Two Dawns

Sadly for us, our regular Easter rental in mid-Wales, an award-winning barn conversion – yes, there is such a thing – is no longer available: the owner's son and family moved in directly after we had enjoyed the very last available booking slot this Easter. It does seem a pretty remote location to be bringing up four young children, not to mention the patchy phone reception for two adults working from home – I'm not even sure how a reliable WiFi service could be provided – but I'm sure they'll manage. Or, if they don't, maybe the property will become available again... 

One of the attractions of the place for me has always been that it sits high on the west-facing shoulder of a valley, and our bedroom has a small balcony, so I could roll out of bed at the crack of dawn, and – if the lighting and weather conditions looked promising – lean out and photograph the expanse of the valley below and the hills beyond without even getting dressed. Inversion fogs, driving rain, pretty sunshine, even snow; anything could be happening out there in Wales at Easter, and as every admirer of landscapes knows, elevation is the key to opening out the elements in the view. In the absence of anything else a photographer can always climb a tree, stand on the roof of a car (probably best to stick to your own), or even lug along a stepladder. No, really: several view-camera users have described using a stepladder to me, including the estimable Jem Southam.

So over the years I've accumulated some striking examples of barefoot, pre-breakfast landscape photography; the sort of thing you'd have to do a substantial pre-dawn uphill hike to achieve otherwise. Some of which I have cropped into a panoramic format, like the two above (both taken with a telephoto lens steadied on the balcony rail), as that best conveys the expansive feel of the bedroom prospect.

But on my recent visit to the RA Summer Exhibition I saw this:

Olivia Wells, Pulmo 8

Which is actually a 2D print, and this reminded me that a couple of years ago, by using a bit of elementary Photoshop wizardry, I had already mocked up some concertina-folded "leporello" booklets in a similar, but to my eye more convincing trompe-l'œil fashion:

A riddle (answer: tinnitus. I later added a title, "This Is Not A Drill")

It seemed a bit gimmicky at the time but, having had my interest re-piqued in that approach, I wondered: why not do something similar with those Welsh panoramas? If nothing else, doubled up they would fit nicely into one of the cheap 60cm x 30cm frames I have lying around. So that is what I have been playing around with lately, and I think it does add a certain something to the "straight" versions. Bear in mind that the result is a single entirely flat sheet of paper and is also not a photograph of two actual folded and opened out concertinas, although I suppose I hope that at first sight – but only at first sight – you might think it was in some way "real".

So, might I bother to submit something like this to next year's RA Summer Exhibition, or anywhere else, come to that? Probably not: the open exhibition lottery game gets old (and expensive) after you've had rather more misses than hits, and it's a shame to spoil the innocent fun of "creativity" as an end in itself by inviting the judgement of a random assortment of know-nothing, boss-eyed ████s, usually practising artists who, like so many job interviewers, seem generally to be looking for clones of themselves. [1]

RA Summer Exhibition 2026

(the pigeon, by Humphrey Ocean RA, was sold for £14,000)

1. Incidentally, if a young person near you is looking for a job, they could do worse than read my post Inflexible Attitude, Hates a Challenge, my guide to job applications based on decades of experience as an interviewer.

BTW: if anyone else is finding that Blogger is refusing to add images to your posts (since, I suspect, a recent Windows 10 upgrade) I know the answer. Email me (see "View My Complete Profile" for an address).