A Woodland Photography Masterclass

Most peo­ple live not far from wood­land, albeit a small copse in a local park or huge forests extend­ing for miles and miles. Wood­lands are a fea­ture of most the the UK land­scape that we, as land­scape pho­tog­ra­phers, have access to and they can present us with end­less oppor­tu­ni­ties to make won­der­ful photographs.

To many pho­tog­ra­phers, wood­lands seem to be one of those envi­ron­ments that are dif­fi­cult to pho­to­graph. They are chaot­ic and com­plex and appear to be an obsta­cle to any attempts to cre­ate a good com­po­si­tion or to con­vey what you are see­ing and feel­ing. Tree trunks grow at strange angles, branch­es often criss-cross through the field of view or annoy­ing­ly poke in from the side of the frame. They are a chal­lenge to pho­to­graph, of that there is no doubt. The aim of this Mas­ter­class is to share with you the skills need­ed to cher­ish wood­land pho­tog­ra­phy and pro­duce images that rep­re­sent the moment you were there.

We have cho­sen the won­der­ful sur­round­ings of Burn­ham Beech­es for this Mas­ter­class. This beau­ti­ful Nation­al Nature Reserve con­sist­ing of almost 1000 acres of beech wood­land is rich in diver­si­ty with many of the trees stand­ing at over 200 years old and has been in exis­tence since the last ice age. In con­trast, we will also be vist­ing Stoke Com­mon which is an open heath­land flanked by small conifer and Sil­ver Birch woods. These loca­tions are with­out doubt a wood­land pho­tog­ra­pher’s par­adise and the per­fect loca­tion to immerse your­self into mas­ter­ing wood­land photography.

You will be encour­aged to sim­ply take your time, allow the wood­land reveal itself to you and for you to devel­op a com­mu­nion with your sur­round­ings. There will be no rush­ing around to get to dif­fer­ent places as we want you to breath in the calm of the wood­land and make pho­tographs that will become a unique port­fo­lio of the way you see them. Rather than images that are tech­ni­cal­ly cor­rect with good his­tograms and accu­rate focus, this work­shop will delve into orig­i­nal­i­ty and authen­tic­i­ty. All approach­es to pho­tog­ra­phy will be wel­comed. We want you to cre­ate a col­lec­tion of images that will nev­er been repeat­ed, one that is derived from a pho­tog­ra­ph­er that has shut out the out­side world and has become enveloped by the woods.