Well, I call it my woodland but it isn’t actually mine! I’m lucky enough to have about 40 acres of wild mixed woodland next to my house. Very few people visit it and it’s full of roe deer, badgers, foxes, buzzards and there’s even a goshawk. Large areas of it are very boggy and it’s a mass of tangled branches and fallen trees.
Because the wood is so close to my house, I often go and take some photos, come back to my workroom and put them onto the computer to view them large. I can then clearly see areas I would like to concentrate on, and importantly to me, see the bits of trees and branches that I would like to omit from the photograph that would take a while in Photoshop to sort – the less time I spend on the computer the better. I’d rather be outside. I can also go back if the conditions are better for a stronger image. Almost all of my woodland photos are taken after heavy rain when the colours are saturated and the light is muted. (.. and the evil Scottish midge is at it’s worst!)
This photo on the right was the photo sketch for the final photo above. They were taken 2 hours apart on a wet April afternoon.
Shona Grant visual artist 