Tim Parkin - Landscape Photographer

It’s been a quiet couple of months between the start of July and now. I feel as if I’ve wasted these months without getting anything of interest. It hasn’t been that I’ve failed to go out, it’s more that the opportunities to go out have tended to be during the middle of the day on sunny days; never a good situation for great photography in the first place, but I’ve also typically been in company when the opportunity to linger hasn’t been availble. The times I have been out have produced some pictures that I like, particularly the Yorkshire Swampland shot (which is a bit of a work in progress – more to come soon I hope).

I did manage to get a last couple of trips in over the last week, one to Northumberland to see some of my wifes family and Charlotte and I went to the Valley of Desolation this Sunday morning at 6am.

The Northumbeland trip was more of an introduction to the location by David and Elaine who live in Sunderaland and who made us feel very welcome. They took us up to Craster to see Dunstanborough castle, where I shot a picture of the keep – royaly screwing up two sheets of film in a ‘shorten the exposure length to compensate for ND filters’ fiasco, and to the pier in Sunderland where I shot a quick DSLR picture in homage to Melanie Foster. A quick aside, Melanie has an exhibition at Richard Child’s gallery in October called “Inspired by Nature’s Light”.

This weekend Charlotte and I went to the “Valley of Desolation” which , despite it’s name, is quite beautiful. The morning brought a long lasting mist over the whole of the North that stayed around all day but which was very good for shooting detail shots and also for making Yorkshire look like a New Zealand swamp. Perhaps I’ve got a new project on “How to make Yorkshire look like anywhere in the world”

Taking the first shot for this post made me realise how difficult it sometimes is to be ‘creative’ with the balance of light in a picture. I’ve spent the last year learning how to control the light in a picture with grads and centre filters and shift or rise/fall but I haven’t really thought about when ‘not’ to do this compensation or when to use these techniques to creatively increase the contrast range in a shot. Although the example of the Valley of Desolation shot has come out well, I do feel that I could have let the top of the picture lighten up to create a more shadowy foreground. I suppose this is about ‘pre-visualisation’ of the desired contrasts within a picture and these thoughts should come naturally but, like most things in life, I end up thinking too much about them. I shall have to add to my ‘checklist’ to think about the overall large scale contrast within a picture and what I can do to control/enhance it.

Why am I moaning so much..? well it’s really born out of excitement of what is to come rather than dissapointment with what has passed.. It hasn’t really been that bad of a summer rather I haven’t made enough effort to just ‘get out and do it’.

The next couple of months should be a little different however. Light and Land’s Discovery Day is next weekened where I’m hoping to catch up with a few acquaintencies and to listen to some, hopefully inspiring, talks. Our holiday in Scotland is coming up too where we’ll be spending two weeks in Glencoe where I’m hoping to meet up with Richard Childs (please try and get to see Richard’s gallery in Oban if you can!!)