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Tree Tunnel | Weekly Photo #122
The ancient Halnaker Holloway
This beautiful tunnel of trees is Mill Lane, located in Halnaker, a medieval hamlet in West Sussex. This footpath formed part of an ancient track along Stane Street, a Roman road between Chichester and London.
People have been walking along this route for centuries and it’s due to that footfall and heavy carts being pulled along the road over hundreds of years that the road has sunk, creating this timeless, mystical looking holloway you can see here.
Fujifilm XT2 | XF55-200mm | 181mm | 1/50th Second | f/3.5 | ISO1000
Knowing about this enchanting path for some time, in October last year, I finally got in the car and drove down to Halnaker to walk this path and visit the Windmill at the top of the hill. I left it as late in the year as I dared to give me the best chance of catching the golden autumnal leaves as they surrounded the path, but as you can see, I was probably a week or two early as the leaves hadn’t fully turned. In hindsight though, I was right to go when I did and you will read why shortly.
Weatherwise it was predominantly raining but the clouds were moving fast and every now and then the sun broke through and sent some of it’s gorgeous warm light through the trees, illuminating individual sections of the tunnel and when the light hit landed in the right place further down the path, a focal point appeared and the composition came together beautifully.
As I stood there towards the end of the tunnel, in between taking photos or cover from the rain, I found myself deep in thought, thinking about the ancient road, the people that would have walked it over the years going all the way back to Roman times. It was strange feeling nostalgic for a time I was never a part of but I got a real sense of the history here which, assuming this path survives for generations to come, I guess in a small way, I’m now a part of.
It was getting a bit later in the morning and having already taken a few photos without anyone on the path, it was starting to see a bit more footfall and amongst the few people out for their morning walk, this man walking his dogs caught my attention. Together, they looked at home in this rural scene so I decided to photograph them walking through the tunnel of trees. I didn’t have much time so I pre-focused on a point further down the path where the sunlight was shining through and I waited for them to arrive there, keeping my fingers crossed the light hung around for the few extra seconds I needed to take the photo.
I was already working hard to keep my shutter speed on the faster side as I was trying to avoid too many blurry leaves as they moved in the wind but it was pretty dark down there so I had to open my aperture as wide as this lens would go to let in as much light as possible and with an ISO of 1000, I managed to get it down to 1/50th of a second which was just about ok to keep the man and his dogs acceptably sharp.
Thankfully the light remained in the right spot and with my settings dialled in, it all came together and I took the shot you can see here.
As I mentioned before, it was still a little early in the season to catch those vibrant autumnal colours but shortly after this day, we had long periods of wind and rain and the moment the leaves turned yellow, they were blown off the trees. So, in hindsight, I’m glad I went there when I did as it turns out that was probably as good as I was going to get last year.
With the colours of autumn around the corner, I will probably visit again in a few weeks and I’m keeping my fingers firmly crossed for milder weather so that the leaves can hang on just a little bit longer for me.
Until next Monday.
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.
Woodland Brook | Weekly Photo #121
A late spring woodland scene I photographed in my local forest
Before I get stuck in with this week’s photo, a bit of housekeeping. I know urban cityscape photography doesn’t particularly fit the woodland theme of this week’s photo but nevertheless and as promised, I published the first of my two-part blog which covered a photo walk I took in London a week or two ago. In part one, I take a walk along the Thames with my single camera and 23mm lens combo during a beautiful sunrise where I was gifted some wonderful golden light. Just hit the link or click on the thumbnail below to read the post, after this one of course :-)
I’ll be posting part two over the next week where I will be sharing how I configure the presets on my Fujifilm camera so, with one quick turn of a dial, my expose settings are set and I can focus on taking pictures without having to adjust the settings for each photo. And no, it’s not set to auto…hehe. Keep an eye out for that post on my blog here.
Fujifilm XT2 | XF10-24mm | 15mm | 1/5th Second | f/8 | ISO320
Back in late Spring, I went for a walk in my local forest in a bid to capture some of the vibrant spring greens at a location I had come across on a previous visit some months before. On that previous occasion, I followed the same path along this brook during a cold, foggy morning and took this photo here which I called Cascading Brook.
Coming across this spot along the river I liked that there was a bit of foreground interest with the small waterfall and exposed roots on the near bank. The bend in the stream also worked well as it leads the eye around the frame, finishing at the fallen tree in the background which acts as a bit of a focal point, framed by the more conventional but equally important upright trees to the left and right of it.
Having only visited once before where the wintry woodland was expectedly dormant, I didn’t know how much life there would be on this occasion and although the woodland floor was still quite bare, there was still enough vibrancy in the fresh leaves to help tell the story of the time of year this photo was taken.
I perched the tripod right on the edge of the brook and mounted my wide-angle 10-24mm lens on the camera. I needed the wider focal length so I could include both the small cascade in the foreground and the fallen tree in the background without them being too close to the edge of the frame. Once my composition was right, I mounted my circular polarizing filter which I knew would cut some of the reflections from the water and add more pop to those already vibrant green leaves.
Back in Lightroom, I followed my usual workflow but in addition, I softened the image a little by reducing the clarity as I felt the overall look of the photo was too sharp and crisp for my taste. I also wanted to reduce the reddish tones in the rusty looking water as it was too distracting. I did this using an adjustment brush, selecting just the water and simply reduced the saturation in that area.
Having visited the woodland a few times in the last couple of weeks, I’ve noticed the leaves are now starting to turn, which means just one thing. Autumn colours are just around the corner so, I’m sure I’ll be busy in the coming weeks exploring the autumnal woodlands with my camera and if I take anything I like, I’ll be sure to share it sometime 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.
A London Photo Walk Part One | Sunrise
The first in my two-part blog post showcasing the photos I took during a sunrise photo walk in London
A few weeks ago, I posted on my Weekly Photo blog that I was in a bit of a creative slump. Although I was putting the same amount of effort in, the photos I was taking were often average and my keeper rate was really low. I needed to change things up a bit.
I’ve been enjoying photographing the landscapes and woodlands around Sussex and Surrey over the last year to 18 months but I was sorely missing my regular trips into London. So, with the city now opening up again and, in an attempt to shake free from this state where I lacked creative inspiration, I got up early and caught the first train into the city.
Like many landscape photographers, when I head out with the camera, I tend to take a full camera bag with me. It holds my wide, standard and telephoto zoom lenses, my batteries, filters, tripod, etc. Needless to say, it gets a little heavy and although I don’t normally mind lugging it around with me, I do on occasion like to shed the load, taking just a small camera and lens out with me and that’s exactly what I did for this photo walk.
Armed with my small Fujifilm X-T30 and 23mm f/2 prime lens, I left the train at London Bridge and headed over towards the river, stopping along the way to grab a shot of the view along the walkway, flanked by buildings that frame Tower Bridge at the end.
I spent some time taking pictures around More London Estate using the lines, shapes and even reflections on offer there. The light was just piercing through the thin clouds creating a soft, hazy light, which is right up my street. I personally struggle when the contrast in scenes is too strong and much prefer to photograph in softer light which, if you follow either my urban or natural landscape work, you’ll probably see it as a theme throughout.
Having taken a few photos close to Tower Bridge at More London, a wandered west along the river towards London Bridge which hosts one of my favourite views of this fine city. I can rarely pass this spot without hopping up onto the bridge to take a photo and this was no exception. With this beautiful defused golden light illuminating this iconic view, there was no way I was going to walk on by without taking the photo.
Paying close attention to the position of HMS Belfast in relation to Tower Bridge, I made sure to line it up centrally between the towers to avoid any overlapping, keeping that area clean, ensuring the recognisable silhouette stood out over there in the distance.
I also had a decision to make regarding the exposure. With the bright sun just off to the left of this scene below, I chose to expose for the highlights, allowing them to clip just a little in the brightest area close to the sun rendering the overall photo a little underexposed which I knew could be sorted out later in post. With the sun being the brightest thing you’ll ever see, allowing it to clip (render white in the photo) is ok in my book as long as it looks natural.
With this shot in the bag, I went on my way, continuing along the river towards Tate Modern and the Millennium Bridge.
I spent some time taking some pictures of the various views to be had from Bankside, just in front of the famous Tate Modern Museum. With the sun rising quickly, I was conscious that the light may soon become too harsh so I upped my pace a little, crossing the Millennium Bridge towards St Paul’s Cathedral as I continued to find and photograph the various compositions, some classic, others unique (to me) as I went.
After crossing the bridge, reaching the north bank of the river, I took advantage of the low tide and went down to the riverside where I took some more photos looking east towards The Shard and all of that gorgeous light.
Finishing up for the morning and part one of this London photo walk, I ended up on Queen Victoria Street which is just along the road from St Paul’s Cathedral. This spot provides a great view of the city near Bank station with 22 Bishopsgate towering in the background.
Along with the photos I took during a sunset walk along the Thames, in part two of this blog, I’ll be sharing how I set up my camera for shoots like this so I can focus on taking pictures rather than camera settings.
Stay tuned!
Trevor.
Urban Gold | Weekly Photo #120
The iconic view from London Bridge taken during a golden sunrise
Last week, after feeling a little uninspired with my photography, I decided to leave my heavy bag at home and head into London, a city I love to photograph and walk my favourite route along the Thames. Taking with me my Fujifilm X-T30 camera and 23mm f/2 prime lens, I took a walk with this lightweight setup along the South Bank from Tower Bridge to the Tate Modern museum and then across to St Paul’s.
It’s such a popular stretch of the river and I’ve photographed it hundreds of times, taking in the iconic views as well as seeking out some of the less obvious angles and vantage points. During this visit, I headed out before and after work, walking in opposite directions snapping away as I went. I ended up with quite a few photos that day and I’ve decided to share some of them across two on-location blog posts over the next week or two. So, keep an eye out for those.
Fujifilm X-T30 | XF23mm F2 | 23mm | 1/280th Second | f/5.6 | ISO160
Starting off at More London, near Tower Bridge, I wandered along the river and absolutely couldn’t pass by London Bridge without hopping on and photographing this famous view of Tower Bridge and HMS Belfast. I’ve shared a couple of photos from here in previous weekly photo blogs. Read more about them by selecting clicking on one of the photos below.
#55 FOGGY LONDON
#64 LONDON’S BURNING
There was a slight haze in the air and with the sun being up for around 45 minutes, it was just high enough to cast this beautifully defused golden light across the scene. It was just magical to witness and with the relative pre-rush our quiet, I was reminded why this is by far my favourite time to be in the city.
In terms of composition, I like the texture in the water far more than the featureless sky, so I placed the horizon in the upper half of the frame to avoid including too much empty space. I also paid close attention to the position of HMS Belfast in relation to Tower Bridge, making sure it lined up centrally between the towers to avoid any overlapping, keeping that area clean and ensure it stood out over there in the distance.
Next, the exposure. I decided not to bracket any of my photos as I wanted to keep things nice and simple during this photo outing so with the bright sun just off to the left of this scene, I focused on the highlights, allowing them to clip just a little in the brightest area close to the sun rendering the overall photo a little underexposed which could be sorted out later in post. With the sun being the brightest thing you’ll ever see, allowing it to clip (render white in the photo) is ok in my book as long as it looks natural.
With the composition and exposure all set, I took the shot.
As I mentioned, I have a bunch of photos from my day in London that I plan to share this week but, in the meantime, here’s a post from last year when I took my small Fujifilm X-T30 camera and 35mm prime combo out, following a similar route along the Thames at sunrise.
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.
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.
Veterans | Weekly Photo #118
A group of veteran trees illuminated by the misty light on the edge of a woodland
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
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.
Into The Void | Weekly Photo #117
An atmospheric look-up photo taken in a foggy City of London.
Boy, do I miss spending time in London. I’ve visited a handful of times in the last few months but nowhere near as much as I’d like. This is predominantly due to the various lockdowns and restrictions we’ve all been subject to but more recently, while I’ve had the freedom to venture into the city, I’ve chosen to focus my photography (excuse the pun!) on woodland and the natural landscape.
At first, this was due to necessity as I either needed to find something else to take photos of or I stopped altogether until this whole saga has blown over, but I’ve since grown increasingly fond of this new subject and although I’m not going to stop photographing London in the long term, I feel I still have lots more to do and improve upon while out taking photos in the woodland or along the Sussex coast.
Fujifilm XT2 | XF10-24mm | 10mm | 1/35th Second | f/10 | ISO200
This is a photo of London I’d been after for a while. I wanted to take a look up-photo of the high-rise buildings in the city on a foggy day and I actually came really close to getting it when I took this picture here back in March 2020. Unfortunately, on that day I wasn’t quick enough and the fog lifted as I was making my way into the city, but later the same year, it all came together.
After arriving in a foggy London at sunrise (although the sun was nowhere to be seen), I started off on London Bridge. I knew time was against me, but I just couldn’t resist spending a few minutes taking some atmospheric photos along the River Thames before heading into the city to capture that picture I had been hunting down for so long. You can see some of those photos in the blog post I’ve shared below.
Once on location and surrounded by these architectural giants, it was time to hastily set up the camera before the fog started to lift even further. I spread the tripod as low to the ground as possible and mounted my Fujifilm XT2 camera with a wide-angle 10-24mm lens. By getting as low as I could along with using the wide-angle lens, I could include as much of the surrounding buildings as possible, elongating those lines that draw the attention from the corners, all the way up and into the misty void above. I rotated the camera around, purposely placing the buildings into the corners which provided a much better composition to my eye.
With the camera so close to the ground, pointing directly up, even with an articulated screen, I had to get down low, almost laying down next to the camera to see what I was photographing. This is where having the Fujifilm X-series comes into its own as all of the main camera controls can be accessed through the analogue dials rather than digging through menus so even in awkward positions like this, I could still adjust my settings with relative ease. I must have looked a sight to the early commuters passing by as they headed into the surrounding offices but sometimes you’ve just got to ignore the strange looks when the photo you’ve been chasing for so long is on the cards.
I like the contrast offered by the darker foreground set against the bright foggy sky and along with the almost monochromatic look of the photo, it has a bit of a high key black and white feel to it which I think works quite well. My only real complaint (which I could do very little about) is the empty space up in the top left. I would have liked that building to be taller to help fill the space and add balance, but you can’t win them all!
As I mentioned above, I took a handful of photos while out in London on that foggy November morning and I shared more of them in this “on location” blog post I wrote below.
Whilst I’m still almost exclusively working from home, I suspect I will continue exploring and photographing the natural landscape but I suspect it won’t be long before I am needed back in the London office more regularly and I think it’s then that I will be back photographing the city more often, hopefully bringing with me some of the new skills and techniques I’ve picked up during this extended hiatus.
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.
Clifton Bridge | Weekly Photo #115
An exposure and time blended image of the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol.
Last year, I spent a long weekend with my family and close friends in Bristol which, for those not familiar with where that is, it’s a city in the southwest of England. Although it was a family trip, I did manage to sneak out with the “proper camera” a couple of times, one being to photograph the famous Clifton Suspension Bridge. Being a spur of the moment decision to head out, leaving no time to plan, this Grade I listed building, a symbol of Bristol often seen on postcards was an obvious choice.
Fujifilm XT2 | XF18-55mm | 20mm | 8 Seconds | f/10 | ISO200
Once parked and on location, I hunted around for a good vantage point and eventually went with this one here which places the Clifton Tower on the left-hand third with the bridge deck heading off into the distance across the Avon Gorge. With what would end up as the best light fast approaching, I hastily set up my tripod and camera and carefully lined up my composition. With so much dynamic range between the bright cloudless sky on the horizon and the dark shadows down the gorge, I needed to bracket the exposures to make sure I captured as much detail as possible, which I could then blend together later in post.
As I stood there firing off the shutter, it dawned on me that nothing was crossing the bridge. Not one car or pedestrian had crossed in the 10 or so minutes I’d been standing there. It turns out I had picked the perfect time to photograph the bridge free of vehicle and foot traffic as it was closed for routine maintenance. What a stroke of luck!
Although the final photo looked ok, there’s actually a lot more going un under the hood. Not only is this a bracketed exposure blend, but it’s also a time blend, as after I’d merged the 3 bracketed exposures together and finished up with the edit, the photo was still looking a bit flat and to my eyes, was missing a finishing touch. That’s where the time blend comes in.
Back on location and not long after I took the three bracketed photos, the light levels dipped and the streetlights on the bridge turned on. During this time I had continued to shoot, keeping the camera in the exact same spot meaning I could seamlessly blend the lights into the bracketed exposure I took a few minutes before which worked really well and injected a touch of much-needed life into the final image.
During this trip to Bristol, I made one other trip out with the camera and paid an early morning visit to Burnham-on-Sea to photograph the well-known lighthouse on the beach. Although the tide was out, I had some beautiful sunrise conditions with some pastel magenta colours in the sky. I’ll be posting that photo here very 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.
Museum Ship | Weekly Photo #114
HMS Belfast against the backdrop of London at sunrise
I’ve mentioned before that when I take photos of subjects that look like they have a story to tell, I almost always do a little research to learn more about their history. I say “almost always” as I’ve photographed HMS Belfast numerous times and shared one or two photos of her on this blog but this is the first time I’ve gone to the effort of actually reading up on this Town-class light cruiser’s epic journey, from her launch in 1938, her life in the Royal Navy to eventually docking here, along the Thames in 1971 and seeing out her retirement as a floating war museum.
You may notice I refer to HMS Belfast as “she” or “her”, here’s why: https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/why-do-ships-have-a-gender
HMS Belfast: A very brief history.
After her launch, HMS Belfast was almost immediately thrust into action after the outbreak of the Second World War. In 1939, she was struck by a German mine and was seriously considered being scrapped, however, there was a change of heart and she sat out of the war for 2+ years while receiving extensive repair and upgrades to firepower, radar and armour and off she went again in 1942 to play her part. Involved in operations to escort convoys to the Soviet Union and playing an important role in the Battle of North Cape, arguably her most notable involvement was in the 1944 Operation Overlord where she supported the famous Normandy Landings.
After seeing out the Second World War in the Pacific and later involved in the Korean War in the early ’50s, HMS Belfast was put in reserve in 1963. The warship’s final battle was for her own survival as in 1968 the government decided to scrap the ageing warship. Thankfully, after much negotiation, in 1971 the ship was eventually handed over to the HMS Belfast Trust and moved to this spot along the River Thames and opened up to the public. HMS Belfast became a branch of the Imperial War Museum in 1978 and to this date remains one of the more popular tourist attractions in London.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Belfast
Fujifilm X-T30 | XF18-55mm | 20mm | 3.7 Seconds | f/11 | ISO160
It was a fantastic morning for photography in London. From the moment I got off the train and walked over to More London, I knew there was potential for some nice sunrise cityscapes of London. I spent some time over there photographing Tower Bridge using one of the sculptures that belonged to the “Full Stop” art installation as a foreground. You can see the final result of that photo and more about the art installation here: London “Full Stop”.
Finished at More London, I walked west along the Thames to this spot, which provides a great view of 3 London icons, Tower Bridge, The Tower of London, and HMS Belfast. At this point, the sun had risen and although there was still plenty of cloud about, some sunlight was shining through and lighting up the side of the ship, helping it to stand out amongst the shadows in the foreground and be the main point of interest in the composition.
I was travelling light that morning, with only my Fujifilm X-T30 camera, 18-55mm standard zoom lens and screw-in 10-stop ND filter and my small Manfrotto Pixi tabletop tripod (see all of my camera gear here). I used the 10-stop filter to smooth the water a little and the small tripod rested on the ground to keep the camera steady.
Shooting fully manual as I usually do in these situations, I dialled in the aperture and shutter speed, keeping the exposure as bright as possible to bring out the details in those dark shadows but at the same time being careful not to blow out the highlights (also called exposing to the right or ETTR), I went ahead and took the shot.
Sunrise is by far and away my favourite time to be in London with my camera but during the summer, it gets light long before my train arrives in the city so it will be a few months before I get to experience it once again and I can’t wait!
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.
Among Giants | Weekly Photo #112
A young vibrant sapling beech tree dwarfed by the tall Scots Pine Trees.
During the winter, while most deciduous trees have shed their leaves, young saplings will often keep hold of theirs throughout the colder months to help protect them against the harsh weather. With most of the woodland’s colour long gone over winter, these often-vibrant young trees add a much-needed splash of colour and help to break up the monotonous wintry woodland tones.
Fujifilm XT2 | XF55-55mm | 74mm | 1/3rd Second | f/8 | ISO200
Back in February, I set off into the cold, wintry woodland with my camera to photograph a clump of tall Scots Pines which I’d scouted on a previous visit. I wanted to capture an arrangement of clean straight tree trunks and Scots Pines, being incredibly tall and straight are perfect for that kind of woodland composition.
Following a woodland path, surrounded by these evergreen giants, a bright orange snippet of colour caught my eye so I went to check it out. I found it to be this young sapling beech tree with the orange colour being the golden autumnal leaves it was still holding on to. The young beech which was only a few feet tall, dwarfed by the pines and it stood out in the grey, foggy woodland providing a clear focal point amongst the tall straight trunks which were giving me the uniform lines I originally came out to photograph. I had my first composition of the day so, I unpacked the camera to take the photo.
Up went the tripod and on to it went my Fujifilm XT2 and 55-200mm telephoto lens and critically for this photo, my circular polariser (CPL) filter. I spoke about using my CPL and the benefits it can bring to my photos in a recent post where I was out photographing the wild garlic and this was another situation where the filter’s ability to cut through the reflective light massively benefited the final image as it gave those oranges an extra bit of punch, helping that young sapling to stand out in the scene.
If you’re a landscape photographer, be it wide vistas, woodland or even urban cityscapes, and don’t have a CPL filter in your bag, I urge you to get one as it can add something special to your photo which cannot be replicated in post.
Cheers,
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.
Golden Contours | Weekly Photo #111
The rolling hills of the South Downs National Park in Sussex
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.
More Colour | Weekly Photo #110
A photo of the vivid colours at More London and The Shard taken at blue hour in London.
Around this time last year, while the dreaded restrictions had been temporarily relaxed here in England, I spent a few hours exploring a very quiet London with my camera. With my small 16mm F2.8 prime lens loaded onto the camera, I was traveling light and with a few hours to kill, I took a wander around the city, camera in hand to see what pictures I could find.
As you can see in the two photos above, it was a clear, sunny day, so I looked for interesting compositions while trying to minimise how much of that bright blue sky was in the frame. By the time I took the second two photos below, the sun had gone down, so the light was much softer, almost pastel-like. Those that follow my work more closely will know that the softer, less contrasty scenes like these two below are right up my street.
As I arrived back at More London, I noticed how the lights at the tip of the Shard were a pale blue colour and it was then that I ended up taking my favourite photo of the day I named “Beacon” which I have already shared in my Weekly Photos series here.
Fujifilm XT2 | XF16mm F2.8 | 16mm | 0.6 Seconds | f/9 | ISO200
After taking the photos close by the river, I decided to call it a night but as I was heading through More London Estate, towards the station, I once again found myself alone, staring up at this view of The Shard, flanked by the buildings that towered above me. I’ve seen this framed view of The Shard a thousand times before so it wasn’t that which caught my attention so much, it was the colours in the scene that held my attention long enough to get my camera back out of the bag to see if my 16mm prime lens could get the entire scene in the frame. After a quick check, I was just about in luck.
As I composed the image, I placed the Shard in the middle of the frame allowing all of those fantastic converging lines to surround it and lead the eye in and up towards the bright blue symbol of recognition of the brave people that continue to work so hard to help us through these tougher times. Playing close attention to the exposure, making sure I didn’t blow out the highlights and along with those vivid colours, I took the shot.
Having to point my camera upwards resulted in quite a lot of distortion to the vertical lines on the left and right which I needed to correct when back in Lightroom which pushed the tip of the Shard a bit too close to the top of the frame for my liking. Including a little less foreground and a little more sky or even stepping back 20-30 feet may have given me a little more room to play with but as they say, hindsight is a wonderful thing.
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.
Starry Day | Weekly Photo #109
Beachy Head Lighthouse reflecting in a pool of water.
Using a tripod is fundamental to the way I approach and take my photos. Tripods help me achieve the long exposures I take and they slow me down while out in the field, allowing me to frame and adjust the shot with ease but it doesn’t mean there aren’t any downsides. For instance, I have to be mindful that while out shooting landscapes, using a tripod can sometimes root me to one spot for too long, leading me to miss potential compositions I would have seen if I was to wander around a bit more. One way I try to mitigate this is to leave the tripod in the bag until I’ve properly scouted the area, making notes of the potential shots on offer to return to later. Another way is to take a second camera with me. I do this when the hike isn’t so long and the weight of my camera bag isn’t so critical. That way, I can leave my main camera on the tripod, maybe taking a long exposure, while I wander around with the second camera finding more unique compositions or dynamic angles which is exactly how I ended up taking this photo of Beachy Head lighthouse in East Sussex.
Fujifilm X-T30 | XF10-24mm | 10mm | 1/240th Second | f/4 | ISO400
It was a lovely evening along England’s south coast, the light was soft and had a nice look to it, so, with my main Fujifilm XT2 camera sitting on the tripod waiting for the best light to take this image (which I previously shared here: Beachy Head Lighthouse), I went for a short stroll with my Fujifilm X-T30 and 10-24mm lens to see what other compositions were on offer. What I like about being free from the tripod is that not only can I move around the scene more quickly, I can also drop down to ground level with ease, and by using the swivel screen on my camera, I can capture some unique angles I might never have seen if I was using a tripod and that’s how I found this composition here.
I was hunting for a pool of water to create a nice reflection of the lighthouse and with the wide-angle lens on, it didn’t have to be huge because I knew that if I was to get low to the ground, close to the edge of the water, the focal length would emphasise the foreground, making it appear bigger and after a few minutes of searching, I found this spot you can see here.
At first, it was all about finding a clean reflection, so I held the camera as close to the water as I could, placed the lighthouse on the right-hand third, leaving the rocks on the left to add a little balance to the composition. I took the shot and checked the back of the camera and all looked good. The light was subtle, highlighting the lighthouse nicely and the all-important reflections in the foreground looked really good.
It was only when I got the photo home and into Lightroom, I started to look at the foreground more closely and I just couldn’t shake how the details in the dark water reminded me of a starry night sky. It was almost as if the top half of the photo was taken during the day and the bottom half was taken at night. I love the contrast, and even tried flipping the photo upside down to see how it looked and it kind of worked that way up too!
I appreciate that not everyone will have a second camera to take out with them or would want the extra weight in their bag but nearly everyone has a camera on their phone which can be used in a similar way. Leaving the main camera on the tripod, take a wander around with your smartphone, lining up compositions and if you spot a winner, grab the main camera and take the photo. You never know, by taking this approach, you might just come away with the next addition to your portfolio.
Have a great 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.
Morning Mist | Weekly Photo #108
Some birch trees I photographed in a nearby forest during some special foggy conditions for woodland photography.
Dawn really is my favourite time of the day to be out with my camera. Whether I’m standing on the bank of the River Thames photographing the cityscape while the rest of London still sleeps or amongst the trees in my local woodland listening to the wildlife go about their morning business, just being there, in the moment makes those early morning alarms worthwhile.
That being said, getting up for sunrise at this time of year, when the days are at their longest and sunrise is at silly-o’clock takes every last bit of my will-power because when that alarm sounds at 3:30 am, I could just ignore it and stay in bed (and sometimes I do). But the mornings when I do get up and head out into the dark, camera in tow are the mornings where I’ve convinced myself that this might be the day, I get the conditions I long for. Which, just happened to be the case just the other week during a fantastic misty summer’s morning in the local forest.
Fujifilm XT2 | XF18-55mm | 18mm | 1/5th Second | f/8 | ISO250
All the signs pointed that I was in for some foggy conditions as I set my alarm for the following morning. After a few days of heavy rain, the humidity was up in the 90s, the dew point matched the temperature and only a light wind was expected. Sure, weather can be unpredictable and I’d been here before, anticipating some fantastic conditions for woodland photography, only to wake up to clear or uninspiring light. But every now and then, it all comes together and that was the case on this particular morning. So, off I went into the pre-dawn darkness to my local forest.
It was still dark as I arrived, but being familiar with the forest pays dividends on days like this as to save a bit of time, I made my way straight to a spot I’d previously scouted so when the light was good enough, I was already on location with the camera on the tripod, ready to take the picture.
After arriving and setting up my camera, I stopped and waited for the light levels to increase. After I’d finished messing with the gear, it all fell silent around me and only then did the forest come to life. I noticed the trees gently rustling in the wind, twigs falling to the floor next to me while the squirrels jumped from tree to tree and most of all, the sound of the birds waking up with their song.
I recorded the sound I could hear on my phone which you can play below. It’s by no means a professional job and I don’t have a microphone but it sounds ok to me. Whatever you’re doing, find a quiet place, press play and close your eyes for 60 seconds and just listen.
Beautiful, right? I find it so relaxing and it transports me back to the exact moment I was standing there taking it all in After the light levels increased, I took the photo and went on my way. I’ll share that one in the coming weeks.
With the conditions as good as they were, I had to be careful not to rush around like a headless chicken, trying to cram as many compositions in as possible. I had to remind myself to take it slow and seek out the very best compositions on offer. That being said, I had in my mind a scene I wanted to photograph, so I headed to the part of the forest mostly likely to deliver and after hunting for a good 45 minutes or more, I finally found what I was looking for.
I love the look of birch trees in the early summer months, surrounded by fresh green foliage complemented by these misty conditions. I’ve seen plenty of similar-looking photos from some of the woodland photographers I follow and have always wanted to photograph something similar, captured and processed in my own style. After stumbling on this arrangement of trees, I immediately knew there was a picture to be had here.
Out came my camera so I could move around, using the viewfinder to frame the best composition. I wanted the birch in the foreground to be the main focal point, allowing the trees in the background to play a supporting role and add some depth into the image. It was important to me that the colours of the rhododendrons were included on each side to break up the greens a little and add a subtle splash of colour, emphasising the late spring/early summer look I was after.
I find that using a circular polarizer filter in foggy conditions can sometimes lead to a flatter, lifeless photo so I chose not to use one here and instead allow what light there was to reflect from the plants and with my camera now on the tripod and the camera settings dialled in (18mm, f/8, 1/5th sec, ISO250) I took this shot.
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.
Vivid Vistas | Weekly Photo #106
A photo of the London Eye taken at night from Westminster Bridge
I have been taking cityscape photos of London for many years now and in that time, the night time view of the city from the Thames has been transformed by replacing the outdated orange street lights with new, modern light installations. Gone are the monotonous night time views of London, replaced with vibrant urban vistas which are more environmentally friendly to boot. Having photographed so many of these locations over the last 15 years or so, I decided to put together a list of what I consider my top ten night photography spots in London. Just like my other “top location” posts previously published, I also included some useful information to help plan a shoot such as the best time to go and if tripods can be used. Click here to read the blog, alternatively select the image below.
Towards the back end of last year, I took an early train into London with my camera and was greeted with some awesome foggy conditions. I spent a fantastic couple of hours walking around the city and taking photos along the way. I shared some of them in another blog post cunningly titled Photographing London in the Fog.
When the fog had finally lifted, I headed into the office for my day job but instead of heading home at the end of the day, I decided to walk along the River Thames to take a few nightscape photos in Westminster. With the modern lights adding colour to the city and with a relatively calm river providing some cracking reflections, I decided to get the camera out and capture some of the vivid riverside vistas on offer.
I took a number of photos as I wandered west, along the north side of the river, from Blackfriars to Westminster Bridge. The bend in the river near Waterloo Bridge provides the perfect vantage point to photograph the views looking both east towards the Shard and west towards the London Eye, so I spent a few minutes photographing in each direction before continuing along the river.
The next stop was directly in front of the London Eye. This one was a little trickier as not only did I have to carefully compose to avoid the boats and piers in the river, I also had the moon moving left to right directly behind it. My plan was to take two exposures, one for the scene and the other for the moon but however hard I tried, I could not get the moon to look right, and with the cloud constantly moving in front of it, there was no way I would be able to blend another exposure in seamlessly without it looking odd. It may well be a lack of Photoshop skills but I would much rather use the photo as is, rather than present a messy, badly blended version. It still looks ok, but it would be amazing with a sharp, well-exposed moon to the left of the London Eye. One for another day I suppose.
Fujifilm XT2 | XF10-24mm | 11mm | 13 Seconds | f/16 | ISO200
My last stop was Westminster Bridge. It was pretty busy as usual on there so I had no option but to close the tripod right down and precariously rest it on a small area of the bridge wall which was just about big enough for a retracted tripod. I made my way to the south side of the bridge and stopped at the exact spot where the vertical lines of the London Eye were aligned.
In keeping with the theme to include the lights reflecting in the water, I placed the horizon in the centre of the frame so both the London Eye and its reflection were mirroring each other. I still had my wide-angle 10-24mm lens on the camera and decided to stick with it as I liked how it pushed the London Eye deeper into the scene, providing lots of space to breathe around it. The street lights and their reflections along the south bank were creating a nice line to lead the eye into the shot and this was also being accentuated by the effect the wide lens was having. So, once I had the composition lined up exactly how I wanted, I dialled in the settings and took the photo.
Although the city lights along the Thames are a lot better now, much of the city still has the warm coloured street lights and London continues to emit an orange ambient glow which I am not a fan of in my images. So, back in post, I cooled down the white balance to help eliminate that and then went to work on the colours and tones until I had the photo exactly how I wanted.
I’m not really into astrophotography so when out in the natural landscape, photography stops for me when the sun goes down which is far from the case in London, so, I look forward to taking more urban nightscapes in the city later this year.
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.
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.
Low Tide | Weekly Photo #104
I’m fascinated by the remains of the West Pier which is why once again I took a trip down to Brighton in East Sussex to take this long exposure photo at sunset.
Once or twice a year, I take a visit down to England’s south coast and try to capture a new photo of the derelict remains of Brighton’s West Pier. There’s something about what’s left of this once grand Victorian structure that captivates me, drawing me back to photograph its skeletal frame, stripped of the ornate skin it once wore proudly.
How did the pier end up in this sorry state? After falling into disrepair, eventually closing to the public in the 1970s and suffering further damage during the storm of ‘87, it was eventually sold to the West Pier Trust who managed to secure funding for its restoration. In 2002, before the restoration could begin, the pier suffered further storm damage followed by two devastating fires in 2003, leading to the funding being withdrawn in 2004. Since this time, the structure is slowly being reclaimed by the sea.
Fujifilm XT2 | XF10-24mm | 10mm | 105 Seconds | f/9 | ISO200
When you're finished here, why not pop by and check out some of the other photos I took of the West Pier.
Last September, I decided to head down to the coast once again to photograph the West Pier at sunset. I prefer to photograph the structure at low tide as I can get a little closer and I like the way the fallen metal fragments look, scattered around the base of the pier. So, when planning the shoot, I was sure to check the tide times as well as the weather and when both were aligned, off I went to photograph the pier.
Every now and then the tide is so low that you can right out to the pier which just happened to be the case on this particular evening. When I arrived to take the shot, the beach was full of people enjoying the low tide and close access to the pier. As I wandered around looking for the best spot to take the picture, it became clear to me that if I was going to get a clean photo, free of distractions, I needed to get as close as I could to the pier and that meant only one thing…. wet feet!
After venturing further out towards the pier, avoiding the deeper pools of water, I found my spot which provided a central composition of the structure now towering above me. Up went my tripod, mounted with my Fujifilm XT2 and given how close I needed to be to the pier, I was going to need the widest focal length I had, so on went the wide-angle 10-24mm lens. It was always my intention to take a long exposure photo so when set up and composed, I mounted my 10-stop ND filter which would help me smooth out the shallow water and any clouds in the sky, removing any distractions, making the subject appear more prominent in the scene.
Ready to take the shot, I just had one more thing left to do and that was to wait for the scene to be clear enough of people to get the clean shot. With a 105 second exposure, as long as people kept moving through the frame, they would be rendered invisible but the minute they stopped, the image was ruined, so after four or five failed attempts, I managed to grab an image just as the best light was beginning to fade away.
This is probably my favourite photo of the West Pier I’ve taken to date. I love the wispy details of the sand under the water, complemented by similar shapes created by the clouds in the sky. The sunset colours are subtle and not too overpowering, and the smooth, distraction-free water really helps the pier stand out in the composition.
The West Pier has actually been on quite a journey, from its golden age in the early 20th century, storms, fires to finally what little remains there today, yet it still stands. It’s hard not to be inspired by its refusal to crumble into the sea as I stand there, feet submerged, taking photos of it.
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.