It seems that lately my blog, only, consists of trip reports! Well, it's that time of the year - autumn - a very busy period for those of us that lead workshops and tours. I'm not complaining, I love autumn (what nature photographer doesn't?!) and this year I'm being rather greedy by experiencing three: Lapland, Poland and the UK where, last week, I returned from holding my annual 2 and 1 day workshops. Onto Poland....
Just under a month ago I returned from leading (along with Marek Kosinski) a short photo-break to the Polish Carpathians, or Bieszczady National Park to be more precise! Lying in the SE corner of Poland, it’s one of Europe’s most remote and wild areas and is home to all manner of wildlife including brown bear, wolf, lynx and wildcat as well as bison, elk, red and roe deer and wild boar. On the bird front there’s black stork, collard and red-breasted flycatcher, 9 species of woodpecker, ural and pygmy owl, golden and lesser-spotted eagle. As you can see, it’s very wildlife rich but this wasn’t the purpose of our visit, we were here to shoot the autumn colours, in particular the mountains clad in old growth beech and fir forest. This is Europe as it was thousands of years ago with hills and mountains smothered in woodland right up to the tree line. Quite unlike the UK with its small pockets of forest and plantations. The contrast is startling.
As with past trips we stay in a comfortable small hotel within the park affording us easy drives to the best spots. On one of the days we planned to walk up to a mountain pasture (clients are ‘warned’ at the time of booking!) which takes in the region of 1½ to 2 hours. Our first morning looked the most promising so we decided on a pre-dawn hike to capture the mountain panorama at sunrise. Bleary-eyed we all climbed aboard the minibus at 4.30 and with rucksacks on backs, hiking poles in hands and head-lamps on we began the assent. The trail passes through forest and open pasture which gave us the opportunity to admire the night sky as here there is next to no light pollution. With dawn breaking the summit was in sight which spurred everyone on and we arrived in plenty of time. It was some walk and I speak for us all when I say it was most definitely worth it! For as far as the eye could see, ‘golden’ mountains and valleys stretched out beneath us.
It was very blustery but you only had to step a few metres down the slope and it was close to dead calm.
After a couple of hours we made our way back to the minibus admiring the view and taking pictures along the way. That afternoon we had lunch at a delightful spot right next to the river.
Not long before the trip I acquired a Sigma 15mm fisheye and was keen to find a subject which would benefit from such an extreme wide-angle.
Light at sunset was brief and at times we were treated to wonderful cloud colours.
Sunrise the following day had us at a favourite spot of mine: a remote raised peatland bog quite in the middle of nowhere and just a few hundred metres from Ukraine with just a small river separating us.
Arriving at dawn we weren't prepared for the incredible red light we were to be gifted which, thankfully, remained long enough for us all to get some worthwhile images.
The rest of the day was overcast, ideal conditions for shooting river and woodland scenes.
A big thank you to everyone for making my (and Marek's) job an absolute pleasure with lots of smiles and banter - even while walking up a mountain at 5 o clock in the morning!
Marek and I will be holding this workshop, again, in 2015 so if you're interested in joining us, do let me know and I'll be happy to forward full details onto you.
