This is one of my favourite times of year for landscape photography in the Peak District, because the heather is in flower.
On Tuesday evening I made it over to Surprise View to meet a friend with the intention of checking how the heather was doing. As it turned out all the recent sun and rain seems to have worked wonders and the entire area was in flower.
Here’s one of the images I managed to capture.
I shot this with the Fuji XT3 and Fuji 10-24 lens at 11mm. It was a tripod mounted exposure of 0.12” at f/13.0 and ISO160. I used a Kase Wolverine 3 stop Reverse ND Grad filter on the sky to help tame the sun in the top left of the frame.
What I like about this and some of my other shots that evening is that they have a painterly quality to them. Part of this is due to the light but I suspect it’s also partly due to the process. Rather than jumping into the Nik Collection as I might ordinarily, I decided to start my editing with Exposure X6 (affiliate link). I applied the default Kodak 160 NC film preset but then boosted the midtone saturation a little (because the Kodak simulation has a low saturation). I then added a strong Vignette effect to finish the image. The result appears quite effective, and I’ll be trying it out on a few more images in the future.
It’s interesting how quickly we fall into a pattern of working and then don’t seem to improve.
I hope you like the image and have a great weekend.
The Lightweight Photographer 
Hey Robin I was at Over Owler Tor on Tuesday evening too. I bumped into a mate of yours a couple of days ago at Carrhead Rocks. Glenn Kirkby was his name and he mentioned you 😊Best wishes MelvinMelvin Nicholson PhotographyPreston, LancashireMobile: 07813 950378Website: www.melvinnicholson.co.ukFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/melvinnicholsonphotographyInstagram: www.instagram.com/melvinnicholsonphotography Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/melvin_nicholsonYouTube: www.youtube.com/c/melvinnicholsonphotographycomTripadvisor: http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/MelvinNicholsonPhotography —- On Fri, 13 Aug 2021 17:37:52 +0100 comment-reply@wordpress.com wrote —-div.zm_-9057931405194055933_parse_-4397857136912797466 a:hover { color: red } div.zm_-9057931405194055933_parse_-4397857136912797466 a { text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(0, 136, 204) } div.zm_-9057931405194055933_parse_-4397857136912797466 a.x_-2101817151primaryactionlink:link, div.zm_-9057931405194055933_parse_-4397857136912797466 a.x_-2101817151primaryactionlink:visited { background-color: rgb(37, 133, 178); color: rgb(255, 255, 255) } div.zm_-9057931405194055933_parse_-4397857136912797466 a.x_-2101817151primaryactionlink:hover, div.zm_-9057931405194055933_parse_-4397857136912797466 a.x_-2101817151primaryactionlink:active { background-color: rgb(17, 114, 158); color: rgb(255, 255, 255) }
thelightweightphotographer posted: ” This is one of my favourite times of year for landscape photography in the Peak District, because the heather is in flower.
On Tuesday evening I made it over to Surprise View to meet a friend with the intention of checking how the heather was doing. A”
Yes, Glenn text me to say he had bumped into you and you said hi. It’s a small world.
I also saw someone on Over Owler Tor when I parked up and made my way up to Surprise View. It may well have been you.
Lovely rich warm shot. And as we discover new post-processing skills and techniques we also have the ability to go back to our raw files and produce new versions. Staying busy is endless if you want it!
Yes, there are so many options. It’s like being a kid in a sweet shop again.
Robin, I am a Dutch photographer, a former professional (ABIPP and ARPS) with a lot of roots in British photography, and after my professional carrier of 45 years I devoted myself to landscape photography. One thing strikes me: you seem to love pretty saturated colours, in my opinion even a little oversaturated. On the other side, the famous landscape painters used generally more muted colours. Is there a reason for this oversaturation?
The colours I produce are strong but not saturated in a technical sense and I don’t touch the saturation slider in most cases. The strong and intense colours are produced by reducing the luminance of pixels through blending modes to produce strong colours. But let me answer your question because it’s a good one.
Many photographers view the aim of landscape photography as producing an accurate representation of the landscape. This is not my objective. I want to produce what someone once told me they called hyper-realistic landscapes. I like to take certain aspects of the landscape and exaggerate them, typically producing plenty of fine detail, strong colours and possibly a hint of glow. You could possibly describe them as fantasy landscapes, but I also want them to be believable. To relate this back to art, I much prefer the Hudson River School of landscapes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson_River_School) rather than traditional landscape paitners.
I hope this helps explain my style and approach.