Travel & Photography Magazine
A fleeting moment as the soft morning light catches the colorful flowers! With @shootingstills.co.uk - Winner Best of the Week 14 at #nomadict / “At the start of bluebell season, a friend told me about a very small, quiet woodland that’s only 30 minutes from me, so I took my camera and headed there. It was a sunny morning, and I was aiming to get there just as the sun rose above the horizon, casting long shadows on the tall trees.
I was standing, sipping a coffee, when I saw two deer run past about 50m away; they didn’t see me at first. For once, I had the right lens on the camera, a 100-400mm. I made sure I didn’t panic and got down low to accentuate the blurred flowers in the foreground that were picking up the sunlight. I managed to take 4-5 decent shots before they left. It’s of course rare to see a deer, especially in these conditions with bluebells that only last a few weeks per year.
I used the trees on either side to confidently frame the deer, drawing you right to the subject. On top of this, the blurred foreground flowers add some softness and further push you into the centre of the picture. This made sure that the composition was strong, and I wouldn’t need to do too much editing.
The soft morning colourful light catching the flowers was naturally present in the image, so with editing, I wanted to accentuate the warmth and softness whilst leaving the deer as sharp as possible. I further brightened the light parts of the deer, mostly around the edges, to enhance the contours and shape. Letting the highlights clip slightly really helps to accentuate the sun and brightness, but of course, it has to be selective.
Colour choice, softness, and brightness are the key parts of the image. A deer is an animal that conveys a sense of happiness, and bluebells and morning sun only add to this feeling. So it made sense to me to draw on those parts of the image.” Congratulations @shootingstills.co.uk! You can read the original article by visiting the link in our bio!