Trek to Nutley Windmill

It was the ideal day: clear, sunny and crisp, exactly what you want for a winter walk, and the winter sun was its usual lovely soft self. One of the first things I saw was said sunlight poking through a clump of trees.

I also went for a HDR exposure catching the glint of the sun.

I walked for a couple of miles, distracted less by photographic opportunities and more by throwing stones into frozen puddles in a childish manner.

Eventually I found my way to the waterfall. It wasn’t a big one by any means, but it was in a lovely secluded spot – and unlike most of the water I’d encountered that day, it wasn’t frozen. That meant it was time to pull out some long exposures.

As you can see, I elected to go for a one second exposure, which is about the longest I could manage without overexposing the shot too much. It was also about as much as I felt comfortable risking whilst shooting handheld, because yes, once again I was shooting without the aid of a tripod for reasons of laziness, much like I did at the Giants of Steam nightshoot the previous month.

I tried various framings, such as a landscape shot getting in more of the pool.

Something a little more close up, focussing on the waterfall itself.

And something using this rock as a foreground element.

I’m pretty happy with the results considering I was handholding the camera for a full second exposure in the cold while crouching down. I probably could have gotten something a little sharper if I had a tripod, but I still don’t really have a ‘just in case’ tripod – I just have one I carry with me to use for my phone when I know I will be taking video at the same time as photos.

I carried on my walk. Along the way, a few sights caught my eye, such as the sun glinting through this tree amongst a bed of brown leaves.

And this frozen pond which, yes, I did throw a rock in shortly afterwards.

Eventually I came to Nutley Windmill. Unfortunately it wasn’t open, not even the grounds, so I was a bit limited in what angles I could get. I found a gate I could shoot through, which luckily at least let me see a front quarter view.

I was prepared for this possibility, because I had made sure to bring my drone with me (and more importantly, make sure it was fully charged) in the expectation of taking some aerial shots anyway. Luckily no-one was around, as I am still very self conscious about flying this thing.

Also quite luckily, the windmill was south-facing, meaning the light was in my favour.

As with the last (and so far only, although there are a few in the pipeline) time I shared drone shots, I’m not bothering with the camera settings, because they are pretty static. That said I did want to call out which of the shots were HDR. I should also mention that in the edit I applied a preset to bring out the autumnal colours.

It’s easy to get a bit carried away with height or distance when flying a drone, sometimes at the expense of the subject. I was conscious to fly a bit lower and get a different angle .

I packed up my drone and continued on my walk, but not before snapping a shot of the lovely footpath I was flying from.

As I approached the car park from whence my journey had begun, I saw a very impressive frozen puddle that had cracked in an interesting way.

And with that, having been out in the freezing cold for a few hours, I went home for some well-earned warmth.

As usual, the photos above are a bit of a selection, and there are a few extra images and alternate takes in the gallery below.