Lush Greens | Weekly Photo #105
This Spring, I had two objectives with my woodland photography. Firstly, to scout some unique spots to photograph the beautiful bluebells and secondly, to find a location in my local woodland to photograph wild garlic. Albeit later than usual, first to appear was the bluebells, which I was fortunate to photograph here and here. Shortly after, the wild garlic started to bloom, so I got to work on scouting out where I could photograph these aromatic wildflowers.
I found the search for wild garlic much more difficult than the search for bluebell locations but my perseverance paid off as I eventually stumbled on this location by searching Flickr and using the accompanying metadata along with some detective work on google maps to hone in on this exact spot in the south of England on the Surrey/Sussex border.
Fujifilm XT2 | XF10-24mm | 10mm | 0.5 Seconds | f/9 | ISO200
The first thing that struck me when I arrived was just how green everything was. Along with the fresh new leaves on the trees, the lush, vibrant greens of the wild garlic leaves which carpeted the woodland floor was something to behold and it was my job to find an interesting composition amongst it all. I started with a few photos using the pathway and bridge that crosses this small brook as compositional interest before deciding to get my feet wet and take this photo looking directly down the brook, flanked by the fresh wild garlic flowers. After carefully descending the slippery bank I went about setting up the camera and composing the shot.
If you’re looking for examples of how a circular polarising filter (CPL) can help your woodland photography, then look no further than this picture here. A CPL filter works by controlling or removing reflections from shiny or wet surfaces, because when light hits those surfaces, they create glare that increases highlights, reduces colour and detail. By using a CPL filter as I did here, it has removed most of the reflections in the water and the wet leaves, which is why you can see the details under the water so well and is also why the green leaves look so lush. It’s commonly agreed by the photography community that the effect a CPL has on an image is the only one that can’t be replicated in post, so it’s are a worthy addition to any landscape photographer’s bag.
With the foreground so close to the lens, getting sharpness front to back would be tricky in a single shot so I decided to focus bracket the photo so, starting from the closest leaves to the camera, I worked from front to back refocusing and in between breaths of wind, capturing the next frame until I had 4 or 5 to blend together later in Photoshop to create a single, sharp image.
Although the scene could do with a few more flowers on the right-hand side to balance things up and boy would this place look amazing in misty conditions, overall, I’m extremely happy with this first attempt to photograph the wild garlic and really pleased I found this local sport which I can return to in the future.
Until next week.
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.