Day 14 - The Decisive Moment

A bit of a grand title taking the name of a book by Henri Cartier-Bresson but I've had a burst of enthusiasm because we're into a new month.  I'm breaking all the rules by having two images today in the hope that it makes up for a two week gap.  Anyhow I was out walking with Evey dog near the house yesterday morning just after the heavy rains had finished and I was wanting to make some nice autumnal pictures with lots of freshly fallen leaves.  I also shot some images of the stream in full flood and some new pictures of the remains of Mytholmebridge Viaduct which was demolished about thirty years ago.  I'll probably make a post in my normal blog with some of those images later in the week.

It hadn't actually stopped raining when we set off so I had my camera with just the 50mm lens stuffed into my little pouch (a bigger lens on the camera just wouldn't fit in the pouch, I tried).  As we walked the rain eased off and then eventually stopped so I fired off a few shots as we walked.  As we crossed over the road into the other woods we started to get some small patches of blue sky and occasional sightings of the sun.  This time of the year is quite good in the woods because not all of the leaves have fallen but the canopy has thinned out enough to let some of the sun get through to the ground.

So the first shot is when the sun was shining and making shadows with the trees across the ground and the tree themselves.  The second shot was just ten seconds later when the sun had gone back behind the clouds to make the light duller and more even.  For the second shot I had bumped the ISO setting up from 100 to 400 so I could keep the same shutter speed and aperture.  I did exactly the same post processing on both images so that it's a fair comparison.

Which is the better image?  Well, it depends on what you are looking for I guess.  The first image is very contrasty and the colours are much brighter which is nice but the dark areas have lost detail and the light areas are a bit blown out.  The whole image feels a lot softer, although I think it could be that the focus point it a little further back making the nearest tree slightly blurred.  The second image has far more detail in the dark areas and the only part that is blown out is the sky in the background.  However the lack of contrast makes it quite flat and the absence of shadows on the ground don't give as much depth as the first image.

In conclusion, neither image is a masterpiece for many reasons.  There's no real subject and no particular path through the composition so I find my eye just jumping around the frame.  They're too busy, although I suppose there is an element of repetition but it's not very strong.  Between the two I prefer the first because I like the high contrast and I'm not too concerned about the lack of detail in the shadow.  Not really a decisive moment but I guess it's a fair illustration of how ten seconds can make a big difference.