Photographer Nigel Danson’s newest book, Close to Calm, celebrates the beauty in the local landscapes photographers too often overlook in pursuit of a far-flung location halfway around the globe. Oftentimes, the best photos aren’t thousands of miles away in a famous locale, they are right in a photographer’s backyard.
“I’ve always wanted to go and photograph faraway places and I’ve been lucky enough to do that,” Danson tells PetaPixel. “You forget just how beautiful it is where you live.”
Danson admits that many people might believe the area where he lives in the United Kingdom is just especially beautiful — and it is lovely, there’s little doubt about that — but Danson pushes back.
“The reality is that you don’t always appreciate your own place because it’s familiar, and when something becomes familiar, you just don’t appreciate it as much.”
Danson is not immune to this at all, admitting that there was a time when he only wanted to photograph distant landscapes rather than the areas he lived in. Danson’s friend and fellow talented photographer, Mads Peter Iversen, who is from Denmark, wrote the foreword for Close to Calm and had shared similar views with Danson.
“When I first met him, we met in Iceland probably eight years ago,” Danson recalls meeting Iversen. “He’d been doing workshops for a whole winter there, and I was so jealous of him.” Iversen said Iceland was a good place to do workshops because his native Denmark was “boring.” Now, Iversen is a fellow “local photography” enthusiast committed to showcasing the wonders and beauty of Denmark.
“I have a really strong connection to where I live and I want to show it off,” Danson says. And he believes he can help other photographers build that bond with their homes, too, no matter where they live.
“I do workshops and meet lots of other people and I keep getting the comment, ‘But it’s not beautiful where I am. I wish I was in a place like you.’ And what I want to do with Close to Calm is say — it’s not just photos, there are words as well — that there is real beauty in your local landscape,” Danson says. “You’ve just got to go and find it.”
“It’s amazing how many [photos] you can get when you look for them,” the acclaimed photographer adds.
The Many Benefits of Local Photography
Beyond the obvious goal of getting good photographs, Danson believes the benefits of local photography go far beyond the results.
Traveling worldwide to take landscape photos is extremely expensive, prohibitively so for many photographers. So local photography has the easy win when it comes to cost, both financially and in terms of time.
Danson is also adamant that becoming a passionate local photographer will help people take much better advantage of their more exotic opportunities when they arise. Too often, he will encounter people on workshops who miss a shot — yes, landscape photography can be fast-paced and fleeting, too — because they were not entirely familiar with their camera equipment.
Local photography is a fantastic way to learn essential photography skills. Danson believes in-the-field photography skills boil down to two main categories: “Composition and technology.”
Composition comprises, unsurprisingly, composition but also lighting and being able to understand how to properly see a scene and turn it into a compelling photograph, whether that’s learning how to utilize foreground elements, find leading lines, or something else. Technology skills ensure that a photographer can turn their artistic vision into a great photograph by selecting the proper settings, understanding their camera modes, and, to varying extents, knowing how to post-process RAW files. Although editing is not a “field” skill, capturing many local photos will give photographers plenty of chances to improve their photo editing skills.
“Learning and improving your skills is a great way of using local photography,” Danson says. “But to do that, you’ve got to believe you can get good shots locally. You’ve got to get into that mindset.” Danson believes his book will inspire readers to get into that mindset, and based on Danson’s beautiful photos and thoughtful writing, Close to Calm is well-positioned to do just that.
How Danson Came to Love the Local
As mentioned, Nigel Danson was not always the believer in the beauty of home like he is now.
“There was a local photographer, and he doesn’t actually do photography anymore, believe it or not, but he’d taken some shots,” Danson recalls. “I live near what’s called the Peak District, which is actually quite a nice national park. But I’d gone there a few times, this was maybe 20 years ago. And I just felt like there were not a lot of hills. It says ‘the Peak District,’ which is a dumb name for it because there aren’t many peaks — it’s quite flat. I didn’t think the villages were particularly pretty either.”
“Then I saw this guy’s photos. We have a lot of a certain type of rock, it’s like a sandstone rock and it’s really nice in warm light. And we have a lot of heather. This photographer had gone out and combined these sorts of gray sandstone with heather and created just stunning photos. And I thought, ‘I am just not looking hard enough here. I’m just not thinking about it in the right way.’”
Before this experience, Danson was always trying to get shots in places like Iceland, the Great Pyrenees, etc. Sure, his local area does not have grand, dramatic vistas — most places don’t, Danson admits — but that doesn’t mean there aren’t beautiful landscape and nature photos to be had, photographers might just need to look a little harder or think a bit differently.
“You’ve got to think, ‘Well, what is there in my landscape that’s just a little bit different?’” Danson suggests. Seeing that photographer’s images of sandstone and heather was a real turning point for Danson. “He opened my eyes.”
You Probably Don’t Know Everything About Your Home Yet
Danson can already hear some complaints from photographers who maintain, “No, my local area is different, there really is nothing to shoot.”
While some areas are “better” than others insofar as finding interesting photos in one location might be easier, Danson is confident that few photographers have entirely exhausted their local environs.
While he has lived in the Peak District for a while, he still finds new photographs he’s never seen before, whether it’s because he has physically never been to the spot before or just never seen the photo. He spends a lot of time exploring, taking notes, and thinking about how a scene might look in other weather, conditions, or a different season. Walking with his dog, Pebbles, who Danson’s YouTube viewers know and love, provides Danson ample opportunity to find new photos.
“I guarantee you if you put a three-mile radius around where most people live, there will be something they haven’t seen in that extremely local area,” Danson says. “It’s just a matter of exploring, and you will find things you didn’t know existed.”
Danson is also a firm believer in the power of projects to help photographers capture new photos, see things differently, and hone their skills.
“Another thing I like about local photography is having a project. You might find a tree or a monument or a road, anything really, and photograph it in all different weather conditions or different seasons. And you can do that because it’s local. You can just go there when it’s raining, when there is a rainbow, when there are storms,” Danson says. “I’ve seen some really excellent projects online where people have just found a lone tree or something and gone to photograph it in different conditions and seasons. It’s so interesting because of how the landscape changes.”
Photographers should also be careful of falling into the all-too-common trap of thinking that there is not a good photo there just because they have technically seen something before.
“I think because something is familiar, you almost aren’t as attentive to spotting compositions because you just dismiss things,” says Danson. “I’ve got a really great example. There’s a tree I used to drive past on the way to work and it ends up being one of my favorite images I’ve ever taken. I realized that this tree, after driving past it for about three years, I thought, ‘Actually, that tree could make a good shot.’ And then I planned out a shot where the sunrise rose just above it, and I got just such an amazing image of this tree. It looked like it was from Japan or something. It was so cool. That was another moment where I thought, ‘Yeah, there’s so much locally.’ There really is.”
Worthwhile Photography Doesn’t Always Require Great Photos
While Danson is a huge believer that there are great photos to be found anywhere on Earth, no matter how ‘boring’ it may seem, he also knows that photography doesn’t always require great photos to be productive. A results-driven view will lead to disappointment no matter where someone lives because oftentimes, it’s just hard to make good photographs.
For him, he loves being out and going through the photographic process. If he can make a great shot, and he certainly bats a higher average thanks to his decades of experience and hard work, that’s awesome. But if not?
“I like the peacefulness of being out, especially in the morning. I really like shooting in the morning and just being on my own in a really peaceful woodland or hillside and seeing what happens,” the photographer explains. “It’s not that I haven’t planned because I will have planned where to go, but it tends to be that I’m looking for new things.”
Building a Bond With Your Home Through Photography
It is also vital to consider one of the most essential ingredients to capturing great photos: Knowledge of the subject.
Not only does shooting locally help photographers improve their skills, capture strong photographs, and just enjoy being out in nature, but being able to spend so much time in one area helps people get to know their potential subjects much better.
“This is one of the most important things about local shooting,” Danson says. “I think it’s why I love it so much, because you’ve got a stronger connection to a place.”
While he’s been all over the world, including a couple of incredible trips to Antarctica, he never feels that same connection when traveling.
“I’ve been to Antarctica a few times and it’s incredible and the memories there are great, but I never feel quite that same connection to my photos from there because it’s a place that just isn’t that familiar to me. And although they are dramatic, impressive, etc., I don’t feel like I’ve ever had a massive connection to it. Whereas the local woodland near me where I walk my dog Pebbles all the time, if I get a good photo from there, I’m so excited,” Danson says.
Few things are as exciting for a landscape photographer as being in the right place at the perfect time and capturing an incredible photo. When all the conditions come together, it’s magical. For Danson, it’s especially meaningful when that happens at home.
Danson, perhaps modestly, says portfolio-quality images “don’t happen very often,” but when they do, the ones captured near Danson’s home are his favorites.
Putting the Local to Work for Your Photography
Ultimately, Nigel Danson hopes his upcoming book, Close to Calm, will help more photographers appreciate their local landscapes and embrace all they offer. Shooting close to home is accessible, an amazing way to improve skills, and, with determination and effort, a pathway to capture incredible photographs.
Nigel Danson loves his home and wants to do it justice through his photography. Close to Calm does that. But it does so much more — it offers the inspiration that all photographers need from time to time to pick up their camera and explore their backyard. There is beauty there; it’s time to find it.
Image credits: All photographs © Nigel Danson. Nigel Danson’s upcoming book, ‘Close to Calm,’ is available to preorder now from £49. It will begin shipping in late spring or early summer.
