Scotney sunshine

This was a really lovely day of photography, and the last time—all the way back in November, 7 months ago—that I managed a really focused photography outing before preparations for—and the arrival of—our second child and our move to the North East took over.

It was a long day, but totally worth it and I got a whole bunch of images I’m really happy with and still to publish. 

I started just before sunrise at Knole Deer Park, catching a lovely foggy sunrise before bumping into a very friendly deer that didn’t mind me at all. I have a regular-ish route through the park which I cut short as it neared lunchtime and I’d only made it a few hundred yards into the park, such were the photographic opportunities. I wanted to get over to Scotney Castle to spend the afternoon out in the wider estate, so jumped back in the car and headed there for lunch.

With the low winter sun, I could shoot happily through the early afternoon and got the Mavic Pro up in the air a couple of times: once when I took this image of Scotney Castle (new and old), and again later, closer to sunset.

The low angle of the sun brought out some lovely long shadows on the land and with the sun just off the top-left corner I like the little flare that’s pushing down from that corner of the frame: it adds to the warmth of the sun on the grass and the mix of orange and yellow leaves on the trees. 

There’s a nice bright area between the new and old castles, drawing attention first to the lovely trees and the open field with a nicely contrasting small copse of darker trees before your eye can pull back up to the new house and then over to the left with the old castle in more subdued light.

I’m really going to miss my little jaunts down to Knole and Scotney, though there's plenty of interesting landscape waiting for me in Northumberland and I still have a good old backlog of images from these two places to keep me going for a good while yet.