Seize the Moment

Anyone who has looked at my Flickr stream or who is a member of Badby Photo Club will know that lots of my pictures are taken around the industrial estate on my journey to and from work.  This photo is no exception and was taken a couple of weeks ago as I came home.

The light is not great when you have a limited compact, but I didn’t have a tripod either, so my D-SLR would not have helped anyway.

The thing that caught my eye was the reflection of the clouds in the water and their apricot colour.  It added a warmth to the scene that tried to balance the cold of the snow and ice.  I thought about adding a little fill light in Lightroom in order to give a bit more definition to the foreground and remove some of the black, but, I like the contrasts and the darkness of the light.  (Can you have darkness of light?  Probably not, but you know what I mean.)  It is not a photo that would win any prizes, but I like it, it gives me a sense of the place.  There was a certain stillness that comes after the working day on most industrial estates, once the hustle and bustle of people driving home has gone, which was enhanced by the dulling effect of the snow.

As mentioned, it was taken using my Canon Ixus, set at ISO200 (there is absolutely no point going above as the pictures are of pants quality), and it chose f/2.8, the light on the water and the snow combining to allow 1/400 secs shutter speed.