You don't take a photograph, you make it.: Focal Length and Angle of View

For this exercise I took my camera to Willenhall town park. I wanted to capture images that not only showcased the topic at hand, but were good images in themselves. The time of year provided some bonuses and challenges in pretty much equal measure, so I had to spent quite a lot of time working the shot, trying different angles and subjects to produce images I was happy with. Today there is a blanket of dull grey cloud across the sky, which meant that I wanted to avoid including the sky in the pictures at all costs. The cloudy day also resulted in less available light for the camera, and as my images are quite shady, it required an ISO of 800 and wide apertures in order to keep my shutter speed to a reasonable number for handheld. Although a challenge when photographing the outdoors, I found that from a learning standpoint the overcast day really pushed me to be creative and to find solutions. On the plus side, even at midday I had nice even light to work with as it diffused through the cloud cover, and many of the trees are now showing their autumn colours which I wanted to capture in my images. I took several series' of images and eventually chose the scene below. I enjoy the leading line of the path taking the viewers eye from the front to the back of the image, and the colourful avenue of trees obscures the dull sky and provides interest and contrast to the grey tarmac.

For this exercise I used my kit lens which has a focal range of 18-55mm. I thought this would provide the necessary focal lengths needed for the job at hand. When my prints have been developed I'll revisit the same place and see which image most closely resembles my actual view.