Getting That Buzz!

When I tell people that I'm a photographer, I get asked what kind, and I explain that I'm freelance and don't have a set area that I work in. Living in a city gives me availability to photograph streets, buildings, people and events, but I also get out into the countryside which opens up into a whole new world of things to photograph.

There are plenty of interesting buildings and anchient ruins to photograph as well as beautiful landscapes and rivers to follow. You also have the different times of the day and weather conditions that can change a view to something new and interesting that maybe you've not photographed before. This could be said of the different seasons, which can change a city view but not as much the countryside.

I have this thing of looking at Google maps and choosing an area to go an explore by car, I would. Love to be able to ramble across fields and woods, but my chair and muscles just can't cope with that side of photographing in the countryside. But I don't let that stop me from exploring in my own and in my own unique way.

When I've found an area of interest, then I drive around in circles at times and choose a lane that takes my fancy and then drive to the end of it to see what lies at the end. Not always but sometimes I can travel a few miles with the lane getting more and more narrow and then, just when I think there's nothing to be found, it opens up to a gold mine of natural beauty. This is the buzz that I'm sure others that walk for miles get when they find something that maybe know one else has seen before.

I look at the English countryside as a place not just of beauty but enchantment and I feel fortunate to have access to it. Yes, I see photographs from around the world that I think I would love to cover myself, but the chances of that happening is slim, but I'm happy with my lot in that I can find beauty and anusual images that surround me and I don't have to travel hundreds of miles to find it.

At the weekend I went over the Severn Bridge to Chepstow, after doing some images down by the river Wye, it got me thinking that this is a long river and there must be some amazing views along the river that just maybe I might be able to find.

I'm dependent on my chair, but just as much on my car as it allows me to be independent from my family that support me in my love for photography, to go out like a kid going hunting for Easter eggs by driving around to find something interesting.

So I started driving up a winding main road and was watching the sat nav and found a turning that looked interesting.

I must of drove for 20 minutes with the lane getting close to a wooded cliff and pot holes all over the road. Then near the end, I came out of the woods to an open space where the land levelled out. There was a farmhouse at the end of the lane, but I could see that there was an amazing view by their farm, so after tooting my horn and speaking the owner I had the afternoon to explore the views. What I hadn't notice was they had a field filled with beautiful Highland cattle with some that were black and the others brown, they were amazing and did me a favour by coming near to the gate for me to photograph them. It was just a jem of a find that I forgot what I was there for, which was the view looking down at the river Wye.

Its fair to say I had a good afternoon photographing in a 10 mile radius of the landscape and the river and some animals as an unexpected find that I didn't think I would see locally to the area.

Photographing in the countryside needs time to take in the view, but to look beyond that. It's also helped me to think about my photography of the city that I live in, and to spend more time looking round corners just to see what's there as it could be a scene or an object that makes that interesting image that maybe others may enjoy as much as I do.

Thanks for reading, AndyD