Summer on the Southwell Trail - Part 6

I was still searching for my summer scenes for the Southwell Trail series into August and was conscious that many of the shots were similar to ones that I had taken a few weeks earlier. Repeats tend to happen when I feel that I am not quite getting what I am looking for or perhaps the lighting conditions are not quite right.

On this occasion I was attracted to the light on some trees that I have photographed many times in the series - the attraction is the way the branches frame the farmland that runs alongside the trail. During the summer I have struggled with these compositions due the high level of contrast but this time I thought the shots may work. The key is to judge the depth of the shadows when exposing for the highlights - the camera’s histogram helps to make this judgement. As long as the shadows are not blocked up (not so black that the image is spoiled by excessive noise), a balanced exposure can be achieved with a simple ‘auto’ adjust in Lightroom.

Auto adjust in Lightroom has improve dramatically in recent years. It uses Adobe’s Sensei AI platform to analyse the photograph and applies an adjustment based on a comparison with similar professionally edited images. The results are generally very good and provides a base to fine tune the processing according to individual taste. For example, I have included below an auto adjusted image along with a copy of the file straight from the camera without any processing:

These were some of the other shots taken at the same time with similar processing applied:

I like the subtle light on the trail when the sun is diffused by cloud. Whether this translates well in the final results is the debate I am having with myself. These were taken in the mid-afternoon and I liked the contrast between the shaded areas and the lighter patches of green: