Five steps to being creative while out walking

Enter Gary Maddock Greene’s world of Impressionist image-making

1 Strong leading lines

Leading lines help to make a strong image: they draw our attention into the frame and create depth. You can find leading lines in all environments, whether it’s a road, a river, a rock formation or a treeline. When you find a leading line, it’s your job to create and capture the best scene around it. With this photograph, I knew I would have to be up early to get soft light beaming through the trees.

2 Framing

Framing a photograph with tree branches fills gaps in the image that might not otherwise have had much texture, or just failed to add much to the photo. Framing this way helps us to focus more on the main subject. Branches, flowers ,tunnels and doorways all make good natural frames. You can always shoot a little wider to give you the option of cropping later.

3 Patience

Waiting for the perfect moment can make all the difference. Here I waited for the moment the family of swans moved into the spot I wanted them to be in. The light was just starting to shine through and I was ready, using the bridge as my frame while waiting for the light and swans to come together in the right place. Try to keep your camera level and steady.

4 Minimalism

The saying “A little goes a long way” can help make a good photograph. Sometimes images have so much going on that it can be very distracting to take it all in. This framing, with the tree off to the side leaning down the hill, created a simple but effective photograph. The rule of thirds also had a big part to play, and was difficult to get right with the sloping foreground but straight horizon.

5 Composition

Composing the photograph is the dealbreaker between a good or bad image and brings all the techniques together. Be mindful of all the elements around you. Here I used the rails and walkway as my leading line, which draws us to the reservoir and moors. I had to be patient for the light to creep through the cloudy skies, which I think helps to improve the photograph.

Most of my working life has been spent in the graphic design industry. Traditionally trained in the early 1980s as a ‘drawing board, ink and paper’ graphic designer, I quickly needed to embrace technology at the dawn of the desktop publishing revolution. I’ve been hooked ever since turning on my first Apple Mac. Now, almost 40 years on, my iPhone and iPad are my creative tools of choice.

I own a basic Canon EOS DSLR which, it has to be said, I only occasionally pick up now. I had always assumed that I needed the highest resolution, the best lenses and the most expensive filters to be able to create print-quality images.

With smartphone technology moving at such a pace, however, I’m learning that’s not necessarily the case – certainly not for my current style of work. I can create and edit images on my iPhone and commercially print them to A2 paper size with ease and quality.

I’m a lifelong fan of the Impressionist, Cubist and Futurist artists; Turner, Monet, Braque, Picasso and Boccioni all had an influence on me. In recent times I found my attention being drawn to images that I felt emulated the works of these great artists, the most notable being Pep Ventosa’s ‘in-the-round’ style of images.

Walk-through

I use multiple exposure and intentional camera movement techniques to capture and blur my ‘linescape’ images. Instead of walking around a focal-point object as in the in-the-round technique, I walk through a scene to an imaginary vanishing point, taking my shots as I go.

Painting with tech

Light is important. Direct glare into the lens works well, as does picking out a vibrant colour source; sunsets, shop signs, bright clothing and reflective windows are all great. I liken these techniques and props to an artist’s brush strokes: each creates a different texture or impression.

Creativity is key

I create my Impressionist images on my phone using two apps: Slow Shutter and Snapseed. To allow you to get creative, there is an infinite number of settings and styles to combine. Playing with styles, shutter speeds and motion settings between the two apps opens new worlds. I’m constantly tweaking and adapting to different techniques in this way.

Shaping the light

Being in the right place at the right time for that perfect light is not always possible – especially with a moving target and the whims of the weather in the mix. Thankfully, however, postprocessing is now extremely accessible. I find that using a combination of well-placed radial and gradient filters allows me to shape the light and shadow in a scene to better reflect my vision.

App tools

Once I’ve created my image with the Slow Shutter app, I’ll open Snapseed. Here I will use four staple tools: Tune Image, to adjust saturation and ambiance; Perspective, for lens correction; Curves to bring up highlights and shadows; and Details to sharpen and bring out the lines and structure.