Local Autumn

So you have spotted a subject area which looks like it could become an interesting image. Timing is often the key and occasionally things all come together, but recognising the opportunity and grabbing it when we all lead busier lives can be tricky.

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This seldomly used small road which weaves through the trees always presented an idea but the conditions took a long time to come together. The leading line created by the road and edge markers, had been in my mind for several years, then finally the timing, lighting, conditions and opportunity seemed to come together.  With the autumn colours at their height and fairly long bright intervals between the clouds, grabbing the gear and jumping in the car and hoping for the best is all you can do.

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The light fell just right for the Beach and Birch trees to be highlighted and for the shadows to fall just right across the road. The time window was short just one hour either way and it wouldn't have worked.

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This is one of many shots I had in mind for a couple of years, remembering this and having the opportunity to drop everything and go is vital. This composition still has other opportunities and conditions to take advantage of but for now as an autumn story I'm happy. - Keep your batteries charged!

Often I find locations which show promise and are put in the memory bank until the right conditions arise for them to become a subject. The shape of this very quiet, small road was calling for a photograph.

I had around one minute to capture this view which was close to the last day of the bright autumn light with leaves still present. Within a few days the leaves had gone. I try to keep the camera and accessories with me in the car and certainly at time like autumn where images pop up. without notice.

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This isn't a typical calendar phot by a long way, but it is interesting as a local photo, giving a true image, (story is the current word trend), of life in this area. Commercial forestry of softwood areas is bordered by the deciduous trees native to the area. The local councils are working hard to restore the natural environment, hence the newly planted trees in the foreground. The small local road is busy enough between villages and shopping centres to need the verges to be managed for visibility.

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The star of the show here is of course the colour of the leaves coming through strongly with the transient sunlight; but here the image is a record of the area not just the view, hence the "story" presented.

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The camera this time was on the seat next to me when the sun came through a break in solid clouds. Luckily I was within two minutes of this point and with fingers crossed for the light to hold.

The light was initially not as I would prefer, but one minute of uninterrupted sunlight strong enough to come through the backlit trees allowed this interesting shot. The location dictates there is never direct light onto the foreground trees until late in the evening, by which time the church is in shadow., the bonus here was the highlighted church roof. Without both I don't think this photo would work.

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This photo could have come out so many different ways all of which would not have worked. This is late morning with cloud everywhere except in this direction. The original shot planned for a chance here was around 600m further back with another tree as the framing, but the leaves had almost all fallen so this very different image was the second of the ideas I'd been waiting to try.

The potential for this image, the edge of a small village dominated by a central church always seemed like it could work, but a number of things had to fall into place.

Though very local, I hadn't until this timing followed up on a hunch that there could be a possibility here.

Though it doesn't look it, this was the end a a very wet few days and everything was saturated. The clouds didn't stay as clear as this for long and the blue sky was only passing. Looking at a map, a bridge across a valley a short walk from a very quiet dead-end road was worth scouting out. There wasn't an immediate intention to have a shot on the day. That of course belies the fact that there is a fair bit of planning involved in being ready for a shot and following an idea.

The bridge deck roughly follows the 1/3rd rule vertically, but the view point involved a little running around to minimise the less interesting field and add some of the blue sky, many an image is lost because the sky was too plain and the foreground not interesting enough. Any subject needs framing to work. The centre column was placed in the centre of the view which left lots of space for the bright trees to flow in from the left and minimise the trees in shadow to the right.

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The image really works because of the lorry; this gives scale and adds sufficient interest to an otherwise empty space. Such a small detail not emphasised balances the whole shot, the yellow colour was just lucky but it being there was part of the planning..

A mixture of natural and manmade textures and colours worked together here.  The composition was trickier than it looks, the central pier needed to be in the centre of the frame with the sunlit trees sweeping in from the left as the main image foundation.

Here the church and old barn sit in the evening sun, either alone would not work but together they make a landscape with scale and interest. 

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The red Horse Chestnut leaves in front of the church are the real draw of the photo and so have been placed in the centre of the shot, the plain grass field at the front has been controlled by moving back and forth until the right amount is there and the area of the sky set to match it.

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When taking these photos it can be too easy to run around in the knowledge that it can be cropped later, but cropping doesn't help with proportions and relative placement - always have this in mind and aim to get the final view directly in the camera.

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Often a subject can look great but the landscape gives little idea of the surroundings, other times a landscape can be promising but lacks a suitable subject.

Often a relatively simple scene has a lot of obstacles to eliminate and view angles to think about. I really don't like the excessive editing which is so often seen these days, I like it  to be a record of what is really there.

There are some things which need to be managed, from the viewpoint available and avoiding obstacles it was necessary to use a Tilt-Shift lens, shifted vertically, this way proportions are natural from the low viewpoint, the church walls are vertical, without the trees leaning in or out a strange angles. Tilt-shift lenses are not used often but they are definitely underrated and not understood.

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A simple shot with very natural composition, the only thing I had to do was find the angle between obstacles and place the tree for framing. To keep the natural angle looking correct a TS-E lens was used.

If a shot isn't going to work don't waste time fighting with it, it only means you lose time, you'll have to discard it later.

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This struck me as such a bad composition I had to record it. A straight shot like this may work if you're planning to paint the wall but rarely works for anything else. 

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See if you can count how many things are wrong; it's a boring straight shot, the top of the steeple is cut off, the shadow from the tower is prominent on the roof, the ugly solar panels take the eye away and though the subject is clearly the church there are too many features which don't link up and draw the eye in different directions. Also to both sides the buildings at the edges have been cut off leaving the viewer wondering what's there.

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All in all this is a terrible shot, (and it took some thought to make it this bad). See the image above from a different viewpoint only a one minute walk away to see how it should look.

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It's actually quite difficult to work against instincts and create a shot with so many problems, but it is surprising how often you see these even in published work.

A very good example of really bad composition. The straight on view, the cross on the steeple cut off, the image lacks framing to make anything attractive, the hillside cuts the steeple badly. In short a very bad photo - beware of pitfalls and move elsewhere, (see above).