Well I s'pose as I've built the facility to have a photo blog I might as well get on with writing something!

My intention with my my blog is to muse over some of my thoughts regarding my photography, particularly my direction and style - something that continually occupies my thoughts. I'll also lend my opinion about equipment, other photographers and anything else that tickles my fancy really. As a fan of large format and medium format photography, I'll be commenting on the processes involved in the oldie-worldy process of using and processing film!

The blog is as much for me as anyone else who may find it, hopefully over time I'll be able to look back over my thoughts and allow me (and you) to track my progress and direction.

I set out to the excellent Millington Woods in the Yorkshire Molds today with my Hasselblad as my weapon of choice. This is a little unusual - I've been pretty much exclusively using my Chamonix large format over the past few months. So I decided the time had come to free up a bit and take to the woods with 'blad.

I set up my first shot and pressed the shutter - the shutter didn't sound right, so I tried again without the film back on and figured out the lens wasn't firing properly. Took it off the camera, fiddle about a bit and tried again - it still didn't fire and consequently got jammed on the camera. Damn.

So this is where my lesson begins - to free the lens you need to turn a small screw head in the camera. Simple - if you haven't left your small multitool in your other (large format) camera bag. Not simple if all you have as stand-in screwdrivers are car keys and twigs. So that was the end of my first outing with a Hasselblad fora a while. So, lesson one – take some basic tools out with you. A simple multitool, some gaffa tape, string... any other useful suggestions?!

Luckily all wasn't completely lost, at the last minute I picked up my little Ricoh GX100, and I also had my Agfa Isola in my camera bag - a very basic 6x6 camera which dates back to the 50's. I'd have rather had my Sony a900 with me but I was traveling light. So my second lesson learnt is to always have a back up camera with you. Whilst my back up cameras weren't ideal, at least I managed to make a few acceptable photographs, meaning I hadn't travelled 150 miles for nothing!http://www.peaklandscapes.com/new/html/blog.php?entry=9

If I find myself having to work for 12 hours solid I'm not particularly happy, if it involves staying up all night in the process I'm even less happy! But the prospect of having a long session of overnight landscape photography is a whole different matter!

So I find myself on the East coast of Scotland in June, where the sun sets after 10pm and rises at 4am, with a over an hour of subtle light either side too. In truth there's very little darkness, maybe a couple of hours.

I hatched a plan to visit Cove Bay near Hopeman on the Moray coast (also known as Cashach Cove). I hadn't been there before but had seen great photos from there, particularly by Joe Cornish in his 'Scotland's Coast' book and images by Ian Cameron. After soaking in the sunset I was to move on to Bow Fiddle Rock further down the coast at Portknockie for dawn and the sunrise. The last time I visited Bow Fiddle Rock was over the Christmas break, I was interested to see how the arch was lit in the summer with the sun rising behind it.

I set out at 7pm, laden with my Chamonix large format and Sony a900 digital, the Hasselblad also came along but carrying all three was impossible. I was also well packed up with some fine egg sandwiches and chocolate biscuits (thanks to the Mother (not quite) In Law) to keep me going through the night.

My plans were somewhat scuppered by the adolescent rave going on in Cove Bay, complete with marque and sound system (not exactly providing the best soundtrack to landscape phtography!). I must say though that the ones I encounter were surprisingly polite – I must be too used mouthy big city teenagers! I decided to stay at the Hopeman side of the bay and concentrate on compositions within the large pebbles and rock formations. The landscape here is quite chaotic, I think only repeated visits will uncover wider compositions – more to look forward to next time, I also think it would benefit from more sea – the tide was completely out. I made three large format images at Cove Bay, with a very golden light casting shadows on the rocks.

As the sun was setting, Cove Bay was cast in shadow and I moved around to the Hopeman coast where unusual rock formations are covered in crustaceans. I made a number of digital images as the sun fell out of site. It was perfectly safe to move around the rocks long after the sun had disappeared, I used the remaining light to produce some long exposure seascapes – no need for ND filters here, my 2 minute exposures were all natural!

I was back the car by 11.30 and ready to move on to Portknockie, half an hour or so up the coast. There was a golden band of light on the horizon as I drove east, this never disappeared all night. After a break for an hour with the egg sandwiches and a flask of coffee, I decided to head out and make use of the limited light for more long exposure compositions whilst trying to capture the vivid orange band of sky. The dynamic range was too much for one shot, the orange band rendered a pale yellow, the Sony's sensor also struggled with the colour, the only way to achieve an image closer to what I could see would be to blend two images and adjust the colours to match my memory – still away from home I haven't managed to do this yet but I'm sure I got all I need for a good image.

As the clouds above me cleared, the glow of dawn began to light up the cliffs at about 3am, I positioned myself facing the Bow Fiddle Arch and made some test images with the digital camera, I wanted to get a composition I was happy with so I could set up the large format ready for the optimum light. I decided that was on a rocky outcrop which would provide lead lines to the arch itself. Getting to the outcrop resulted in a wellie boot full of water – wish I'd remembered to roll them up!

I was rather amazed as I looked round at one point just before the sun was about to show itself, and be greeted by the sight of a line of photographers up on the cliff-top looking down on my location – I thought I'd be the only one mad enough to be be there at 3.30am! I'm sure they were most disgruntled to see that I'd already beaten them to my prime location, positioned right in their field of view! Early birds and all that! On chatting with one of them later I discovered they were a group from the Netherlands on a photo workshop.

It was all a bit of a rush to get a few large format frames exposed, there was a fair amount of jumping around from the shore to the rock, hopefully I'll have exposed them correctly, and in focus! Being the kindly gent I am I quickly packed up and moved out of the way so that the Dutch party might get some decent images without me jumping about mid frame!

I finally moved up to the cliff top to make another image of the outcrop I'd previously photographed at 2am with the large format as well as the digital this time, before returning to the car for more coffee.

Not content with 10 hours of photography, I called in at Findhorn on the way back to make a large format image I'd perviously done digitally which I wasn't completely happy with, although after this long awake I'm not sure how it's going to turn out – it really was time for some sleep!http://www.peaklandscapes.com/new/html/blog.php?entry=10

I really have been slack when it comes to Blogging – there always seems to be too much 'other stuff' to do. But the time has come to make more of an effort and get some more words written before Tim Parkin covers EVERY photographic topic. I'll try and make a post or two a week from now on, they might not be overly deep and meaningful but hopefully of some use to some people out there.

So, to kick off I wanted to post some details of how I adapted my Chamonix 045N-1 to fit a Maxwell Hi-Lux screen. My decision to take the plunge and get a Maxwell screen was prompted by the much talked about (in Large Format circles) focusing problems with the standard supplied fresnel screen which was causing out of focus photos when they appeared in focus on the ground glass, particularly at bigger apertures. This is clearly not good! When you choose a to use a large format camera you do so in the hope that your transparencies are going to be as sharp as anything out there, 1mm of error focusing could easily compromise this.

I'd always wanted to upgrade to a Maxwell screen anyway just for the improved overall brightness, having now been out and used the camera with the Maxwell I have to say it's a huge improvement, it's a whole new level of brightness. For me it means I can sell my heavy Nikkor 90mm f/4.5 lens and replace it with a smaller and cheaper f/8 as I don't think I'll have any problem seeing and focusing successfully. The very fine fresnel circles are also much less intrusive than those of the standard Chamonix fresnel which also helps with focusing.

The problem is that the Maxwell screens come with a cover glass which is 1.8mm thick, this means that the replacement Maxwell screen isn't just a straight swap, the problem being that the four metal fittings that hold the glass in place don't lay flat on the new, thicker cover glass. (pic1)

Now it is possible to screw the existing clips in place with the new cover glass fitted – the screws just about bite into the wood and the retaining clips sit at an angle. My advice is DON'T do this! In my haste to get out and try the new screen, I did and two of them ended up falling off without me noticing, resulting in my lovely new Maxwell falling to the ground and getting permanently scratched – not happy! Even if you can get the clips to stay in at an angle you'll find that the screen protector plate won't hold in place because the grooves in the retainers will be at an angle and the protective cover needs these to be parallel to hold. Hugo was kind enough to get me some replacement clips and screws sent over from the Chamonix factory.

So this leads me to this Blog – an explanation of how I converted the retaining clips so they sit properly against the new Maxwell cover glass and hold everything in place securely and we can use the protective cover again.

The answer is to cut a small bit of the metal retainers away to accommodate the new cover glass – a pretty simple job that only took me about half an hour to do.

The first step was to drill a hole in an off-cut of wood which would snugly fit a retainer clip, I drilled it just deep enough to leave the retainer sticking out by the amount I wanted to remove (I had to drill a couple of holes to get this right as you can see from the pic (pic2). I held the block steady in my vice. I used a 12mm forstner bit to drill the holes as they leave a smooth, flat bottomed hole. I used the screw that holds the retainers in place on the camera to hold it in place in the hole (pic 3). I found that there was still a bit of movement to ended up G-clamping the retainer in place too.

Right – time for some butchering!

I used a thin metal cut off disc in my Dremel (pic 4). These things are pretty fragile so expect to get through a couple in the process of cutting the chunks out. If you haven't got a Dremel I suppose you could use a small hacksaw to do the cutting – the Dremel makes it much quicker and easier though.

First I cut downwards – you don't really need to do any precise measuring and marking to determine where to cut, as long as you're removing enough material it doesn't need to be precise. I cut just to the side of the screw hole, leaving just a bit of metal between the cut and the hole (pic 5). I then cut horizontally to remove the chunk – as I'd set the retaining sticking out by slightly under the thickness of the cover glass (which is 1.8mm) I just cut level with the wood block, removing the correct amount to retainer metal (pic 6).

This leaves a rough chunk removed from the clip (pic 7) , the next job was to smooth the cut up, I used an abrasive disc on the Dremel first (pic 8) and finally used a needle file to do the final finishing (pic 9). You can be as neat about this as you like – you can't actually see the new cut surfaces when they are re-attached to the camera so if you're lazy like me, you'll do just enough to take any sharp edges off. That's the clip done – now all we need to do it put them back on the camera.

I filled the existing screw holes with a bit of wood calved down to a point – a match stick will do (pic 10). I then cut it off level with a knife (pic 11). All that's now left to do is put the screen in place and screw the clips back on, leaving a nice level retaining clip and a securely attached Maxwell screen! (pic 12)

An added bonus of using a Maxwell screen in that there's a recess left on the inside of the ground glass where the old fresnel used to be housed. I find this is a great place to slot masks – I almost always shoot square these days so I made a square mask out of some thin black plastic sheet, I can bend it slightly and clip it in where the fresnel used to be – this works excellently as the out facing surface where you focus is free to focus on, unaffected by the mask. The mask is easy to remove by just removing the screen back and popping it out. (pic 13).

I'm rather fortunate to not only have a girlfriend with great parents, but also a girlfriend with great parents who live somewhere that's great to photograph! This means it takes no persuading to get me to agree to a week's visit. So I find myself up in Forres on the Moray coast in Scotland again for the Christmas period – camera packed and ready for a change of scenery.

For the past couple of months I've been working exclusively close to home in the Peak District on a project that is going to take all year, I won't be releasing any of this work until its completion, so it's good to have a break and get the chance to make some images that are independent of this output.

The 23rd of December and I've been offered the choice to go with the rest of the family to see the pantomime in Inverness – or go out on my own to do some photography all day. So I was up bright and early ready for a day out at the pantomime...Oh no I wasn't...

I've certainly seen a change in my photographic subject matter over the past year. In some way this has been a conscious decision – wanting to focus more on the Peak District – my local environment. But I've also found myself wanting to move away from seascapes. Maybe I've seen enough wide angle, slow mo, golden seas now to put me off. Of course it is possible to produce lovely coastal images – I love the work of Andrew Nadolski for example, but for now, I think I'll be keeping away.

So for a change I found myself not heading off to the lovely Moray coast on this visit. There had been a lot of snow in the Highlands prior to our visit so I decided to head inland to Dava Moor, through which the Forres to Grantown-on-Spey road passes for my day's photography. On the way over on Monday we had driven along the side of Loch Ness (no we didn't see it) and the snow on the trees was magical – I was hoping to find something similar on today's outing. I had also noted a couple of lochans on the map just off the road that I thought would be interesting given the frozen conditions.

I has very disappointed to find it had been raining overnight, so as I set off out of Forres, I was gutted to find the snow had been washed off the trees. Thankfully as I pressed on, and the road became more and more challenging to drive on, I realised all was not lost and there was some scope for snowy photography.

The next problem I encountered was finding somewhere to park, the lay-by next to the first lochan was deep in snow and was completely unusable. After a couple of passes up and down the road I managed to find an area that looked OK to pull off the road on to, I parked up and set off through the snow to the lochan. This wasn't easy as the snow came to well above my knees (and up to my waist at one point).

I made a number of images here, drawn to the patterns of snow and frozen ice. I've stuck mainly with the square format I'm favouring these days, I have a square mask on my large format camera which allows me to use the whole width of the 4x5 sheet. I also did some comparisons with Fuji Astia and Kodak E100G, the Astia results being much more desirable. The E100G has a decidedly blue cast and would have benefitted from a warm up filter.

After a flask of coffee and a sandwich in a more usable lay-by I headed up to the Blairs Loch on the outskirts of Forres – as it has started snowing again I didn't want to venture further afield.

I was instantly taken with the contrasting leaf colours in the plantation that boarders the path to Blairs Loch and made a number of images that highlight the lingering golden leaves contrasting against the snow covered ground and the evergreens behind.

The loch itself wasn't too interesting, the fading light (at about 3pm at this time of year) wasn't doing a great deal. Still, I made a composition with the lovely reeds in the frozen water and then had a walk around the loch and enjoyed the scenery.

As I was heading back to the car the sky had turned a wonderful deep pink colour in the opposite direction to the sun set. I managed to quickly find a suitable foreground composition and with no time to set up the large format camera before the colour faded, I made a couple of exposures with my digital SLR, the results of which you can see below.

All in all a great day out, I'll be posting new images from this and a couple of other days out in the Recent Work Gallery over the next week.

I have a vision of someone I envy, I have no evidence but I’m sure this person, exists… This person, a photographer, lives in a world which isn’t governed by the internet, they make photos for the love of the art, hopefully they sell prints and their art is appreciatively hung on many a wall.

Unfortunately I’m not that soldier. When I set out on the path to become a landscape photographer I started uploading my photos to Flickr in the hope to gain some recognition from my fellow photographers. This can be an addictive practice, collecting “wow” comments and icons of waving kittens can certainly boost the ego of the budding photographer.

Thankfully, as I’ve developed as a landscape photographer I’ve kicked the Flickr habit and only post there occasionally now with the aim of showing some of my Flickr friends what I’ve been up to and to get feedback on some of the photos I’m undecided about.

Last week, in a moment of weakness, I decided to join 1x.com which for those of you who don’t know, is a similar site as Flickr except for the fact that all the photos that are submitted are judged for worthiness by the site’s moderators. Other 1x.com members can also vote on whether a photo is worthy of inclusion.

At first inspection this does make for a website with generally impressive photos (I only looked at the landscape section but I’m sure this is also true of the other portfolios). But, and it’s a big but – the body of work there suffers from the same problem as all the other online social networking photo sites, its pretty much full of photos with an instant hit of ‘wow’. It’s the photography equivalent of eating bag after bag of your favourite flavoured crisps – great to begin with but sooner or later you’re going to get sick of them (perhaps not the best analogy, I can eat A LOT of crisps before I get sick of them!).

So this brings me to Mr(s) Internetless, a photographer who doesn’t seek recognision from social networking sites, someone who has enough self conviction to believe in their own creative skill, someone who doesn’t feel the need to churn out endless dynamic clichés to please the eye of the internet gallery visitor. The problem for me is that these internet ready images only really work on the internet, do people actually put these things on their walls? I for one, wouldn’t want an instant hit photo in my lounge, shouting at me every time I walked in the room.

I would much rather have a piece of work that operates on a subtle level, a quiet image that portrays a mood and has feeling, something I want to keep coming back to – something wowless! That’s what I aim to do with my own photography, I aim for a subtle pallet, tone and balanced graphic compositions (I’m not of course saying that I always achieve it!). My desire to find my own set of rules means I often ignore the obvious – golden hours, thirds, digital aspect ratios. This does mean that I stand less chance of being accepted by the moderators as 1x.com but so what!

I urge any photographer to seek out their own way of seeing, develop their own style and photograph what they find interesting, if that isn’t starburst suns kissing the horizon over a time blurred sea that’s all good – embrace the wowless! And if your more subtle photos don’t attract waving kitten awards on Flickr, don’t be disheartened, sooner or later your work is going to start to attract the attention from people who appreciate the considered subtleties of your work. http://www.peaklandscapes.com/new/html/blog.php?entry=13

I know that we all go through those periods when we fall out with our photography. We struggle to see what the point is, why we're doing it and we wonder if we'll ever make a decent image again. Couple that with the inevitable destructive practice of comparing our work with others and that's it – photography depression.

Well, I've been suffering with this for the past few weeks, after a good period of photo-making running up to new year and a burst of enthusiasm for all things creative in the new year, things have gone a bit.... flat.

So this morning, having woken up late having not slept well last night, I was feeling rather miserable. I didn't want to stay in and work on stuff I didn't want to work on, I was sick of sitting about not wanting to do anything so, by midday, I'd managed to muster the motivation to go out with the camera.

I was out with Paul Arthur a couple of weeks ago at the Roaches at the south end of the Peak District, where I thought I'd made a good photo only to discover when I processed it that something had gone horribly wrong with the exposure (I'm guessing I'd nudged the aperture ring round to the wrong setting, I couldn't have got the metering that wrong!). So I decided to return there for another go as near by webcams were showing up some fog which I needed to make the composition work.

Although there was no fog when I arrived, meaning my second attempt at the photo wasn't going to be today, my little outing made me realise how important landscape photography is to me on a number of levels.

It's easy to get dejected sitting at home, thinking about creative direction, about the next stunning location where your most brilliant photograph is waiting ready for you to rock up and take. The fact is, it's not going to happen, imagine all you like, you've got to be out there, and chances are, the next great photo you make is probably not going to be something you've pondered over, it's just going to be something that arises from being out in the field, working at a composition that's presented itself. So I realised whilst I was out there today, standing in the rain, that new ideas present themselves whilst your out 'in the zone' – forced to look for new ideas due to the weather I decided to make some black and white images which I think could make for an interesting series of photos. I wouldn't have come up with that sitting sulking at home watching re-runs of the news on Sky and eating mini chocolate eggs!

Photos aside, it's just good to get out there, it's great to see how the colours of the moss and heather intensify in the rain – and there's no cup of coffee like the one from a flask after you've climbed your way up a muddy slope :o)

Another good thing about getting out there to do some photography is the drive there and back – it's a great opportunity to have a think about life and get some ideas going in your mind about how to get things moving and how to get yourself out of your creative hole.

So hopefully by motivating myself to get out for the afternoon I've come back with a couple of decent sheets of T-Max, if not, I've got myself an idea for a project and I got some exercise out in the rain!

I’m in two minds about writing this blog post –it’s something I really should be keeping to myself. But oh well, hopefully you won’t believe me anyway!

There’s a lot made of film expiry dates – there’s fear about colour shift, increased grain… fears that after the use by date has passed film is fit for nothing but the bin.

It even goes beyond use by dates, if your precious collection of Fuji Velvia is tucked away next to the chicken drum sticks in the freezer it’s feared the emulsion will melt away into the heavens leaving you with a box of expensive but totally useless sheets of plastic.

I’ve never really followed this way of thinking, 4x5 sheet film is expensive stuff – a sheet of Fuji Velvia is currently around the £2 mark, Kodak E100G around a massive £4 a sheet – you don’t want to be leaving your shutter open by mistake when you’re using that stuff! I always keep my eyes open for expired film – there’s some bargains to be had out there (possibly partly down to the very paranoia I’m talking about here!), and the truth is, as long as it’s not been stored on top of a radiator for the past 10 years, chances are it’s going to be fine.

You normally find that film that is sold on auction sites has been stored in either a freezer or at least in a cold place. A lot of this stuff comes from people who have been stupid enough to give up film and move over to digital (don’t worry, they’ll be back ;o) so they’ve been pretty careful with the storing of their film. Of course there’s nothing to stop them saying it’s been frozen when it hasn’t but that’s just a chance you’ve got to take.

I have a few boxes of Velvia 100 Quickload, dated 2006-8. I got them early on when I moved over to large format before I realised the error of my ways! As I didn’t really care much for it I wasn’t going to bother taking up any more freezer space to store it – I’m told the film to food ratio in our freezer is tipping too heavily in the favour of film as it is! So it’s been lying around the house, at first in the outside storage cupboard and then in my office room where it’s pretty warm. Generally not ideal places to store film.

When I came to use it a couple of months ago (I find it’s good for autumn colours if nothing else) the resulting 4 years out of date, stored in a warm office transparencies were absolutely fine, just as good as the in date Velvia 50 sheet I exposed at the same time. 

I also tried out a couple of sheets of Astia which I found lying around in a double dark slide the other day, no idea how old they are but they’re going to have been in their a long time, and the double dark slide had been stored in the office for a at least a couple of years. Again, the results were fine – no obvious colour shift, no excessive grain.

As my much loved Fuji Astia is cruelly being taken away from me very soon I’ve been stocking up, I’ve got in the region of 1,200 sheets so far (if anyone has any they don’t want, do let me know!). This has included buying up some out of date boxes, the oldest one of which ‘expired’ in 1998, remember way back then – Billie at number one with “Because We Want to”? With the last remaining boxes of 50 sheets of Astia going for $90, this box of 50 was something of a bargain at $6.17! I was told it had been stored in a refrigerator but 12 years out of date – even I thought this might be pushing it.

So this weekend I did a test – I loaded up a Grafmatic with a sheet of 12 years out of date Astia, one sheet of Quickload (expired 2005) which I removed from it’s envelope and put in the Grafmatic, and a sheet with a use by date of 2010. The Grafmatic let me fire off 3 shots in quick succession of the same scene and then processed them all together in Kodak E6 chemicals.

The results are pretty amazing – the 12 year old film is very close to being identical to the 5 year old film, slightly less saturated maybe, grain is fine. And compared to the in date Astia – well there’s very little difference. It’s actually closer colour wise to the 1998 stock, the 2005 having a slightly bluer cast. Of course we’re also comparing 2 different version of the film here, the 1998 and 2005 film is Astia 100, the 2010 is 100F – so this may account for any differences in colour – the 100F does look more neutral.
The fact is, if you didn’t have the others to compare them with you wouldn’t see a problem. So my $6.17 box of 50 sheets were a bit of a bargain!

So… I’d rather you didn’t buy out of date film, it would leave all the more for me to pick up cheap! If you must follow my example though I would recommend testing a sheet before you have to rely on it. And if colour is critical use your film that’s closer to being in date. For me any slight colour cast you may get isn’t the end of the world, it’s all fixable. 

I must say it riles me a little (to be honest, a lot does) when photographers boast about having tens of thousands of images in the portfolio, as if this, in some way, verifies they are a photographer to take note of. I've seen it written about one photographer that they have 40,000 images in their collection, produced over 10 years. I've done the math - that equates to 11 photos every single day of the year for those 10 years. Some dedication because that also includes Christmas day and New Year’s Day, which are days I'm normally feeling a bit rough! This would, of course, also assume a 100% hit rate although if you’re claiming to have 40,000 images, I’m sure you do count pretty much everything as a hit. I’ve seen more modest claims, 10,000 for example – but really, even that must be diluting the quality waters.

Quantity has never been a substitute for quality when it comes to creative endeavour, I suspect if I strapped a digital camera with a timer shutter release thingy taking one shot every minute to the back of a donkey, set it running in the moors every day (I’d take it off over-night, obviously) I could also claim to have 40,000 images in a matter of, well, months. In fact, I suspect I might even end up with a few nice shots in there! The thing about the photography I love, and hopefully make, is not the result of this splatter gun effect, it’s about measured, contemplative seeing, about a real understanding of the subject matter and about editing out the chaff before the camera even comes out of the bag.

I realise of course, that stock photographers look at the world in a slightly different way, they do need to come up with more images than arty types such as myself, but even then there has to be some editing, there still need to be a general feeling of quality running though their work.

(Lord) Ansel Adams said that he aimed for a hit rate of 12 good photos a year (or was it 10, I’m not sure, I can’t find the reference), this, for me, is a bit more like it. One quality photo a month. When I review a year’s work, as I inevitably do, I find that out of the photos I’ve made that year – maybe 30 or 40, about 12 stand out as being photos I really like, out of those there’s maybe only 2 or 3 that really stand out as photos that will truly stand the test of time. At that rate I’ll have reached the ripe old age of 836 before I have my 10,000 images!

Of course, using a large format camera slows you down; it forces you to be selective about what you photograph and in turn, makes you look more closely at the landscape around you. It’s a bit like the idea of fitting a metal spike in the middle of steering wheels – it’ll make you drive a whole load more carefully! It’s not quite as brutal, but realising that every time you make an exposure it’s going to both in terms of time and money – it sure makes you more selective about photo grabbing.

Digital photography has changed the way people photograph, now they fill their memory cards with ‘captures’ thinking that they can edit out the hopeless ones later and the rest they can crop, clone and saturate until something worthy comes out. I would hope that this process goes on in my head before any film, or card space is used. As an example, this morning I was crouched, uncomfortably, next to a long abandoned boat house on the shore of Llyn Gwynant. I’d been trying to get as much as necessary in focus for about half an hour, as well as re-composing to try and get the elements to work together – the foreground grasses and the nicely weathered boat house door. When it was just about as good as I could get it I had a moment away from looking at the ground glass (probably to stretch my legs which were beginning to complain). On returning to the view through the camera I asked myself the question I always put to myself “Is this an image that someone would want to look at, would it move them, intrigue them, would anyone bother hanging it on their wall, would it match up to other images in a book or portfolio...?” I don’t actually ask all these questions specifically you undersatnd, but you get the general idea. In this case the answer was, realistically, nope. So, I packed up and moved on.

More often than not I can answer these questions before the camera come out the bag, first disqualification round – close one eye and look at the scene to determine if it works ‘flat’. Second round – view the composition through a plastic viewfinder mask to see if there’s a composition in there (or use my iPhone Viewfinder ap – I’m not a complete Luddite!), if it gets though those two rounds it’s on to the final! Sorry, I think I’ve been watching to much X Factor.

Sometimes it’s tempting to make a photo because you’ve gone to the effort of getting set up, it’s easy to convince yourself that it might work fine once you’ve Photoshopped it a bit, but generally you find the once it’s on your computer screen it maintains about the same level of mediocrity it had when you pressed the shutter.

So, from my two days out in Snowdonia this week I have 4 compositions I’ve photographed, I have high hopes for all of them. I guess this makes me a bit odd as today’s photographers go – I’m sure our acclaimed owner of 40,000 images would have come back with a couple of 8gb cards full, but then again, so would my donkey.

http://www.peaklandscapes.com/new/html/blog.php?entry=16

Soon after I arranged to have a weekend away walking in Snowdonia with my mate, I came up with the plan of going over there a couple of days earlier in order to get to know the area a little better and hopefully find myself a couple of compositions. My plan was to head down on Thursday morning, have a wander and then bed down somewhere in my camper van overnight and then have another morning photographing before meeting up with my mate for the weekend.

I would like to thank Mike Roberts who sent me over some great information about photogenic locations to visit, from the vast amount of information provided I decided to walk around Llyn Dinas and Llyn Gwynant – this turned out to be a wise idea as the weather has poor for "big view" locations and was more suited to "intimate landscapes". As I obviously have a penchant for trees, this suited me fine.

I've been wondering recently how the work of my favourite photographers influences the images I make – I wonder if I'm drawn to their work because they are interested in the same subject matter as me, or am I unconsciously influenced by their images, resulting in me photographing similar subject matter. I suspect the truth is, it's a bit of both. I once received a pearl of wisdom from Joe Cornish – a simple statement that is probably the best bit of photography advice I've ever received – Don't make images that you think other people want to see, make images that you want to see, if you have conviction in what you are doing and seeing, other people will start to take notice. Or words to that effect. This, for me, has been very important advice indeed. As a landscape photographer starting out, it's very easy to flick through the pages of the common photographic press and conclude that if you don't step out on a beach at sunrise or sunset and shoot a milky sea with golden skies, you are quite frankly, mad. I'd love to know where this recent way of thinking came from, surely a trend that has been accelerated by the current batch of photography magazines(?). Of course it's always been well known that shooting during the golden hour produces wonderful colour and striking photos, but this tendency for the "experts" to tell less experienced photographers that they may as well not bother going out if the sun isn't skimming the horizon needs to stop!

Being influenced by your peers is a dangerous process, how many landscape photographers study the history of the art? In my opinion, this is where you're influences should come from, if you want to mix in some contemporary techniques, all well and good, but if you're going to strap a 10 stop ND on their, have a good reason for it!

What is the relevance of this ranting you may wonder – well, as I arrived in Snowdonia I was greeted with a grey sky and it was midday and there was no prospect of a golden sunset. If the "experts" are to be believed I may as well give up and go to the pub (actually, I can see the merit of that idea!). But no, there was virtually no wind and the flat light makes for fantastic conditions for photographing autumn trees.

As I set off around Llyn Dinas I could see some birch trees further around the lake - promising. Having wandered around the croft of trees for a while I found a composition. I suspect that as I'm framing images with my viewfinder (in this case, the iPhone "viewfinder" app), I drawing on my influences, as well as mixing in my own personal design experience. I can't help but be influenced in this type of environments by Eliot Porter's "Maple and birch trunks and oak leaves" made in 1956, by "Myrtle Tree in Rainforest, Mount Anne" made by Peter Dombrovskis in 1986, or by any number of images made by Christopher Burkett or Jan Tove. Similarly if I'm looking for compositions of ferns covering the ground I'm being influenced by David Ward or Tim Parkin – a serious fern fan! I'm subconsciously drawing on my influences to decide what works, these influences give me ideas I can then shape to fit in with my own aesthetic.

That's not to say I'm out to rip-off any of their images, quite the contrary, if I find an image that's pretty much a copy of someone's photo I probably won't bother recording it. Further round my walk I found some overhanging trees reflected in the water, whilst I could have found an image there I couldn't help but think it'd be too similar to images I've seen from Jan Tove and Fay Godwin – I wouldn't be able to bring enough 'me' to the image. I find it pretty unpleasant when people go out their way to copy well known images without crediting the original, if I got a tenner for every time I saw a copy of Joe Cornish's Elgor image from the cover of First Light, I'd have, well, not that much but at least enough for a good night out!

So this is my first composition, from the east edge of Llyn Dinas. I was drawn here to the shape of the birch branches fanning out from the bottom left corner. For me there was 3 layers: the golden leaves and ferns (it was very important to me to include the golden ferns along the bottom edge); the tree itself that ties the composition together; the distant lake and hills which offer depth to the image. The lovely, golden light-less conditions meant that the dynamic range was within the capabilities of the Velvia 100 used and the lack of wind meant that I could get away with a 4 second exposure at f/45. The 300mm lens helped to bring the elements together, compressing the composition creating the complicated combinations of colour and form that caught my eye.

It's odd that more often that not, once you've found one composition, another one springs up soon after, this normally happens after you've spent ages previously looking for images. I wonder if this is because you've spent a long time in that location, becoming tuned in to the environment. The sort of images that appeal to me are those that "observe", I'm drawn to subjects that most other people would wander straight past without the slightest glance. This is very much true of this next image.

Just a few steps away from the first image, I was drawn towards the red bark on this tree - unusual. Again, I liked the orange glowing ferns and leaves contrasted with the blue distant environment. I knew there was no hope of getting all the leaves in focus so I aimed at getting the trunk in focus, with some leaves falling in focus with it, the idea was that the out of focus areas would create depth within the composition. Again the exposure was 4 seconds at f/45 and I used Velvia 100 as I knew this would accentuate the golden autumn colours and separate out the blues and greens.

And on to the next image – again, just a few steps away (which is annoying when you've just gone to the trouble of packing all your large format equipment away for the second time.

I seem to have a thing about connections – compositions that see trees being related to other trees. I don't know why - it's just the way it is! So for me, in this next photo, the interesting element was the connection between the clump of birches and the single birch to the right. This second element balances the composition. I also enjoyed the golden leaves that were beginning to form on the clump of trees to the right hand side, and, most important at all, the negative spaces between the branches revealing the distant lake and the golden ferns covering the ground (I'm sure influenced by that Eliot Porter image again!).

I'd have liked to use Velvia 100 again for this one but I couldn't be sure it could deal with the dynamic range with the light area in the distance and the dark shadows on the trees so I plumped for Provia instead. I've had to add a bit of saturation in post processing to match the memory I have of the place. Again the exposure was 4 seconds but this time at f/32 and I used a 180mm Fujinon lens. I really need to re-scan this one as I seem to have lost the subtle detail in the distant hill.

Although I walked around the rest of the lake looking for more compositions I couldn't come up with anything. Still, 3 composition in one afternoon is pretty good, and all 3 of them were, to some extent, successful.

I'll write a little later about the image I made on the Friday morning.

All images were made with a Chamonix 045N-2, first two images with a Nikkor 300mm, third image with Fujinon 180mm.

After a great night in the camper van parked in a pull in on the A 495, a lovely quiet location with brilliant views. The weather forecast was saying cloud and greyness and this was certainly the case, so I enjoyed the view whilst I had a cuppa. After that I headed down the road and parked up by the distant corner of Llyn Gwynan and set off for a walk around the lake. As I mentioned in my last blog post, my first attempt at a composition - a detail shot of a weathered boathouse door didn't do enough for me to make it worth taking, so I packed my large format equipment away and moved on.

Although it's a nice walk around the lake, through the trees on the far bank, I couldn't find a composition. Still, it was a nice walk and I got to eat my breakfast with a great view to admire. All wasn't lost though, I finally found a tree which I was drawn too because of the interesting lower trunk and it's nice curve up to it's branches. I also liked the the yellow grasses of the marsh land that borders the lake.

This actually took quite a bit of work to compose, I wanted to get the curve of the tree (I don't think I did too well in the end), I had to decide whether I wanted to include a tree what was to the right of the main one. One of my 'things' seems to be branches reaching down making up the composition - and so it was in this case. I had to change lenses a number of times and move my position, which was a bit of a bugger as I was standing in a small stream! I ended up using a Nikkor 300mm. There was little chance of getting everything in focus, but I knew I wanted the trunk and branches and the foreground grasses, I didn't care that the grasses further away were out. Rather than including the whole of the other tree I just used it's branch in the top right corner, this, I felt, made a nice shape across the photo as the line of the branch continues the other side of the trunk. I made two exposures, one with Astia, one with Velvia 100. This one is the Astia version which works better for me. For the second day running I was graced with near still conditions which meant I could get away with a 4 second exposure at f/32 1/3.

So that was it for my short trip to Snowdonia - not very 'Snowdonia' type images but I s'pose that's me all over. Very much looking forward to returning soon to explore some more, I'll have to wait 'til the heater is wired up again in the camper van though first!

I was asked recently for some advice on buying kit to process E6 film so I thought I'd put a little blog post together in case anyone else finds it useful.

I've found that when you tell people you process your own colour film you're generally seen as being some sort of genius chemist with some sort of secret laboratory hidden under the house. I suspect this perception of colour film processing comes from the days when people printed their own photos - I'm sure this is a much more taxing art. Processing film is a much more simple processes and the outlay for equipment doesn't have to be huge.

So – why process your own E6 and C41?

It's certainly not for everyone but it does have its advantages. Cost wise, once you've bought your equipment the cost of chemicals makes it much cheaper than sending them off to the lab. Even if you go for the most expensive kit you could be getting a 4x5 sheet processed for 42p, for a cheaper kit you're looking at as little as 29p a sheet. This compares to he current price of £2.70 a sheet (price from The Darkroom in Birmingham). So that's potentially a saving of £24 with just 10 sheets of 4x5 – it's easy to see how, if you shoot a reasonable amount of sheet film, you'll start to make your money back on the outlay for processing equipment.

Another great thing about processing your own sheet film is speed. If you send your work off you are likely to be waiting 3 or 4 days to get it back at least. I've been none to get back from a day's shoot, get the film processed, scanned and ready that evening. You also don't have to worry about your precious art getting lost in the post — and the way the Royal Mail is going that's certainly a worry!

Other benefits of self processing is the ability to keep a track of pushing and pulling. It's important to get a process that works for you and sticking to it. I use a consistent first developer time of 7 minutes, others use less. The thing is I know this gets the results I want combined with my light meter readings. I know if I'm using Kodak E6 film I should under expose it a little as Kodak film tends to need less time than Fuji. With this knowledge I know how much extra time to give film when pushing, or less if I'm pulling. It's all about having total control of the process. I've seen mixed results from labs – colour shifts, different densities etc, knowing that you've got fresh chemicals every time means you are more likely to get consistent results.

What you need

The simplest, cheapest method to develop your own sheet film is to use trays in a dark room, it would just be a matter of getting the chemicals to the correct temperature and dunking the film as you would if you were developing black and white prints. I must say I haven't tried it, if I were to I'd use a 3 bath kit. The plus side to this method, other than it costing next to nothing is that you could use different times for each sheet of film, thus allowing you to push and pull to your hearts content. The down side is working completely in the dark and trying to keep the chemicals the correct temperature. You could use heating elements I suppose. This would also be a good technique to use for 10x8 sheet film as it becomes more difficult to find drums to use for sheet this side.

I must point out at this point that the preconception that everything must be within a millionth of a degree and timings must be to the second are, in my opinion, largely untrue. If you think to push process by 1 stop first developer time raises from 7 mins to 9mins 10 seconds – if you're 15 seconds out on your 7 mins it's not going to make much difference.

Doing it with the light on

The cheapest way equipment wise to do your 4x5 sheet film processing in with the light on is to use a Combi Plan 5x4 daylight tank (OK I realise there are cheaper ways like the converted Paterson print processor but I have no knowledge of using one so probably best to Google it if you are interested). These hold 6 sheets of 4x5, obviously you need to load it in the dark which can be a bit fiddly and then you can take it to the kitchen and pour your chemicals in the light. Once loaded and the rubber lid is in place it's a matter of pouring the chemicals in and using the tank much as you would a JobaAterson developing tank for black and white. I must admit I've never used one for colour, only black and white but the tank is quite thick walled so I'm sure it would hold the required 37º pretty well. The big problem with the Combi Plan is the amount of chemicals it requires – 1 litre for 6 sheets of film. This makes it pretty uneconomical for E6, each sheet is going to cost £1.90. So for me, it's fine for black and white - I use mine with Rodinal 1+100 and re-use the fixer so it works out OK.

Just a tip if you are using a Combi Plan - It is quite difficult to get the chemicals in to the small opening in the top, I use a nozzle off a tube of sealant (the type you put in a mastic gun) which fits in the small opening perfectly and then put a funnel in to that - works a treat.

Jobos

Realistically, the best way to go, if you want to get cost down per sheet are to go down the Jobo route. You will need at least a Jobo CPE-2, ideally with a lift (this means you don't have to take the tank out the unit every time you want to empty the tank of chemicals), a tank that takes 4x5 sheet film, so a 2520 tank with a 2509n sheet film Reel and you're ready to go. Unfortunately you can only get CPE-2's second hand these days but plenty come up on Ebay or at www.secondhanddarkroom.co.uk the tanks you can still get new. You can get a device that helps you load the film into the real, it's not entirely necessary but it sure does help. If you were buying the tank and reel new today it'd cost you about £90, with the loader; £180. You can pick up a second hand CPE-2 for about £120.

Other bits

Whilst the CPE-2 does come with some 260ml measuring cylinders I would recommend getting a few others - I use a 150mm, a 600ml and a 1200ml (although I only use the 1200ml for black and white). A chemical stirring stick is useful also. You'll also need some hanging clips to use when the film is drying, I use a combination of Ilford clips and small bulldog clips, the good thing about bulldog clips is they don't make holes in your film which cause problems when wet mounting for scanning. You also want to use some sort of tray from the final step - the stabliser, you don't want to do this directly in the tank after ashing as it messes the tank and real up over time.

If you can't afford a CPE-2 you could use a Jobo 1509 roller base with the tank, this is basically a base you stand the tank on with 4 rollers and then manually roll the drum back and forth by hand to keep the chemicals moving. Combine this with a sink of water at the correct temperature and you have a poor mans CPE-2! The 1509 is currently £26

Jobo cost per sheet

I'll come on to the chemical options later but if you were to use a Fuji 3 bath kit the cost per sheet would be in the region of 52p.

My set up

I found a larger CPP-2 processor for sale on Ebay at a reasonable price and decided to upgrade from my original CPE-2. The larger CPP-2 allow the use of the Jobo 3010 Expert Drums – these drums hold 10 sheets of 4x5, give perfect even results and only use 210ml of chemical (although I use 250ml). Using this set up the unit price with the Fuji Kit comes down to 29p a sheet. The 3010 drum is very easy to load so much less faffing about than the smaller 2520 drums.

Drying

When I started out processing my own 4x5 and 120 film I used to hang the film up to dry in the bathroom. I was rather disappointed by the amount of drying marks I was getting, and the amount of dust that ended up on them. I then invested in a Durst UT 100 dryer and all that was solved. The film dries evenly and streak free in about 30 minutes. It is a bit of a pain to get all 10 sheets in the durst, I use bent garden wire so I can hang a row lower down – you just have to be careful not to let the film touch the sides or stick to the other sheets in there. The Dursts seem to be few and far between but they do come up on Ebay from time to time and also at www.secondhanddarkroom.co.uk

Chemicals

Until recently I used the Kodak 7 bath E6 kit, they then went and discontinued it. I now use the Fuji 3 bath kit. Some people will tell you that you get better results with the 6 or 7 bath kits - they argue that the combined bleach/fixer (blix) gives worse results, to be honest I haven't had a problem with it, and no one I know that does their own processing has either. Fuji have just bought out a new 6 bath kit, it's not cheap though – £76 compared to £49 for the Fuji 3 bath and it's almost twice the price of the old Kodak E6 kit. I've heard rumours that the Fuji E6 3 bath kit will be discontinued soon which will be a real shame, although I also hear that Rollei will be coming into the market with an E6 kit. I've used Rollei's new C41 chemicals and they seem to be great so lets hope their E6 kit will reach the same high standards. There is also the Tetenal E6 kits - they're generally seen as being sub standard to the Fuji and Kodak Chems but I'm not sure, this might just be a case of photography snobbery. I haven't tried them myself so couldn't comment.

There are other methods of sheet film developing - deep bath stand developing for example but I have no experience so I'm not the person to comment.

I hope that info is useful to someone out there. If you have any questions please get in touch, i'd be happy to help.

As is customary at this time of year, it's time to look back through my photos from the last year and decide which ones stand out for me as being my favourites. Admittedly most of the images are from the last quarter of the year having taken a fair chunk of spring and summer off from photo making to do up our VW T25 camper van (click on the link if you're interested in reading more about that!). Still more to do on him so next spring will probably be similar. Still, I've managed to gather together 10 photos here that don't upset me too much! Happy 2011 to you all, lets hope we all have a creative 2011!

On a couple of recent outings in the Peak District I've ended up exasperated by the location I've chosen for a dawn shoot. I suppose this should tell me to stop going to Higger Tor on a morning! The draw has been the same on both occasions – the promise of mist, potential cloud inversion. I know there's a shot there for me – I've seen it in fact, whilst out leading a large format workshop so I was unable to get the camera out and record it, and on another occasion when I was out with Tim Parkin and David Clapp when I only had my large format camera with me when I really needed the longer lens that the Sony dSLR gives me.

But on these last two visits to Higger Tor I couldn't find a composition as all that made the struggle out of bed even remotely worth it. This can be a pretty miserable situation for us photographers but I've learnt that the road to success leads back to the car and a scout round for another location - if you're somewhere that's not working for you, don't force out half attempts at compositions, or wander around aimlessly swearing at yourself (a technique I've often employed in the past).

Of course it generally helps if you've got a mental map of locations that are near by that might work given the conditions you're faced with. On the first occasion I packed up and headed over to Ramsley Moor, about a 15 minute drive away. This was somewhere I hadn't photographed before but I'd noticed some interesting looking trees by the road (I know - me — trees — again!) so stopped in a perfectly placed lay-by and squelched across the moor to have a closer look. I was somewhat disappointed to find a barbed wire fence separating me from my tree based goal. Still it was more photogenic than Higger Tor and I made a couple of large format images. This is my favourite – the sun had risen maybe half an hour before but being December it hadn't got far. It's rays were still golden and I loved the contrast between the warm light illuminating the distant grasses and the still frost covered cool grasses in the foreground. I used Velvia 100 to bring out the golden colour and it's done a surprisingly good job of handling the contrast range. The lens was my trusty Nikkor 300mm, by far the lens I use the most.

I figured there wasn't a lot more milage in Ramsley Moor so moved on to another location I had noticed whilst driving by that was only a few more minutes away. Thankfully there was just enough mist left in the valley to make the following image. I made a number of exposures but this is by far my favourite. I managed a few compositions but I'm afraid the large format versions aren't as 'right' as this digital version made on the Sony a900. I foolishly used Velvia 100 again in the hope that it would saturate the reds in the undergrowth but just ended up with a typically Velvia red overall cast.

Last week I repeated the exercise – Higger Tor, no joy – drove around despondently and was about ready to go home when I drove past the view over Smeekley Woods. I managed to drag myself out the car to have a wander around. And so followed 6 fantastic hours in a misty wonderful landscape in which time I made a number of large format and digital exposures (I'm about to go and develop the large format stuff after I've posted this). I also discovered a brilliant new location, a luscous wood – perfect for wet, misty days so there'll be a lot more of that to follow!

Below are a few of the images I made that day.

So, my advice of the day is – if a location isn't working for you, don't force it – go and find somewhere else. Or maybe; don't go to Higger Tor!

March, I've decided, is the most miserable of all the months. The magical winter months, with its snow, mist and storms is over and the landscape is by and large a lifeless dull place. Now I realise why I don't have many photos from this time of year!

Of course I'm being a bit defeatist here, there's no bad time of year to make landscape photos, some might be more challenging but there's photos around if you just change your outlook on what you're trying to achieve. It doesn't help though if you've been stuck by Seasonal Affect Disorder and you can't really be bothered to leave the house. And that's how I've found myself over the past few weeks - generally feeling unhealthy, uninspired and un... well, un something else I'm sure!

Yesterday the Peak District was covered in a thick layer of fog - whilst others complained about the misery of it all, it gave me the impetuous to get out with camera(s), after all, I can't resist the mist! My bag was already packed from last week's visit to Scotland – a family visiting session – I got out for one day with the camera but came back with only a couple of shots which I don't hold out a lot of hope for. I added my tiny Minolta Dynax 5 35mm SLR loaded up with some Pan F to my Chamonix 045-2 large format camera and Sony a900 dSLR and off I went. My Grafmatic film holder was filled with 6 sheets of new Portra 400 which I've had a for a few weeks – I have great hopes for it!

I discovered some woods a few months ago that I thought would work in the fog, being of the gnarly, mossy variety so I headed over to them, they are also close to the road and parking spot which appealed to my rather unfit, lazy state at the moment (it's OK, i've looked into joining the gym again!).

At first my negative March attitude assured I couldn't find anything much to photograph but after an hour's wandering I finally found my mojo and made some photos with all 3 cameras. I've decided to send the Porta 400 of to be processed – I've always had mixed results from processing my own C41 so, as this is a new film I want to get the best processing available to give it a good try out. It'll also be a while before I get the Pan F processed – 36 exposures – that's going to take me months to get though!

Here are a couple of digital results for now - some of them I also made using Portra, Astia and Kodak E100VS so hopefully I'll have those to show in due course.

Thankfully spring is on the way, this is a time of year I've never really made the most of so it's my mission to get out more this year. I'll be heading off to Scotland with Tim Parkin for a week in April so hopefully that'll get me back in the photographic groove – I need to take to these more difficult season 'cause it's a long time to autumn!

I'm not one for getting up for sunrise. I'm not really one for getting up to be honest. So, when I woke up 10 minutes before my alarm clock went off at about 6.30am it was the perfect opportunity to forget I'd ever set it and go back to sleep. For some reason though, after 5 minutes of pillow hugging, I was still awake and thus concluded, I may as well stick to my original plan and go out for sunrise.

The truth is I wasn't actually getting up for sunrise - my alarm clock was set at this ungodly hour as there had been clear skies overnight and cold temperatures – and that's a good recipe for cloud inversion in the Peak District valleys. Although they are very beautiful, misty valleys don't do it for me as much as they do most sane photographers, what I was hoping for was some mist and autumn trees. As it turns out the morning taught me never to ignore the alarm clock!

As I drove out of Sheffield towards the Foxhouse pub things weren't looking good for morning mist but as I dropped down into the valley there were the signs of pockets of low lying mist. I headed for the top of Bolehill Quarry where, as expected, the birch trees were at the autumnal best – the next 3 hours were to be some of the best I've ever witnessed in the time as a landscape photographer.

Early sunrise photos weren't much to write home about, I managed a panoramic looking over the treetops into the Hope Valley – I'm yet to scan these but there was too much mist in the valley to provide distant interest so don't hold out a lot of hope. It was when I headed down into Bolehill that the magic really started to happen!

For some reason Bolehill Quarry has remained mist free while everywhere around it is covered in mist. For the first time for me, the quarry was blessed with a perfect mist, supported with early morning light rays.

Below are some of the images I made over the next couple of hours on my Linhof Technikardan 45s 4x5 view camera. It would have been longer if I hadn't have completely run out of film! The mist lingered until about 11am, by that point I was having breakfast in Outside Cafe, relieved that I hadn't managed to get back to sleep!

Click on the images for larger views

Linhof Technikardan 45S, Nikkor 300mm, Kodak Portra 160

Linhof Technikardan 45S, Nikkor 300mm, Kodak Portra 160

Linhof Technikardan 45S, Nikkor 300mm, Fuji Velvia 50

Linhof Technikardan 45S, Nikkor 300mm, Fuji Acros

Linhof Technikardan 45S, Nikkor 300mm, Fuji Provia

Linhof Technikardan 45S, Nikkor 300mm, Fuji Provia

Inevitably at this time of year, when thoughts turn to mince pies and amusingly named real ales, many of us will also reflect on our year's photography and the question of whether we've actually achieved much in the last 12 months.

There certainly have been some highlights for me this year starting back in January with an excellent trip to the Lake District for a few days. We stayed at Manesty cottages close to Derwentwater - a fantastic location and a great place to stay if you can put up with the slightly 'quirky' owner and alarming electric bill at the end of your stay! It was not only a great trip for the photography but also the company, so thanks to Rob Hudson, Jason Theaker, Hamish Roots, Tim Parkin and Adam Clutterbuck for some great geeked out chatting.

In April I headed out with Tim Parkin to Scotland for a week, our plan was – we had no plan, as a consequence we ended up in Ardnamurchan. I'm glad we did as we had a great time, met some entertaining locals and managed to mess up our cameras in the rain – it's not good when you can get your fingers through the bellows of your Linhof!

I also lead some fun workshops this year with Tim, notably our composition workshop in April although our attempts to get some digital photographers on our workshops failed miserably, everyone turning up with film cameras from lovely Nikon 35mms to Hasselblads and Chamonixs! We intend doing some more composition workshops next year as it is something Tim and I are rather passionate about.

We also had a great couple of visits to the Lake District, firstly for a scouting mission for our large format workshop and then the workshop itself in November. Big thanks to David and Angela Unsworth for some great hospitality on our scouting mission and for coming along for the day on the workshop.

Earlier on in the year I started a new project ('The Nameless Woods') aimed at pushing my creativity. The project involves photographing a small area of woodland on the edge of the Peak District throughout the seasons. It's great to get to know an area really well and also to be photographing an area that I'm pretty sure had never really been photographed before. I can see this being a project that runs for a few years. I'll show off the occasional image but generally you won't get to see it 'til its distant end.

The 'Nameless Woods' project has also got me back into 35mm cameras – in a bid for creative freedom I've been using everything from 35mm to my Pentacon Six medium format as well as my usual large format gear. It's great to use a 35mm again and I've now got a fine collection of cameras you can pick up for next to nothing as no one wants them anymore. My favourites are my Minolta XD-5 and XD-7 and the lovely Pentax Spotmatics – they’re a pleasure to use!

Looking forward to next year (2012 – how did that happen!?), we have some new and exciting plans in the pipeline, I'm working on two books with Tim Parkin – we're also planning a joint exhibition and we're also planning some website based business. I'll continue with my 'Nameless Woods' project and I'm sure there'll be some trips to Scotland – I might even get to the seaside!

Anyway, I've looked back through my photographic output from 2011 and picked 12 images that give me the most pleasure – it would seem that as the years go by my photography gets ‘quieter’, more insular – reflecting my relationship with the landscape. For me the landscape is a place for quiet contemplation and sharing this feeling through my photography is my always my aim – there's no dramatic ‘wow’ moments here! Anyway, I hope you enjoy them in some way.

Hoping you all have a great Christmas and get all those photographic gadgets you've been hoping for. And I hope you all have a brilliant, productive and creative 2012!

Click on the photos for larger views

By Derwentwater – Lake District – January

By Loch Tulla – Scotland – March

Elegant Flyer – Peak District– June

Y’s – Peak District– July

Dance – Peak District– July

Surprise Heather – Peak District– August

Nameless Woods Sunrise – Peak District– September

White Moss Oak – Lake District– October

Bolehill Mist – Peak District– October

Misted Birch – Peak District– October

Overhanging Ullswater– Lake District– November

Glen Etive– Scotland – November