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.
You don’t make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.
This week the weather has been perfect for the type of photography that I love - soft light, still mornings and beautiful pastel colours - Images that typify my photography (or so I have been told!) I am undeniably a morning person and I love the sunrise - it is the part of the day that really inspires me and it is usually when I make my favourite photographs.
Images that are made when you are truly inspired tend to shine out from the photographic noise. They come from the heart, from the things that excite you and stir up emotion within you. As a result they are the images that say the most about you as a photographer.
On Monday I went to Iken on the River Alde to take some sunrise photos. I chose the location because the forecast was for light winds and calm conditions and I thought that the estuary would give me the best chance of seeing some mist in the landscape.
I arrived at blue hour, the water was still high, even though ‘tabled’ high tide had passed hours earlier, and there was some beautiful colour in the sky. There was not yet enough light on the land for detail images so I headed to the waters edge to make the most of the reflected light.
When I arrive at a location for a shoot, even if I have been there many times before, I can still feel overwhelmed visually by the scene in front of me. It can feel like there is so much to photograph and only a short window of opportunity when the light is nice to do so. As a result the pressure to pick the right direction to head in can feel huge.
Sometimes the decision making process can be the hardest past of a shoot and I can often be plagued by the thought that if I had made different choices I would have created better images. However I think it is best to have the courage of your convictions and go with your gut feelings. Usually these are correct and I find that working my original choice of scene with different compositions instead of flitting from one area to the next generally gives me the best results.
For my shoot at Iken I worked the waters edge first because I felt this gave me the best colours using the reflected light from the river. The water was perfectly still and the reflections and mist added a lovely atmosphere. Once the sun came up and there was more light on the land I turned my attention to the riverbank and focused on the other things that interested me.
Besides the anticipated mist there was another reason I had chosen Iken as a location on this particular morning and that was the vegetation that I knew would be growing on the riverbank. This stretch of the river Alde has some lovely salt marsh areas but it also has a good variety of plants edging the river - reeds, different varieties of sedge grass and lots of pale mauve sea aster flowers. It was this combination of plants that I thought would be interesting on a misty morning and it was this that I set off to explore once the sun had risen and the colour had faded from the sky.
Still mornings and misty conditions result in dew laden vegetation and diamond strung spiders webs and I love exploring all this with my camera. Using backlight to emphasise the effects I spent a good hour exploring the marsh, photographing all the tiny details and the colour combination amongst the plants.
As a child I spent a lot of time in nature learning about wildlife with my Dad, but also exploring on my own with my sketchbook. I loved drawing flowers, butterflies and birds out in the garden and I think this early fascination with nature has stuck with me and now shows itself in my photography.
At Iken I was inspired by the different textures between the various grasses and the colour combination between the aqua reed stems and the pale mauve of the sea asters. I loved how the moisture on this particular morning gave everything a soft sheen and made the aqua colour of the reed stems seem softer and slightly more grey. These things make me feel awe just as much as the bright dawn colours from sunrise.
I have always been a morning person, I used to love getting up as a child before anyone else, slipping silently out of the back door and heading across the fields behind the house as the natural world was waking. I loved watching the hares charge around the fields and the flocks of lapwings that covered the bare earth in the winter. I would explore the ditches for marsh marigolds and primroses and sit and watch the sun rise. And I still get pleasure from these things nearly half a century later. I suspect I was an unusual child but I am grateful for my nature grounding and the freedom that I had to wonder the fields.
As I got older nature became my sanctuary, a safe place from a turbulent and abusive second marriage, somewhere I could go to offload my worries and recharge my batteries. Access to nature is something I need to function well, but it also plays back through my photography and my images are a product of all my past noticing and experiences.
I think when I talk about having a connection to the landscape this is what I mean, finding something deeper within your photography than just a superficial view - putting all of yourself into your images. What you choose to photograph, the elements that interest you and the choices you make are all a product of who you are. They come from all your past experiences and I think it is important to pay attention to them for they are the things that make your images shine. They are also the elements that make your images unmistakably yours.
On a more practical level this is the thought process I would go through before and during a photography shoot.
I would select a location for the conditions that I am anticipating. To do this I would use a variety of apps - Clear Outside for the weather. This will tell me the percentage of high, low and medium level cloud, the chance of fog and the wind speed and dew point and humidity which combined are good indicators of mist. I would also use my Tide Times app to check the sea level and the Photographers Ephemeris or Photo Pills to check the direction of the sunrise.
If I consider mist and dew to be an option I would then ask myself what level of complexity I want in my images - am I looking for minimalism in which case I might head to the coast and hope that the mist is evident there so that I could work with long exposures or if I want a more complex scene I would head for the river bank or the heath.
If fog is forecast I would probably head to the woods.
Once I arrive at my location I would spend a bit of time analysing what is around me. What focal points do I have? What supporting elements can I work with? What is the light doing and what direction do I want to shoot in?
If I have gone to photograph a sunrise such as the one at Iken I would probably shoot towards the sun until it brakes the horizon, then I would turn and use side light or back light to capture some different images. My whole photoshoot will be a reaction to the light - as it changes, I change where I stand and what I photograph.
In complete contrast to all of this I was introduced to a new ‘tool’ for photographers the other day by a workshop participant who asked me if I had seen ‘Arsenal2’ an AI inspired assistant that you connect to your camera and which will then suggest settings based on your subject and environment. The makers claim a pro workflow without the work.
I guess with the advance of AI this is the way we can expect photography to go, but I cannot understand the point of using this piece of equipment. Without the work, the understanding, the decision making and the artistic interpretation photography becomes a sterile process that lacks emotion and any connection with the landscape. It removes the human element from the process and with it all the things that I think make a good photo.
I think this quote from French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson sums this up really well.
“It is an illusion that photos are made with the camera… they are made with the eye, heart and head.”
So I would encourage you to take notice of the things that inspire you, and the choices you make when you are out in the field and back at home in front of the computer. These are the things that make your photography unique to you, they are the things that give you your photographic style and your voice as a photographer.
Thank you very much for reading and until next week enjoy your photography.
Gill
I live down in the far west of Cornwall where it's all about storms, crashing waves and sunrises and sunsets over big seas and sheer cliffs. The stillness and pastel colours of the scenes you specialise in are so different but stunningly beautiful. We get the odd still day and flat calm sea which makes a welcome change but they are few and far between.
Another thoughtful and interesting post Gill. I especially enjoyed you sharing your approach to a shoot, which I found very helpful