yorkshire wolds - autumn photography workshop

If you’re looking for dramatic mountain peaks, jagged coastal cliffs and lofty views that stretch for miles over giant glacial valleys, then this might not be the workshop for you! The landscape of the Yorkshire Wolds has an altogether gentler, more subtle, rolling English countryside type appeal that doesn’t immediately smack you in the face on first viewing. In fact some, (not me) might even call it boring!

The Yorkshire Wolds are a series of low chalk hills stretching out from just above Flamborough Head in the north, down to Holderness in the south. The landscape is farmed extensively, so its appearance changes from month to month throughout the farming year as the main crops of Corn, Wheat, Barley, Oilseed and various vegetables are sewn, then later harvested. Another unique feature of the Yorkshire Wolds are it’s twisting valleys, or ‘slacks’ as they are known locally, which due to traditional farming practice are often carpeted in wild flowers during the spring and summer months.

From a Photography perspective, the geometric pattern, symmetry, line and curve of the Wolds shallow valleys, undulating fields and crop plantations provide the perfect subject to train your eye and sharpen your compositional skills. While the key elements of some of the more dramatic types of landscape mentioned above can be very obvious and tend to stand out, this is usually not so much the case in the Yorkshire Wolds, and you will certainly have to look that little bit harder to find them. This is no bad thing though, as the lessons learned carry over and help you to recognise the key visual elements of any landscape, however complex. Over and above all that, the images you make will be your own, and this is both rewarding and satisfying in itself, as well as highly enjoyable.

As always, group sizes are kept to a maximum of five Photographers so I can spend time helping clients individually. The workshops tuition is tailored to individual requirement by way of a short and uncomplicated questionnaire. There are no real long and strenuous walks, though we may head up onto the valley sides at one or two locations to gain an elevated view. Some of these hillsides can be steep, although the distances to the top are usually quite short.