Golden Contours | Weekly Photo #111
The South Downs which stretches across three counties, from Eastbourne in East Sussex, through West Sussex, all the way to Winchester in Hampshire provides some of the best views in southern England. It’s a relatively flat part of the country so, apart from a stretch of high coastal cliffs in East Sussex, it doesn’t boast what I would call dramatic views, the kind of which you find in other parts of the country such as the Lake District to the north or the Jurassic Coast to the west in Dorset. What it does have is rolling, picturesque hills, charming villages, and ancient woodlands and being right on my doorstep, most of it within an hour’s drive, it’s certainly a place I like to visit with my camera from time to time.
Fujifilm XT2 | XF55-200mm | 67mm | 1/80th Second | f/10 | ISO200
After a great tip and a bit of scouting, back in April this year, a fellow tog called Phil and I took an early morning trip to the South Downs to photograph this stunning landscape. I’d seen a photo of this scene with those fabulous contouring hills on social media and immediately fell in love with it, so I made it my mission to find out where it was taken and get myself down there for a sunrise shoot as soon as I could.
We arrived before sunrise and the scene, albeit still nice to look at, was quite flat so we found our spot and began to set up the camera so we would be ready when that highly anticipated golden light arrived. With it being an unseasonably cold morning, we were thankful we didn’t have to wait too long. As the sun rose above the horizon, it soon became clear that timing was going to be everything as we would need to wait long enough for the light to start to appear in the right places down in the valley but not too long so that there was too much light and those all-important shadows were gone.
Soon enough it came together and that look we were after started to unveil itself in front of us. There is a lot going on here, but I love the way those beautiful rolling hills intertwine as they meet, creating fantastic layers and a cool zigzag pattern through the scene. I also love the windmill over in the distance to the right of the scene. It’s so small but I feel it does an important job to add a point of interest into the composition. Oh, and I love the sheep too!
In terms of composition, I had to be careful that I didn’t include too many of the trees in the small woodland to the right-hand side. Including more would add too much weight on that side, but any less and I would have introduced too much of the empty fields and featureless sky on the left, again creating an imbalance to the composition. I also decided to use the shadow at the very bottom of the frame to my advantage. It may not be immediately obvious, but it’s adding balance by mirroring the similar shape of the large hill in the background. As I said before, there is a lot going on, but I think it all works well together.
After photographing this impressive vista, I zoomed right in with my telephoto lens to capture some abstract photos featuring the impressive lines and shapes on offer and when the best light was gone, the shoot was over and we packed up and headed back to the cars.
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.