A winter walk through Worth Forest
Before starting my road trip proper, I needed to return to my home town of Crawley in West Sussex from Hastings. I would be in the area for a few days and intended to do some walks while there with Worth Forest looking like a good location due to the cloudy overcast and stormy weather.
Winter Weather
Since returning to the UK it had been cold, wet and windy, typical winter weather. There is a saying though, there is no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothing.
I was still rusty with my camera and landscape photography technique so left my DLSR wrapped up. Still in travel photography mode I just headed out with my mobile phone and canon compact camera.
Using a Polariser
Using a polariser on a wet overcast day within a forest can really cut down on any reflections and make the colours pop. That is a limitation with a mobile phone and compact, they do not include fixtures for a polariser. What some photographers do is just hand hold a small separate polariser in front of the lens. Not ideal, but apparently effective.
It was early December so winter but there were still some autumn colours to be seen on the trees within Worth Forest. In the darker canopy of the forest I bumped up the ISO by a stop to 200 to get an adequate shutter speed.
As I progressed through Worth Forest there were a few brief moments of sunshine bringing out the highlights within the trees. Out in the open and with sunlight I should have dropped the ISO back down to 100. Within this range it not make any noticeable difference. A faster shutter can result in a sharper picture eliminating any blur caused by hand shake as not using a tripod.
Even with my compact camera I was using a medium aperture and focusing on infinity. Perhaps I should have used a higher aperture of around F7.1 to get better focus in the foreground on the above shot. Also the hanging branches coming down through the top are a little distracting. If I was more patient I should have got a better composition and waited for the light to hit those back trees again.
I actually got some better shots around Worth Forest using my mobile phone camera. You can checkout my Worth Forest album on Google photos where I keep all my mobile landscape photos.
I parked up at the Cowdray Arms pub on the London road and then walked a little way down Paddockhurst road to then enter Worth Forest. On the way back its a good spot for a beer and something to eat.
Lovely photos of the area. I know Cowdray Forest very well and I’ve just visited Worthlodge Forest in the last few days.
I’m curious about the exact locations of your images. I’d like to go there myself. Google Maps refers to Worth Forest being between Cowdray Forest and the railway, but Ordnance Survey says Worth Forest is where Worthlodge Forest is.
Many thanks!
Hi Alan, thanks for your comment. If you have os maps, I started at the pub the cowdray arms where you can park. Walked down the road B2110 towards Worth Abbey. Cut through Barrow and Bushywood to join the footpath down to Paddockhurst Park where most of the photos were taken. Its an interesting area of woodland that in all the years I lived there never explored. But as a landscape photographer I now actively seek out these areas to scout and walk. So yeah looking at OS maps now not precisely Worth Forest which is on the other side of the road.