Serenity in the woods.
For photographers who sense there is more to the woods than the epic view. Years of returning to the same quiet woods, distilled into unhurried notes on seeing, composing and editing, and essays on why the making matters more than the picture.
The rut that arrives with your best work
Serenity in the Woods Issue #6 Most ruts are easy enough to explain. The work dries up, the card comes back with nothing on it worth keeping, and you feel flat for a reason you can point to. The one I have been in is stranger than that. This year has brought the best commercial work I have made, and the pictures have kept coming. And still, on the few mornings that belonged to no client and no brief, I could not find my way out of the door. A rut made of good work rather than the lack of it,...
The jar in the cupboard
Serenity in the Woods Issue #5 I sat down to write a list. The scenes with a season still missing from them, frames I meant to make before the leaves turn, so a few of my seasonal sets would finally be complete. Four frames of one scene, one for each season, made from the same spot across months or years: a small body of work in itself, and the story of a place changing. Then I opened the folder of images still to edit, and several of those gaps were already filled. Frames made a season or...
The award I cannot remember winning
Serenity in the Woods Issue #4 Years ago I made a photograph that won an award. A wide coastal view, a big dramatic sky, the kind of light you drive three hours for. I cannot remember which award, or which competition. I am not sure I ever really saw the place at all. These days my photographs come from somewhere slower. A few small woods near home, walked over and over until they start to give something up. It took me a long time to understand why that matters more. This essay is about the...
The reason I go into the woods
Serenity in the Woods Issue #3 There is a new essay on the site, and it is one of the more personal things I have written. It began with a question I did not expect to have to ask myself: whether I still go into the woods for the reason I always told myself I did. I am not going to summarise it here. It is the kind of piece that only works if you walk through it with me rather than read the ending first. If you have ever felt the quiet difference between going out to make something and simply...
Transforming woodland clutter into art
Serenity in the Woods Issue #2 Not long ago I was out on a quiet walk through the woods. The light was soft, birdsong carried in the distance, and the forest felt alive in that way it often does when you pause to notice it. I set up my tripod, looked through the viewfinder and immediately felt defeated. Everywhere I turned, the scene was busy: trunks crowding the frame, branches cutting across, patches of bramble spilling into the light. It felt like the forest was working against me. If...
Finding beauty in the slow moments
Serenity in the Woods Issue #1 What 7 1/2 weeks in intensive care taught me about photography, presence and recovery. Hi Reader, I used to think the goal of photography was to make beautiful images. But something shifted. Now, I see photography more like a conversation. With the trees, with myself, with the moment I’m in. There’s a stillness I’ve learned to appreciate. Not just in the woods, but in the process of walking slowly, noticing more, and letting go of the pressure to “get the shot.”...