Bluebell Photography in the Home Counties
A week I’ll never forget
Over the last couple of weeks I have been continuing my Counties of England project. Photographing every county in England, a project that I started in September last year and am almost finished. Watch out for the final episodes of the project over on YouTube in the coming weeks.
This final leg of the project took me to the home counties of England that surround London. I intentionally planned this to coincide with bluebell season as I knew how good the bluebell woodlands in this area would be.
However, I wasn’t prepared for the amazing conditions and incredible woodlands I would find myself in. It really was a week I will never forget. In advance of the next episode coming out I thought I would share some of the images I managed to get.
I loved the tree in the background in the shade and took many shots of this scene during the morning by this one as the foreground tree caught the light was my favourite.
Everyone loves a fence. I did think I had missed my chance as the light was getting harsh. But I think this works. It was taken around 150mm to compress the scene a little.
The weather during this time was clear blue skies. And usually that is the worse thing for landscape photography. However, for Bluebells that works so well as you get the early sun in the morning and more chance of some fog. And as I went through the week I was keeping an eye on the chances of fog as it was increasingly likely.
Check out the images below to see a sneak peek of some of the foggy shots I ended up getting.
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This was after the sun had just dropped behind a cloud. I used the tree branch at the top to hide a gap in the trees showing the sky.
This was taken in Surrey. Interesting fact, Surrey has the greatest density of woodlands of any county in England. And it is definitely in my top 5 of best counties in England for woodland photography. In the image above there is a rhododendron at the bottom which will flower in a few weeks… I may have to return here.
This was one of the first shots I took on my first foggy morning. I was running around like a headless chicken and can’t wait to show the video from here.
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Woodland photography is all about creating order in the chaos. I actually dismissed this scene at first as wasn’t sure about the trees on the LHS but when I walked past again managed to find an image I liked.
This is probably my favourite image from the morning. I just love the fallen curving branch holding your eye in the scene. It took quite a bit of work to get the final composition and I think I retook it around 5 times during the morning in different light.
I like woodland images that have elements at first seem to not work together and then all of a sudden it all clicks. This is an shot that again dismissed but when walking back the other way saw this from a little bit further away.
I wan’t going to shoot bluebells this morning in Kent as I thought I had too many bluebell images (can that ever be true? Ha) And I was certain it wouldn’t be foggy but I went out and slowly as the sun rose the fog rolled into the woodland from the field and it was glorious.
All in all not a bad week…. I have keep some of my best shots for the video so make sure you check it out on the 10th May.