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Exposed | Weekly Photo #119
Some striking exposed beech roots in a misty Surrey woodland
Last week, I talked about how I was in a bit of a creative slump with my photography and was struggling to feel inspired by the photos I was taking. In the post, I mentioned how some people when in the same position will put the camera away and physically step away from it all while they recharge their creative battery. Others including myself may continue to get out to the places they like to shoot, mentally stepping away to take the pressure off but keep the camera close enough, just in case an opportunity presents itself.
Well, this week I did just that. Leaving most of my kit at home, I headed to my favorite city in the world with just a single camera and lens in my bag and explore London without any pressure on myself to take a single shot.
For those that have known me for a while, London is where I started taking photos, it is where my passion for cityscape photography began and I just love being up there, especially on a warm summer’s day and although I would have been fine with an empty memory card, by the end of the day, my card was full and I had a great time snapping away as I walked around this familiar place.
Although I’m not there yet, the time I spent in London went a long way towards getting my photographic mojo back! I plan to share the photos I took in a dedicated blog post very soon so keep an eye out for that!
Fujifilm XT2 | XF10-24mm | 12mm | 1.5 Seconds | f/10 | ISO400
A few weeks ago I took this photo on a foggy morning on my local woodland. The conditions were perfect for adding a bit of atmosphere to the lush green, early summer foliage and I took no time at all spotting this composition on a bank, close to where I was walking.
What initially caught my attention were the exposed roots of these tall beech trees which look to me like skeletal feet at the bottom of a huge pair of legs belonging to a giant bird-like creature high above me, clinging onto the bank, claws dug into the ground. Yeah, sometimes I let my imagination run free but it’s all good fun.
With those strong roots and vibrant greens in the misty background, I decided to stop and compose the shot. Getting low and somewhat close with my wide-angle 10-24mm lens, my aim was to make the exposed roots the clear subject in the frame with everything else playing a supporting role. Adjusting the composition by moving left and right, I wanted to keep the roots towards the left of the frame while ensuring any overlapping trees in the scene were kept to a minimum. Overlapping trees can often disrupt the flow of a woodland composition as the aim is usually to simplify the normally chaotic scene in front of the camera and one way to do this is to ensure there is a nice separation between trees where possible.
With my camera lined up, I mounted my circular polarising filter to cut out the reflective glare on the leaves and then dialled in my settings to take the shot.
Back in post, I adjusted the tones to bring out some of the colour in the woodland floor and give the greens a little punch. I then took the photo into Photoshop to add a touch of glow to the brightest areas using the Orton effect and then back to Lightroom for the finishing touches. The areas at the very top and bottom of the image weren’t adding much to the photo and I feel it looks stronger in a 2:1 letterbox aspect ratio.
Until next week.
Trevor
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.
Misty Path | Weekly Photo #116
A misty woodland scene I was lucky to photograph back in late spring
I’ve been quite busy over the few weeks and although I’ve been out with the camera here and there, photography has had to take a bit of a back seat during this time. Towards the end of July, I spent a week with my family in the beautiful county of Cornwall, down on England’s south coast. Although it was predominantly a family holiday, I did get to take the “proper” camera out for a couple of sunrise shoots both in the woodland to photograph some small waterfalls and along the coast to capture a snippet of Cornwall’s fantastic shoreline.
Shortly after returning from a rather active week in Cornwall, we travelled to Crete for 2 weeks of r&r in the sun. Although I’ve been to Greece a few times in the past, it was our first time visiting Crete and what little we saw of the island, it was incredibly beautiful. I rarely travel without my camera and this was no different so again, as I did in Cornwall, I ventured out a few times to take a few landscape photos while I was there.
I have lots of photos to process but I hope to share one of two of them here soon enough.
Fujifilm XT2 | XF10-24mm | 12mm | 0.4 Seconds | f/9 | ISO400
Back to this week’s photo.
When I started taking my woodland photography a bit more seriously, I avoided including footpaths in my photos. I felt all my woodland photos should be 100% natural, unspoiled, and without evidence of man. Although that's still the case for many locations I photograph, I quickly realised that this didn’t always tell the full story of the woodland I was in and how not only are they important to the plants and animals that live there, but these spaces are also important to people too, and if we look after them properly, the subtle marks we leave on them, such as these trodden pathways are also important to include when telling the full story. These days, I can’t get enough of them as compositionally, they work well to lead your eye through the frame and into the photo.
I took this photo in a local woodland just minutes from my home. It’s a varied woodland, set upon a hill along the North Downs (AONB) and although not particularly high (250ft), it does seem to get its fair share of misty/foggy conditions when the clouds are low. Being so close to my home and with a good chance of mist and fog, I often visit this woodland with the camera. Here are a couple of photos I’ve previously shared from this location:
Garlic Hill, taken back in the spring.
Chaotic Rhythm, a tangled, misty scene I photographed back in the winter.
On this wet, foggy day back in late spring, this group of trees in the distance caught my eye. I liked how they looked surrounded by the mist, so I decided to set the camera up, using the path as a part of the composition leading the eye towards the trees. Stepping off the footpath to the left, to allow the path to enter the frame on the bottom right, I felt there was too much visual weight on the top right-hand side caused by the larger tree closest to the camera. I needed something to balance the composition and I solved this by getting low to the ground to include these vibrant green leaves on the bottom left corner which did the job nicely.
With the camera on the tripod around a foot off the ground, I mounted my 10-24mm wide-angle lens. I chose to go wide for this shot as the leaves in the foreground would appear bigger and more of the footpath would be included in the frame to the right. I also used a circular polariser filter as the reflections created by the wet leaves were a little too distracting and this filter is perfect for cutting out those reflections while at the same time, making the colours pop.
With the foreground so close to the lens, even with a smaller aperture, I knew I wouldn’t be able to get the shot acceptability sharp from front to back, so a focus stack was needed. I dialled in the settings (see under the photo above) and took three or four separate shots, each one focused on a different part of the image.
Back in post, I used Photoshop to blend the mages together using the “Auto-blend layers” option, creating a single photo that is sharp from front to back. There was a bit more to it, as some fine-tuning was needed to correct some issues with the blend as it was a bit gusty and the branches had moved a bit between exposures, but it was straight forward enough, and I’m really pleased with how this one turned out.
Until next week.
Trevor
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.
Cold and Alone | Weekly Photo #113
A wintry tree standing alone on top of a hill in Surrey
One from the archives this week. In fact, this is now the oldest photo I have in my collection of landscape photos. It was taken back in February 2017 and I know that’s only a few years old but I only really started to take photography seriously in 2016 and at that time, my lens was almost exclusively pointed at London’s epic cityscape so I rarely ventured into the natural landscape and when I did, the photos I took back then weren’t particularly good.
Fujifilm X-T10 | XF18-55mm | 36mm | 1/30th Second | f/7.1 | ISO200
In 2017, unless I was heading into the city, I rarely drove far to take photos which is why it comes as no surprise that this photo was taken in a field just 5 minutes from my house. Although I wasn’t big into photographing natural landscapes at the time, I had a bit of a fascination with this local field and still do. It has a few interesting trees, used to grow a variety of different crops and during golden hour and sunset, it provides some great photo opportunities, just like this one here.
One cold February evening back in 2017, I was driving home through the narrow country lanes that run alongside this field and from the bottom of the hill I spotted this tree, standing alone in the landscape at the top and with these high wispy clouds creating an interesting backdrop, I decided to pop home, grab the camera and head back to the field.
Fast forward 20 minutes and I’m back, tripod up and my since retired Fujifilm X-T10 mounted on top. It was a straightforward, almost graphical composition and the strong silhouette of the lone, leafless tree at the top of the hill provided it with a fantastic focal point. With the horizon subtly rising towards the right-hand side, to my eye, keeping the tree on the left-hand side would produce a more balanced image. With the sun already set, the sky was filled with these subtle pastel colours which complemented the greens in the foreground nicely and with everything lined up and settings punched in, I fired the shutter. Being a rather cold February evening, as soon as I had the shot I wanted in the bag, I didn’t hang around. I packed up and made my way back home.
One mistake I did make was focusing on the tree in the background but setting a relatively small aperture. This led to a slightly soft foreground. It’s not so bad that it ruins the photo but it does bug me a bit, even to this day. Nowadays, I would know to close down the aperture a few more stops, check the image on the back of the camera a little more closely before leaving or I might even focus bracket but as I said it was all still a bit new to me and mistakes like this were more common back then.
I’ve visited this field numerous times since. The last time was just the other week and I managed to capture another lone tree but this time with a dark stormy rain cloud over the field which was covered in vibrant yellow rapeseed. I really like the photo and for sure, I’ll share it with you sometime soon.
I’m thankful for having a couple of spots like this close to home meaning I don’t have to drive an hour or two to take a photo and I can react quickly to changes in the weather, visiting time and again to scratch that photographic itch.
Until next week.
Trevor
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.
Garlic Hill | Weekly Photo #107
A springtime woodland scene with wild garlic and bright green leaves
With regards to my photography, it’s been a productive couple of weeks. I’ve managed a few trips into London and although it turned out to be rather cloudy (typical!), it still felt great to be up there and I even managed to get the filters out to take some long exposure images around More London and St Katherine Docks. A bit more local to me, I made a few early morning trips into the forest and on my last visit, I was greeted with some pretty special foggy conditions which along with the vivid greens and late spring colours, transformed the look of the woodland and I spent a fantastic few hours taking advantage of the conditions and seeking out various compositions.
Oh, and I broke my 55-200mm telephoto lens, so I’ve had to organise a repair on that too!
Fujifilm XT2 | XF10-24mm | 14mm | 1/30th Second | f/8 | ISO400
I found this woodland, just a few minutes from my home earlier this year. It sits on top of the hill along the north downs in Surrey and offers a variety of different trees and woodland scenes to photograph and as a bonus, it’s situated over 200ft up which means when the clouds are low, it often gets foggy up there which is great for woodland photography. Unfortunately, on this particular day, as I headed out to photograph the wild garlic there was no fog to be seen. You win some, you lose some!
While exploring the woodland a few weeks before, I spotted a small area, no more than 10m by 10m along a steep bank that was covered in recently sprouted wild garlic leaves so I made a mental note to return when the garlic was due to flower and got on my merry way. Fast forward three or four weeks and I’m on my hands and knees, climbing the same steep bank as I attempted to photograph these strong-smelling wildflowers. Leading up to this day, there had been a lot of rain and not only was the bank extremely steep, it was also incredibly slippery. If that wasn’t bad enough, I also had to be extremely careful not to flatten the garlic as I climbed but with hands and knees covered in mud, I eventually made it up and found my spot.
I wanted to get close and wide for this photo as it wasn’t a particularly big area of garlic and I wanted to emphasise the flowers in the foreground, making them appear more prominent in the frame but this presented a problem with depth of field. Being so close to the foreground, there was no way I was going to have the depth of field I needed for acceptable sharpness from front to back, so I decided to focus stack the shot. So, after manually dialling in my exposure, I went about taking three or four photos, focusing on key areas of the scene to make sure, when I got back to the computer to blend them together, the wild garlic would be sharp across the entire scene.
This was my first attempt at scouting and photographing wild garlic and overall, I’m quite happy with the final photo. I would have preferred a slightly cleaner composition, particularly on the right-hand side where the trees overlap and a little mist in the air would have been a nice touch too. The good thing so close to this woodland is that I visit as often as I like to seek out new compositions in different conditions.
Until next week.
Trevor
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.
Lush Greens | Weekly Photo #105
A springtime woodland scene featuring wild garlic and vibrant green leaves.
This Spring, I had two objectives with my woodland photography. Firstly, to scout some unique spots to photograph the beautiful bluebells and secondly, to find a location in my local woodland to photograph wild garlic. Albeit later than usual, first to appear was the bluebells, which I was fortunate to photograph here and here. Shortly after, the wild garlic started to bloom, so I got to work on scouting out where I could photograph these aromatic wildflowers.
I found the search for wild garlic much more difficult than the search for bluebell locations but my perseverance paid off as I eventually stumbled on this location by searching Flickr and using the accompanying metadata along with some detective work on google maps to hone in on this exact spot in the south of England on the Surrey/Sussex border.
Fujifilm XT2 | XF10-24mm | 10mm | 0.5 Seconds | f/9 | ISO200
The first thing that struck me when I arrived was just how green everything was. Along with the fresh new leaves on the trees, the lush, vibrant greens of the wild garlic leaves which carpeted the woodland floor was something to behold and it was my job to find an interesting composition amongst it all. I started with a few photos using the pathway and bridge that crosses this small brook as compositional interest before deciding to get my feet wet and take this photo looking directly down the brook, flanked by the fresh wild garlic flowers. After carefully descending the slippery bank I went about setting up the camera and composing the shot.
If you’re looking for examples of how a circular polarising filter (CPL) can help your woodland photography, then look no further than this picture here. A CPL filter works by controlling or removing reflections from shiny or wet surfaces, because when light hits those surfaces, they create glare that increases highlights, reduces colour and detail. By using a CPL filter as I did here, it has removed most of the reflections in the water and the wet leaves, which is why you can see the details under the water so well and is also why the green leaves look so lush. It’s commonly agreed by the photography community that the effect a CPL has on an image is the only one that can’t be replicated in post, so it’s are a worthy addition to any landscape photographer’s bag.
With the foreground so close to the lens, getting sharpness front to back would be tricky in a single shot so I decided to focus bracket the photo so, starting from the closest leaves to the camera, I worked from front to back refocusing and in between breaths of wind, capturing the next frame until I had 4 or 5 to blend together later in Photoshop to create a single, sharp image.
Although the scene could do with a few more flowers on the right-hand side to balance things up and boy would this place look amazing in misty conditions, overall, I’m extremely happy with this first attempt to photograph the wild garlic and really pleased I found this local sport which I can return to in the future.
Until next week.
Trevor
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.
Awakening | Weekly Photo #101
With spring in full swing, I ventured out to my local woodlands to take this woodland photo of the bluebells and fresh, vibrant leaves on the trees.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been eagerly scouting and photographing nearby woodlands as they begin to wake from their wintry sleep, sprouting with new life and vibrant colours. I only started to photograph the woodland in March last year but just days into this new pursuit, we were locked down, stuck at home for almost the entire spring season. So, with restrictions from the most recent lockdown loosened in March this year, I wasn’t going to miss out on photographing the woodland in spring for a second year. I spent as much time as I could researching potential areas and once allowed, headed out to explore them so I could be ready to photograph them once the awakening had started.
Fujifilm XT2 | XF18-55mm | 41mm | 0.5 Seconds | f/8 | ISO200
While researching potential locations, I came across this small woodland just 15 minutes’ drive from home. I initially discovered it on the Surrey Wildlife Trust website. The Wildlife Trust do important work here in the UK to protect the local wildlife through active engagement and education and websites like theirs are a great source of knowledge to find areas with particular types of wildlife when scouting photography locations.
When I first scouted the woodland back in early March, the trees were still bare but all over the ground, I noticed the green leaves of bluebells starting to sprout. Bluebells have a particularly thick, grass-like leaf and with the woodland floor smothered in them like a vibrant green carpet, I knew I had a great location close to home where I could keep coming back to during spring. When I took this photo, the Bluebells were still around a week from being at their peak but as I wandered amongst the trees, I spotted this picturesque scene with bluebells in the foreground, with a small, dried-up brook in the mid-ground that subtly leads the eye towards the background and those new, vibrant leaves backlit by the morning sun.
Thankfully, I could get to the spot where I took this picture without disturbing a single Bluebell as I know how fragile these flowers can be. The UK woodlands is home to around 50% of the global population of Bluebells and like many woodland flowers, if you tread on them, they may not grow back again next year which is why they are a protected species under the Wildlife and Countryside Act. They really are a national treasure.
I carefully placed my tripod on the ground, avoiding any flowers and mounted my Fujifilm XT2 and 18-55mm lens on top. To give the colours a slight boost and to take a small amount of the glare off the leaves, I mounted my circular polariser filter onto the end of the lens and with the settings dialled in, I manually focused and took the shot.
Overall, I’m happy with the final image, although I think it would be stronger and a little less busy without the trees on the far left and bottom right but this is woodland photography and although it’s part of the challenge to create a visually pleasing photo, you often have to embrace the chaos nature presents to you. I’ve quickly learned that if you strive for a perfect composition while photographing the woodland, you will quickly be disappointed.
Until next week.
Trevor
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.
Chaotic Rhythm | Weekly Photo #97
A photo taken in a foggy woodland I recently discovered close to where I live.
This week, whilst waiting for what seems like forever for spring to get out of first gear in my favourite woodlands, I spent some time taking photos down on the Sussex Coast. I’ve paid a couple of visits to my favourite lighthouse at Beachy Head and also photographed the rolling South Downs hills at sunrise. I’m yet to process these photos, in fact, as I write this, they’re still in the camera but you can be sure I’ll be sharing one or two of them here in the future.
Fujifilm XT2 | XF55-200mm | 61mm | 1/60th Second | f/9 | ISO800
A few weeks ago, I was researching some local woodlands, on the hunt for some new locations to capture the spring colours and while browsing the Woodland Trust website, I came across a relatively small (155 acre) area of wood, only a hop, skip and a jump from where I live. Being so close and situated on the side of a hill along the North Downs in a designated area of outstanding natural beauty (AONB) I had all the reasons I needed to pay this woodland a visit with my camera.
Top Tip: When researching locations to photograph I picked up a great tip from another photographer so I thought I would share it here. Use Bing Maps when scouting locations in the UK (sorry to my international readers). Although Google Maps/Earth are fantastic tools, what Bing Maps has that Google doesn’t is the option to overlay an Ordnance Survey map on the location you are scouting. This was a game-changer for me as I could now see information such as public footpaths, permissive pathways, nature reserves and importantly, public vs private woodlands which is not always obvious when out in the field. So, if you often find yourself scouting possible photo spots or just new locations to explore, make sure to add Bing Maps to your toolkit.
Fast forward a few days after discovering this new woodland and with a foggy morning forecasted, I took the short drive over to explore this new location. Even if all the usual indicators predict fog, you never really know if it’ll happen until you get on location but every now and then it all comes together and the fog rolls in and this was thankfully one of those times.
With the colours of spring yet to appear and being surrounded by fog, the woodland had a grey, subdued tone about it, but as I walked along the path, I noticed a vibrant green area in amongst the trees, so I wandered over to investigate. The green area turned out to be a carpet of mossy grass that was surrounding the base of these fantastic trees which appeared to twist and turn in all different directions, overlapping each other as they worked their way up towards the light. I wish I could tell you what kind of trees these are but I’ve tried and failed to identify them myself (feel free to educate me in the comments) but as I got closer, they struck a chord with me and I knew there was a photo here somewhere.
I was drawn to how their seemingly random, almost chaotic lines created this natural rhythm throughout the scene and having the fog was fantastic as it simplified the composition, allowing the trees in the foreground to stand out while softening the trees further back so they could still add to the story but not in a way that unsettled the balance of the image.
It took me a few minutes to find the best place to set up the tripod and with the space to step back without obscuring the view, I decided on my 55-200mm telephoto lens. By moving away and then zooming back in on the scene, I was able to isolate this group of trees and avoid the brighter sky which would have only been a distraction. With the camera set up and the settings dialled in, I took the shot. I’m not sure this composition will be everyone’s cup of tea as at first glance, it can seem rather messy but to me, there is a flow throughout the image and with the texture on the trees and the vibrant colour on the ground, I really like it.
You may have noticed I had the ISO set to 800 which I only noticed when I was back home on the computer, but if you are thinking this was a mistake on my part, you will be absolutely right. Beng on a tripod and with no action to freeze, there was no reason for the ISO to be set that high but thankfully, cameras these days are so good, it made no noticeable difference to the final image.
I’ve since explored this woodland even further and found a few other areas with some great potential so I just need to wait for the right conditions and look forward to getting back there with my camera sometime soon.
Until next week.
Trevor
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.
A View of Everything in the Surrey Hills
The Surrey Hills are beautiful and Newlands Corner has some stunning views. In this post I am in there taking panoramic images of this quite stunning location.
In the last few weeks, I have once again been out and about in my local area. This time I visited the quite beautiful Newlands Corner in the Surrey Hills which has spectacular views across the south of England. Normally, quite a busy place with hikers, dog walkers, families etc. I headed off at the crack of dawn to grab the best light of the day and at just after 7 am, when the sun rises at this time of year, I had the whole place to myself.
Even though Newlands Corner has these stunning views, it can still be difficult to translate these beautiful, imposing panoramic views into images that can be viewed on screen or printed that have the same breath-taking wonder felt when standing there, soaking up the stunning vistas. One of the best ways to do this is to create panoramic images made up of multiple, individual shots.
Now, I could have just rocked up with my Fuji X-T10 camera and 10-24mm wide angle lens and captured the entire scene in one shot., packed up and headed for breakfast. On top of this, there would have been far less post-processing involved so all round a significant time saver. There is nothing wrong with using a wide angle for capturing landscapes, I use mine, all of the time, especially when capturing some close-up foreground interest in the frame but one thing wide angles do is make distant subjects very small which actually prevents them from adding anything to the picture's composition, almost ceasing to exist in the shot.
I wanted the 2 trees in the middle of the closest field to be present in the image and not thrown into insignificance somewhere in the background and the only way to do this was to use a longer focal length but then I would be zoomed in too close and not capture much of the rest of the scene. This is when creating a panoramic comes in.
Panorama is a combination of two Greek words, "pan" and "horama" which literally means "a view of everything".
With the camera affixed to the tripod and in portrait mode, I proceeded to pan the camera from right to left, taking 8 or 9 images each time, allowing around 30% overlap to make sure I would have no issues stitching them all together in Adobe Lightroom. It is probably worth noting here that you need a bit of grunt in your computer when stitching so many images as the resulting file sizes are huge and it would be a slow process on older hardware.
The first two images below were taken with the 18-55mm lens at 55mm and 52mm respectively. I wanted to capture some of the subtle, pastel-like colours in the sky created by the sun as it was just appearing on the horizon off to the left of the shot.
Fujifilm X-T10 | XF18-55mm | 55mm | 1/6th Sec | f/10 | ISO200
Another advantage of creating these panoramic stitcher photos is that the resulting image sizes are pretty huge. All of the examples in this post are between 49 and 55 megapixels and that's after some cropping in post-production. What that actually means, in reality, is that I can make 1 meter wide prints at 300dpi without any kind of enlarging techniques used. Hanging on the wall, a print at that size with that much detail is quite something.
Fujifilm X-T10 | XF18-55mm | 52mm | 1/8th Sec | f/22 | ISO200
For the last image below, I used the 55-200mm lens at a focal length of 100mm so I could emphasise the trees further in the composition. The sun was a little higher now and the warm light was casting a glow across the scene creating a nice atmosphere in the resulting image.
One more benefit of using a longer focal length that should not be overlooked which works well with a shot like this is the compression effect you can see as the different layers in the shot (in this case the hills) are pulled forward creating a real feeling of both depth and intimacy. You won't get this kind of look with a wide-angle lens.
Fujifilm X-T10 | XF55-200mm | 100mm | 1/25th Secs | f/8 | ISO200
Being a landscape photographer is in part about trying and adopting different techniques and using these to capture the shot you intended and visualised while out on location. Panoramic images are nothing new and I have used them for my shots of London as you can see here but it is still and will continue to be a valuable tool in the arsenal of any landscape photographer.