Varied Surroundings

There is more to being human than travelling around the world sampling its many delights, and recent reading has taken me deeper into subjects like philosophy. Though I am a scientist by training, the humanities continue to appeal to me, and various life events have led me to explore them more than otherwise might have been the case. That is now the main thrust of what you find here, along with other things that have a use in navigating life’s journey.

Collected Through Serendipity

In the days before I went deeper into the world of photography, my main means for seeking pleasing images was to have a go on AltaVista. As if to prove that geeks and other early adopters of new technology aren't always photographically endowed, my success rate in those heady times wasn't too great, so much so that I had given up by the time that Google had arrived on the scene.

After seeing as much dross as I did, I thought that even I could do better, and the idea of founding an online gallery was born. That was the start of a journey that has taken me far beyond the occasional user of a compact camera that I was more than a decade ago. In that time, I have become familiar with using SLR cameras and comfortable with the level of control that they have given me. Speaking of control, the advance of digital capture has afforded more of it, but image processing takes time and highlights the need both to get things right on that day and to control the number of photos captured. A more deliberate approach may make those images that are made all the more pleasurable to behold.

With what I find in print and my own efforts, I rarely set out to locate another photographer's gallery on the web these days. In fact, I am more than happy to leave it to serendipity or whatever happens to come my way. That's how I built up the collection below, but I remain open to anything that might catch my ever more discerning eye. In fact, some discoveries are beginning to creep in from the offline worlds of television and shops and visitor information centres. Things are not all online yet…

Alex Nail

There are some remarkable images, and it's not all Dartmoor either (more of England, others from Wales, Scotland, Iceland and Norway too). In fact, it was the chief of the Peak District National Park who tweeted a link to a photo taken in Wales that brought this website to my attention in the first place. Serendipity can be a curious series of events and does bring delightful surprises too.

Anders Peter

It was a pair of articles on Iceland Naturally that drew my attention to the work of this Dane. Iceland though is not the only destination that he visits, for Greenland, Norway and New Zealand all have galleries on his website. Non-exclusive Licences for the images are for sale on a royalty-free basis, with deals on regional collections of these images. There are additional reductions if you buy (non-exclusive) rights for a set of images from a trip that is planned, thus ensuring financing for new photographic ventures.

Andy Beck

Though he is mainly an illustrator, producing paintings and sketches, he also dabbles in photography. Landscapes from the Lake District, the Yorkshire Dales and Scotland alongside those of Teesdale. Even a picture of a grouse appears in the miscellaneous section. A new website is under development so the old one remains until that appears and there also is his Wainwrights in Colour pictorial project too.

British Landscapes

This is the work of Derek Fogg and has concentrated on quality over quantity, and the prices for prints are tempting too. Hopefully, there will be a slowly enlarging range over because what's here already is alluring.

Damian Kane

Variety is the essence of what you will find on here, since it isn't even a website devoted to outdoor photography. Even so, there are scenes both from the Lake District and from the Scottish Highlands to savour. The design of the website may be basic, but it is the photos that get plenty of room to breathe, so I cannot complain too loudly.

Dave Newbould

I first discovered this while on a website for the village of Betws-y-Coed. Since then, Amateur Photographer featured the man behind the photos on their pages. However, I reckon that he undersells himself, and you may think the same too when you see his photos.

Dave Parker

Though this subsite rejoices under the name Invectis: West Cork and Kerry, there are various photos to be found here to accompany the various snippets of information that have been compiled for the web surfing public. It looks like a labour of love, and that is no bad thing.

David Muench

It was the sight of a book on the U.S.A. National Parks that came out of a collaboration with Roly Smith in the U.K. that alerted me to the work of this long-standing master. It is not for nothing that the website features a body of work that spans two centuries. Many of the subjects are American, and that is a good thing for someone not averse to learning about those sights.

David Robertson

My activities on Twitter are starting to bring photographers to my notice who haven't come my way through the other channels that I have to for adding to those listed on here. In this case, it is the usual machinations of tweeting and re-tweeting that is expanding my horizons. In fact, it was a reply to one of my missives that brought this landscape photographer and his breathtaking images to my notice. At the time of writing, the rolling slide show on his front page is displaying a goodly number of snow-covered countryside. Certainly, the ones from around his native Stirling have me wondering about basing myself there for a few days sometime in the near future.

David Speight

There is a lot on here and quite a spread of locations too, with most of them in the north of England, though some have appeared that show parts of Scotland and Wales too. The style seems to have a lot of the feel of HDR, but much use is being made of graduated filters too, so there is a sense that the images are being made in a camera on location and not all in Photoshop or some image editing software. Twitter brought his work my way, and it looks as if I need a bit more time looking at what's here.

Derek Smith

Here's another in a growing list of landscape photographers covering Irish scenery. Though Smith is based in Northern Ireland, he does head south of the border too, with many of those excursions taking me to Donegal, a seemingly overlooked and wonderful part of the world in my estimation. Sometimes I wonder if images might be a little over-processed, but I'll leave it up to you to ascertain what is to your own tastes. Unsurprisingly, images can be chosen for purchase as prints from the various galleries and prices are reasonable too.

Feargus Cooney

Yet another find that came by way of the MWIS, the lighting favoured by this practitioner is of the more muted variety. Much of the imagery is of Scotland, but many other mountainous areas feature too, with trips to a few continents resulting in pleasing results.

Gary Hodgson

It is via the blog on his mountain guiding company website that I have got to enjoy photos and outdoor activity accounts produced by this long term mountain guide. Scottish mountain scenery is the mainstay here, with some wildlife imagery too, especially featuring mountain hares. There are galleries to be found, but the main purpose of the website is to sell bespoke photography workshop services, though print purchases can be made too.

Janet Baxter

This photographer's efforts first came to my notice via the Cardiganshire Coast and Country website, itself another serendipitous discovery. South-west Wales is the main focus here with a mixture of scenic and animal photography to be perused and there's plenty to see too. The quality is good, so you could find yourself spending a fair bit of time ogling what's in the galleries.

John Potter

In a way, it strikes me as odd to have found an ad for this York-based photographer on the website of Cumbria magazine. While there are some photos of Cumbria in his web galleries, the bulk of the subjects are in Yorkshire, with some forays into Northumberland too. In addition, he has several books to his credit, again the titles mostly concern Yorkshire, but there are some East Anglia ones too. Regardless of these passing details, it is the photos that matter and the ones on the web are quality items, so some photographic inspiration may follow.

Jon Allison

Here, you will find a large selection of high-quality images of the English Lake District. All are available for purchase as prints, with PayPal being the payment service that is used. The photos many of the Lake District's best-known landscapes, and some are in panoramic format too.

Karen Appleyard

You can learn of more photographers in the strangest of places and so it is here for the blog post on the website of 7dayshop.com, a technology retailer on the web, that featured Karen Appleyard. A former gamekeeper, her photography is varied too, but the outdoors theme pervades all she does. The range extends from landscapes to flora and fauna, with most of the photos in her galleries coming from forays around Scotland and only a few from neighbouring England. With all there is in Scotland, it is easy to see how you can busy yourself with the place.

Land and Light

This was found through an advertisement on the Mountain Weather Information Service and the images certainly are evocative and reminiscent of the style of Colin Prior, albeit with a certain extra contrast that I find to be to my liking. Prints are on sale too, which, I think, is the main point of the site.

Landscapes365

Just dabbling on Twitter is bringing up some photographic finds for me, and here's one. The images that are shared result from a project that has been ongoing over the last few years: taking one landscape photo a day. Admittedly, the photographers' being based on the wild west coast of Scotland has to help their endeavour. When you are living on the likes of Skye, getting to the fantastic in time is made so much easier. It does seem that any opportunities aren't getting wasted here…

Leslie Hanthorne

It was a mention in an NI Walks promotional email of a calendar featuring images of the Mourne mountains that caught my attention and drew me to this website. The trading name is Mourne Mountain Photography, and the landscape photos of this alluring part of the world do it no injustice. Along with the aforementioned calendar sales, prints are for sale too and portraiture sales are on offer to complete the mix. It is little wonder that this Portadown bricklayer (and father of six children; where does he get the time?) got himself a mention in the Belfast Telegraph.

Maggie Sale

Doing a spot of housekeeping on my browser bookmarks brought me across this Toronto photographer again. While I don't know how I met up with her work in the first, place, there certainly seems to be a good deal of variety here. The galleries include work from Iceland, the Yorkshire Dales and the Western Isles, along with her native Toronto and other places.

Mark Gilligan

Terry Abraham's Life of a Mountain: Scafell Pike departed from the formula used it in his earlier feature film, The Cairngorms in Winter. The latter film was a far more social enterprise that featured various contributors such as the author Mark Richards and the photographer Mark Gillingham, while the former just had the well-regarded Chris Townsend, which suited the subject. Returning to Gillingham, he is active in wedding photography and the provision of photography workshops, but it is his Lake District landscape photography that gets him included here, especially given the care that is taken with photographic compositions.

Mat Robinson

While he also has a portrait photography enterprise, it is this outdoor photography gallery website that holds my attention. The scenes mainly come from the Peak District as well as Yorkshire. The former features well-executed landscape photos, while the latter mixes urban scenes from York and Richmond with more rural subjects. If I have any criticism, it is that portrait photos and still life galleries appear here when they distract from the other subjects. The urban and rural landscapes are what really shine here, and they need to be allowed room to breathe on their own.

Mountain Images

Unsurprisingly, given the name, all of these images by Ian Evans concentrate on mountainous regions such as the Scottish Highlands and the Himalayas. Well worth a look, and I might be tempted to buy one if I were looking for a picture.

Norman McCloskey

Though the Kenmare-based Limerick man also earns money from wedding photography, it is his landscape efforts around Killarney's National Park that brought him to my attention. In fact, it was Outdoor Photography, a British magazine no less, that featured his book Parklight and that was how my attention was attracted. Within Éire, he was interviewed on RTÉ Radio 1's Mooney program, so he must have raised his profile in his native land too. From what I have seen already, it is deserved.

Roger Butterfield

An ecologist by trade, Butterfield seems to have an eye for good landscape photos too, as his galleries containing scenes from Derbyshire, Yorkshire and Cumbria should prove to you. Wildlife photos complement these, as does a gallery containing photos of Edinburgh. It was a tweet about fog on the moors of Derbyshire that brought this my way, though a little curiosity was needed, or I never would have checked out the website.

Scottish Panoramics

The title well describes what's here, and it has to be said that the photos look well, even if the site design could do with some modernisation. As with many of these, you'll find prints for sale too.

Stewart Smith

Things go so fast on Twitter that I almost have forgotten the context in which a link to this website was shared, though I think that it was Scottish. Smith is based in the Lake District, so that part of England features strongly, as do a number of hill areas in the Scottish Highlands. There appears to be a distinctive style being developed here, so it's worth a look, and prints can be purchased if you fancy having your own copy of one or more of the images on here.

Ted Leeming

This is one half of a husband and wife photographic partnership that I discovered via the Mountain Weather Information Service. Suitably for the collection of folk that has been building up here, landscapes are a major interest, but the wider views are mixed in with detailed studies too.

Wilderness Wales

As the name suggests, this is a gallery of landscape photography pertaining to more remote and beautiful parts of Wales.

Patrick Loertscher

It was the perusal of a Swiss calendars website that led me to this practitioner. Lush, vivid colours are a hallmark of the compositions and there are calendars books and prints available. Though Switzerland is prominent, the scope is international, with locations from around the world making their appearances.