This week my diary looked a little quieter than the hectic previous 6 weeks or so but that soon changed within one brief phone call.
I was asked by a client if I could travel to West Wales for a couple of days to shoot two urgent jobs that needed completing ASAP.
There are certain days while out driving the car that I know I’m going to get sidetracked by a view or a subject I just simply can’t pass up.
I have fond memories of holidays as a child in Cornwall here in England.
As I grew those holidays continued with friends and I eventually found myself living in the area for a brief time.
It was around this time (the early 1990s) that I started a project to capture portraits and images of Cornish fishermen.
I recently rediscovered this image in my archive and decided to give it some TLC and publish it here.
It was taken near Gaios, on the island of Paxos while on a boat tour in the summer of 2006
I would not state this image as a particularly amazing piece of creative travel photography in fact the image was simply a grab shot
to look back upon and enjoy as a memory of our trip.
If you critiqued this image you probably say the lighting here is a little bland (it’s overhead) and pretty harsh in contrast (it’s a fairly cloudless summer sky) and certainly not the time of day that most photographers including myself would choose to produce creative travel photography.
However, I’ve always said there is no such thing as bad light it just depends on your personal style or what you decide works for a particular image or a clients brief.
On the plus side, in this image, that same bland hard light gives some amazing punch to those blues which for me are a strong signature of Greece along with incredible mountains and historic sites of interest.
Once again we see that rules (or guidelines) are often there to be broken and even encouraged for creativity especially when it comes to photography.
If you want to see some wonderful images by a master photographer who is often known for their use of razor-sharp light and contrast I’d recommend checking out Albert Watson’s work especially the images in his wonderful book Cyclops.
I started Life in a Somerset Landscape as a personal project with the aim to capture various people and wildlife in the Somerset landscape.
The images are inspired by the county I grew up in and in which I learnt my craft starting back in the late 1980s
I’ve always been drawn and somewhat intrigued by the history of the land and the people who work it and wildlife that lives there so the project simply evolved from that.
The images are approached by me either simply documenting what I discover while others are created to produce a vision I have for that particular location or person within it.
The project is ongoing as I have time to pick it up and continue.
View project Life in a Somerset Landscape
Do you know of someone or somewhere in Somerset that you feel should be included? Please email me and let me know. [email protected]
Mud-horse-fisherman-Hinkley point
Swan Flying Over Somerset River
Banjo player maize field
