Creating Nature’s Quilts

Creative, Creative nature - textures and natural abstracts, Projects

I’ve built up a collection of photos of natural textures and nature macros over the years, and after looking at some amazing quilt work created by family and friends, it occurred to me to create photographic ‘quilts’ using some of these textures. I wanted to create the images using Lightroom’s Print module, but it limits you to square or rectangular images, so I had to be a bit creative with my solution. I first created a template in Photoshop, using a standard quilt pattern, and then filling in parts of the template, while making other parts transparent. I could then use this template in the print module of Lightroom, overlaid on a photo cell template I created to match up with the quilt pattern. I could then drag my texture photographs into the pattern to create my quilt… not the simplest of processes, but it worked!

I used photos I’d made using my lightbox of peacock feathers, shells and polished mineral stones, as well as photos made in the Highlands of lichens on rocks and mosses, and on Islay of the amazing rocks in Saligo Bay, and lastly some bark textures from the Yorkshire Arboretum.

Within a stone’s throw… – A ‘Scenes within a scene’ project

Durham, landscape, Nature, plants, Projects, Scenes within a scene, wildlife, Yorkshire

This is a sub-project of my ‘Scenes within a scene’ project. ‘Within a stone’s throw’ effectively started itself because sometimes, thanks to my arthritis, I can’t walk very far at all. Thus these photos are all made within a few steps (a stone’s throw) of my landscape view. If anything, it even more effectively shows why it’s worth slowing down and observing every detail of these beautiful places.

I’m always surprised at how much more you observe when slowing down and trying to look for photographic subjects, especially the smaller flowers and plants. It also tends to be the best way to see wildlife, as many animals, birds and insects hide away and slowly come out when we stay quiet and they decide I’m probably harmless! I also photograph using the car as a hide, and this can be very effective for photographing birds and animals that have grown used to ignoring parked cars. The moorland birds were all photographed using the parked car as a hide.

I created the composite images in Lightroom’s Print module, using a variety of user templates.

Within a stone’s throw – Upper Teesdale, near Cow Green Reservoir
Within a stone’s throw – Upper Teesdale stream
Within a stone’s throw – North Yorkshire Moors

Scenes within a scene

Creative, landscape, Nature, plants, Projects, Scenes within a scene, Uncategorised, wildlife

This is a project I started after hearing several speakers talking about people taking a quick photo of a scene and then just moving on to the next big view, without taking the time to enjoy the smaller details, wildlife, colours and abstracts within that bigger picture. If anything I tend to be the opposite way round, enjoying the wildlife and details of nature, and taking fewer big landscapes, but it made me think of a project idea, so in these photos I’ve taken a landscape view, and then shown the details within my bigger scene – scenes within scenes. My aim was to take all the photos within 100m (a distance I can usually manage even on crutches) of my bigger ‘landscape’ picture to show why it’s worth slowing down and enjoying these beautiful places.

Since starting this project I’ve found I observe more details of the ecosystems I visit. When slowing down to look for photographic subjects we are more likely to notice the smaller flowers and insects like the butterflies and beetle in the spring North Yorkshire Moors image. I stopped because I saw one butterfly, then noticed a green tiger beetle, then another butterfly and so on! When we slow down we also tend to notice more macro details and abstract images, like the water abstracts in Dalby Forest, and also take more time to try more creative views of nature like the ICM and multiple exposure images in Broxa forest in autumn. Limiting ourselves to photographing in a smaller area, rather than rushing on to the next big view, we have had chance encounters with wildlife like the geese flying across Cow Green reservoir, reflected in the still water (the only time I’ve ever seen it that still and reflective).

Having taken my images, I create the composite images in Lightroom’s Print module, using a variety of user templates. I try to match or balance colour themes in my images and balance the subjects to create the most pleasing compositions, and then print to file to create my finished image.

North Yorks Moors in Summer – scenes within a scene
Skipwith Hall Gardens – Kitchen garden – scenes within a scene
Skipwith Hall Gardens – Scenes within a scene
Skipwith Hall Gardens – Scenes within a scene
Wolds in winter – Scenes within a scene
North Pennines – scenes within a scene – road between Teesdale and Weardale
Upper Teesdale in Spring – Scenes within a scene
Upper Teesdale – Scenes within a scene
North Yorks Moors – scenes within a scene
Broxa forest in autumn – Scenes within a scene
Cow Green reservoir – Scenes within a scene project
Pocklington canal Scenes within a scene project
Dalby Forest Lake – Scenes within a scene
Stone creek – Scenes within a scene
Broxa Forest – Scenes within a scene
Yorkshire Dales – scenes within a scene
Flower meadow – scenes within a scene
Worsendale – scene within a scene
Coverdale – Scenes within a scene
Allerthorpe common in winter – scenes within a scene

Autumn in the Yorkshire Dales – ‘Through the year’ project

landscape, Nature, Projects, Through the year project, Yorkshire

These are some photos from a morning visit to the Yorkshire Dales.

This is part of a large ongoing project to photograph the habitats I regularly visit in Yorkshire, and a few surrounding counties, to show the flora and fauna found in these ecosystems throughout the year. These include farmland, meadows, riverbanks, moorland, woodland, and coastal cliffs.

Birches catching the early morning light in Coverdale
Langstrothdale
Stone barn
Coverdale
Yorkshire stone barn

Autumn crocuses at the Yorkshire arboretum – ‘Through the year project’

plants, Projects, Through the year project, Yorkshire

Some beautiful autumn crocuses at the Yorkshire arboretum

Summer on the North Yorkshire moors – ‘Through the year project’

Nature, Projects, Through the year project, wildlife, Yorkshire

Some early morning photos of the grouse on the North Yorks moors.

Summer at Bempton cliffs – ‘Through the year project’

Projects, Through the year project, wildlife, Yorkshire

Some early morning visits to Bempton cliffs produced some beautiful lighting on the seabirds that nest there. The gannets particularly are wonderful photographic subjects and the amazing light allowed me to add to my series of chiaroscuro and bokeh images.

Summer in the meadows – ‘Through the year project’

Nature, plants, Projects, Through the year project, Uncategorised, wildlife, Yorkshire

Some photos from some East Yorkshire meadowland in June.

There were some beautiful Banded demoiselle damselflies in the riverside meadows of the Derwent, catching the mayflies.

I also had some fun with multiple exposures of the meadow flowers.

Spring on the Moorland – ‘Through the year’ project

Creative, Nature, plants, Projects, Through the year project, wildlife, Yorkshire

I’ve been working on various projects over the last few months, including themed photographs, and more creative photography ideas.

These are a few of the photos I’ve taken from moorland days out:

I also love working with backlighting and have been experimenting with taking multiple exposure photos:

I loved silhouetting this skylark against the sunlit sky as it rose up above me, but also tried combining several photos in a multiple exposure shot against the light, which shows the beautiful feathers, and the movement of the bird:

This is a multiple exposure of the cottongrass, blowing in the wind, and again backlit by the low sun. Below is a backlit photo of a snipe, taken early morning on the North Yorkshire Moors.

Bluebell woods – ‘Through the year project’

Nature, plants, Projects, Through the year project, Yorkshire

Some photos from a recent visit to some beautiful bluebell woods here in Yorkshire.

Spring at Moorlands nature reserve – ‘Through the year project’

plants, Projects, Through the year project, Yorkshire

Some rhododendron photos from moorlands, a nearby Yorkshire wildlife trust reserve

Spring in the woodland – ‘Through the year’ project

Nature, plants, Projects, Through the year project, wildlife, Yorkshire

Some photos from Forge valley and the nearby woodland.

Yorkshire Arboretum in Autumn – ‘Through the year project’

Nature, Projects, Through the year project, Yorkshire

Some autumn photos from the Yorkshire Arboretum. The colours have been spectacular over the last few weeks, and it’s also always lovely to see the birds here too.

Forge Valley in autumn – ‘Through the year’ project

Nature, Projects, Through the year project, wildlife, Yorkshire

These are some of the images from a recent visit to Forge Valley. The trees were alive with small woodland birds, and a wren was creeping along the fence searching for insects in the moss and rotting wood. A lot of the birds search for food and insects in dead trees, and a nuthatch was zinging backwards and forwards for food that had been put out on the bird tables. The nuthatches tend to appear very fast, and the main sign they have arrived is the other birds scattering away from that very sharp beak! The wren also investigated the fungus growing on a dead tree for insects, which made for a nice picture as it was silhouetted against the soft light filtering though the trees. On the ground a bank vole was hoovering up any food that had been dropped, and a few grey squirrels were checking out the bird feeders. We heard a few jays in the deeper woodland, but they didn’t put in an appearance whilst we were there. A very relaxing way to spend a couple of hours!

Farnes

Nature, wildlife

Another visit to the Farne islands to see the breeding seabirds. I decided to try to get some images with movement blur on the wings of the puffins and terns as they flew in, so whilst I shot some images with shutter speeds in the thousandths of a second for sharp frozen-mid-flight images, I also used some slower shutter speeds in the realms of 1/200-1/400th second to get movement blur, both in the wings of the bird, and also in the camera movement as I panned with the flight. Results below:

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Beamish

Durham, People

I took a number of photos at Beamish museum on the day of their Reliability run (a 150 mile drive through Durham and North Yorkshire for vintage cars, motorcycles and commercial vehicles). Some of the photos looked best in Monochrome (usually to simplify the photo where the background had distracting bright colours), and I used a sepia tone on these to work with the vintage theme. With some of the photos I wanted to keep the colour, but I processed them to look like old coloured photos (a similar technique to one I used for my NYMR wartime event photos). There was a huge amount to see, and with the Beamish ticket allowing you to revisit for free during the same year, I think we’ll be back to take more photos at some of their other events.

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Studio flowers

plants

Some flower photos taken at home using a light tent and a reflective tile.

A fascination with reflections

Creative, Nature, wildlife

Photographing a goosander yesterday, I was fascinated by the colours and patterns reflected in the water around the bird. The bird itself was beautiful to see, but the varying reflections meant that I could create a huge variety of different images. In some the picture is about the goosander, but in others the story is more about the abstract patterns the reflections created.

Spring flowers at the Yorkshire Arboretum – ‘Through the year’ project