Introspective

Chanc­ton­bury Ring is a pre­his­tor­ic hill fort. It is spe­cial place. I have passed by many times on runs and nev­er had the time to stop and soak up the feel­ing. Most times I have seen the trees ap­pear from a thick swirl­ing mist (it's of­ten breezy here) or hid­den by dark­ness, or cloaked in twi­light and even bathed in moon­light. Each leav­ing an im­pres­sion on me of an an­cient un­earthly pres­ence. Today I was in West Sus­sex with a few hours to spare. I had my cam­era gear in the car. Ok that's ba­sic­ally good. But it's mid­day, it's bright sun­light with blue cloud­less sky, it's the worst pos­sible con­di­tion for a mood pho­to. So ob­vi­ously the only choice is a hike up the big hill to Chanc­ton­bury Ring. I have a vis­ion and it looks noth­ing like it. Luck­ily I have Light­room and it can make moods. So, get the com­pos­i­tion right, ex­pose cor­rectly and do the rest on the com­puter. This im­age really stretches the bound­ar­ies but some­times I think it's ac­cept­able to cre­ate what you see in your mind. Paint­ing with light taken to its extreme. I have put a less ma­nip­u­lated ver­sion in the tree gal­lery but I quite like this one. It's how I ima­gine this sur­real, oth­er­worldly spe­cial place.

Chanctonbury Ring