Please look at the picture full size.
Every now and again I pretend that I am a landscape photographer. Next week I am going to Snowdonia, (North Wales for my American readers).
It’s rightly said that landscape is a difficult genre of photography. I always have great difficulty with landscape that is all green and flat. It goes along with other photography clichés like wildlife photography is just birds on sticks, or when it’s not a bird it’s a duck.
For a landscape picture to work I need a subject that takes the viewer’s eye through the picture.
Take this beach stream at the Bay of Laig on Eigg in the Outer Hebrides taken in 2006. The crop is very deliberately placed to eliminate highlights that will distract the viewer’s eye. For me the picture is about the shape of the meandering stream and the texture of the rocks in the foreground.
Picture left – The same crop from the original colour file.
Hopefully you will see that successful photographs are made and not just taken. A vision of the possible outcomes is critical for creative success before you press the button. Without that vision possibilities will be lost or not recorded to work on later. The photographer needs to decide what they are going to say about an abstracted view of somewhere. All the elements of a picture may be in place but you have to decide what is significant and why the viewer should look at your selection from the world.
Technical stuff – 24-105mm lens at 24mm, low view-point, print tone – LR3 preset – Creamtone with adjustments.
A big hello and welcome to the new followers of my little blog.
(c) Andy Beel FRPS 2012
Andy Beel FRPS 
Love both photographs Andy and I appreciate the transformations! I had to laugh at your translation of Snowdonia, you new I would need it!
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Hi Gabby some times just re-setting the white and black points to increase global contrast really helps. To directions to Snowdonia where toned down a bit to what I originally wrote which also included something like ” halfway up the UK on the left hand side”. Thanks for dropping by. Andy
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Nice conversion and demonstration.
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Hi Lesley yes befores and afters always help to demonstrate where I begin is no different to anybody else. Thanks for the kind comments. Andy
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Interesting and informative.
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love the scene…bw photo is amazing
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Hi Barbara I forgot to say in the post that the 1/2 mile walk in the rain to the beach was not promising a picture at the end of it.
I love your creative style of photography – thanks
Regards Andy
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This is not ‘pretending’ to be a Landscape Photographer, Andy! This is the real thing. Glorious in B&W, Everything is right. I’d like to quote from this Post in something I am writing for the coming week, is that OK with you?
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Hi Andy I went to Wales two hours before you wrote your comment and have been tardy in keeping up with replying, apologies. That’s fine with me just point people to my blog with a link. Thanks Andy
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terrific image and the tone really adds to the black and white interpretation
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Hi Jon thanks. I’d not used any of the Lr3 toning presets before, as you say it didn’t turn out too bad in the end. Andy
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man, this is awesome. Really like the moody darkness to to. Also gives it the impression of just going on and on.
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Hi its great that you like it and for you continuing support. Andy
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I love your introduction to this post – because that is exactly how I feel myself. But this said I think you show an amazing landscape picture – the final one. The make not take idea about photography is an interesting discussion. I think it’s not necessarily one way or another. Some – like you in this case at least – clearly make photography, while I myself often trust intuition in the moment of shooting. Maybe I am still «making» because my intuition is so well trained after years of photographing, but too often I come back with photographs on my CF-card I had no idea I had taken. This really reminds me of one of the somewhat forgotten but great Magnum-photographers, Charles Harbutt, and what he has stated: I don’t take pictures, pictures take me.
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Hi Otto we are both bitten by the photography bug in slightly different ways – we both understand how to communaicate what is before the lens to the viewer. Thanks for you kind comments. Andy
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