My journey into landscape photography

My interest in photography turned towards black & white through my years at school as I learn to develop my own black & white film and my interest shifted from landscape to more abstract monochrome photography. I bought my own darkroom equipment for black & white and made a few prints that ended up more or less forgotten in a drawer. After I finished my school and education and started working I didn’t have so much time to go out photographing so my camera also ended up at the back of a shelf forgotten and covered in dust.

I did have a short wakeup some years back, as I bought a new digital camera, a Canon Eos 350D. Guess I hoped my photographing interest would rise and shine again, but sadly I didn’t find enough time to really get into it so it faded away. Throughout all these years I have been taking pictures, but with a Ixus and my phone, only snapshots of my family and holidays, nothing more.

Then in February 2020 this changed, I had changed my job in 2019 and got a bit more spare time. I now had some more steady time to do what I wanted, so I decided I wanted to give photography a second chance. Started follow a few Landscape photographers on YouTube just to try to learn a bit, and the joy of just follow them around. I dusted of my old camera and did a lot of photographing, but my images didn’t work. Whatever I did the result wasn’t good enough for me. I started to believe I didn’t have the eye for photography at all. I lost the drive for going out as my images never had that little extra I was looking for. I had been looking at a lot of those successful landscape photographers on YouTube and everyone said that gears doesn’t matter, it’s the person behind the camera that make the images. You don’t get better images just by buying new gear. This statement now forced my camera back on the shelf and me loosing my interest and love for photography.

Just as a desperate move I decided to buy a new camera, I had to do something as I really felt I could find compositions and I really liked going out with my camera. I found a very cheap used Canon 77D and bought it. I had the glass already so not a big investment, but what a change! The images now looked as I wanted them to look. The sharpness was just as expected, my fascination and love for landscape photography turned towards excitement, and I got the love for photography back. I still follow Landscape photographers on YouTube, still loved to watch their videos , but I do my own decisions now! My decision to buy my Canon 77D was the beginning of my Landscape photography journey.

Since my start on this journey in February 2020 my Landscape photography have turned more towards Woodland photography as I have become hooked on Shadow and light and how they interact. Woodland photography works perfect for my thought process and health, so most of my images are from my local Woodland and forests. I love walking my local Woodland, not with the purpose of capturing image, but for the peace and quite and the relaxing feeling of disconnect from my daily chaos. Love sharing my images and I hope you like some of them. I also have found great joy in Long exposure, the possibility to compress time and freeze movement trills me very much. I even picked up a bit of black & white photography too, not much, but have done a few images so far.

The summer of 2021 I came over a very nice used Canon 6D Mark II, a Full frame camera, something I had been thinking about because of the better dynamic range. My Canon 77D had all the necessity I needed, but I did have to bracket most of my images because I didn’t want to risk blowing out my highlights. If I was going to buy this used Canon 6D II I needed to sell my 77D and my lenses, at least my EF-S lenses.

I’ve been a proud owner of a Canon 6D II ever since, and I’m very satisfied with it. It fulfills all my expectations and beyond. I do still bracket some very few images, but when I get those into Lightroom I usually end up using the unbracketed images. The dynamic range of my Canon 6D II works great for my work. I’m also a bit safer regarding weather sealing, also something I had on my “list”.