New Forest Ferns
During the summer I made the visit to Hengistbury Head which you can read about in my earlier blog post HERE. On my way there I stopped at Bolderwood deer sanctuary in the glorious New Forest so that I could make a day of the photography. The subjects that called out to me the most were the carpets of heather and ferns, but first we stopped to watch the glorious fallow deer with their gorgeous spots! (and to show that occasionally, just occasionally I take something that is not multiple exposure!
After looking marvelling at the deer and putting the urge for an ice cream off until later we walked down the road to have some time with the heather - and there was a huge abundance of it to play with. In camera multiple exposure tends to make images much lighter as the light is superimposed each layer and you will need to use some exposure compensation in order to make sure you don’t lose detail in your images. The pink of the heather made a lovely contrast with the green of the leaves which meant that the multiple exposures worked really well and softened the whole image.
I decided that as I was wearing trousers and the weather was warm that it would be a good idea to try an ‘in the round’ with a fern. There was a lot of orange ferns, the colours of which were just brilliant. On in particular looked like it was the right one for the job so I crawled, army style all the way around the fern taking single images. I had previously tried an in camera version but I couldn’t get it to look like what I could see in my minds eye. Although to be fair all of this went out of the window back home editing where, unusually, the dark mode was the one I chose for the final combination. I don’t use this mode very often but I really liked the way it created the wisps of orange in a really nice abstract way around the fern itself.
Once I dusted myself down I wanted to see if I could capture these beautiful colours and shapes with my macro lens. Since I have bought the canon 100mm macro lens I have not looked back. It’s a really versatile lens and creates exceptional close ups but the overall quality of the images is fantastic which gives you the option of getting the composition spot on when you get home. It really is a go to lens and it is pretty much a permanent fixture in my camera bag no matter where I am going. So below is a ‘straight’ colour macro and black and white to show off the leaf shape - the last image is a multiple exposure (in photoshop)
Then we moved on to the more open countryside with some fantastic views and the in camera playing began. I have been experimenting with landscapes and seascapes with multiple exposure and they are a different beast! They do require a subject on the horizon or you lose too much detail in the overall image - the ones with just trees on the horizon didn’t really work for me. The subject has to be in line so I had to use the viewing screen on the back of the camera as I don’t have a mirrorless camera (yet!). The canon 80d is a great DSLR but I will move on at some point…..I think the ones below work - the one in the middle just being a bit of high key action, can you spot the bird?
And then back home I got creative….What do you think?
