You have to live in a rather odd part of the Uk if you haven’t been subject to some form of snow and ice over the Christmas and new year period. Taking images of the snow and ice brings its own challenges but I have, for a long time, taken images as I’ve been on walks. This weekend was no exception. We are also in the midst of lockdown 3 here in England so I chose not to travel to The Peak District or in fact out into the Cheshire plains. I stayed with Greater Manchester. I was pleasantly surprised that there are some great walks only a handful of miles away from where I live.
Leading Lines – Frozen Road
Some of the more regular readers will know that I have been taking courses with The School of Photography. Part of being a member gives you access to monthly challenges. This months challenge is “leading lines”. In my mind this is a classic example of a leading lines image. the lines of the road and the tracks made on the road by the cars in the snow all lead you towards the main subject, which of course is the tree. Add to this the moody weather and you get a decent wintery image with leading lines as the main composition technique. Recurring theme for this week.
Tree on the Frozen Lake
its good to keep warm when walking around in the cold weather and there are quite a number of “pods” that are open for hot drinks and snacks and I was grateful when I came across this pod. You’d be forgiven from wondering what this image has to do with me stopping for coffee, but as I stood waiting for my coffee to cool a little I spotted this tree. There are small droplets of frozen water on the end of the branches. add this to the semi frozen pond behind it and you will (I hope) see what a lovely image this makes. This tree may make several appearances over the coming months.
Not another bloody wall!!
This week seems to be a week of my favourite things, and you will all know that I love a good dry stone wall. A quick look at this image will show you that again I was inspired by the leading lines approach to composition. The ice and snow all around this wall add to the mood of the image as well as the jeopardy about where did I decide to walk, up or down the hill! As it turned out I went upwards and whilst it was a bit icy underfoot the views where great once I got onto the higher ground.
A fence for God sake!!
Not far up the hill from where I took the previous image I headed through a field and found another leading line, this time it was a barbed wire fence. I think the obvious leading line here works well but what I like most about this image is the mood. The tree is shrouded in mist but not so much that you can’t see it. The fence heads off into the distance creating a “I wonder where that goes?” question, all of which add up to the story telling within an image or group of images.
Road to somewhere!!
Theres a whole host of these types of scenes all over the Uk at this time of year and you’d be forgiven for thinking this could be much further north than Manchester. This continues my theme of leading lines but this time I love the contrast of this scene, and decided afterwards in post production that this would look best in black and white. Where does this road go? Has it ever been gritted? Did the cars crash that have made the tracks in the snow? Storytelling is a huge part of photography. Its simply not about taking pictures of things, its about trying to create a body of work that tell a cohesive story. I’d like to think that these 5 images tell the story of my walk this last week. I hope you like them just as much as I do.