Wanting to take advantage of a sunny afternoon and quite liking the idea of a walk and some fresh air, I decided on a walk locally.
Setting off from home in Godstone, Surrey, I wandered down to the village green and then down a footpath I know that leads to the Bay Pond and further on to St Nicholas Church. The plan was to initially shoot at the Bay Pond, then get a particular angle of the Church and then to return to the village green to capture sunset colours at the duck pond at one edge of the green.
Following the quite long spell we have endured of freezing cold weather, the Bay Pond was totally frozen ( even though it is quite a large body of water )and I took a quick couple of shots looking across the frozen water with the late afternoon winter sun glowing on the bare trees in the background.
Onwards to the Church, looking to capture a similar image to one I caught years ago on a film camera with a 'fisheye' lens on - I had used the fisheye ability to allow me to frame the Church by standing under the lychgate and including that wooden structure in my photo.
I was able to replicate that this time around by using my wide angle lens and mounting the camera on the tripod with the legs set to a very low angle. The lighting could have been better and more tree and plant colour would be helpful - but that's for Spring or Summer.
With the sun rapidly fading and getting much lower in the sky, it was time to retrace my footsteps and return to the village green as planned.
Once there, I initially went to the western side of the pond to look across towards the main part of the village.
Then I went round to the other side of the pond to look at the sunset colours directly, though the lack of fluffy clouds above reduced the chance of additional colour in the sky. There was though the bonus of reflected colour in the icy pond.
Soon the sunset colours faded away and I decided on trying more 'blue hour' photos, this time of a lit up White Hart pub/restaurant that overlooks the green.
Shooting from a couple of angles across the road from the inn, I achieved a pleasing photo that included light trails from a few cars that passed during the long exposure I was using.
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