Roddlesworth Woods
This is a combination of two sets from the same woods. One taken last Sunday around lunchtime, the other, just before sunset last night. The forecast for Sunday had been overcast, but dry. Of course, the forecast lied about the dry bit and after about 90 minutes of pootling around in the woods and beside the river, it started raining, forcing me to abort and head back to the car.
Towards the latter end of that walk, I discovered a part of the woods away from the popular paths where the mood was quite different, more dark and foreboding. I made a mental note of this and when I returned yesterday evening, I made a beeline for that very spot. As it happens, that part of the woods runs alongside the A675 and there's a makeshift layby, which made it easy to get into that part of the woods without having to trail in from the major car parks on the opposite side (and at the top of a pretty steep hill).
Kit for both trips consisted of the Fujifilm GFX100S + 20-35 f/4 + 45-100 f/4 as well as the obligatory polariser and tripod I find necessary with this kit. All images taken on the tripod and processed from individual raw files on Capture One Pro 23.
Wavy
This was taken from the main path through the woods. I'd swear that tree on the right is waving at me, or maybe at it's mates behind it, it's difficult to tell which side of a tree is the front.
Mentor
A scene taken from the top of the steep banks of the River Roddlesworth. There are lots of characterful trees alongside that river, but getting a clean shot at them is an absolute nightmare.
Fall
There's a quite impressive waterfall along the River Roddlesworth, but it defies pnotography due to its relatively inaccessible location and lack of sight lines, so I had to settle for photographing this much less impressive little fall instead. Even here, I'm still at the top of the bank looking down on it, which is less than ideal. It's probably worth mentioning this is a substantial crop, about 35MP if C1P is to be believed. I'd gone for a much wider image when I shot it, but the fall felt quite tiny when I was looking at it on my monitor and the surrounding cruft was kind of unnecessary and messy. If I'd thought about it properly at the time, I could have zoomed in much closer to this framing.
Weir
This is close to the point where the river enters the woods via a culvert under the A675 (you can just see the stones of the embankment at the top of the frame). What drew me to this scene was the wavy branches and knobbly texture of the tree on the left combined with the surprisingly quite strong colour of the dead leaves for this time of year.
Discussion
By this point, I'd crossed the stream and was making my way back down into the valley through the woods on the opposite. For the most part this is pine plantation, but I noticed a bright spot in the distance off to my left and waded through for a closer look. Eventually I found this group of reasonably unremarkable looking trees stood in a circle beneath a gap in the canopy, the latter lighting them wonderfully against the oppressive darkness of the pinewoods surrounding them.
Fury
More drama at the riverbank as two trees battle it out for supremacy.
Guardian
This tree is literally on the edge of the woods. If I was facing in the opposite direction I'd have photographed my car. It looks like its keeping the other trees in.
Fallen
As I wandered through the woods, signs of wind damage were everywhere, but nowhere more evident than here. I originally shot this in X-Pan format (65:24), but when editing that felt a bit tight, so I opened it out a bit to 16:9, which felt like a more appropriate crop.
Carpeted
Walking on a carpet of pine needles made a great change to the usual mud bath I seem to find in woods such as this. This was taken just beyond the fallen tree in the previous shot as I'm about to veer off to the left into the darkness of the woods.
Enclave
As I wandered through the dark and oppressive pine forest I felt generally uneasy. Normally, I can wander in woodland for hours feeling perfectly at ease, but this did not feel comfortable at all. Finding things like this doesn't help much either.
Alarmed
Heading more towards the roadside edge of the woods, the pines thin out and we're left with a peculiar array of trees all fighting for light. This area was a bit on the swampy side. It's still all a bit eerie though for some reason.
Darkness
A splash of colour set against the darkness of the pine forest.
Malevolence
A particularly evil looking tree, its branches raised like a dark wizard about to cast a spell.
Protected
A cluster of trees shielding the small marcescent tree on the right.
