An Early Morning with Martin Evening

I had not met up with Martin for quite a time and with his living close to some world-renowned Bluebell Woods, we decided that despite it being slightly too early for the best of them, it was a day we were both free, so I drove to his place and we set off to Dockey Wood.

Out taking pictures in the low morning sun gave us an opportunity to catch up and indulge in an activity which gave us both pleasure. These woods have now been fenced off to help preserve them from the public entering all along the roadside, so now there is a designated entry gate and within the woods, branches have been laid to form ‘hedges’ to try to keep the public to the paths and so lessen the flowers from being trampled thoughtlessly.

Initially we stayed close to the right hand edge of the woods, so we had the the low slanting morning sun streaming in and forming stripes from the shadows of the trees. Martin took several different viewpoints whereas I at this stage kept close to the same spot as I was experimenting with using the long telephoto lens to try to compress the distance and in transferring my gear from my car to his had left the ideal head behind and was suffering somewhat to get the best stability. The reality was that I should have opted for a shorter focal length lens!

We returned to the car after a while and headed to a different location, and I used my 24-70mm to capture some gnarled tree trunks which gave me far more fun with searching for shapes that my imagination found as animals, and that occupied me for quite a time, before we moved to yet another location – this time with some very wispy almost floating young green leaves set against a stand of tall tree trunks. sadly by this time the sun was hidden making it difficult to capture in the very flat lighting.

We then stopped for a lunch break at the Visitor Centre before heading back. It was an excellent way to spend some time together since we last met up at the Photography Show at the NEC. It’ll be interesting to see whether viewers of the gallery can spot the ‘animals’ I saw in the gnarled shapes of the tree trunks! I found a horse, an elephant with Snoopy on his shoulders, a lizard, a camel, a ram and an old lady in a green scarf, holding hands with a young girl with blonde hair! Sorry – no prizes!