Hello, I’m Gill and I write a photography blog inspired by the landscapes of Suffolk and beyond. Please subscribe to read more of my writing and visit my website to view my images.
Like many people (I suspect) I have been struggling with the British weather lately. Summer seems to have got lost in transit and the last couple of weeks have been particularly cold and wet. As a result I haven’t been out with the camera as much as I would have liked. (Rubbish excuse I know!)
This week in a bid to rectify the situation I decided to revisit an area of ancient oak woodland that was the inspiration behind my 2021 book project Rooted.
The woodland in question covers a relatively small area but it is full of the most amazing ancient oak trees, mixed with some of the tallest holly trees in Britain. It has been described by eminent woodland expert, George Peterken, as being as near to primal forest as anything else in the country.
In my book project I chose to represent the woodland as a mysterious, magical place. I wanted to highlight the fairytale qualities that can be found within the trees and the wood. To do this I shot a lot of images on dark, drizzly days, focusing on some of the more characterful trees, using their gnarly shapes and some darker backgrounds to convey an air of mystery. I have included a panel below of 6 images to give you a feel for the location. I entered these images into an RHS Portfolio competition in 2021 and they subsequently won me a silver-gilt medal.
In my artist statement for this panel I wrote:
This panel focuses on the fairytale qualities of the ‘Thicks’, its Tolkienesque trees, the fallen beasts imagined in the deadwood and the symbiosis of its compound trees formed as different species grow on top of one another. The framing of each shot has been kept deliberately tight to emphasise the enclosed feeling of the forest and the autumn colours and painterly atmosphere give the images a feeling of antiquity.
This time, I wanted to see if I could portray the woodland in a different way. I wanted to focus on tree portraits, highlighting texture and form. My idea was to create a series of light and airy black and white images that resemble pencil sketches. In essence these would be high key images with lots of white space and no true blacks. I also wanted the images to be a representation of the current season - summer - even though there would be no colour present to confirm this.
So at the beginning of this week I ventured out to the wood on a wet and drizzly day, which may sound uninspiring but these are actually some of my favourite conditions for woodland photography. The last time I visited this location was over a month ago and I was surprised by how tall the understory had grown. Either side of the footpath lush green bracken covered the woodland floor and in places grew well over a meter tall.
I began by revisiting some of the compositions I have made in the past, searching out the old characters and trying to convey their personality in a sketch. I used a polariser for all my shots and tried to overexpose each image as much as possible so that I could achieve the light and airy feel I was aiming for. However I was aware, at the time of shooting, that the look I was hoping to achieve would mostly be created in post processing.
Spending time in this magical forest is always a joy and whatever I achieved with the camera would always be secondary to the experience of being among these wonderful old trees.
Back home on the computer I set about trying to process my images in a high key style to make them look more like pencil sketches than photographs.
My inspiration.
A few months ago I came across the Tree Art Gallery and more specifically the work of Mark Frith. Mark works in pencil to create his amazingly detailed tree portraits. I think his work is stunning and it has been a big influence in my choices for this body of work.
The other piece of inspiration came from the latest video by Adam Gibbs in which he explores an area of old growth forest in Canada, presenting the images he captured in black and white.
I have also been looking at the work of Paul Gallagher and Michael Pilkington who use infrared photography to create black and white images. I don’t have an infrared camera but I felt the option to process my images in that style may help give me the high key, pencil sketch effect that I was after.
My process
To begin with I downloaded all my images into Lightroom and picked out the ones that I felt contained the most interesting character trees. My processing technique was to lighten my image overall, reduce the highlights, increase the shadows and then use the luminosity sliders to create an effect with the greens that resembled an infrared image. Basically I wanted the green of the foliage to blend away to white so helping the darker tree trunks to stand out. As I was aiming for a high key pencil sketch effect I used some negative dehaze for the background and then brushed some positive clarity in on the tree trunks. I also reduced the blacks across the entire image so that there are no true blacks in any of my shots.
Having started with black and white I decided the overall effect was too stark for my liking and so I introduced a very small amount of split toning into the images, adding a slight blue cast to the shadows and a warmer cast to the mid tones and highlights. I think this has given the resulting images a softer feel.
My aims and my images
The aim of this session was to produce a series of portraits showing the trees in their wider environment. I wanted the images to be about texture and form and I hoped to bring out their character by simplifying the images to something resembling pencil sketches and removing the distraction of colour.
The result
These shots were all taken and processed in one day for the purpose of this blog and overall I think I am fairly happy with what I have achieved. It is very difficult to create a true sketch from a complicated scene and I feel that some of the images work better than others. The difficulty in this woodland is always getting the background to recede. I have included a comparison pairing below and I think this illustrates the different moods that can be achieved if we think about how we want to represent a place with our photographs. These images were taken 3 years apart and were processed with different outcomes in mind.
It seems to me there are two ways of taking pictures. One is to take what the camera sees - ie a representational shot which may be more about camera technique and capturing what is in front of the lens. The other is to shoot with a particular aim in mind, which will often be driven by story or emotion. In this way of shooting what we want to say will dictate how we present the image visually.
In my colour series I was looking to tell a story of a fairytale woodland, in this new series I am looking to emphasise the character of the individual trees. I hope I have gone someway to achieving both aims with very different visual styles.
How important is visual style to your photography? Do you shoot with stories or emotions in mind and do these effect how you photograph or process? Do you think I have achieved any of my aims with the images in this post?
I would love to hear your thoughts, so please leave a comment below.
Thank you very much for reading and until next week enjoy your photography.
Gill
You have most certainly achieved your aims with bullseyes on both styles, fabulous images indeed!
To answer your question I'm still emotional moment catching until I enter the photographic word of a Gill Moon. The photo walks and workshops always creates a wonderful structure that makes me think and look at my surroundings differently.
Wow, these are beautiful old trees. I am in love. And I really enjoyed seeing you dipping your toes into black and white photography! Another wonderful read and amazing photos, Gill!