Mark's Blog

Around three weeks ago I was running a two day workshop with Joe Cornish at Paddy's Hole - a small, quaint yet run down fishing harbour at the mouth of the River Tees. During the workshop one of the participant's batteries went flat and he didn't have a spare. I therefore offered to lend him my Panasonic Lumix G1 as we still had another couple of hours to go before last light. Delighted at this, we set it up on my tripod where we were located on the outer collar of the harbour, which is made up of sharp craggy rocks. We decided to take a breather and whilst I was talking to Joe and another participant, the wind got up and blew the camera and tripod over. The result of which was a shattered screen, torn rubber eyepiece and badly disjointed tripod socket. A total write off it seemed... or...

'Revealed Age' is another image from my excursion to Port Mulgrave last December. I was drawn to the deep golden rust of the corrugated iron which contrasts so well with the equally worn outer layer of years of paint.  On an deep, emotional level it metaphorically provoked the thought of the peeling of old skin to expose the natural beauty of age on the inside. On a shallower level, it reminds me of the cover of Jean Michelle Jarre's Oxygene album, which I still find stunning after all these years. Having spent the good part of a full day at Port Mulgrave I came away very happy that I'd done it justice - at least in my own way. I look forward to visiting it again soon for a different take. As usual, you can find the above image and more in the Recently Added section of the website - enjoy!...

Recently, I decided to take a run to the coast to do some close-up work. A genre that I am finding more and more pleasurable. Initially, I stopped at Staithes in order to wander around underneath Boulby Cliffs as the tide was out. Unfortunately, the only image that inspired me to get the camera out was being hounded by my shadow due to the sun being directly behind me. No matter what I did, this particular image just had to wait for another day. I remembered around six or seven years earlier visiting Port Mulgrave, just up the road from Staithes. It had been an early morning shoot that day I recalled and though the light was particularly good I just couldn't find a suitable image to do it justice. I remember returning from my journey rather despondent that day not having made a successful image. This was a time when...

What with running five separate photo workshops, getting the Staircase Gallery up and running plus trying to make some autumn images of my own it seems like an age since I was on the Isle of Arran – yet it was only three weeks ago! Phew, time just seems to have flown by since! As the weather wasn’t favourable during our stay, John and I spent a lot of time seeking out rock details along the shores of Arran in between showers. One area I was particularly taken with was the amazing rock formations just south of Lochranza at Catacol Bay. These formations were excellent for detailed work, so we spent many hours just working the area looking for interesting features. I could see a pattern emerging with strong lines and patterning of the rock. After making three similar images I was already envisaging a tryptic at some point in the...

I came across today’s image back in June. John and I decided to have a wander into Wensleydale for the day to seek out new opportunities (aren’t we always doing that?!). We headed for Bainbridge first and then our idea was to pan out from there, studying the OS Map and generally getting to know the area more photographically. Stopping off for coffee at the local cafe, we planned our day to recce the area around Little Moss just North West of Bainbridge itself and then to check out Semer Water to the South. We were optimistic that the weather was going to be a little kinder than of late. We’re not always looking for fluffy white clouds – far from it, but of late we’d been dealt a few grey, dull days with no features in the sky at all (not even for a monochrome image!). So we’d been resigned...

I recently had chance to visit a lavender farm near Terrington, York a few weeks ago and I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed experimenting with the new Lumix G3 camera I’d borrowed. It was the ideal camera for getting in among all the lavender and other brightly coloured flowers to make a few pics. However, it was a tad blustery and along with no cloud cover I knew it would be rather difficult to make anything decent here. After a good few hours and a rather nice coffee I decided to head for the coast as the evening forecast for anywhere else was dull and overcast. Whitby felt like a good idea but having recently visited there I knew any images from or of the piers risked a huge crane in the way (I believe they’re repairing East Pier lighthouse?). I decided therefore to take a look around Saltwick Bay....

Today’s image is of a Cercidiphyllum Japonicum – a small tree which I just love in the Autumn. The colours are delightful and rich and, as can be seen, very varied. I took some time working out the composition of the tree as there were many options I could have gone for. However, I really like this one. I’m sure an even closer (macro?) image would also have been very effective. This was an image I was supposed to post last Autumn but I was just about to embark on a new website so I decided to leave it until the new site was live…. little did I know it would be nine months later! Things just throw you off your best intentions!! Many thanks to Rod Bennington for letting me know the name of the tree. Now I’m off to see my friend Stuart Townsend – a fellow keen photographer...

Anybody that has read my past blogs will know that I’m a keen advocate of the Panasonic range of cameras. Owning a G1 for the last two years I’ve always found the operation of the camera absolutely ideal for landscape photography. Of course this doesn’t mean I’ve given up on Large Format (not by any means!), but there are times I find it useful to use digital – particularly when I wish to make panoramic images or simple abstracts as mentioned in last week’s blog (oh for the want of a Phase One back – all donations gratefully received! ;). For the last five years my wife has been using a Panasonic compact camera for taking general family snapshots which she found very easy to operate and carry about. However, recently we found problems with the white balance when images were downloaded onto the computer. Therefore, we decided to call it...