OCA Photography Landscape: Assignment 1 - The Current Season

Landscape: Assignment 1 - The Current Season

Late Spring (May 2008)

I enjoyed this assignment but at the start found it a little too open. However towards the end I felt I had developed a theme - that of looking out from the present moment into the next. Like a lot ofthe assignments, as I finished it, I wanted to start again. Things had become a lot cleared to me. It was in doing the assignments that my greatest learning took place. The projects were necessary exercises, but I looked on them as a means of achieving the picture I wanted. It is a year since I did this assignment and things have not become easier! Now I think I am asking more of myself and although in the creative doldrums at the moment, I do feel inspired looking at how far my thinking has come, and I hope my photography.

(I apologize for the rather erratic picture sizes and layout - I'm working on my blogging skills)

1.


Panoramic crop showing newly green fields and trees. I have photographed this scene throughout the sesasons.
2.

This street is a favourite when the chestnuts are in first flush - the lushness of the trees is more dominant than the traffic for a few weeks. As the folliage tires the traffic seems to take over again.
3.

These new shoots speak for themselves, at this time of year the shadows seem deep and lush also.

4.

This shot through the meadow was not really sharp enough, but the weather was not kind to me when planning a reshoot, and the flush of flowers faded.

5.

The new growth over an inviting walk

6.

This tunnel of leaves is one of my favourite shots of the group.

The two shots of the blue bells below show two different viewpoints. The left hand picture shows a glimpse of the bluebells through the trees with a long foreground echoing the tunnel of leaves in the above shot, whereas the righthand picture had a vertical emphasis.
7. & 8.

















9.

This was another successful shot which does not appear at its best here. The composition emphasises the horizantal lines. I was especially pleased with the cloud. Its shape echoed the top of the trees and I waited some time for it to be the the right position,

The next two pictures, like the glimspe of bluebells and the tunnel of leaves, have the theme of looking into another place. The first was under Westminster railway bridge by the River Thames. there was a long drop on the other side of the bars putting pedestrians level with the tree tops which were newly in leaf. The second shot was taken from an ancient footpath lined with huge beech trees whose roots form the bank. There was a view of a tree which appeared to have been struck by lightning in the middle of the field.

10. 

11.

This final shot of a very English field once again has the view looking out from shadow into the sunlight. This could be seen as a metaphor for spring and if I was doing this assignment again would feel for confident in exploring that idea.