This is the second book by mountain photographer Alex Nail and is another very special book indeed. My review is a little behind the curve as I didn't want to hurry my reading of the book. Something this good deserves, like a fine wine, to be savoured rather than gulped down. I read it slowly and in small amounts then immediately read it again.
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Natural Landscape Volume 2 Review
Whether you entered or ever enter competitions and whatever your views on competitions, this is a beautiful book. I can recommend it without hesitation. It flies the flag for natural, authentic images that faithfully record our beautiful landscape.
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Creation of Sadamitsu by S. Nei Fujita from the album cover of Time Out by the Dave Brubeck Quartet
Time Out
I'm approaching my annual summer sabbatical from landscape photography. Every year I take about six weeks off during which the big camera, tripod and all the other paraphernalia stay packed away
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A Time to Print #2
Having set up the printer from the box and installed ink cartridges, the next step is to make some prints. However there are some significant steps to make before we hit the ‘Print’ button in Photoshop. The major parts of this are monitor calibration and colour management.
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To crop or not to crop - a perfect bridge too far?
Is a cropped image of less value or less ‘pure’ than one in which the entire captured frame is used? There has been some debate on the subject recently and I felt the need to nail my own colours to the mast.
Read MoreA certain lack of focus
I like the look of a minimal depth of field image. I think it instantly creates a sense of depth by virtue of the layers of focused and unfocused elements. This will give at least two layers and if there is some foreground then three distinct layers resolve giving yet more depth.
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26 Hours in Coigach and Inverpolly
A dramatically curtailed trip to the far NW of Scotland. Fabulous locations, enjoyable photography but an unexpectedly short visit cut short by Covid.
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Watergate - A case of photo snobbery
The question of photo snobbery emerged this week and as it’s the second time it’s happened, perhaps it’s worth exploring.
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Cow parsley - Motorola G7 + Snapseed
Examples of photographers’ paranoia #1 - FOLK
This is not as you may have thought, a terror induced by Morris Dancers nor being locked in a room with The Spinners. In this lexicon of photography paranoia, FOLK is an acronym for ‘Fear Of Lesser Kit’
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In search of Style
I've read a couple of interesting pieces this week that concerned themselves with considerations of style and audience. Guy Tal wrote a fine piece on The Pitfalls of Style and David DuChemin’s piece on who to please with one's photography. Both of these landed on a draft for this post which had been sitting and stewing for some time.
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Nature First Alliance
The Dutch have a word for it…. Landschapspijn — literally “landscape-pain”, “place-pain” (Dutch); the distress that comes from seeing familiar habitats or ecosystems degraded and depleted. This popped up on Twitter as Rob Macfarlane’s Word of the Day last week. (If you don’t follow, Rob, you should.) There is a painful symmetry here as it was also the Dutch who gave landscape photographers and painters the word ‘Landscape’. They named the beginning and foresaw the end of what we do.
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The Joy of Serendipity
I enjoy creating intimate landscapes immensely, those small scenes that comprise found objects and arrangements. The better the end product however, the more likely it is to precipitate the range of questions to do with asking or suggesting that the items had been placed or rearranged. The questions range from pure inquisitiveness to peevishness and those that are no less than accusatory and derogatory by implication.
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