Light in October

On a sunny October afternoon, I once again drove to one of my favorite places in nature. A sloping meadow with old apple trees.

The meadow also serves as a pasture for cows. There are many vertically dug-in railway sleepers at the edge, between which wires are stretched from time to time for barrier.

The light fell in from the side, casting long shadows. The sides of the bare trees facing away from the sun thus formed a strong contrast to the environment.

The colors were already very worn out at this time of year. Pale green turns into all kinds of ground-colored shades. The fallen apples look poison green on the outside and brown on the crushed sides.

However, I found the shapes of the trees with their partly dead branches, the railway thresholds, the light and the shadows more exciting than the colors. In this case, there is a lot for black and white shots.

I took the photos with the Pentax K-3 III Monochrome and a Voigtländer F3.5/20mm lens with manual focus. In fact, this is a good street shooter combination. Even in nature I find the small initial opening of the lens absolutely not as a flaw. I took all the photos here with aperture 11.

The Light of February

In February 2026, we had surprisingly nice weather. I took this as an opportunity to visit the apple tree meadow again and take some color shots with the (not monochrome) Pentax K-3 III.

Excitingly, these colored photos look much more like late summer than the black and white shots of October. At least at first glance. On closer inspection, the leaves of the trees are missing in February. Everything is bare and the meadow withers.

Additionally it turns out that the conversion of some of these color images to black and white under the simulation of a red filter is even more atmospheric than the photos originally taken with the Pentax K-3 III Monochrome.

I had no filter on hand with the latter. For these purely monochrome photos, no filter effect can be applied in post processing. This only works for color photos.

Highlight

My favorite image is the last photo from the series of color shots.

It is the most balanced and best lighted - in color as well as in black and white.