Henny

The River Stour meanders its way through the low-lying valleys of Suffolk and Essex before joining the North Sea at Harwich. This view, captured at Henny, a hamlet a short distance from our home village of Bures, is in many ways typical of the scenery that accompanies the river on its way down to the sea. The Stour Valley, much of which has been designated an Area of Outstanding Beauty is a gentle, rural, cultivated landscape that has been the subject of paintings by such artists as Gainsborough and Constable.

There’s something to be said for having eyes in the back of your head. I had visited this location with the intention of making compositional use of a bridge (a little like one you might expect to see in a Monet painting) which I had often seen while driving through Henny. However, a visit made it abundantly clear that the bridge held little potential. The landscape before me as I walked away from the bridge and along the river bank was equally unpromising, even when bathed in some glorious November light. It was only when I turned around that I saw the potential in the curve of the river, the reflections of the sky, and the single tree with its red Autumn foliage. The bridge (which can just been seen in the distance) may not have provided me with the image which I had hoped for; but I was compensated for this disappointment by a scene which I may well have missed had I not looked back.

Canon EOS 5D and EF 16-35mm lens.

Exposure of 1/10 second at f/16.