On the Monet?

Photographs can inform, challenge, inspire.  They can bring excitement or moments of reflection. And sometimes they just tease. One of the photographic teases I enjoy is to set up the conundrum: is this real?  This shot is one of those.  I am often asked whether it is is photoshopped.  And barring a mild colour / contrast boost, it's not.  The Monet-esque effect is pretty much straight out of camera.  (And, for those who know I post-process with Aperture 3 not Photoshop, there was no more tweaking there either!)

There is a second tease element here too: what way up should this be displayed.  In fact, what do you think the camera 'saw'?

  

Well, the picture was taken in early Autumn at the wonderful Stourhead ( nationaltrust.org.uk/stourhead/ ).   The lakes here often offer the possibility of great reflections. My usual thought would be to capture both image and mirror-image.  But here the height of the trees were challenging from the narrow path and anyway, the real interest was in the reflection on the so-slightly disturbed surface of the water.  So that's what I framed.  In a way it was an easier shot than to try to include the trees and brighter sky: I was able to concentrate on getting the exposure right - and balancing shutter speed against the movement in the water.

When I saw the final image it was a Monet moment, reminding me of his waterlilies.  So which way up would you hang it?

I was delighted to sell a 16x12 print of this at Christmas.  The gift was for a Monet fan. I understand she hung it the way it was shot.   Available as print, card or canvas over at Redbubble.com/people/colinkemp

Thanks for stopping by - do let me know what you think.

Photography: feet can be as important as hands

 Photographs are taken with the hands - right?  Well, perhaps not!  Sometimes the photographer's feet are just as important!

In November I visited Snape Maltings - a gentle, reed-girdled river just in from the Suffolk coast.  It was a perfect Autumn afternoon, the river showing a classical mirrored stillness.  The colour contrast between river / sky and the reeds was glorious and I couldn't wait to get the camera out.  
This part of the east coast always offers huge skies, but with no cloud, the interest was in the landscape.  My first shot showed that big sky and good reflections.  But the image lacked something.  It had no pizzazz.

So I walked on a little … no more than 30 or 40 yards… and suddenly the vista opened up, revealing a beautiful S-curve.  The final key to the shot was to engage knees too and take it from a lower position to provide some foreground interest by emphasising the reeds on my side of the river.

The final image needed very little post-processing - a judicious crop, and a little detail boost was about it.

This shot makes a great canvas - but you wouldn't give it a second glance if I hadn't moved my feet!

Available as canvas or print at http://www.redbubble.com/people/colinkemp/works/9731016-autumn-in-snape