I’d heard of a local Pro Photographer Gill Moon from a couple of my fellow club photographers.
Gill’s work interested me because of her creative eye and the mood she achieves through her images. It’s an approach or style that intrigues me and is something I aspire to achieve with my images.
I decided to book a workshop and chose Gill’s Heathland Photo, Process and Print workshop.
As the title implies, this workshop involves shooting images, processing and coming home with a print. And end-to-end experience all with Gill’s advice on tap.
The 05:00 meet at Upper Hollesley Common meant a rise and shine time of 03:10 – ouch! 😩
On the way there, I could see mist and this was exciting because if we were getting sunrise light as well, we would be in for a treat.
Stage 1: Photo
Three other photographers and myself met Gill at the car park next to the common and we made our way onto the common.
We received some advice from Gill and each chose our first locations. In front of us was a distinctive tree with lots of coloured foliage providing foreground interest.
Trees were a popular feature as there are many to choose from here.
We wandered down to a different part of the common where some more tree shots were on offer.
Gill suggested we look for some more intimate shots so it was time for my macro lens to make an appearance.
She advised me to look at shooting some heather that may be sticking up higher above other strands and to use the light. A wider aperture, something in the region of f/5.6 would be ideal.
The following montage shows some different shots.
I was intrigued by any spider webs I could find and enjoyed trying to capture them.
I turned my attention to some grasses and this next shot ended up being my chosen one for printing.
We made our way to the common across the road where it was more open, and offered a lot of fern, heather, tree, and cobweb shots.
I enjoyed experimenting with different compositions, shots from distance, and close-ups. Gill was busy regularly checking in on all of us and providing useful advice as to how we could capture some interesting images.
I spotted a spider’s web which intrigued me as its shape made me think it looked like a cloak someone had thrown over a plant.
All of the spider web shots are enhanced by the presence of water droplets, especially for close-up shots.
One last shot on the common was grabbed.
By now, the light was becoming too harsh so we all went back to the car park and back to Gill’s studio for the process and print parts of the workshop.
Stage 2: Process
Gill asked us to upload our images to the computers and work in pairs to shortlist our shots. She came round to offer her critique and advice.
I filtered my 110 shots down to 32 and began applying some quick edits.
I cropped some of the spider web shots as the patterns were very interesting.
An even closer crop and conversion to monochrome makes the image look like an x-ray.
I’m no doctor, but I would expect if any of your x-rays look like the shot above, you may want to seek some medical opinion!
Black and white and colour images are both compelling choices.
A couple more close-up images, cropped to bring out detail are shown below:
With some help and advice from Gill and my fellow photographers, I got down from 32 images to the target shortlist of 5 images.
I particularly liked the following cropped image of the close-up shot of a spider’s web.
This shot has lots of interest, different shapes, patterns and looks like some sort of bubbles and paracetamol tablet mash-up.
Stage 3: Print
After reviewing the five shortlisted images, Gill and my fellow photographers helped me further critique them and I selected the shot mentioned earlier for print.
Gill printed the image on A3 textured paper, and I liked the fact we all got to take home a print of one of our favourite shots.
Final thoughts
I loved every minute of this workshop.
The unique format of shooting, processing and printing was thoroughly enjoyable in the company of Gill and fellow photography enthusiasts.
One could call this social photography, and if so, long may it reign! 😂
I highly recommend Gill’s workshops – click here to check out her website.
I’m delighted with the range and variation of images I came home with, and so much so, I’ve already booked on another of Gill’s workshops.
Onwards and upwards…