Tim Parkin - Landscape Photographer

I’ve just got back (well, OK last weekend was actually when I got back but I’ve been hectic catching up and documenting piccies, sending for developing, etc.) and I have to say that the whole trip was fantastic.

Firstly the Gower peninsula itself is a fabulous place; great geological features, wonderful plant life, nice people and I was blessed with good weather!

Secondly, Joe Cornish and David Ward were wonderful tour leaders. Clever, liveley, helpful and with a good dose of irreverance (mostly from David) to break up the quite philosophical discussions about the art of photography.

Thirdly, it must be something about large format people but the company, 10 folk including myself, was a pleasure to be with.

Fourthly I had loads of fun with my big camera; trying out some gadgets I’ve made (more on that later), borrowing bits of equipment from other people to try and getting to see what other people play with.

I’ve started this post with a scan of one of my favourite pictures from the week, taken on Three Cliffs beach. Those pointy bits are the three cliffs and the plant in the foreground is called “Sea Stock”, a rare succulent only found in North Devon, Cornwall and South Wales. As you can probably tell, there was a bit of a downpour just before this shot was taken but it served to hide some of the foot steps (just).

The photo was taken with my 80mm lens, which is normally very dark in the corners and a bit of a pain to focus. However, I’d just borrowed a spare Ebony ground glass and back from Joe Cornish which was fitted with the Ebony wide angle fresnel. What a difference!! What was black in the corners (unless you move your head) was now a nice even tone all the way across the picture! Also, this meant that it’s a lot nicer to focus. So I gave myself a nice difficult 15-20 degree back tilt shot to test it out with The reflections in the water under the peaks was also a driver for this shot and I had to get about 5 inches away from the plant to take this shot. I used a couple of grads, a two stop with the grad horizontal just below the horizon and a 1 stop that was covering the top right half of the picture to compensate a but for the bellows factor with the plant being so close.

Whilst I’m talking about ground glass though, Joe also showed me his Maxwell screen which was also highly lustable. It’s ‘very’ bright and consistent and the fresnel is hardly visible even under a loupe. Even better, there are no markings on it at all.. Personally I find grid lines and centre circles distracting and to see the picture on a clear ground glass screen which is bright and even was beautiful.. Unfortunately they’re not cheap but as I’ve said previously, the time I spend behind the ground glass is one of the moments I really enjoy in life and if anything removes my disconnect with the subject and increases this enjoyment, even better.

The Light and Land courses are wonderful and I can totally understand why people keep coming back again and again (in some cases taking 3 or 4 courses a year for over 7 years!).

My next course is hopefully in Glencoe in January of next year and I’m already getting excited