October has begun, the air has gotten crisper, and the trees are starting to turn lovely golden shades. Autumn is here, and that makes me happy because it’s one of my favourite times of year. Last weekend we took a visit to Sheffield Park and Garden, a place not far from us renowned for its autumnal colours (and just up the road from the other Sheffield Park where I have been spending a lot of my time lately).
Being late September when we visited, we were greeted with a lovely assortment of hues.
The garden can be a colourful place at the best of times, but there was an extra assortment of golden reds to see. I know from a previous visit in deepest winter that there’s probably still more to come.
One of the iconic images to get in the garden – which I have also made sure to get on every previous trip – is looking across what is known as Ten Foot Pond towards Sheffield Park House.
As I crouched in this spot, some geese and ducks came by. I’m no expert, but if I had to guess, it might have been because of the box of duck food my child was brandishing. But I’m no expert.
Whilst I was crouching looking at the house, a duck walked by, which I thought added a nice element to the shot.
As more geese arrived I took another wider shot to get them in frame.
Ten Foot Pond drains into an adjacent body of water called Middle Lake. It does so under the bridge in one of the first shots above, and from that bridge there’s a nice view into Middle Lake.
We wandered off into the grounds for my kid to explore a bit. One of the things we were looking for was cool-looking leaves to make into a collage. I saw these ones, but because they were still attached to a tree I left them alone.
As we explored we came across a hut, which I’m pretty sure I saw on a previous outing,, and even processed in monochrome. There;s something about weathered wood that demands black and white.
Somewhere in these woods this tree trunk caught my eye, which had moss growing on only one side.
My mum was with us, so when we stopped for a break by the side of another pond to feed some ducks, I broke out my new 50mm f/0.95 lens to get some pictures of them. I’m getting used to the manual focus on this lens and am pleased with the results I’m getting.
Just for an extra challenge, I had a go at photographing the ducks using the lens, to try to focus on something a bit less stable.
As I was crouched down shooting ducks I caught sight of more colourful trees on the far shore, framed by branches on the near one, so I swapped back to my normal lens.
We continued walking, and found another lovely angle showing a variety of wonderful autumnal colours reflected on a small body of water.
I took a few angles of this scene, trying to make the most of the colours and the reflection on the water.
160sec, f/8, ISO 100, 36mm
I also took a slightly different angle of this shot, which arguable looks more balanced as there’s another tree on the left side of frame, but there’s also less of the lovely colours on the right of frame, so I’ve chosen the one above. As often, the alternative is in the gallery below.
As we continued I saw another pond – or perhaps it was the same pond, it’s easy to get turned around in the garden – framed by some trees, so I took the chance of shooing into the sun to capture what I saw.
As we moved away from the water, we came across a patch of pretty flowers.
A little further on, under a tree, were a couple of colourful mushrooms.
Just through the trees from here is a more organised garden area, something make in coordination with the Royal Horticultural Society. They had a little ‘citizen science’ spot where you could plop your phone and provide them with a photo taken from the exact same spot at different times, so they could track the changes. As it happened, it turned out to be a good photo, to I took one with the big camera too.
This garden section had a fair few nice flowers in it, so I broke out my macro lens for some better shots.
We soon started to make our way back home. One the way I caught sight of a tree with some lovely textured bark.
On the way out I couldn’t help grabbing a few more shots of the autumn colours across Ten Foot Pond.
Hopefully we’ll be back to Sheffield Park and Garden later in the autumn when the colours are even more pronounced. And I’ll definitely be back at the other Sheffield Park before the month is out too.
As always, the images I’ve called out above are a choice selection, and there are a few others in the gallery below.
Creative Splurges 