Saturday 8 November 2014

Rained off

This week saw high tides, high enough to flood the marsh. I had hoped to get down there to have a look, not for photographic reasons so much as to watch the spectacle. It didn't happen as the daylight tides were morning tides and I was stuck waiting in for non-arriving parcels. Late on today when the rain stopped and the sun was shining I ventured forth. Needless to say I was pursued by rain clouds which caught up with me almost as soon as I got he camera on the tripod.

With the rain threatening to get heavier I didn't venture far and tried to make pictures of the fence where it crosses a gutter with what looked like freshly deposited grass clippings washed up against it. The light was flat, but I'm not sure that was a bad thing. Too bright and when it is low and shadows become harsh.


All this green, a supposedly restful colour, is a bit jarring. I keep finding myself converting these marshscapes into black and white. Not making too good a job of it. It's all too easy to overdo the contrast and clarity sliders and end up with something like you see getting rave reviews on Flickr or some other lowest common denominator sharing site.


Wandering down the gutter I was starting to see things hat might make pictures. Framing was difficult and the rain was getting heavier so I was rushing a bit and not concentrating as I should have been.


The wide open space and the almost uniform green makes it difficult to find pictures. Getting in close and concentrating on details without showing the sky seems to be the way my eye is being drawn. If the rain hadn't got so heavy I might have got in closer still. I see the gutters as canyons in miniature. No doubt if I put some Lego figures down in them and shot them with a wide angle lens at their level that would be really 'creative' and I might become a Flickr sensation! Instead I'll probably make some boring pictures of grass, mud and water.


I'm unsure quite why I've cropped all these pictures to the square. You'd think that a wider aspect ratio, even a panoramic one, would suit the broad horizon of the marsh. Concentrating on details seemed to leave too much space around them.

PS The more I look at that first colour picture, the more I'm preferring it to the conversion!

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