Field of Gold
Luck favours the prepared, as they say (I think), and this was such a case. When we arrived at a local Trent Hills cheese shop (Empire Cheese, outside of Campbellford), the view past the parking lot was this gorgeous tapestry of wheat. Having my camera with me, I was ready to go, even with the slight rain shower coming down. The rain, in my opinion, just slightly darkened the crop and added a bit more contrast and separation. Post-processing in Lightroom did the rest. Had it been a bright sunny day, this field would have looked very different at 3 o'clock in the afternoon.
I experimented with the handheld Hi Res mode in my new OM5, but even the slightest breeze would stir these delicate grasses, so my end results were less sharp than I would have liked, due to movement. I anticipated this, but you never know what lucky accident can occur, so I tried. In hindsight, I should have pulled out the tripod and tested out the Live ND function. THAT could have been interesting.
Ah well,you win some, you lose some...
The heavy cloud cover made for very soft, diffused lighting. The lower contrast extended the tonal range and allowed me to compose scenes that blended together, without the harsh shadows strong sunlight can bring. Besides, as can probably be seen here, I can always dial back in some contrast...
I also toyed with viewpoint. The field was at a slightly lower elevation than the parking lot, so it was easy to get some higher level captures, and then I moved in close for more eye-level compositions. A nice blue sky would have been helpful in the background, but as it wasn't going to happen, I just kept a sliver of the sky in the background, for depth and context.
I mucked about with Photoshop's Replace Sky feature to add what I felt was a realistic and slightly more expressive sky. Another option would be Generative Fill in the Photoshop Beta, but I wanted the scene to consist of actual photographs.
I'm looking forward to submitting some of these images to Adobe Stock. I've had a bit of luck with my rural images being licensed through the service, so here's hoping some of these will also be popular. Thank you for viewing!
