Domestic issues had, once again, got in the way of photography, so it’s a good couple of weeks since the last pathways walk. Thankfully, Doug and I managed to get out on Monday for another walk, to add a little more to my Kent coastal walk.
We planned to walk from Newington (where we last finished) to Gillingham. In fact we walked on to Chatham, as the pub we ended up in was equidistant between the two stations and Chatham will be a better place to start the next walk along the coast.
This is my favourite time of the year. Summer seems to drag on and then all of a sudden, things being changing rapidly. The light becomes more interesting, it’s softer. The landscape tones down, from a garish summer pallette of green, yellow and blue, to more subtle, muted tones. It seems to me the countryside briefly pauses and there’s a moment of calm, before winter roars in and closes things down. But the days are now shorter and there’s less time to get out to shoot landscape photos, so you have to take every opportunity. The light on Monday’s walk was perfect.
All of this preamble leads me to confess to an embarrassing, elementary mistake. Over a third of the shots I got on the day are badly out of focus. Apparently, early on I had nudged the aperture ring on my M9”s lens and hadn’t spotted the change. I normally use zone focusing when I’m on my walks (unless I’m focusing on something close) and I only use the preview to check exposure as I have to put glasses on to see the screen clearly. As a result, it was only when I checked the lens after noticing I’d caught it taking the camera out of the bag that I realised what I’d done. And it wasn’t until I downloaded the images, that I realised the extent of the error. About 100 images of total crap, you can’t even fake an impressionist landscape from any of them
It’s amazing how quickly one can become rusty. With so many other important, non-photographic projects on the go, I’ve hardly taken any photos, so I was anxious to get out and get some. In my enthusiasm and haste I had happily snapped away, neglecting the shooting routine I’d developed over the last few months. We all know the familiar proverb.
It’s a salutary lesson. The day wasn’t entirely wasted as I eventually did spot the error, but by then I had missed some great opportunities. Today’s gallery is nowhere near as good as it could have been and a significant portion of the walk is missing. So, for what they’re worth, here’s a gallery of the few keepers and take a look at Doug’s photos to see what I missed. The route of our walk can be viewed here and here
(there’s a short pub break).