The Heron Wood Project
This year my black and white photography has culminated in publishing a book of photographs taken during our walks round our local wood and fields. The Heron Wood contains images that combine many of the techniques and approaches I have mentioned in this article.
Read more about The Heron Wood here
More black and white pictures
I’ve been producing articles describing the background to some of my photographs for a little while now on this website. Here are a few of the pieces describing some of my other black and white images.
It does seem I get inspired by bad weather. I just needed 50 seconds between squalls to get the long exposure shot, and I wasn’t getting them.
“But it’s just a picture of a wall!” It’s also a picture of ambition moderated by pragmatism, of nostalgia, of seeing how things were, how things are now and how they got there.
Sometimes, when you take a photograph, you know immediately what it’s about. Other times, you’re not so sure. This was one of those times.
The story behind the image. By daylight the scene is nothing to write home about. But at night, nearly midnight, all those extraneous elements and colours just disappeared, and the atmosphere of the Venetian night took over.
It’s the sort of picture I’ve always longed to be able to make – technically and compositionally appealing.
As soon as I saw the negative emerge from the developer I knew I’d got something worthwhile.
Thoughts of home after the uncertainty of carefully picking your way up river past sandbars and shoals.
Way back in 2011, I was fascinated by the buildings in Manchester – mainly the Victorian and Edwardian commercial architecture. There was lots to go at, and much that was in an attractive state of dilapidation. But there’s lots of modern buildings too and I regret not photographing more while I was there.
Thought-through or intuitive? Do your pictures depend on your experience or do you just go exploring?
Has something just happened? Or is something about to happen? Or perhaps nothing ever happens up here in the waiting room on the roof of the known world.
The story behind the image. There was something about the line of gravestones not just leading to the door but also taking you back in time as you walk along beside them.
You get the telescope out to try and see more clearly but it doesn’t help. It’s the wrong way round. And they’re getting further away.