Having had a number of very early mornings, and late finishes, the plan was to catch up on a bit of sleep but, as you can see, that didn't happen! I awoke, anyway, at 5 o clock (darn that body-clock!) and looking outside there was only one thing for it. It was too good an opportunity to miss and with a couple of woodlands less than 10 minutes drive away I packed minimal equipment into a small camera bag and headed off.
The first woodland is ideally situated for early morning photography as it lies atop a hill and gets the morning's first rays. There's always a good showing of bluebells here, and with the fresh, lime-green emerging beech leaves it makes for a very attractive setting.
The kit I took was typical for the kind of work I had in mind. A Nikon D850, 28mm f/2.8, 50mm f/1.4 and a 105mm macro. Although the tripod was in the car I decided to leave it there. I wanted to be free to explore angles and not be restricted to where the tripod could get me.
I've always favoured primes over zooms. The quality is superior (particularly when shooting into the sun), they usually have wider maximum apertures and focus far closer enabling images such as those above and below to be created.
No other time of the day compares to first light. It's magical!
As I arrived at the other woodland, just a couple of minutes down the lane, the sun had risen quite substantially and I knew that any serious work was out of the question. Along the lower path, however, there's a nice little sheltered area where light creeps in. It's a place that over the years has often produced some interesting images. Peacock butterflies and bumblebees were on the wing and blackcap, wren, robin, blackbird and song thrush were all making their voices heard. The Kent countryside at its finest!
