An Old Alder, and a Cathedral

This is the oldest Alder in Wiltshire. And over the Watermeadows lies Salisbury Cathedral.

This is not the view or the from the location on 3rd Feb but is from near where this 'The Mist Rises" Blip which also was chosen by Nikon for their I Am A Nikon UK, as a sunrise shot.

In the 'olden days', we'd have used a red filter on the front of the lens, with black & white film, to get this sort of dark blue sky/cloud contrast - these days, you don't do that with digital. I find a good polarised colour original then via some customised black & white conversion in Photoshop works quite well.

Fair amount of selective burning/dodging (OK, that's old darkroom speak) but basically means that you just keep on doing 'bits' with exposure, to different parts layer by layer.

The river in the foreground has subsided from its extremely swollen and flooded state just a few days ago. This has left a lot of reed-bed exposed which I purposefully kept in and wading out was just not an option!

Try 'large' for extra detail!