I live just a short walk from a patch of woods, and I love to go there now and then to photograph the more intimate kind of landscapes and all the small stuff like flowers, moss, funghi and so on.

A week ago I had my first walk there this spring. The wood anemones were in full bloom, birds singing and a wonderful day it was. I had several ideas I wanted to try as well as being prepared for the unexpected, so I brought my whole bag of gear. First stop was the wood anemones. I had two different images in mind: a light, airy picture of a single flower with shallow depth of field and a green/white background, and also a single flower against a dark background. So I singled out a couple of flowers and lay down on the ground with my lovely Tamron 90mm f/2.8 macro lens on my trusty old Canon 550D. I didn’t notice anybody passing on the path, but if so they must have been wondering what this guy was up to crawling around like that. After a while I had my pictures and started looking for new things to shoot. A small pond caught my attention, but after a couple of tries I decided to leave it for now. Better come back on a foggy day.

Enebakk, Norway, 2017

There are lots of fallen trees around here just left to rot by themselves. Over the years the stumps are worn down by the weather and create wonderful shapes and structures best suited for black and white conversion. The sun was shining down through the branches creating spots of light. In order to get the light I wanted on this stump I had to wait quite a while and take several shots as the light moved across the scene.

Enebakk, Norway, 2017

Roots of living trees are also a fun thing to look for where they stretch out above the ground like long, thin fingers. I found this spruce with particularly nice roots covered with thin moss. I had my camera on tripod with the center colomn reversed in order to get close to the ground, Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5 set at 10mm. When processing this image in Darktable I used some low pass filters to bring out the 3-d shape of the roots and really make them alive. Colours enhanced with Nik Viveza and Color Efex Pro.

Enebakk, Norway, 2017

While I was setting up for the photo of the old tree stump a woman walking her dog came past me asked if there was anything nice to photograph around here. «Yes, lots of it», was my reply. There really are lots of images to be had around there, but I don’t think she saw any of it, even though (or maybe because?) she as she said, walked there three times daily with her dog.

Do you often see images where others don’t? Tell me about it in the comments! And be sure to check out my work over at ClickASnap!