I love the way you ask yourself questions, Gill. There is an art to that, and it is through such questions that we grow as photographers. Very much enjoyed this post.
Some beautiful images here Gill - I particularly like the Shingle Street image at dawn. On beauty in photography - for me, a beautiful landscape doesn't always translate into a beautiful image on screen or in print. But, if I add my interpretation of the image through muting the colours or converting to mono, then the image will hopefully have the emotional connection I felt to the landscape when I made the image rather than the more saturated image created in camera.
Thank you so much for your comments Lin and I am sorry for the slow response.
I agree with you about beautiful landscapes not always translating into beautiful images and for me too it is about the emotional connection. I think if the image and the emotion don't align for me then the photograph feels less attractive.
Thank you for this post, Gill. I love the black and white image of the lighthouse. It was the best creative choice given that the time of day wasn’t ideal. I think both black and white and color render beauty in different ways. Morning light is delicious! I agree. And the waking up to such a beautiful scenery is always heart stopping.
Thank you so much for your comment Stella and I am sorry for the slow response. I am glad you enjoyed the post and the images and I agree with your thoughts particularly about colour and black and white.
I too find certain images don’t come across so great as color images but the switching them to BnW makes them pop. I’ve had a few of these lately.
I love that you bring up chaos. I feel what I do as an ICM / abstract photographer of nature is to make chaos beautiful because life can be quite chaotic so at times, we just have to embrace it.
Thus, with photography we can find and create beauty in almost anything with a certain vision or technique.
Thank you so much for your comments Joe and I am sorry for the slow response.
I enjoyed reading your comments and love the idea of making chaos beautiful which I guess is very appropriate for ICM, although I had never thought about it in those terms before. 🙂
Great thoughts again, Gill! I love your question and pondering about beauty in photography. I agree, that colour can intensify the emotional connection we feel when we look at a photograph. I don’t think it can be limited to the aspect of colour in an image. But I am sure that is not how you meant it. Again, great essay! Thank you for that!
I have only just had the opportunity to read your post and by a lucky coincidence, I was thinking along these lines myself this morning! My thought was that our eyes see beauty that the camera cannot always ‘see’ in the same way. Our eyes (with the brain of course) can filter out the elements that detract from the scene. The camera cannot. In fact the camera can magnify the messiness or jarring features. I was lucky to photograph wildflowers today in overcast conditions and the pastel shades were represented more or less as I ‘saw’ them. However, perhaps sometimes we just need to accept it is fine to produce an arty photo that might not represent the true moment, but still satisfies our creative urges.
Thank you so much for your comments Sian. It was interesting too read your thoughts and I agree with your description of how the brain and the camera see things differently. I also think it is good to produce images that aren't an exact representation of what we see as that is how we put our own voice into our work.
I hope you got some lovely images from your wildflower shoot. 🙂
Hi Gill! I love the lighthouse picture as a black and white, particularly the sky is striking because of the dark color it yielded in B&W. I wonder if the color picture might appeal to you more if you toned the colors down, so they were more muted? It is such a lovely picture in B&W though! Love your other shots, as well. You asked whether the beauty we saw with our eyes always translated into a beautiful image. I think it's a complex thing, art is subjective after all. But I think if we hold a lot of Beauty in the landscape of our hearts, we are much more likely to see a kind of Beauty that has a different quality than what we might see in a picture. If only we could flip through the memory book of our hearts!! Thanks for sharing!! XO
All the places you have mentioned in your blog are delightful to see at any time of the day but you have this ability to search the best time, the best light to photograph them. Your images are a delight to view.
I love landscape photography both in black and white a la Ansel Adams, and in soft colours, preferably pastels. But sometimes even a high contrast image holds appeal, I suppose it depends on the motif. Generally I agree with you in what you say about beauty. Not for nothing are we taught that we need to go into the landscape early or late, during that golden hour.
So I am wondering something though, do you think with editing you could have made the harsh contrasts less so and made the colours softer? Of course that too would have changed what the camera saw, but it might have been closer to what your eyes perceived.
Thank you very much for your comments Karin, it was good to read your thoughts.
I did try to soften the colours in post processing but I couldn't get it quite right and I definitely preferred the black and white version. I might come back to the original sometime in the future or just revisit when the light is better.
We have port WiFi in Helsinki, so I haven't missed reading your post on the day of issue!
The issue posed in some respects carries on from last week! Midday sun certainly lends itself to high contrast images, and therefore black and white is often the choice, unless of course you could shoot infared!
The images of Walberswick and Shingle Street are certainly in your style, but I have to say the Happisburgh light house image in black and white is striking, would love to see it printed.
As we are on holiday I only brought a small mirrorless camera with a wide (28mm) equivalent and decided to shoot in monochrome mode, I will not fully view what has transpired till I get home!. I usually print a photobook of holiday snaps taken with my phone of each trip, sometimes composing as we go. Generally of course I am not shooting landscapes but travel memories and a bit of urban and street.
Thank you very much for your comments Chris and I am glad you enjoyed the lighthouse image. I will have a go at printing it because I think it might look quite nice on some art paper.
Enjoy Helsinki and I hope you get some good images for your photobook. 🙂
I love the way you ask yourself questions, Gill. There is an art to that, and it is through such questions that we grow as photographers. Very much enjoyed this post.
Thank you so much Lee Ann, I am glad you enjoyed it and thank you so much for subscribing 🙂
Some beautiful images here Gill - I particularly like the Shingle Street image at dawn. On beauty in photography - for me, a beautiful landscape doesn't always translate into a beautiful image on screen or in print. But, if I add my interpretation of the image through muting the colours or converting to mono, then the image will hopefully have the emotional connection I felt to the landscape when I made the image rather than the more saturated image created in camera.
Thank you so much for your comments Lin and I am sorry for the slow response.
I agree with you about beautiful landscapes not always translating into beautiful images and for me too it is about the emotional connection. I think if the image and the emotion don't align for me then the photograph feels less attractive.
Thank you for this post, Gill. I love the black and white image of the lighthouse. It was the best creative choice given that the time of day wasn’t ideal. I think both black and white and color render beauty in different ways. Morning light is delicious! I agree. And the waking up to such a beautiful scenery is always heart stopping.
Thank you so much for your comment Stella and I am sorry for the slow response. I am glad you enjoyed the post and the images and I agree with your thoughts particularly about colour and black and white.
Nice series and words to accompany the images!
I too find certain images don’t come across so great as color images but the switching them to BnW makes them pop. I’ve had a few of these lately.
I love that you bring up chaos. I feel what I do as an ICM / abstract photographer of nature is to make chaos beautiful because life can be quite chaotic so at times, we just have to embrace it.
Thus, with photography we can find and create beauty in almost anything with a certain vision or technique.
Thank you so much for your comments Joe and I am sorry for the slow response.
I enjoyed reading your comments and love the idea of making chaos beautiful which I guess is very appropriate for ICM, although I had never thought about it in those terms before. 🙂
Great thoughts again, Gill! I love your question and pondering about beauty in photography. I agree, that colour can intensify the emotional connection we feel when we look at a photograph. I don’t think it can be limited to the aspect of colour in an image. But I am sure that is not how you meant it. Again, great essay! Thank you for that!
Thank you very much Suzanne, I'm glad you enjoyed it. Sometimes it's difficult to put into words what I am thinking but I am glad you got the idea. 🙂
I have only just had the opportunity to read your post and by a lucky coincidence, I was thinking along these lines myself this morning! My thought was that our eyes see beauty that the camera cannot always ‘see’ in the same way. Our eyes (with the brain of course) can filter out the elements that detract from the scene. The camera cannot. In fact the camera can magnify the messiness or jarring features. I was lucky to photograph wildflowers today in overcast conditions and the pastel shades were represented more or less as I ‘saw’ them. However, perhaps sometimes we just need to accept it is fine to produce an arty photo that might not represent the true moment, but still satisfies our creative urges.
Thank you so much for your comments Sian. It was interesting too read your thoughts and I agree with your description of how the brain and the camera see things differently. I also think it is good to produce images that aren't an exact representation of what we see as that is how we put our own voice into our work.
I hope you got some lovely images from your wildflower shoot. 🙂
Thanks Gill. I posted some (along with the traditional gardens at Raveningham Gardens) on my Instagram account if you are interested in taking a peak.
Hi Gill! I love the lighthouse picture as a black and white, particularly the sky is striking because of the dark color it yielded in B&W. I wonder if the color picture might appeal to you more if you toned the colors down, so they were more muted? It is such a lovely picture in B&W though! Love your other shots, as well. You asked whether the beauty we saw with our eyes always translated into a beautiful image. I think it's a complex thing, art is subjective after all. But I think if we hold a lot of Beauty in the landscape of our hearts, we are much more likely to see a kind of Beauty that has a different quality than what we might see in a picture. If only we could flip through the memory book of our hearts!! Thanks for sharing!! XO
Thank you so much for your thoughts Danielle and I agree with what you say about holding beauty in your heart.
I did try to tone down the colours in the lighthouse shot but I couldn't get it quite right. Maybe it's an image I will come back to.
It's a great picture and the B&W is stunning. XO
All the places you have mentioned in your blog are delightful to see at any time of the day but you have this ability to search the best time, the best light to photograph them. Your images are a delight to view.
Well done and thank you for sharing them!
Thank you very much Stephen, I am glad you enjoyed them 🙂
I love landscape photography both in black and white a la Ansel Adams, and in soft colours, preferably pastels. But sometimes even a high contrast image holds appeal, I suppose it depends on the motif. Generally I agree with you in what you say about beauty. Not for nothing are we taught that we need to go into the landscape early or late, during that golden hour.
So I am wondering something though, do you think with editing you could have made the harsh contrasts less so and made the colours softer? Of course that too would have changed what the camera saw, but it might have been closer to what your eyes perceived.
Thank you very much for your comments Karin, it was good to read your thoughts.
I did try to soften the colours in post processing but I couldn't get it quite right and I definitely preferred the black and white version. I might come back to the original sometime in the future or just revisit when the light is better.
Good afternoon Gill,
We have port WiFi in Helsinki, so I haven't missed reading your post on the day of issue!
The issue posed in some respects carries on from last week! Midday sun certainly lends itself to high contrast images, and therefore black and white is often the choice, unless of course you could shoot infared!
The images of Walberswick and Shingle Street are certainly in your style, but I have to say the Happisburgh light house image in black and white is striking, would love to see it printed.
As we are on holiday I only brought a small mirrorless camera with a wide (28mm) equivalent and decided to shoot in monochrome mode, I will not fully view what has transpired till I get home!. I usually print a photobook of holiday snaps taken with my phone of each trip, sometimes composing as we go. Generally of course I am not shooting landscapes but travel memories and a bit of urban and street.
Hopefully we might get WiFi next Monday!
Thank you very much for your comments Chris and I am glad you enjoyed the lighthouse image. I will have a go at printing it because I think it might look quite nice on some art paper.
Enjoy Helsinki and I hope you get some good images for your photobook. 🙂
I just love the lighthouse photograph Gill!
Thank you very much Shital 🙂