Finding awe in ordinary places

Inspiration from nature and books

‘He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead, his eyes are closed’

Albert Einstein.

This week, on the way home from a workshop I came across an area of open land on the edge of the common. It is nowhere remarkable, just a piece of undulating grassland but what I found there filled me with awe. The area was covered in a carpet of musk thistles, their nodding purple flower heads a source of food for hundreds of bees. As I stood amongst the flowers with the buzzing bees all around me I felt a genuine sense of awe at the scene in front of me. This was not an area I would have planned to visit with my camera but it had so much to offer. It was not a grand view but sometimes it is the little scenes that delight us the most.

Awe is a powerful human emotion. It is a fleeting state we experience when we encounter things beyond our usual frame of reference.  It is a word often use by landscape photographers to describe their reaction to grand vistas and wide reaching views. Awesome landscapes are usually considered to be magnificent in scale and drama. But not every awesome experience needs to be on a grand scale - small can be just as powerful. Getting out in nature and seeking the awesome in the everyday is a great way to reflect and find meaning in the world around us.

Small scrubby patches of grassland can definitely be as awesome as a grand mountain landscape. It all depends on how we connect with the scene in front of us.

At the start of the week I bought a new photography book. I love books and have a big collection of photo books - I find they are a great way to discover new photographers and get a feel for their work.

The book I bought was ‘This Pleasant Land - New photography of the British landscape’ published by Hoxton Mini Press. It is a collection of work from 24 different photographers, some whose work I was familiar with and some I hadn’t come across before. Leafing through the book I was struck by some of the images - in particular the work of Harry Cory Wright (Sensation of Landscape), Ian Potter (Beyond Me, Beside Me) and Toby Trueman (The Tides). Much of the work in the book has a documentary feel to it but to my eye these three photographers have a similar style, which is probably why they all appealed to me. Their images have a dreamy quality to them and the colours are very soft and muted.

This got me thinking about how we represent colour in our photography and how the depiction of colour can convey certain moods. I was particularly intrigued by Ian Potters body of work ‘beside me’ with its ordinary scenes and desaturated colours. His images show hedgerows, verges, scrubland and field edges that usually get overlooked - a bit like my patch of musk thistles. The colours in all the images are very muted, verging on desaturated but what I really loved about them is the texture and the mood that he has created. You get a sense of the unloved and overlooked but more importantly I think you also get a sense of awe - you become aware that the ordinary is beautiful.

Sitting in front of Lightroom and inspired by Ian’s work I began experimenting with some images I had taken in an area of scrubland just down the road from where I live. I wanted to explore split toning and the removal of colour and see what this did to the mood of my images.

Split toning is a tool that allows the photographer to independently alter the colour of the shadows, highlights and mid tones. This can create very different moods for the same image as you will see below.

Both shots show the same area of scrubland shot on an overcast day. I have processed the first image (below) with no colour adjustments and the image looks as it did when I photographed it.

In the second shot (below) I have approached the processing in the style of Ian Potter. I wanted to desaturate the image and create a mood that was less vibrant and ‘happy’. I think the colour tones are now more reminiscent of an old style photograph but more importantly the mood of the image has now changed and perhaps evokes a feeling of abandonment?

If you look at the screen shot from Lightroom (below) you will see that I have achieved this look simply by desaturating the principle colours (green and yellow) as well as cooling the shadows, warming the highlights and warming the mid tones.

I am not sure if I like the second shot any better than the first shot but if I wanted to portray a feeling of neglect or abandonment then perhaps the second version works better?

If you use Lightroom I would encourage you to explore the wonders of split toning - it is a great tool to enhance or alter the mood and feel of your images.

I haven’t been out much with the camera this past week - the weather has been challenging and my time has been limited but when I have been out I have found myself on the heath or walking the edgelands searching for awe in less obvious places. For me this is the beauty of landscape photography, you never know what you will find until you pause long enough to really see what is around you.

If you would like to explore the heathlands with me this week I still have places on my Suffolk Sandlings Heaths and Woodlands Workshop on Friday morning.