Solace

This image was taken early on a Sunday morning in mid-January, when London experienced several hours of snowfall.

 

The snow had fallen steadily overnight when this was captured near Golders Hill Park, one of the highest points in North London, where I'd hoped the snow would be heavy enough to provide some scenic material and where the high altitude helped to keep the snow cold and fresh. I'd previously hiked past this spot, hidden away near a path leading from Golders Hill Park towards the Hampstead Pergola and Hill Gardens, and was drawn to it the moment I saw it in the early-morning light. The idea of a view from an empty snow-covered bench surrounded by bare trees seemed to tell a story, and the setting felt like it had been lifted out of a fairytale.

 

The image was straightforward to shoot and edit, with multiple exposures captured and blended to control the intensity of light in the sky and to preserve as much detail as possible among the trees in the low-light conditions. I isolated the bench in Photoshop so that I could control its contrast and colour balance separately from the background, holding on to a hint of the red tones in the wooden backboard to complement the sub-zero blues and cyans surrounding it. Finally, I brushed in some additional traces of snowfall to complete the wintry atmosphere.

 

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