Autumn Colour

This strange year that we have had with the Covid-19 restrictions has made me appreciate my photographs as a record of freedom. In the past I have been relaxed about getting photos of Autumn colour but this year the possibility of imminent lockdown has spurred me on to try and capture the colours before they are gone, and before I have to remain in doors.

At home I have printed six photos for my Scrapbook, three each from Croome Park and Brockhampton Estate which capture what I was looking for and I thought I could share them with you here, so you can relive Autumn too.

As usual light makes so much difference, we have been avidly checking the Met Office app to try to pinpoint some sunny days between the wind, cloud and rain. For the first half of the day at Croome near Worcester we had the sun and I printed Autumn Lake because it is anchored by the central tree, and cropped to a panorama view it gives a sense of the expanse of colour.

By the lake I spotted a cascade of side-lit leaves and on the lake a couple of swans were swimming in that direction. So, I framed my shot and waited for the swans to swim into it. The result is Leaf Cascade. I was on my long lens and even so the swans are small but I think that they add to the picture. I left the people on the shore but edited out a lady with a bright pink jumper.

Though the sunlight is welcome in Autumn the wide range of light from highlights to shadow can make photography difficult. I am using an older Nikon SLR: D3200, handheld without filters so not all my attempts at compositions are successful because, while I am ensuring that my highlights aren’t clipped, the shadows have gobbled up all the detail.

Sometimes I manage to salvage something from the shadows though and Reflected Leaves is a case in point. This wouldn’t work without the orange colour in the tree leaves because everything would be green and it would be difficult to understand it. I like the sense of depth created by the layering and also the little splash of sunlight in the lower right hand corner.

I flipped this picture left to right because I prefer it with the branch on the left. I like the complexity, but not everyone will I guess.

In the very last week of October we snatched some late afternoon sun at Brockhampton Estate near Bromyard.

Directly as a result of editing and printing my pictures at Croome I spotted the backlit composition: Leaves over Water, and snapped it quick. The next minute the sun went in and it started to rain so I only had this one shot but I like it. It is almost abstract because the water creates a neutral background and we have a curtain of leaves with some reflections at the bottom.

My second photo from Brockhampton: Autumn Tree, is just a field in one sense, but I was trying to capture the long shadows, the low sun and the orange glow of the tree all of which say Autumn.

In order to enhance the impression of the low sun I added a vignette on the right hand side but not the left.

Also by getting down low I gave the fence posts more visual weight, which along with the smaller yellow tree helps to balance the large tree on the left.

 Our final destination, just before we lost the light at Brockhampton was the Manor house with the iconic gatehouse - subject of a million photos. I tried a lot of angles but settled on this one because it is framed above by the Autumn leaves and, as the gatehouse is in shade while the path is in sunlight, it gives a sense of the low sun.

As I am writing this the clouds are thick and grey - the National Trust properties are only open at weekends and the leaves are tumbling from the trees. Soon the leaves will all be on the ground but our photographs lets us hang onto those fleeting days when the sun was low and the leaves were golden.