Landscape photography is photography of nature, commonly captured in a landscape format. This type of daylight photography involving land and sky, occasionally bodies of water too, captures nature from a distance. Landscape photography usually doesn't involve the presence of people like street photography does. However, landscape photography can include people if it has meaning behind it, as well as if the people aren't the main focus of the image. Before researching landscape photography, I assumed that it could only look like the examples above but it can look like whatever you want it to, as long as it involves some element of nature.

David Noton is a very traditional landscape photographer, capturing scenes of nature and life, which is quite opposite to the New Topographic movement. My favourite image is the one in the bottom left which I think is similar to the direction of image making that I will go in. The images that Noton takes are very surreal and I think that in the natural areas local to me, they aren't as fairytale like. My images won't have a picture perfect element to it, especially if it has a meaning behind it, so he won't be the main source of inspiration for this section of the project.

Charlie Waite's style of landscape photography is also very similar to Noton's, as they are both very traditional and capture untouched nature as it is. I intend on taking inspiration from the surrealism that you get when you look at his images, as well as the composition of the images with the symmetry. I like the way that your eye follows the path all the way to the end, with the trees and leaves etc. I am also particularly drawn to the middle image on the first row as it really is meaningful to me, with the way that the tree stands alone and the way that the light falls on it, creating a shadow on the other side. The way that the areas surrounding the tree are darker than the tree gives a message that it's almost like a symbol of hope. The image reminds me of the quote "there's always light at the end of a tunnel".

Jem Southam is a British landscape photographer, who takes very meaningful photos to him. The image on the bottom left with the swans is from 'A winter's tale', where he returned to the River Exe every day during winter at dusk or dawn, which was a process repeated over eight years. Whilst he was sat there, he waited for something interesting to appear to capture. I think that this is quite a meaningful and interesting process as he doesn't go looking for interesting things but waits for something to capture his interest. Allowing yourself as a photographer to be free from restraint means that the narrative of your work is determined as your work goes along, which I quite like. 

Freya Najade is a photographer, specialising in portrait and documentary photography. Her photography shows a romantic and mysterious style, and captures everyday scenes which are often overlooked. I am quite fond of the images which are close-ups of plants and trees as they really romanticise the space well. The first image gave me inspiration for one of the locations of the shoots that I was planning on doing.

The New Topographics movement reimagined landscape photography by photographing everyday scenes with elements of nature in and focused on capturing unromanticized views, such as industrial areas. Most of the images captured were black and white prints. I think that it was important to research this movement as it really shaped what landscape photography is all about today. I really like this movement as it shows that landscape photography doesn't necessarily have to be romanticized photographs of pretty trees and nature and so on. I intend on taking inspiration from this movement when I take images in Paris, especially the areas in which there are higher volumes of tourism. Another thing I like about these images is that even though they aren't meant to look pretty, they still fascinate me and I want to learn about the history and meaning behind the images.

I like the results from this shoot as it was unplanned to shoot images at this location and I had no idea that the stream was there so it was quite nice to take images of a location that I have not visited recently. I struggled with the overexposure with some of the images in this shoot as the sun was quite bright, however it gives it quite a mysterious look, which is similar to Freya Najade's work. To correct this, I could edit the images in Photoshop and adjust the curvature and levels etc to make the image more balanced.

I'm happy with the results of this shoot as I like how it documents a journey through the woodland area that I explored for the first time. In my opinion, it was a lot more successful than the first shoot as I was more interested in photographing an area I had never explored before. I really enjoyed wandering through an unknown area and think that if I was to pursue landscape photography in the second year, I would try to explore places I haven't been before. I think I should've spent more time taking images outside of the woodland area, in front of the tavern, to focus on the wider landscape area as it looks like quite an interesting area which I didn't spend enough time on. The amount of variation of perspectives and angles used was good and thorough so that is another positive of this shoot. If I had to criticise this shoot, I'd say that it didn't have any meaning behind it.

This was quite a short shoot with a limited variety of outcomes as I felt that the location didn't have as many appropriate areas for landscape photography. However, I do like the experimentation with symmetry in a few of the images and the images of the football field. As I wasn't interested in the location of this shoot, I could've explored in the little woodland area behind the park - maybe then my images would've been more interesting and meaningful. I think that some images from this shoot also look more so documentary style than it is landscape photography. 

I really liked the outcomes from this shoot but I don't like how dark and underexposed the images turned out. However I do like the images of the horses, which are similar to Jem Southam's work. This shoot could've been more successful if I wandered and explored the fields further down the road, as mentioned in the reflection of the previous shoot.

These screenshots show the documentation of the process of journal making and what I liked and disliked about the first version of it. After doing some research on journals I found out that a lot of journals don't have as much text in them as I was adding so I removed the text and contact sheets to make the journal less full of information as it was before. In the second version of the journal, I made sure that the journal was primarily full of images and the text was limited, so that it was more like a photography editorial journal instead of a graphics or art based journal. I took inspiration from some of the journals in which some pages would be full of text and few images or the other way around, with limited text and only a few short sentences to explain the context of the images. 

This final shoot was shot in Paris, France whilst I was on holiday. The reason why these images are different to normal tourist images are because people weren't the focus of my images and I tried to show a different perspective which a tourist might not necessarily capture or even notice. As a tourist, your main focus is on getting to the end, or the destination, and you might not necessarily pay as much attention to the things on the way there, therefore, this is what makes my work different to what a tourist would do. For this shoot, the images could also be used for tourist information such as leaflets and so on, potentially for images of structures, buildings and popular landmarks, like the Eiffel tower. The only criticism I have is some of the images, in my opinion, don't fall into the landscape photography category as they don't include any nature, therefore they would fall into the documentary category, or maybe even fine art. I took inspiration from Freya Najade, as well as Jem Southam, in some of these images.

After reflecting on all five shoots, I noticed that the main photographer I gained inspiration from was Jem Southam. Elements from the other photographers, including Freya Najade, have been included too but I think that his style, way of working and techniques are very applicable and visible in my images, especially in shoot 1, 2 and 4. I took images in a similar style to Najade but I don't think that they have that romanticised effect. I'll also add that some images I have taken aren't really landscape and count more as documentary.

Ethridge explores the difference between the real world and distortion of images to create a disruption of the ideal or something which appears to be perfect. I really like the use of collages throughout the journal as it is a unique way of presenting images in a journal and creates further interest in the images. I also like the way that the front cover is presented, in which the title wraps around the top right corner of the cover and the word 'polychronic' goes vertically down. I intend on taking inspiration from the composition of the double page spreads, with the smaller image on one sider and a larger image on the other, as well as the collages. Regardless of how many images are on the pages, they always have a margin around the images which I think is the best way to present images.

I prefer this layout of the journal for landscape photography as it is simple but still has a unique and eye-catching layout. I made the decision to include a short paragraph at the start, alongside the images, to make my intentions and the meaning behind the images clear. I took inspiration from AMERICAN POLYCHRONIC with the unique layouts but I added my own style to it by overlapping some of the images as I felt it just fitted well. If I added text, it would've been unnecessary and took away the value of the images.

These screenshots show the addition of black rectangles to make the journal feel more cohesive and all the topics link together. I felt that the landscape photography section was secluded from the rest as the composition of images was slightly different, as well as the fact that the images are in colour, so the rectangles help the journal massively in feeling more complete.

Overall, I enjoyed landscape photography more than I thought I would, as I went out of my comfort zone and explored locations that I have never been to before. To make the next styles of photography this interesting and successful, I'll have to explore a variety of places, especially the unknown ones, and communicate my thought processes and positives and negatives of each shoot as I did. As mentioned previously, in the reflection of some shoots, some of the images I was taking was more documentary like. Going forward I don't see myself pursuing landscape photography, however I really enjoyed stepping outside of my comfort zone to try something new. I like the journal so far, as I took inspiration from the research as well as adding my own styles and techniques. I feel like the pages feel empty around the images but if I add something, it would be too busy and make the images not stand out as much as they currently do. I wasn't entirely sure on what to write but I think that what I have written is ample.