Golden walks and stepping stones
A walk in the woods through my camera and newfound editing skills
Todays post is a bit bittersweet. In a nutshell I only just tried colour grading, which is cool, but that means looking back at all my old photos makes me feel equal parts unwell and regretful.
Needless to say I’ve been doing some revamping of my previously and naively edited images. But (for now), I wont subject you to the same photos you’ve already seen. Instead, here is a digital diary of a walk in the woods of Swinley Forest (which was apparently used as a film location for Harry Potter).
The mist slinks slowly between the trees. Its strange, you can’t always tell when you’re in it, but from a far it’s unmistakably a fallen cloud eating up colour in every direction. It’s quite warm in the city so aside from when I used to wake up at the crack of dawn for school, I don’t see mist all that often. But I find it quite calming. I associate mist with quiet. A certain quiet that warrants whispers and frequent glances around your shoulder just in case any creatures happen to be hopping, flying or trodding past.
While you stroll through this digital gallery with me, I wonder if you notice a shift in mood from my usual captures. It is probably still not as coherent as it should be, nor as coherent as I'm dreaming about, but I’m essentially trying to use colour to to create a similar mood for my images.
I like walks in the woods in autumn the most. Not just because the sparse leaves makes it easier to spot birds but because the explosion of colour marking the trees last hoorah of the year is a thing to be marvelled at.
I’ve just started to use Photomator to try and level up my images and have found a consistent flow that helps me develop better texture and colour in my photos. Pre-processing and colour grading have helped me bring my photos to life. Colour grading always sounded like such a big task so I always told myself one of these days I’d sit myself down and take the time to learn it. But life doesn’t tend to give us those kind of days does it?
“Forever is composed of nows.” - from a poem by Emily Dickinson
Someone very close to me seemed to have learnt this lesson much earlier and helped me realise that time was getting away from me and that really, we should make time to learn all the things we’ve been putting off because they might not take as long as we think.
I love seeing worn signs. It doesn’t make any sense really as often only parts of letters are legible and they no longer point to anything of significance. Or do they? I think old rusted signs always add a hint of mystery to walks, not just in the woods but wherever you are. It’s as if a bit of history has been frozen in time, yet also subjected to it.
It took less than an hour to get the hang of and since I’ve embarked on this slightly more sophisticated editing workflow, I haven’t stopped. I’ve been editing at every given opportunity for the last three days, eager to pull out the details that lay hidden in my photos and create something close to art. This relentless enthusiasm for this learning process is as I said, bittersweet. I am infinitely prouder of what I have captured but I’ve come to realise how much time I could have been spending on this before.
This lesson is not the first of its kind. Far from it. But I hope maybe it can serve as a nudge, for you to do whatever it is you’ve been wanting to do but also been putting off until the time is right. There is rarely a right time, only a right feeling.
Days flowing like water through cupped hands, sunlight splashed against the trees, those veined paper giants glow as if they were the centre of our universe. I will miss autumn when she passes, but cherish the golden memories made on golden walks.
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These are extraordinary photos. "Orange Fans" is a study in the essence of light.
Amaranta - I would say this to you (as a person of a certain rather older vintage!) - what we do in the past is always a lesson and this includes what we would call the good and the bad so don't feel bad about that - you have obviously learnt so much as your photographs are stunning so keep it up and embrace your life lessons