December: month in review
Each month I aim to pick an image that, in my mind at least, captures the flavour of that month. It might not be the best image from the month, or the most spectacular of subjects; it just needs to illustrate something about the month.
Lone Tree, Houston. Probably not the best, but one I’ve wanted for a little while…
Fujifilm X-S10 | 35mm f/2.8 1/250s ISO160
What’s this month’s image? A lone tree about 20 minutes walk from the house in the fog.
Did you do anything to it? It’ really a very simple image; the contrast was boosted a little and the images was converted to black and white. Apart from that, nothing.
What’s it doing here? This is a shot I’ve wanted for a wee while. It’s probably not the best shot, nor the best subject, but it’s a reasonable prominent feature on one of our regular walks. The difficulty is that there’s usually no good angle from which to shoot this particular tree. Dependent on the viewpoint the background is either pylons and power lines, which cut across the background in quite ugly fashion, or a wooded area at the back which blends in with the tree itself.
The solution, of course, is fog, so when I awoke mid-month to a foggy morning I simply picked up the camera plodded down the road toward my target. The relatively thick blanket of fog simply removes the background, allowing the tree and it’s young companion to stand in splendid isolation. It’s not a complicated shot; 35mm (or 50mm equivalent on full frame), aperture didn’t really matter given the distance to the subject so I opened up to f/2.8 given the low light and that allowed me to shoot with a fast shutter speed at base ISO for sharpness and image quality.
I’m pleased with the shot; the black and white conversion gives it a melancholy feel which (to my mind at least) suits the time of year and further simplifies the image. I think I’ve done the subject justice, so I now need to move on and find a different route.
Have you been up to much else? It’s been another fairly busy month. We started with a couple of nights up north in Aboyne (not to far from Aberdeen) as Helen had booked herself on a mosaicking course. While she was exploring the art of creative madness with broken pottery I had a wander around the local area, which includes Glen Tanar and Balmoral. The images below are from that trip.
Aside from that it’s been quiet. I picked up daughter number two from St. Andrews (via St Monan’s) and after that we shut the doors and hunkered down while I consumed my own body weight in cheese…
Coming Up
There’s absolutely nothing in the diary for January, apart from some tedious admin and organisation. Probably an opportunity to take stock and work out where we want (and more importantly are able) to go. Hopefully inspiration will strike…
