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Cheshire Oak
May, 2019Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
I took this photo on a January morning in the Parkland grounds of the Rookery Hall Hotel near Nantwich in Cheshire, England.Time
This is one of my most popular photographs. I was away with work at this hotel In January 2018 and after breakfast about 8am I took a walk around the parkland outside the hotel just as the sun was rising over the misty trees to the east. The ground was heavy with dew and the last of the nights mist was evaporating. It was a still quiet morning with the sound of a woodpecker hammering away.Lighting
It was overcast to the west, but a pink sunrise to the east with some lovely shades and tones opening up. This photograph was take with the colourful sunrise over my right shoulder looking at the tree, so I had the overcast background creating the dramatic contrast with the dark tones of the wintering Oak.Equipment
I was using my Panasonic LUMIX GX8 and the LUMIX GX Vario 45-175mm F4.0-5.6. I’ve been using the lumix system since 2013 and it’s perfect for packing light when away with work. The quality of images from the GX range of lenses and the Leica associated LUMIX lenses are great for me as an aspiring enthusiast.Inspiration
I was hoping to capture some tones of the sunrise over the lovely open parkland with the mature oak trees in their creepy winter dress. I captured some parkland sunrise images that I liked. This particular winter Oak however really popped out of the scene as I made my way around the hotel grounds. The contrast with the background, the lingering mist around the trunks and the muted green of the parkland grass made for a strong composition. You know when you have these compositions as they literally jump at you. Sometimes it is gone in a flash as you go along, but this Oak tree wasn’t going anyway fast. As the wind was negligible I was able to lengthen the shutter speed a bit and get a decent exposure. The IBIS in the GX8 helps a lot with this kind of hand held situation. The image is not technically that good to my eye, a bit soft when you really peep at the detail within the branches, but the overall image works. That was a lesson in itself. Composition can win over the technical failings.Editing
I originally captured this as a colour image in RAW & JPEG. Having had some feed back on that original image I simply converted it to black and white in Affinity for IPad. It proved much more popular as a black and white image. The tones and contrast seemed to work perfectly for the BnW treatment.In my camera bag
I usually leave my main bag with all my kit at a base and carry a smaller bag with the ‘session’ gear. In my base bag I have everything from lenses, filters, tripod, chargers, spare batteries, an SD card adapter for the iPad (this is priceless). I keep a camouflaged nylon camera rain cover in my main bag, and a camouflage mesh net for wildlife sessions. I will take a selection of my kit for this base bag depending on what I am targeting. I usually have something in mind, so I can limit the kit required. Usually it’s something wide, and something long, but only one of each. The variety of the Panasonic lenses allows for a number of situations to be planned for and then equipped. Currently my favourite lenses are the LUMIX Leica DG Vario Elmarit 8-18mm F2.8-4.0 and the LUMIX Leica DG Vario Elmar F4.0-6.3 100-400mm.Feedback
For these kind of captures think about the time of year and the weather. These mature Oaks are in their winter dress perfectly in January. Early morning, around sunrise in January you will get these misty mornings before the sun or air temperature rises. If it’s windy the branches are flying around and your shutter speed has to go up and this is a problem with the lower light levels on January mornings. So check the weather and look for a quiet still forecast. Bon chance!
