The weather was not going to be fantastic this May day bank holiday weekend mostly cloudy, so decided to do a walk closer to home the Suckley Hills in Worcestershire which would include a lot of woodland and just north of the Malvern Hills.

This photo walk started from Ravenswood Hill, Crews Hill, Round Hill and Green Hill.  Few miles into the walk and not much to photograph which is often the case when you are mostly in dense woodland.

The Dandelions and Orchard

Reaching an orchard at the foot of the Suckley Hills at  a place called Hallhouse coppice I noticed some seeding dandelions and thought they might make a good subject with a lack of anything else to take photos of so far.

Had to get low down for these shots of Dandelions in the orchard and the ground was wet with the tripod legs fully spread but not extended.  High bokeh in the first shot due to low f number of 5.6 high focal length of 200mm and quite some distance with the background and foreground subject.

Not quite sure what I was hoping to achieve with f/11 in the second shot of the dandelion and orchard?  But my focus point was closeby on the dandelion which gives me less depth of field to play with.  Wanted the background maybe to be in focus as well as foreground so should have used f/22.   Or to blur the background more at 24mm could have used f/4.0. Should have experimented more.

Reflection

Its times like these you wonder what you are doing laying in the wet in the middle of nowhere taking photos of Dandelions?   On reflection, its all just good practice in the field.

Through the Suckley Hills

Again along the Suckley Hills mostly in dense woodland, so not much to take photos off.  Leaving the woodland and descending down the Suckley Hills the vistas opened up a little with lower Tundridge farm and converted oat houses.

Visibility at least was very good and you can see the last Malvern hills called End Hill in the distance to the right.

From Lower Tundridge and looking back The woodland atop of the Suckley Hills with horses grazing in pastures sure looks pretty on the last day of April.

It was then walking through more dense woodland but beside a brook and stream which gave rise to getting some motion blur with the rapid moving water and using a polariser to cut out any reflections.

What is cutting out stops of light to get 1 second shutter speed in the middle of the day is the fact that I am in dense woodland, its a cloudy overcast day and another two stops for using a polariser and a high aperture of f/11.  I did take some photos at f/16 and f/22 but not add much with f/22 taking 6 seconds to expose. But goes to show can get what you require – adequate motion blur at 1 second rather than waiting 6 seconds.

Some dense carpets of bluebells in the woods towards Alfrick Pound.  My bluebells photos need to improve, maybe the use of a polariser would help to cut down the reflections and contrast or maybe its too much post processing but the bluebells are not naturally blending in with their background?

Good walk around the Suckley Hills in Worcestershire, my legs certainly felt it at over 9 miles covered and lots of unique photo opportunities encountered and room for improvements.