Woodland Ways

PAUL MITCHELL FRPS

Woodland can be notoriously difficult in which to compose meaningful images, which is hardly surprising when you realise how complicated groups of trees can become; the phrase ‘can’t see the wood for the trees’ regularly comes to mind.

Over the years I have come to realise that my background in graphic design has been helpful. I am always looking for simplified compositions and pay particular attention to colour, texture and light.

I am in no way an art historian but I do like to study the works of our classic English landscape painters such as Gainsborough and Constable - there is so much to be learned from the way in which they composed their landscapes and, more importantly, from their renditions of trees and how light interacts with them.

Another aid to composition is to use a viewing frame, and these can easily be made from a piece of black card or even from a rigid foam mouse mat; something about the size of a postcard with a cutout aperture of a 2x3 aspect ratio works perfectly. Viewing through the aperture with one eye closed renders the scene two dimensional and the area immediately surrounding the scene is masked off. I then begin to look at the composition as if it were a print on my wall, and if it doesn’t look right I just walk on until I find another composition.

I’m sure that we have all come across that famous slogan which adorns so many car rear windows - ‘A dog is for life, not just for Christmas.’ The same can be said of woodland - it’s not just for autumn!

I visit woodlands throughout the year, each season having its very own characteristics.

From the sight and smell of a bluebell wood in springtime, to the honeydripped glory that is autumn, to the cold purple hues of winter, there is always something to photograph - even a hot summer day in July can render results if you use an infrared camera! I must admit though that autumn in any woodland can be rather irresistible especially when you combine it with a little bit of atmospheric mist and fog.

I often get asked during lectures whether I prefer woodland or coastal landscapes. My answer is always that I love both, but time normally constrains me to exploring my local area. The biggest difference between my approach to coastal and woodland photography is the use of filters. I try if at all possible to exclude skies in my woodland images but they are unavoidable at the coast, so I make more use of neutral density graduated filters. Time of day and tides are also a big factor, something I don’t really have to worry about in the woods! www.paulmitchellphotography.co.uk

A lot of people want to know about my post processing technique. Firstly, it is very much about pre-visualising how I want the image to look at the time of releasing the shutter, and after that I have a repertoire of workflow techniques in both Lightroom and Photoshop. I tend to use custom pre-sets and actions, but ultimately if I have to spend more than 10 minutes on an image I will put it to one side, giving me time to decide if it is still worth pursuing at a later date. I always remind people that I sit in front of a computer using software like Photoshop on a daily basis - the last thing I want to do is spend hours of an evening processing one image!

Over the years I have used 35mm, medium format and large format film cameras. Even though I still have them I tend use my Nikon D810 with the 24-70 f2.8 and 70-200 f4 Nikkor lenses. Out of the two I tend to use the 70-200 in woodland, mainly because I look for quite tight compositions, a group of trees in the distance or an interesting pool of light in a densely packed area of branches. I also like the compression that longer focal lengths give. Looking through the EXIF data on quite a few of my favourite images I would say that 100-150mm is the most common focal length. I have also recently started to use my old Nikkor 135 f2.8 Ai lens again. It is certainly not the sharpest lens I own but used at a large aperture it can give images a wonderfully soft feel. More recently I have been using a Fuji XE-1 that has been converted to the infrared wavelength, which has added an extra dimension to my woodland images especially during the summer months.