Oaks, England

The day went well on the boat today - spreading 3.5 hrs of boat travelling over a day is our idea of a relaxing holiday. It rained pretty heavily this morning in Wrenbury, but as we could only rely on Radio 2 for weather forecasts (no wifi, nor TV) we kinda trusted the Beeb guys (and our own instincts) and went for Whitchruch at 11'ish. The weather was fab in the end. So sun cream on & tops off (except the missus) it was!

We moored up after a series of 5 locks for a well deserved lunch......Son, P, did a fab job on the locks, worked wonders on the lift bridges and even drove through a couple of bridges........And it was here that I noticed this poor oak tree in the cow field nearby. Seeing that we had a "bit" of time on our hands I took a sreies of photos of this tree alone, all in Infrared with my IR850 filter. I switched between my kit lens (wide & close up) and eventually my Lensbaby. The LB is well know for it's flaring paticularlly in IR, so I had to position the tripod well under cover from those sensor burning rays. It took several takes to get the focus shifting right on the LB as it differs each time due to the lens bending characteristics of the LB.

This was the pick of the bunch as I was not happy with the sharpness of the kit lens shots. This LB blip was shot at f5.6 with vertually no lens glare/flare. A lot of time was spent waiting for the clouds to shift and sun to shine directly and after about 20 odd shots I am glad to say that this one worked for me.

As for the title, one of the subjects at my Photography club next (year) season is The English Countryside, which I am having great difficulty in photo selecting, and I am seriously considering this one, plus two other prints.
I have always been fascinated with Oaks since I used to climb them with my brother a lot during my childhood days. Plus we had the blessing of having one in our back garden - an Oak tree that leaned to the right at 45 degrees (yes, really) behind the garden rockery. Happy days!

Tomorrow we will be meeting up with some friends L, B & R & my wife's sister. We will be doing the reverse of the last two days on the canal, but in one day! So we are expecting two (very) tired boys (and adults) tomorrow night!!!!!