There is something about photography which is thrilling, on a personal level for me it's not the task of taking a photograph but to see the work of others which i find so enthralling. The ability to capture a moment in time and for a photographer to see this shot and know what they want and then to be able to set out to achieve this is an amazing skill. We all have at some point taken a scenic shot of a sunset on holiday, the mountains from a distance or a city lit up at night and sometimes these have turned out to be lucky photographs which are visually stimulating. Or we've set our cameras up against a scene where the essence of what we were photographing was so strong that it was hard to fail at capturing a images of some quality. However a great photographer knows the picture they want to achieve, they have researched effects, and through trial and error and with a good level of experience they set the scene, they have their camera settings just perfect and take the photo of that moment knowing exactly what image they will capture, this is a great photographer. It's not just a lucky shot but an exhilarating image that shows a sophisticated and delicately refined skill.
Nicholas Hughes is such a photographer. He has captured some amazing effects which I find so compelling because most of us would have at some time seen these scenes ourselves and may have tried to take a photograph. However camera technology would have pulled us further away from achieving an image of what we see-through our own eyes and created an image which was taken over by the camera adding in stronger contrasting and light definition from automatic focusing on specific points rather than across a wide landscape of what our eye would actually capture. So with this we lose the emotion of the moment, the true sense of the environment and its creation of shade, light and colour. These moments Nicholas has captured and has found superb imagery through the lens of a camera.
His first series of photographs The Edge- Verse II are showing the slight differences in contrast when all surfaces are white. Those moments we recognise in snowy conditions where we've ended up moving ourselves or shielding our eyes in order to see something in the distance, the few seconds of recognition as our eyes search for some difference in light and shape in order to pick out an object, those moments we search for tonal differences to see anything beyond the blinding white. Nicholas has captured this perfectly and he has created the same feeling where some photos do take you some time to make out what they are and there is a relief found when we have a tree on the horizon to define the rest by.
His next series of photographs In Darkness- Verse I & II go to the opposite end of the spectrum and the moment when things become too dark to see. He has captured moments as the sun is setting and the landscape is just visible but about to disappear into darkness. He has used the natural landscape of the forest to show the shapes the tree's have and then start to lose as the light fades. And in another set within the darkness series he has also shown how the light fading can on a waters surface add more definition and highlight the rippling surface textures which are not normally so visible. Nicholas has brought a depth to his photographs, he shows how subtle the landscape can be and where it can lead to misinterpretation with fading light and minimal colour. 
