So it has been a couple of days since my trip to Virginia Water and already the details are fading. This saddens me somewhat and I feel that revisiting the images may help however the room I am in is cold and I just want to write this as fast as possible.
I had very few preconceived ideas about Virginia Water, last time I had visited I had been tiny and although I remembered a great expanse of water and the existence of a totem pole nothing else is there bar a sense of excitement. I knew from research on Wikipedia that my idea of what the totem pole looks like was misremembered and I certainly was not aware that there were such extensive gardens as part of the park. Something I found out while printing out a map of the area and soon proved to complicate my idea of a nice simple stroll around the lake.
I severely doubt as a family with two small children we walked the entire 4ish mile lake walk and certainly not the slightly more extensive ramble I embarked upon amongst the gardens on the north side of the lake.
But I was excited about this trip, more so than I expected to be. It had been planned for a few weeks and I was glad of the sunny day and its previously unforeseen proximity to Windsor (How did I not know it was part also of the Great Park. Or Royal Landscape as they put it, an appellation which after seeing it for the first time on Sunday made me snigger and which continues to do so every time I see it. I guess it's an accurate term for the area but it just seems a tad pretentious to me).
I had, as I have already said, undertaken some small research into the area, mainly Google Earth and Maps to fix a good route both for car and potentially for walking. I also ended up in Wikipedia as links to the wiki article and photographs of the Totem Pole were on Google Earth. I visited the Great Park site as well to check on the car park charges and print off a map with viewpoints marked.
So on a beautiful sunny day and after a very successful trip to Windsor I was looking forward to this one. Somehow the pressure to find images was lessened and although I would have been upset to come away with nothing I doubted this would be the case. My most pressing concern for the day was focussed around a desire to get an up close image of the Totem Pole. I had had it in my mind for some time to use a visually straightforward but strong icon like a close up of the Totem Pole on a small canvas like I had done previously with the ice-cream van and other unseen as yet paintings.
What I hadn’t expected was the utter sense of calm that pervaded that space. I feel like I should have expected it, as it was akin to the heightened feeling of tranquillity that I had previously discerned by the riverside in Windsor. The lake was beautiful and wide and blue. The trees were reflected in it in such a way that I could have just stared and photographed them (and most of them were still in winters brown without any sign of spring growth). The Totem Pole was skinnier than I remembered but I feel that that was due to it being a lot taller than I expected. It actually proved to be a right royal pain to photograph just for its exceptional size. I feel to adequately portray it in any medium it would have to be a very tall and thin portrait format. A format not so well suited to showing in most gallery spaces. But again at home the next day I was proved that more often than not the images off my camera look much better when seen on my computer at a sensible size.
The gardens to the north of the lake were wonderfully planted and even in such early spring weather remarkably warm. I imagine in high summer it would be a lush paradise. The 10 metre tall Cascade and bridge on the other side were also highlights. Unfortunately time and circumstances weren’t in my favour with the light fading to a hazy brilliance by the time I got to the 5 arched bridge and the sun in completely the wrong direction for the Cascade and Roman Ruins (which were also undergoing restoration work and so had many steel fences and portacabins in the way of a good photo).
I could wax lyrical about all the tiny details and I do seem to be finding myself doing this only to realise that there was a secondary point to this post. Having already posted a number of entries I also realise that for all my posturing on not being able to write I actually can find quite a lot to say about a particular place. So what else did this trip make me think about?
Taking photographs in a place like this is a lot about waiting and timing. If you want to take a photograph you must be unobtrusive and as quiet as if you were trying to take a photograph of the many animals in the area. If you are happy with just wide and wonderful landscape shots, being noisy is less of a problem but try to get people in it it becomes more tricksome.
In a city like London you will find that people don’t get out of your way, they are too busy to notice you or care about what you are doing. They are used to irritating tourists taking photos of random buildings and on the most part pay very little attention to you. There are downsides to this which I hope to go into when and if I ever write about that kind of experience. In a quiet countryside environment however people are more inclined to notice you.
They try to get out of photographs or on occasion stare into the camera in a way that for me frequently totally ruins the image I was trying to make. They have the space to walk around and or behind you, basically anywhere which avoids the camera's stare. This is irritating but understandable as most people don't want a stranger in their image of a place. In fact on some occasions there are so few of them around that making sure you have people in the photograph can be tricky in itself.
So for me who wants people in her photographs, I have the situation where you think you can see where a good photograph might be and are forced to either wait there until something comes along or almost stalk the unsuspecting people to get an image with them in from exactly the right place. If and when you manage either of these you then have to take as many photographs as you can, hoping you get a good one, until A the subjects move on or B the subject spots you. Frequently I end up with paintings of the backs of peoples heads, but this is OK with me because I am rubbish painting faces.
While by the lake I had many of these situations. Happily there is one thing about the lake in particular that works in my favour. People gravitate towards it and seem to prefer to set themselves so they are staring at it. It is after all the main focal point of the place. So all my photographs of the backs of peoples heads make sense in the context of them admiring the lake.
No comments:
Post a Comment