Swaledale Hay meadows Photography Workshop

Swaledale, with its characteristic stone barns, (Fieldbarns or Laithes to give them their correct name), its lush green meadows and its network of ancient Drystone walling, has to be one of the most charismatic of all the Yorkshire Dales. Starting high on the moors, near the Yorkshire / Cumbria border, then running in a roughly west to East direction, the Dale ends where it meets the lowland, market town of Richmond. The River Swale, from its source at the confluence of Birkdale Beck and Sleddale Beck, flows through some of the most photogenic, rural scenery to be found in the U.K. On its descent to Richmond, the river glides past old lead mining ruins, left behind by the turn of the century industrial boom. It cascades over numerous attractive waterfalls. It flows through steep sided green valleys, intersected by miles of traditional drystone walling and meanders a path past picture postcard villages with their locally sourced stone cottages.

There’s a diverse variety of subject matter on offer to us throughout Swaledale. And as such we will react to the prevailing weather conditions when deciding on exact locations. There are no real strenuous walks on the Yorkshire Dales Swaledale Photography Workshop. Expect to shoot amazing waterfalls, wide sweeping archetypal Dale’s vistas, industrial ruins, the stone fieldbarns that the area is famed for and depending on season, possibly the wild flower filled Hay meadows. We’ll be looking to find patterns and lines in the landscape, created by the many drystone walls and we’ll be shooting some of the amazing views from above the valley.

The Yorkshire Dales Swaledale Photography Workshop is a full day workshop, which means at least 8 hours of tuition. On booking you will receive a simple questionnaire to fill out which helps me to tailor the day exactly to your requirements.

To give you a better idea of what is covered on The Yorkshire Dales Swaledale Photography Workshop, here is a brief outline. On booking you will receive a simple questionnaire to fill out, which helps me to tailor the day exactly to your requirements. A basic day can possibly include tuition on the following subjects, (depending on experience and ability level); Best practice camera set-up, shooting manual and Raw Format and the reasons why, creative use of both shutter speed and apertures, explanations of exposure, metering, bracketing e.t.c, manual focusing for maximum depth of field (Also known as Hyperfocal focusing), the use of filters, both exposure balancing (Neutral Density Graduated) and creative effects (Polarisers, Standard Neutral Density)

This leaves the best part of the days free to discuss the broader and more subjective topic of composition. What makes a good image? elements to look for when composing images, the rules of composition, possible instances of when to follow them and when to break them, use of depth, scale, distance and perspective. We will also touch on shoot and location planning around seasonal and differing lighting conditions. The aim being that you will then be able to go away and successfully plan the best times of day/year to photograph your own selection of locations. I can also tailor tuition to your particular, specific requirements where necessary. Past clients have asked for help on many different subjects and techniques; These have included shooting and processing panoramic images, using tilt & shift lenses, shooting and processing images for focus stacking and exposure blending.

If time permits, I also go through a typical Photoshop workflow, demonstrating the adjustments used from Raw file through to outputting images for web and print. This also covers some alternatives to using Neutral Density Graduated Filters, in the form of Exposure Blending incorporating alpha channels / luminosity selections and layer masks.