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Ten days after a successful trip to Hatfield Forest for my last RPS Landscape group workshop – I was off driving west along the M4 to meet up with Robert Harvey to search out some photographic gems in Wiltshire.

This area of Sussex has become a favourite English location for photography where I’m starting to gain a deeper understanding of varied seascapes and shorelines, big views and more intimate images.  I’ve seen Rachael Talibart’s work and been on a few of her one-day workshops and, having previously done days with Philip Bedford around the Devils Dyke and Alfriston, I booked his Seven Sisters workshop as soon as it became available online. 

You know the feeling. You take the card out of the camera and pop it into the computer. Excitement rises, tempered by history. So often your hard work has been wasted; or at best compromised. There’s a distraction on one of the edges. Fancy not noticing the tree crossing the horizon. Why didn’t you move another metre to the left or right? And worst of all; the main interest is not quite pin sharp. 

I don’t know about you, but once in a while I like to book some time off work and go ‘somewhere new’ and challenge myself to capture some images outside my usual ‘comfort zone’.  I like to try and get away around October time so, in search of inspiration, I had another look at my Landscape Photographer of the Year (Collection 13) book and was drawn to an image by Chris Lauder (page 168) taken at Loch Ard.

As a new member of the RPS Landscape Group I was really looking forward to this workshop based in and above the always beautiful Buttermere Valley.  Six members of the Landscape Group assembled at Gatesgarth Farm Car Park in good time to meet our Workshop Leader; Ade Gidney FRPS.

Our RPS group met up with Justin for a 7am start and after introductions and an explanation of morning’s itinerary we set off towards the lake and managed to catch a brief period of a fine sunrise over the water. Speedy setting up of tripods and choice of composition allowed us just enough time to get a photograph over the lake to catch the colour in the morning sky.

The coronavirus pandemic has pushed us to think in new ways and challenged us to adapt to social distancing. The RPS Landscape Group has since run a couple of online workshops, including this one exploring the South Downs. 

We’re all bombarded with gloriously ‘epic’ images and I’ve certainly spent my fair share of time attempting (and failing) to emulate them

Working on an ongoing book project meant venturing out around the south west during May in the middle of the night, namely revisiting old haunts and documenting grid references, alongside exact times and what is available to photograph in the night sky, and at what time on the chosen locations to complement the landscape.

The easing of lockdown in the summer of 2020, for most people, was an opportunity to get out into the local countryside with some decent boots and suitable clothing.

Palli Gajree reflects on how photography has been a major part of his life, inspired by life events, assisting others and friends or relatives. The RPS has been there all the way and Palli’s work is held for future generations to view in the Society’s permanent collection.

The East Okemont River is a modest affair. Just five miles long, it rises below Oke Tor, flows north out of the Dartmoor National Park and into Okehampton where it meets its counterpart, the West Oke 

I’m sure that I am not the only photographer that spends a fair amount of time planning to visit a location and imagining the ideal photograph that they would like to achieve...

Since the easing of lockdown, I have managed to achieve four separate trips into the Peak District; three purely for photographic purposes and the fourth taking two of my granddaughters walking for the day.