Description
Woodland Moods – 2 day project workshop
Aim – to produce 2 triptychs of images (one from each day), which will be printed on A3 fine art paper and which say something about the woodland.
Dates – Monday 5th May 2025, 6.30am – 4pm and Tuesday 6th May 2025, 6.30 am – 4pm
Locations – Staverton Thicks and Captains Wood
Places – 4 places available.
Details:
This is a project based workshop spread over 2 consecutive days. There is no accommodation included but if you are coming from outside the area please get in touch and I can give you some recommendations for places to stay.
The workshop will consist of 2 full days with roughly 5 hours of shooting in the morning followed by 3 hours in the studio each day. This may be modified to suit as the workshop progresses. So we may have slightly longer in the studio on the second day.
We will be starting at dawn (about an hour after sunrise) exploring the woodlands of Captains Wood and Staverton Thicks.
Staverton Thicks is an ancient woodland of fairytale qualities where vast oaks stand side by side with some of the tallest holly trees in Britain. Reminiscent of childhood stories, the ‘Thicks’ is a chaotic tangle of twisted branches where light is sparse and evergreen curtains of holly hang in the air. Dead and decaying boughs and trunks litter the floor and even on the brightest of days the air is cool and the forest dark.
This is one of my favourite areas of woodland in Suffolk but it is also a very chaotic place that can be difficult to photograph. However when you get your eye in it is fantastically rewarding and an enchanting place to explore.
I have been photographing this location for a number of years. It was the subject of my successful 2021 RHS ‘Silver Gilt’ medal winning panel of images entitled the Enchanted Forest and is the subject of my book ‘Rooted’.
Captains Wood is an ancient woodland full of rare plants. It has a superb mix of natural habitats supporting a wide range of wildlife, including fallow deer, barn owl and bats. There are some lovely areas of silver birch and coppiced hazel trees as well as a small pond which adds an extra dimension to the woodland scene. Captains Wood is most renowned for its fantastic display of bluebells in April and May.
Your task during the two days is to produce two triptychs (one from each day) which should all work together – visually they should be strong individually but stronger as a whole. You can work with the wider landscape, smaller details or even macro but the overall panel should say something about the woodland.
We will cover:
Photo
How to shoot woodland scenes
Looking at composition in complex landscapes
Working with detail and macro
We will think about how we want to present our images and I will discuss a high key representation of the woods which can create sketch like images.
Process and Project
How to use Lightroom and Photoshop to get the best out of your RAW files. I have two Macs in my studio for your use during the workshop. You are welcome to bring your own laptops or work on your images at home on the evening of day one.
We will discuss putting together a small body of work. Finding and sequencing images and processing them to visually compliment each other.
How to print your own images. We will discuss printers, printing profiles and paper choices and at the end of the session we will print your three panel images on some A3 fine art paper.
The workshop includes:
Notes for all three sections – these will be emailed to you before the workshop.
8 hours of tuition on each day split between the woods and my studio in Hollesley.
2 x A3 fine art prints of your triptych images presented in a portfolio box.
Feedback from the Coastal Moods workshop which has a similar structure.
A huge thank you for another brilliant workshop, it may have been cold and a bit windy at times, but your warm welcome and relaxed style to get us all thinking about how we compose and include elements in the images was appreciated by everyone. The prints you produced for us was also a nice bonus to the workshop and made it all feel complete. From taking images to printing them demonstrated to us all what to concentrate on to improve our skills.
A big thank you for the excellent workshop on Thursday and Friday. For me the 2 day workshop worked very well as it provoked some ‘overnight thinking’ and the opportunity to try and correct some of the first day’s mistakes. It also allowed for more interaction between the attendees, the great British reserve normally takes a day or so to overcome. Your level of tuition – engaging, suggesting ideas and encouraging experimentation, but not prescribing ‘how to’ hits the right note, as after all participants have to learn and make their own choices re. subject, composition, lighting etc.
