Two snowdrop walks were completed this year.
Walsingham Abbey
Firstly, the famous Walsingham Abbey where there is always a very pleasant walk around the grounds.
This location takes you from the garden area, past the ruins of the Abbey and down to the stream where there’s some good shots of the small bridge and of a bench with the stream and the background.
I wandered around with my Fuji X100 to travel light and just have some fun.
We wandered up through the gate into the woodland but as usual we’d got here late so had a quick wander and then made our way back.
What topped off the afternoon was a pot of tea and a really nice blueberry scone with apricot jam and cream.
Spixworth
Next day, we made our way to the church in Spixworth and walked a few miles round the woodland.
Once again, the Fuji was chosen and I got some nice shots.
I took a few different shots of these crocuses:
I tried to take the next shot with the snowdrop backlit by the afternoon sun.
The next shot was my best capture of the weekend…
On our walk back, I thought this scene was nice and grabbed a shot with the warmth of the afternoon sun on our faces.
These trips were a reminder to me about how difficult it is to get good shots of any flowers. You need to either:
1/ Deliberately aim for having some parts in focus, and some parts not, or…
2/ Shoot at a really small aperture to get the best depth of field and everything in focus
Even at small apertures, you may not get everything in focus. I’ve noticed that those who produce awesome flower shots tend to use a tripod and focus stack to produce lots of images which they stitch together in post production.
As I’ve said before, I avoid focus stacking where I can because I don’t want to carry a tripod around on these sorts of trips, and it’s a lot of computer work to sort the images out later.
Anyway, the snowdrop weekend was enjoyable for some fun handheld shooting, plenty of fresh air and walking plus quality time with my wife Kathryn.
Onwards and upwards…