Showtime | Weekly Photo #103
This is the time of year when the ancient forests of Blighty come alive, waking from their wintry sleep as they put on a fantastic show of vibrant colour, inspiring positivity and optimism that brighter days are ahead. Photography or not, I’ve always enjoyed the woodland at this time of year and I’ve had a blast scouting, exploring and finally being able to photograph it.
Fujifilm XT2 | XF55-200mm | 67mm | 1/13th Second | f/9 | ISO200
From the moment I started thinking about photographing the woodland this spring, I had this popular bluebell scene in mind and although similar-looking photos have taken over my Instagram feed lately, I wanted to try to take my own version, captured and edited in my own style. Why you might ask, do I want to take a photo that’s been taken a million times before? Well, I don’t subscribe to the notion that we landscape photographers should avoid popular subjects or compositions as with so many variables such as light, weather, time of day, and even the effect a pandemic can have on certain locations, no two photographs are ever identical. I think that unless a photographer is working to brief, they are free to explore creativity in their own, unique way, and for many, including me, getting those hero shots are part of that process.
After a bit of research and a lot of legwork, I finally found this beautiful spot in West Sussex where I could take the photo I had planned. It’s a large forest, well known for putting on a show during spring with carpets of bluebells throughout the woodland but when presented with such a wide area to search and with a very specific look I wanted to achieve, it inevitably took some time to find the exact spot. I ended up making two separate 3-hour round trips and spending a good 6-7 hours exploring the woodland before I found the best spot.
I spent some time working the scene. By that, I mean I walked around the forest, studying it, finding the best area of bluebells, the best arrangement of trees, while trying to minimise the amount of bright, distracting light that was piercing through the canopy. After a few minutes, this is the composition I decided on.
It was this tree in the foreground with those green leaves on the trunk that initially caught my eye but as I started to compose, I started to notice other things I like, such as those vibrant greens up in the canopy and the way the floor isn’t just one solid carpet of purple, but rather these swathes of colour with purples, whites and greens spread right across the forest floor. It really was a beautiful scene to observe.
I ended up focus stacking the first few layers of trees to make sure they were nice and sharp and used a circular polarizer filter on the end of my lens to take some of the glare off the leaves and with my settings dialled in, I took the shot.
Some misty conditions would have been the icing on the cake for a woodland scene like this, but I guess you can’t have everything and there’s always next time, but overall, I’m really pleased with the photo I took.
Trevor
This post is featured in my Weekly Photo series where I post a new photo every Monday. To have this delivered directly to your inbox, you can subscribe to the mailing list here.