The Weekly Landscape Thread

This weekly thread, starting on a Friday, allows us to showcase our Landscape photos and get some feedback.
Opening up discussions, not only on content, style, composition & techniques, but also on the emotion in the image, and of course about the place itself.

It’s easy to participate

Post an image or short essay with a title and description. To make it easier to view in the forum, all comments should include the original title and at least one of the original images as a quote.

Thread Guidelines:

1. This thread is for sharing and developing our Landscape photography skills.
2. Entries can be a single image or a short photo essay (2 to 10 connected images that tell a story).
3. Give your entry a clear title and perhaps also explain why you took it, or the story it tells.
4. Provide constructive feedback on others’ images/essays.
   Try to go beyond simple praise or dismissal and explain why you like it, or what caught your eye.
   ”Likes” are encouraged too.
5. Negative feedback and suggestions are also OK (be polite, honest, and constructive).

Giving feedback is just as important as receiving feedback, both help to improve our artistic and technical skills.

What is a Landscape photo?

This means different things for different people. For me, it includes a wide range of photos taken outside,… from wide sweeping vistas to smaller details found along the route. Seascapes, landscapes, cityscapes, woodland shots, landscapes at night with some stars, and lots more are all OK. They could also include man-made objects and people or animals outside, but they are not usually the main subject. Show us, with your photos, what Landscape photography means to you.

Motivation

I love to go hiking in the natural world and capture photos along the way. It keeps me fit (physically and mentally) and provides some beautiful memories. Processing those images when I return is fun too, it often helps to enhance what I saw.

Downloading and reposting

It’s often challenging to verbalise comments about images. Instead, it’s sometimes easier to “show.” Unless the original poster specifically states otherwise (in each original post), participants are free to download, alter, and repost images in replies to express their analysis and critique. The reposted image may remain permanently or be removed after a short period. Downloaded and altered images shall not be used for any other purposes or uploaded elsewhere.

Enough said,… Go out, enjoy the open air, take some photos. Bring back the memories and post them here in the Weekly Landscape Thread 😊
...looking forward to seeing your images

A foggy walk in the Mühlbach area

Last weekend, we went on two walks, and the one thing they both had in common was fog. I drove up to 1500m above sea level, which put us right in the middle of a cloud.
On the first walk, we set off and couldn’t see a thing—an almost total whiteout. But as we kept going, the fog slowly began to lift, and finally, the sun broke through.
The second day, though, the fog stuck around, never really lifting. But, nevertheless, managed to capture some photos that tell the story of fog and the landscape being slowly revealed.

The first day

The whiteout, the fog made it somewhat darker too

If you look closely you can see 2 other hikers

The first landscape with the mountains behind still completely hidden

A few moments later in the same place and the fog has started to disappear fast

Now you can see them

The fog blowing away, revealing the scenery

We even have some shadows in the sunshine now

The second day... no such luck with any sunshine today.
The buildings we passed were only just visible in that misty world

Here's a seascape, Gulf of Mexico at Gulf Shores, Alabama. Sunsets are glorious there in winter, and the beach is often deserted. My favorite time to be there.

The Disappearing Railroad Blues

Since there is a winter theme - here is one from the vault. Somewhere near Telluride Colorado. On a cross country ski outing packing lunch and my camera and tripod we discovered this scene. We had about 8 inches of fresh snow overnight. The train had long been gone.

Taken in March 1984 with a Mamiya RB67 on Kodak PanX developed in Rodinal 1:100 partial stand

My wife says it looks like a scene from a Western film ;-)
Taking a tripod with you on cross country skis sounds like a bit of a challenge, but it paid off here; lovely and sharp despite not having IBIS ;-)
The sun was shining, I bet it was a good outing !

The snow looks nice and white, the structure of the bridge is solid and nicely textured and makes for a good feature in the landscape. Looking through those struts you can see far into the distance.
Nice to be able to find photos like this in the vault.

It's a fantastic photo. Those warm and vibrant colours over the Gulf of Mexico here are gorgeous!
The clouds and the reflection on the water really bring out the beauty of this sunset scene.

As a group of photos, I think it would have been better without the last two.
In the first group we accompany the photographer as the mist clears and various surroundings are revealed. Number five is the dramatic shot and it gets additional impact from the build up from the previous photos. If you were exhibiting them together I'd either not include 5 and 7 or sneak them earlier into the order.

Las Medulas

Spain.
In my opinion this ranks with the very greatest engineering achievements of the ancient world. The reason it isn't better known is because there isn't anything here. That's the point. The Romans blew this mountain to bits with water pressure. What they needed to do to get the water here alone is awe inspiring. Fortunately, Pliny the Elder was massively impressed and described how it was done. You can find the details on Wikipedia.
Not many visitors make the effort to see it. I reckon this is at least as impressive as the pyramids. Of course, they were built earlier.

Bannau Brycheiniog

When I used to live in Gloucestershire, the Brecon Beacons National Park (Bannau Brycheiniog) was the go to location for a 'mountain' fix. The elegant forms of the hills are well known and photographed, as are the waterfalls, but there are many small corners that are simply charming, such as this little stream crossing with it's open welcoming gate. "Come and see what lies beyond."

This one has a curious effect on me, almost like the foreground tree is a cardboard cutout! Unconventional but I think I like it. Nice how the tree shapes echo the peaks too.

This one I find less succesful, mainly due to the arrangement of the foreground track leading out towards the edge of the frame. Perhaps it would have been possible to move to the right and have the track curving around the left side of the image? But then the hut may be hidden by the tree... Tricky one. But the fog/snow/sunshine is glorious in both.

Panos are not easy to do well, often being a flat string of insignificant landscape without a decent composition. But this one pulls it off nicely, with plenty of three-dimensionality leading us from foreground deep into the landscape. Fabuous colours too.
Thanks for reminding me of this location to add to my 'must visit' list for Spain. I vaguely remember reading about it when planning my last trip to the region but didn't mangae to fit it in. As a reformed geologist and ancient history enthusiast it's definitely on the radar. Spain has so much fascinating landscape and history, much of it relatively unknown beyond the tourist hotspots and beaches. Roman engineering is awesome in it's scale. People gasp at the colosseum, but don't realise there are hundreds of kilometers of aqueducts feeding the city, a feat repeated over all the Roman empire - a far more significant achievment in my eyes.

The beauty of the Mamiya RB67 is it had a leaf shutter with a cable release on the lens. So although it was a heavy camera, one could use a light weight tripod. Get everything set up and cock the camera, release the camera shutter to bring the mirror up (and boy that sucker had a big mirror), pull out the dark slide from the film back and wait a few seconds for everything to stabilize. The release the leaf shutter with the cable release. The tripod I carried with that camera was a fairly light weight travel tripod which worked well. However, the RB itself is far from light. 🤪 For high contrast scenes like this one, Rodinal 1:100 semi-stand development is wonderful.

These are all nice. I particularly like this one. The shack - I assume a warming hut, give context to the peaks in the background. Nice shot.

Round Loaf at the Spring Equinox

It's been quite a while since I headed up onto Anglezarke Moor to visit my favourite local Bronze Age Bowl Barrow - Round Loaf, but as it was the spring equinox on Thursday and quite a nice evening too, I figured I'd make an effort to get up there.

I didn't fancy carrying one of my bigger cameras, so I settled for the little X-T50 and bag of primes comprising 18, 23, 27, 35 and 56mm focal lengths, all tucked into a neat little bag along with a bottle of water and an energy bar. As the thread sizes on these are all over the place, I don't have any filters to fit them, so these are all taken unfiltered, hand held and processed from individual raw files. Most were shot at ISO125 which is the base on this camera, but after the sun set I switched to the 2nd gain setting at ISO640.

The Gateway to Adventure

Well, to be more accurate that should probably be Stile to Adventure, but it doesn't sound as good. This is just up the road from Jepson's Gate farm and leads into a field with a vague path across it that takes you to Pikestones, the collapsed remains of the entrance tunnel into a large burial barrow that once stood in what is now the North East corner of the field. The barrow is long gone, looted and destroyed over time, but the stones remain.

Looking West

This is the view looking back towards the coast from part way across the field.

Burnt Offerings

The remains of a pine plantation ravaged by fire some years ago lines the Eastern edge of the field, the charred stumps of the trees still standing after all this time.

Onto The Moors

On this occasion I didn't visit Pikestones, but instead continued past it, entering the moors at Rushy Brow where this was the view. In the distance stands Great Hill, the Bronze Age bowl barrow Round Loaf can be seen on its right, looking, to all intents and purposes, like a dark, swollen pimple on the moors, while the lower reaches of Hurst Hill can be seen gently rising on the left hand side of the frame. My plan was to first head to the top of Hurst Hill, then cross the moor to Round Loaf before returning via Limestone Brook. Fun fact; if you draw a straight line between the summit of Great Hill and Pikestones, you'll find Round Loaf at its midpoint, clearly a deliberate alignment that meant something to the people who built these ancient structures more than 3,000 years ago.

The Unmarked Pool

On my way to Hurst Hill, I took a short detour through the heather to visit this ever present pool that's sits South of the summit of Hurst Hill on the 300m contour line above Rushy Brow. There's sometimes a 2nd, larger pool just West of here, but not today. That one was bone dry, but this one, which isn't marked on the OS maps is always here.

This first shot is looking South East towards Winter Hill.

This second shot is looking North East towards Great Hill and Round Loaf.

Sun Over Healey Nab

Looking due West as I approached the summit of Hurst Hill towards Healey Nab. Just below Healey Nab, which almost appears to be floating here, you can see the outline of a large cairn that recently popped up on the side of Hurst Hill, marking the point in the path coming up from Stronstrey Bank where it branches off towards Grain Pole Hill.

The Summit of Hurst Hill

This is the summit cairn of Hurst Hill. A small nook on the right makes a very effective seat where one can sit and admire the excellent view towards Winter Hill, Rivington, with Manchester and, even further afield, Snowdonia on the horizon.

Great Hill From Anglezarke Moor

At this point, I was back on the path across Anglezarke Moor that runs from Hurst Hill to Round Loaf. This path is about half a mile long, with its lowest part midway between the two endpoints, right in one of the boggiest parts of the moor (check the Round Loaf video on my Youtube channel which includes a drone flight above this path). Here I'm looking off the path to my left, towards Great Hill as I attempted to reach Round Loaf before sunset, a deadline which was rapidly approaching.

Great Hill and Round Loaf

Looking a little more to the right of the previous shot (and with a shorter lens too) to bring Round Loaf into the shot. Here you can see the dip in the moor between where I'm stood and Round Loaf, with the path I'm on reappearing as it rises towards its target.

The Onset of Sunset

I made it to Round Loaf with a little time to spare. In this image I'm looking back towards Hurst Hill (see the cairn on the top?) as the sun sinks into the Irish Sea Perma-fog™, scuppering the chances of a particularly nice sunset on this evening, by sucking the life out of it.

Round Loaf Summit Cairn At Sunset

So this was it, Spring Equinox sunset at Round Loaf, and what a wishy washy affair it turned out to be. This was all the more disappointing as, for the previous three nights, we've had some quite spectacular sunsets, but I hadn't felt sufficiently energised to go out and photograph them, but of course, when I finally do make the effort, this is what I get. Still, theatrical whinging aside, it was satisfying to sit there and watch the sun sink into the fog as I enjoyed the pleasantly scented air of the moors, secure in the knowledge I had the entire place to myself.

The Journey Back

I may have lingered there on Round Loaf a little while too long, because, very quickly, it started to go cold and dark, so I set off back across the moor, hoping to get back before I'd need my head torch. The clump of trees on the horizon is the burnt out plantation from the start of the walk, so I had my work cut out for me to get there before it went completely dark.

Limestone Brook

Eventually I reached the little narrow valley containing Limestone Brook, just before it exits the moor to descend into Lead Mines Clough. The view in this picture is a lot brighter than it actually was at the time. In the dark, the valley is a little ominous, with the brook making it notably colder than the surrounding moor and, due to some strange acoustics, switching sharply between being silent and babbling loudly, so I was glad to finally reach the treeline and make my way back around the boundary of the woods. Only another mile to go, with the last third or so past Pikestones in complete darkness.

• Crossposted from this weeks Through Your Eyes thread (text only)

There's a repetition of shapes in the tall cones of the trees and similar shapes form the bridge trestles. The upper horizontal line of snow on the tracks creates a pleasing frame effect. The holes in the forground snow and the closer small trees/shadows give detail into the snow bank.
Your wife is right.

The colour contrast between the orange and the green very effectively picks out the peaks and you can follow them deep into the imahe and find the white villages at the end. The forest looks like a soft and wolly textured layer covering the land.
Like a lot of panos, it's format is very long and thin. Maybe if it had been taken in a way to provide a bit more sky and without cropping, what looks like just the very top of the right side mountain, it would have been less thin and more complete? Or maybe that peak on the right is higher than I imagine?
Anyway a good landscape image

A birds eye view of the open gate inviting the hikers in to that fresh looking bright summer scene :-)
The reflection on the water looks so bright because the area around it is kept in darker shadow. A nice use of the Chiaroscuro effect.

Yesterday's night.

I was waiting for auroras at sea beach for hour and half, I got quite frozen and it was around 0 and was about to leave when show started. It was quite strong, clearly visible to naked eye. Mostly green this time, lasted about 15 minutes. Hopefully have more chances before summer...