Hunting For Glowing Leaves in the Cotswolds

An Impromptu, Unscientific, Berry-Addled Study of Dappled Light

I’m on a lazy afternoon stroll to get the rest of my steps in for the day (I win a free bad coffee at a horrible high street chain if my fitness app logs 12,000 steps, woo hoo!).

I can’t whisk up the energy to walk up the near vertical hill by our house, so I head down our lane instead. It stretches a few miles along the ridge of the valley and gaps in the hedgerows offer hazy midsummer views tumbling down to the canal.

A few blackberries have ripened so I stop and pick some and this elevates my mood exponentially. Camera in one hand, fistful of blackberries in the other and a cow staring at me, very intently, from the field on the right. Life is good.

During my walk I found myself really, intently focussing on the afternoon light. People sometimes talk about photography as “studying light”, or “chasing light” and other light-related phrases that sound profound. While I understand what that means, until recently I’d never felt it hit me.

My process, loosely speaking, has always been fast and instinctive. I allow myself to be drawn, with no preconceived plan, to scenes that interest me, rather than thinking about a specific subject or process.

I think it’s a bit like language. I have my rhythm. It has evolved over time and alters, subtly, according to the environment (there is Tommy telephone voice, and there is Tommy pub voice).

I love how certain words sound together but, for the most part, the process is subconscious. I never think about conjunctions or declensions when I speak.

In some ways, I think it’s the same with my photography. I play with aperture, shutter speed and exposure compensation, but it’s largely instinctive and not particularly mindful. There are a lot of things I know I probably should obsess about but don’t… like really understanding light.

Light Has Hypnotised Me

I’m more aware of light changes out here in the Cotswolds, big and small. Dancing horizons and skies. Everything always in flux.

Leaves and flowers look different, almost unrecognisable, depending on the time of day.

There’s also the constant and relentless growth. Right now nettles and brambles and long grasses and thistles. I am literally funnelled by nature. A car comes up behind me and I have to climb into a bush to let it through. (This is a daily occurrence and I love it).

‘Bush Portal’

Since moving here from London, I’ve started to notice, more acutely, how light changes the landscape and everything in it.

Winter was the most interesting time photographically. I don’t know why but this shocked me. I thought it would be the opposite. Sunrises were theatrical floods of rose pink and purple. Sunsets rivalled any I’ve seen in the Kalahari. The gentler light and absence of colour made for stark, beautiful moments during the day. The mist in the Cotswolds is like nothing I’ve ever experienced. I spent whole mornings out with my camera feeling like I was in a horror movie.

Now that it’s summer my relationship with light is evolving again. As wonderful as the sun is at gifting us vitamin D and good cheer, it can feel too strong for photography at certain times of day.

I find I have to look at things differently. My eyes adapt and search for things in the environment which aren’t quite so overexposed. This is making me experiment with what I’m shooting at different times of day.

‘Silver Grass’

Today, I’ve been drawn, moth-like, to areas where there’s dappled light.

The lane we live on is like an English jungle. It’s lined, either side, with trees, bushes, hedges and brambles all competing for light. Within a minute or two I spot dozens of glowing leaves.

Some are an almost alien, bioluminescent green and others have a golden haze.

This is an afternoon study of those temporary, imperfect moments created by dappled light.

Here are some of my favourites:

‘Leaf Light’

Sometimes there are just glimpses of leaf.

Hazy little fragments.

‘The Line’

‘Green Shard’

I took all these in situ, handheld and haven’t disturbed or positioned any of the leaves. The afternoon sun and the shadows are doing all the work.

‘Green Triangle’

I’m not sure why but this one makes me feel melancholy.

‘The Fan’

I found this leaf towards the end of my walk. It was upside down and had an almost psychedelic hue.

‘Purple Vein’

In this one I see a very tiny bear standing in the central strip.

‘Tiny Bear’

The world of leaves and light is a strange, veiny, vibrant universe and I hope to shoot more over the coming weeks.

Chasing Impermanence

The glow you can see in each of these images is created by the sun filtering through layers of foliage surrounding (sometimes cocooning) the specific leaf I’m shooting.

These layers of leaves cast and bounce the light in different ways.

‘Dragon Claw’

What you see, just for a moment, is the glimmer that gets through. Some are framed by branches or other shrubs which act as a blackout.

The straight lines are caused by bramble branches casting a shadow.

‘Black Band’

One of the things I find exciting about playing with, or noticing, light in this way is that it taps into impermanence.

I’m a little bit obsessed with impermanence. I know it’s one of those words that can sound spiritual and woo, and in many ways it is, but it’s at the core of everything.

I’m interested in it because I think noticing the beauty in it, or the curious nature of it, makes life infinitely more engaging and colourful.

We’re born, we die, we move one minute, we stop the next. The field yesterday was a lush green, today it’s singed and yellow. Leaves crisp, then rot and then turn brown. It’s sad and beautiful but ultimately - whatever we, the observer, make of it - it just is.

‘Beautiful Rot’

So much about the modern human condition is about control. It’s filling every silence with music or podcasts, worrying about insurance policies, trying to change the behaviour of the people around us. It’s doing everything in our power to pre-empt, delay or distract ourselves from change. The constant fear of not knowing what comes next.

Technology gives us buttons to control our environment. A button which predicts the weather on our phone, a button which sends a man hurtling towards your house on a bike with lukewarm food. A button which tells people where you are at all times. A button to move money, a button to spend money, a button to gamble money. There are buttons to control everything, to cosset us from novelty and chaos. But novelty and chaos and change is the natural state of things.

I love technology. I love not having to spend hours doing tedious, boring things and I’m excited to see what wonders humans create in the future. Using technology to gain a sense of control isn’t always ‘bad’ either. Some change can be objectively awful and stressful and horrible and head-in-the-sand overwhelming. The self-soothe of a good boxset or Zoom call to a loved one can be wonderful.

What I love about photography, as an art form and a process, is that it helps us notice and celebrate impermanence. The environment around us is always changing, whether or not we want it to. We are not little gods and mother nature is beautifully indifferent to our whims. When we photograph, we observe a moment without trying to control it. We are witnessing.

That’s why even though there is much beauty in staged and studio photography, I keep finding myself drawn back to nature photography, reportage, street photography, storytelling and any genre that celebrates fleeting moments.

Finding Truth in Opposites

As I write this, I realise how riddled with contradiction life is. How thoughts can hone in on a thing, tease it out, then decide the opposite is also true.

A little while ago, I wrote about what I call ‘flat photography’. I was interested in why I (and some other people) are attracted to a 2D looking, uncluttered and un-noisy aesthetic. You can see that article here. I came to the conclusion that at least some of its appeal has to do with control.

As I’ve just touched on, the world can be messy and overwhelming. The ability to choose how we frame fragments of our world, behind the lens, can create a sense of calm and control. It’s a way of making sense of the chaos and clutter.

Now I seem to be saying the opposite: that the photographer is an observer who cedes control… and that this is a good thing. Photography becomes a way of seeing which allows life simply to ‘be’. It revels in its impermanence.

Perhaps both things are true. We embrace our environment but choose how to frame it. I’m interested to see what you think.

I hope you enjoyed this. This was supposed to be a short walk down the lane and a few photographs of leaves, but it turned into something else entirely. Frankenstein’s impermanent monster.

I’ve also started a separate collection called Shadow Flowers. These are the silhouettes of flowers created by light and shadow at certain times of day. I’ll share those soon.