single capture and I think this is really important if we want to grow as photographers.

Useful information.

My companion images have been inspired by the photography of Ian Lawson and you can find information about his beautiful books here.

If you want some more inspiration then I can recommend looking at Glenys Garnets website. Her work and creativity has been a big inspiration to me.

Do you have methods of displaying images that go beyond a single shot? Do you think about image making as single shots or more of a series of images. I would love to hear your thoughts so please leave a comment below.

For the Love of Landscapes

Discussion about this post