Cratloe Woods

Forests, for me, have always been one of those subjects that should provide better photographs than they actually do. I think it's the chaos and clutter: it's hard to find order amongst the random scattering of trees. Good photos have a purpose, a subject stands out and turns a photo from a mere collection of pixels (or silver halide, if you're into that sort of thing...) into a photo of something. I have always found subjects hard to pick out in forests. I went to Cratloe, a nearby wood, this morning with the hope of finding trees shrouded in fog. By the time I hauled my lazy ass up there, the fog was inevitably gone. Faced with the prospect of yet another disspointing trip to a wood, I decided to try something different: I stuck my oft-neglected 50mm f.1.8 onto the camera. I was suprised how well this worked. At f1.8, or f2, this lens turns a seemingly chaotic scene into one with a single, well-defined subject. These aren't my favourite photos ever, but I'm happy enough with how they turned out.

Another thing that I find hard about photos of trees and woods is the post-processing. I tried fiddling around with the green and yellow channels in Lightroom, and this is what I came up with. I'm not sure if it's over the top or not.