Woolmers Estate

I do not like it. There, I said it. Reviewing this image, there is just something wrong. My mind goes through the composition standards. Foreground content in beautiful grassland, check. Middle-ground focus being a late 19th Century wind mill, check. Background interest a dramatic sky with crepuscular rays piercing the top of the mill, check. It has all the elements of a great shot, so why is it off to the eye? This session first started with me sitting in the car for half an hour, waiting for the thunderstorm overhead to pass. The thought passed my mind, if I buy the occasional lotto ticket with the hope of winning, then venturing out into a thunderstorm is more likely to hit me. Apparently 1 in 10 million are the odds of a lightening strike on a person. Far better than the 1 in 35 million in some lotto stakes. I don’t really like using the word ‘better’ here. The weather was turbulent and quick. As I sat in my car I watched Crepuscular rays and heavy showers come and go. Once stopped, thinking I had missed the best time to shoot, I raced to an area where I thought I could create a great composition. I had been to this location before and knew of the very limited locations one can shoot the windmill. Too far to the right and you will catch the road and levy. Too far up the hill and the windmill is lost in the trees behind it. I am starting to think there may not be a good picture in this location. This is a stitched photo. It was shot with a 50mm lens at f/10, ISO 100 and a shutter of 1/20 of a second. I wanted to take a bracketed shot, differing the exposure levels to give me more freedom in editing, but the clouds were travelling too fast causing possible issues when align the images. A strong neutral density filter may have been an option and lowering the shutter considerably. This would have softened the sky, water, leaves, and grass and really made the stationary windmill pop. This could have worked. To finish on a positive note, I like the windmill. Its location on the other hand makes it hard to capture. The trees really diminish its effect on the composition which I feel it doesn’t work. A longer lens to focus only on it and blow out the background could work. I will have to go back one day to try again.