Club members chose Roydon Common near Kings Lynn for our next weekday summer sunset location.
This is another location I’ve only been to once before, which was the club’s trip this time last year – blog post here
As I headed over there, the forecast looked very changeable with the chance of some rain and unlikely to be an epic one.
Last year, we had very hot dry weather to the extent that the heather had been scorched by the hottest day and period since records began. This year we should at least see more colour in the heathland.
We walked up from the car park onto the common and around the top path towards the back.
There were small elements of golden hour in the sky but predominantly clouds and we then split up to go and find our own compositions.
My first shot was a wide one to take in the colours on the common.
My next shot below was set up as I thought the tree on the hill was interesting and the sand a leading line.
I then about turned and walked back up the path as I spotted an orange band of colour in the sky which looked promising, and I took several shots.
I quite liked the next scene nearby with the tree and the winding path.
Wandering a little further along, this dried up tree branch offered some potential.
At this point, and with a couple of light rain shower and gathering cloud, the evening light was dipping fast. There had been no epic sunset and it felt like that was it.
On the way back along the path in the centre of the common, I stopped and took,the final final shot below.
The imminent dusk was not tempting me to do anymore, and as I couldn’t see the other guys anywhere, I assumed they’d gone back to the car park so walked at pace to return.
Final thoughts
Roydon Common is a superb location to wander around and probably just like last year will declare I will revisit in a different season as I’m still interested to know what it’s like.
The obvious draw in the summer is the heather and contrasting colours of purple and the green vegetation.
There’s one or more white horses on the common which I’ve seen photographs of but not seen these myself.
One challenge for photographers can be, just like this visit, is when there is a breeze. It can mean needing to increase your shutter speed to avoid the heather blurring by the movement in the breeze, you have to increase your ISO and / or consider a wider aperture to allow a higher shutter speed.
The other thing I have observed is that Roydon Common images are highly contrasty which means the images look saturated already before you edit them.
Even though I’ve dialled down some of my usual edits, I think the saturation still looks high. Converting to black and white seems daft given the colours on offer with the heather.
All in all, another good visit, good chit chat with the guys and some images in the bag.
Onwards and upwards…