‘A Year Amongst Trees’ - 2021

Trees & Woodland Photography Portfolio by Brad Carr

The origin of my love of woodland photography is in Southwater, West Sussex in a little garden on Wealdon Close. It is in this garden, one that belonged to my Nan and Grandad until recently, that I have the fondest memories of adventures into the woodland. These walks into nature were a much needed escape from my reality and my deep love for the adventure has never faded.

I spent much of my year as a child looking forward to the annual visit to Sussex with my mother and three sisters. If he wasn’t down the local watching the cricket, my Grandad would spend much of his time out in the garden potting plants and tending to his greenhouse, as well as introducing me and my eldest sister to the frogs and other wildlife that liked to hide underneath the plant pots.

Between searching for frogs and playing board games, we would head through the picket fence at the bottom of the garden and navigate our way along the path that ran through an old woodland to carry us all the way to the beautiful Southwater Country Park. We would have hours of fun in here playing on the zip-line and what seemed to be a never-ending slide before returning to my Nan & Grandads house through the magical woodland to eat our cheese and crackers before retiring to the caravan to sleep beside that old picket fence.

As an adult, I can often be found wandering alone through the woodland, still in a daydream in much the same way that I was when I was a child.

If I’m not photographing, I’m usually practicing what the Japanese call ‘shinrin-yoku’, the art of forest bathing. It’s a rather therapeutic and meditative experience. This act alone has been responsible for my making sense of my life and particularly many of the experiences, trials and tribulations that I faced as a child.

When it comes to woodland photography, looking for and (sometimes) finding simplicity among a busy environment brings me much happiness and reflects much of the way that I try to live my life.

The complex nature of finding a composition among the chaos is what draws me. It reminds me somewhat of the chaos that resides in my own life and the act of finding a photograph has helped me to find the meaning that is somewhere within.

I encountered a series of unique challenges as a child, growing up around many changing faces, never knowing how long they might be present in my life and each one of them forcing me to become a different version of myself.

I discovered a complete contrast in the woodlands that I’ve visited this year; the characters in each one of these remaining somewhat consistent and allowing me to be myself upon every visit.

I feel as though lots of my inspiration stems from fantasy movies and TV shows such as Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones and trees give me a wonderful platform to use my imagination to come up with all kinds of different stories in the landscape. I wrote a little bit about my woodland photography in an article that made it into a magazine. You can read it here.

If you have some interesting woodland on your land that you would like some photographs of for personal or commercial usage, then I’m always available for commissioned projects across the country. Enquire here.

You can view a range of my woodland work that I’ve made available as printed wall art here.