Soft-Light Perfection

I don’t often claim perfection, and if it happens it’s probably by accident, but here is a frame where it all came together. Just a simple country view—a farm in the valleys on the railway between Middlesbrough and Whitby, photographed through the carriage window. But all the elements are right—no dirt on the window, no reflections of interior lights, the POV is square-on to the scene (no fine rotation required), and the composition fell into place, the farm framed neatly in the view. The sun came out—the weather was grey and damp but for a while there was sunshine. And even then, the sun angle was low, so the light had a soft, almost transparent quality that makes everything seem different to the hard light of Australia. This was November 14^th, 2006, on my first England trip, and I was about to see my home town for the first time in 35 years—getting off at the very station the family left from in 1971. Talk about circles in completion—it was something that just had to be. But the November light in England, closing in on winter and the snow, is low and soft, and I can hardly describe it—you have to see it, feel it, to understand. Minor adjustments to colour, contrast and sharpness in Irfanview; Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.