This time last year, I regularly took nature photographs. PJ and I had never been into central London together, despite being friends since about 2005.
Twice a week, we wandered around Black Park or Burnham Beeches, photographing… well, I’m not exactly WHAT we managed to photograph so much of. Macro shots of insects, interesting leaves, the light through the trees… we were like 1970s hippie women: “at one” with nature.
Fast forward to now.
I wasn’t all that enthusiastic about going to Black Park today. For one thing, it’s suddenly cold outside, and I’m still getting over the flu. But mainly, I think I photographed enough trees back in 2016/17 to do me for a lifetime. Ultimately though, the desire to photograph something over nothing won.
It’s beautiful at Black Park. Because of its proximity to Pinewood Studios, it’s often used as a location in many movies and TV shows (notably in several of the Harry Potter, James Bond, and Carry On films). I’ve just learned of a movie called Eden Lake (2008), which was filmed entirely at Black Park and Burnham Beeches, so I might give that a go later. It’s a slasher movie, so it might make my next visit a little more adrenaline-fuelled if I’ve seen the area from a scarier perspective.
As you can see from my photographs, it was one of those typical January days, with flat light and a white-out sky. I wish I could say that the walk rekindled my love of nature photography, but I spent most of the time complaining that I was too cold.
There were far more people out and about than I was anticipating. Mainly dog walkers. We saw a lot of incredibly happy, frolicking dogs during our walk, which pleased PJ. I’m a cat person, so I wasn’t that fussed (hence the absence of any dog photographs here).
By 12:30pm, I was back home again, thankful for my central heating. It really was a very brief visit. I’m really excited about our first street shoot of 2019 coming up on Sunday, so this little outing was always going to be a little bit “meh” in comparison. Still, I’ve got some pretty tree photographs out of it, I suppose. My flu-addled brain meant that I was shooting RAW only, despite originally intending to shoot JPEG only, so all these shots have been post-processed with Lightroom Classic CC and VSCO X. I’ll almost certainly be shooting RAW only on Sunday, but I’ll write about that in the next London Diaries blog.
Hope you’re all having a good 2019 so far… and staying warmer than I was today.
Love from London xx