It was barely light when this was taken, and I couldn’t be bothered to set the tripod up, but there was something about the scene and colour that I liked. Fortunately the image stabilizer in the Canon 24-105L was up to the task and this was perfectly sharp hand held at 1/15s.
I know – two consecutive pictures of wood covered in frost – it just happens to be the stuff I am archiving/uploading for stock at the moment :)
Available for licensing on Alamy
Top to bottom, left to right
1. Bench and felled tree. Belgrave
2. Football pitch on the other side of the river. Birstall
3. Wolsey chimney. Wolsey Island/Abbey Meadows.
4. Traveller’s caravans. Abbey Meadows.
5. Railings next to the river. Belgrave.
6. Driftwood. Watermead Country Park. Birstall
I love it when it snows, not just because I’m a big kid who enjoys throwing snowballs at his kids, but also because it can totally transform a scene. Lighting is more even thanks to the brighter foreground, structures (both natural and man-made) become isolated and it’s possible to wring some nice pastel shades out of the camera with the correct exposure.
Normally when it know its going to snow I’ll set the alarm and get up and out early but that wasn’t possible on the day that these were taken – ‘er indoors already had plans to go out – so the plan was for me to spend the day entertaining the kids whilst she went walking in the Peak District. Fortunately for me the kids were also excited by the prospect of playing in the snow so they were up at dawn and I managed to steer them in the direction of the park, having seen it covered in snow the year before and thinking that it might be worth a few shots.
We were the first people to arrive so there was not the slightest footprint in the snow and fortunately for me the kids were so engrossed in throwing snowballs at each other that they forgot to a) thrown any at me and b) deliberately try to spoil my shots.
Selected images available for licensing on Alamy or Getty
A print from this series can be purchased at photo4me or Redbubble . Other prints/prices available on request.
Watermead Park, while there were still leaves on the trees. Seems like a long time ago now, but it was taken just a couple of days before the first snows and winter arrived.
As the sun was setting around 4pm and the weather had been reasonably dry I’d been postponing my lunchbreaks and taking them later in the day so that I could cycle around Watermead Park in the hour before sunset. This mix of light stopped me in my tracks and was the first of a number of shots I took this afternoon, before the light faded.
Purchase print at redbubble
I’ve must admit I’ve been neglecting this blog a little lately – mainly because I’ve been too busy just enjoying taking photographs. On the plus side though, I’ve built up a nice backlog of photos to work through :)
It’s been reasonably snowy here for the past week or so, and having just picked up a second-hand Canon 5D Mk 1 I’ve been making the most of this by getting up early and going to our local park. The image above is of a well photographed landmark in the park showing the final scene from Shakespeare’s play of King Lear. I’ve always put off taking any photos of this, and indeed this is hardly the most adventurous composition but there was something about the light and colour that made me stop here this morning.
The snow lying on the figures had also added extra depth to them, which seems more emphasised by the narrow depth of field.
The vignetting in this shot is caused by using the Canon 50mm 1.8 lens on the full frame 5D camera at a wide aperture setting – it goes away after about f/4. I could have corrected it but I think it adds something to shot.
Technical info : 1/100s, f/2.8, 50 mm, ISO 1600