Date Published
Thu 5 Mar 2026
At last night’s meeting, in the Rugby Club, Stephen Spraggon took us through the ‘Four Seasons’ with his landscape photography. Set mostly in Somerset but with a few trips into Dorset and even one from the Lake District, Stephen used his images to illustrate how the changing seasons affect photography in terms of how the light changes as well as nature's colours. Using an App which shows the positions of the rising sun and the setting sun (as well as the moon) together with Ordnance Survey maps he is able to plan his photography knowing what direction the best light is coming from as well as from what direction and at what time he will get the best shots.
Each of the Seasons was introduced by a slide show of his pictures accompanied by music. He then followed that with a more detailed look at pictures explaining to us why and how he had captured the image. In Spring swathes of colour can be found at almost any time. snowdrops followed by bluebells followed by buttercups for instance. When you have found a suitable spot it's worth returning at the best time to get the optimum image.
Summer is a good time for sunsets and sunrises as well as reflections and patterns and once again swathes of flowers – poppies and heather for instance - offer good subjects
The light in Autumn is similar to that found in the Springtime but of course the foliage is very different and offers very different colours. Autumn mists make for magical images especially if you can get high above low lying mists. In fact they can completely change the landscape
Some of Stephen’s Winter pictures were coastal images and some of course featured frost, snow and ice. He illustrated the benefits of revisiting a site and repeating the composition in different conditions by showing us a rural scene and the same scene again, from exactly the same viewpoint, when it was covered with snow. Both lovely pictures and identical except for the weather conditions, which changed the atmosphere completely
Throughout his talk Stephen offered helpful tips on location, direction and use of light as well as the effect he wanted to create and the equipment he used to achieve that.