Repetition

Flat, un-scenic, landscape is difficult to photograph. Not least when so much of it looks the same. Some would say boring. If it's boring then make boring pictures of it instead of trying to make 'interesting' pictures. This is my excuse for adopting a very similar viewpoint and framing for a lot of my meanygate pictures of the farmed land. The horizon is kept high, and the land is the main subject. Maybe if the skies weren't so uniformly blue recently that might have been different. I might have been tempted to make the sky the focus of the pictures.

As it turns out I'm liking the repetitive  nature of the pictures as a series builds.

The main things which break up the flatness are the ditches, tracks and pylons crossing the moss. Again I prefer to centralise these features.

 Here and there are buildings. Some houses, mostly bungalows, barns and suchlike. After trying out angled views I once more found the straight on shots seemed more fitting.

Something that these wanderings at different times of the day have made me more aware of than usual is the direction of light. I see pictures which frame well, but don't work because something is in shade which needs to be lit. That said, I am still not a fan of early or late light for a lot of pictures. Apart from making for dark shadows it can make the pictures a bit too 'interesting' and become the subject itself.

When I saw the old Massey Ferguson chain harrowing the dry soil it felt like there was a picture to be made. The problem being that the backlighting which made the dust apparent put the red tractor in shade. You can't always have it all! Some fiddling on the computer made something of it.

As well as small scale farming on the moss there are larger concerns operating on a more industrialised basis. Their modern units provide a counterpoint to the more ramshackle outbuildings of the smaller farms.

Covering the same ground can lead to familiarity, but every now and then I take a second look at something. The pile of ploughed up tree remains which I photographed the other day being a case in point. The picture below works in a different way to my first attempt. I don't think either is better than the other as they tell different stories.

The weather is set to change and revert to normal spring conditions. Maybe this will provide a change of look to the moss and my pictures?

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