Landscape photographs

Is It Worth Entering The Landscape Photographer Of The Year Competition?

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Warning! These Landscape Photographs Will Make You Feel Like You’re A Terrible Photographer!

I used to enter photographic competitions until I realised my money was better spent on learning more.

When you look at the incredible quality of the photographs made by these international photographers, it almost dumbs you down and puts you in your place. It’s actually difficult to become inspired by them because they’re just so damned good and I think to myself that the places these guys and girls are making photographs are pretty much not accessible to me or the average human being without lots of available time, lots of money for travel and the ability to support yourself while out there making photographs about pretty places on Earth.

So these are my initial thoughts and then when I look at the pictures again, wow, they’re simply amazing. Shall we look at them now?

Ok,

Here are the winners from the 2019 competition…

Bonaire, Dutch Carribean by Sander Grefte (Netherlands), Second Place

Badain Jaran Desert, China by Yang Guang (China), Second Place.

Bláfellsá, Iceland by Oleg Ershov (Russian Federation), Winner

Gruissan, France by Magali Chesnel (France), Winner

Grizzly Lake, Yukon, Canada by Blake Randall (Canada), Third Place.

Fleswick Bay, England by Oleg Ershov (Russian Federation), Winner,.

Kimberley, Western Australia by Mat Beetson (Australia), Top 100,.

Eastern Sierra, California, USA by Carlos Cuervo (United States), Top 100.

Lençóis Maranhenses, Brazil by Ignacio Palacios (Australia).

Lençóis Maranhenses, Brazil by Ignacio Palacios (Australia), The Abstract Aerial Award 2019..

Page, Arizona, USA by Craig Bill (United States), Top 100,.

Bronte Beach, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia by Gergo Rugli (Australia), Top 100.

Madeira, Portugal by Anke Butawitsch (Germany), The Lone Tree Award 2019.

SpaceX rocket exhaust plume, Sierra Nevada, California, USA by Brandon Yoshizawa (United States), The Heavenly Cloud Award 2019..

Ramshead Tor, Kosciuszko, New South Wales, Australia by Blake Randall (Canada), Third Place.

Ramshead Tor, Kosciuszko, New South Wales, Australia by Blake Randall (Canada), Third Place.

Sharqiya Sands Desert, Oman by Peter Adam Hoszang (Hungary), Third Place,.

Central Balkan, Bulgaria by Veselin Atanasov (Bulgaria), The Snow and Ice Award 2019..

West Mongolia by Ricardo Da Cunha (Australia), The Wildlife in Landscape Award 2019.

See what I mean!!!

They’re quite amazing aren’t they?

Now do you feel inspired to go outside and make some landscape photographs?
My own personal style of landscape photography has been born out of isolation. I have never had the money to travel to these heroic and trophy like locations, so have always had to make do with my local environment.
I have rural farmland surrounding me and I’m in the middle of the urban sprawl of a small market town in the middle of England.

I try to make the best of my surroundings, regardless of where that is and still encourage you to do so as well.
Once you understand photography and all the rules and all of the different ways of breaking the rules, making photographs wherever you are becomes much simpler.

You learn to see the beauty of life and not just in the pretty parts of the planet.

So it’s a choice on whether you wish to enter your work in to the LOPTY competition but remember how stiff the competition is and look at the level your work has to rise to, even for consideration to be shortlisted amongst about 3,400 pictures. You also have to pay for the privilege of entering, as you do many photography competitions these days but that’s a whole different story that I have strong thoughts about.

Maybe another time!

By Paul Hands.

Inspired by an article written by Jessica Stewart (18,2,2020), https://mymodernmet.com/international-landscape-photographer-contest-2019/?fbclid=IwAR3xoaagEHpDR6A_8wNKzo6W42RjOWYdHs-xLn8ZIcdMvWB3v0ZPpOUstMo

Landscape Photography Workshop - Hollycroft Park

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Autumn Photography Workshop in Hollycroft Park, Hinckley

Join a like minded group of beginner photography enthusiasts to learn how to improve your photography skills.

On this workshop you’ll learn the following:

  • How to set up your camera for landscape photography

  • How to design a frame and use professional compositional techniques

  • How to study the light and create form in your pictures

  • What to photograph and how to identify a good picture before you look through your viewfinder

  • You’ll learn how to adjust the settings on your camera to go with the flow and be more natural making photographs

  • You’ll learn this on a nice Sunday evening in September during Autumn and be with a group of like minded people.

All you will need:

Clothes, shoes, digital camera, a tripod (if you have one) and a love for nature.

You can find more information and book one of the limited places using this link.

If you can’t make this date, sign up for news to your email inbox about up coming workshops.

Dreaming of Summer

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Combe Martin Landscape Photographs

By Paul Hands

I set out to make artwork from the landscape, while on a family holiday earlier this year in North Devon.

The golden hour falls perfectly in the summer evenings where the sun sets right in the middle of the vista. So I had a play with the light and the environment.

As it’s colder today than what we’ve been experiencing recently, I wanted to push our memories back towards those beautiful summer months we had in 2018.

This is a curated series of photographs and are available as prints or canvas, please click here for more info.

All Rights Reserved ©

The Combe Martin Landscape, North Devon.

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Tourism Photography 

Showing off the landscape for travellers and tourists.

During a trip to Combe Martin in North Devon for our holiday and exploration of the area, I was overwhelmed by the naturla beauty that surrounds the resort and reacted by making photographs that I felt showed off the place in a promotional way.

This is a skill that I apply to my commercial photography.  I look for the shape of the land and work with how the light falls up on it, shaping the form and romanticising the landscape.  

I'm not strictly a sublimne romantic photographer and this genre is one that I usually leave for the photography enthusiasts but when I was faced with these beautiful scenes in Combe Martin, I couldn't refuse the exposures.

This is a small selection of the pictures that I made during this trip, I hope you enjoy them?

This kind of Landscape Photography can be used to help promote holiday parks, resorts and campsites as well as support the tourism board in promoting destinations.  If you'd like to make an enquiry about commissioning me for an assignment, please hit this button gently...

Sublunary - Alien Invasion of Planet Earth

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Fine Art Photography meets Visual Stories

Sublunary - Part 2

As a professional photographer, Father to the most beautiful little toddler in the world and Husband to an equally beautiful Mother; I find it difficult to get out and make personal work.

In 2017, I graduated from University with a High 2:1 in a BA Hons in Photography & Video degree at De Montfort University, where the idea for this project was born.  I began with a long period of time in the library, scouring art books and photographic archives, learning about who, what where, when, why and how specific bodies of work was made.

Surprisingly, I came across some painters and other Fine Art Photographers that worked in similar fields to my research.  One in particular that sticks out in my mind was Photographer Erasmus Schroeter and Painter Max Ernst.

Erasmus Schroeter (2005).

Max Ernst, (N.D.)

I was also heavily inspired by my lecturer (Kosovan) Lala Meredith-Vula who is a contemporary fine art photographer with international recognition.  Lala's ideas about my work and how to get the best out of me was first class and Lala's self confessed crazy mind was a perfect match for the project I had stuck in my head.  She knew just how to get me excited about my own work.

Lala Meredith-Vula

Lala Meredith-Vula

Lala Meredith-Vula (N.D.)

Lala Meredith-Vula (N.D.)

So the body of work for Sublunary began.  I created a series of landscape photographs that followed the narrative of an imaginary alien invasion of the planet Earth.  A tall order you might think?  I just needed the right level of inspiration and a camera.  At the end of creating the work for my degree, I put it all together in a short movie with a spooky sound track that I created myself.  You can watch that below.

I'm now about to embark on a much longer journey that will see me creating a whole new body of work for Sublunary Part 2.  I'll be using my experiences from the first part of the project and will be digging deeper in to my imagination.

Here's a sneaky peek at my first experiment for part 2...

Paul Hands (2018), The Mute.

This is called 'The Mute' and features a landscape photograph that has been manipulated in camera by myself.  I added the red light using the brake lights on my car and chose this location for the crazy tree that could be morphed in to any kind of other worldly creature.  The reverse side of the road sign represents having nothing to say, to be muted and to be stunned by the experience of an alien invasion.  You will see that I've also added a strange shaped metal frame on the right.  This represents an alien being and is the shape of a large humanoid or key hole.  It is hollow and appears invisible with the exception of the outer edges.

The scene is lit like a stage as if the play is being carried out and has undertones of humour, not to be taken seriously.  It's a project that I can literally play and have fun with.  I have a list of locations, that I've been building, so you can watch to see how this develops.

De Montfort University bought the first 5 prints of this project and hold them in their permanent art collection on campus.  You can also read more about this project here.

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