I am back in the UK for a while and it is good to be back to see my wife and friends. I took Mollie out today for long walk in Monk's Wood one of her favorite places. She is going to get spayed tomorrow and I wanted her to have some happy memories before her surgery.
The day was perfect with scattered puffy clouds and a comfortable fall air not hot or cold. I took the camera on a whim as I don't like shooting in the middle of bright sunny days. The camera is my lazy shoot, the digital Fuji GFX 50s ii with the Mamiya 150mm f3.5 lens on a Kipon shift adapter. This is a pretty good setup for intimate landscape. I managed some decent images rather surprisingly.
I concentrated on the hints of color mostly in the field maple as they tend to be the first to turn. I also stuck with the open end of the aperture range to strive for some separation with depth of field. The film simulation used is Provia as this gives a nice level of saturation while remaining natural looking.
I like the above photo a lot. Getting some colored leaves in front of focus gives a bright colorful framing. This long lens shot wide open can really deliver this nice look.
Above the ash suckers are nicely backlit in the afternoon sun. Ash die-back disease has been working its way through Monk's Wood for a few years now. Most of the crowns of the trees now appear ravaged. It will alter some areas of the woods as there are big swathes of ash. Probably the largest change since some Canadians logged out the big oak trees in 1921.
Some wonderful reddish tones here. I think a lot of this early color is present on leaves damaged by the heat wave earlier this summer with record high temperatures. Red is fairly rare on field maple normally.
Mollie got overheated and exhausted chasing about the woods and spontaneously laid down in the cool grass under some shade, so I laid down next to her while she rested up. She does not know how to stop sometimes, and the day was so perfect for her it was like she was on speed the whole time. I took the chance to get a different kind of photo as shown above and below.
Here is Mollie waiting for me to catch up to her. A rare time when she was stopped this day.
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