Earlier this week I was over in Wales, staying at Portmeirion. For those of you who can remember the TV Series “The Prisoner”, Portmeirion was the setting. It was a great place to stay in spite of the weather being very poor.
I left home in the snow but by the time I reached Wales the snow was replaced by rain. Despite the rain, I went for a Walk around some of the woodland trails in the area. That’s where I happened on this scene.
What I like about this photo is that I immediately recognised the potential in the composition. At the time I had the Camera Set to shoot black and white and didn’t give colour a second thought. It was only when I loaded up the RAW files at home and I saw it in colour that I realised I preferred it.
I shot the image using a Panasonic G9 with Leica 12-80 lens at 19mm. It’s a handheld exposure of 1/160” at f/7.1 and ISO800. There was a time that I would have been reluctant to shoot with a micro four-thirds camera set to ISO800, but those days are long gone. Today the G9 doesn’t have too much noise at this ISO but in any event, once I’ve processed the RAW file using DxO PureRAW, it’s completely clean and sharp.
After pre-processing the RAW file in PureRAW I made a few minor edits in Lightroom before finishing off with Nik Color Efex Pro. That’s where I added a soft glow effect and increased the mist in the scene. The original scene was misty but that’s almost impossible to capture with a 19mm lens.
Which brings me on to this week’s video where I demonstrate how to add fog to an image in Affinity Photo. If you haven’t seen it, you can watch it on YouTube. And for those of you subscribed to my Lenscraft Newsletter, it’s being sent out on Saturday 3rd December 2021.
I hope you like the image and have a great weekend.
