Charlie Waite Landscape Photographer

I was lucky enough recently to go to a lecture by Charlie Waite, one of the world's leading landscape photographers.  He is noted for his "painterly approach" in using light and shade. It has been said that his photographs convey an almost spiritual quality of calm and serenity. What came over most from the lecture was his passion for landscape photography and his perfectionism, with amazing attention to detail when taking photographs.  He emphasised that light is key to photography and he is prepared to wait for the light to change when taking photographs. He has written "I find that much of my photography involves construction, waiting for elements to happily interlock and align themselves".  He also has written "more often that not light is the greatest catalyst that can react and finally yield the image one yearns"

During the lecture he also emphasised the need to take great care when taking photographs as opposed to the scatter gun approach of taking lots of photographs in the hope that one will be good.
His photographs were amazing, meticulously observed with very clever use of light and shade.  He said  he was moved by the beauty of the scenes and this has been conveyed very successfully in his photographs.  Interestingly quite a few photographs were taken on a compact camera at opportunist moments confirming the need to always carry a compact camera with you.

I felt inspired by his lecture, as I am particularly interested in landscape photography and it was fascinating to learn how much patience and attention to detail was involved in taking his photographs.  I will definitely take more care over taking my landscape photographs and be prepared to wait for lighting conditions to change.  I can't wait to pick up my camera and go out and take more landscape shots.

Course work

Unfortunately due to my ill health over the last year I've been able to do very little of this course this year. I didn't realise it was so long since I had posted anything on this blog! Although my health is only a little better I'll try and continue doing my next assessment in bite size chunks when I am able. I would still very much like to continue this course and get on to doing other courses too.

Higher and lower sensitivity

I took these photos on a dull day inside a scrap yard. As I was using a shutter speed of 1/125 the first photograph using an ISO of 100 is far too dark. The next photographs were taken using the same shutter speed and ISO's of 200, 400 and 800. When I examined these photographs closely it is obvious that the images become more grainy the higher the ISO.
This exercise has consolidated my knowledge regarding ISO and I can see that in poor lighting conditions it is very useful to be able to use a higher ISO.

Measuring exposure - bracketing

For some reason this text printed over the photographs for this exercise so I am posting this seperately.


In the photograph of the leaves I think all the photographs are acceptable apart from the first photograph which was over exposed by one stop. In this photograph the details in the lightest leaves have been lost due to over exposure.
In the photograph of the quarter of the waterwheel I like the middle photograph which was normally exposed and the two over exposed photographs as more detail is retained in the wall.
In the photograph of half of the waterwheel I think all images are acceptable because there is enough details in the light and dark areas of the photograph.
In the photograph of the mill I think the middle three photographs are acceptable. In the first photograph, over exposed by a stop the detail has been lost in the sky and in the last photograph, under exposed by a stop the detail has been lost in the dark areas of the photograph.
In the last set of photographs of the mill roof I think all the photographs apart from the first one are acceptable. In the first photograph, over exposed by one stop the colours are slightly washed out. I conversely like the under exposed photographs best as the colours are more saturated.
Overall this was a very useful exercise in measuring exposure emphasising the importance of having detail in the highlight and darkest parts of a photographs. It also illustrated that the results can be different depending on the lighting and subject.

New camera!

I finally got around to ordering a digital SLR camera today, something I've been meaning to do for some time! I've ordered a canon 600D (after reading good reviews about it and talking to my camera club friends)and a 28-135mm IS USM lens and plan to buy a 70-300 mm lens in the near future. I'm going to get my camera tomorrow and can't wait to try it out. Hopefully if will spur me on to complete the next assignment which has been taking me ages because of my health problems.

Scottish Seabird Centre Nature Photography Competition 2012

I was very pleased to win 3rd prize with the above photograph in the Landscape category of the Scottish Seabird Centre Nature Photography Competition. The link below shows the other winners' photographs.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/scottishseabirdcentre/sets/72157629244771455/

Measuring exposure

This photograph was deliberately overexposed by two stops so that the page would look white not grey.