Sherwood Forest is my landscape photography nemesis

I'm lucky enough to live right next to Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire. The area is famous for the legend of Robin Hood and his band of Merry Men and their robbery of the rich to feed the poor. Today, there is still poverty and there is definitely no shortage of thieves. It's just that these days, the thieves tend to avoid feeding the poor!

Sherwood Forest is also my landscape photography nemesis. When you look at and live in a place all your life, it's not so easy to visualise it in a photograph. Staring at a woodland trying to find a composition is probably the most difficult form of photography for me.

So this morning, we visited the woodland in Sherwood Forest with the aim of trying to capture something different. It also helps that at this time of year, the woods are covered with flowering bluebells.

Abstract bluebells

I spent a good while this morning experimenting with different shutter speeds and timing the exposure time of 1/5th of a second so that the camera was moving when the shutter was open. 1/5th second seemed to work best.

Slightly longer exposure

With this shot, I used a slightly longer exposure and the intention was to have the scene exposed statically and mix it with motion. I just about got away with it here.

Focus stack practice

This is three images which have been focus stacked in Photoshop. I'm not an expert with Photoshop but the stacking seems to have worked here. I've focussed on each of the three trees and merged the three together.

Unfortunately when you stack 3 x uncompressed RAW files, the resulting flattened image ends up too big to display on the Hive so here it is slightly reduced!!

5 by 4

I've always wanted to shoot medium format but never had a few grand to spare! This is the trees in a sea of bluebells. I'd have liked to have gone wider but I couldn't find a continuous "sea" of bluebells wide enough for it to work.

The damn camera phone shot

I spent a while shooting panoramas but just for a laugh I pulled out my iPhone 12 Pro Max and shot this. I will eventually stop being amazed at what can be achieved with a phone!

This is totally unedited and no manipulation has been done. Straight from the camera.

Another damn phone shot

It pays to revisit a location at different times of year.

Up early for the mist

I'm not one for getting up at daft o'clock in the morning and by the time I arrive at a potential landscape location, the mist has usually already disappeared. I got lucky here though.

I'll leave the getting up early thing to @cathgothard and admire her works instead! I'll be toasty warm in bed while she's out losing sleep haha

Sherwood by Night

I'll be honest and say that I'm more comfortable shooting in the dark. I have control of all the lighting elements and the results are more unique.

The Duke's Grotto

Sherwood Forest crosses over in places on to private land owned by the Duke of Portland's estate. In the best traditions of the outlaw Robin Hood, we trespassed on to the lord's estate and waved a few lights around instead of arrows!

Rotating Major Oak

Major Oak is allegedly the hideout for Robin Hood and his band of thieves. I'm not convinced there was enough room to hide in this tree!

This is a camera rotation image made in one photographic exposure where the camera is rotated around the lens axis.

About me:
I usually specialise in shooting lightpainting images but occasionally dabble in urbex and artistic model photography. I'm always on the lookout for someone to collaborate with; please don't hesitate to get in touch if you'd like to create art.

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