It’s been a bit hectic this past few weeks and I haven’t really had much chance to get out to take many images. This is due to a combination of factors but mainly work and the start of the football season. This past Friday, I was able to finish work just after lunchtime and decided, after eating lunch, that I wasn’t going to waste the time. So I packed my walking camera (A6600) into my backpack and off I went in search of images. I didn’t want to drive as I felt the need to walk, so that more or less made my decision, Abney Hall here I come.
As I walked it dawned on me that perhaps my time should be better spent trying to grab an image of the bridge at Parrswood that is part of my 12 in 12 Significant images project. The skies were cloudy with a little moodiness in them, so it seemed like a good idea to add an image of the bridge to the collection.
This first image was taken literally 10 feet off the main road that runs over the bridge. There a public footpath, and even a cycle track, as well as lots of overgrown wild flowers and weeds. You can see what the wild flowers and weeds look like in the bottom right hand corner. The sky above has moody looking clouds and whilst this image won’t be in the final 12 it gives you a sense of the scale of the bridge. It struck me how the water level was right down compared to the last time I was taking images of the bridge, and I guess that’s because we have had a decent run of weather.
The other thing that struck me was how little gardening was being done to the bridge in comparison to previous years, this is definitely a sign of the times as we come out of the pandemic (if we are actually in fact coming out of it). You can see in the middle of this image that there are two large overgrown weeds stuck in the middle of the upper part of the bridge. Maybe I should get my garden clippers out and drive down one morning and chop them down……maybe not!!
I’ve not really looked for a composition on the opposite bank of the river, still facing down stream, but on the opposite bank. It looked to me like there was a blanket of green all the way along the opposite bank, as I looked across. I also realised that there was a path that you could walk along. Well not quite a path more were the grass has been beaten down by walkers.
As you can see from the image above it is in fact a blanket of some form of weeds (maybe), lots of them have been chewed by various insects but there was a blanket of them leading quite away along the bank. This helps with a leading line, of sorts, as it leads the eye through the image towards the bridge, takes in the reflections and then your eye hits the bridge and finally the sky. Although this image isn’t likely to make the final selection it does show that there are alternative compositions in this location. Add in some nice light in the sky or mist on the water and I’m sure this would bring this image to life to a greater extent. Whilst at the same time subtly adjusting the positioning of the camera.
There is a road beside the river that effectively is the access road into the Village Hotel. The path runs eventually around the side of the hotel and back along the river. There are lots of trees and flowers and weeds again growing along the river side which makes getting a clearer composition a little trickier. However, as I walked over the road towards the hotel there was a fleeting break in the clouds and there was a little bit more light on the bridge than I’d seen over the past hour or so. This is almost a symmetrical image of the first one, but from the other side of the road. Given that the sun sets off to the right in this image, I’m thinking that a sunset would maybe offer the chance to get even better light on this scene.
I think that the ethos of Chris Sale about going back to locations over and over again are a great way to understand a location, along with refining compositions. The next trip here will be a sunrise shoot. I really think that the sunrise, maybe mist rolling on the water, will all add to this being a location where I can grab a significant image for the project and maybe even make the final 12.