I am breaking a couple of month’s blogging, tweeting, Flickring and Google-plussing silence to announce that I am about to do a bit of a Tony Benn.

That formally infamous, lately celebritied ex-cabinet minister, hereditary peerage refusenik and “national treasure” famously said he was leaving parliament to spend more time on politics. A number of times, I’ve photographed him entertainingly—sometimes inspiringly—keeping that faith.

Me? Nothing so ideologically correct. I am leaving the professional photography part of my work-life imbalance to, yes, spend more time and less money on photography. I’ve found the courage and resources to turn amateur! My wife’s on board. Only Warehouse Express, Speed Graphic and a few other online camera stores will be very marginally disappointed.

Here’s why and how:

Ironically, the most lucrative only half-decent money I’ve made out of photography has been from leading landscape workshops. And, as my guests’ testimonials demonstrate, I put 150 percent of myself into other people’s photography. That’s the way it should have been, of course.

My adult education photography classes began as a loss leader but became a de facto convivial camera club with the bonus that I would learn something new every time I was asked something I wasn’t sure about. I’ll miss that. I’ll miss them.

I have had some exhilarating times photographing a number of weddings; created joyful images that continue to make me and the happy couples smile or shed a tear. I’ve covered some of my tangible wedding photography costs. But, in the midst of a post-film, everyone’s-a-photographer, price-erosive free-for-all, I’ve decided to stop squandering my daughter’s potential inheritance and concentrate more on properly paid work.

So, weekdays, it’s back to the “real world” of PR, marketing and corporate communications for me. Spare time back to photography as a therapeutic and wonderful distraction.

But not back to the Yorkshire Dales and Lake District landscape. Forward to Australia’s Victoria; to Melbourne where my talented wife has accepted a sustainable day job; where I am looking forward to the same. Looking forward to less-is-more spare time photography.

After I figure out which way round are the sunrise and sunsets, I may still offer a small number of  landscape photography workshops. But they will either be free or very expensive. Anything in between seems undervalued.

If you have any comments, it’d be nice to hear from you. If you make it to Melbourne, it would be great to see you.

The other day I took delivery of Nikon PC-E 24mm tilt shift lens, which I am looking forward to using to up the front-to-back-sharpness ante on some of my landscape work (keeping in mind that sharpness in search of a mission is not always a good thing). I’ve not had much time to get to know the lens and I am waiting for delivery of a high-quality Philips #000 screwdriver so I can make it fully landscape-useful by bringing tilt and shift onto the same axis.

I went out last evening and produced some technically very good images. But my, er, focus was far too much concentrated on the technical rather than the aesthetic. So, while I wait for the tools and the muse and the technology to come into balance, here’s an image from the same area that I made before my photographic life became that bit more complex.

This one is about light and emotion. It is taken from Seat Knott on the western edge of the Howgill Fells looking over the Lune Valley.

Did the lens move for you?

There is a conventional wisdom rehearsed amongst “serious” photographers. I hear it a lot on photography podcasts: that the feedback you receive on flickr is next to useless.

You know the kind of thing: lots of  ”great capture”, “wow!” etc. Now there’s value in treating such pithy praise for what it is. Nice to hear (we don’t delete them do we?) but not very useful for professional/amatuer development.

As I’ve spent more time with Flickr, especially in the company of a diverse but discrete community of landscape photographers, I’ve noticed people asking for, receiving and giving much more substantial critique.

Here’s a small example:

Yesterday, here on the blog, and to an inevitably wider audience over on my Flickr photosteam, I posted two images and asked which one people preferred and why. As well as the usual supportive encouragement, I’ve received some very useful feedback and suggestions. The image below is now a square crop because of this. (I should say that, when I processed it originally, I tried it square but parked that virtual copy because I was too attached to all of the, arguably, boring sky. (And thanks to Bill for couching that particular piece feedback in such a self-esteem maintaining way!)

With a little distance from the day that I set out to capture these images, I now realise that my pre-visualisation of a big sky above the Howgills from Fox’s Pulpit clouded (yes, clouded!) my judgement when it came to cropping in Lightroom. I kept it very DSLR 2×3-skinny because I was over-committed to my plan. (There’s another blog post in there about why pre-visualisation may not always be such a Good Thing, even though, since I started practicing and then preaching it, it has mostly been a Very Good Thing.)

Now, I happen to think that the somewhat darker sky that I’ve left above those golden clouds enhance the image below because they draw the eye to the main attraction; they prevent energy leaking out of the top of the frame. But there’s always the risk that I still haven’t shaken that big sky pre-visualisation. Feedback welcomed, of course!

All square now

Back on the hills above the Lune Valley just below Fox’s Pulpit last night, I was looking, again, for sunset-behind-me light on and around the Howgill Fells. And, after the gold had gone, a moody four-and-a-half-minute exposure that dispenses with some conventions. Which do you prefer and why?

Howgill Sky

Time passing over the Lune Valley

The result of my latest—I’ve-finished-a-paid-work-objective—dash to capture the Howgills as the sun goes down behind me. More gritty and gloomy than glowy because the inferred sunset did its thing behind dense cloud over the Irish Sea.

But it has a certain mood.

So, without the aid of recently acquired Lee Big Stopper, here’s a 132-second exposure I made as the residents of Howgill were turning on their lights.

Camera on bulb as the lights come on in Howgill