Inspired #7

Intimate landscapes with mood and emotion

Hello and welcome to Inspired, a weekly email for my paid subscribers. In this series I want to explore topics which I hope might spark some inspiration for your own photography. I will talk about my thought process for creating images, both in the field and in post processing. The posts will be linked in some way to the monthly challenges, hopefully giving you all lots of food for thought.

We all appreciate a ‘good’ photograph, but what do we really mean when we describe an image in such a way?

I think we are usually referring to the fact that the image has moved us emotionally - we have formed a connection and this has made us feel something about the composition or the subject matter. I think we see good images with our heart as well as our eyes.

So how do we make good images? And more specifically how do we ensure that the intimate landscapes we have been discussing in this month’s photo challenge make us feel something?

Capturing emotion in any image is not easy, but is it more difficult when we are dealing with smaller scenes? Whatever the subject matter we have to know what feelings we want to portray and what we want the viewer to feel. I think intimate scenes can be easier to work with and there are certain processes we can apply out in the field and in post processing that will help.