I am still in the first year of my woodlands project. I undertook this because the area of the UK I live in does not have spectacular scenery in terms of grand vistas but I believe you should look for beauty everywhere and so I decided that I would explore a woodlands project in conjunction with my focus on intimate landscape photographs.
I have found the subject challenging. In the beginning I researched and explored various small woodlands in my area and eventually that excitement dwindled as I began to understand many were much alike. There are however three woodlands in my area that have markedly different characters. So as the seasons or weather change I revisit these areas to see what is different. I also take this project with me when I travel such as a recent holiday in Northumberland and weekend in North Yorkshire to visit family. Both allowed me short times to explore the woodland theme.
There are a number of challenges in woodlands that I have wrestled with. I list them here.
1) Visual Complexity. Woodlands are often dense with trees and vegetation that when presented in a photograph results in a confusing mess.
2) Light. There are seasonal challenges to lighting.
3) Sameness. Much about forests seems repetitious. How does one find unique and interesting subjects.
Visual Complexity
I am learning how to reduce visual complexity in a woodland scene. A big component is composition; excluding elements that complicate a scene. For instance the scene below caught my eye for some reason. I get home and scan it and wonder why I took it. April is the season with few leaves on trees and yet a lot for the brain to untangle. It is part of a woodlands so it represents what is there but can it be pleasing to look at? The depth of field is a mess... what am I expecting to viewer to focus on?
The next photo is much more pleasing and genuinely captures this section of the forest. I call it 'The Brothers'. It is much simpler in terms of form and subject.
The other thing I have found is that I really like shooting woodlands with a slightly telephoto lens. Most of these examples are shot with my Mamiya 645 Pro. I have been working with the 150mm f3.5 lens and now use it almost exclusively for woodlands work. 150mm is equivalent to about 125mm in 35 mm format. It allows me to exclude other visual elements with the slightly tighter crop. Being telephoto means I have depth of field to play with, as long as the film is not too fast. The only downside is the minimum focus is about 5.5 ft (1.7m).
I have found lighting can help in some situations though useful, shafts of sunlight can really drive up the dynamic range of the image and can create challenges to good exposures or make negatives that are difficult to print in the darkroom (a key element for my black and white images). Below is one I took recently in North Yorkshire. I stumbled upon a very small stream in some plantation woodland that was full of small vignettes. I managed to capture this image which though flawed uses the light well to give visual points of focus. The images is very cluttered and suffers from a typical woodland problem that of branches leaves and twigs on the periphery that are out of focus and distracting. What save the image is the light on the ferns draws the eye away from these elements. Alas this image I have found virtually impossible to print in a satisfying way. The density of negative in the highlights is difficult to balance without wiping out all of the shadow detail. It resists aggressive dodging and burning. It seems a good candidate for contrast masking.
The next image was taken on the same day in the same area. It is not a great image but shows that a much less cluttered scene is easier to look at. It is well exposed with good detail in the highlights and shadows. However the light does not emphasize anything of interest and the tree trunk I meant to make a more dynamic composition just looks random.
Depth of field is another way to achieve some isolation. Typically I can blur the background of the subject so it is less distracting. However it does make focusing critical. For instance this image of birch trees uses depth of field to nicely isolate them from the back ground. However the tree trunk in the foreground is out of focus ruining the whole effect. Stopping down to keep at the trees in focus may have meant the background was in focus as well. I am sure I need to be more careful about depth of field preview.
This rather cliched photo of teasel is more effective though there is some softness in two of the seed heads. The background is nicely blurred. I specifically did depth of field preview and was very careful to focus the image. I still struggled to contain the subject in the depth of field with even this small separation.
Color creates confusion. We see in color and color can be an important aspect of separation. So when I see a green leaf or white flowers backlit by the sun they seem to stand by themselves. A bright green is visually separated from the darker greens and other colors in the background. In black and white of course this all resolves to grays and I find I have to really make myself aware of the intensity of the background for this to work effectively. For instance in the scene below are some early spring flowers which shown intensely white when backlit by the sun. However they are lost in the cluttered background with competing brightness. The upper portion of the image has the flowers as silhouettes (not at all what I saw in my mind) and the lower ones appear backlit but insufficient attention was paid to the background which is a clutter and has patches of similar intensity. The flowers take a lot of effort to pick out.
The next image is better though not perfect. I paid a little more attention to the background and used depth of field more effectively. The background is simpler but would benefit if it were darker.
Light Challenges
I have discovered different seasonal challenges in terms of lighting. In the winter in deciduous woodlands the canopy is gone and what one finds is a strong top-lighting of subjects. Even without direct sunlight the sky radiates downward meaning upward facing surfaces may be 2 stops or more brighter than the indirect surfaces. This can present challenges in terms of dynamic range and fitting it onto paper in the darkroom. It exists to such an extent I have begun thinking about how to actively mitigate the problem. Even on a cloudless day this is not unusual. At these more northern latitudes the sun is never far from the horizon in winter meaning dense forest can block much direct sunlight leaving the blue dome of the sky to light the scene. This next winter I would like to conduct some experiments with a warming filter for black and white work. My idea is if the scene is lit by cool light from the sky I may be able to attenuate it some with a warming orange filter and this would preferentially cut the direct skylight. I may also look at trying yellow or red filters as well.
In the summer the problem is the immense shade from the canopy in deciduous forests. In conifer forest this problem exists year round. It is often so dark it is difficult to shoot handheld and the tripod has to be relied upon. I tend to prefer HP5+ 400 ASA film because of this. I have also pushed it to 800 with great success. Since I have not dialed in my exposure and development of HP5+ to the same extent as FP4+ (I just use default Massive Dev Chart times.) I am thinking of standardizing on HP5+ pushed to 800. It offers so much flexibility and little noticeable increase in grain over box speed on medium and large format images.
Sameness
Finding unique images that convey the mood of the woodland on the day I visit it is always a challenge. I try and remain open minded and go out with a camera even on a day I wouldn't expect anything special. Tune into the day and the moment. Move slowly and with purpose. I take in the smells, sounds, and the feeling of the weather on me. If I find everything feels bland I might just leave early or pack up the camera and enjoy the day.
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