9am, Sunshine and occasionally overcast, rain about. 7 June 2025

• 52.11250° N, 2.22830° W.
• 07.06.25 / 9am
• Sunny with occasional showers
• Nikon D850 with 105 prime lens (handheld)

I headed out on a shoot with my digital camera with the intention of practicing a few skills, on the back of my research into Anna Cabrera and Angel Albarrán. Considering their approach, I wanted to try using movement as well as deliberately spending more time waiting and observing, as I attempt to really challenge my understanding of what I am trying to convey. Also, the work of Jitka Hanzlova is in my mind here as I try to think about the ‘waiting’ aspect of a photograph; all to often I am impatient, typically thinking about what I need to do next and how much time I have.

Selected Images

I’ve chosen a few images below from the shoot, with which I did some basic post production in photoshop.

These images of grasses appear better in black and white. I used a slow shutter on the last one as you can see, I like the result as it appears as dreamlike and ephemeral. Themes surrounding impermanence and / or change interests me at the moment and I am exploring this as a central theme for my FMP. There is some evidence of movement in the first two images, not as clearly but the wind was more still at that moment. I think that the three together, show elements of movement, chaos and transition. The original colour versions are in the contact sheets at the bottom of this post.

This next set of photographs were taken as I progressed on my walk, they are in two seperate areas of farmland, but both have seemingly diverse plant growth. I took a long time exploring the chaos of these spaces, the complexity of the plants, all common to our countryside, were playing host to a vast number of insects. I wanted to show these areas in all their chaos, with the vibrancy and texture that I observed. I played around with some of the post production features in lightroom to try and show this. I find my camera over exposes in these circumstances so I need to underexpose otherwise the details are washed out. I particularly like the small clusters of poppys and the long decayed sunflower heads, which I photographed back in winter, in their frozen landscape. Their resilience is symbolic.

As the walk progresses, I start to follow the track down to the river, crossing a dried out stream with a willow tree overhanging . The River Severn here seems to be quite a fast flowing stretch, set against the backdrop of the malverns and a steep bank of trees behind.

The foliage is very dense by now, I love how the yellow flowers mark out the edge of the river and naturally breaks up the scene. Shooting in bright daylight isn’t ideal of course but I have to make the best of the time I have available at the moment. When I make my images for the FMP, I will need to prioritise time a little better to achieve the result I am after. I think at either end of the day, the photographs in all cases would be richer, I could also shoot at dusk and use some flash to see what impact that might have.

Contact Sheets: