Cold and Alone | Weekly Photo #113
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.