Making plans

A trip pencilled in to the Graian Alps in June, to coincide with the areas spectacular wild flower displays both meadows and alpines, has had to be shelved until next year, due to work and social commitments. So with the wander lust of photographing wild flowers and scenery seeded, a look at what the UK had to offer in May and specifically Scotland.

Maybe 2016?

The Breadablane hills and Ben Lawers immediately came to mind, as did the Cairngorms for its arctic flora and scenery.  Nic, then chipped in that she would like to see some wildlife and specifically marine wildlife, hmmm. Googling 'sea safari, whale watching, boat trips' and some candidates were unveiled. Knowing full well of Scotlands changeable weather, the contingency plans of  wildlife hide, geology, woodland, bryophytes etc were assessed.

Ariundle woodland, November 2010

A list of potential locations were then appraised, Skye and Mull ticked a lot of wildlife, flora and scenery boxes, but not all, as I do like the chance of a wander amongst Pine and Oak woods.  Having visited Ariundle woods in autumn, there was a certain appeal for a spring visit. The Ardgour region also ticked almost all the must and want boxes, some boxes even had multiple ticks, a draft itinerary with, oh so important weather contingency plans, was duly outlined to Nic's approval. A cottage booked in Strontian, the web scoured to see if any effective effective midge, tick and cleg repellants had been formulated and a couple of months to finalise an itinerary for all weather eventualities, with fingers crossed for an optimal weather spell of sunshine and showers.

Photography project integrity and complexity

The previous post was about using photography projects to provide the motivation to get out in less than optimal conditions and of one particular project in progress, recording the impact of modern forestry operations on woodland soil, illustrated with images of a wood presently (March 2015) being harvested by mechanised machinery.  There was nothing contentious with the images, simply an accurate reflection of the events.

I revisited the wood after several days of rainfall to photograph and record the impact of a fully laden forwarder on extraction routes over by now rain saturated ground. Walking around the woodland and there was some dilemma on what to photograph to represent a fair reflection of the harvester operators conduct and ground disturbance from mechanised harvesting plant.

Brash mat covering extraction route

 With saturated ground, soil load bearing capacity decreases and it was evident that the contractors undertaking the harvesting operation, had surfaced extraction routes in the wood, with brash wood to form brash mats.  Brash mats are laid to increase the ground load bearing capacity preventing wheel rutting and form a protection layer against tyre and track tread erosion of the soil surface.

Brashwood protection and ground disturbance

At this site, soil depth appears to vary markedly throughout the wood, in part reflecting the complexity of underlying geology, topography, superficial deposits and prehistoric mining spoil. Where a route was over a significant depth of soil, now saturated by rainfall, the brash mats effectiveness had decreased visibly. The contractors had reinforced existing brash mats covering extraction routes, with additional more substantial brash and/or with greater quantities of brash, nonetheless soil disturbance in the form of compaction and rutting was evident.

To illustrate the disturbance of unprotected ground by the forwarder, an unsurfaced ride on the wood margin had been used as an extraction/access route and wasn't protected with brash mats, it served to emphasise the effectiveness of brash mats for soil protection. The operator of the forwarder, aware of the potential for wheel rutting, had utilised the full width of the ride to mitigate wheel rutting from constant use of one lane only.

Unsurfaced woodland ride / access track

This visit raised a dilemma on what to photograph, to truthfully reflect the forestry operations impact on woodland soil. Some areas of the wood showed minimal disturbance, other areas a greater degree of disturbance. The contractors for their part had demonstrated a high level of compliance with current good practice in minimising disturbance of the woodland soil, whilst harvesting the wood with mechanised machinery.

Reinforced brash mat

As with all of my projects to date, the scope of this project has also increased, due to the unforeseen complexity in producing a fair and truthful photographic record of events.

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

Apple Aperture

I received an email from Apple today titled 'Aperture News', it reads
Dear Aperture customer, 
Last June, we introduced the new Photos apps for iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite, along with iCloud Photo Library, which lets you safely store all your photos in iCloud and access them from anywhere. When Photos for OS X launches this spring, Aperture will no longer be available for purchase from the Mac App Store. You can continue to use Aperture on OS X Yosemite, but you will not be able to buy additional copies of the app. 
You can migrate your Aperture library to Photos for OS X, including your photos, adjustments, albums and keywords. After migrating, your Aperture library remains intact. However, Aperture and Photos do not share a unified library, so any changes made after the migration will not be shared between the apps. 
To learn more about Photos for OS X, click here. If you’re interested in trying the OS X 10.10.3 Public Beta, which includes Photos for OS X, click here. 
We thank you for using Aperture and hope you will enjoy the new Photos for OS X app. 
Sincerely, 
Apple

I've had a brief look at Photos for OS X and it seems more set up for IPhone users, which is not to be demeaning, but Photos for OS X's present editing ability is not comparable to Aperture's RAW editing capability. Unless there's some more features added or the possibility of apps that can be added,  I may need to start seriously evaluating other RAW conversion/file management options, deep sigh.

A RAW image opened in Apple Aperture

The fact that a hugely profitable enterprise such as Apple has ceased development of a RAW editing software, leaves an uncomfortable feeling about the health of the photography market.  I have an uncomfortable feeling, that in the future some photographers will be faced with some hard decisions about software and perhaps worryingly, what software can open legacy RAW image files and what is the long term support for that software which can open legacy RAW image files. Based on reported financial data and business statements, there is a genuine concern, that some camera manufacturers are shoring up their non or barely profitable camera divisions in the current market and in view of the forecast decline in sales/market /market share, will eventually be forced to cease manufacturing unprofitable products.