Going from the big city last week, to a substantially smaller one. This photo was captured in Welford, a village situated between Northampton and Leicester in the English countryside.

This is a rather dark shot, but Welford is actually nice and cosy. We had the pleasure to visit it last summer, when we were on a three weeks narrowboat holiday. Cruising the “Leicester Ring” we took a detour from the main line down Welford arm, and spent a night in the village. Of course, we had to take a closer look, and standing with my back to St. Mary´s Church, this composition, with nearly empty roads, threatening skies, and a gloomy look came up.

Out of the camera, the picture was heavily underexposed, and my first thought was to delete it. But taking a closer look, I still rather liked the scene. Fortunately, I shoot RAW, and in Lightroom I brightened it up a bit, recovered some of the details and desaturated it. Doing so, however, I found the “correct” exposure to kill off the ominous atmosphere. Frankly it became just dull. But, this turned out to be a quite interesting exercise, because I soon realized that by adjusting the exposure down again, I reached a very thin line, separating dullness from the impression I was seeking.

So it deliberately ended up like this, sinister and ill-boding.