The Yorkshire Dales by Mark Denton (Francis Lincoln, £16.99)

FOR landscape photographer Mark Denton, the only problem with living in the village of Crakehall near Bedale is that he cannot see the sea.

He grew up just 500 yards from the North Sea, at Seaburn, in Sunderland. He has always been drawn to its ever-shifting moods. And perhaps his most popular book of photographs to date was The Yorkshire Coast, which among its many notable images featured stunning panoramic scenes of a storm-wracked Filey Bay, decaying groynes marching into the sea at Spurn Point, and an empty bench on deserted Bridlington pier on a cold December morning.

He lived on the Yorkshire coast when he took the photographs for that book, which appeared in hardback in 2006. Nearly three years ago, however, he moved inland, to Crakehall on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales.

He still misses the sea, is becoming used to village life. “I feel settled here. We know everybody, because of the kids.” And there are compensations to being right on the edge of one of the most beautiful national parks in the country.

Over the past three years, Mark has been getting to know the Dales the way he knows the Yorkshire coast. And the result is a book of stunning new photographs entitled, simply enough, The Yorkshire Dales.

Most of the photographs are epic panoramas of the kind Mark has made his name with. They need to be large in order to get the full impact – which is why many of the best images in the 112-page book are spread over two glossy pages each.

It is then you begin to see beyond the surface drama of the images to the extraordinary detail in them, too.

One of the most dramatic photographs shows a view from the heights of Twistleton Scar, north of Ingleton. There is a pavement of fissured limestone in the foreground, a lonely hill in the distance, and a brooding sky with heavy clouds burnished orange by a low sun.

Most dramatic of all, however, is the tree which occupies the right-hand side of the photograph. It seems to grow from a crack in the limestone. It is outlined in red by the sun, and its branches seem to reach across the page, as if pleading.

“The prevailing winds here head east from the Irish Sea, twisting any tree to grow in that direction,” Mark writes in the accompanying caption. “This one looks to have put up quite a brave resistance against the wind over the years and is now a truly remarkable shape.”

The photograph encapsulates his approach to photography. He’s not interested in postcard images, he says, but is always looking for something that bit different.

A good landscape photograph, he says, needs something to lead you into the picture: a central subject where your eye can start its journey. But you need something of interest in every part of the photograph, too, he says.

The light has to be right if a photograph is to work, as too does the season. To get one photograph of the ‘rollercoaster’ wall near Reeth, he returned to the scene four or five times until the spring blossom on the trees was just right. In another photograph of the same wall, the sunlight is at the right angle to throw the waves of the rolling ground that gives the wall its name into stark relief, creating a striking effect.

But there are so many photographs in this book that move you: Pen-y-ghent rising from a snowbound landscape, picked out in strong sunlight; sculpted clouds over the high moors above Coverdale, with Great Whernside looming in the distance; sheep welcoming the rising sun on the beautifully undulating hills near Bainbridge in Wensleydale.Stunning.

• The Yorkshire Dales by Mark Denton will be published in hardback by Francis Lincoln on May 2, priced £16.99. Mark will be at Crakehall village hall, near Bedale, on Sunday May 26, from 3pm to 5pm for then official launch of the book. Entry is free.