Field - South Downs
Jul, 2016Views
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Winner in A picture like a fantasy-painting Photo Challenge
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Behind The Lens
Location
For many years I've driven past a spot in the road near Chichester and said to myself "what a great view. If only there was a stopping place". Then this summer I thought about it again and hiked to the spot instead of trying to drive. It's farmland in the South Downs National Park, just above the tiny village of Upwaltham, and it changes day by day through the year, so you can expect some different perspectives on this shot coming up!Time
This was taken on a day of patchy cloud and sunshine, at about 10.30am.Lighting
The sunshine was coming and going when I was lining up the shot, and this one was the result of the sun coming through some haze, giving me a watery kind of light that I really like.Equipment
This was shot with my Nikon D300s, Nikkor 16mm fisheye. It was handheld.Inspiration
As I mentioned, this is a view I've driven past for about 20 years without ever stopping to capture the scene, so it was only a matter of having the will to lug my kit a few kilometres from the nearest safe parking spot, and hoping the weather would be kind. I made a day of it, and walked to a few other nearby spots, ending up with a good few images that I was proud of...some of them are in my Viewbug gallery, so see if you can spot them!Editing
I invariably do some post-production work. I shoot in RAW, so there's always work to be done. For this one I did more than I would normally do, as I really wanted to get that 'painted' look. Having sharpened it in Lightroom and converted it to JPG for screen work, I pent it to Sanpseed, where I upped the tonal contrast in the high and mid-range, pushed the ambiance and warmed it up a little, then back to Lightroom for a couple of minor tweaks. I'm never really finished with an image; I could fiddle about all day and still not be satisfied, but I really like the effect of the light along with what I did after the event, and I've been resisting the temptation to fiddle about some more!In my camera bag
At the moment it's the D300s, with a 50mm f1.4 Nikkor, the 16mm fisheye I used to catch this shot and maybe a 70-200. I like to travel light though, and I have a Sigma 28-300 that lets me get most things without carrying too much. The 300s isn't full-frame so the Sigma's falloff isn't a problem. I often capture things on my iPhone 6s too. The plan is to move to mirror less this year - Fuji X pro 2 probably. There's a 56mm f1.2 that I hanker for!Feedback
Photography for me isn't really about planning a shot. It's more about seeing a shot and then having the ability to turn that vision into an image that I can share. I put a mental frame around everything I see. Someone here on Viewbug said that their dad had said "look after the corners, and the middle will look after itself", which isn't bad advice! It's all about seeing things without discarding any scene; there's a picture in everything if you choose to see it. If you watch people waking, they often have their eyes turned downwards, but a photographer should have their eyes upwards and outwards to see what others let their attention drift over. See it, put a frame round it, shoot it, share it. There are no wrong answers in photography!
