Summer Programme – Mardley Heath – Update

The latest Summer Programme event took us to Mardley Heath just south of Stevenage, and as has become typical for much of this summer we were greeted by a warm and pleasant evening, with a clear sky and sunshine streaking through the trees.

Our first stop of the evening was just a hundred yards from the car park where a back lit gate and meadow provided the opportunity for some contre-jour photography (against the light). When starting out in photography you’re told to shoot with the sun behind you, however shooting into the sun can provides some stunning shots. the trick is to manage the exposure to ensure you get the image you want, rather than what the meter suggests, for example in the shot below the camera was set to manually to over expose to record a high-tone image with plenty of highlights.During the evening Andy produced a can of artificial smoke from his bag and demonstrated how it could be used to highlight shafts of light cutting though the trees. Everyone enjoyed this part of the evening and took advantage of this opportunity to capture their own sunset shots. Some of you may remember Andy did a presentation in January 2017 on off-camera flash where he used a similar smoke technique with studio lights (if you’d like to see the notes from that presentation click here).

As we walked further into the woods, a group of cyclists provided some interesting action shots and needless to say there were lots of interesting trees and plants to photograph.

After the main part of the evening we adjourned to the Chequers just a few minutes away by car and enjoyed a refreshing drink, and a very interesting conversation about the cameras that started our interest in photography.

We look forward to seeing you at the next event, click here to visit the forth-coming events page.