Honeypot Locations
Honeypot Locations
Should we embrace them or avoid them?
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.
It is still dark as I leave the car park and walk down the little wooded lane to the river. Ahead of me lies a ribbon of slow moving, silvery water, on the flood but in no hurry to reach its destination at the head of the estuary. I turn right in front of the waterside pub and follow the footpath into the trees. The darkness of the canopy envelopes me and my senses became attuned to all the early morning sounds. The wood hangs in the balance, on the cusp between twighlight and daybreak. A distant tawny owl utters its last call of the night while a blackbird welcomes the new dawn with a song that speaks of spring and all the promised beauty to come.
I love this time of day when darkness releases its grip on the land and allows the morning light to slip in and awaken the world.
It is Monday, the start of a new week and I have come to Pin Mill with another photographer to photograph the boat wrecks that lie just beyond the pub on the edge of the River Orwell. This has become a bit of a honeypot location for photography in recent years and somewhere that I tend to avoid, not because I dislike the place but because I don’t know how to make it my own.
Arriving at a gap in the trees the familiar grouping of old wooden wrecks creep into view along with another photographer who already has his camera set up and is light painting the scene. For me this is the first problem with honeypot locations, you rarely find yourself alone.
Going over to introduce ourselves (good etiquette if you are sharing a location) we pass a few minutes chatting before turning to contemplate the scene in front of us. And here comes the second problem I have with honeypot locations - how to create something different.
I first photographed this location back in 2011 and have been coming here intermittently ever since. It is somewhere I know well (I used to keep my barge at Pin Mill) but somewhere I am not really drawn to photograph. For me, honeypot locations have always been off-putting and I tend to avoid them as much as I can simply because I don’t know how to approach them.
I have never been one to copy others images - I like to visit a location to interpret it in my own way. So when I arrive somewhere that has been photographed many, many times I find it difficult to depict it in a way that makes it unique to me.
I suspect this is a rather negative way of thinking and I should just embrace these locations for what they are - after all the subject may stay the same but the surroundings (weather, light, tide etc) will always be different.
So that is exactly what I did on Monday, I photographed the scene in the way that felt intuitive to me at the time. I didn’t spend ages looking for unique compositions (because frankly I don’t think there were any) and I just enjoyed the morning. It helped that the sunrise put on the most impressive display with some beautiful colours and perfectly calm conditions and I came away with a series of images that I actually felt quite excited about.
What could I have done differently
When I knew I was going to Pin Mill I spent some time thinking about the different ways I could make a unique composition. I was drawn to the idea of a really low viewpoint to make the wrecks feel towering and dominant. I also considered finding part of a wreck for the foreground, focusing on that and rendering the rest of the scene unsharp and ambiguous. In the end I didn’t do either of these things simply because the light took over and became the main inspiration behind my images. I resorted to tried and tested compositions so as not to squander the fast changing colour.
What did I learn
Firstly photography should be relaxing and enjoyable and we shouldn’t put too much pressure on ourselves to come away with our best work every time we go out.
Ideas for compositions are just that - ideas, and they should be flexible. I abandoned mine in favour of the light and I think this was a good call.
I often feel I am not trying hard enough if I cannot find a new way of shooting a familiar scene. But deep down I know this is rubbish. Sometimes a location only has one or two obvious compositions and I don’t think we should be afraid of capturing them simply because they have been photographed many times before.
Shooting locations that attract other photographers is not always a bad thing. Chatting to others and sharing ideas at the time can be invaluable and is all part of the learning process. I am always fascinated by how others see the world and I think we can learn so much from sharing our thoughts. This is why I think workshops are so valuable - not just for the input from the tutor but for the glimpse into how other participants approach their photography.
On Monday I visited Pin Mill with another photographer and we have have both interpreted the location in subtly different ways. Some of this is down to composition and how we saw the scene in the first place and some down to how we interpreted our images in post processing.
There is a huge amount of value in revisiting places, whether they are honeypot locations or not. Over time the landscape changes, our style changes and our approach to photography also changes and it can be interesting to look back and learn from the experience. This is something I talked about in a previous blog and I think it is something we should embrace.
Did it matter that I came away with familiar compositions that I have seen many times before? Not at all. They might be familiar but in many ways they are still unique to me. Composition is only part of a good image, the rest comes down to how we execute the shot in the field and then how we interpret that RAW file in post processing and what we do with our finished image afterwards. I printed my favourite frame from this shoot on Hahnemuhle Photo-Rag 308gsm and I am very happy with the results.
As for this location I haven’t given up on the hope of capturing a unique image one day and will be returning in April to run a photowalk at F2.8.
Thank you very much for reading and until next week enjoy your photography
Gill
If you enjoyed this weeks post it would be lovely to hear from you. Please share your thoughts and comments below.
I love your blogs and this one is excellent. You write beautifully and acknowledge the feelings that I and I am sure many others can relate to. You produce exceptional photographs, your favourite one is quite stunning, and in addition share technical details that I find really helpful. Thank you.
I personally enjoy honey pot locations, especially if photographers I follow have taken image's I like and try to recreate before trying my own intereprition.
Your photos from Pin Mill are just brilliant, especially with enhancements from the colours in the sky.