Tim Parkin - Landscape Photographer

Monday evening was the official start of the course and it was time to get to know a few people. A pleasant surprise for me was seeing Dav Thomas turn up, someone I’ve been out shooting with previously and who’s company I know I enjoy. The rest of the participants were the usual eclectic mix apart from the fact that there was a distinct lack of women (although Mr Ward did turn up in a dress on the second night!*). Anyway, after the usual introductions we retired to bed ready for a busy day. Tuesday was mostly reviewing how the equipment and despite a trip to Seahouses, I didn’t take any photographs as I was helping other people where necessary. The main issues seemed to be how how to approach focusing with the view camera depending on what type of focus is needed. I’m going to try to write my own guide to this process which will be completely opinionated but maybe of use to someone (I’ve already started on this but got stuck when trying to work out if front tilt really didn’t distort the picture).

The photography started in earnest on the Wednesday however. Our first port of call was back to the Wynding for a sunrise in front of Bamburgh castle. Me and Dav were typically contrary and ran away from the obvious viewpoint to have a look closer to the castle. However, after taking a very distant view of Holy Island (behind some grasses) I decided to walk back to the starting point. A brief stop for a quick shot of some colour in the water and I was back with the gang again. The sun had failed to produce anything particularly amazing when it broke the horizon and quickly wandered behind a dense wedge of dark cloud. I was walking around talking to a couple of people and started to notice the sun trying to fight out of the top of the wedge and in doing creating a particularly cold, winter light (including the hint of a sundog or parhelia to be correct). I was already looking at some of the dark volcanic rocks and particularly at the way an inlet was providing a line that continued the radiating arcs of waves and seaweed (all radiating from the middle left of the main shot). The final composition worked as a big zig-zag from bottom right to lower left to middle right to upper left..

With two out of my last three shots being cliched renditions of Bamburgh castle, I was determined that the remainder of the day would produce something a little different. Our next location was Cullernose point where I very quickly found some wonderful areas of yellow lichen (shown to great effect in Joe’s Northumberland book). Thinking about Joe’s work and his fascination with geometric forms must have drawn me to the triangular black hole in the centre of this set of lichen covered rocks. With bright sunshine, this wasn’t the best conditions to be taking abstract rock pictures but there was the occasional lull in the light that softened the shadows a little. I made the most of one of these occasions to take a ‘work in progress’ picture of this patch of lichen and also a photograph of some of the incredible colours and shapes of the cliffs nearby (the chair shaped picture below). This area is particularly hard to work in with it’s large irregular shaped boulders but with my recent balance issues (caused by Labyrinthitis) I don’t think I made the most of the situation (excuses, excuses eh.. ).

Our final location of the day was down to Dunstanburgh castle where I worked hard to avoid the obvious ‘big black boulders’ shot by taking a picture of some marram grass and, finally, a photograph of a stretch of folded strata beneath the black basalt of Gull Crag (see Paul Corica’s article on the geology of Northumberland here) . Whilst looking at this outcrop of rock and wondering at the stupendous timescales and pressures that must have created it, I realised that the waves rolling sometimes formed immediatly behind it. Of course by the time I had my camera set up it was another fifteen minutes or so before the next wave obliged.. By this time it was getting cold and I was being chased back to the van by David where, amazingly, it was just starting to snow.. The end of a productive day was concluded by a brief ‘show and tell’ where Paul Arthur and Paul Mitchell showed us some wonderful photographs..

p.s. This bit isn’t quite true..