autumn

[bonneville]

I've been a bit photographically barren recently due to pressures of work. However, did take my camera for a round of golf a couple of weeks ago and, despite the autumn being a bit dull this year, I did pop this one from the 12th tee:



alpha 100 + sigma 10-20

[rogprov]

... and very nice indeed! Can't see the ball though

[KevinBarrett]

Very nice Bossel! The direct sunlight is a bit harsh, but it does make the trees "pop," and I love the deep stormy grey sky!

[alfake]

Brian: Beautiful light, trees and sky. I think that lifting a bit brightness, contrast and saturation could perhaps benefit the image (so it seems I side with Sonolta’s processing, but I’d never dare to emulate his masterfully damaging treatments).
Alfonso
EDIT (after reading Kevin’s post and Sonolta’s reply): In my (calibrated) monitor the image also looks a bit dull.

[bonneville]

Oh well, should have known better.

Bye Bye

[rogprov]

I rather think that this photo shows the landscape much as it was in reality that day. Does it need to processed to something different?
I find it atmospheric and quite pleasing just as it is.

[Dr. Harout]

How about Brian's sky part and Don's landscape part.

[KevinBarrett]

Very nice Bossel! The direct sunlight is a bit harsh, but it does make the trees "pop," and I love the deep stormy grey sky!

My apologies! I called you "Bossel" instead of "Bonneville." Also, I seem to have given a critique of your original and Sonolta's edit as if one. I prefer yours, as my comments suggested, but Sonolta did see some minor shortcomings and did his best to address them. I performed an amusing experiment and layered yours at 60% opacity on top of Sonolta's in Photoshop 6.0 but deleted it.

[aster]

Hi bonneville,

I like your original: with its moodiness and soft colours. It's serene and relaxing just as autumn is...

Thanks for sending. Nice to see your work back on the forum.

Yildiz

[rogprov]

Hi bonneville,

I like your original: with its moodiness and soft colours. It's serene and relaxing just as autumn is...

Yildiz

Well I'm glad I'm not the only one liking it just as it was

I hear you Don and I can understand wanted you to do it but not every photo has to have "zing" and "pop" ... surely

[rogprov]

I could be wrong, but it appears to me as if the OP has deleted *all* of the images he has posted to these forums.

Well if that is so it's a great shame ...

...and peeps thought I may be a touch on the sensitive side.

... not a side of your character I've noticed ...

[David Kilpatrick]

Don, from now one we'll have to refer to you as 'Little Tim McGuire' - a folky song which, if anyone here knows it, greatly annoyed 1960s audiences by its persistence.

Not all the leaves of autumn have to be burning bright in colour!

For anyone familiar with the work of Charlie Waite, Tom Mackie, Colin Prior and a number of other leading UK-based landscape photographers, Bonneville's straight treatment was entirely 'right'. Charlie Waite in particular is famous for allowing the natural colour cast of light to come through uncorrected or enhanced, and exposures to reflect the real brightness of scenes (the opposite of HDR treatments). It's a style preferred by the National Trust's picture library and most galleries. I suspect that Brian has that kind of tonal palette in mind.

If you compare this style with some of the leading US landscape colour photographers, it looks muted and lacks 'pop'. It's not like the typical Arizona Highways polarised colour spectacular.

Also, our colours are genuinely more muted. It's not just the light. The relatively slow, damp progress of our seasonal change from summer to winter which sometimes doesn't even manage to hit leaves with a hard frost before they are rotting on the ground... well, it doesn't always produce a Vermont-style 'fall'!

David

[alfake]

David: I am a great admirer of Colin Prior’s wonderful panoramics and have learnt from Charlie Waite’s books more than from anyone else (“The making of landscape photographs” and “Seeing landscapes” are now in front of me). I much prefer Charlie Waite’s muted and humble European landscapes (specially his Tuscany landscapes) to the most spectacular photos of the American National Parks (although I like these ones also). Having said that, I cannot help but think that (unless my monitor is faulty) the first version of Brian’s beautiful photo (the only one version that has been processed from the original) is a bit dull (nothing that cannot be easily corrected).
Alfonso

[David Kilpatrick]

This Scottish dude must have been seeing things, eh?



-Sonolta

Perthshire, I suspect, possibly the Birks of Invermay (also a beautiful fiddle tune). Perthshire is known for autumn the same way New England colours are known in the states and they do tourist packages to catch it - our own Duncan McEwan does an annual photo break around that location. But I'd say this picture was far too light as well as too pink, much of it is clipped or burned out.

Brian's image looks good on an iMac screen at minimum brightness setting (iMac 24 inch screens are great but the brightness is designed for California dudes who work in all-glass office suites, has to be turned right down here). It looks like what it is, late afternoon light catching the last of the sun before it really drops. For reproduction I would brighten the image slightly but not increase saturation.

[David Kilpatrick]

Looks like ol' Charlie found at least few scenes that were not all *reddish*...



I guess you know/knew about this page?

http://www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/hcou-4zlk35" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Yes, I got their press releases when all this was started. It does not always go the way they hope for colour, which is why so many of their photos are old and such a mixture. Also, a lot of it is completely misleading. I know several of the local forests well and if you want autumn colour in the Borders, you do NOT head for Glentress or anywhere remotely similar - they are monoculture pinewood forestry, and the best you can hope for in colour is a few oaks and beeches in remaining hardwood stands, and a scattering of larch amongst the spruce and fire. Glentress is dark, exceptionally difficult for photography, wonderful as a mountain bike trail. They have many similar mentions because this is, after all, the Forestry Commission - the people who planted entire hillside with spruce and not a hint of species diversity for decades of mismanagement.

The Jedwater valley south of Jedburgh can present the best colours in my area, combined with sheer river bluffs of red sandstone and a great diversity of old forest trees. But it's nothing to do with the Commission, it gets no mention. The woods they list would be serious disappointment to anyone hoping to find autumn colours in my own region (I know all of the places listed well). Non-commission woodlands, such as the estates of Mellerstain, Floors or Abbotsford or the private woodlands of Boleside, Glenmayne and similar large houses are infinitely more photogenic.

The climate of the Borders has been too mild and wet to produce many classic autumn pix this year (not that you would call it mild right now).

Charlie Waite has a massive picture library and of course has a great variety of shots - autumn colours are desperately sought after as they are so hard to get here. But his books, exhibitions and lecture shots emphasise the most natural rendering not the most dramatic.

David