Photo Essay: England

Photography © John Baker, Travel Images

I was born in England and was raised in Children's Homes in the main, then in my 20's I moved to Wales, and on to Idaho a decade later.

Taking clients armed with cameras to my 'home' gives me a perspective from both sides, and I love nothing more than guiding my clients to an image that is unique in the English/British culture.

I hope you enjoy this trip back to the 'old country' just as much as I always do, whether it be via the following series of pictures, or standing shoulder to shoulder with clients.

John Baker

This photo essay represents the typical range of subjects on a Travel Images photo tour, and are selected in the knowledge that every client is able to obtain similar images. That is the goal for each of my clients.

England by Judy Giberson | England by Ivy Broyles
England by Jana Jirak | England by David Mathies
England by Margot Gendre | England by Grady Kimbrell
England by Bill Snoddy

This is a 'no click' zone! . . . just scroll on down . . .

	Day 1 of my England trip finishes at Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain, and it's nice to have some sort of dramatic sky to enhance the mystery of the stones. Day 2 starts at the same spot, and I recommend graduated gray filters [split neutral density] for added drama.
A overcast morning shot at the stones which were apparently transported by sea and river from the Preseli Mountains in Wales around 4,000 years ago.


The morning shot set against the Wiltshire countryside. It took a long lens for this one.

	A section of Stonehenge at sunset.


The last of the Stonehenge series is another sunset image. A starburst filter would be useful for this type of shot, but the light points come from the use of f.16 in this case.

The British Robin joins the Holly and the Ivy on English Christmas cards each year.
	Even a dead tree gets another moment of glory amid the yellow symphony of Oil Seed Rape/Canola.
Backlit Maple leaves look all the better when shot against a black background.


A Mute Swan that landed right in front of the group in Somerset one year. Special!

	A lone boat at sunset on Derwentwater in Cumbria. Either the camera tilt was intentional or the tide was coming in!
It may be just another rope keeping the gate closed in the Lake District, but it's undoubtedly a classic 'Still Life on the Run' shot.
	This was a Lavender field in England, but devoid of flowering Lavender at the time. So, I decided to take the pleasing 'S' curves home, and play with the image saturation and hue in PhotoShop.


Even at the end of a dull day, the English countryside is likely to cough up a shot such as this.

	Beer barrels outside a pub in Polperro, Cornwall . . .
. . . . and in that same photogenic village on an overcast day, I have the pub sign and alleyway in view, then all that's needed is . . . wait, here comes the multi-colored umbrella right on cue!
	Celtic crosses are synonymous with Celtic Wales, and Gaelic Ireland and Scotland, but England's southwestern most county, Cornwall, has it's Celtic history too.
This is a Cotswold stone barn which looks different each year as it depends on what crops are planted around it. Compositionally I decided to lop off the right side of the barn to 'strengthen' the juxtaposition of shape and colour.
	Schoolgirls in Salisbury, Wiltshire, on their way back to school from the local swimming pool. Being an English schoolboy I wore the same grey jackets, but not the dresses, honest!
. . . and the winner of this year's Winston Churchill look-a-like contest is . . . .
	A place where sheep may safely graze in Herriot's Yorkshire Dales.
York Minster [cathedral] competes for my attention with the old street lamp. Up until four decades ago it was a gas lamp, then somebody spotted a 'current bush' nearby.


Two taken just minutes apart in the Yorkshire Dales. The 'lesson' here is that there was dull overcast light until five minutes before these shots were taken. "f.8 and be there" as they say!

	A slice of life in Cornwall. Photographers sure do like colorful window and door frames don't they?!
A 'George Reigns' [GR] post box on the side of a Post Office in Yorkshire, plus Lance Armstrong's training cycle. I worked for the Post Office out of school in 1966, and rode these heavy old clunkers delivering telegrams . . . if we were lucky that is, as some deliveries were much further than we cared for back then!
	The rustic, historic, and downright photogenic Arlington Row in Bibury, Gloucestershire. The warm stone is Cotswold stone.
I shot this through one of those red phone boxes in Snowshill in the Cotswolds. As us urchins used to say, "Is that the operator on the line?" ["Yes"] "Well get off there's a train coming!"
	To north Devon, and a small vignette in ancient Clovelly.
Chipping Campden's old covered market area provides the 'frames' for shots such as this red door. Step one is seeing the image, and step two is getting the image into your camera the way you see it.
	That Automobile Association sign says a lot. We are in St. Mawes in Cornwall, and it's 263 and a quarter miles to London. Myself, I'd rather be in Tregony which is just 10 and a half miles away!


France has Mont San Michel, and England has St. Michael's mount. They're actually very similar, and are particularly photogenic early and late in the day.

	A Thatcher at work in Stratford. The roofs last between 30 and 80 years, and some Thatchers still hide a bottle in the thatch containing details of when they did their work.
The first of two shots with similarities but taken at opposite ends of central England.
	Symmetry and colour are what make this image from the Cotswolds different. A long lens was used, and then the decision is whether or not to include a vehicle, and if so, what colour? A short wait will usually produce the right one!
Aahhh, Cricket! Let me just say that you probably don't really want me to explain this game to you! Anyway, I will tell you that the object of the bowler is to knock the bails from the stumps which you can see happened in this shot. The wonderful thing about attending village cricket games and fairs in the UK, is meeting the locals, and hearing their many different accents. It also creates additional photo opportunities too.
	This is the tiny fishing village of Polperro in Cornwall, and I discovered this place via a narrow back road when scouting the southwest coast in the early 80's. There is actually a 'normal' road to the village, but traffic is kept from the streets by their narrowness, and thus my first impression of Polperro as an unspoiled and photogenic spot has been preserved.
In ye olde days in England many streets looked like this, but few have survived as does this one, the Shambles in York. My groups take lunch at the Earl Gray Tea Rooms in the centre of the picture, then I allocate ample free time to explore the medieval walls, and York Minster etcetera.


Two classic street scenes. At left is Gold Hill in Shaftsbury, and I used the rail as a lead-in, but another option is to sit down to the left, include the mosaic of the cobblestones in the foreground, and shoot with a wide-angle. The image at right is another cobblestone street in Clovelly, Devon. That is the ocean in the top of the picture.

Edward the 1st built most of the English and Welsh castles to keep the locals in order, and today they make great photography subjects. This is a section of Warwick castle taken at twilight, which I passed every day for 5 years on my way to school.
	On the other side of the River Avon is Bridge End Street pictured here, and I must confess that we used to ring doorbells on the way home from school, then skedaddle back to the orphanage. Aaaah, those were the days, eh?
It's highly likely that one James Herriot [Alf Wight] stepped through this gate in Wenslydale on one of his many house calls.
	On the 2004 trip I was describing an approach to give the Royal Crescent in Bath a 'signature', so to speak, and mentioned an old British sports car similar to a shot I had done many years prior. I then glanced across the Crescent, spotted this green MG, and exclaimed, "Like that one!" The Royal Crescent is Georgian, but the two subjects complement each other.
To the Lake District for this shot of Bluebells clustered around the base of a twisted Oak tree trunk. You can get in close with a wide-angle for an image in this situation too, but I opted for a long lens on a tripod to isolate this particular section of the subjects.
	Herriot country in the Yorkshire Dales. A long lens shot of stone barns and walls that are a common occurrence in this region. The barns, almost one per small field, were mostly used for livestock shelter and hay storage.
Back to Warwick, and a post box on an ivy-clad wall which says England, England, England! At the top of the box you can make out the letters V and R with a crown in-between. V. R. is Victoria Regina, which means that Queen Victoria reigned when this box started it's useful life.
	Brass numbers and door knockers such as this work better photographically on coloured doors as a rule, but exposed properly, 'dull' doors can work too. Under exposure by around a third to half a stop will fix your meter's tendency to turn the green colour into a shade of grey.
In 'normal' daylight, the shot of this farm is 'usually' the farm gate, lane, trees and distant farmhouse, but the light on this occasion dictated that the composition be re-thought. That's the point really, as we should consider the differing elements in a scene each time we return to it, and not get stuck in a compositional rut as it were.
	As man-made objects age they tend to appeal to us more, and this is true of this road sign. The circle at the top tells you that you're in Buttermere, and that you have three options to 'get out of town'!
I'm from England, and rode on such steam trains when I was but a wee lad. The 'Beeching axe' closed many local lines back in 1962, but the following decades have seen a number re-opened by volunteer railway enthusiasts, and they make excellent picture opportunities.
	St. James church in the village of Coln St. Dennis, Gloucestershire. Framed by the gate and ornate wrought iron lamp arrangement, it adds up to a pleasing and very English composition in my mind.
The English love their dogs, and this serendipitous shot was captured while on a short amble between two small harbours on the south Cornwall coast. One just has to be ready when they crop up, as nothing else is required!
	The church and Celtic cross at Morvah on the north Cornwall coast this time. I did take out a power line that crossed the image near the top, but resisted putting in a graduated blue sky, as I like the dour look on what was a foggy day. Not many folk, even the English, are aware that Cornwall is a Celtic 'county' with it's own language and culture. The name Cornwall in the Cornish language is 'Kernow'.
The limited size of the image doesn't reveal what a classic Lake district scene this is with it's wall and lane lead-in to the whitewashed farmhouse, and mountain peak . . . but it surely is! A wide-angle set at f.22, and a tripod are recommended for this shot.
	This is the Castlerigg stone circle in the Lake District, shot from a low angle with a wide-angle. The excellent late light did the rest.
Just another placid harbor scene in Cornwall. This one is Mousehole, which is pronounced locally as 'mouzell'.
	Salisbury cathedral in Wiltshire is Gothic and as grand as can be. Here I attempted to introduce a bit of 'flavour' to improve the composition with the inclusion of the lamppost, but I'm still thinking about this one!
Wild Poppies randomly grow amongst various crops, but when it's in a Canola field the result is stunning.

England SPRING brochure \| England AUTUMN brochure

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