Everyone that has followed my work for a while (hi mom!) probably know that I have a soft spot for photographing trees and woodlands. Of course, autumn is high-season.

Every autumn I find myself browsing my favorite photography book, Intimations of Paradise by Christopher Burkett. His forest-work is wonderful and deeply inspiring. The quality of this photography-book is also second to none. It is probably the best printing I have ever seen. The amount of details and colors in the photographs are simply stunning. If you are not familiar with his work I highly recommend checking him out, and buy that book. You will not regret it.

Inspired by a recent visit of his book and website, I headed out to a local woodland last weekend. Conditions were actually not too shabby. I could have wished for a bit more mist and atmosphere, but the sunrise made for some backlit foliage. Always nice with fall colors.

Two things are problematic for this kind of photography. First, there’s often a huge dynamic range in the early morning hours in the forest. Deep shadows and dark trunks and maybe leaves hit by direct sunlight. Hard to capture it all in a single exposure. Second, the deep shadows often mean long exposures. Add a polarizer and you’re often up to 4-5 seconds. And there is of course always some movement in the long and slender hardwood branches.

I consider the results shown here more or less as sketches. I am happy with a few of the compositions I found, but all of the images have issues with movement of leaves, non-optimal colors etc. I will be sure to visit again shortly and nail the perfect version of these compositions.

These are the results for now.

All images capture with the Hasselblad X2D and the 35-75mm zoom or the Mamiya 645 105-210 zoom.