As a forest dweller I’m surrounded by trees, lots and lots of them. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love trees but there are occasions when I can get a bit tree’d-out. I, literally, cannot see the wood for the trees. I’ve been photographing trees in Dalby Forest for well over a decade so I dread to think how many images of trees I’ve taken and squirrelled away. But, how many of them actually have meaning, have some thought behind them? Probably not many. So, that got me thinking. Maybe, I should slow down my photography, use my tripod (I’m so impatient, I quite often just snap away), look more closely at the ways that trees can be photographed and experiment more. As a result of all this thinking, my photography project ‘Wood For The Trees’ was born.
From the evergreen tones of pine and fir, the eery white limbs of silver birch to the lime green and golden russets of beech, ‘Wood For The Trees’ aims to visually document trees, throughout the seasons, in Dalby Forest, North Yorkshire. The forest covers more than 8000 acres on the southern slopes of the North York Moors National Park. You can check out the Forestry England, Dalby Forest website for more information on the forest itself here. And, if you want to see what kind of wildlife can be found in Dalby then check out my post on The Big Forest Find here.
I’ve been experimenting with different photographic techniques such as In Camera Movement (ICM), High Dynamic Range (HDR) and multiple exposures. I’ll be covering macro to landscape and everything in-between. Some of the results I love, some of which I may learn to love! It’s interesting to see how and why and image fails compared to one that works. Mind you, art is subjective so what I love, perhaps you won’t and vice versa. This gallery is here to illustrate my journey through the trees. As always, your comments are very welcome.
I must warn you…..it’s an ongoing project and, whilst I try not to have favourites, I do have trees that I’m particularly fond of. You may start to become familiar with them!
