After playing catch up with the office work since my visit to Skokhlom Island, I managed to spend a bit of time photographing at my favourite place in Gower. I’m sure some of my ashes will get scattered here eventually! Why do I love Whiteford National Nature Reserve? It has everything that I enjoy about outdoor photography: flowers, landscape, birds, woodlands, animals, coastline, insects?and best of all, a sense of space and tranquility. The 3/4 mile walk to the beach tends to put off the possibility of a family day out and quite rightly as it is easier to get to other beaches on Gower?with better facilities for the family. Once you get used to the odd nudist popping up every now and again, it is usually a quiet place to spend some time.
I once got an email accusing me of falsifying my images, using Photoshop to distort the image, saturate the colours?and move the sun position. If only my Photoshop skills were so good! Actually I only use Adobe Lightroom, so I am limited to a few RAW processing adjustments only and never adjust the saturation slider. If I can’t process and finish an image in a minute or two, then I don’t tend to bother with it any more. I started photography in the film days when there was no real option to alter your images, especially with slide film, plus I’m interested in photography and not photo-illustration as I call it when all sorts of computer trickery is needed to make an image. This is fine for advertising photography maybe, but not outdoor photography that purports to represent the natural world.? Anyway I don’t like sitting in front of the computer for too long, and apart from the office side of things which I can’t avoid, I would rather be outside trying to make a few photographs.
After a sunny day it is difficult to find a part of the beach that doesn’t have footprints in it, but although not a special image, I like the image of the fading human footprints being replaced with that of bird footprints. It sums up nature for me: if man leaves it alone it will sort itself out and return if given the opportunity. The problem is at the moment we don’t give it the opportunity and as the population of the world increases it will not get any better. On that cheery note I will finish with?the?indulgence of a cloudscape that I always try and photograph when the light and clouds are interesting.
