By concentrating recent posts on the autumn photography in the local woods and forests I had overlooked a walk from Fiskerton to Hazelford Lock and Weir in early November. This came to light when drafting another post about the River Trent which was all about the bright sunny conditions and thinking: what happened to that misty afternoon walk by the river?
What I particularly remember was my wife using her phone to capture the scenes at the weir and discussing the difficulties of shooting into the light. The question we were posing was: do you include the sun in the shot or not?
We concluded that gaining a balanced exposure when shooting into the sun inevitably leads to a technical compromise between burnt out highlights and blocked shadows, particularly with the equipment we had available on this walk. By changing the point of view and excluding the sun it was possible to suggest the conditions through reflected light making it easier to manage the exposure within the camera.
So from a technical stand point the latter method was better than the former. But do we judge photographs by technical criteria alone?
I am actually willing to accept more of a compromise than I might have done in the past and in some cases it is the imperfections make the photography more interesting.
These are the two photographs that generated the discussion together with a couple of other misty scenes near to the lock:
It was much clearer when looking away from the light with the warming sunlight picking out some of the remaining seasonal tones. This lasted until the sun sank below the horizon leaving a pleasant afterglow:
This final set shows some of the reflections of leafless trees both at the lip of weir and then in the ripples created by a passing boat on the river:
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