A Humbleton Beginning…
Hello World.
My name is Dan. I am a keen photographer based in the North East of England. For many months now I have struggled, like many other photographers (pro and amateur alike) along with other creators and small business owners, with the whim of Instagram and its oh so dreaded algorithm. My engagement and reach peaked about a year ago now, and it has been downhill since then.
I have tried splitting out niches into separate accounts, deleting inactive followers (I deleted over 1,500 from my main account), but the one thing I do not want to do is to get into short form video just to try and have people see my photography. Photography is my passion, not video. Whilst I will do video, it’s not something I enjoy enough to put my spare time into.
Over the past few weeks, the new layout changes forcing the ‘Reels’ layout onto the main feed regardless of post type has left me feeling reluctant to use the platform. I’ve still been creating, but struggling to find somewhere to house my photography has left me with a lack of direction, a missing purpose, for why I go out and shoot (or at least what to do with my images once I have them edited and ready to share).
This is where this website comes in. I have been intending to create a portfolio for a while now, and these recent changes to Instagram have given me the push I needed to actually create one.
Whilst this initial post is a bit of a moan about Instagram, that is only intended to be as a scene setter, outlining the purpose of the website moving forward. I aim to post roughly weekly, though I may not hold myself to that, with background to some of the photos I’ve taken that week. This may reflect a photoshoot I’ve done with a local brand, as per the content of the pages of the portfolio, but it also may be my weekend adventures photographing the landscapes of Newcastle, Northumberland and surrounding areas as per my ‘main’ instagram account, @photog.righ.
This may including talking through shots as taken on a walk, I may focus on reasoning behind a particular image, or I may talk about editing etc. If there is anything you would like to see included, please drop me a DM on my Instagram- @photog.righ.
Looking back towards Gains Law/Harehope Hill from Humbleton Hill.
This week we headed to Humbleton Hill Fort in Northumberland National Park. Parking in Wooler at what3words///forgives.broke.cheese
From Wooler, you walk up through the picturesque hamlet of Humbelton. We’ve done this walk twice, in contrasting weather conditions, and each time I feel like the quaint bungalows of the village have provided fantastic subjects to capture. In fog and rain when we did the walk last year, and in the sunshine through the bank holidays this weekend. In the first image below I was keen to use the road cutting through the greenery as a leading line to the hamlet. I took this image at a handful of distances to give myself options to choose from.
From the hamlet, you head towards the hill. Rather than ascending from this side, the walk takes you around the the opposite side and up the track shown in the first image, although it could be argued that the ascent would be less tiring a climb if done from the lane on this side.
Last time we did this walk, the top of the hill was shrouded in fog… and sheep. This gave me some subjects in a rather atmospheric setting. Notably I got an image of a silhouette of a sheep in the fog standing next to a steep drop, where fog hid how far the drop fell, which I quite liked.
On this occasion in the sun, it wasn’t until we descended until my next three subjects caught my eye. A small building (central image in the trio below) hidden amongst some trees. I tried to capture it with my long lens, but wasn't quite happy with the results. An excuse to come back to this hiking route in different weather conditions again perhaps?
The other two subjects were the pair of trees shown on the images to the left and right above. Both have the backdrop of the surrounding hills, and both have leading lines from dry stone walls. For both of these images I’d walked on past the trees, and shot back towards the hills. The left image has the track down Humbelton Hill in the background. I was happy that at this point in the walk the skies weren’t quite as blue as they had been earlier in the day, clouds soften the light, and in this case, I think make for a better image.
From here you reach a lane and you have a choice. Turning left takes you back towards Humbelton, a shorter route back to Wooler. Right takes you towards Wooler Common, a woodland managed by the Forestry Commission.
Anyone who has followed my main page knows I have a thing about shooting old buildings. If there is character, patina, rust, the more the better. Turning right gave me the ability to scratch that itch. Firstly before the common is an overturned trailer of some sort. It’s undercarriage upturned to the elements and starting to go a glorious red/brown colour from the rust.
As you pass through to the other side of the common, there are several farm buildings which can be shot through the gorse bushes. Some are still in use, some derelict. Buildings such as this really capture my attention when walking. They often emanate history, and can provide a subject in what would otherwise be bleak moorland with little going on.
The last photograph is of a pair of shipping containers, with gorse and the hill behind them. I love the contrast between the grungy man made structures, again with patina and that character, but shot against the softness of the yellow flowers and rolling hill behind.
It is safe to say that old rural buildings like this are definitely an obsession of mine, and will definitely be featured in future entries.
If you would like to see more of my landscape work, moving forward most of the images will be here in blog format, but I will notify of new entries on my Instagram page for landscapes - @photog.righ
If you are interested in following my portrait and product work, links to my instagram and twitter for those accounts are just below in the footer. Alternatively sign up for email notifications below.