Padley Gorge is a place I had heard of but had never visited, it's a mixture of forests and brooks. We didn't have a huge amount of time to explore the area which was a shame because it seemed to offer so much. My initial planning was around the brooks and water features but in all honesty, we didn't really spend any time at all with those. There was so much to see; we had James Pedlar with us again, he was giving us a bit of a tour of the best bits.
This particular scene was something a bit special, there was a wonderful tree with some of its roots exposed, there is also a rather giant millstone just off the path. Compositionally it was fairly obvious, the biggest problem was that the sun was still really bright in the areas that it hit through the trees but the rest of the scene was quite dark. Trying to get a decent balance was tough, I didn't want to over expose the shot or under expose so took a few shots. The other issue was the same as Wyming Brook, everything was a bit too green and a bit too summery. A month later and it would be a different case all together, still, I think the image came out ok:
The best was yet to come, we had about 10 minutes before we needed to leave, we split up and had a look around. The light was starting to fade due to the amount of incoming cloud but there was still the occasional break through. I found another really interesting tree a bit further into the forest, the shape of the tree framed a large collection of moss covered rocks. Above the rocks was the last of this years heather, it's quickly losing its vibrancy but it still adds a nice amount of interest to the image. The sun kept hiding behind the clouds but for a brief minute it was out in full force. I took my shot and hoped that it came out as well as it looked on the back of the camera. It was an unexpected and unplanned image, I have to admit, I am actually quite pleased with it, not just because it's a nice image but because I worked the composition.
It had been another super afternoon.