Winter Woodland Photography in Mid Wales

How a recent conversation with my Nan may have changed the way I do photography.

As much as I love spending my time photographing some of the well-known beauty spots here in Wales, I have been finding a great deal of happiness looking for photographs that are completely unique while outdoors in nature.

I was challenged by my Nan recently (it didn’t get physical, don’t worry) as I showed her some of my travel photographs from Scotland. She was not drawn to the photographs because of their pretty colours or recognisable landmarks or pleasing compositions, as I usually am. Instead, she drew attention to some of the things that she saw within each photograph that were personal to her. My Nan saw faces where I saw rocks. She talked of stories and memories of her past which I found quite beautiful.

This got me thinking about the photographs that I have been taking over the past couple of years or so and inspired me to use my own imagination a little more when I have a camera in my hand outdoors in the landscape. I feel like the modern world has a way of taking this child-like way of thinking away from us, we are perhaps encouraged to think more practically instead of imaginatively – something that I am working hard on to rediscover.

I never thought I would be the man to stand alone in a field in the middle of the snowfall, pointing my camera at a tree but hey, life can throw curveballs every now and then. There I was, in the grounds of Powis Castle and on the hills that surround my home here in Welshpool capturing this series of winter woodland photographs that, I feel, hold some great stories within them.

All of the following photographs were taken in the grounds of Powis Castle, Welshpool unless stated otherwise.

The Enchanted Woodland

Royalty

Breaking Free, taken near The Golfa hill.

Ocean of Red

Frozen

The King’s Speech

Life Lessons

White Walkers

Great One

The Orchestra

Stand Alone

The Woodland March, taken on Yr Allt.