Bluebell Bonanza
For me, the awakening of the UK’s bluebells signal the start of spring and warmer, longer days. Here in Wales, our bluebells seem to peak around the middle of May, and each year, I make my annual attempt to photography Skylar in them, and get some Instagram banger like what I see all over social media.
Now I say attempt as there are 2 things, well 3 but 2 main things, that usually catch me out and that is 1) Skylar won’t stay still due to our poor attempts at training her with the camera, and 2) if she is still, she will usually be pulling a face at me suggesting that this is the absolute worse thing in the entire world as there are smells to sniff and follow, oh and also 3) my choice of time and weather.
So the first issue can be rectified by using a tether to keep Skylar from running off as soon as I have taken 1 image, this is what I used last year and I did get some shots that I am super happy with, however, I would like to be able to get some images of her without having to use it as, for me this is more natural, and I won’t run the risk of having the tether in shot and have to remove it later. Thirdly is the weather and time of day, it is best to say that the times I have done this in the past, I have chosen the completely wrong time of day as well as weather conditions for what I am actually after in my mind, it’s all good me wanting beautiful golden hour light in my images, but I ain’t going to get that on an overcast afternoon am I!? My attempts in the past have been mixed, having chosen less than ideal weather conditions for my attempts at this, so this year I made the decision to rectify all that and go one sunny evening and see how I got on.
Skylar is not the best in the heat so on a proper hot day, we won’t go out walking until late (it was early, but she is a lady of leisure now and if we go out for a walk early she just dawdles along, so late evening it is!). We left home around 6pm to get to our favourite bluebell woods, Gaer Fawr Woods in Guilsfield. This is a woodland trust site and is absolutely amazing for dog walks as it is completely fenced in and there are no blooming sleep to ruin the walk.
We set off on our walk, and headed into the woods from the bottom as I was hoping that maybe the wild garlic was still in bloom, however that was not the case as the plants I saw there last year were not in fact wild garlic at all 😂 whoops.
For this shoot, I was using my trusty 70-200 mm f2.8 GM ii lens, which is my all-time favourite lens. I got a few test shots to make sure I had all my settings dialled in as we got further into the woods and the bluebells. My first main stop off point was pretty much exactly where my favourite image from last year was. I am pretty happy with this image, I had Skylar sitting on the path and then, using the fold out screen on my Sony A7iv, sort of belt myself over so that I would not be damaging the delicate flowers. I used the levelling display (not sure if that is the technical term for it) to try and get my lines as straight as possible, but I think the ground where Skylar was sitting was very uneven for her, as in all the images she has gone one hell of a lean on, and I made sure that the camera was level.
First keeper image of the day, though there is still room for improvement
Same location the year earlier, think me editing skills are improving also…
One thing to note at this point is that Skylar is not tethered but just sitting there for me, which is a miracle in itself, but more down to the fact that, it was still relatively warm and she was quite tired.
We continued our stroll around the woods and came to an area where the path was very narrow, with the bluebells rising up on either side. Skylar stood perfectly still for me for 1 image, which I am totally over the moon with, I did try to work on this composition a bit more but, she was having none of it so instead, I got some shots of her waking towards me (and the treats) 😂.
The main bluebell hot spot in this woodland is near the top of the hill, here the woods plateau a bit and the bluebells thrive! There is a fallen log here, which has been here since my first visit back in 2019 as seen in this throwback image from a very wet day (for some reason in 2019, I didn’t go back another dry day with Skylar and try and get some better images, still not sure why I made that decision).
2019 bluebells: I have used this log in photos for other people, but have not actually managed to get one of Skylar on, or even near it! Until this year …
As Skylar was a bit tired today, I thought that, this might be the year I get an image of her on the log as she would be more inclined to stay on which, miraculously, she did! I couldn’t be happier with the images I was able to capture of her on this log amongst the bluebells … well … I did notice when editing that I had missed a bit of goose grass stuck underneath her! Doh! 🤦 but for me, that does sum Skylar up, she has usually got some sort of foliage accompaniment with her at all times! 😂 I made sure to try and take a range of wide and tight shots so that I had some different options to choose from, as well as some vertical and horizontal ones. I actually like how she is looking off in the distance, at a distant bird call, looking all thoughtful, like she is about to figure out exactly how to get up that tree to the bird 😂
For me, these images are some of my favourite I have captured of Skylar over the 11 years she has been with us, and I know I have a tendency for all of my latest photos to be my new favourite, but that just shows that my photography is improving every time I go out. I am really happy that this year, I actually pushed myself to go out in the right conditions for what I wanted in my final image, and once I have chosen which one I want framed, I will definitely be getting it printed.
