IF YOU GO DOWN TO THE WOODS

The hardest part of photography for me is always subject. I can amass all kinds of kit or apps to take photos, but without something to shoot, it’s all so much dead weight. I tend to rely on holidays or days out to get the best from my hobby, as even though the area I live in is semi rural, there’s only so many photographs of fields I can take.
I work in a large university on the outskirts of town and it’s hard to find time to get away and be creative, so I was very surprised when a colleague pointed out a shortcut through the campus to a small wooded area right next door. Although I have worked nearby for several years, I hadn’t realised the place was so easily accessible. ‘Ruff Wood’ is a small area of mixed woodland, donated by a local landowner at the turn of the 19th century. I always assumed it was just that, a small wood, but in actuality, it’s the site of an abandoned quarry, which provided stone for some of the large houses in town.

When I visited Ruff Wood, I was amazed to find the quarry area had been overgrown by trees and shrubbery and the base had been backfilled many years ago, making a lovely nature reserve at the centre.
The high sandstone walls have trees climbing all over their rugged faces, with roots clinging on to the cracked rock. Moss and ferns have colonised the cracks and seeds from the trees above have sprouted everywhere.
Given the slightly chaotic nature of the terrain, the trees have taken on some wild and exotic forms, to accommodate their precarious rooting. Around the edge of the wood are the remains of tumbled dry stone walls, covered in ivy and lichen and near the boundaries are huge ancient trees, which presumably marked the borders.

In some parts of the quarry it’s possible to see graffiti or masons marks in the stone - or perhaps I’m just guilty of paredolia and seeing forms and patterns where none exist!

With such a varied landscape to explore, I set about with my iphone and a number of apps, to make the most of the area. For some shots, I used Hipstamatic, with an effects pack that simulates Aerochrome film, turning foliage bright red.






In other parts, I opted for dramatic monochrome with the Blackie app, or mono films in other apps.

The dramatic landscape would lend itself well to a folk horror production, or a Hammer film!

My favourite tree is a huge oak, as wide around as four men, which sits at the very northernmost corner of the woods, surrounded by ivy.
An ‘intentional camera movement’ shot, made with the Spectre app, by moving the camera in the same line as a stand of trees, while taking a long exposure, to accentuate the verticals.
On one face of the quarry wall sits an indisputable carving of a letter ‘N’. There’s no other corresponding carvings anywhere else and a check on the compass reveals it sits on the Eastern side, so that theory was disproved!






I intend to visit the wood on a few more occasions in the future, to try out other lenses and techniques, shortly.

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