Category: Articles

Building a Hide (part 1)

The feeding station hide, at Home Farm, was started in March of this year with a view to serious feeding in the autumn and winter. Before any thought went into how we were going to build it and what materials we were going to use we had to give a lot of consideration about where we would site it. The location for any fixed hide is crucial, as it is not a movable fixture, and once up, you are committed to its position. You will need to consider  a number of factors and spend some time around the general area before committing to anything permanent.

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A Sobering Thought

It’s a sobering thought when you realise that some of your photographs are moving into the realm of becoming historical. It’s inevitable, I know, when you have been taking photographs for over 30 years but somehow you always see your own images as being contemporary.

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Losing the Label

I am currently reading Mark Cocker’s beautifully written book ‘Crow Country’ in which he goes in search of the Rooks and Jackdaws that he first encounters in the Yare Valley in Norfolk. There is a small paragraph towards the beginning of chapter six that should be read and digested by anyone who wants to look a little harder to find the extraordinary in the everyday. Although he is concerned with nature watching what he says can be applied to all aspects of looking.

‘… every time you pin a label on a living creature it reaffirms a sense of mastery over it. The naming of the thing gives you the wonderfully reassuring illusion that you know it. You don’t. Sometimes all you have is a single datum. The name. In a bizarre way, the process of recognition can actually be a barrier rather than a doorway to genuine appreciation’

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Entering the Personal Space

We all have a personal space. It’s the area immediately around us and other than those very close to us, we let no-one in. Good environmental portraiture and documentary photography demands that we enter this space and this is only possible if a standard or wide-angle lens is used.  It requires that the photographer communicates with the subject and gains their confidence.

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Building a Narrative – Making Sense of Your Holiday Images

So often, on returning from a holiday or expedition, people are heard to say, ‘ These pictures don’t do justice to the experience!’ Don’t be in this position again!

Over the years photography has been a great way to tell a story. Its zenith occurred during the rise of the picture magazines like Life and Picture Post and of course all moving images are in reality a vast sequence of stills! A narrative suggests that the event photographed will have a beginning, a middle and an end. The time scale that this occurs within does not matter at all. The narrative can occur over a few seconds, minutes, hours or days.

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