Ne'er cast a cloot till May be oot

Atmospheric highlands

A weeks holiday in Strontian, in the West Highlands of Scotland and a fickle jet stream unerringly changed its track to line up Atlantic lows with accompanying wind and rain, directly at the West Highlands, sigh. Still, I had plans in place to cover all eventualities, I'll also mention that the oh so cunning planning had failed to anticipate the effect on flora of a spell of below average temperatures and dry weather in late April and early May, deeper sigh.

Temperate rainforest

After an early start from the Forest of Dean, we arrived at Glencoe for midday to take in the scenery, stretch the legs and do some spring flora 'ground truthing' with an excursion up into the Coire Gabhail (Lost Valley).  The rain started as we crossed the footbridge over the River Coe. Still, at least the Allt Coire Gabhail was fordable, unlike on a previous visit.

Coire Gabhail (Lost valley)

The flora 'ground truthing' revealed early dog-violets, with wood sorrel and anemones in flower in the woodland below the landslide, but up into the Lost Valley and a more montane microclimate with only early dog-violet's and the emerging leaves of alpine lady's mantle and saxifrage. Aside from savouring the scenery, the excursion showed the effect of a delayed spring and any aspiration of photographing highland alpine/arctic flora was shelved for this trip. It probably explains why June/July is scheduled for paid and guided alpine botanising tours in the highlands.

Atmospheric Glen

The holiday accommodation was excellent with views over Loch Sunart to the Morvern hills giving a pretty good idea of wind direction and strength by the Loch surface and visual indication of the cloud base for a real time hill weather forecast. During the week, I could peer out the window at dawn, take in the view, reset the alarm clock and go back to sleep. The Mountain Weather Information Service forecasts held hope only for those aspiring to practise micro navigation skills in challenging weather and little hope for summit photography, so that ruled out the high summit potential itineraries, unusually for Scotland there wasn't a single dawn that warranted a photographic excursion from a hill summit and dusk excursions were likewise curtailed. Nonetheless, the plan had woodland, glens and minor summits to explore, with 'lichenscapes' and geology as a last photographic resort and I chalked up some brownie points accompanying Nic on wildlife spotting excursions. Wildlife sightings always add something to the Highland experience and this trips highlights being a Golden Eagle hovering about 60m away on a low hill col and a Pine Marten ambling across the road on a return journey from a fruitless vigil for Otters at a hide.

River Strontian 

During the week, winds were fresh from the North and West with accompanying windchill and combined with a warm May sun meant in the space of minutes you could go from full on winter wear and gloves to keep warm and dry, to a base layer to keep cool, a notable feature of the holiday was the number of stops to put on or pull off clothing and rainwear, as the weather changed.

Cladonia diversa

The determining factor for outdoor photography is the wind strength, some effects can be mitigated against, but sustained exposure to strong winds have a dispiriting effect on ambition and with low angled rain it makes a demoralising combination. On higher ground the combination of wind and rain, can generate advection fog, upslope fog or a lowering of the cloud base, all of which make for poor visibility and a signal it is time to descend. In woodland and flower photogeaphy any wind is problematic.  So the wind effectively determines where a day will be spent and for the holiday week it wasn't at altitude or on west/north facing slopes, the sheltered glens and SE facing aspects were visited.

Where the Highlands score so highly as a photography destination is the combination of scenery and lighting courtesy of changeable weather. Weather which provides the atmosphere, air clarity and rain that brings out vivid colour in the landscape and streams cascading down hill and valley sides. Even on a miserable day, there's the tantalising prospect of some dramatic fleeting light.

The Morvern and Loch Sunart oak woods are classed as temperate rainforest, the high rainfall and humidity, create a habitat where moss and lichen communities thrive, producing a woodland with no little visual appeal and are well suited to photography in the rain. Which was just as well given the weather.

Ariundle oakwood

The highlands as a photography destination, often frustrate due to the vagaries of weather, but that's their intrinsic nature and a big part of their enduring appeal.

Ardgour Hills 

Bluebell woodland landscapes - aesthetics and a philosophy.

Bluebells under a woodland canopy of trees in newly emergent leaves, is one of nature's more appealing floral displays and a challenging one for making an image that does justice to the scene. It is said that there are three types of aesthetic interest in a photograph: composition, the knowledge imparted on the subject and the photograph itself. I'm also tempted to add that the aesthetics of lens bokeh and rendition is the only aesthetic interest for some photographers.

 Mature oak underplanted with oak and beech.

Bluebells are slow colonisers and to establish a bluebell carpet requires time, undisturbed soil and a long period of woodland cover to form the requisite habitat for bluebells to spread and flourish.  This slow colonising rate make bluebells an indicator species for ancient woodland, which is defined as a wood with continuous tree cover since 1600 AD.
It's always interesting and informative viewing other photographers' images of bluebell woodland, noting the preference of woodland type, weather, lighting and seeing how the structure of woodland is incorporated in the composition of a landscape view.

Small leaved lime wood, with coppice shoots and suckers

At one extreme of woodland structure is what I'll term a highly structured or 'architectural' bluebell woodland which manifests itself as plantations of forest broadleaved dominants, grown and managed for prime grade timber. With uniformity of age and close spacing of planting encouraging straight growth, creating distinct verticals. Beech tree plantations form a closed canopy and cast a deep shade that starves the woodland below of light and sterilises the underwood and field layer of any flora that isn't shade tolerant, which in a maturing beech plantation is most flora, even beech saplings and epicormic growth are shaded out. The elimination of competition in the field layer, creates the habitat for bluebells to flourish, which they do with spectacular effect on the right soils.

20thC maturing beech plantation

Maturing beech plantations are a very clean woodland with smooth bark and for a wood on ground with low topographic relief, defined horizontal layering and lends itself to strong graphic compositions, even with the absence of sunlight, there's an inherent depth to a view.
Ecological interest is confined to a narrow range of shade tolerant specialists and what the dormant soil seed bank throws up when the wood is harvested or when the canopy opens up.

 Predominantly mature beech, with ash, underwood and natural regeneration in the field layer.

At the other extreme are unstructured woodlands with a mixture of natural tree species, from veteran trees, snags, derelict coppice to saplings and seedlings, a range of canopy light regimes, a diverse underwood including coppice shoots, varied field and ground layer with wind throw. In this type of woodland, there will be areas of the wood barren of bluebells through to dense bluebell carpets.  There's usually some topographic relief to contend with too, especially on the western side of the UK.
Photographers hoping for ordered verticals and horizontals in their compositions will be frustrated by he level of complexity and compositions will prove unrewarding when viewed retrospectively. There's no real compositional template and it's down to the experience gained from past failure to make a rewarding photograph.
Ecologists tend to use this type of woodland as an exemplar of biodiversity and these woods are owned/managed by Wildlife Trusts, Woodland Trust, RSPB etc

Mixed woodland and boulders 

Since this is a blog post on bluebell woodland photography aesthetics and not a discourse on bluebell woodland types, I'll only add there are a myriad types of bluebell woodland between the extremes of structured/architectural and unstructured/ecological. Generalising and if you prefer photographing  structured/architectural bluebell woods you'll end up visiting Forestry Commission plantation woodland and if you prefer the less structured/ecological woodlands you'll probably be in a nature reserve and whilst a delight to wander around in, it can be challenging to photograph.

A problematic area is wind and its effects with longer exposure times in woodlands on blurred foliage and flowers, raising ISO values and larger apertures to eliminate motion blur of foliage is not as effective as one would think or even desire.  My memory of a visit to a bluebell wood even in a gale, is a snapshot of still flora and not one of motion blurred leaves and flowers, although I'm conscious of the reality of wind and disturbed foliage, the effect of blurred foliage in an image I find aesthetically objectionable. Which doesn't mean abandoning a trip to bluebell woodland if wind is forecast, it means an adjustment to camera/lens settings, seeking out sheltered woods or a sheltered aspect of a wood and patiently waiting for an opportunity between wind gusts. It is worth heading out even in less than desirable weather as peak condition for a bluebell woodland lasts for a matter of days. I have enough experience of bluebell woodland photography to realise how dynamic an environment woodlands are, far more so than many other landscapes and the scene may not be there next year or even for the next decade.

A bluebell wood impacted by mechanised harvesting operations for some years to come

Whilst researching the online archive of articles and discussions on photographing bluebell woodland, I've stumbled upon some interesting commentary on photographing bluebell woods, some of it surprisingly honest in describing the challenges, some of it all so predictable. The issues of polarising filters and colour rendition were expected and easily remedied in the field by removing the filter. Getting bluebell colour right doesn't need advanced photoshop skills, only some thought, careful observation in the field and experience.

19thC oak plantation with emerging bracken

The surprising commentary was from the 'online cognoscenti' bemoaning bluebell woodland photographs 'it's all been done before' 'cliche subject' 'no originality' 'same old, same old' ...   Really?  Now, I've never been tempted to ask anyone to qualify their opinion, but would concede that rocking up at the tripod holed ground of Micheldever wood to photograph the beech and bluebells might qualify as a photographic cliche and the use of intentional camera movements certainly qualifies as a tiresome photographic cliche.  However, the highbrow nature of some commentary suggests the large and medium format film landscape aficionados are weighing in. I'm not being snarky, but I've seen enough images by LF/MF film users to know that normally they have no problem photographing cliches, so why the venting of spleens on bluebell woods? I suspect it may be due to film's colour rendition of a bluebell wood and high ISO incapability, oh and I've yet to see a convincing black and white photograph of a bluebell wood. I'm not trying to be too precious about photographing bluebell woodland landscapes, but given the demands on time in visiting and locating bluebell woods, the effort expended, long learning curve and the lottery of weather, it is perhaps no coincidence that it's easier to make condescending remarks than to show any appreciation or aptitude for it.