The Petrified Oaks of Mundon

For our first jolly of 2016, the Wivenhoe Photography Group jumped in a jalopy and pootled over to Mundon, near Maldon on the Essex coast. I've visited Maldon a number of times over the years, but was unaware of the treasures awaiting down the road at Mundon.


First stop was the beautifully humble Mundon St Mary church, which has been restored by a group called Friends of Friendless Churches.

Mundon St Mary

On farmland beyond the church we came upon a field of petrified oak trees - the main reason for our trip.

On farmland behind the church

Lunchtime on a blustery, overcast day isn't ideal for landscape photography, so rather than getting in close I went for a bit of wide-angled drama.

Petrified oaks of Mundon

I underexposed most of my shots to ensure there was some detail in the sky that I knew could be brought out during editing.

Field of oaks

In fact I decided at an ealy stage that I wanted to derive some drama from the interaction of bare oak branch and sky, so shot from low angles, filling the frame with plenty of sky for the most part.

Two old oaks

This is a place deserving of more than one visit; I'd love to see it covered in deep snow, or during a misty sunrise.

A jagged stump

If nothing else, the pretrified oaks of Mundon are a reminder of the hidden treasures that can lie just beyond our doorstep.

Oaks in silhouette

Sun Zoom

This update is all about returning to roots: both the roots of this blog (pictorialism), and the roots of many a tog's first experiments with creative photography - the sunset.

Few can resist the vibrant explosion of colour presented by a beautiful sunset, although there are regrettably a few cynics who look down on sunset photography due to its sheer popularity and the relative ease of capture (especially when the foreground is thrown into silhouette).
So I thought I would combine the humble sunset with another simple photographic technique: zooming.

All you need for zooming is a zoom lens that you can control manually. A telephoto or medium focal length zoom is probably best, though a wide angle zoom could also work. Most dSLR owners will have the medium zoom shipped with their camera body. 
Compact owners, if your camera allows you to operate the zoom controls whilst the shutter is released then you can try this too.

The idea is to zoom the lens in or out whilst taking the shot. To achieve this you will require a slow shutter speed - anything from about 1 second to 4 or 5 seconds. Since you are shooting a relatively bright scene, you will need to dial in the lowest ISO possible, and probably the smallest aperture possible. If that still does not give you the shutter speed required, try a neutral density filter, or even your polariser (which general swallows about 2 stops of light).
You do not need a tripod since the result image will be lovely and blurry anyway, but it does help if you stand in a stable position and perform a nice smooth zoom.

You can experiment with zooming in vs zooming out, different shutter speeds, zooming in and out, and even lateral movements while zooming.
The results are unlikely to win any Pulitzer prizes, but if you like simple pictorial art as much as I do, images created with this technique would look great as a large colourful canvas on your wall.

 

Lemons

The title is a reference to that famous saying by Dale Carnegie.
We cycled out to Elmstead Market last weekend, and the light was just beautiful across the farmland there - but I didn't have my camera with me (cardinal sin, I know, but sometimes marriage comes before photography... just). I therefore planned to return at a similar time of day during the week - tooled up, naturally.
Monday was busy with other stuff, so Tuesday afternoon I checked the skies, and it looked promising. However, by the time I got back to the spot in question, cloud filled much of the horizon, and the light was simply not the same - it didn't glisten across the shorn crop fields the way it had two days earlier.
But I wasn't planning to leave empty handed, so what you see below is the lemonade.