A morning in heaven
Oftentimes in landscape photography you get up at stupid o clock in the morning, stumble downstairs, make a coffee after first using gravy granules, pee, drink coffee, burning mouth as you are in a rush to get out, get out, forget something, remember it, rush back to house, realise you dont have your front door keys so have to go to the back door, sneak in like an amateur burglar, fumble round in the dark trying to find the item you forgot, realising that if the missus wakes up she is probably going to have justified means to shoot me as I really do feel like i’m robbing the house, find item, rush back out the house, get into car and head to destination, sunrise is rubbish and no mist or fog, have a walk anyways in the rapidly fading hope that SOMETHING might happen, give up, find a Starbucks, head home. This happens a LOT.
However this morning was one of those rare ones where all the stars aligned and by some miracle the Met office weather report actually turned out to be true! (Do any of you think meteorology is not actually a science but in fact a guessing game?) My mate Dave had decided to head to Grovely Woods, which i am not a fan of so I decided to visit another wood that he had gone to a couple of days before and assured me was bursting with primo bluebells and wild garlic too. The forecast was saying thick fog and to be fair when i looked out of my living room window all i could see was the end of my garden and one of my cats sat in it doing his best impression of the beast of Bodmin. The drive to the parking spot to my target wood was a short uneventful trip and i parked the car, got my gear from the boot, checked that I had batteries and memory cards and took a deep breath and prayed to the knee gods. The walk up to the wood is short but very steep and those that know me know that between my knees and my Dad bod, hills become a bit of a task! However I took great pride in myself that I managed to reach the summit of the hill witohut having a heart attack and in pretty good time too! There was just one problem………no fog! I hadn’t noticed during my huffing and puffing up the hill that I had left the fog behind at about three quarters distance and I was now in clear conditions. My heart sank (still beating rapidly mind) as i realised that, once again, the weather was going to turn against me.
Dejectedly I wandered through the wood, admiring the gnarly trees, the carpets of indeed primo bluebells and wild garlic and the odd hare that startled me silly when it ran out from under my feet. Of course there were still some nice photos to be had but I wanted more than just nice…..I wanted EPIC! As I reached the other end of the wood I wandered out into the field and noticed something that made my heart leap (it was back to normal bpm at this point). The fog was drifting up the hill! I was going to get it in the woods! I hurried back into the trees and headed over to a certain tree known as Excalibur as it vaguely looks like a gigantic sword, and its companions. Now this wood is not very big and only has about 7/8 decent compositions in it so I had every intention of working them all. As I predicted the fog drifted in and softened everything up and I proceeded to get some lovely images of the twisted trees, standing guard over the bluebells. It was glorious. But things were going to get better.
I had headed over to the far end of the wood where a littel trio of Beech trees lined the path and was setting up for a shot when I noticed light rays starting to cut through the mist. Well, this was unexpected! I immediatly rushed back to Excalibur and set up to retake all the composisitons I had just got but this time including some pretty epic light rays. It was GLORIOUS! I spent the next hour chasing light around the woodland and the fog too as it was being burned off by the sun and had gotten quite patchy. By the time it was all gone I was breathless (again) and extremely happy. A session like that happens maybe once every twenty to thirty trips out?
Anyway you can see the result of this session here and I have to say they are some of my best woodland images yet and by far my best ones with bluebells in them!
In other news I bought a drone, a DJI Mini 3 pro. I traded in a camera for it I wasn’t using and so it didnt cost me much. I have had drones before, the mini 2, which took terrible photos and an air 2s which I was scared to fly! The mini 3 pro is able to take 48mp images and is night and day better than the mini 2 so looking forward to seeing what I can get with it.
I am also featured in next months N-Photo magazine who contacted me asking to do a feature on me and my work. I am incredibly proud that an international magazing has deemed my work good enough to feature and look forward to sharing the article with you all when i am allowed!
Until next time dear reader!