Laverstock Down 'Clump'...

Out this morning to a chalk escarpment about a mile east of Salisbury known as Laverstock Down, from which I often photograph. It has great views of the city plus wide vistas westwards.

Today, though my intention was to capture the copper-coloured browns of the beech clump, high up, near the top of the Down. It's quite a climb, with a gradient that makes you definitely feel you've deserved the views, when you get them.

It was breezy, with the clouds scudding by quickly and was also often overcast. A few minutes later, it partly cleared, but such weather constantly creates changing colour patterns on the landscape and a change of lenses always provided a picture, somewhere.

Yes, it's that old Nikkor 17-35mm on FX D700, yet again! If you want to see where all that money went (it was £1500, new, for one original owner, I got it S/H) just check the fine tracery of all those twigs and branches - no sharpness added in either camera or Photoshop - and this level reaches right out to the edges. I used to use a Hoya Pro 77mm polariser with this lens - even that has been bettered by the Sigma EX one I have replaced the Hoya with - slim fit and superbly engineered.

A little cropping at the top and extreme right, some added contrast and a little added saturation. I then de-saturated the foreground grasses a little, as originally this competed with the central subject, the trees.