Woodland Photography
17th January 2011
The snow is now long gone, but for a couple of weeks before Christmas our countryside was transformed into a winter wonderland. The only downside was locally we had very poor lighting conditions with lead grey skies being the norm. However on the positive side this proved a real bonus as it has allowed us to shoot various woodland projects that have been in the pipeline for quite some time.
Woodland photography for me is all about sorting out nature’s chaos. Sometimes this comes easily, but on other occasions it just doesn’t fall into place. However, with time and a little experience the images will eventually appear, and you will become aware of which type of woodland suits each season and its associated weather conditions.
One of my favourite winter areas are young Birch woodlands. You have hundreds, if not thousands, of trees in a confined area which make it possible to create beautiful black and white graphical images. The arrival of snow brings a new life to these usually overlooked woodlands.
The above image is 4 images shot vertically then stitched together with PTGui software to create a large file size for printing. Black & white conversion was carried out in Photoshop’s channel mixer using the blue filter. Although this image looks nice on the screen its true beauty is emphasised when it’s printed out to a large format.
