It is not just taking in the whole of the image and in what your eyes perceive within it, but it is all those tiny details when you look really close, and how your imagination perceives them … and where that imagination leads you to …
Deep in the woods, June 2019, South Staffordshire, England. © Pete Hillman.
Click and click again on the image to get that little bit closer …
After a heavy night’s rain throw my patio windowpane. June 2019, Staffordshire, England. © Pete Hillman.
I love how the sunlight sparkles and shimmers within the rippling movement of the waters on the coast. These are abstract worlds which I would like to glimpse more often than I do, full of the richness of life and wonder. These images feature what I believe is a seaweed called Gutweed (Ulva intestinalis).
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Shanklin Beach, Isle of White, England, August 2018 © Pete Hillman.
This is actually a shot of the River Greta which runs through Keswick. ‘Greta’ derives from the Old Norse ‘Griótá’, meaning ‘stony stream’.
I have always been fascinated with the concept of just focusing on something, a small part of something, like a patch of grass, or a section of river. I find I see more detail than if I take in the whole. This is the thing with photography, you will never ever capture that same moment again. Whatever the image it is unique, and there is such beauty in that uniqueness.
I used a slower shutter speed to capture the above image. Doing it hand-held is pretty tricky as I wanted to keep the lovely detail in the stones and the driftwood, and yet I also wanted to retain some equilibrium to capture the movement and texture within the flowing water itself. I love to see those little swirls around the stones, and the foamy splashes and silky rippliness (another word that I am not sure really exists, but sounds okay).
This was indeed a lovely spot sitting on the grassy bank, just being, and flowing with the stony stream …
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July 2018, Keswick, Cumbria, England. © Pete Hillman.
You may be wondering what this is a photograph of, huh? Well it looks kind of like very fine green barbed wire, but no. It’s not a kind of grass, either. It is does not have any Photoshop jiggery pokery either, this is as I had taken it near the shore of Derwentwater. It was difficult to get at because of a dense screen of trees, so I used my extended zoom. Any ideas, yet?
Well I know it is a Horsetail, and I think it is the Water Horsetail (Equisetum fluviatile).
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July 2018, Derwentwater, Keswick, Cumbria, England. © Pete Hillman.
I see the white wisps of a great horse being swept along on a rolling wave.
I see a young lost soul looking out from a dark hollow shaped like a heart.
I see the rippling spine of a soaring Snow Dragon as it swoops and glides by.
I see an ancient stone colossus peering through the misty curtain of time.
What do you … see …?
These were amongst my first experiments with shutter speed and water. And I suppose my imagination can get the better of me sometimes 🙂
November 2016, local canal, Staffordshire. © Pete Hillman
This is a tiny water droplet probably less than 1mm (0.04in) in diameter on the underside of a leaf. To get an idea of scale the leaf vein is just at the opposite corner of the picture.
Within that water droplet could be another world, with its own universe and its own sun and moon. With its own lands and peoples.
If you click on the image and gaze long enough into the tiny orb of water, you may just get a glimpse of this other world …
July 2017 © Pete Hillman.
You may have noticed I have a thing about water, light and reflections, and the abstract patterns which the mind can get completely lost within if you allow it to roam within such an image. There is a narrow bridge crossing my local river which leads to a canal a stone’s throw away. This is the view of the river looking over the side of the bridge. This is how I saw it, tiny ripples forming as the cool water stirred over smoothened pebbles and stones just under the surface. Reflections of tree branches stretching out like flailing limbs, and the canopy of foliage almost like daubs of green paint where an artist has just let themselves go free in a creative flourish. As for the blue, well that just takes you out of this world.
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May 2018, local river, Staffordshire, England. © Pete Hillman
I think the plant is River Water Crowfoot bubbling just beneath the surface. The river is quite shallow here, and I have walked across it past summers. Sometimes I will see a zip of blue as a Kingfisher flies by, and flitting damselflies and dragonflies can be seen on the banks and out over the cool freshwater.
May 2018, local river, Staffordshire, England. © Pete Hillman
From a fly’s perspective caught in a spider web. How do you get out of that? Erm, you don’t.
Sheet Web, rear garden, Staffordshire, England. July 2017.
During one of my walks along my local river, I was so taken by the sunlight filtering through the trees and reflecting off the cool water. I felt like I was peering into some magical, watery fairy realm. The light lit up the bottom of the riverbed and bought out the beautiful earthen colours which would have otherwise lay hidden there in the dark. I flipped the original image over so the reflection ended the right way up, and did not have to do much else with it in editing. I am always on the look out for the unusual as well as beauty and wonder, and I am always in awe of what nature bestows to us.
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August 2016, Staffordshire, England.
September 2016, front garden , Staffordshire, England.
December 2017, Staffordshire, England.
No special effects used here. Just a photo as it is, taken from a clifftop and looking down at the shallows below as the tide rolled in and softly kissed and melted the rocky coastline.
Double click image to dive in …
April 2017, from atop the Great Orme, Llandudno, Wales.
November 2017, rear garden, Staffordshire, England.
Whilst out in the local beech woods on Sunday morning I wanted to try and capture not only the autumnal colours but also the movement of the leaves to express how windy these past days have been due to a storm system crossing the country. I used a slow camera speed to try an capture the flutter of leaves in the cool October wind. I know this kind of contradicts what we try and do in photography, which is to attempt to capture the world perfectly still, between bouts of wind, but I thought I would just run with it, go with the flow of the wind and see where it took me 🙂
October 2017, Staffordshire, England.
Can you perceive within those layers of billowing light, across a boisterous ocean, a far off land where gold tints the highest peaks?
We dream … and we can see what we will … or wish to see …
Dedicated to Linda who is dearly missed, but always in our hearts.
Sunrise through cloud, from rear garden, Staffordshire, England, September 2017.
I have become a little obsessed with my Petunia petals of late. I have been quite taken by their vibrant colours and patterns, and how the light catches them.
Rear garden, Staffordshire, England. July 2017.
Nature Journeys 