I had to drive into Luton that morning to attend one of those driver awareness courses due to speeding on the motorway.  After which I planned an afternoon walk from the Sundon Hills to Sharpenhoe Clappers.

Landscape Awareness

Since I have been into Landscape photography I have done a lot more driving about.  The downside is those damn cameras have caught me speeding and am accumulating a few points now.  Need to be more careful.

I had first discovered the Sundon Hills and Sharpenhoe clappers using Google Maps explore nature reserves around the Luton area.

I then switch to OS Maps online to work out a walking route hopefully bringing in the best landscape views of this northern end of the Chiltern Hills.

Sundon Hills

It was a beautiful late March afternoon, spring was in the air.  This time of year the days are still relatively short, the sun was low in the sky and visibility was very good.

The sky was brilliant blue with white fluffy clouds adding interest to an otherwise empty space.  I love white fluffy clouds in a brilliant blue sky.  From the dark spot in the right hand top edge of the above image its obvious I am using a polariser to emphasise the colours.  Too much polarising with a wide angle lens causes this artefact.

Landscape Lazy

I was handholding the camera.  The thing is with landscape photography you can be constantly adding removing your camera to and from the tripod, extending, shortening the tripod legs,  adding removing filters, changing lenses.  I can get lazy and just handhold the camera, bracket when the contrast is high and use a higher ISO and lower aperture to avoid any motion blur.

Further along the Sundon Hills along the John Banyan Trail, there were sun spots hitting the distance Sharpenhoe Clappers and knew for the best quality shot I needed to set my camera on the tripod.  With nothing in the immediate foreground I could use my lens sweet spot of F/8.

Sharpenhoe Clappers

Sharpenhoe Clappers is a prominent hill on the northern edge of the Chiltern Hills which was an iron age hill fort.  That funny name clappers is old English for rabbit warrens.  I found a few good compositions around the eastern side of the hill with the Barton Hills in the distance.

The silver birch just out of the foreground catches the low March late afternoon sunshine and kind of anchors the composition which then leads your eye over the pine trees in the mid ground to the distant Barton hills at infinity.

There is some ancient forest on top of Sharpenhoe clappers, silver birch mostly, their trunks catching the sunlight.  the forest canopies require longer exposures and best to setup on a tripod.  I needed to return to this part of the Chiltern Hills, sunsets and sunrises.  For an area of the Chiltern Hills just outside of conurbations like Luton, there are some remarkable views and not many people around.