I traveled out to Holme Fen again this morning. The area has become a focal point for my woodland project as I try and understand it better and I undertake to express the feel of the place as best I can photographically. This follows on from a short walk we took with friends who visited for the weekend. The are keen walkers as are we; inevitably we walk and then enjoy a pub lunch somewhere. They live in Gloucestershire and are blessed with some vertical terrain. I suggested Holme Fen primarily because its peat soil is more pleasant walking this time of year with all the heavy mud about elsewhere. It did not disappoint in that regard.
It was a typical Spring day with scattered cloud and breaks of sunshine. We entered the woods and it was gray and with the dead brown bracken about did not impress. This is one of the many moods of the place as I have experienced it in the winter. Indeed places where I could find nice photographs a week before looked dull and unpromising.
The sun did break through at times and then the gray-looking birch bark brightens and warms in the sunlight. However at one point we were treated to some of the most sublime experiences. As we walked on the edge of the Birch forest a light rain shower blew up while the low afternoon sun shown into woods from over our right shoulders. It streamed under the dark rain cloud. Suddenly the trees glowed clean white and shown with the wetness and the colors saturated as they do in the rain. Then you could just make out, right among the tree trunks, the most wonderful shades of color as a rainbow appeared in the forest itself and then intensified. The rain itself comprised of small very cold drops that struck the skin with a refreshing intensity of sensation. It was a truly sublime moment. A fleeting moment to be enjoyed.
This morning dawned earlier as they do this time of year and more promising as I drove closer. A full moon set in the west among scarce clouds that soon multiplied. I walked another section out in the flat bare pastureland before moving into the forest again. I decided to revisit the farm photo I took last time but wanted to capture it on more reliable film (Ilford FP4+ vs Ferrania P30) as those photos came out with too much contrast. I did not have time to roll some 35mm FP4+ before this visit so used 120 format in my SINAR 6 x 12 film holder. I took one photo straight up and 2 others with my 2 stop gradated ND filter. I metered the sky at about 14 Ev at ASA 80 while the darkest earth showed at about Ev 8. I put the sky up near Zone 9. I shot these with my 150 mm lens as the 90 mm seems too wide.
Below are the three version. Below each 6 x 12 (60 x 120) image I give the crop of 24 x 120 which I would have gotten if I had loaded 35mm film. The second and third image used the graduated ND filter. (I am hard pressed to see a difference oddly enough even on un-manipulated scans. The metering did indicate a pretty compressed range of light however.)
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| Image 1 (60 x 120 mm) |
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| Image 1 (24 x 120 mm) |
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| Image 2 (60 x 120 mm) |
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| Image 2 (24 x 120 mm) |
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| Image 3 (60 x 120 mm) |
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| Image 3 (24 x 120 mm) |
I think the vertical compression of this crop significantly changes the image. Where as the 60 x 120 image strongly emphasizes the sky the crop really forces the eye to focus on the horizon.
Later I found myself on a corner of the forest looking back on the place I took these photos from and saw how the light broke through the clouds from behind some distant trees. I had to make a precarious perch on the edge of a ditch to get clear of the surrounding foliage. It was uncomfortable and always threatened to pitch me or my equipment into the watery ditch. Unfortunately the light was fading fast as cloud was moving in from the east. I missed the best light that inspired the shot by about 10 minutes. I did wait another 20+ minutes but the prospects were too dismal to wait longer.
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| Image 4 (60 x 120 mm) |
Again I made a 24 x 120 mm crop.
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| Image 4 (24 x 120 mm) |
The right crop is effective at emphasizing the trees and there is enough interesting sky that it works for me. I made an alternate crop as the 60 x 120 image has too much light sky at the top and edge of the image gets lost. This would have to be cropped or burned to make a good print. Here is the alternate crop version which still captures interesting parts of the sky.
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| Image 4 (alternate crop) |
I made one more image of this but as I said above the light was lost and for some reason the image is blurred.
The rest of the morning I spent walking around looking for other subjects but would not photograph them as the light was very dull.
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