Hunting the Forgotten Oaks: Photographing Scotland’s Hidden Ancient Trees in the Pine Forest

Morning everyone and welcome back to the vlog it's a real chilly morning this morning there was frost on the car and it must be around about minus two minus three degrees but I'm here on the banks of Loch Rannoch and it is absolutely beautiful one of those real crisp wintry mornings I think it's going to be a fairly clear sky but just look behind me what a beautiful scene now I'm not actually here to photograph the loch itself there's a pine woodland up on my right hand side along the banks of the loch which has got some absolutely stunning oak trees just scattered amongst the pine woods and that's where I'm heading today to see if I can get some shots up there now I don't know what the weather's going to be like because if the if the clouds totally disappear we're going to get some quite harsh light but we'll head on up there and see what we can find but just taking that view behind me absolutely beautiful you know that you're in an incredibly damp environment but breathing in some incredibly clean air when the trees are covered in this much lichen it's just dripping off of the trees so I've just been coming along the path just before I get into the main woods themselves and I've just got this little wee scene in front of me now it's always really difficult because this is an absolute mass of trees and things going on here you know when you come into a dense woodland like this it's uh it's tricky to spot those scenes but what's really caught my eye is is the we've got the birch on the right hand side which has got all the lichen dripping off of it and then we've got this fallen tree down by the left hand side but there's a lot going on in there I really like to get the image I love these sort of splashes of autumnal browns I mean obviously we're out of autumn now or just about to be coming out of autumn but this bracken has turned and it's got that lovely sort of coppery color to it and we've got splashes of color behind it and then we've got this twisting twisting birch as I said on my right hand side and I think it's a lovely scene but whether there's just too much going on in there I don't know but hey let's get the shot we don't want to walk away from it and I may look at it later on and think oh it might be better at a different time of the year or maybe a little bit of frost on the ground but anyway I'll set up the camera and let's see what we can get from this image so I think I'm going to put on my 70 to 200 millimeter lens for this shot really sort of help compress the scene a little bit I can just see sort of Loch Rannoch in the background there and that's quite bright so I really don't want to capture that and I don't want the sky I really want to break this down to these two elements we've got the tree on the right the birch with the lichen and the the twisting branches and then we've got the fallen tree by the side of it and I really want to reduce it down to just that composition so I think the 70 to 200 will do that I mean I can move in and out of the scene anyway but I think that little bit of compression is going to help maybe soften the background a little bit which of course you can do with the longer lens so let's put this one on and just see what we can get from this composition so I get asked quite frequently why do I shoot absolutely everything on a tripod don't I find it kind of frustrating but this is the exact reason why I do it and I find it so helpful it's just tweaking those compositions I just absolutely love taking my time and just fine tuning the image removing parts of the image that I don't want there parts of the scene that I don't want within my image and just adjusting waiting for that light and you know I can spend a long time here just looking at this one scene just making sure that I've got that sort of perfect composition for me that I see which I still feel that where if you're not shooting on a tripod and you go into a scene it's very difficult to keep going back to it and getting that same composition where here I'm just making these small tweaks I can wait for that light to come round a little bit if I want to I can drop on a polarizer and all the while still holding that composition that I found and I don't think I'll change I think this is just the way that I enjoy photographing now I'd like to take full credit for this next shot but Gorham was just filming some of the trees and came back and said look at this and she just caught some of these stunning trees that are just in this sort of mass massive lichen and branches but they make incredible scenes especially with this sort of bracken still just down in the foreground so let me just show you what I'm looking at on the back of the camera so you can see on the back of the camera what I've done is I've just kept this coppery bracken just at the bottom of my scene there just to add a splash of color and then we've got this tree with these network of branches heading off in all directions covered in moss which is just capturing the light there and then we've got that soft winter palette behind I'm still on my 70 to 200 millimeter lens and well I think that really is just a stunning wintery scene and really sort of sums up the area that we're photographing in absolutely beautiful here's the image so I've just walked into the pine forest we're just on the sort of edge of it and I'm walking on this carpet of moss that is just absolutely everywhere it feels like I'm just walking on a really soft plush carpet surrounded by these pine trees but then every now and again you get the native trees that have just been left and you can see behind me we've got this oak that all of these pines have grown around and eventually these will be taken down and those native trees will be left but it really does make a stunning scene what's going to be really hard is getting compositions that remove some of these pines so they're just the backdrop you can see that we've got two here which are right sort in my scene but it really is just so enchanting walking into this woodland with this light coming through the canopy of trees above so I'm going to see if I can sort of walk around a little bit and just see if there's an image that I can get that that just shows this stunning native oak in amongst these pines now surprisingly this isn't the sort of composition that I thought that was going to appeal to me the most I thought sort of lower down looking up at the light with the tall branches but what I've done is I've come right around the other side of this oak and come up onto a hill a little bit and it's given me that backdrop of those pines behind with the light dappled light coming through and it really is just so beautiful it's an enchanting woodland you've got these perfectly straight pines sort of filling the woodland and then you've got these old oaks that just sort of sporadically appear through them and we've got that soft winter light just coming through just that golden light touching some of those pines but then we've got this oak with its old branches reaching out and really keeping that space stopping the pines infringing on its sort of own area that it's growing in and it's just absolutely stunning it really is just a beautiful find so uh let me uh let me set up let me get a couple of shots and then I'll show you what I'm looking at so this is the scene that I'm looking at now what I've done is I've set up my 24 to 70 lens and I'm shooting into these pines now that light I couldn't have timed this better that golden light is just coming through in between the sort of two main branches of the oak there just coming through those pines and giving a real soft dappled golden light which is beautiful but you can see that sort of at the moment I've got this big space up on my top left hand corner of sky and what I'm not so keen on is all of this clear area in front of that oak which is really sort of just giving it a little bit too much separation so what I'm going to do is I'm going to take this shot but I'm going to also zoom in just to sort of eliminate the bottom part of that tree just so that I've got those nice straight pines behind with that light and then those branches coming off now I prefer that but I'm not sure whether it will look as as appealing without having the bottom part of that tree in it does make a beautiful scene so I'm going to get take both and then I'll check when I get it back on the computer but that that light coming through those pines is just beautiful of course we're in winter so it's fairly sort of low and it's giving off a real sort of soft golden glow in amongst those sort of straight pine trunks that are really sort of just capturing the light and of course it's just positioned smack bang in between those two main sort of trunks of the oak there and yeah light's beautiful and of course that moss that then the nice thing about these moss covered trees is they capture the light and it really just gives a little bit of depth to the branches so I'll get this shot I'll try them both and well this is the image that I went with so I've really struggled to get in a good composition to get this shot I've tried all sorts of lenses I've tried my wide angle my 24 to 70 now I'm back on my 70 to 200 and I've come a lot further back it's it's a really difficult scene to photograph eliminating the sky capturing that light coming behind and also working in between all of these scattered pine trees to be able to get into a position that I can actually sort of really encompass as much of that tree as I can and what I'm finding is I'm trying to eliminate a lot of that sort of space below the tree as well and anyway I'll just let me show you what I'm looking at on the back of the camera so you can see what I've done is I've come right back and I've really sort of filled that main oak into my scene as much as possible but by using the longer lens it's really enabled me to sort of compress those pines in the background and that light's just splashing through now but I'm really working between two trees either side of me now because I'm shooting in video mode we're cropped so you can't see the bottom of the tree I have included it but it may be that I prefer just chopping the bottom of it off although I usually like to keep that in so that it sort of anchors the tree into the scene but that golden light's just coming sideways through now through those trees just giving a splash of light on that carpet of moss below which is really nice but it is limiting it's it's very difficult working in a scene like this I've got a pine just to my left here that I can't move any further to my left and if I move anywhere to the right then I start introducing these big trees that are in front which are really sort of changing that scene changing that composition which I don't really want to introduce those so it's all about those lines of pines behind and that old oak growing in amongst them so anyway that light's just coming through now beautifully and it's really sort of just leaving some shadows in amongst the forest so I'll get the shot and here's the image this woodland really has got so much variety we've just come to the edge of the pine woodland here and there's a sort of a trail that heads up that way but there's this old oak just in front of me now the oaks are obviously the last ones to change color and you can just see on the bottom at the bottom of it how those leaves have gone that autumnal coppery color but we've got that beautiful moss growing up the trunk that is just capturing the light and then we've got this background of really soft whispery silver birches growing up behind which are really sort of scattering the light and it's giving such a beautiful soft delicate image let me just show you what I'm looking at on the back of the camera so hopefully you can just see on the back of my camera there you can see those leaves that have turned that autumnal color just sort of scattering around those lower branches there aren't really any sort of branches above that but then we've got this sort of moss working its way up the trunk of the tree and we've got that back drop of silver birches which are really sort of softening the light there and I'm not going to put anything I'm not going to put any filters on because I really like that light reflected back from those trees I think it's really nice just incredibly soft and what I've done is I've really caught these branches coming out to the sides here which sort of give this lower canopy and then we've got that soft dappled light coming up from behind and yeah it really does make a beautiful soft delicate scene so anyway let's take the image and here it is so this is a beautiful scene that I've just walked into coming through the woods here you can see that oak behind me that is just sat capturing the light and then we've got this trunk which just makes a beautiful bit of foreground interest I think a portrait shot with those dark pines behind there's a little bit of light just coming through the trees and there's some of the texture in this moss and this trunk here I think will make a beautiful bit of foreground interest with the light just touching the moss on the tree behind should be a good shot well I think that's it for this episode of the vlog it's been absolutely stunning coming through this woodland this morning it really had that soft winter golden light couldn't have been better it's been a real challenge photographing some of the oaks tucked in amongst the pines but we love a challenge now don't forget if you want to book a one-to-one workshop or group workshop you take a look on my website for next year and I think that's it for this episode of the vlog if you haven't already don't forget to subscribe hit the notification button so you don't miss an episode and I look forward to seeing you in the next episode thank you so much for watching