Dreamy sunshine in the woods in Poole – creative landscape photography in Dorset


 Golden winter light by Rick McEvoy landscape photographer in Dorset
Golden winter light by Rick McEvoy landscape photographer in Dorset

This was my alternative title for this image

A striking picture of two trees illuminated by golden shafts of sunlight in the mist on a bright but moody winters day in Poole

Ah that’s better. I like this image. A tighter composition and a tighter crop make this about the three components that tell the story

  • Trees
  • Mist
  • Sunshine

That is the story.

And now I need to digress. Trust me – it will all make sense.

I have mentioned on many an occasion that I bracket everything I take on my Canon 6D. I take three pictures, one the correct exposure, one two stops under exposed and the third two stops over exposed. Three pictures at the same time with one press of the shutter button.

One of the reasons I do this is so I can merge the two stop under and two stop overexposed images in Lightroom to create a natural looking HDR file.

There is another benefit.

I can see, immediately, what the under and over exposed versions look like straight away, which tells me a lot about where I might go processing an image in Lightroom.

I am going through a phase of liking my landscape photography work to be bright, light, airy and mysterious.

I will come back to this point in March, once I have completed my work on the Delph Woods images and also the work I am doing in the background at the same time on my Dorset Photographer web page.

The next thing for me to work on. Which I am excited about.

Back to the image in the post.

This image is clearly overexposed. And I wanted that. Technically I should be exposing for the highlights, not blowing out those highlights,

Every now and again though I like to do the opposite of what I should do. Play around a bit. And for this image it was the over exposed image which told me that this image that you can see now was possible.

Bracketing is good.

But one word of caution.

Buy a large hard drive. Or be brutal with your catalogue management.

I bought a very large hard drive

And soon will have to buy an even bigger one.

I love this shot. I like the tight composition and the impact of the image. I also like the warm tones and the bright burst of light. And the fact it is so bright and light.

So all in all a success. What will the black and white version look like? Call back to my photography blog tomorrow and you will see.

Rick McEvoy Photography

Friday 10th February 2017

Rick McEvoy

I am Rick McEvoy, an architectural and construction photographer living and working in the South of England. I create high quality architectural photography and construction photography imagery of the built environment for architects and commercial clients. I do not photograph weddings, families, small people or pets - anything that is alive, moves or might not do as I ask!! I am also the creator of the Photography Explained Podcast, available on all major podcast providers. I have a blog on my website where I write about my work and photography stuff. Rick McEvoy ABIPP, MCIOB

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