Bluebell Woods

There is no more visible sign that Spring is in the air than when the days become longer and woodlands are transformed by the emergence of carpets of colourful wild flowers such as bluebells. Life is emerging from its long Winter hibernation as fresh green shoots appear, the temperature gets warmer and birds can be heard singing in the trees.

With this in mind, I had been making regular trips over a period of a couple of weeks to the Cessnock Woods on the banks of the Burn Anne Water near Galston in Ayrshire. It’s a beautiful place to enjoy a quiet walk and also one of my favourite locations to shoot Bluebells and I wanted to capture them at their peak in nice light.

Over the years I’ve taken many ‘normal’ photographs of the bluebells at this and other locations throughout Ayrshire using both film and digital cameras. However, on this occasion, I wanted to capture a so-called ‘normal’ image but then try and create in-camera an impressionistic, abstract or painterly photograph that also captured the colours of the bluebells and the mood of the surrounding woodland.

So, after following my normal technique, I soon had the so-called ‘normal’ image safely captured and in the bag. It was now time to become even more creative and break away from the established and accepted rules! The weather that day was warm,with a light wind and occasional showers, with the sun often disappearing for a short period of time behind broken cloud.

To give me the time to be creative, I needed to lengthen the exposure time to a few seconds instead of just a fraction of a second so as I could move the camera during the actual exposure. I stopped down to a larger aperture and used a Lee 6-stop Neutral Density filter, which to the layman basically is a dark filter that is placed in front of the lens blocking the amount of light entering the camera. This lengthened the exposure time considerably to several seconds and a polarising filter was also used which has the benefit of not only increasing the saturation of the colours in the woodland but further increasing the exposure time. So the exposure time was now several seconds instead of just only being a fraction of a second.

I framed what I felt was a nice lovely view of the bluebells and woodland and took between 30-40 different shots all the time experimenting with moving the camera up and down, sideways, slightly shaking, adjusting the focus and even zooming the lens in and out. Most of the results looked terrible but amongst the rough rocks were a few hidden gems which certainly looked impressionistic, painterly, abstract but also really beautiful.

No filters were used in Photoshop or at a computer and I derived a great amount of satisfaction knowing I had created the images in-camera using only the filters on the lens. It was fun and the images are how I viewed the bluebell woods in my mind. Beautiful, colourful, original, creative, artistic, full of energy and new life and the photographs in my opinion have certainly captured this.

Surely the whole idea is to keep the camera as still as possible to avoid any camera shake spoiling the picture and to capture everything perfectly sharp? Well, yes and no! Instead of capturing the scene ‘normally’ like almost every other photographer or person with a camera, I was able to express my creativity and show my personal vision through being different and original.

Officially, its called I.C.M. or Intentional Camera Movement, which means moving the camera during the exposure and the great thing is those movements can be whatever you want them to be.

A photograph captures a unique moment in time regardless of how you take the image and I spent a quite wonderful late afternoon in the woods at Cessnock, slightly off the normal walked path, and I never saw another person the entire time. All I could hear was the wind blowing through the trees, the birds singing and the relaxing sound in the background of the Burn Anne as the water tumbled over rocks and down small cascades.

I’m clearly drawn to creating these painterly types of photographs, and I will definitely shoot more in the future, as they allow me to be creative, individual and artistic. They encourage you to try something different, and I’m realistic so I know they won’t suit every type of scene and not every person will like them, but they are a joy to see when the image first reveals itself on the back of the camera.

I enjoy looking at them and I hope others do too. The photographs encourage you to look longer, look deeper, to appreciate the colours and forms and to think much more about what you are seeing and its meaning, just as a painting or work of art would.

So-called ‘normal’ images, sharp from front to back, although still pleasant to see, often only hold your attention for a short period of time if at all. We are so used to seeing them day to day that they often receive just a cursory glance and then we move on, we don’t engage with them in any thoughtful or meaningful way.

Photographs created by moving the camera force you to break away from the accepted rules and norms and just let everything go when you try something completely different. You are forcing yourself to be more creative, to be more physically involved in its creation and often a successful image can never be repeated exactly.

And this uniqueness is surely what makes it so much fun and the photographs so beautiful and appealing.