This photograph is of a scene that I saw and photographed knowing that there was potential in it, but I’m not sure if I’ve managed to bring that potential out yet.

Marchwood is a military port, but unlike Plymouth and Portsmouth it is not a dockyard. Rather its purpose is more to load cargo ships with stores and equipment for deployment overseas and these are brought in by road and rail. It was owned by the MoD until 2023, but like most things in Britain, it has been sold off and is now owned by Associated British Ports.

It was taken from a ship in the River Test as we were leaving Southampton. It was a grey, murky day and light rain began to fall, and as I looked back up the river Marchwood was rapidly receding into the mist. In my head the scene made for a good picture, but trying to compose it in the viewfinder was easier said than done. And trying to bring it out in post processing was equally challenging. Incidentally, although I’ve converted the photograph to black and white, the conversion has made very little difference, such was the monochromatic nature of the scene.

My initial version is maybe too gloomy, and looks underexposed but is perhaps more akin to how the scene ‘felt’ at the time.

This version is perhaps a little closer to the reality of the scene, and I’ve had to lighten it a bit from the original file.