photographs of east yorkshire
setting out from bridlington, i have walked many miles on the footpaths and lanes of east yorkshire. it's an often bleak landscape, empty of trees and shapely hills and waterfalls, carpeted instead by massive arable fields which have devastated woods, hedgerows and the wildlife in them. once you recognise the fact that good landscape shots will be relatively rare, there are still ways to find happiness - and good photographs - in this farmed landscape by looking closer and for details
unlike the dramatic panorama seen from the top of a cumbrian fell, the meaningfulness and photographic potential of the east yorkshire countryside is to be found in the near or very near distance, in the pink and white blossom of a solitary hawthorn or in the butterfly covered wildflowers at the edge of a field on a hot summer's day. there may not be many of the larger wild animals but the flora and insect life of verges and margins is still incredibly vibrant. and then there is the coast with its beautiful clean beaches, wave lashed mud cliffs and WWII concrete detritus
the countryside shifts from barren desolation in december on the icy, snow-covered wolds, to incredible lushness a couple of months later along the banks of the waterways, so visiting the same place in different seasons produces very different results
sometimes i photograph something unusual - a dead goose lying randomly in the undergrowth, a yellow flower growing out of sand on a dune - but mostly i take pictures of common things from unusual angles. nature, and material life generally, is ever full of new juxtapositions which make interesting abstractions and it is those abstractions that i like to photograph
it is an art of composition and a question of subject matter rather than complicated camera technicalities. nearly all pictures were produced using a low budget and easy to operate Olympus OM10
there's no cropping of images or any kind of photoshopping
click thro the slideshow below or let it play on automatic