As we’ve been in peak heather season, certain locations spring up in the list of suggested photo shoots.
Westleton Heath is a popular location to shoot, and has options for both sunrise and sunset.
I shot here last year with fellow NDPS members, and we decided to do the same again.
With the forecast looking favourable for misty conditions, we were all looking forward to meeting up, despite the 04:45 meet time, which meant prising one’s carcus out of bed at 03:20!
The shoot
We all managed to park in the lay-by, and made our way up to the Heath.
It was indeed misty and looked very promising.
A group of fellow photographers lined up to shoot across the heath at some trees, and there were many opportunities for picking out lone trees.
A good start
I wandered further up and my first shot is below.
I really like this first shot, with the tree being the focal point and the rather nice sky with clouds and early morning sunlight trying to break through.
The heather may not be overly pleasing but all-in-all, it’s very nice, thank you very much.
I’ve tried to calm down my penchant for aggressive dehazing and warming of the foreground to give it a more gentler vibe in keeping with the sky, and spent quite a bit of time making small adjustments.
I think it’s resulted in a more balanced and moody output.
The bang average
I had a few shots which are somewhat ‘meh’.
This next shot being an example, although perhaps I’ve judged too early?
There were a lot of shots like the one above that don’t have anything like the impact I would hope for.
The term cutting room floor is used in the film industry as a figure of speech referring to unused or scrapped footage not included in the finished version of a film. Outside of the film industry, it may refer to any creative work unused in the final product.
I spent a while looking at that birch tree through the bushes (right-hand image above), only to realise there are some distracting branches lower down interrupting the view of it.
The output did not match what was originally in my mind.
I captured this spider’s web but it’s not really up to scratch.
I think I needed to get lower and shoot through it to achieve a plain background. Mind you, a mat or something would be needed as it was damp with the morning dew.
The better ones
There were two tree shots which I think are my best of the shoot, other than that first shot.
This particular tree intrigued me, and I’ve done different edits below.
One of the best from this shoot, somewhat laughably is an ‘unintentional camera movement’ shot of two trees side-by-side.
The next shot was an accident and ironically ended up being one of my favourites.
I knocked my tripod as I was taking this shot, and interestingly, it is only a one second exposure.
I’ve created a montage below to show the scene as I intended it, a monochrome of the UCM version and the one above.
As the morning developed, the mist started to clear, and the sun remained in hiding so we were losing what we had from earlier on.
And that was a wrap.
Reflections
We wandered back to the car parking area, grabbed our flasks and had a debrief.
It had been disappointing that the sun did not show up but we had all grabbed something half decent.
Overall, I am pleased with what I got. I have a couple of keepers, and a surprise UCM arty shot, and I’ve had a go at starting to be more mindful and less trigger happy on those editing sliders.
With Roydon Common, Upper Hollesley, and Westleton, it’s been a good heather hunting season this year.
The wettest June on record may have been a downer in terms of shortening the Summer, but it’s made the heather this year replenish itself and arrive in full bloom.
I still need to work harder on my compositional thinking but there’s some promise.
Onwards and upwards…