Amateur Photographer Magazine

The undoubted highlight of my photographic year has to be the publication of my image, “surface tension” in Amateur Photographer magazine, (left). Its the first serious image I have had published, and for it to appear in a national magazine is very exiting and quite encouraging!

I had been wandering my usual haunts at the 3 sisters lake in Ashton looking for photo opportunities but coming up blank. It was a dull, overcast day, with miserable flat light and not a lot of interest presenting itself.

I gave up looking for the wider landscape views and sought out interest in the smaller details. The lake had plenty of still colourful Autumn leaves drifting across the surface and this one in particular stood out. The surface tension of the water seemed particularly pronounced as the leaf balanced between drifting on the surface or becoming sodden and sinking to the bottom. I shot from directly above, (carefully balanced on a fishing pier), and used the dark sky to make the water seem almost black.

In the original image the leaf is a vivid orange, but I felt it lent itself better to a mono conversion. I used the excellent Silver Efex Pro2 to bring out the texture in the leaf and change to B&W.

I uploaded the final image to the AP Flickr group and was amazed and delighted to get an email a few days later telling me it had been chosen for their “on-line picture of the week” feature. I didn’t quite believe it until I bought my copy(s) on the day of publication.

I have reproduced the image and a couple of others taken that day below.