My Photography: TAOP - Intro - Exercise 4

This blog post is in relation to the exercise on Page 20 of the OCA Photography 1 - TAOP course material.

"Water flowing over some rocks" was one of the suggested subjects for this exercise. So I pulled on a pair of wellies and headed for a stream that flows through Hambledon Woods, which is one of my dog's favourite places to take me for a walk (and that is the right way round), just a short drive from my house.

So while Chief, my Springer Spaniel, was running around trying to get as much mud on himself as possible, I started to look for a suitable location to photograph this natural water feature. The problem being that the sides of the banking are quite steep and I couldn't get close enough to see the ripples of water in any detail. There was nothing for it but to scramble down the banking and stand with my feet in the steam. This wouldn't normally be a problem, but when you have expensive camera equipment and water, you tend to be a bit more cautious than you perhaps would usually.

The foliage of the trees was making the light levels too low for any fast shutter speeds. By using the on-camera flash I managed to get a few shots where the water is crisp and sharply frozen, but the background is still under-exposed, and for that reason I've included a couple of shots at the same shutter speed with and without flash.

Out of all the photographs, I really like the 4 second exposure as the water has an airy, fabric look. This was a very enjoyable exercise, and one that I will probably try again sometime.

If the thumbnail links are missing, view the full image on the Flickr Set for this exercise.