Seeing differently

Untitled, Cumbria, May 2007

As I mentioned below, the mixed weather this weekend forced me to think differently about the photos I was taking, if I was to make good images.

Part of the attraction of the Lake District to me is the variability in the weather, the way that weather can change the landscape from day to day and year to year. Whilst I've always seen it this way and enjoyed it for what it is, the photos haven't always been a reflection of that attraction. for some reason I've been stuck on the classic (cliched?) images of mountain-tops against the skyline.

Here is an example (still a work in progress) of my partial change in perspective. Some of this resulted from my determination to come away with a large amount of material to work with, an determined effort to actually get the camera out of the bag.

In this instance the top shot shows what the weather was like that day. I was sat just about 100m below the cloud line. The light was flat, the tops invisible, the sky almost uniform in colour. This was one of the clearer spells that day.

So I shifted perspective. Below is the result. It reflects what I love about this spot, one of my favourite spots anywhere.

Solitude, Cumbria, May 2007 - a work in progress

I've never seen another person here. The path is indistinct, I always walk a bearing across the open moor from the main path to the gill here. Despite being able to (just) see the road, there is no sound of human activity in this spot. I enjoy eating lunch and contemplating the world. It is actually this view, rather than the skyline, that is what I gaze upon.

One aspect of the photography from these sort of days that I do need to work on is the capturing of the true essence of the overcast days. There is a sense of truth about such days, they are a large part of the weather in the region, yet reflecting the true impact that such days have in a photograph eludes me. Practice needed (or maybe some good filters).