Leeming Paterson - Zero Footprint

Ted Leeming and Morag Paterson are a married couple that have worked artistically together for ten years.

They created a series of images titled, Zero Footprint, which basically meant that they took the series of images from outside their house so that they didn't have to use a car or any form of transport to get to their destination. I think this is a really clever idea and would be an idea for me but I don't live close enough to the moors to walk there, but I don't live that many miles away. If I want to do something to do something similar to Zero Footprint then I could walk to the different places instead of driving to the different locations if their not too far away.

Zero Footprint was an idea that both Leeming and Paterson came up with when they decided to design and build their own house so that they could run their own photography workshops from there. Leeming and Paterson said 'Our house is very remote but has spectacular views across the hills of Galloway, in south - west Scotland. We were looking at ways we could capture the vista and take advantage of the dramatic weather that so often heads our way from across the glen, and we wanted to create something more than a single image. We had seen projects where photos have been taken of the same scene at specified intervals but we wanted a slightly more flexible approach to our project. To that effect we were set about taking every photo from the same location - a 'zero footprint' - but with the ability to in any available direction, at any time of day or night and with a choice of lenses.' about how they came to their concept. They came up with this concept because the house that they had built is run by renewable energy so they wanted to carry on the theme by focusing and creating a low carbon impact project.

With the two pictures above Leeming and Paterson explain that being at the location at the right time is crucial because one minute the scene is there and the next it's not. You can see this from the two images above the top image is when the scene is barely there and the next image is showing near enough the same image but showing most of the detail of the landscape. Leeming and Paterson said this about the two images above 'Keeping an eye on the rest of the view was vital too, as we could be looking at three unique options. One minute the cloud would envelope us in an effective whiteout, and the next it felt as if we were in an aeroplane, soaring above the landscape. We took more than 250 pictures over the following two hours.'

After reading this it has made me realise how much of a difference a couple of hours can make to shooting.