I could decide where to explore on my Tuesday walk this week. I wanted to explore a churchyard or walk down the canals but I couldn’t settle on a churchyard that wasn’t disrespectful to photograph or a parking space that would put me on to a canal trail that wouldn’t be too long. In the end I settled on going back to a woods I haven’t been to for a few months that’s only a 10 minute drive from my house.

This was the first image I took as I moved off the main path, just a few metres into the woods. I’ve been challenging myself to take more landscape images as usually I’m stuck in the details of places, but I’m really happy with this. I’m still shooting at f2.8, a really narrow depth of field, but the haziness in the edges of the frame help tell the story. It reflects just how dark the morning was and how although the colours were muted there was still a spring-like glow in the greens. I’ve enhanced the moodiness in Lightroom with a mild edit and some masking to centre the highlights which has been really fun to practice.

As I was walking through the trees I spotted this perfect tiny mushroom on its own. Most are done and rotting away by this time of the year but he was still going strong. In hindsight I would have moved the brown leaf next to it but I got excited trying to get a clear angle that I wasn’t considering the full frame. I decided the first image was the best but none of them are great. The dreamy nature of f2.8 is my absolute favourite thing and the reason I became interested in photography and I’m having to wean myself off it., but in this instance the background was too cluttered to give a clear focus on the subject.

F2.8 1/250 ISO250

This tree really caught my eye and I thought I see if I could isolate it from the rest of the trees around it. I wanted to pick up the light that was just starting to come through on the moss. The one on the left is my favourite but it’s not 100% in focus because I don’t have time to set up a tripod; I still love it though. This separation between subject and background is much more successful than the mushroom and although the tree isn’t necessarily in context with nothing else in the frame, it’s more a study of the moss, the texture and the shape.

I genuinely did try my best to try to take wider, more landscape shots but I was never going to miss something like this. I absolutely love how clear and sharp this leaf is and how reflective the droplets are. It’s not always easy to get sharp images hand holding but this was a winner for me, and one of my favourite images I’ve taken this year. I rarely manufacture a scene further than moving a bit of detritus as I’m more interested in shooting things how nature made them, so as I’m learning Lightroom better I was able to simply bring out the highlights in the subject to make sure this is where the eye focuses.

As I was on my way out of the woods I spotted this hole in the tree stump. There was an awesome web inside but couldn’t expose it right to correctly capture both the brightness of the outside and the darkness inside. When processing in Lightroom, I was happily surprised that by using masking I could pull the web out, but I wish I’d had more faith in my ability to edit and had composed the frame properly because I’m annoyed I didn’t move the piece of grass on the bottom right but it is a reflection of how the scene naturally looked. I love all the different textures and light in this, and the leading line of the root coming through the middle of the frame is pretty cool and adds depth. It’s not 100% sharp because I was shooting at f11 but I was giving myself more experience of not being at f2.8. What I could have done is sacrifice some of the quality by upping my ISO (which is easily fixed in lightroom) as that would have allowed a quicker shutter speed and maybe more sharpness.

On this walk I had a lot of, what I feel, are unsuccessful landscape shots that didn’t make it into the post which is fine, I will keep practicing and I’ll always be drawn to more detailed and intimate shots. However, the point of this exercise will always be to enjoy being out and walking and learning to see compositions rather than hoping something looks good when I load it up.

Exploring Changes in Uffmoor Woods

Braving the Rain and Mud, and an Exercise in Editing

Finding Saltwells Cliffs