Great time of year

Been having such fun with the photography lately. The light and the colours have been stunning. So I've been getting out every day at different times. Probably autumn/late autumn into winter is my favourite time of year, particularly first thing in the morning and currently between 3 and 5pm.

Yesterday we got up, to a wall of such heavy mist that we could only see across to the other side of the road. Taking a photo is quite difficult in these conditions. As it turned out it was useful. Got some dust on the camera sensor. A regular hazard for anyone who is a photographer. There's a certain amount you can do to get rid of it. The DSLRs have a built-in sensor cleaning mode which can help. But I need to wipe the sensor itself, very carefully, which hopefully will do the trick and get rid of the last traces. Anyway this shot was taken just at the top of our road on our way into Chinon, and was pretty much like this all the way in. This was taken around 10am.

By 2pm in Chinon the light was just gorgeous. Mike was leading an origami workshop making Christmas decorations, so while he was doing that I went on a photography session by the river in Chinon. The sun by now was fairly low, and offered lovely colour tones and reflections.  As well as the bridge, just behind the trees on the right hand side, is La Forteresse. 

We went drove home around 5pm, just briefly before going back into Chinon for a book club meet to chat about The Dinner by Hermann Koch. The light was starting to go, but in its last throes was delivering a gorgeous sky. Pinky/rose through to a pale gold colour, which was also picking up the remnants of plane trails. A slight haze had come back as well. This line of trees is one that I use regularly. There are interesting shapes, and always something different to capture. 

A few days before we were in Chinon for a late afternoon concert. When we came out the light quality was perfect.  Such gorgeous cloud formations. The river was still, so the reflections really clear and the tonal range was just ideal.
All the different elements came together, so the composition was straight forward.

The real surprise this week, was finding a lake in the forest. We take the forest road whenever we want to pick up the main road to Tours or the motorways to Caen when we're coming back to the UK, so we know it well. We've also stopped along the way quite a few times so as I can take some photos. The ridiculous thing is that we stopped at the lake site before, but never saw it as it was so well camouflaged by trees and bushes. And there are various trails nearby, to take you off further into the forest. This time I guess because the foliage was much thinner, I saw what I thought was the edge of a quarry, so went to have a look. Just fabulous. Although I managed to get shots from all sorts of angles, there is still one section that I haven't checked out. So if another good day comes along, I'll go back for another session.

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