Photography projects

The UK's changeable weather and seasons, means that many days will be far from optimal for 'classic' landscape photography, but as one door closes, another opens and there is an opportunity to photograph the parts that make up a landscape and take on a more documentary approach of photo essays, that tell a story.  These photography projects also provide the necessary inspiration, motivation and purpose to go forth and photograph in less than ideal conditions and I have a number of ongoing long term projects, some are progressing well, whilst others are a cause for concern in their scope and ambition.

Stacked harvested Beech

The projects that are progressing well, are the ones that are relatively local and especially those in the Forest of Dean.

May 2014

I haven't mentioned anything about the Forest of Dean in the blog so far, so I'll give a very succinct historical summary as an introduction.  The consensus of learned opinion is that the Forest of Dean has been continuously wooded since the start of the holocene, when tundra gave way to pioneer woodland and then a succession to high forest cover.  It also has a long and complex history of silviculture and exploitation; Romano British use of the woodland for timber and charcoal; a Royal forest for hunting and the supply of timber for construction, charcoal for the post medieval iron industry; Royal Navy strategic timber reserve; a strategic timber reserve for two World Wars; a resource of timber for the coal mining industry and has serviced a multitude of other demands from camouflaging WW2 ammunition dumps to providing pannage for pigs in mast years.

March 2015

In my humble opinion the nadir for woodland scenery is late winter, the colours have long gone and without snow, frost or fog, it is a challenging drab environ, viewed through eyes and the viewfinder.  Late winter, coincidentally, is also the peak time for hardwood timber extraction and one of my long term projects is photographing the impact of modern silviculture on ancient or semi natural ancient woodland of the Forest of Dean and specifically the effect of heavy machinery disturbing woodland soils and ground flora. It is also interesting to see what flora emerges from the dormant seed bank in the woodland soil, when the tree canopy is opened up.

Tyre chains

For millennia manual labour has cut down trees and then beasts of burden have hauled the timber from woods, with a relatively light impact on soil. Contrast the old forestry practices, with those of the 20th and 21st centuries, when increasing mechanisation changed the dynamic of timber felling and extraction.  The later part of the 20th century to the present, has witnessed rapid advances in technology notably in hydraulics, computerisation, power ...  the business adage 'time is money' equates to faster and more economic felling and extraction rates.

Harvester head

I was surprised to learn that one harvester alone could accomplish the work of 12 chainsaw operators, which explains why harvester machines sell for well over £100,000. The harvester head is a specialised item of machinery, with a chainsaw to cut the tree and then cut the trunk, feed rollers, blades to remove branches and a computer controlled measuring device that sets the feed/cutting length. A 'thinned' wood by a harvesting machine usually involves preferential removal of prime straight trunked trees, a sort of unnatural selection, as forked and non linear trunked trees are left to grow on.

Forwarder unloading and stacking harvested Scots Pine

 I would speculate that much of the Forest of Dean's woodland floor has never been exposed to the machinery used in modern forestry operations. Which does raise the question of how these operations affect the flora, many of which are indicator species of ancient woodland and the impact of machinery movements disturbing soil that has lain undisturbed for a considerable period of time, conceivably since the end of the last Ice age.

Band tracks on forwarder trailer

I have been photographing the woodland of the Dean for a number of years and have managed to unerringly miss the actual harvesting operation of an area of woodland, that I had already photographed in anticipation of harvesting operations. Plenty of before and after, but not the during, until now.

Forwarder tracks in woodland of Beech and Scots Pines.

I've made a point of specifically visiting this area of woodland, as sometime between summer and autumn of 2014 the trees were marked for  felling and it was then a matter of waiting for operations to commence, which they eventually did at the end of February. Finally I managed to photograph some activities of harvesting operations in early March and can concentrate on photographing the impact of this harvesting operation on the woodland over the coming years. It will also be interesting to see how many, if any, of the Beech/Oak stools successfully coppice.

Modern silviculture abstract