Bright winter walking again

[Kaye Leggett]

We seem to be having more than our usual bright days this winter and with the weather set fair last weekend we continued a minor goal of walking all of the Thames path. It's 184 miles long and over the next year or so we are hoping to complete it all and also to take a documentary of photos.

The section we completed on Sunday is near the source - Kemble to Ashton Keynes. The river is very small and unassuming here.

The day was cold, the blues pale, the greens almost yellow. Each of these shots are pp'd as to my mind's eye view as we walked. So the shots are as much an experimentation in PP as for the image. Your thoughts and comments are welcome.

1 - I've added a mist in pp to this image to emphasise the cold





2 - The river meanders around old gravel pits on this walk, hence the bigger expanse of water





3 - which in parts were frozen - so yes, these ducks are really walking on 'water'





4 - the 'river' path is not always right next to the river - rights of land ownership still prevail, so sometimes we had more fields than river

[Shadowman]

Nice series.

[Wavelength]

Liked them all

[NorthernFocus]

An awesome goal you've set for yourselves to walk the entire river path. And to document it with images. I'm not disciplined enough to do such a thing. I'm very much a shoot when I feel like it photographer.

A nice set of images here. I really like nos.3 and 4.

No.1 is a nicely composed rural scene with the added bonus of the swans. I suppose being a photographer makes one hyper aware of lighting and in that mindset the added haze doesn't look right to me relative to the bright reflection on the water. IMO the leafless trees/bushes already say winter. Maybe a white vignette rather than the haze would have worked just as well?

No.2 is a well spotted opportunity. The image has a harsh feel to it that really says "winter" to me. It might have been improved by a slightly different shooting angle such that the "horizon" didn't intersect the whatchamacallit (I think what we'd call a cuckle burr?).

Overall a nice set. Looking forward to sharing your walks down the river.

[madcrow]

Beautiful images and great narrative. Hope you get to finish that walk, it looks fabulous.

[Kaye Leggett]

Thanks all for comments. Dan special thanks for the insite on the reflections- I'll work on that. And also I have others of the teasel (2) so will see if there a better composition. Very useful comments.

[Mike Buckley]

Add to Dan's comments that the last photo would be great as a monochrome. He would never encourage that.

[Geoff F]

Just a thought about Dan's comment on #1. Perhaps add the mist as a gradient so it looks denser in the far distance?

With #4 there is a tiny bit of a building on the left side at the end of the fence.

Otherwise, these look good to me.

[bnnrcn]

Hi Kaye I like #3 and #4 . #1 is a nice image but I find the highlights a bit too much, it you reduce them a bit the image might look better.

[Dave Humphries]

~ we continued a minor goal of walking all of the Thames path. It's 184 miles long and over the next year or so we are hoping to complete it all and also to take a documentary of photos.

Hi Kaye,

In #1, I think I might have applied that with the gradient tool, so an area (e.g. lower left corner), could have retained a bit more contrast - or, put another way; a bit less foreground 'mist'/'sun flare'.

Yes, we have some divergences away from the bank round here too.

By the way:
Do drop me a PM when you and Bertie are doing a section anywhere between say, Maidenhead and Datchet, perhaps I could join you for a wander?

Cheers, Dave

[Kaye Leggett]

Continued thanks for comments. This weekend looks like I will be staying in so will re-visit these then. Mike, I have a conversion of 4 which I too liked but decided to stick with the colour as that is how I saw it at the time (Donald's influence !). Dave - love to, we've done Staines to Windsor - your section looks good from the point of view of joining up to public transport for an easy linear walk.

[joebranko]

Beautiful set of images. Like them all!