Late Summer | Weekly Photo #72
London has been my main focus of photography for a number of years now so photographing the natural landscape without an architectural focal point is all a bit new to me. I’m rediscovering nature again and trying to work out the best time to photograph the seasonal changes and seek out local places that have photographic potential is a challenge, to say the least, but one I’m certainly enjoying.
Fujifilm XT2 | XF10-24mm | 18mm | 1/50th Second | f/10 | ISO200
Although there’s not much in the way of dramatic landscape locations down here in the relatively flat South-East corner of the UK, there’s still plenty of places for me to explore and take photos. There’s one particular place I’ve visited far more than any other and that’s the Ashdown Forest in Sussex. This beautiful area made up of part heathland and part woodland has an abundance of places to explore and is where I took this photo during a sunrise shoot a few weeks ago.
It took me a couple of trips into the forest before I got the right conditions for the shot I was after and when I did, it all came together with a cracking sunrise and some atmospheric mist across the low-lying ground. It’s not perfect as I had a few challenges, in particular, where to stand to get the best composition. You will probably notice the green fern in the foreground. I could have waded into the heather a little so it wouldn’t feature in the frame but I didn’t want to damage the wildlife (leave it how you found it!). I also would have preferred the sun slightly further away from the right edge of the frame but if I shifted the camera any further to the right, then the brighter area of mist down in the valley would be too close to the left edge. I couldn’t really win and as the sun had already cleared the horizon, time was not on my side and I had to take the shot. Although it’s not technically perfect and I had to compromise somewhat, I still really like the atmospheric mood and gorgeous light in the photo.
I used a wide-angle 10-24mm lens to take this photo and although this gave me lots of depth of field, being so close and focusing on the heather rendered the background soft and out of focus. To get a sharp image from front to back, I had to focus bracket this shot. While using all manual settings (exposure, aperture, ISO, white balance) I took three exposures, the first focused on the foreground, the second towards the middle of the frame and the last focused on the background. Later, in Photoshop, I used the “Auto-blend Layers” option to focus stack the three layers together to create this single image which is sharp from front to back.
It’s great to be out in the natural landscape, relaxing, recharging and keeping active and it doesn’t get much better than on mornings like this when the conditions are just beautiful. With Autumn just about to kick in, I’m looking forward to getting out there with the camera to see what photos I can take and as ever, if I capture anything worth sharing, I’ll post it here soon enough.
Check out a couple of recent blog posts featuring photos taken in the Ashdown Forest.
On Location Photographing Ashdown Forest with the XF23mm F2
Forest Bliss | Weekly Photo #58
Until next time.
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.