Amazingly the photograph this month is actually a colour image, taken shortly after dawn following heavy overnight snowfall on Dartmoor. If you look closely at the granite stone piers under the bridge, you will see some greenery of moss and ferns against the grey of the granite stone, and you may also see a hint of dark green amongst the tops of the conifers against the very dull overcast leaden grey sky. I did think about converting the image to monochrome, but the difference was negligible – I found that just desaturating the blue and cyan tones did that, but I preferred this full colour version for the richer tonal contrast.
Postbridge is a small hamlet in the centre of Dartmoor on the East Dart river, astride the main East-West B3212 road that traverses the Moor and links Moretonhampstead in the East with Tavistock to the West. There is a Dartmoor National Park Visitor Centre there and a large car park about 50 metres from the clapper bridge, making Postbridge an ideal location for exploring the northern part of the High Moor.
The clapper bridge like most in the UK was erected in medieval times, being first recorded in the 14th century and believed to have been built in the 13th century to enable pack horses to cross the river, carrying locally mined tin to the stannary town of Tavistock. It is built of locally quarried granite slabs over 4 metres (13 ft) long and 2 metres (6 ft 7 in) wide, weighing over 8 metric tons (7.9 long tons; 8.8 short tons) each, that would have made the bridge passable to a small cart.
The clapper bridge here at Postbridge is regarded as one of the finest complete original examples in the country, and accordingly is a Grade II*-listed structure, and stands just a few yards downstream of another younger bridge built in the 1780s, also a Grade II-listed structure that today carries the B3212 road.
The word ‘clapper’ derives ultimately from an Anglo-Saxon word, cleaca, meaning ‘bridging the stepping stones’. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the intermediate Medieval Latin form clapus, claperius, “of Gaulish origin”, with an initial meaning of “a pile of stones”.
I took the photograph early in the morning – I was up early with my camera in preparation for capturing images of the Moor in the fresh snow, so had wanted to be up and about before the hordes of sightseers descended on the moor. It is not a good idea to go onto Dartmoor in heavy snow, unless you have a sturdy 4×4 and know how to drive safely in such conditions. This is as much for your own safety as well as that of the local farmers, who in snowfall have to get around to check on their livestock on the open Moor, and do not want to find the roads blocked by abandoned leisure vehicles that cannot drive in the snow. Fortunately I drive a Land Rover Defender which is the perfect 4×4 for getting around in such conditions, and indeed whilst I was cutting first tracks on much of the road, the first two other active vehicles that I saw out and about were also Land Rovers. Having worked in West Siberia for several years, and driven daily out there around town and out to the oilfields in the taiga, I consider myself relatively competent and safe in such conditions – or at least experienced.
The skies were a heavy dull grey, the temperature was about -2°C and no breeze, so still heavy snow on the twigs and branches on the trees – and more to the point, no footprints everywhere messing up the aesthetic beauty of the snowfall. It was a stunning sea of monochrome – the bright white snow, and the dark shadowy vegetation peeking out from beneath the snow under the grey sky. I find taking photographs in snow quite tricky to achieve the optimum exposure – the snow bounces a lot of ambient light around, which can easily fool many cameras into over-estimating the brightness and consequently under-exposing. Fortunately with digital one can adjust one’s settings and instantly review the results, whereas in the days of film unless one bracketed, one could never be 100% sure of achieving the desired result until much later.
It is also good to try and retain some texture in the snow on the ground. Under-exposure leads to a murky brown-grey which is unrealistic, and over-exposure washes everything out – trying to get a few patches of shadow and showing the uneven texture – especially if there are footprints or vehicle tracks – is tricky, and far more so if there is bright sunshine, because of the high dynamic range of the scene.
As this was a static landscape I was able to use a tripod, and although I could have taken multiple exposures to create a High Dynamic range (HDR) image, I often find that in high contrast settings it can be tricky to obtain a natural colour range, (unless of course you want a more dramatic effect anyway).
No easy solution even with the best camera on automatic – snow is definitely best photographed on dull overcast days fully using the manual controls on your camera – at least in my opinion!