TwelveTrees: April: Down To The Wire

I really thought that by April my TwelveTrees project would be getting easier. In fact, the opposite has been true, April has been the toughest month so far. For a start, it has been a very busy month for me with little time for photography, and when I have been able to get out, the weather hasn't co-operated - in fact, the weather this month has been terrible. January-March were straightforward - leafless trees were fairly easy to find and shoot. For April, I wanted a seasonal image with fresh leaves emerging. I've only just figured out that most of the hedgerow trees of Leicestershire are Ash (January-March were all Ash), and the Leicestershire Ash has wisely decided to give April a miss and wait until May to get dressed. So April had to be an Oak. I managed to shoot some nice trees but not singletons so the maths didn't add up (TwelveTrees). I got so desperate that I started shooting trees in the rain, then processing them to look almost as if the sun was shining. Almost. In the end, with less than 12 hours of April left, I dodged a bullet and kept the project alive. 

Back in January I really didn't know how difficult this project was going to be. For one thing, I completely underestimated the number of clearstem standard trees (singletons) remaining in this heavily agricultural county. 


Nikon D7200 f9 11mm 1/250 ISO 100