Swineholes Autumn Colours
A landscape photography blog by Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire based landscape photographer Rob Thorley Photography.
It’s that time of year, well it certainly used to be but I’m not so sure these days. Autumn, it seems to be taking it’s time getting here. Maybe it’s an age thing, but to myself “Autumn” seems to be getting later and later.
After too much procrastination I eventually got myself, and my gear together and headed out. The weather forecast was decent. Rain was forecast, but later in the afternoon it had the sun coming back out, so it had possibilities. Unfortunately by the time I’d finished procrastinating it was lunch time, so a lot of places would likely be busy. With that in mind I opted to visit Swineholes Wood. The main reason for choosing this location was it was the weekend, and lunchtime, and fortunately Swineholes Wood is never busy. The second was I was simply overdue a visit.
The trip over was short and uneventful, and as suspected when I parked up at the top (Foxt end) it looked like I’d got the place to myself. I was slightly disappointed on arrival. At first glance it was still looking very green. I was here however, so off I went.
If you’ve read my previous blog posts from Swineholes Wood you’ll know that whilst I think it’s a wonderful spot I also find it to be very chaotic. Taking macro aside I think I’ve only ever visited once before where I’ve found myself “in the zone”, and been happy that I’d been able to decipher the chaos. Today, I knew I wasn’t in the zone.
For those that don’t know Swineholes Wood, if you enter from the top you’ve basically got two choices. left, or right. Head down the right side and you’ll have the chaos. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a wonderful route. There’s lots of gnarly trees, vibrant colours, it’s dense and very moody. Eventually it opens out a bit, before closing back in as you head down the valley. Head down the left and it’s much more open, and a lot less chaotic. As I wasn’t feeling too inspired I opted to go down the left side. I thought it would be the easiest choice, with the most chance of getting an image.
Whilst there was still lots of green around I was pleased to see that there were pockets of autumn on display. The light was good (wait for it), catching the leaves and heather in a very pleasing way. I settled on a composition using the 24mm - 120mm. After a bit of playing around I came up with the shot below.
Autumn trees at Swineholes Wood.
I spotted another tree off in the distance that was displaying some nice autumnal colours. It was framed by a couple of trees that were still very green. The background was the opposite side of the valley where the light was falling in patches across the fields. I thought to myself, I’ll have some of that.
I switched lenses to the 100mm - 400mm and whilst I was in the process of framing up the composition the light disappeared. If you don’t know the geography of Swineholes Wood it basically sits on the side of a valley / hill. When entering from the Foxt end you gently but continually head downwards. I’d headed down far enough that looking back I couldn’t see the horizon to see how much cloud was coming my way.
I’m not sure if there’s a time limit on how long “waiting patiently” is, but I waited for around twenty minutes with just a grey sky, and no light before I called it. As I got back to the car I could see there was still plenty of cloud coming this way, and that it would still be some time before the sun was likely to reappear. With that in mind I called it a day, and headed off home.
You can view more images of Swineholes Wood and my gallery of other Staffordshire locations.
