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Photographing Nature
Welcome to the Photographing Nature section of my blog, where I share inspiration, techniques, and tips to help you connect with nature through your lens. Whether you’re wandering through a forest, sitting by a quiet lake, or observing wildlife in motion, nature photography offers endless opportunities to explore beauty, light, and life in its rawest form.
Whether you're just starting with a smartphone or shooting with professional gear, you'll find ideas designed to improve your photography.
Cap de Formentor - Friday Image with Words: Don’t Be Influenced by the World– Simple Photography Tips by Michael Blyth
This thought echoes Romans 12:2, which says, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” It is not a call to withdraw from the world, but to move through it with a different spirit: steadier, kinder, clearer and less easily shaped by the noise around us.
Michael Blyth
1 min read
Why Camera Angle Matters; Photographing Butterflies - Simple Photography Tips by Michael Blyth
The other aspect is that the insect is at such an angle that its details are not particularly clear. The photograph feels slightly hurried, as though I was trying to capture it before it took off.
Michael Blyth
3 min read
Singing and Mental Health: Friday Image With Words – Simple Photography Tips by Michael Blyth
There is a growing body of research suggesting that singing can have real benefits for mental wellbeing. Singing uses the breath, the body, attention and emotion all at once. It can steady breathing, lift mood, reduce stress and help people feel more connected, particularly when singing with others.
Michael Blyth
2 min read
It’s All in the Eyes - Keeping Eyes in Focus - Simple Photography Tips by Michael Blyth
With Image One, I was down low, with my phone camera upside down to get the lens at a 'snail-height.
I checked the image, everything was in focus, mind, body, and shell, but not the eye stalk with the little beady at the tip.
Michael Blyth
3 min read
Learning How To Notice - The Photograph May Not Be the View You Came For : Simple Photography Tips by Michael Blyth
Image One, is the original image I took before I noticed the flower poking out from the cliff. In itself made quite dramatic by the sharp vertical shadow pointing up towards the setting sun, with quite good visual balance overall - the lighter but larger rocks to the left, countering the smaller but darker ones on the right.
Michael Blyth
3 min read
Friday Image With Words: "You Are Not Alone" - Simple Photography Tips by Michael Blyth
A fixed wire on a difficult mountain path is a quiet reminder that others have gone before, recognised the challenge, and left something to help. You may be walking the path yourself, but that does not mean you are alone.
Michael Blyth
2 min read
Beware the Human: people in landscape photography – Simple Photography Tips by Michael Blyth.
What do I mean by wrong direction?
Well in your imagination place them in the compositionally comfortable vertical third. If they're on the right third, their movement takes the eye into the picture, which is comfortable, but they will be adding a visual weight on the same side as the visually dense headland, sunlight on water, and the right hand heavy flowering taller gorse.
If you place them on the left hand vertical third, their presence adds better balance, but th
Michael Blyth
4 min read
Friday Image With Words: Never Take a Single Breath for Granted - Simple Photography Tips by Michael Blyth
When life feels hopeless, it is easy to believe that nothing will change. But every day does come to an end, and tomorrow can be a new beginning, especially when you find the strength to turn away from the things that trouble you and towards hope, peace, and a better direction.
Michael Blyth
1 min read
Photographing Bluebells: Depth of Field and Background Choice – Simple Photography Tips by Michael Blyth.
I have always struggled photographing bluebells, as I know have many other professional photographers, and my current post mountaineering accident following last years new hip status has meant that for two years running this man has not been able to get down low to do them something of the justice they deserve.
Michael Blyth
3 min read
Friday Image With Words: Hope Means Hoping Even When Things Seem Hopeless - Simple Photography Tips by Michael Blyth
a quiet moment to end the week My Friday Image with the words "Hope Means Hoping Even When Things Seem Hopeless' to Encourage Your Weekend Waiting for the mist over lift. I came across these words "Hope Means Hoping Even When Things Seem Hopeless" earlier this week, and thought they matched well with the image near Pugs Hole in Wiltshire, UK. There are times when life feels like this landscape. The way ahead is there, but you cannot properly see it. The wider shape of thing
Michael Blyth
1 min read
Choosing the point of Focus – Simple Photography Tips by Michael Blyth.
A few days ago I took a number of photographs of the same small clump of flowers, initially from the same angle, to share with you the effect of choosing the point of focus by selecting a different flower to focus on, and how that alters both the whole image and our mental response to it.
Michael Blyth
2 min read
Friday Image With Words: Then There was Friday - Simple Photography Tips by Michael Blyth
If it's been a good week, great, pleased for you. Have you taken any of your time to drop some encouragement on the lap of those around you who may not be in such a good place?
It doesn't take very long, or too much, to change someone's day, and each day changed can lead to a life changed.
Michael Blyth
2 min read
The Secret Life of Photographs: Why Some Images Refuse to Be Taken - Why Some Photographs Deserve to Be Burned
There are times when I have become convinced that certain photographs simply do not wish to be taken.
Michael Blyth
3 min read
Learn To Look Until You see - From Photography Tips by Michael Blyth
Let your eyes search the still dark areas to the left middle, the writhing water of the foreground slipping into the fast moving runnel that carries your eye back towards the sun. Within a short while the mist will be gone, and you will see other things - but for now, love the moment
Michael Blyth
2 min read
The Effect of Frost On Wood – Simple Photography Tips by Michael Blyth
A couple of weeks ago i was outside with my new puppy doing the sort of things puppy's do to profusion in the early morning. The outside table had been gently painted with a fine layer of frost, and had picked out the features of the grain to a qute remarkable degree, highlighted by the low angle of the sunshine..
Michael Blyth
4 min read
What Phase Two - 'The Action Group' - Looks Like in Practice. Photography Observation Exercises
Notice details of trees, moss on logs, or rocks, the way a wave surges back leaving a mist in the air. The light that shines through a hole in the cloud in the distance.
Instead of concentrating only on the subject, notice the space between you and it.
Notice how distance changes things.
Contrast softens.
Colours fade.
Shapes simplify - either blending, or becoming more defined.
Michael Blyth
3 min read
Friday Photo Inspiration With Words By Michael Blyth - It's Mostly About The Journey
The knots in our minds are often the hardest to unravel, so very true sometimes. Anything come to mind? It takes time and sometimes there seems no route, but there probably is.
Michael Blyth
1 min read
Simple Photography Tips by Michael Blyth: Why Distant Hills Turn Blue – Visual Recession in Photography
We were high in the Pyrenees, having risen early to avoid the heat as we climbed towards the col, leaving Spain behind us. In the distance stood Vignemale, the highest peak in the French Pyrenees at 3,298 metres. I found myself transfixed. Ridge after ridge dissolved gently into blue. It is an effect I have always loved.
Michael Blyth
4 min read
How to Photograph Water Movement : Simple Photography Tips by Michael Blyth
I walked into town the other day along the banks of the River Avon, i was caught up by one of my favourite things to spend time watching - and occasionally photographing - flowing water, the way it catches light, interfering with reflections, almost but not quite repeating patterns.
Michael Blyth
3 min read
Friday Photo Inspiration. Simple Photography Tips By Michael Blyth “All We Have Is Today - The Present”
Most of us were taught we have five senses. In reality, we also have senses that help us read our body, movement, and internal state. Sunrise and sunset are perfect moments to practise them, because the world slows down enough for you to feel what is usually drowned out.
Michael Blyth
1 min read
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