Nr. Canadian Memorial, New Forest 14 Feb 2023 15:00

Opportunities for landscape photography in the mid-afternoon can be thin on the ground and when they appear it's often abstract shapes or textures that attract, rather than dramatic light and colour.

This was a clear, cold winter afternoon in February and the perfect reflection in the mill pond calm forest pool attracted me to this scene. Fortuitously, a pony strolled into the edge of the frame, roaming rapidly across the frame as it grazed and necessitating a prompt camera set-up.

It's unusual to see a solitary pony like this; they tend to roam in herds. But even when you spot one alone, others are usually nearby, within a hundred yards or so. If they feel separated, particularly towards dusk, they'll neigh out to each other and gather together.

Although scenes in the murky light of the under-canopy often look attractive to the eye, the light can be pretty poor for photography making a tripod desirable. On this occasion, there was no time to set one up before the pony wandered unaesthetically away from the focus of the ellipse created by the gracefully bowed tree trunk and its reflection. I usually shoot in aperture priority mode and, looking at the EXIF data, l set it to F10. Without a tripod, and the camera indicating a shutter speed of 1/8 sec, even the Olympus's outstanding image stabilisation wasn't enough, so I had to lean on a tree for extra stability. The result, even on close inspection in Lightroom, is crisp, so it did the trick.

Who says you need to catch the blue hour, the golden hour or dramatic skies for a landscape photo? Go for a walk, keep your eyes open, think in more abstract terms, and you never know...

Photo details - Olympus OMD-EM5ii, Lumix Vario 12-60, 35mm(equiv) f10 1/8sec. Processed in Lightroom for macOS (exposure, saturation, local masking)