As well as working on my art this year I have been trying some creative approaches with my photography. A lot of the time with a young puppy I haven’t been able to carry a big camera kit with me, so I’ve been working mostly with mobile phone photography and apps. Using different blend modes and taking photos specifically to balance with the image I am working on, I’ve been working on an impressionistic approach.
This image was made at the time of the wildfires on the North Yorkshire Moors. The smoke was visible for miles and we could smell it as we stepped outside, but there were fears it would spread into some of the North Yorkshire forest areas, and it was this concern I had in mind when creating this multiple exposure in Dalby forest, overlying the image of the woodland with fire colours from leaves and the dry moorland areas.
This involved a similar thought process, but this time using tree photos taken at the Yorkshire Arboretum, combined with autumnal photos from Dalby forest, and using a ‘difference’ blending mode to invert some colours for the icy blue and light tones instead of the darkness being cast, both literally and metaphorically by the clouds of smoke filling the forest at this time.
Here are some of the other multiple exposure ideas I’ve been working on.
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
Some photos from some East Yorkshire meadowland in June.
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.
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.
