I have never been a fan of incorporating the sun in landscape photos, aesthetically it doesn't push my buttons, however in woodland, I am a fan of contre-jour lighting. Specifically woodland with a high canopy, where any openings or gaps in the canopy present an opportunity for what I call 'cathedral lighting'. The best lighting is from low angle light from a rising sun and the lighting effect as it passes through the dew saturated, translucent leaves and fronds of autumnal bracken, is reminiscent of sunlight through a stained glass window.
Recent weather has been remarkably benign, with no wind and clear blue skies, the prospect of clear skies holds little appeal for hills and uplands, so the woods have been visited for the sunrise in expectation of mist and fog, that expectation has yet to be fully met. After a break from woodland photography, the more visually complex scenery needed a recalibration of composition as many some images could have been better balanced and other images didn't convincingly capture the nature of the wood or indeed woodland. I am hoping that some mist will also put in an appearance before the leaves fall.
Some recent research into the originality of landscape photography has produced a rich vein of material to comment on and one development is the popularity of contemporary landscape photography. I had always thought this was the New Topographics territory, but it is is now a genre apparently dedicated to the application of 'creative or artistic effects' to landscape scenery and we're not talking tilted focal planes or tobacco filters. Nope, it is more the combination of intentional camera movements, long exposures and blending of multiple exposures, the resulting images have a definite look to them and the keepers are the ones that aesthetically evoke a positive emotional response from the hundreds/thousands of images taken. It is fair to suggest that the optical performance of the lens is a minor consideration.
Being kind, I'll speculate that photographers who gravitate to the contemporary landscape photography community have tried conventional landscape photography and found it not to their liking. The toll on the spirit of early mornings and late nights, schlepping the gear, the travelling, rocking up at an iconic landscape to find it saturated with workshop clients, the weather lottery, all that effort and oftentimes so little reward. Happily, social media favs and likes for images are easily at hand with the contemporary landscape photography meme, it is marketed as photography for creatively artistic people and these people have plenty of time to engage on social media, which they do, prolifically. This application of creative effects to landscape scenery doesn't require a tripod, although there are heated debates on this, as some feel it isn't proper landscape photography without a tripod, whilst others insist breaking the link between the camera and tripod frees up artistic energy. It has the dubious appeal of taking 1,000's upon 1,000's of images, the photographic equivalence of the Infinite Monkey Theorem and can be combined with 10 stop or 16 stop filters, awesome! Aside from the Shakespeare's Monkey appeal, the deal sealer is that it is fairly weather resilient, even high wind and leaden overcast skies are ok and any bland bit of countryside or seashore will do, which there's no shortage of near many urban population centres, throw in a 'loose' photographic technique and it's no surprise to witness the popularity of this contemporary landscape photography meme.
Digital cameras even facilitate the new genre with in camera blending/exposures modes too, so the 'art' can be accomplished in camera, in the field and in a delicious twist of irony, the creative contemporary landscape photographer can take the moral high ground and berate the digital fine art landscape photographers, who have to resort to photoshop manipulation for their creative vision. As the imagery has a definite modern look, the serious creative contemporary landscape photography artist can use the images to hang on almost any concept e.g deconstructivism, nihilism, political statements, poetry, folklore, environmentalism, eroticism .. the list is seemingly endless.
Despite being the proverbial 'low hanging fruit' of landscape photography, lower even than minimalist long exposure seascapes, the contemporary landscape photography meme offers a new market to exploit. So the media have put aside any principles and cashed in on the punters embraced it with articles, how to videos etc to boost flagging sales, click bait and landscape photography competitions have even allowed contemporary landscape images, no doubt as a cherry to attract new punters, keep the sponsors happy and most importantly of all, the filthy lucre rolling in. It will come as no surprise that that there are contemporary landscape photography workshops.
I haven't succumbed to the delights of facebook, twitter or any other social media circus, long since unsubscribed from any photography magazine and only pick up on the more visible news, so I'd rather lost touch with what is happening in the landscape photography world. I was aware of the 2015 French government report into the state of its professional photography industry* which made for grim reading and I recalled a candid article by Ming Thein, titled The future of photography lies in education which wasn't very positive either. My blog posts on originality in landscape photography required some research to get an overview for who is photographing what and where, which necessitated a trawl through magazine articles, photo sharing community galleries and individual portfolios. The activity also provided an insight into the respective health of the amateur and professional photography markets.
The good news is that the amatuer landscape community appears in rude health, with large and active communities posting images and compared to 2005 there are now relatively affordable mature digital camera systems capable of delivering professional image quality. Many amateurs are monetising their images by selling prints, merchandise and submitting images to photo stock agencies. In 2008 the stock photo agency Getty formed a partnership with Flickr for access to the sites global photography community and their video/stills images. Amateurs don't have to incorporate the costs associated with running a profitable business in their selling price and there are a large number of amateurs across the globe now supplying the global demand for stock photography to global photo stock agencies.
The not so good news is with the professional photography community. It appears that stock photography once underpinned a large majority of professional photographers careers and in the golden age of professional photography the time and effort invested in compiling a large stock image library would pay off in later years with a steady income stream and the photographer was then at leisure to pick and choose commercial work, concentrate on personal photography projects, publish a book etc. The figures banded about for stock image sales range from 60% to 80% of business income for an average sized stock image library, those figures were before the digital revolution disrupted the market. A google archive search will reveal that back in the early noughties as digital photography and the internet started to gain momentum there were predictions made for the demise of the stock photography industry. Those pundits blessed with foresight and common sense, observed that analogue capture didn't quite fit in with the new digital world and scanned film was no substitute for pure digital capture. Predictably their sage advice was flamed in online photography forums and the online forums did what they do best with innumerable posts, long threads, heated discussions and ad hominem attacks on why film was better than digital and vice versa. The astute commercially minded photographers took the opportunity to invest in digital, create a new all digital stock library and reap the rewards until the herd changed direction.
The stock photography industry had already witnessed the impact of digital on the analogue systems of filing, searching, indexing etc and a brief history of the stock image industry is outlined in this 2015 article from Alamy. To illustrate the effect of stock photography incomes and market pressure, it is worth reading this article published in 2006 by www.luminous-landscape.com titled Micro Payment Agencies at the end of the article was a short bio of the author 'George Munday graduated from the Birmingham (England) School of Photography in 1975. After leaving college he became a photo – journalist for four years, before moving to Ireland to become a business partner in an advertising and commercial studio, later becoming a stock photography agency. Last year he set up Copper Coast Workshops which offers residential, weekend workshops for digital photograpers. Apart from the workshops, he supplies stock photography to various stock agencies, writes and photographs features about Ireland and Irish Gardens, and will soon be teaching photography in the local college. He’s always happy to talk endlessly about photography and give participants at the workshops advice about shooting stock, shooting commercially and any other aspects of photography that he has garnered during his 30 years as a photographer.'
As an aside, no-one in the early noughties predicted that mobile phones would one day have cameras and stills/video capabilities, with Apps and internet connectivity to upload online within seconds of the image/recording being made.
The Financial crisis of 2007-2008 according to the International Monetary Fund initiated the worst global recession since World War II an event that even disturbed the rarefied high end photography market which was evidenced by the sudden appearance in the photography media of photographers whose commercial work activities in London had concluded (cough) and announced they were now focusing again on their true passion of landscape/travel photography. I'm sure a lot of people reading the articles said 'Who?' The global recession combined with falling stock image incomes forced professional landscape photographers to further diversify and/or concentrate their endeavours on profitable income streams. The problem was that not just professional landscape photographers have been affected by recent events, it is market wide and that means professional photographers of all 'genres' are looking to diversify their revenue streams. Where professionals websites were once 'genre specific photographer' they now encompass several genres of photography, I guess to cover all the bases. The achilles heel for professional landscape photographers is that - as was stated in a South Korean court - 'anyone can take a photograph of a landscape' and indeed they do.
The above video was uploaded to youtube in 2009 and has received over 2,000,000 views and over 250.000 subscribers to date. If only 0.5% of those viewers bought DVD's, signed up for workshops or purchased other merchandise that is over 10,000 customers. The photographer is clearly not a 'landscape' photographer, but kudos to him, as he effectively demonstrated and communicated some salient principles of landscape photography. There are professional landscape photographers who have failed miserably to effectively convey those same salient points across a variety of media.
The one area where professional landscape photographers can capitalise on their awards,media presence,celebrity experience is tuition aka training workshop/ adventure/ expedition/ social piss up tour or education merchandise DVD's, books etc. I have yet to find a professional landscape photographer not invested in the phenomenon of the photography workshop or tuition. The A list names command premium prices and group sizes, then lower down the food chain, are workshops where prices reflect group sizes, destination, duration, luxuriousness or not of accommodation and competition. As a barometer of the health of the landscape photography market; workshops and tuition are currently taking up a high proportion of many photographers calendars. What has happened and is happening in the UK is mirrored across the globe and almost every article in the popular media not associated with gear reviews, seems to be masquerading as PR and marketing for the authors media presence and running workshops, educational material or photography services and desperate drivel stuff it is too.
The conventional wisdom expressed at the time of the financial crisis was to ride out the storm and reap the rewards when the storm blew over. Disruptive events have a nasty habit of obsoleting products, markets and careers, I suspect no one at the time took into account the combination of
Disruptive technology of digital capture
The popularity of digital photography across the globe
Amateurs able to compete on a professional level and facilitated by the stock photography agencies
The price of stock images could fall to such low levels
Smartphones, display sizes and social media
The extent and duration of the global financial crisis
I have my doubts on whether conventional landscape photography workshops are a sustainable business model, but at the moment it seems to be one of the few profitable areas and is underpinning the global landscape photography industry. I should mention that even amateurs are now offering workshops and 1-2-1 tuition too.
* The French Government report into the professional photography industry can be downloaded after some rigmarole in English. However there is a link at the bottom of the Petapixel article to the Hyperallergic website where an article highlights some trends and numbers. I thought these statements from the article of interest : Some 6,000 of France’s roughly 25,000 professional photographers — working in every field, from fashion and photojournalism to fine art and corporate photography — were surveyed for the study, which was conducted between December 2013 and December 2014 by the Ministry of Culture and Communication and its Department of Studies, Probability, and Statistics.
Between 1995 and 2010 the number of French people identifying as professional artists of any kind increased by 16%, but the number of photographers increased by 37% over the same period
Between 1995 and 2010 the number of men photographers increased by 25% while the number of women photographers increased by 85%.
58% of respondents had other jobs before becoming professional photographers, 40% of them in a related field (graphic or web design, public relations, animation, etc.).
40% of respondents said portraits are the most important type of image they produce; 17% said landscapes; 13% said photojournalism.
Eight out of ten respondents make money from multiple sectors of the photography market; the most popular revenue stream is corporate photography (executive portraits, event photography, conference materials, annual reports, etc.).
A moorland with heather in flower is a fine sight and worth making the effort to wander around and photograph, though a breeze is welcome to keep the midges at bay. On this trip to Y Mynyddoedd Duon, there was thankfully some wind around and the rain showers were light, which combined with a north westerly wind meant visibility was very good.
I would have preferred the views to the north, but the nature of cloud breaks meant only ground to the south received mottled sunlight, one of the vagaries of upland areas affecting cloud formations. Still, the views to the south are not too bad.
The moorland is also being actively managed again, with numerous small areas of burning to clear away 'leggy' heather and encourage new growth. I'm guessing it is habitat management for red grouse and other upland birds, as the scale of burning is nowhere near that of managed grouse moors of shooting estates. The moorland hereabouts still has grasses, bilberry, gorse and fern, which create a richer more varied habitat and pioneer trees are also starting to spread, mostly Rowans, with a few Birch and the odd conifer from nearby plantations.
Towards sunset the wind strengthened, the cloud visibly clearing and breaking up quickly, the prospects for dusk were not promising. Also the way back would be slow going down steep and rough ground under head torch light, it seemed prudent to make the most of natural light to ensure a safe return to the car. I still harbour hopes of one day photographing a heather moor under 'colourful' clouds at dusk.
My interest in the science of geology is its endeavour to unravel the history of the earth from rocks and structures, a complex story that requires the mind to grapple with the depth and enormity of geological time and processes. It is also personally rewarding to make a landscape photograph that conveys the geological story of a landscape.
From:
Carney, J.N., Horak, J.M., Pharaoh, T.C., Gibbons, W., Wilson, D., Barclay, W.J., Bevins, R.E., Cope, J.C.W. & Ford, T.D., (2000),
Precambrian Rocks of England and Wales, Geological Conservation Review Series, No. 20, Joint Nature Conservation Committee,
At some point in the deep geological time of the Precambrian, the Cymru and Wrekin terranes collided and the collision zone (suture) or terrane boundary, has created an inherent weakness in the earths crust and a nucleation point for subsequent dislocations from external tectonic forces. Geological mapping has revealed that the Cymru/Wrekin terrane boundary has a long history of movement in the Precambrian, during the Caledonian Orogeny and then the Variscan Orogeny. These movements along the terrane boundary generate faults and folds (disturbances) in the overlying rocks and these features have been exploited by erosional processes, notably the actions of freeze-thaw weathering, flowing water and glacial ice. Which is a good thing, as the scenery of the Brecon Beacons National Park would be otherwise a lot photogenically poorer.
Faults of the Fforest Fawr Geopark
http://www.fforestfawrgeopark.org.uk/understanding/rocks-and-geology-of-the-geopark/faults-and-folds/geological-faults-in-the-geopark/
The head of the Senni valley has; a classic glaciated cirque; a U shaped profile; a miss fit water course of the Blaen Senni and the upper valley is aligned with the Tawe (Swansea) Valley/Cribarth disturbance. The valley orientation is initially NE before abruptly swinging north, which coincidentally aligns with another major structural trend which is termed Malvernoid. To the east of where the Senni valley swings north is the Cwm-du valley, a hanging valley above the floor of the Senni valley, with a suite of moraines and steep headwall of Graig Cwm-du. Cwm-du also has a mis fit stream and coincidentally the head waters of the Nant Cwm-du also parallel the Tawe Valley disturbance. This is an area I've visited on numerous occasions to try and make an image that I'm happy with.
There are a number of approaches to reach the vantage point on the Fan Frynych ridge over the Senni valley, the most scenic approach being through the Craig Cerrig Gleisiad National Nature Reserve and at this time of year, there is the potential for low angled sunlight on the northerly facing scarps and valley sides, with patches of heather in bloom for floral interest.
The weather forecast
Credit - Met Office
The forecast was optimistic considering the picture of the visible satellite, rainfall radar and wind strength readings from online weather station, nonetheless there was potential for some atmospheric lighting.
The scenic Craig Cerrig gleisiad
Foreground - vegetated antiscarps of the landslide and western headwall
Middle - Craig cerrig-gleisiad
Horizon left - Cadair Arthur and shower cloud
Surveying the landscape to the south west from Fan Frynych's summit and it doesn't take much imagination to visualise a continuous plateau surface to Fan Llia, before erosion processes exploited weaknesses in the bedrock and the dissection of the plateau. Sadly on this trip, as with previous trips the weather dictated the view of the Senni Valley would again remain unphotographed, this time the winds strength was problematic, maybe next time?
Undulating plateau dissected by Cwm-du
Cwm-du and the north facing scarp of Craig Cwm-du with layer cake stratigraphy of the Lower Old Red Devonian Senni beds
Instead a tactical retreat was made to a headwater stream of the Nant Cwm-du, with a view down into the Cwm-du and Senni valleys and 'relative' shelter from the wind. A patient wait for a break in the shower clouds, was spent donning and doffing rain wear and pondering plateau glaciation, cold based ice, periglacial processes, the thickness of soliflucted till, oh and the delights of descending through the landslide debris of Craig Cerrig Glesiad in head torch light ...
My patience was rewarded with a fortuitous break in the clouds. It wasn't the landscape image I had hoped for, but a satisfying one with the atmospheric lighting and a view along and down an ancient weakness in the earths crust revealed by erosion processes.
