First and foremost I have a passion for the landscape, there is something about being out that touches my emotions especially at the start of a new day. The light is 'quiet' at that time, when you tend to be alone the light comes up like the tide on a still day, it inexorably fills all the spaces and for a time reveals more and more. It would be easy to believe that the dawn was a living creature just waking from its slumbers, it is like the planet is breathing. It is harder to find the same emotional attachment at sunset but it is there just the same.
The whole process of taking pictures at the 'quiet' times of day with a large format camera creates an emotional bond to the moment that the picture was taken committing it to memory in a powerful way such that I can recall the moment of just about every large format picture I have taken, something that just is on the same with other media.
This website is a living celebration of 10 years of working with a large format camera in some of the most beautiful places in Britain. I have about 170 cherished slides from this time many of which you see here. My favourite places are undoubtedly Glen Etive and Glen Coe which I visit at least once a year for a week in Winter where the landscape is at its most beautiful in my humble opinion. Second would be the Yorkshire Moors which is hard to love as a place, it is monotonous and rounded but has areas of real enchantment like May Beck, Fenn Bog and the coast between Whitby and Ravenscar. We have a family home in Robin Hoods Bay in which we would happily spend our last days and everyday between now and then if possible ! I have many more places to visit and many to revisit to understand and bond with.
My goal is to try to capture the landscape in the 'quiet light' and pass on some of the emotion that I feel to others when they look at my pictures. Best of all - get out there ! Experience it for yourself and enjoy.
David Tolcher
The whole process of taking pictures at the 'quiet' times of day with a large format camera creates an emotional bond to the moment that the picture was taken committing it to memory in a powerful way such that I can recall the moment of just about every large format picture I have taken, something that just is on the same with other media.
This website is a living celebration of 10 years of working with a large format camera in some of the most beautiful places in Britain. I have about 170 cherished slides from this time many of which you see here. My favourite places are undoubtedly Glen Etive and Glen Coe which I visit at least once a year for a week in Winter where the landscape is at its most beautiful in my humble opinion. Second would be the Yorkshire Moors which is hard to love as a place, it is monotonous and rounded but has areas of real enchantment like May Beck, Fenn Bog and the coast between Whitby and Ravenscar. We have a family home in Robin Hoods Bay in which we would happily spend our last days and everyday between now and then if possible ! I have many more places to visit and many to revisit to understand and bond with.
My goal is to try to capture the landscape in the 'quiet light' and pass on some of the emotion that I feel to others when they look at my pictures. Best of all - get out there ! Experience it for yourself and enjoy.
David Tolcher