Greenway, Agatha Christie’s renowned holiday home, boasts stunning grounds and views of the River Dart. While the weather was unkind on this occasion, I did manage to spot some spring colours emerging along the wooded riverbanks and wild garlic and bluebells in the garden.
I didn’t return to Clumber Park during May for the bluebells (see my previous 'Bluebell' post), preferring instead to visit a new location, Eakring Brail Wood. A neighbour had said that he had been impressed by the bluebells in the wood and I took up his recommendation.
It turned out that he was right, there was a good covering, although they were hard to capture. I could see a nice blue carpet in places but access was difficult and I had to shoot from a distance with the longer focal lengths reducing the available depth of field. The wide angle shots did offer better back to front sharpness but they didn’t seem to capture the density of the flowers and some of the compositions were vague. In the end I had to compromise, accepting a bit of softness in places and then cropping the scenes in post processing.
These are the results which, on reflection, I would like to improve given another opportunity. Of course, this will have to be next year but it never ceases to amaze me how quickly the photography calendar revolves. In a blink of an eye (or shutter) I will probably be back at this location using these images as a reference and hopefully getting better outcomes:
There were also some ransoms (wild garlic) in the wood - fabulous scent...
Having missed last year’s bluebells due to the Covid restrictions, I made an early visit to my usual location - a wood on the edge of Clumber Park.
Normally there is a thick carpet of flowers but on this occasion it looked a bit thin. Initially I thought I was too early for the peak of the colour but then noticed that a number of trees had been cut down. At some point, either last year or during the winter, there had been some management of the wood. There wasn’t the usual shaded beech canopy that I associate with this location and I struggled for a decent shot.
When I returned home I checked the photo catalogue to see that I had visited this location in the same week in previous years, so timing shouldn’t have been a problem. I also noted on social media other local photographers commenting on this year’s poor display at this venue. May be next year will be better.
In the meantime, these were results including some close ups of the flowers and general views of the wood. I have also added a couple of photographs from my last visit in 2019.
These are the scenes from the same week in 2019…
Having had little success in the bluebell wood I tried to make use of the time by walking towards Hardwick Village where I found a few patches of bluebells before getting diverted by close ups of tree bark. All in all, it wasn’t the greatest afternoon out with the camera, but sometimes that happens, and I move on to the next location and subject...
