Manchester based professional photographer | Neil Downie

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Is it cheating to make Autumn come early?

Earlier this week I made an effort to get out and explore some Autumn colours. It's a period every year I try to make the most of, and with rare exception I've really failed to find good Autumn colours, year after year. I love those rich brown, orange & yellow hues that criss cross the countryside for only a short period each year and transform the landscape to the same level of beauty as a thin smattering of the white stuff. It's not for the lack of trying I can assure you, but my path has never yet managed to cross a good collection of Autumnal colours on anything other than a pouring wet day. And still hasn't :-(

Autumn in the Bollin Valley, Cheshire

I took a trip to one of my regular haunts for experimenting, down in the Bollin Valley, to be greeted by a lusciously green woodland, speckled with early Autumn sunlight. It's a real sanctuary for me down there. Though without any particularly spectacular views, it still holds plenty of photographs that I've yet to find. Anyway to the point I hear you say. Well I wanted Autumn colours, and there was a little but nothing like I'd hoped. So with the use of Lightroom I changed it to how I saw it in my mind, all lovely and golden and warm.

Is it cheating? Personally I don't think so. Shuffling a few sliders around in an application is no different to the lengths Ansel Adams went to with his dodging and burning.

What do you think?

Want to know how I  did it? I'll post a quick video next week.

Autumn in the Bollin Valley, Cheshire