Towards Longdon Church

I haven't walked through this field for 40 years. I spent a school term at Longdon Hall, which at the time was attached to my school in Birmingham. In the third year (remember those days when you moved up to the senior school and you started as a first year!), pupils had the option of boarding at the hall, the teachers coming out to take lessons in an old wooden hut in the grounds. It was where I first got my love for the outdoors and we did plenty of biology and geography field trips in the area.

The hall had plenty of animals that the pupils had to take turns looking after. These included a pig called Ermintrude that had a litter of piglets. We also had to look after Billy (the goat, what else!), as well as cattle, hens and sheep. It was a particularly interesting experience to play rugby on the same field where the animals grazed!

The hall is still used as a school for children who 'experience social, emotional and behavioural difficulties.' It looks as though the old hut is no more, which is just as well it was bl**dy freezing in there! Despite that I have many wonderful memories of the time spent there and it was a pleasure to look across and remember those times.

Technical: A 2 stop ND Grad across the sky to control it's exposure. I find this darkens the branches and trunk of the trees so bring this back using the adjustent brush in Lightroom and just increase the shadow slider so it only affects the darker tree. Then converted into black and white using Silver Efex Pro to increase the drama of the sky. Finally a small vignette was added.