Autumn woodland - Forest of Dean and Wye Valley

With the 1st day of winter, this post is a retrospective of the autumn 2016 woodland photography, where I made a conscious decision to concentrate on the woodland of the Lower Wye Valley. Specifically the woodland growing on the steeper slopes of the upper gorge. The Lower Wye Valley is the habitat for some rare and uncommon trees. The challenge is : locating them, identifying them, finding photogenic specimens and lighting. Some species of Whitebeam are endemic to this area, the global population concentrated on crags along a few kilometres of the river Wye.

Whitebeam leaves and berries

Photographing Whitebeams, was an ignominious failure, identifying the species relied on determining subtle nuances in the morphology of the leaves and berries, I lost the will on that one. Whitebeans current habitat appears predominantly restricted to crags and their shrubby nature, proved too challenging for my idealised vision. I need to regroup and try another approach for the future.

Wild service leaves and berries

Wild Service trees, also proved equally challenging with photogenic specimens elusive.

Wild service bark

Ambitions for images of expansive views of the wooded river valley once again fell short and what I consider good lighting was used to illuminate the autumnal colour of the beech woodland on the slopes.

A wood amongst boulders of quartz conglomerate was also visited.  Harvesting operations a few years back, resulted in canopy gaps and deadwood on the ground, brambles that overran the woodland floor are being shaded out as the canopy once again closes over and saplings create an understorey.

A Scowles woodland, where I had high hopes for an image with a backdrop of autumnal beech trees never happened, the timing of my visit coincided with beech leaves having already fallen or were still green. The trip emphasised another indicator of ancient woodland, the heterogeneous rollout of autumnal colouration and leaf fall, amongst 'wild' tree populations.

The oak/beech woodland in the Dean, provided an image showing the intimate relationship between underplanted beech and oak timber trees.

A number of images were made for a couple of long term projects on decay in woodlands.

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 Only one trip coincided with autumnal mist.

And that was it until next year.