In reply to Jamie Hageman:
> The more I've been thinking about this, the more I think you're right.
> I've grown up reading Bonington and Doug Scott books and have always been mesmerised by their photography.
> It's those results I strive for in my own pictures.
> I've been playing around with colour balances and contrasts on several of my shots, and think I'm getting slightly closer to what I'm after. The adjustments don't seem logical though - big tweaks of contrast so shadows are almost black, but the effect is more like my ideal. I'm sure RAW images will allow me to change one aspect without changing others (which is the problem I'm having at the mo).
> Apologies for my lack of direction here - I'm thinking out loud - but thanks for everyone's input. It's made me reassess my processes.
The description you've given of your process to get them towards what you want (darkening your blacks, increasing overall contrast) does sound a bit like taking the wider exposure dynamic range of digital (as digital now has greater dynamic range than film) and redicign it down to what the likes of velvia had.
From what I've read and what others have said ( had no great experience with slide - just 10 or so rolls of film) with slide you had to "expose for the highlights" which, with less dynamic range would result in bigger areas of dark - far form the HDR, no shadows effect that many go for now.
It is easy to get seduced by the sliders in lightroom to make every photo WOW. I'm starting to realise that I prefer more subtle photos that draw you in and treat the eye, rather than slapping you in the face with saturation!
One more subtle landscape I took recently that I was quite happy with was:
https://flic.kr/p/LxPMhC
P.S. just flicking through your gallery and very impressed with some of your mountain paintings!
P.P.S. Start working with RAW. I take all my photos in RAW and now have a single click preset that gets them most of the way to how I want them, then I do maybe 5 or 6 little adjustments for most shots. As others have said - the more you do "pre shot" the less you have to battle behind the PC. Now, if you do start with RAW you may initially be quite dismayed at how flat your photos look at first, pre-editing - the polar opposite to a Velvia slide!! - but this is where the works starts...
Post edited at 22:59