Woodstock, Inistioge, Co. Kilkenny. I'd never been there before and didn't know what to expect. "There was a house" was all I knew. I'd seen recent images of flowers...so there were flowers too. Other than that it was into the unknown.
It's a large park area with an old house and well kept grounds. The time that we ventured around the area (October) it was just turning yellow with leaves and we were blessed with the weather.
But from a photographic perspective this is a treasure trove, especially for myself when I'm in the Ansel humour. Trees, lining paths, bends, waterfalls, contrasting light, etc. And around each corner there's something different, a different challenge.
This shot was quite difficult and simple. I had to slap the camera into manual mode to measure the closest tree, then spot meter the background trees. There was a 6-stop difference so I went for the mid-ground. So at ISO200 I went to 55mm 1/60sec at f2.8 (despite what the EXIF data says this was a 24-70mm f2.8 lens). Then in conversion I had to pull back the nearest tree and hold the reigns of exposure while bringing out the background. Cloning out a few stray leaves to the left, burn/dodge the tree then dodge a few highlights in the background all complimented with a mild vignette. Then some selective sharpening of the ferns and grass to the foreground and hey presto.
As ever the original can be seen by clicking on the image above.
