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Wide angle lenses have always been popular with landscape photographers but it is very easy to misuse them. Their very nature means that whatever you put in the foreground is going to dominate the picture and so achieving a balance between background and foreground can be difficult. It is very important to ensure that the foreground doesn't dominate to the exclusion of everything else.

I shall be on holiday for the next couple of weeks so the next blog won't be until 10 December.

Cumbrian Fells

The sky can make a big contribution to a landscape picture, but it can also dilute the picture's impact if it is lacking in interest. Many photographers, however, have a very rigid attitude to skies and will insist on including them even when they don't add anything to the picture. I'm hoping that this image will demonstrate that you can have a good landscape without a sky.

One Tree Road

These days many photographers shoot everything in colour and then think about converting to black and white afterwards. I think that is the wrong way to approach monochrome photography. To really see in black and white takes practice and the best approach in my opinion is to devote yourself to it for a day, a week, a month or however long it takes. Trying to shoot colour and black and white on the same day makes life too complicated!

This particular shot was taken somewhere near the Lancashire/Yorkshire border using film and a red filter. The contrast was further enhanced by printing at grade 5. Many photographers seem to think that it is essential to achieve good detail throughout the picture and use hdr techniques to achieve it. My approach with this shot, was quite different. I wanted to remove detail in order to simplify and therefore strengthen the composition.