In response to this week’s Daily Post challenge Landscape
This week’s Daily Post challenge isn’t so much of a challenge for me as I take landscape shots all the time, it’s what I do. So I thought I’d show a particular picture that means something to me and talk about why.
Langdale Pikes and Middlefell Buttress
The shot above represents a lot about why I took up landscape photography. Many years ago we were visiting the house of friends of ours who were adventurous travellers and experienced mountaineers. They had lovely photographs on their walls of mountain scenes from their various trips. They reminded me of the disappointing holiday snaps we always came back from holiday with, 35mm film prints processed at the high street camera shop. If anything got me into photography it was that desire to get great shots of the mountain scenery we saw on our own holidays.
This picture is all about that motivation. First of all the technical quality is head and shoulders better than my old holiday snaps. Sharpness, contrast, colour, lighting are all so much better. I learned along the way this is in large part down to the abysmal processing of the various high street camera shops.
Second, it’s an almost documentary record of a mountain-side my wife and I know very well. It’s a simple composition, just a head and shoulders portrait shot of a hill but it shows many of the paths and crags we have walked, scrambled and climbed on over many years. I love to pore over pictures of crags, looking at lines, working out routes.
I don’t think this is my best composition but it’s all the things I admired in our friends’ house all those years ago.
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