In the picture

 As a result of my postings on my "On Location" pages on The Teesdale Gallery website I have been asked about aspects of my photography. This Blog seemed a good place to answer some of those questions.

 I am fortunate enough to be able to venture out onto the fells and dales on a regular basis all as part of my work (someone's got to do it (lol)). This is with the intention to obtain references for my paintings, especially at this time for the "Wainwrights in Colour" project but also for future work. In such great surroundings it is not too hard to come away with some pretty good photographs.

In answer to some of the questions, it is not my intention to branch off into the photographic print market, this field is already well catered for by some brilliant exponents of the genre. Besides, I'm a "fell-walking artist" not a "fell-walking photographer", I'll just stick to paintings. With regard to my cameras: The camera used for all the digital shots up until October 2009 was a Fuji S5500,

It is a fairly simple and light camera to use and has given some great results considering it only is 4MP. Normally it has been set on auto and with the occassional use of a polarization or graduated Neutral Density filter. It has just about clocked up 20,000 shots.

 Last October I added another camera to my kit. I wanted a smaller compact camera so I opted for the Samsung WB500.

This is a super little camera and now is with me constantly. Its 10MP quaility and 10x optical zoom makes it ideal to have to hand and its already racked up several thousand shots. It also takes HD video with impressive results. Check out my You Tube page to see a few short vids shot with this camera.

  As for post production: I use photoshop to crop and "tweak" some of the photos but only about as much as I would have done in the old Darkroom days. I am not a big fan of some of the photo-enhancing techniques such as HDR or exposure fusion. Used well these tools can adjust and improve colours and exposure in images but many cases that I see the end result that has a "fake" and un-natural look to the photographs. Maybe its just my "artists" eye and of course it is my own personal opinion.

 Having already stated that I will not be going down the photographic print route we do of course sell a small range of cards here at the gallery taken from some of these photgraphs. They are proving popular and were originally intended to fill a space until cards are produced of some of my paintngs. We may expand the range of these cards in the future. In the meantime you can see the full current range by clicking here, this takes you to the page on the gallery website.

I am just about to re-design my "links" page on the gallery website but if you like good photographs of the Lake District you may want to check out these two other websites:

Striding Edge- Sean McMahon's excellent site of photgraphs and walks in the Lakes.

My Wainwrights- Gary Richardson's website, covers not only the Lakes but also walks in the Dales etc.

more links will be on the website soon.

Looking out on Winter/Spring.

 The idea of heading over to the Lakes for the day crossed my mind when I heard that snow was forecast in Cumbria. Overnight it had caused chaos up in Dumfries and Galloway. Its not that I need to have a walk on the fells for the sake of it but rather that there is just one reference for the project that would like to tick off. It is a view of a fell which Wainwright drew in full winter conditions and I would like to capture it in the same season if at all possible.
 With the wonders of modern technology is was able to get an one the spot weather report from Sean McMahon who is located in Cumbria. (if you are a fan of the Lake District, fellwalking etc his website is well worth a look Striding Edge.) Following his report I decided to give a day out a miss- too much low cloud I thought to make my day a success.
 So was a day given over to sketches in the studio. As I did so I looked out across the moor to seem the mixture of weather today, sun, rain and light snow showers all passed by. I work on about 6 to 8 sketches at one time, whilst washes of watercolour are drying on one sketch I move on to another. Hardly "mass production" but a good method to make the best of my time.
Here's another couple of small sketches (out of the six) that I completed today.

High Street from Blea Water.

I managed to get this reference for this shot on my second visit here. Luckily I timed it just right as moments later the low cloud engulfed the summit.

Broad Crag, Scafell Pike.

This little sketch measures only about 9cm x 7cm so I was able to complete it in between other work. All in all it was a successful day, the trip to the lakes will happen soon enough.