Trying to find beauty in the most subtle of landscape scenes, the things overlooked, produces more misses than hits. This batch of images I am not completely dismissive of. I’m not sure there’s anything I love, but nothing I hate.
I got vibes of the Ocean in Tarkovskys Solaris. A murky pool that seems more a metaphor for your own mind. Covered in green algae, unphotogenic but mystical. After printing, I wanted to go straight back to the darkroom and play with contrasts and minor dodging and burning. I held back; it’s not going to transform into a magical print. I could add a glisten to the pool, but it was algae after all. The foliage could be darker, but I feel it is best left. It has a matter of fact feel, it gives a sense of place that’s true.
Not rubbish; not too conventional. It speaks to me of the little zone in the reserve where trees sit in a puddle, unsure if it wants to be a pond. I am starting to feel this kind of image isn’t Leica material, obviously my Leica could nail this image, but I’d need a tripod to get the depth of field. The Leica’s a natural camera to throw in a bag and take with you everywhere capturing the fleeting beauty in life. To take a tripod and make images like this; Medium format or large format are more sensible.
While I do like the melancholy and drab reality of life, I think it needs a bit more side light for what is a more textural and detail study. Maybe, just maybe; a different crop going less up the tree trunk. It adds unnecessary confusion when there is something more potent in the pool of mud and the thick roots just centimetres above water.
I was feeling a little anxious when I arrived in Arrowe Park, A girl was thundering around on a horse, my iPhone was ringing with a warning “Suspected Scam Call” I got a hold of myself when I realized I had wandered into a completely empty spot. That’s when I slowed right down and saw the image above. It only really speaks to you when everything is calm. Almost too subtle to register. Unfortunately, it turned out dogshit. No, I joke but, it is an image that raises lots of questions to me.
On the Technical front I was using a new orange filter. I had been looking at a lot of Don McCullin landscapes and admiring his stormy aesthetic, which inspired my purchase, knowing he almost certainly used some sky enhancing filter. In this image of a very delicate spring morning light it's perhaps given too much contrast or just done something a smidge weird. I think orange might be best for making a stormy sky look stormy rather than trying to give a boost to a subtle blue morning sky.
Another aspect stresses me out a little in the possibility this image could be special with very delicate intelligent darkroom printing, or it might never get that much better. On one hand it looks like a pen and ink sketch, or another direction it could be soft pencil sketch. Despite all my development as a photographer in unsure if it’s a keeper or not, that’s quite depressing. It’s also a little stressing knowing I could spend hours, maybe days on this print and still be unsure if I would come away with what I am searching for within it.
I am trying to spread a rumour Arrowe Park has a neolithic standing stone, however some speculate it was a gate post, which is equally as haunting, its context removed with time.
I took a lot of images of trees, small trees in this sapling area of the park. Hardly any images made it past the contact sheet. I feel I need to recalibrate my thinking. There is finding beauty in the everyday, but photographically it is better to find something visually interesting, rather than try to fight a war on finding the uninteresting interesting. Trees are beautiful in my Zen morning walks with a Leica, but not when I am looking at a contact sheet.
This image trumped the other little trees. Whilst I feel sorry for the other trees, the stone just adds the mystical, something a bit out of place. It also builds on the sense of place I love, it’s a little “something” that walkers might overlook but will resonate on once it’s pointed out.
Whilst it looks like a whole series of image could have been captured here, the light was harsh, it had the naff texture of clay caked mud. Theres something cool about just seeing it as it is, in all its disarray. Closeup studies may have taken it a bit too far out of its context.
These two God awful images excite me the most. Completely rubbish but they have inspired me. I am drawn to the backlight in the woods, a supernatural light that makes anything it touches look more interesting than it is. However, it’s a complete shitter for an uncoated lens without lens shade. The bloody old wall that was the subject is hardly in the print. I keep forgetting that as cool as lens flare looks, it rarely prints that cool, and more importantly destroys contrast and detail.
On the positive side, the subject is exactly what I wanted. Arrowe Park is surrounded by an old wall, but for those that have got lost know, there is remnants of a second wall, engulfed into nature. It’s a patch away from the main park, with signs of kid’s dens littered by homework and pop cans. It’s the hidden zone of the park with its history too incidental to of ever been remembered. These are the zones I love.
Technically these images can be fixed, but more challenging might be the lighting. Whilst I love relying on natural light, when in the depths of a wood you are very much in the difficult zone. Whilst I’m fighting the urge, I am curious to see what my portable Amaran 60 COB light could do here. Alternatively, I could be barking up the wrong wall and they really are God awful.
