Scouting is a big part of landscape photography, and when there's time I quite often try to explore new areas to test their photographic potential. Stockhill Woods is a Somerset woodland that is pretty close to where I live, however, as it's in the wrong direction to which I normally travel, it's a place I'd never been to before.
The weather was looking pretty gloomy, so I didn't think I'd miss out on anything special elsewhere if I gave it a look. Because I'm a bit of an idiot, I still set an early alarm just in case there was some nice morning light.
As is often the case when the forecast is poor the weatherman was right, and, as is it turned out, the woodland was pretty crap too (for photography at least). I like trees with character, but everything was pretty uniform, and even worse, as I was between seasons the landscape was still in its winter coat.
In the image below I thought there might be enough light on the nearest tree to add some interest to the shot, and that the layout of the other trees would help create balance. On the back of the camera I was reasonably pleased, at home I was not. Booooring!
I wondered if all of the fine detail on the Larch (I think) would work in black and white...nope, also boooooring!
A tiny bit of light threatened to add some interest to this scene - it only threatened though and the images remained boooooring!
Could a bit of winter colour change things....don't think so...
The sun came out for 5 minutes and gave me some hope, but I don't think this image will end up pulling any trees on social media..(in spite of the subject matter)
Finally, a tree of interest! I don't think it's interesting enough to warrant it's own return visit, but given how much I'd struggled all morning, I did spend a little bit of time trying to make the image work. (I think it's still boooring, maybe just not as boring as the others)
And with that I got fed up and returned home, thoroughly unfulfilled and a little disappointed in a location I'd had high hopes for.
As evening approached the cloud cleared and the sun came out. For the first time in his life my eldest said he wanted to go for a walk in the woods to take some photos - I've never felt prouder! So, here's a couple of bonus photos for the blog from my local woodland. They're still in the realms of boring, but at least there's a bit of light this time. Let me know if there's any you like...(lol!)
I'd be scouting bluebell woods for the next few blogs, so expect more of the same over the coming weeks...
Thanks for reading! (lol)
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