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Online Encounters
In the days before I went deeper into the world of photography, my main means for seeking pleasing images was to have a go on AltaVista. As if to prove that geeks and other early adopters of new technology aren't always photographically endowed, my success rate in those heady times wasn't too great, so much so that I had given up by the time that Google had arrived on the scene.
After seeing as much dross as I did, I thought that even I could do better and the idea of founding an online gallery was born. That was the start of a journey that has taken me far beyond the occasional user of a compact camera that I was more than a decade ago. In that time, I have become familiar with using SLR cameras and comfortable with the level of control that they have given me. Speaking of control, the advance of digital capture has afforded more of it but image processing takes time and highlights the need both to get things right on that day and to control the number of photos captured. A more deliberate approach may make those images that are made all the more pleasurable to behold.
With what I find in print and my own efforts, I rarely set out to locate another photographer's gallery on the web these days. In fact, I am more than happy to leave it to serendipity or whatever happens to come my way. That's how how I built up the collection below but I remain open to anything that might catch my ever more discerning eye.
As the name suggests, this is a gallery of landscape photography pertaining to more remote and beautiful parts of Wales.
Unsurprisingly given the name, all of these images by Ian Evans concentrate on mountainous regions such as the Scottish Highlands and the Himalayas. Well worth a look and I might be tempted to buy one if I were looking for a picture.
The title well describes what's here and it has to be said that the photos look well, even if the site design could do with some modernisation. As with many of these, you'll find prints for sale too.
I first discovered this while on a website for the village of Betws-y-Coed. Since then, the man behind the photos has featured in the magazine Amateur Photographer. However, I reckon that he undersells himself and you may think the same too when you see his photos.
Another site that I encountered on my virtual travels without really looking for it. Photos of Loch Lomond, an area that I have never explored in great detail, are the mainstay here and they are of excellent quality to boot.
As with many discoveries, I is always when you are looking for something that something completely different crops up. In this case, I was looking for websites devoted to the West Cork area in Ireland when I came across this: a fine art photography website devoting itself to the said part of Ireland, a rarity in itself. Apart from its annoying habit of resizing your browser window, this is a worthwhile port of call.
This was found through an advertisement on the Mountain Weather Information Service and the images certainly are evocative and reminiscent of the style of Colin Prior, albeit with a certain extra contrast that I find to be to my liking. Prints are on sale too, which I think is the main point of the site.
He may have written Lonely Planet guidebooks and has just had the audaciously titled 101 Best Hill Walks in the Scottish Highlands and Islands but there's a photographer in him too. The lighting of choice seems to be of the softer variety than would be my choice (a good helping of contrast floats my boat these days) but that's no complaint and may just be a matter of taste.
The name may suggest otherwise but this is the work of an English hotelier and photographer based in the far north of Scotland. It's certainly a part of the world that has lain beyond my reach for a while now but, looking at these images, it might be about time that I set that one to rights.
In a way, it strikes me as odd to have found an ad for this York-based photographer on the website of Cumbria magazine. While there are some photos of Cumbria in his web galleries, the bulk of the subjects are in Yorkshire with some forays into Northumberland too. In addition, he has several books to his credit, again the titles mostly concern Yorkshire but there are some East Anglia ones too. Regardless of these passing detail, it is the photos that matter and the ones on the web are quality items so some photographic inspiration may follow.
This is one half of a husband and wife photographic partnership that I discovered via the Mountain Weather Information Service. Suitably for the collection of folk that has been building up here, landscapes are a major interest but the wider views are mixed in with detail studies too.
Yet another find coming by way of the MWIS, the lighting favoured by this practitioner is of the more muted variety. Much of the imagery is of Scotland but many other mountainous areas feature too with trips to a few continents resulting in pleasing results.
This is the work of Derek Fogg and is a new WordPress-powered website for 2011 that replaces a still live older one created using Photium and WordPress.com. What hasn't changed is the quality of the photography and it remains as alluring as ever.
Doing a spot of housekeeping on my browser bookmarks brought me across this Toronto photographer again. While I don't know how I met up with her work in the first, place, there certainly seems to be a good deal of variety here. The galleries include work from the Yorkshire Dales and the Western Isles along with her native Toronto and other places.
This may have started with a Welsh focus but that has expanded since to include Scotland, England and the U.S.A. too. All of the ones in the web galleries are pleasing to the eye so the site is well worth visiting.
My activities on Twitter are staring to bring photographers to my notice who haven't come my way through the other channels that I have to for adding to those listed on here. In this case, it is the usual machinations of tweeting and re-tweeting that is expanding my horizons. In fact, it was a reply to one of my missives that brought this landscape photographer and his breathtaking images to my notice. At the time of writing, the rolling slide show on his front page is displaying a goodly number of snowy countryside. Certainly, the ones from around his native Stirling have me wondering about basing myself there for a few days sometime in the near future.
Just dabbling on Twitter is bringing up some photographic finds for me and here's one. The images that are shared result from a project that has been ongoing over the last few years: taking one landscape photo a day. Admittedly, the photographers' being based on the wild west coast of Scotland has to help their endeavour. When you are living on the likes of Skye, getting to the fantastic in time is made so much easier. It does seem that any opportunities aren't getting wasted here...
An ecologist by trade, Butterfield seems to have an eye for good landscape photos too as his galleries containing scenes from Derbyshire, Yorkshire and Cumbria should prove to you. Wildlife photos complement these as does a gallery containing photos of Edinburgh. It was a tweet about fog on the moors of Derbyshire that brought this my way though a little curiosity was needed or I never would have checked out the website.
Sometimes, one serendepitous discovery leads to another and this photoblog is an example of that; a website found via Twitter led to it. A start made last summer already is bringing pleasing images to the web for perusal by all. It seems the western side of the National Park is getting the attention that it deserves too. There's plenty there as I know well from my wanderings around those hills and valleys.
