First August Since 2016
I’m currently sitting in my gallery with ten minutes until closing time after which I shall be heading out onto the hills for my first session behind my camera this September. Earlier I went back into the hard drives where I store all of my RAW files and discovered that this August was the first one in which I have made any images for five years. I had a think about the reasons behind this, I’d like to think that I was flexible enough as a photographer to be able to work around most kinds of light and certainly to be able to seek out subject matter to suit the prevailing conditions.
I think that maybe in the past, certainly where I was shooting transparency film through my large format camera the harsher light and higher humidity in the summer months will have impacted on my ability to produce satisfactory work but I actually believe that my inability to deal with hot, humid days is more the issue and this year, August saw none of those. Ironically this year I wild camped and photographed during the heatwave in July and as I type the temperature outside is a sweltering ( to me) 26ºc ready for me to haul my gear up a hill for sunset.
It’s interesting that many photographers choose to avoid certain conditions and/or subject matter the obvious ones being inclement weather and these days those images that are less likely to receive a positive response on social media. Those of you that may have read my infrequent blog posts on my old website might recall an article I wrote on the subject of getting out in wet weather (I’ve copied it into this new feed if interested), after all great images can be made on stormy days providing you keep yourself and your camera equipment relatively dry. I need to apply the same logic to myself around blue sky days which I tend to avoid like the plague. I don’t have to include a deep blue empty sky in my image after all but can instead concentrate on its influence on all the surfaces its colour reflects off; water, rock, wood etc. As long as I can keep out of the heat and bright sun I’d be happy.
I didn’t get to finish writing this item yesterday as I wanted to get the difficult drive from Church Stretton to Stiperstones done at a leisurely pace. Suffice to say the sweaty climb up to The Devils’s Chair along what has to be one of the roughest paths you could ever experience was uncomfortable (the more so because I accidentally lugged my iPad pro up in my rucksack as well as all my camera gear). The experience of being up there very quickly erases any discomfort so much so that I repeated the walk at 5.30 this morning. Now that I’m manning my gallery six days a week these overnight stays are likely to be my best method of guaranteeing regular time out with my camera so I had better get used to it.
Here are a handful of images I took in August 2021. Please feel free to click the thumbnails to view the images at a larger size.
