Forest Bliss | Weekly Photo #58
Now for something completely different. No, I’m not talking about Monty Python’s Flying Circus, I’m talking about my photography and what I’ve been shooting over the last few months.
In March, this year, I decided to spend a little less time photographing London and more time photographing closer to home. The first photo I took at the time was of a cluster of trees in Ashdown Forest during a foggy, wet afternoon, which I released back in week 50 of this series. You can check out this photo here: Misty Trees | Weekly Photo 50. This change of direction doesn’t spell the end of my cityscape photography, but more of a shift in focus at a time where being in open space and away from crowds makes a lot more sense. I will, however, be taking trips back into London, I have one planned this week in fact but I will choose my times and locations carefully to make sure I don’t contribute to the problem during these social distancing times.
Fujifilm XT2 | XF55-200mm | 55mm | 1.4 Seconds | f/13 | ISO200
In May, lock down rules started to relax and I was able to venture further than the end of my street for the first time in weeks, so with the bag packed and the camera charged, I headed back to the Ashdown Forest in East Sussex late one afternoon to explorer some of the more traditional woodland it has to offer. Although it’s called a forest, much of Ashdown Forest is actually open heath-land. Apparently, the word “Forest” had a different meaning back in the day and was used to describe open or common land with plants and trees, not like today where we associate the word with a large, more dense area of trees.
Anyway, after missing the best of the Spring flowers, I was pleased to find this area of the wooded forest still with plenty of colour created by these Rhododendrons. Woodland photography is still very new for me and looking back, I didn’t really have a clue what I was doing, I just searched for a scene by studying the shapes of the trees, using them to create the stronger compositional lines and used the colour from the fresh green foliage and Rhododendrons to add some interest. Don’t get me wrong, I put a lot of thought into finding a scene I wanted to photograph but I also know that to get really good and take great woodland photos takes a lot of time and patience to understand how to seek out nice compositions and how the elements interact with each other. I wasn’t going to kid myself that a woodland rookie like me could just rock up to a location and take a portfolio image. I should be so lucky.
After I found the scene I wanted to photograph, I set up my Fujifilm XT2 camera and 55-200mm lens, on a slight hill, against a tree (wishing hopelessly it would move out of my way) and began to compose the image. I ended up going with a focal distance of 55mm which could have been achieved with my lighter 18-55 lens but I find when shooting above 40mm, it’s not as sharp and between the two lenses, the 55-200 takes a slightly better photo and has a slightly wider aperture at 55mm. A lot of you will glaze over when talking about gear but I guess the message here is that to get the most out of a photo opportunity, it’s really helpful to know how your camera gear performs and what lens you should be reaching for in any given scenario. Once I found a composition I liked, the sun was just setting and the dappled light which I found very distracting disappeared and I was able to fire off a couple of shots.
Although I really like this final image, I need to be careful that this admiration isn’t driven by novelty which is why I tend to wait a while before sharing my work. I already know there are areas I need to improve such as I need to work harder to adjust my position to arrange the elements a bit more carefully, I need to learn what light works best for the given scene and I also need to ensure I have my circular polarizer filter with me for times I need to cut down the reflective light from the leaves.
I’m excited and energised to see where this shift in direction will take my photography and looking forward to sharing the photos I take along the way.
Talk to you soon.
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.