The church at Adel in Leeds

For the past six years or so my parents (Flickr users both) have lived and worked outside the UK in a number of diverse locations across Africa and Asia, so I am regularly told how wonderful it must be to be able to visit them to photograph these places. An expression of surprise usually follows as I explain that not only have I not gone to visit but that I would actual prefer to stay at home.

Why, I ask them, would I want to scrimp and save to travel abroad and take postcard views of the must-visit tourists spots when, even after five years of exploring, I have barely scratched the surface of one of the most interesting, diverse, and above all photogenic counties in the world? Why should I travel hundreds of miles for a two-week stay when I can fill a lifetime with photographs taken within a few hours drive from the centre of Leeds?

I don’t know if they say that the grass is almost always greenest in Yorkshire; but it is. How well have you explored it?

Muckin’ about with lights

The topic of exploration came up just this week, at the opening to the Bradford Photographic Society Exhibition. I was talking to one of the exhibiters about a local waterfall. Turns out there is a second waterfall a few metres further up the trail, but neither of us had walked past the first (until my last visit when someone told me about it). It was a great spot with more to offer than either of us had realised before.

As a recent convert to the north I am dsicovering most places for the first time, but as a Yorkshireman born and bred he had visited so many great places as a child, either with parents or school, and was now finding photography to be an excuse to go back and visit, and even discover more. The reality is that he was discovering these places just as much as I was. How many places have you forgotten?

Over the past four or five years I have been amazed at the diversity of what is within day-tripping distance.

Hand

How many waterfalls have you shot? Have you been to Goit Stock? Ingleton? Cotter Force? High Force?

Have you shot the Bluebells in Middleton Woods in spring? The autumn leaves at Hardcastle Crags, Or Roundhay on a winter’s night?

Have you toured the sculptures at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, or the architecture of Yorkshire’s churches or its ancient and recent history?

Have you seen our trains, planes, and showmobiles?

Have you met the squirrels of Golden Acre, the deer at Studley Royal, the seals at Donna Nock, the puffins at the Farn Islands, the kites at Harewood House?

These are some of my favourites, but of course there are far too many for me to list and far more that I have still not heard of, let alone visited – please feel free to add some of your favourite places and links to the photographs you have taken there, in the comments.

So, next time you are searching out a last minute holiday flight, gathering weighty brochures in the hope that the hotel photographs haven’t spent too long in Photoshop, or dreaming of sun, sea, sand, sangria and tacky souvenirs, ask yourself this – even if just for a moment – “Why on earth would I want to be anywhere but here?”

Day 118: Cottage

In November 2008 I embarked upon a grand project: to take a photograph every day for a year. It started on a whim, a momentary decision that I needed to do something, but by the end of that year I had learned a lot; about life, love, and most importantly about photography.

My initial reason for starting was simple: I had been bought a camera and I wasn’t using it enough. Weeks would pass between trips out onto the moors and, truth be told, I felt a little guilty that such an expensive gift was going to waste.

In time, however, I realised that I wanted more out of my challenge than just 365 photographs. I wanted good photographs, photographs of substance, and that was going to need a little more commitment.

Day 122

So, what did I learn?

For one thing, 365 photographs is a lot. Taking a photograph everyday is easy if you don’t care what you get, but if you want to use it to expand your abilities you need to set some boundaries before you start.

It really helps to know what you want to get out of the project. What I didn’t know when I started was that I would come to enjoy the idea of having a whole year’s worth of photos to look back on. I would have liked it even more if I could have linked each one to the events in my life and written even a small note to accompany it for posterity.

I can also say that if I had thought it through beforehand I certainly wouldn’t have started at ASDA on a rainy November evening!

Day 136: Firetube

When I was part way through I realised that I could use the fact that I was publishing my photographs to enforce a certain discipline within myself so I stopped taking backup shots.

Deciding to photograph only one thing each day and that once you have started photographing it you can’t move on to something else can be a very useful way of focussing your energies on getting the best shot you can. I can say with certainty that my ability to compose a photograph was far stronger at the end than the beginning.

A photo a day also challenges your creative abilities. I would recommend that if you are going to start a new project like this you take some time to list as many different creative treatments as possible. If your life is fairly limited, geographically, you will soon start to run out of things to photograph and you may need to start looking at the world in different ways to find new inspiration.

In my collection I have a series shot in black and white, a series shot with a white balance shift to make everything green, a lot of HDR, extension tubes, selective colouring, desaturated shots, deliberate lens flare, different perspectives, long exposure, and more.

Day 294

Just as important though is the option not to use these things. If you really want to test yourself you could decide to forego Photoshop and raw conversion and post your JPGs straight from the camera, forcing yourself to solve your problems at the shoot.

Also remember that not everyday has warmth and calm blue skies, but every day requires a photograph.

If you don’t have a cat (or friends with a cat) or you want some variety then you really need to consider what you are going to do when the weather is so bad you don’t want to leave the house, when you travel in darkness and don’t have time for lunch, when the sky is grey, or you are simply not in the mood. At some point you will need some props.

I’ve used my slinky, a toy race car, a guitar, a bowl of milk with photocards and chilli flakes, burning afershave (don’t try this at home kids) , a mag-light in a cider bottle, the obligatory kitten, and others.

Above all else, whether you decide on self-portraits, random images, images of your life, or anything else, you need to commit to it and give yourself time each day to get the shot. It may not be the north face of the Eiger but it isn’t always easy and this makes it all the more satisfying when you finish.

Is there a moral to this story?

Day 176: Letter

Well, the moral is that sometimes it is the challenges that we can learn the most from.

If you haven’t tried it then challenge yourself the next time you shoot. It doesn’t need to be 365, it could be a day of nothing but black and white, a day with your least used lens, a day without processing, or pretty much anything else. As long as it isn’t easy you are certain to learn something.

Then come back and tell us about it.

You can see all of my 365 shots on my Flickr stream. If you have started, finished, or are in the process of a challenge yourself then please feel free to post a link to your set and let us know how it went for you.

Andrew Rickmann is a regular attendee at Exposure Leeds events – you’ll probably see him at this weekend’s trip to Harewood House if not, why not pop over and check out his Flickr stream.