Photographing Wild Garlic

Every year around April/May photographers all over the UK go crazy for bluebells and wild garlic as spring brings these wonderful woodland blooms that fill the forests with exquisite scents and dreamy colours, I am no different, its my favourite time of the year.

Just For Yew

So this isn't a blog about technique this time, it's more an account of how it went this year for me and how I overcame some of the problems I encountered.

What was my biggest takeaway from this year ? Simple, You never EVER give up.

Bluebell season was fairly hard going this year for me, I had discovered several new bluebell forests and confidence was high and the excitement turned to panic when I realised the bluebells would be much earlier than normal this year which caused me to have to rethink several workshop dates and do a lot of running around in order to keep an eye on the forests to make sure I would hit them at peak times.

It was a bit of a struggle as weather conditions just didn't want to play ball, there was no mist and I was plagued with blue sky more often than not which for bluebells is the kiss of death with bright light directly on them .

On top of that several days saw extremely high winds which could be dealt with but were rather undesirable to say the least.

I had one of my favourite friends with me for a week and we both struggled, not for want of trying. We were up at 3-4am every day and traveled hundreds of miles to get the best of the bluebells but frankly didn't come away with too much, at least not much compared to the amount of effort that went in.

With the challenging conditions my attention quickly turned to wild garlic which I feel is easier to photograph in bright conditions and as it flowers after the bluebells I knew I would be getting the freshest flower in the forest.

The decision was made, Bluebells abandoned and Wild Garlic was going to be my main focus.

First thing I needed was a location, I knew quite a few forests but none of them really excited me, I had shot them all before and got reasonable pictures there that I didn't feel I could really better that much so I needed somewhere new and preferably an ancient woodland where the trees were the star and the wild garlic the supporting cast.

Last year I had explored a small and intimate forest with an extremely good friend who had kindly shared it with me at the tail end of the wild garlic season and while it wasn't worth shooting at the time I knew it would be a good bet for this year, and this is where I chose to start.

It's a reasonable distance from me so I knew I would be putting in some miles and despite there being limited shots there I just knew 2 or 3 of them would be exactly what I was looking for.

I had got a bit fed up of photographing beech forests which lacked character but looked neat, I wanted real old warriors that told a story and the Yew trees here did exactly that.

Big old warriors that had battle scars and ridges all over them, large imposing trunks and branches shooting off in all directions like medusa the gorgon.

The only problem, There wasn't very many of them, it was mainly Beech trees but I figured If I could catch it in the right conditions then it would work, and those conditions of course meant fog, the forest photographers cheat sheet for great shots.

First visit was more of a recce and it was evening just to get a feel for the place and have a decent explore.

When I arrived that all too familiar pungent scent of garlic roasting in the sun filled my nose and I breathed it in and instantly smiled, I knew it would be rammed full of the stuff.

I walked up the old familiar path which was lined either side with beautiful emerald green wild garlic topped with white flowers like a sea of forest snow edging into the distance.

I was thrilled to be back and stomped up the hill full of excitement only to have the rug pulled firmly out from beneath me like a punch to the gut that left me winded.

The area that I wanted to visit had been forested, large old oaks and yews were fallen and pilled up all around, messy smaller branches in big piles all around.

Several of the trees I had wanted to shoot were now gone and I cursed my luck at not getting them the year before and knew I had to make the most of these warriors before more went the same way.

The messiness of the forest presented a problem for compositions but with clever angles and being smart with the focal length I felt I could exclude the worst of it and it was still worth shooting, the main reason being it was deserted as well which was a major added attraction for me as several of the other Dorset ones were full of people and you almost had to take a ticket to wait for your turn to shoot, and that to me was a horrific situation and not what I wanted at all.

I decided after a decent explore that there were 3 main areas I would like to shoot and a few backup parts of the forest that could potentially make interesting images if the right conditions presented themselves.

Looking at the forecast there was absolutely no mist or fog for the next week which would make things tricky, not impossible, but tricky none the less.

I felt if I couldn't get fog then the next best option would be late evening light which was able to penetrate the forest edge onto my chosen subject so thats where I decided to start.

It was more an exercise in finding the right compositions for when the good weather arrived.

As luck would have it my first evening there had some decent sunlight coming through although it was pretty bright which was causing too many hotspots on areas so the shot wasn't as attractive as I wanted it to be, The next issue was that there was a great big hillside right next to my shot as I was low in a valley and this meant that the real last knockings golden light I craved would be impossible to get as the sun would set behind a huge hill.

I worked up my compositions which I felt were good but the light was just that bit too bright to give me the shots I really wanted and I knew I couldn't change that unless I got some high level cloud just in front of the sun to diffuse it a little bit.

I did 4 trips back to back in the evenings and couldn't quite get what I was after, it was either no light or too much but nothing in between, it was very frustrating.

I knew in my heart of hearts that I wanted a morning shot and it needed fog and then one evening after another failed attempt at it I looked at the forecast and out of the blue there was potential for fog in the morning, This was it the shot was finally on.

I had very limited time in the morning as I had to be at a job that was pre booked and it gave me roughly 45 minutes to shoot from sunrise, not ideal but I would take it.

I could barely sleep that night as I was so excited at the thought of a foggy forest full of wild garlic.

I ended up getting around an hours sleep and when the alarm shrieked at 3.30 am it hurt to get up but I was spurred on at the thought of fog and dug deep to force myself to go.

The journey up to the forest was covered in fog and confidence was super high, I have driven around 25 miles through thick fog and I turned off towards the forest and started driving uphill, thats when it all fell apart.

The fog started to thin out and I soon had that sinking feeling as I passed through it and came out above what was actually mist and not fog, but I was only around 2 miles away so I decided to keep going and hope the forest had some lingering mist that would give me the result I so desperately wanted and frankly, needed.

I arrived and the sinking feeling I had turned to quicksand and it swept over me as there were no signs of mist at all and the forest was just dark and uninviting and I knew that it simply wasn't worth shooting, I decided to quickly race back down the hill and try and get the mist that was there and started seeing a decent sunrise unfold.

Long and short of it was I couldn't get anyway in time and I missed a gorgeous sunrise and I kicked myself for not just going for one of the many areas I could have shot on the way there but I was having tunnel vision of this shot and nothing else would do but I still beat myself up for days about this.

I now had 5 days back to back of workshops to do having just done two sunrise mornings already and it was going to be tough, really tough.

With each punishing 3.30 am start it hurt a little more and conditions frankly hadnt been great over the workshops but I was fortunate enough to be spending it with a long time great friend and we made the best of the situations and managed to get a few decent pictures here & there.

The workshops were coming to a close and as Friday came round I knew it would be my last day as Saturday I had to go to London and it was not something I could get out of, I looked at the weather out of curiosity and was heartbroken to see a forecast of fog in my forest area, But I knew there was no way I could go as I had to leave for London in the early hours of Saturday and simply couldn't get there and back in time, I was heartbroken that I would miss my chance.

I looked further into the week and there was no sign of any further mist or foggy conditions, my one chance had been taken away from me and it hurt bad, real bad.

I had a lovely day in London and got back in the early hours of the mnorning and like the sadist I am I looked at the forecast just in case........There was a really good chance of fog on Sunday morning, Low wind, high humidity, it looked really good.

There was one problem, I had only had about 3 hours sleep the night before and at best would get an hours sleep before Sunday but my mind was made up, I was going as I wasn't going to miss another chance at this.

The alarm hissed its brutal chant and I jumped up like a man who had just received an electric shock, I looked outside and there was no fog, a little haze but no fog.

My body told me to go back to bed, I felt weak and exhausted but the mind kept saying what if ? I was going to go for it.

The drive down was worrying, the usual areas that got fog & mist seemed totally devoid of it and I started to worry that I had made a really bad decision and thought about turning back, not for too long but it did cross my mind.

I kept going and started my drive up the hill, and it started getting a bit more haze and eventually turned to fog, I was elated and thought this is it, I am finally going to get it then just like that I rose out of the fog layer again just like before and all the scenarios ran through my head of should I turn around and not miss it ?

I decided to carry on because I was firmly targeted on this one shot, I was around half a mile from the forest entrance and there was no fog but it was getting slightly hazier again and I clenched the steering wheel and went a little faster, I came round the last corner of the road to the forest and BANG, there in front of me was a cloud of fog just drifting over the forest.

I was like a child at Christmas, I grabbed my gear and ran up the hill into the area I wanted to shoot around 20 minutes before sunrise.

There was fog there but not as much as I hoped for but it was enough to get the shots I wanted hopefully.

I was on ISO 1600 to start with to get enough light in the camera as it was still pre sunrise and it was giving me a nice result, I wanted to get that ISO down but the lack of light just wouldn't allow it and I had to make do with what I had.

I waited a little longer and watched odd drifts of fog pass through and I decided that I would sooner wait for the one shot I really wanted rather than chasing round for multiple shots, it was getting lighter and the ISO was slowly coming down teasing me with each minute that passed.

I was shooting with the 24-105 mm lens which was by far my favourite for this forest, I lined up my composition and decided to zoom in a little closer than I had previously taken this shot with as a small cloud of fog came through. This allowed me to isolate the trio of Yew trees with a thin background of fog. I pushed the shutter release cable and waited those torturous seconds which the camera exposed it, then the preview popped u and I took one look and knew I had got exactly what I was after.

I was utterly exhausted and to be honest I felt quite emotional that I had finally nailed this shot and it was everything I wanted it to be. I sat down on one of the many log piles and just kept looking at it, I had no desire to take more of the same one as I knew I had it already and the fog cloud was already moving through the scene.

The effort had finally yielded the reward I craved.

The soft subtle scene was dreamlike and really understated, unlike the previous contrasty shots in the evening light I had struggled with, it was exactly what I had envisioned.

After about 10 minutes and a major adrenalin boost I decided to attack some more shots as the fog was still drifting in and out of the forest.

I knew where my shots were and systematically worked my way round the area getting 3 or 4 more shots of the area and if a really unique tree that looked almost human.

At this point I really felt I was done, partly down to the level of exhaustion I was feeling but also because I had shot most of the small area I was in, the options were call time on it and go home or to go further uphill and see if the fog got any better.

I really couldn't face the long trudge up the hill but reminded myself this was why I was here and decided I was going to have to do it, but before I did I took one of the path looking downhill, a bit cliche but I liked it all the same.

As I walked up the hill the wild garlic was thinning out a little bit and the options were far more limited, I found one patch on the path and took the shot but wasn't really sure I liked it and remain on the fence about it ?

I continued to walk a little further and found a really nice section of path with a heavy flank of green on one side and a decent bit of fog still around, I decided to take an uphill and downhill view and liked them both enough to warrant keeping them.

As I got to the top of the hill the wild garlic vanished a bit and the last of the bluebells could be seen basking in the morning light & fog and whilst it was quite a messy scene I felt it was worth taking a shot of and made a mental note to revisit it next year when the bluebells were in better condition despite the punishing walk.

It was a nice end to a punishing week of failure that reminded me, you never EVER give up.

It was a session to remember and to think so many times I nearly didn't go, when you want something bad enough you pull out all the stops and push yourself to the limit, but its always worth it in the end. I drove home exhausted but happy.

Despite the fact I got a number of reasonable shots all it was all about that one shot which i chose to tittle "Just For Yew" in tribute to the magnificent Yew trees that had driven me to these lengths to get it.

Have I taken better shots in the past ? Sure, but did they mean as much to me as this one did ?

I think you know the answer.....

As always, Happy shooting.

Daniel Wretham