In amongst the expected picturesque shots were some really inspiring pictures. Most of these seemed to take a liberal interpretation of the term 'landscape'! The ones I liked most I'd class closer to being portraits than landscapes. They certainly seem to me to be primarily about people in an environment rather than an environment with people in. Of the landscapes without people the ones I think are most successful are the ones that don't rely on technique but use technique to make the shots possible. Stitched panoramas being some I didn't expect to like, but when done for a reason they work well. When done for the sake of doing them, like most techniques, they are annoying.
The images I like least are the ones that are trite, relying on dramatic light for example, and those dreaded wide-angle shots! When people think of making good landscape pictures there is all too often a tendency to take the easy option of shooting either at sunrise or sunset, or on days when the sky is either blue and filled with fluffy clouds or dark and menacing. It's an easy option and neglects the fact that most of the time in this country the sky is a uniform pale grey.
Despite my dislike of picturesque landscapes I have succumbed to the temptation of a neutral graduated filter. Even an overcast sky can make exposure difficult, particularly at the coast where there is a lot of sky. I tried it out for the first time this afternoon, when another sunset was threatening. This time the sunset almost happened. Not too dramatically though and the shots I took of it were pretty dismal. I really should take the tripod and get more depth of field in, but I'm lazy and impatient at the same time. I keep seeing different ways to frame shots and need to try them all to decide which works best. Maybe it's easier to be disciplined with a tripod when there are some features to frame and the options fewer rather than just the horizon and sand?
Anyway... The filter made a difference. When the sky is correctly exposed the land lightens up revealing more detail than would be the case without the filter. When shooting into the light the chances of blowing the highlights in the sky are reduced. So it was money well spent. In fact I think I'll invest in a stronger filter too. Not that I want to get into the overuse of 'grads'. They can be as obvious and tedious as the low level wide angle shots of rocks at the water's edge. Luckily there are no rocks on my part of the coast!
One way I try to avoid the picturesque is to keep as much obvious 'interest' out of my shots as possible. This is reasonably easy at the beach. In am ore complex environment other strategies need to be adopted.
The photo below is a shot of sand, water and light in a very limited and muted palette - almost two tones each of blue-grey and buff. There is little in focus, a thin band of sand about a third of the way up in fact, and the high ISO gives it a soft overall feel.
What makes the picture work (for me) are the gently zig-zagging bands of colour leading the eye into the picture space. The rising dune to the right alleviates monotony (my sole concession to 'interest') and stops the eye, turning it along the horizon where the wind turbines come in and out of view through the misty haze, just rising above the darker band that is the far side of the Mersey estuary. The grey cloud at the top of the picture completes the frame and mirrors the colour of the band of water at the bottom. It may be better viewed on black.
