In the discussion to my previous post on mountain photography Hannes raised a couple of good points. Firstly, he talked about how clouds add character and (I guess) texture to a photo and he is right about that. And secondly, he raised the use of people in mountain landscapes to give a greater idea of scale.

When I produced that post I thought about including people but then reckoned that it would make the post too long. But Hannes is right, the inclusion of people does help with scale. It also adds other interest as well.

The late, great, travel writer Bruce Chatwin was also a fabulous photographer. He always reckoned that landscape had little interest to him on his own; places and landscapes were made by the people in them. I maybe paraphrasing him a little but that was the gist of what he was talking about. It’d an interesting point of view.

Memories of many great mountain walks and treks often revolve around the people you meet along the trail. Certainly, if I look at my trail journals and online diaries (such as those here of the Challenge) I can clearly see that many days are marked by a conversation or a chance encounter. These can be reflected in photographs.

Here are a couple of photos taken during a glorious summer day on the Brecon Beacons, one without figures and one with.

Without …

… with!

The Ordessa Canyon in the High Pyrenees. Like many other stunning mountain landscapes it is difficult to really capture the scale of this place, but I think the cattle help somehow!

As I got closer to the canyon wall it became all but impossible to capture the scale of it. But the snap of these two walkers seems to give an interesting sense of scale and expectation.

This wouldn’t be much of a shot without the walker, but somehow with one it tells you a lot.”

Phil again, completing the size of it all …

Yep, people have their place Hannes, you are right!

I never cease to be amazed by my modest photographic project here on the blog. The pages are downloaded at a regular rate and I continue to received a steady stream of emails.

A common subject for emails is the taking photographs of high mountains. I’ve resisted talking about this before as I hardly consider myself particularly skilled in this area although I have got one or two good mountain ‘snaps’ on Flickr. However, I thought it was time to have a look at mountain photography and deal with both technique and gear. Hopefully, you’ll add your experiences and tips in the discussion thread.

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