Several people have asked about my photo on the cover of the January/February issue of the Cottenham Newsletter. They’re curious as to where I took the photo, how I got the church and the lode in the frame like that. A couple of people have even suggested that it must be a composite and have walked along the bank to see if they can see how I took it.
Well, it’s not a composite, there was no photographic trickery. It was snapped with a 600mm zoom lens on the 30th December 2017, just after 11am. I “developed” the photo in Paintshop Pro and cropped it to frame it nicely for the cover of the newsletter. The lode was almost full, which perhaps messes with one’s perspective. But, more than that zoom lenses notoriously compress the depth of an image, making the most distant object seem not only closer but also making it seem as if they’re the same sort of distance away as closer objects. It’s a useful effect and gives rise to intriguing and puzzling photos like this one.
Anyway, to settle any arguments, the photo was taken from the dog-leg in the Cottenham lode where the little wooden bridge emerges from Rampton Spinney. So, about 1.2 km from the Broad Lane Bridge (seen in the right of the photo) as the crow flies. All Saints Church (pictured in the left) would be about 2 km from that point.
Other technical details: Canon 6D, Sigma 150-600mm zoom, f/10, t 1/500s, ISO 1200.