He uses natural dramatic lighting, lots of patience, mood and atmosphere and attention to detail to attain his lovely results which I couldn't resist taking a closer look at. He is one of the few professional photographers that does not own a polarising filter believing that if you wait for the right light at the right time of day, you don't need one. Inevitably this results in lots of early starts, late finishes, and as many returns to his special places as necessary, but as I have already read and stated, he has lots of patience, a requisite for landscape photographers it would seem. He prefers not much filter use at all, priding himself in only using natures natural light, and particular dislikes obvious graduated ones.
Ed Collacott has always held a fascination of trees, so we have something in common there and I love the colours he captures in his images:
Interestingly, I had had the thought of taking a same tree scene in different seasons, when Marie had suggested we think about story images. I remember thinking that it would be an idea, but would take me some time, so when I saw that is what Ed Collacott had done, I thought I would include it in this blog.
His Four Seasons image has proved to be one of his most successful to date; a particular tree he loves to photograph at different times of day, and in different light, as well as different seasons....he has phogographed this particular winter tree for the past 30 years and hopes to continue to do so.
It reminds me of a centre tree in one of my images, 'Hurdles'.
I think the way he has placed the season tree images together with the colours works brilliantly and I can see how it would appeal to lots of people, just like me. I notice how the in the summer section the tree is so full of plumage it looks to bow its head to the ground, and how the summer and autumn sections hold two tone colours. The overall picture is very effective and each individual season image would still be very appealing.
Again, I just love these Autumn colours and enjoy photographing similar, so I would liken it, on that basis alone, to my images 'Autumn Gold' and 'Watercolours' (see previous blogs). I find it harmonious and tranquil.
I have featured this image because it is England's highest single fall, it looks dramatic, even though I am not that attracted to the vertical, and I love Wensleydale cheese. I have been there but not to this National Park and if I had, I probably would have missed it because I have read the only access to this scene is through a local pub (The Green Dragon) for a small fee. The waterfall stands out bright among the dark colour contrasts of stone. I like the way it just about fills the whole image. It is all hard, and then softened by the blur of white waterness. I have yet to take shots of waterfalls and look forward to trying to achieve these blurry effects with slow shutter speeds.
Ed Collacott always uses a sturdy tripod. His photographs are all taken on either a medium format camera (6 x 6 cms) or on a large format panoramic camera (6 x 17cms). I use a large format camera but it is not a panoramic one.
Keeping with the dramatic, but this time with the colour ways, Somerset Lavender was taken after summer storms, when the sun appeared, producing stunning colour just before sunset. The image is just so colourful and 'full' of colour, very striking I feel, and we know no filters will have been used, wow!
This has to be my favourite of the few I have featured because it is the colours I love with the 'full scene' to get lost in, and the light is stunning. It has trees in it so their shape gives texture, interest, light reflections and depth of field. The title 'Majestic...is fitting. The whole image is bathed in beautiful golden light. This imagery is just the sort to show off the talents of Ed Collacott, (in my opinion) portraying how he understands nature and our environment... He believes trees reflect natures rhythms. He also understands how light transforms landscape photography, something I am still learning.
It makes you (or me) want to be there, just lolling or wondering peacefully, but mostly to be lucky enough to capture such warmth with such vibrance. It is the sort of picture I would like to have on the wall at home. It feels very calm yet joyous.
He would arrive before sunrise to take such shots, ahead of crowds and other photographers. He obviously thinks its well worth it, and I agree.
shutter 1/160 sec aperture 7.1 iso 200
These are my images where I was trying to search out the right light conditions for effect in wood scenes. I took Dark Red Wood early afternoon, and contrary to Ed Collacotts, it holds no vibrance but I do like the red colour. I think I could make it more vibrant using Photoshop by adjusting the brightness/contrast/saturation controls however. There is no visible path and alot of my wood scenes contain pathways, so its good this one doesn't and adds to a lost type of mood, and is in keeping with Ed Collacotts in this way. My image has peace and sollitude feelings but more like a Harry Potter sort of darker atmosphere.
I was pleased to capture the sun coming through from behind though, so it has to rate (again in my opinion) as one of my favourites and best to date, mood wise. I enhanced it with the control in i-image which lightened the bark from the original to show more detail. It looked even darker before.
Equipment used:
*Canon EOS 5D Mark II camera with battery
*L series Lens 24-105 mm
*SanDisk Extreme CompactFlash card 8 GB
*Tripod
shutter 1/100 sec aperture 7.1 iso 200
This scene is lighter with mood given from the grey sky in close up (above), but in the far scene, taken standing further back (see smaller image above) the sky is more blue and not so threatening looking. Both were taken late afternoon as the light is lowering causing some quite heavy shadows, again which I have enhanced in i-image to reveal more trunk detail and lighten the shadows. The same equipment was used as in Dark Red Wood, but I did not use a tripod for Autumn Gateway. These scenes contain a path which lead the eye to the distant light, and therefore do not hold as much mystery as Dark Red Wood. However I do like the way the trees arch over to greet each other as a walk through. The scene contains a tree I very much like, the one on the right with the hollow base, also features in my Autumn Gold image (in a previous section), with this I compare to Ed Collacott who took different shots of a same favourite tree for years.
Hey Ness, thanks for all the comments!
ReplyDeleteI love these new photos, especially the dark red wood...very atmospheric:)
I see from your moon shot's, you're getting the hang of the manipulation thingy now. Told you it wouldn't take long;)
Hope you had a nice new year, see you wednesday.