Forest Of Dean

Over the past few weeks, Mark and I had been on a few photography adventures, but if I’m honest, the conditions just hadn’t really played ball. Each outing had left us struggling to come away with anything meaningful — the kind of images that actually capture the mood and atmosphere of a place.

So, on a cold and damp Saturday morning in early November, we decided to head somewhere neither of us had really considered before as a photography location: the Forest of Dean. In hindsight, what a mistake that neglect had been.

A few days earlier, Mark had driven through a section of the forest that had caught his attention, so when we were looking for somewhere to head, he suggested we give it a go. It turned out to be a very good call.

Unusually for us, we didn’t set off at our normal stupidly-early 2 a.m. start. Instead, we left at around 5:30 a.m., which meant an extra couple of hours in bed. I’m not going to lie, that made a rather pleasant change! By the time we arrived, the rain had started to ease and the temperature was dropping. The combination of damp woodland, falling temperatures and very little wind had created exactly the sort of conditions that landscape photographers are always hoping for.

We wandered down towards a pool of water and, looking across towards the trees, it was immediately obvious that we had found something special.

It was still very dark, with around 30 minutes to go before sunrise, but low-hanging mist was slowly drifting through the woodland. It would ebb and flow between the trees, sometimes almost disappearing before rolling back across the water again. It was quite magical to watch. As the mist began to lift, the combination of soft autumn colour, reflected light and deep shadows created an almost painterly quality. It reminded me of the sort of atmosphere you might find in a Turner painting, where the boundaries between light, colour and shadow become almost indistinguishable.

I eventually called the image “Turner’s Autumn”, because it felt less like I had taken a photograph and more like I had simply been there to witness nature painting with light.

Guinevere & AI

As the light slowly began to build, the forest started to reveal itself. Soft golds, russets and deep greens appeared through the mist, with their reflections sitting almost perfectly still in the water. At one point I commented to Mark that all the scene needed was a woman in a flowing dress and a horse standing beneath one of the trees. Something straight out of an Arthurian legend, Robin Hood or perhaps The Lord of the Rings. Mark gave me that familiar look that seemed to say, “Nature has given you all of this, and you want to add something?”, before returning to what he was doing. Unfortunately, we hadn’t booked a model or a horse, and the occasional dog walker didn't quite fit the romantic vision I had in mind. Still, the scene in front of us was beautiful enough without them.

A few weeks later, I found myself revisiting the base image, wondering how to process it. A tweak here, a slider there — but I still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing. That’s when the memory of that conversation came back, and I wondered whether AI could help.
In general, I’m fairly neutral when it comes to the use of AI in photography. As long as its use is disclosed when an image is made public, I see it as another — albeit controversial — yet genuinely powerful tool in the photographer’s kit, helping to realise a creative vision after the shoot. So I make no apologies: after a few prompts in Adobe Generative Fill, I found my Guinevere… and her horse!

• My Guinevere
• Pentax K-1 Camera used:
• Pentax DFA 28-105mm f/3.5-5.6 Lens used:
• 105mm Focal length:
• f/7.1 Aperture:
• 0.5 Sec Exposure time:
• 100 ISO:

Moonrise, Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire

Of course, not everything we photographed that morning was about mist and autumn colour. The changing light gave us a few other opportunities to explore, including this rather unexpected view of the moon over the Forest of Dean.
After a run of outings where the conditions had left us scratching our heads and wondering where the images were going to come from, this morning was a timely reminder of why we keep going back out.

Landscape photography can be frustrating. You can spend hours looking at weather forecasts, checking cloud cover, wind direction, sunrise times and everything else you think might give you an idea of what the morning is going to look like. Then you get up at some ridiculous hour, drive for miles, haul your gear out of the car and wait patiently for the light to arrive.

And sometimes… absolutely nothing happens.

The sky does exactly the opposite of what you hoped it would, the light disappears behind a bank of cloud, or the conditions are simply a little bit too ordinary. You can spend several hours in a beautiful location and still come home wondering whether there was actually a photograph there at all. But that's also part of what keeps me coming back.

• Moon Rise, Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire
• Pentax K-1 Camera used:
• Pentax DFA 28-105mm f/3.5-5.6 Lens used:
• 34mm Focal length:
• f/10 Aperture:
• 1/10th Sec Exposure time:
• 100 ISO:

Gone Fishing

You never really know what you're going to get. A location that looks completely unremarkable on one visit can suddenly be transformed by a bit of mist, a change in the light or a few minutes of perfect conditions. It's one of the reasons I don't think landscape photography is ever really about simply finding a beautiful view. It's about being there when the conditions turn that view into something more.

That morning in the Forest of Dean was one of those occasions. The mist, the autumn colour, the still water and the soft early light all came together almost perfectly. There was nothing particularly dramatic happening, no spectacular sunrise or blazing sky, but somehow the combination of all those subtle elements created something far more atmospheric.

And perhaps that's the thing I enjoy most about landscape photography. The photographs that stay with me aren't always the ones where the sky has exploded with colour or the light is doing something spectacular. Sometimes they're the quieter moments — when everything just seems to fall into place and the landscape almost feels as though it is presenting itself to you. The light, the weather, the location and the timing.

And when it does all come together, even just for a few minutes, you remember exactly why you got up in the first place.

• Gone Fishing
• Pentax K-1 Camera used:
• Pentax DFA 28-105mm f/3.5-5.6 Lens used:
• 28mm Focal length:
• f/8.0 Aperture:
• 1/40th Sec Exposure time:
• 100 ISO: