I just liked the way the track dipped down to the farm buildings in the distance and, especially, the delicate tracery of the bare trees marking the way.
Well done on another pp, tp double. Well deserved. Looking at your exif data I'm intrigued by the fast shutter speed (1/150), high ISO and relatively large aperture (f4). I'd love to understand your thinking on this. I would have approached this shot aiming for low ISO, smaller aperture for dof and using a slower shutter speed to create the latitude for both. But I reckon I'm missing something because your images are always so sharp and as northy comments this one is no exception.
@jasperc Interesting question and observations Jasper. I guess there are three broad areas of consideration for me when I'm on a photo walk - technical, artistic and practical.
From a technical point of view, your thinking is absolutely sound and a counsel of perfection for landscape photography. From an artistic point of view, my subject here was the trees so I wanted them in sharp focus and I didn't mind if the farm and horizon were less than sharp... indeed it was preferable. From a practical point of view, there were a number of considerations: it was windy so there was some movement in the tree branches that needed to be frozen; the Fuji X100T produces relatively noiseless images at 1600 ISO and as I always intended this to be a B&W image, a little noise wouldn't have been a problem anyway. Finally, the previous two images, taken seconds before, were some elaborate wrought iron gates and stone pillars in a shaded driveway entrance, and a close-up of the ironwork and a chain and padlock. I took all of these as they caught my eye and without changing the camera settings - aperture priority f/4 and 1600 ISO: the shutter speed varied between 1/25 sec and the 1/150 sec in this one.
On a photo walk, I like to concentrate on the various photo opportunities as they catch my eye, without worrying about resetting the camera every time. Had I set out expressly to capture this scene, I would almost certainly have done it differently, including using a tripod.
On the day, most of this was instinctive - thanks for the opportunity to think it through as even retrospectively there's good learning to be had.
I read what you wrote to jasperc and I find myself not changing the settings but in my case it's me being forgetful until I realize why the picture looks so bad. But sometimes it does result in a good image. The trees do stand out. Like when you are walking and thinking and not seeing anything in the distance only what is in front so you don't go astray. That is what I imagine looking at this picture. I am disappearing around the curve and unaware of the farm.
Definitely a "I wanna be there" shot. What I've noticed about the higher iso's is: they get me the sharper shots I want ... but I better get the shot right because cropping in is not a good option.
@vignouse thanks for taking the trouble to reply. There's a useful learning point for me here - I definitely miss shots by being over fussy about the exposure settings.
From a technical point of view, your thinking is absolutely sound and a counsel of perfection for landscape photography. From an artistic point of view, my subject here was the trees so I wanted them in sharp focus and I didn't mind if the farm and horizon were less than sharp... indeed it was preferable. From a practical point of view, there were a number of considerations: it was windy so there was some movement in the tree branches that needed to be frozen; the Fuji X100T produces relatively noiseless images at 1600 ISO and as I always intended this to be a B&W image, a little noise wouldn't have been a problem anyway. Finally, the previous two images, taken seconds before, were some elaborate wrought iron gates and stone pillars in a shaded driveway entrance, and a close-up of the ironwork and a chain and padlock. I took all of these as they caught my eye and without changing the camera settings - aperture priority f/4 and 1600 ISO: the shutter speed varied between 1/25 sec and the 1/150 sec in this one.
On a photo walk, I like to concentrate on the various photo opportunities as they catch my eye, without worrying about resetting the camera every time. Had I set out expressly to capture this scene, I would almost certainly have done it differently, including using a tripod.
On the day, most of this was instinctive - thanks for the opportunity to think it through as even retrospectively there's good learning to be had.
We imagine this charming landscape with snow , the movement of the road gives it life