Winter Light

One of my favourite places, the ancient church at Greensted in Essex,

UK. The walls are made of split oak logs which have been dendro-dated

to about 1060-1100. The logs were originally put upright edge to edge

straight on the the earth - a technique common in Scandanavian

countries. All comments welcome!

Perfect timing with the position of the sun.

Love the angle and perspective and the great little church! great colors too! 6/6

Biliana

And you're hiding in the shadows, aren't you? This is good, crisp morning atmosphere... the branches obscuring the steeple? Don't seem to bother me, maybe because they help break up the cloudless sky. It could be the length of the photo, as well.

 

I don't think this really needs any alternatives, does it, but I couldn't resist trying a little something out... a straight greyscale conversion with a bit of toning. As for the crop, I did that to get rid of the gravel and help emphasis the diagonal that goes from the gravestone(?) to the small tree to the door, but maybe this crop makes the branches more of a problem?

Difficult to do it with that different of light. Good color and composition. Regards.

Strangely dramatic and peaceful at the same time. Extremely atmospheric Unfortunately I can see no trace of the feature that you are talking about in the introduction (which my poor English does not allow me to follow anyway) but photographically it is superb. Except that I would like a bit more sky to see the tip of the tower. Stephen's crop is also good but I much prefer it in colour. (Stephen, I think you are jeallous there:-))

As Manolis says, very peaceful. No wonder it is among your favorite places. Very nice capture. Regards.

Yes, a nice capture, and both (ie. BW and color) are nice, both showing quite a different view. In the cropped version, the shadows draw the eyes from the gravestones further inside the shot. And by a margin, that I find working better... Jiri

Nice image!

hi colin. an interesting scene, very interesting perspective. a little too much shadow in the foreground for my taste. colors are very pretty, and it has a very attractive, rustic feel to it. i like the light, the tower in the upper right of it is blown out just a little. this is the kind of place where i would enjoy taking shots from different angles, hope you had fun with it!

very good one, colin.

i like to see a cross, in the big shadow in the foreground.

stephen's option is quite good too.

Thanks everyone! I wae trying to capture the light from the low winter sun as much as anything here. So I would want to keep the path. The tower is a bit close to the edge but trying to get the cross in the foreground in as well was only just possible, This is taken with my widest large format lens and equivalent to about 20mm.

i know nothing about this mtt camera of yours, colin.

seems interesting.

how good is it ?

Good!

 

Regards,

 

Bram

Thanks bram!

 

behel, if you have a look here you will see a couple of pictures of it. It is a large format camera using 5x4 inch sheet film. Superb for architecture and also getting a huge depth of field in landscape shots.

 

thanks, colin !

Great shot, Colin. I like it in b&w, too. Strong shadows, yet they don't make this look scary, but rather very peaceful.

Thanks Kim! I like the effect of the low sun in winter shining through trees and making the long shadows. It is a very peaceful place except when being used for the many weddings that happen there!

This is a very nice place and your photo is good. I like the grave in the foreground that makes a very good first plan. But i'm a little bit disturb by the composition with the empty space on the left between the tree and the house. I think I would have "close" it with the tree, moving 1 or 2 meters on the left.

Colin, I find it very well done in all aspects. The light is superb. The only thing that needs a very small bit more light is the black lower part to the left hand side, but anyway it is beauti-full. Pnina

I like the perspective shade of the tree falling on the white building. I prefer the colored uncropped image, the diagonal lines on the right work well with the more solid shade on the left

Thanks Patrick, Pnina and Joe. I appreciate your positive comments and suggestions.

 

Patrick, as I remember it was not possible to move left as you suggest as a fence was in the way.

 

Pnina, I have tried to bring up the dark area you mention in this new version but the shadow is very dark and there isn't much detail. I have also adjusted the blue and green saturations down a bit to look more like the original.

 

Joe, I like the light on the right too. It was the light I was trying to capture here so cropping it doesn't work for me!

 

Superb lighting and colors, and very good use of perspective, the shadows as leading lines pointing to the church. Did you make a perspective correction with your "monster", or how did you avoid converging lines of the church with a 20 mm equivalent lens ? Regards, Carsten

Thanks Carsten! Yes I used perspective correction on the camera as you say but also additional correction in PS as the camera could not do it all.

nice shoot.