If you go down to the woods today...

Drone photo of the Breen Oak Wood, Glenshesk, Co Antrim

Today, in early October, I had the joy of exploring a location I had never visited before and which is less than 10 miles from my home in Co Antrim. The Breen Oak Wood.

Going down to the woods is not as easy as it once was. This island used to be covered in oak wood, but only small pockets remain. What trees there are in this most deforested part of Europe consist mostly of ugly commercial plantations of spruce and pine trees, in uniform rows, tightly packed together so that wildlife can scarcely breathe let alone live and which, when cut down, leave behind an apocalyptic landscape. (You can tell I’m a fan!) So it was such a joy to find this gem of a wood so close to home.

At the entrance to the wood lay a pond, overhung by a variety of trees, reeds and grasses. Parts of it caught the mid-afternoon sun and while it was still mostly green, there was a hint of autumn colour.

The Breen Oak Wood pond showing some autumn colour in the October sunshine

The wood lay beyond, dense and mysterious, with various walking trails snaking through the undergrowth of bracken, bluebell leaves and wild blackberries, inviting me in. Trees are old friends. In my childhood home I was surrounded by trees, wonderful lime trees, lofty scotch pine, an iconic monkey puzzle tree, chestnut and the crowning glory, a huge copper beech, in which there was a make-shift tree house, stage for many tales of galant knights rescuing damsels in distress. Stage too for water fights! Trees filled many of the poems and the books I read, especially Narnia with its talking trees. Breen Wood was just such a place where trees whispered to each other. And, turning suddenly at a cracking twig, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see Treebeard himself.

Woods are not neat. There is no order here and in the glorious chaos it was difficult to isolate a single tree, let alone make some kind of compositional sense of the scene before me. A little fog or a good snowfall would make an enormous difference (mental note taken!). But the tree scented autumn air and the creative challenge were good for me and a healthy distraction on a day when other news was not so good.

After much scrambling, adjusting, checking angles, readjusting, here are some of the compositions I came up with on this first visit. I had decided to travel light: just one lens, the Sony 24-105, my tripod and a polarising filter to cut the light reflected from the foliage and deepen the colours.

A rare opportunity to capture a single tree (or at least part of one.)

The twisted shape of this oak looked to me like some exotic wild animal, surveying the woods beyond, ready to pounce on any unsuspecting intruder.

This is my favourite photograph from the day. I like the impact of the golden bracken in the foreground and connection between the two oak trees, like an old and happy couple, arm in arm, holding on to each other whatever the weather throws at them.

This photograph really does illustrate the chaos of the forest. The criss-crossing moss-covered limbs provided a clear structure on which to anchor the composition, but even it is broken by the twisted and dead branch.

I hope to return soon to see if I can improve on my compositions. But in the end, as so often happens, the photography was secondary to the experience of being immersed in this small patch of woodland. To be continued…