Landscaping Masterclass with David Ward

I have just had a cracking week with David Ward and 4 other workshop attendees up in the Assynt area near Ullapool, Scotland. I've long been an admirer of David Ward's images, which possess simplicity of composition which I find really hard to achieve. I was hoping that spending some time with the man himself would help me to find my inner zen of calmness and flow, or at least result in a decent image or two.I haven't been on any sort of photography workshop before, and was initially a bit overawed as all the other attendees had been on several of them and they all knew David Ward, so I was a bit of an outsider. Plus, most of my experience is sport photography where images are presented in front of you and you are in a largely static position, so you are more of a recorder of events rather than a creator (sweeping generalisation obviously). David's sort of photography is a studied, careful creation of an image which is drawn out of the surroundings and into the camera - a very different kettle of fish from my usual "bish bash bosh" approach.

 

It turned out that I needn't have worried as David is a properly good guy to know, full of banter and good humour even when the weather is doing its best to kill you. Most importantly he was able to give me a few carefully chosen words of guidance which completely changed the way I go about taking pictures. Not wishing to remove the need to attend his workshops (which I recommend you do if you can), he helped me to understand the importance of simplification and how to approach a scene as a puzzle that needed solving, rather than charging in with shutter firing. What he doesn't do is tell you how to set your camera up, what aperture to use etc etc. A proper working level of knowledge of your gear and how to get the most out of it is expected. His enthusiasm rubbed off on us all, and seeing how David "worked" a site was educational and inspiring. Seeing his final images in the evening was just plain annoying as they were so good while mine were a bit "meh" from exactly the same location in the same conditions. Mind you, as he said himself, he has been doing this for 35 years so one would expect him to know what he's doing.It was credit to David's knowledge of the area that he delivered us to some gorgeous locations which took advantage of the weather (or more accurately, they were shoot-able despite the weather) - locations which I'd previously driven straight past when I was up here a couple of years ago. Getting a number of good spots close together minimised transit time and gave over more of the day to photography.We were extremely fortunate on day 1 to find lots of frozen lochans which had just received a light icing sugar dusting of snow. Handily one of these was placed perfectly, with deliciously tangential light hitting reeds on the surface and trees on the far bank, with super ice and snow patterns to play with. The snow was melting as we stood there, so the patterns constantly changed meaning new pictures came into play all the time.Another highlight was the beach at Achnahaird. I knew we were in for a treat when David bounded out of the minivan and got down there as fast as possible. The thing about this beach is that it is very gently sloping, so the water washing off it sorts the sand grains according to size and weight into ordered patterns. Once I'd figured out what was going on, and been told off for leaving footprints, I started to see how it was possible to use these patterns to create images. While I feel I didn't make the most of it, I got one decent shot as a massive hail storm came in, blocking out the distant snow-capped mountains.The other participants liked taking pictures of trees. Not something I ever really indulged in, but as everyone seemed extremely excited at the prospect I thought why not. Being outside your comfort zone is never a bad thing, and it seems that Assynt is a target rich environment for tree photographers. I floundered around uselessly for a while before settling on a composition that I hoped echoed David's simplification approach - trying to create deliberate order from an otherwise disorderly scene.I was travelling light throughout the week, using just my Leica M-240 and 3 lenses, 28mm Elmarit, 50mm Summicron and 90mm Summicron. With that gear and some Lee Seven5 filters tucked in a small shoulder bag, I was able to move about easily on pretty nasty terrain. Other attendees had full-on rucksacks packed with stuff which were heavy and needed to be put down to get gear out - a problem on a wet sandy beach of a boggy lochside. The Leica is delightful to work with - I'll write another post about using it for this sort of photography shortly. One of the other participants made the grave error of trying my 50 Summicron on his Sony A7R (I had bought an adaptor with me in case someone wanted a go) and he was suitably impressed by the sharpness and clarity of the results - so much so that he's off to buy one or more when he gets back.Good clothing was essential for this trip. North west Scotland in February is not a thing to be messed with. We had 70mph winds, hail, snow, rain, sleet, often all at the same time. Trying to balance comfort in the van travelling to & from a location, then not getting too hot walking to a location, and then not getting too cold when you're standing waiting for the light to be just right, means that a layering approach works best.I found Rab Vapour Rise Guide trousers to be excellent. They are lined, but lightweight, and have zipped vents to stay cool, while being warm and cosy once you've got where you're going. I added a lightweight pair of Goretex overtrousers for very wet days. Good waterproof boots are essential and some Scarpa Manta Pro GTX are excellent, plus they'll take a crampon for more vigorous stuff which I'm hoping to do this week as I'm staying up in Assynt to put David's lessons into practice. Top layers included a wicking base layer, Acteryx Atom insulated mid layer, and a Mountain Equipment Changabang shell.David helped us all out with some insightful post-processing tips, and a constructive critique of a selection of everyones' images while we downed a few more beers at the Ceilidh Place hotel in Ullapool. Some of the image editing approaches were excellent and made a real difference to how I work on my images in Lightroom. Obviously I'm not going to tell you what they are - you'll have to go on a workshop yourself to find out.All in all, it was a truly fantastic week. Very thought provoking, quality banter throughout, and lots of learning, all in a landscape which never fails to inspire. I hope this selection of images gives you a feel for the place - I have a pile more waiting for me to process them carefully when I get home.To finish, here's one last image which defies David's recommendation that "you don't always need to have a bloody great mountain in it" - in this case it definitely needed a mountain or even two, and Canisp and Suilven are quite a pair.