Woodland Path

[Geoff F]

Every year I try some bluebell photos, and over 90% quickly get ditched.

I also regularly try different positions along this path through the woods; with similar results.

Here is my one surviving photo from this Spring. I kept trying different angles and settings.



And quite a lot of tweaking was used to try to overcome the highlight/shadow problems.

Yes, I know it is far from perfect, although I have had to compress it a bit more than I would like to achieve the 150 kb limit and it does print a bit sharper.

Perhaps next Spring will bring greater success.

[Donald]

Geoff

That's the problem of shooting in such locations, isn't it - the light/shadow challenge. I think you've handled it pretty well here.

One question re composition - What would have happened if you had taken a couple of steps to the left and gone for the path running at an angle through the image rather than straight front-to-back? This is nice. I'm just wondering if that would have made any difference.

[Geoff F]

What would have happened if you taken a couple of steps to the left

I would have fallen into the brambles!

Unfortunately, I was at the maximum lens setting and because there was only a relatively small group of bluebells I was somewhat limited.

I took some shots from slightly different angles but having the trees closer to the photo edge didn't work. And stepping further back lost the bluebell grouping and introduced too much plain earth foreground.

There was a bit of well over exposed trees and foliage beyond the top left photo edge so that was also a limiting factor.

But alternative angles is something to consider next year.

Further back the path, I also tried to shoot a wonderful patch of brightly coloured wildflowers with overhanging branches which formed a tunnel. And, once again, it was a total disaster. I try that spot every year but it never works.