Autumn

Until now I’ve only posted on this blog with our holiday trips, but why stop there I thought. We are trying to spend a little more time outside with the cameras, so when there is an opportunity I decided to broadcast through this blog. Apologies now if these occasional extra posts don’t interest you.

It’s autumn and the colours in the New Forest still don’t quite seem intense enough, so we headed off to Stourhead which is managed by the National Trust. On arrival we discovered that they were opening earlier than 10 am for amateur photographers for a few days (but you need to book). We arrived at 10 am and ventured into the gardens. If you’ve not been there then this is the time to go as the first image you are presented with is this….

You do need the sun on the tree canopy to make the most of the colours together with a minor amount of post processing modification. I also had a polariser fitted to the lens which helps manage reflections and saturate the colours.

As a comparison, we did visit Stourhead in the middle of summer for an entirely different experience. Although the landscape was similar the strong lighting required an entirely different treatment – infrared.

Back to Autumn – you need strong lighting from a low angle for the best images of the canopy and today was a good day, although there was a risk of showers. The low angle of the sun will also introduce larger areas of shade, so some additional post processing manipulation is required as in the image below taken from the opposite side of the lake.

The exposure in the central area needed lifting with the church and bridge brightening a little. But it still lacks the impact of the first image. So back to the other side and walking anti-clockwise around the lake.

The large golden tree in the centre is actually on an island, so moving further round the lake gives us another perspective. But for comparison I’ve presented the image without post-processing followed by a processed image

Firstly I used a polariser and a 6 stop filter to saturate the colours and soften the water with a 1.6 second exposure, then masked out the Pantheon building and softened the trees by reducing the clarity slider in Lightroom, which has introduced a different effect to the image.

Continuing around the lake to the chapel and waiting for most of the people to move out of the way (as there were a lot) we have…

There were 2 extra people sitting on the bench and other objects that needed removing with the Lightroom Ai removal tool – so I can’t really claim all the credit for the cleaner image.

Finally one last image as we walked back towards the bridge

This was taken not far from the Pantheon and out of curiosity I used my Sun Surveyor app and checked the time the sun would have cleared the trees to the east and I’d estimate about 0900 to 0930, so no real need to book for the early morning photo experience.

Hopefully you’ve enjoyed the images and make the journey to Stourhead (near Warminster) at a future date. For us we headed a few miles down the road to see Vanessa’s sister and husband and ended the day in the pub. So a great day.