Thursday 28th April - Another Bluebell location

This time last year I used my best detective skills and advanced scouting methods to discover the first class Bluebell wood covered in this week's blog (I say discover - it was already known to prominent local photographers, but its location was kept on the down low, and no one was talking!).

On that basis, this is one of the few locations I've blogged about that I won't be naming and shaming. - it's seriously such a stunning location it would immediately be swamped if people readily knew where it was, and it isn't a location that could cope with big numbers. Because of course, big numbers read this blog and I am a famed influencer.....cough cough horse shit cough cough. If it became known that it was me that let the cat out of the bag I may quickly find my camera bag filled with prominent photographers' urine the next time I'm out and about on location (it turns out prominent photographers are a little bit like territorial dogs with how they deal with opportunistic wannabe prominent photographers - fierce bunch they are).

I may go into more depth about my scouting methods in a future blog, but in essence, it involves google maps, a lot of driving, and some good old-fashioned dumb luck. ..

You'll know by now if you read my blogs with any regularity (ha!) that if there's a chance of mist at this time of year I'll likely be out with my camera, and once again the forecast was teasing that it could be a possibility. Guess what?! The forecast called it wrong again... However, such is the beauty of this wood that rather than huff and puff in a fit of petulance, I got on with trying to salvage some useable images, and I think that I achieved that with some caveats (the caveats being meh, they're ok, but would look better with some better light/proper atmosphere).

This wood gets some fantastic early morning light - note the reddish colour on some of the trunks that were just catching the first of the suns rays. I was optimistic something might be about to happen...

Nope! Some clouds came over and blocked the best of the early sun. The light was ok in the end, but I've seen better...

A vertical crop of the same scene...

Those pesky clouds came back..

As the light wasn't THAT bright I thought I'd have a go at shooting directly into it. Turns out it was misty outside of the woods, but that mist never made it into the wood, unfortunately..

A fleck of light caught my eye at the base of one of these trees which, with a bit of work, led to this composition.

That damned mist still didn't make it into the wood!

As the cloud cover began to increase the light became more subtle. This was a scene I had lined up before with strong light on the trunks of the trees, but that image was too busy. With a softer palette I think this photo just about holds together.

As ever, let me know what you think in the comments section (checks comments section..wah wah waaaaaah).

See you soon!