A walk in the woods

There’s something special about being lost (in a photographic sense) in a wood. I enjoyed that experience just a week ago. It’s quite some time since I last did that.

All I could hear was the distant sound of traffic, but when I became ‘tuned in’ to the search for images I forgot about that, my brain has learnt to tune those sounds out. Even the birds were quiet – it was early afternoon on a hot day. Perhaps they had sung enough and were saving their breath for the evening.

There are broad paths and narrow paths through this woodland. The bracken  is now, in places, head high.

This is Buchan Country Park, just a fifteen minute drive from home. A large area of mixed woodland, dense in places, more open in other areas. With the welcome addition of two lakes.

A small grove of Silver Birches caught my attention. An image that I knew, when it was shot, would go straight into Silver Efex back home for a conversion to monochrome.

A scattering of Pines meant I switched from my 18-250mm Zoom (27-375mm in real terms) to my ultra wide Tokina to look up, and just I was pressing the shutter a bird crossed the sky. A moment of serendipity.

And then to the water.

Fishermen fish, water lilies grow, and the water ripples in the shallows. An opportunity for something a little different.

Ninety minutes of gentle walking, a healthy collection of images and I feel refreshed, rejuvenated.

We all need moments like this. Time on our own, with no pressure, camera in hand, walking at a leisurely pace, reciting the mantra: ‘Where’s the picture’. The pictures come, they are always out there waiting for us. When we tune out the world, we tune in to our inner creative hearts.