November 2nd 2015
Such mornings, here in Kent, are very rare indeed where fog and autumn colour coincide but with showers the previous day and a clear, still night and morning, the odds were looking good. I arrived while still dark and as my eyes became accustomed to the gloom I could make out the sentinel-like structures of the beech trees.
Armed with a Nikon D750 and a plethora of lenses, I got to work almost immediately switching from one to another - keen on capturing the essence of that special morning for I knew it was going to be quite some time until such an opportunity would arise again.
If ever there was a word to facilitate one's woodland photography it's seperation where quite often it takes no more than taking a step to the left or right to separate important elements within the frame. The 70-200mmf/2.8 was undoubtedly the most useful, enabling me to pick out and isolate forms and restrict the amount of sky that would otherwise have drawn your eye away from the main subject.
However, as the sun broke through creating magical rays I swapped the telephoto for my widest - a Sigma 15mm fisheye. It's a lens I use infrequently but when such an occasion arises nothing else will do!
Such was the dynamic range of the lower two images that two exposures were required which were then blended in Lightroom.
In the space of three hours, I made some of my most memorable images. The one below, in particular, is a stand-out for me and was, quite literally, the last press of the shutter that morning.
Since these images were made, I've experienced similar conditions on just one other occasion at this time of the year, and that was three years later in 2018.
