Late autumn colours

Given the heatwave we've had in the UK for the past couple of months, this photograph may feel rather out of place to be published now. I've been thinking however, about cooler weather, having picked up a bargain on some lovely SealSkinz gloves I'd been hankering after for a while and which arrived today. 

It's way too hot to try the gloves out any time soon, but they seem like they'll do a great job once the weather turns and it got me thinking about photography in cooler conditions. This photograph is far from great, but it's one that has come together a bit more with processing than I was expecting and I now quite like it. It's definitely one I've logged to go back to and try again when conditions line up towards the end of the year but I still thought I'd share this first version in the spirit of my recent focus on location scouting.

I took the photo as a bit of a snapshot while walking around Bedgebury National Pinetum last November with the family. It was towards the end of our walk and I'd been playing with my then-recently-acquired Super-Multi-Coated Takumar 105mm f/2.8 vintage lens on the X-Pro2. Hand-held on the crop sensor and wide open, the image was never likely to be that sharp but I was testing the lens more than anything else. I feel there's almost a very nice composition here and having adjusted the white balance to warm the raw file up, it really has that autumnal feel.

We're heading north this weekend for my son's second birthday (where does the time go?) and aside from the celebrations I'm looking forward to being back on the coast and hopefully fitting in a little landscape photography along the way as I haven't properly been out with my camera for months. In fact, looking at my Lightroom library the last time was April shooting photographs for Funding Circle back in Northumberland. Must do better...