THURSDAY 7th October 2021
A landscape photographer and the lockdown
Oliver Herbold
‘A landscape photographer and the lockdown’ was the title of the presentation given to us by Oliver Herbold. Although he was born and bred in Germany, Oliver now lives in Mitcheldean, Gloucestershire and has the Forest of Dean on his doorstep for his main photographic passion – landscapes. He began the evening by showing us landscapes and seascapes he had taken in and around Britain, Germany and The Netherlands.
Covid19 lockdown put an abrupt end to travel and so Oliver had to rethink what sort of images he could take. In his stock of lenses he had a macro lens that he rarely used, so decided to dust it off, jump out of his comfort zone and see what sort of results he could produce with it in his home studio. After setting up the tripod and camera, Oliver spent quite some time experimenting with different backgrounds, lighting and several small items until he was satisfied with the results he was achieving. I would describe his refraction images of flowers displayed in a single drop of water on a dandelion seed as stunning digital art! With lockdown partially lifted, Oliver was now able to visit local beauty spots and, with his drone, took several aerial shots in the Forest of Dean showing us remarkable images of the countryside we live in. The second part of the evening was taken up with astrophotography. He explained in great detail how he achieved images of the Milky Way sitting over May Hill and others mirroring the bend of the River Wye at Symonds Yat.
Oliver was happy to answer questions as the talk went on and was extremely willing to share the ‘secrets’ of how he captured the impressive number of images making up the two hour presentation.
Planning, practice, patience, a PC and plenty of time are just a few of the things we need as photographers to achieve the WOW factor images shown to us tonight.