At the end of May this year (2020) we had some beautiful weather, about a week of warm spring/summer heat. We were in lock-down; a sort limbo I suppose for many people.
We had been given some flexibility regarding outside activities and I had been able to take the dog for a walk each day, but still felt the pull of trying to fit in some outdoor photography whilst maintaining social distance from everyone.
Click on image to see full version
At the back of my house there is a small park and at the top end, near my house, there is a small wooded area and although the park is used by dog walkers, the wooded area is usually very quiet.
It is quite overgrown and pathless in some areas and I don’t know if it was my state of mind but there was a beautiful tranquillity about it especially when you got into the middle by stepping over brambles and being careful not trip and fall. All I could see, feel and hear was the dappled light coming through the canopy, the vibrant colours of spring, the heat of the afternoon sun and the sounds of birds. I decided I needed to somehow capture this through my imagery.
I decided the best way to represent the way I felt was to make a series of multiple exposure images. I have a vintage Auto Reflecta 55m f1.7 lens, it’s a solid lens built in the 70’s by Chinon and it has a particularly nice bokeh to it. I decided to use this lens coupled with my regular camera the Fuji XT4. I took a series of shots over 3 days starting with out of focus images for the soft bokeh and then overlaying them with in-focus shots and/or more out of focus images to build up 2 or 3 exposures in each image.
Once I had edited the images in Lightroom I decided the best way to present them was to bring them together in a 4×4 grid, this was done in Photoshop.
The final image is the one see which is a 20x20inch panel – click on image to see larger version
Make images about how you feel, not what something looks like