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Andrew Jackson
@andrewjackson__
Adventure and lifestyle photographer
My passion for photography and travel mainly stems from my childhood. My family has always travelled across the UK and encouraged my love of the outdoors by taking me hiking and mountain climbing. Living so close to the Peak District, my time out in nature has grown alongside my love for the natural world. There is so much beauty to see and I was inspired to start capturing all this along the way. The more images I took, the more I was driven to recreate the style in which I remembered those moments, and as a result my passion for photography and editing grew. As I live in the city now, it is easy to disconnect from the nature and get lost in the mundane urban setting.
"Photography helps me to reconnect with rural life, share my memories and inspire others to get outdoors."
Disconnecting from the modern world and connecting with nature is mainly what I am looking for in my photography trips. I tend to try to find places with vast mountain ranges, vast lakes, and lush forests to surround myself with. I love each time I go venturing, but I guess that I have two trips that really stand out and that really marked moments I felt far away from the everyday hustle and modern life stress factors. The first would be the camel trekking into the Sinai Desert to visit a Bedouin camp. When it got dark I could see the Milky Way very clearly stretch across the endless sand dunes; I really felt like there was nothing more than that moment right there. It was just amazing.
"The other trip that really made me feel alive was the three thousand km road trip from the top to the bottom of Norway, dog sledding in below freezing temperatures under the aurora."
I have found a lot places and inspiration for compositions through word of mouth, browsing the web and social media. I’m particularly inspired by places that make me feel small. The Fjords of Norway is definitely one of them. Not only do you feel so tiny stood in them, but driving from one end to the other takes hours too; it’s definitely a land of giants. I have been up a lot of mountains but the Fjords feel like a different league of both beauty and size.
What I try with my photography, is to show this perspective of us being small compared to nature. I like to incorporate scaling and hope to make the viewer feel overwhelmed by the immensity of the landscape even by looking at a photo. Besides that I realized that I tend to focus on details in an image. Whether it be a point of interest, a leading line, or capturing close detailed images, I must subconsciously capture these as they are what my eye is drawn to. For every image I take I have certain themes that I take into consideration, such as a natural feel or a positive message.
"The more I have travelled and seen the impact of humans on the planet, the more I think of conservation and change."
I think it is good to balance photos of impressive locations with a message about our responsibility to look after the amazing planet that we live on. That is one aspect of what I try to reflect through my composition and edit. My images are mainly outdoors themed with very few man-made features, because I love the outdoors, but also because nature produces the best colours and light available. I do not include artificial lighting, and my editing techniques only try to accentuate the colours and tones that I captured at the time, and not enhance them so much that it looks fake or unnatural. Besides colors, light and the adventure, there are so many reasons why I favor landscape photography over other photography genres and I guess I don’t even have to explain them.
I would love to do more astrophotography though, to enhance my skills and create distinct content to what I have been creating so far. It’s part of nature as well, but it needs a very different approach. A lot of astrophotography images are composites and with my style being very natural, masking images feels the very opposite and it isn’t coming straight from the camera. I try to push through and go in with the mindset that I can attempt to make the images look natural and how I experienced it, however this is something that I’m still working on. Astrophotography really pushes me out of my comfort zone and that combined with the fact that I am very critical to myself, makes it quite a challenge.
"It’s quite tough to overcome this at times, especially when the creative juices aren’t flowing, but it is something I am constantly trying to work on."
It may be tough, but at the same time challenge is the thing that keeps me evolving as a photographer. Pushing myself out of my comfort zone means I am learning and trying new things. As a result it keeps me creative and innovative, always searching for ways to get the outcome I am satisfied with. I am not someone who could ever be happy with just dipping my toe in. I have to dive in and either sink or swim. Realizing you’re sinking is not easy, it even hurts and can have quite a big impact on your self confidence. I remember the architectural photography gig I did for a client very early on in my photography career.
"I was keen to try something new and push myself so I decided to take this up."
I was given a very short time frame and the weather was not in my favour, but I tried to make it work and put a lot of time into the images and in post production. I was really happy with the images in the end and thought it was a good body of work having in mind that it was my first architectural job. When I submitted the images I had no response for weeks which made me really doubt myself. When I did get a response they replied with ‘to be honest, the pictures are rubbish and we’re not going use them or pay you for them’. I was devastated and this really stunted my development for quite a while.
"There’s no worse feeling than hearing your best isn’t good enough and I don’t think I picked my camera up for months afterwards."
But we all know that when you fall, you have to stand up. And then you will realize you also have moments that, instead of sinking, you are the best swimmer. Like on my trip to Iceland, where I felt very inspired and which helped me to produce some images that I am still most proud of to date. My love and passion were portrayed within my images and I feel they showed my personality well. As a result, I received wonderful recognition for them and was rewarded with additional work as they asked me to produce more images but in Norway.
Although photography isn’t my full time occupation, it plays a big part in my everyday life. Not just in the sense of taking photos or editing, but also in terms of learning, pushing my knowledge and skills continuously, and connecting with like minded individuals who share the passion for photography. Being part of such an engaging and positive community is great. I have met so many amazing people through photography with such inspiring stories to tell. Every trip I have been on, I met people from different backgrounds and cultures who have taught me so much; it really changed my perspective of the world.
"Everyone has a unique story to tell. I love capturing these moments and I love the stories behind each image."
I recently joined a trip to Iceland with four photographers I had only spoken to via social media, and now we are all really close friends as a result of our love for travel and passion for photography. This is how social media platforms should be used, I believe, and the community around landscape photography is a great example. It has taught me that kindness goes an awfully long way. Whether it is helping someone tow their car out of a snow drift, or even just answering questions about your experiences in photography, kindness is how this community thrives.
"I wouldn’t be where I am today if I hadn’t benefitted from the kindness of others sharing their wealth of knowledge and ideas, and it’s something I will always be grateful for."
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