Plethora of Colours | Weekly Photo #124

Although last week’s post was a little on the heavy side, I’m so pleased with the positive feedback it received. Many of you could relate to what I said and that proves just how important talking about difficult subjects such as mental health is.

In that same, rather long blog post, I also promised this one would be shorter and I intend to keep that promise and instead just focus on one thing. Autumn! This is the time of year many landscape photographers like the best because the slightly dulled greens of late summer turn into a plethora of vibrant yellows, reds and oranges as the leaves prepare to fall for another year.

Fujifilm XT2 | XF55-200mm | 90mm | 1/4th Second | f/9 | ISO250

Also, at this time of year, sunrise starts to happen at a much more reasonable time than in the summer. Gone is the lack of sleep the night before and the godawful 3:30 am alarms! Instead, I can now wake up at 6 am and still be on-location before the birds begin to sing. Much better.

Last October, I went out to my local woodland in an attempt to photograph some of the changing colours of early autumn and I spotted this view. I would have much preferred that the path was flat or went downhill so I could make more of a feature of it but it wasn’t to be. I even tried the view looking back from upon the hill but that didn’t work at all.

What I did like though was the way the path was leading through this fantastic tunnel of trees and with the autumnal transformation well underway, I decided I needed to photograph those beautiful colours. Although I didn’t think there was a portfolio worthy photo here, if I tried hard enough, I could come up with a composition that worked well enough to come away with a nice enough photo.

I set the tripod up on the left-hand side of the path to allow what little of it there was to flow from right to left. Doing so allowed me to include those interesting birch trees on the right-hand side which also added some visual weight over there and to my eye, balanced the composition against the brighter area at the end of the tree tunnel quite well.

With the tripod as high as it would go to try to minimise the effect the fill was having, I dialled in the settings, waited for the leaves to settle between gusts of wind and took the photo.

Last year, we had strong winds almost non-stop during late October and early November which blew most of the leaves off the trees early. So, I’ll be out exploring the woodland again over the next few weeks in a bid to photograph some more of those beautiful autumnal colours and I’m keeping my fingers firmly crossed for the weather to stay mild long enough to do so.

Until next week.

Trevor

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This post is featured in my Weekly Photo series where I post a new photo every Monday. To have this delivered directly to your inbox, you can subscribe to the mailing list here.

Veterans | Weekly Photo #118

Photographically speaking, I’m in a bit of a slump. It feels like such a long time since I’ve stood behind the camera feeling that buzz of excitement that I’ve captured a banger and can’t wait to get it home and see the photo on the big screen or maybe even printed. It seems every time I head out at the moment, the conditions are dull and uninspiring so I’m really having to dig deep to get even an average looking photo. As a result, I’m lacking inspiration and not feeling much love for my photography at the moment.

But what to do? Well, one thing I’m a lot better at these days is reminding myself that “it’s just photography”. I do it for the love of it, not because I have to. This helps remove any unnecessary pressure I put on myself while I’m out in the field with my camera. Next up, I remind myself that this is just a natural process and all creatives will, at some point go through this and they will either wait for the slump to pass on its own, or like me, just remove the pressure to get the camera out and just get out there and enjoy the great outdoors and just be there, ready for when inspiration hits once again.

I appreciate that’s not a particularly positive opening to this week’s blog but I want to keep this blog as open and honest as I can and having been through many peaks and troughs with my own photography over the years, a veteran if you will, I wanted to share with you how I tackle these inevitable slumps by removing any pressure on myself to take photos, being content with just being out there exploring, surrounded by mother nature.

Fujifilm XT2 | XF18-55mm | 28mm | 1.5 Seconds | f/8 | ISO400

If I’m in a trough right now, then back in June when I took this photo, I think that was more of a peak. Morning after morning I had beautiful conditions to photograph the woodland and although I couldn’t make the most of it on every occasion (I still consider myself a woodland photography novice) I did manage to grab a healthy crop of photos nonetheless.

This photo was taken in a National Trust woodland in Kent, just 25 minutes from where I live. It’s not particularly large but with a nice mix of trees and being rather exposed up on the Kent weald it gets its fair share of the changeable weather from misty mornings and if last winter is anything to go by, plenty of snowfall.

After starting off in the eastern side of the woodland, the fog was so thick and the foliage so dense, I didn’t have enough light or visibility to seek out any useful compositions. I wandered around for a good hour, hoping something would catch my eye, but this part of the woodland was giving nothing away that morning so I decided to change things up and head across to the western edge in the hope of something different. The western side of the woodland is a little more exposed and has more open areas which I hoped would allow more light to shine through and help with finding a nice composition.

I decided to head to this spot as I had photographed it before during the autumn and I really liked the strong, interesting shapes of these veteran trees that appear to stand guard on the edge of a clearing. As I arrived, I was welcomed by this beautiful scene with hazy light shining through the thinning fog, creating this fantastic soft light illuminating the side of the trees. Things were looking up so out came the camera and tripod and I started to dial in the composition.

I really like the depth in this scene created by the mist on the left-hand side and the trees getting gradually softer as they get further away from the camera. That along with the strong, partly silhouetted shapes of the trees to the right, I dialled in my camera settings and got to work. I took two or three different compositions in the end and this is one of my favourites from the morning’s shoot.

Until next week (where I hope my slump will have improved somewhat).

Cheers.

Trevor

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This post is featured in my Weekly Photo series where I post a new photo every Monday. To have this delivered directly to your inbox, you can subscribe to the mailing list here.

Winter Oak | Weekly Photo #92

Spring is just around the corner and I for one am looking forward to getting out into the great outdoors more often as the UK starts to tentatively lift the current restrictions we are under. Things are looking up! So, I thought I would wrap up the winter season with one last frosty landscape scene I managed to capture in a local woodland during a rare but incredibly beautiful hoar frost back in January.

Fujifilm XT2 | XF18-55mm | 46mm | 1/160th Second | f/11 | ISO200

It had been a fantastically productive morning photographing the woodland not too far from where I live. The conditions were simply amazing as I had both mist in the air and a stunning, white hoar frost on the trees. I had started my morning a couple of hours earlier at this very spot and took a similar composition with the dominant tree silhouetted by a thick fog before heading into the woods to see what other photos I could take with a little help from these fantastic shooting conditions. You can see two other photos I took at the end of this post in my winter wrap-up.

As I returned to this spot a little later, the mist had almost cleared, making way for a bright, sunny, albeit freezing cold day and the clear blue sky with the white hoar frost on the trees and plants created this cold, fresh looking scene you see here. With this interesting English Oak standing tall, giving the composition a clear, central focal point, out came the camera ready to take this last photo of the morning.

Climbing to higher ground to avoid too much of the messy foreground, I set the tripod up with my Fujifilm XT2 camera and 18-55mm lens mounted on top. Looking through the viewfinder while composing the shot, something was off. The scene was too warm in camera and nothing like what I could see with my own eyes. As I shoot RAW and not Jpeg, I know I can correct the white balance in post, but with a simple switch to a daylight white-balance on the back of the camera, I could see these cool, fresh tones once again as I took the shot. A tip to remember going forward for sure!

I snapped away, taking a few wider compositions, then I changed the lens and zoomed all the way in to get a close-up, focusing on just the top half of this bare English Oak and those interesting branches that were fanning out from the top of the tree’s trunk. After I had all the pictures I wanted to take safety on the memory card, I packed up and headed home, grateful to be out of the cold with a nice hot brew.

To finish, I thought I would share a bit of a recap on some of the wintry themed posts I’ve written over the last few weeks, just in case you missed any.

Until next week.

Trevor

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This post is featured in my Weekly Photo series where I post a new photo every Monday. To have this delivered directly to your inbox, you can subscribe to the mailing list here.

Beech in the Snow | Weekly Photo #89

Brrrr…!! It’s been a cold one this past week in the UK. Here in the south of England, we tend to get snowfall once or twice a year and when it does fall, it’s usually just a light dusting and gone within a few hours of daylight but every few years we get a heavier snowfall and that’s what happened this week and I had great fun photographing in foggy, frosty and snowy conditions. Restricted in where I can go due to the ongoing lockdown situation, I managed to get out with the camera a few times to photograph my local woodlands and forests and now have quite a pile of raw photos which I’m really looking forward to rummaging through and editing. Fingers crossed I have one or two keepers in there!

Fujifilm XT2 | XF18-55mm | 50mm | 1/17th Second | f/9 | ISO400

Keeping with the frosty theme, this is a photo I took a few weeks ago during what turns out to be quite a rare hoar frost. It wasn’t until I heard other photographers refer to it in this way that I wondered what it was, so I did a bit of googling. A hoar frost requires freezing conditions and moisture in the air, such as foggy conditions and ice builds up on the freezing surfaces making it appear like white hair which is why the word hoar, the old English term for “old age” is used.

While wandering the forest, I came across this cluster of beech trees along the path and was drawn to how prominent they looked against the brighter, more fragile looking frosty scene around them. I didn’t have many options in terms of where to place the trees as they were leaning into the frame so placing them on the right and using the dark, muddy floor on the left to balance the contrast somewhat gave me the composition you see here. Using my 18-55mm lens, I composed and took the shot.

This photo is featured in a blog post I released last week all about photographing winter landscapes and if you are looking to get the most of your own wintry landscape photos, take a look as you might find the tips I share useful.

Until next week.

Trevor

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This post is featured in my Weekly Photo series where I post a new photo every Monday. To have this delivered directly to your inbox, you can subscribe to the mailing list here.

Wintry Woodland | Weekly Photo #85

One of the very small but positive side effects of this wretched pandemic is how it’s encouraging us to explore the parks and woodlands right on our doorstep and ever since I started my woodland photography side-hustle, I’ve been spending much of that time close to home, forcing me to explore my local area, resulting in me uncovering a few hidden gems to wander with my camera within just a couple of miles from my house.

Fujifilm XT2 | XF55-200mm | 55mm | 1/6th Second | f/10 | ISO200

Last weekend, I visited one of these local woodlands on what was one of the most beautiful, wintry mornings I’ve had the pleasure to photograph. With the temperature at around -3 and an atmospheric fog passing through, what resulted was this beautifully picturesque hoar frost throughout the woodland and together with Holly (my dog), we spent a great couple of hours exploring the forest.

We roamed the woodland while taking a few photos as I went and after about an hour or so, we started to wander down this path and with the misty, frosty feel and pathway leading into the distance, I knew there was a shot to be had. So out came the camera which I used to line up the best composition and once found, onto the tripod it went. I deliberately placed the foreground trees on the left hand third with the path heading into the image and around the back of the trees on the right-hand third and with the tree standing alone in the midground, it subtly added some visual weight and balance to the overall composition. In an ideal world, the trees on the left wouldn’t be overlapping so much as it makes it look a little messy over there but if I tried to move and sperate the trees, the composition didn’t work at all so it had to stay as is. I don’t think it looks too bad really.

I went straight for my 55-200mm lens which is my go-to while shooting woodland. It’s a great focal length range, it produces sharp photos and it’s nice and light so doesn’t weigh me down too much. With the settings dialled in (see under the photo), I went ahead and took the shot.

Although it’s quite a simple photo, I really like the texture on the birch trees in the foreground and back in Lightroom, I made sure I preserved this along with emphasising the misty atmospheric look of the overall photo.

It was such an amazing morning and I was lucky enough to capture a few more wintry woodland photos during the morning and will share these soon enough.

Take care.

Trevor

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This post is featured in my Weekly Photo series where I post a new photo every Monday. To have this delivered directly to your inbox, you can subscribe to the mailing list here.

Remembrance | Weekly Photo #75

I normally release my weekly photo stories every Monday morning but I’ve posted this week’s photo a day early as I wanted it to co-inside with Remembrance Sunday here in the UK and pay my own small tribute to this incredibly important day. I appreciate not all countries will observe Remembrance Day but hopefully everyone will appreciate it’s not about who did what and who’s cause was just, it is about remembering those that were lost to war and conflict throughout history regardless of the country they were from. It’s not political, it’s a mark of respect.

During World War One, most of the fighting took place in Western Europe and the previously picturesque countryside was turned into lakes of mud as they were repeatedly blasted by bombs and fought over. The landscape was bleak and nothing could grow with one notable exception, the bright, red Flanders poppy. This hardy flower managed to grow in in the thousands across the otherwise desolate landscape. In spring 1915, a Canadian doctor, Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae was inspired by this resilient flower and wrote the famous poem 'In Flanders Fields'.

Fujifilm XT2 | XF55-200mm | 71mm | 1/6,000th Second | f/7.1 | ISO400

Back in June this year, I was on the hunt for locations to photograph a poppy field down here in the south east of England and I stumbled across this spot in Dover, beside the South Foreland Lighthouse. Located along the historic white cliffs, it’s a beautiful place with stunning views across the English Channel so along with another photographer buddy, we arranged to meet at sunrise to take some photos.

We arrived just before sunrise and quickly realised the sun would be rising in the direction we were shooting which was good in terms of getting some beautiful backlight on the poppies but it presented a challenge with photographing the lighthouse with so much dynamic range. We spent a bit of time wandering around the field, looking for some good compositions and once the sun had risen and moved a little over to the right, the dynamic range was a lot more manageable and I was able to get the scene exposed without the need for filters or exposure bracketing.

I took a number of shots while playing with the depth of field and as I reviewed the photos once back in Lightroom, I settled for this photo with the lighthouse rendered nice and sharp and the focus gradually dropping off as it got closer to the camera. Even though it’s clear what the flowers are, I just feel the out of focus foreground is easier on the eye and softens the overall scene.

Being such an iconic location along the white cliffs of Dover and such a recognisable symbol of remembrance and hope, I’m so pleased I was able to take it and share it on this important day.

In Flanders' fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place: and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders' fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe;
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high,
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders' Fields.

~ John McCrae, 1915 ~

“Lest We Forget”

Trevor

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This post is featured in my Weekly Photo series where I post a new photo every Monday. To have this delivered directly to your inbox, you can subscribe to the mailing list here.