Malham Cove

In preparation for the show I took a trip to Malahamdale with fellow photographer Anthony Shaughnessy. On our walk we discussed the difficulty in doing the Cove justice.

Malham Cove

It’s a magical location, but a really tricky place to photograph. When you try to capture the overwhelming sense of scale, and squeeze it into a photograph, something gets lost along the way. The temptation is to try and fit it all in, but taken from the front it is, in essence, a flat colourless slab, with very little depth and little in the way of interest to bring a photograph to life. From the side there’s more opportunity, but you’ve still stuck with the same issue! Try to focus on a detail and the photograph becomes about the detail and no longer a photograph of the Cove.

It’s not just Malham Cove. Close by, Gordale Scar presents the same problem, as I suspect does the Grand Canyon in Arizona and other large scale natural wonders. Visiting these places I really envy the painter’s freedom to bend scale and perspective, creating a different sense of reality, the reality of how you feel and how you see when you are there.

Gordale Scar Upper Waterfall Detail

As a photographer, and when faced with such a conundrum, you have to find a way in, something that will help create depth and scale, and something interesting in its own right. In the photograph of the Cove above, the idea was to include the Cove, the limestone pavement above and the scenery behind, but it was only when I discovered the shapely lump of limestone in the foreground that the composition began to come together. It took a second visit, and further inspection, to get it “right”.

Though we photographers don't have the flexibility of a painter, we still have a few tricks up our sleeve to fool the viewer into believing they are looking into space, rather than at a flat 2D image.  In this case, slightly warming and adding contrast and texture to the foreground, whilst slightly cooling the background, helps generate depth, and printing the image big brings that extra dimension to life, allowing the viewer to walk into the scene. Though in this case if they took a step too far they would plummet over the edge of the Cove!!

When I return from a location with a photograph I'm happy with, I've developed a habit of searching on Google Images to see if anyone has got their before me. I have to admit to a slight independent and competitive streak, and have a reluctancy to follow a well worn path.

Malham Cove framed ready for the show.

Finding an original take on a much loved and photographed scene is perhaps the holy grail for someone wanting to sell work, so I'm pleased to report that despite some in depth searching, I've not found the same composition, and though my home patch is Swaledale, I think Malham Cove will make a wonderful centre piece in my part of the exhibition.