Summer on the Southwell Trail - Part 2

There is one field with some ash trees that I revisit on a regular basis when walking the Southwell Trail. It has probably featured more in this photography series than any other part of the trail and this year’s crop of wheat reminded me of some images that I took in July 2006 - actually I didn’t know the year from memory and was surprised to find that they were taken 12 years ago!

At the time, in 2006, I was broadly returning to photography in a digital format. My interest was mostly golden hour photography in classic landscapes locations (e.g. Peak District, Northumberland etc). Local landscape images, like the Southwell Trail, didn’t feature too often but on reflection I should have had more confidence to set my own direction rather than competing with the mass of other social media photographers posting very similar photographs from very similar locations.

Imaging software was also fairly new in 2006 but expanding rapidly. Techniques like HDR processing was in vogue and the options for processing were many. I certainly tried most of them until I settled on doing very little post processing. I mention this only because my images from 2006 were stylised with a sepia-toned finish - I can’t remember why, I might have seen a technique online or in a magazine but either way I don’t think I would do the same today!

That said, the images are interesting to me because not much has changed in this field in 12 years. In a world that seems to define itself by change and notions of 'progress' it is reassuring that some things are more timeless and unspoiled.

These are some of the July 2018 shots:

And these are from 2006:

Finally, these are some shots of the crop itself. I like the textures and apparent uniformity when zooming in from a distance which quickly turns to chaos and complexity when viewed close up: