Lake Shearwater

I went for a little drive out today in search of some much needed inspiration..I always get ti around this time of year, I struggle, I can't see the good, that and being in Wiltshire for me is not the best photographic combination but never the less I keep trying, I even did one photograph a day a couple of years ago to try and kick start my artistic cortex but it does take time. Anyhow I went out in the miserable day to find my subject, on the way back feeling fruitless I saw a sign for Lake Sheerwater and thought I'll have a crack see what comes of it. On pulling up I was pleasantly surprised by the 50p parking fee and the near distance to the lake. Many visitors with their kids and dogs were walking around, many anglers were trying to make their best catch and many water birds were diving for fish. I considered the scene and noticed the way the light was angles through the timbered horizon onto the glossy but rippled surface, I imagined the effect of a long exposure, obviously waterbirds would disappear as would the oil like ripples akin to grease ice but to what detriment? I am a firm believer in wait and see, but also in pre visualisation, pre visualisation is for those who don't know something photographers who use film do a great deal of, considering my field camera colour film is £80 for 20 sheets it pays to have an idea what you want before you release that shutter and waiting to see is a sadly dying art that can excite or disappoint in just a brief moment. Back to the scene I metered the scene at 1-2 of a second so an exposure time of 13 minutes seemed appropriate with a Tiffen ND3 and a couple of Cokin Z ND Graduates. The lens was my ultrawide zoom Sigma EX 10 - 20mm used at 10mm to add impact and to take in as much shore and sky as possible, used at F-22 for exposure length. The camera was my Canon EOS 550d mounted on a Manfroto 033dx Carbon and Gitzo head. I did the post exposure work in Adobe Lightroom where apart from some serious noise reduction (noise reduction I had forgotton to switch back on after doing some star trails the other night) and minor tweaks to contrast I cropped to square format as along with excessive noise the near foreground and top of the frame were very blank and very dark and very empty.
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