The ultimate guide to spring photography

Spring is here at last. The days are getting longer and warmer, the sun is higher in the sky, and nature is bursting back into life. There's no excuse for not getting out there with the camera now and shooting the world in its spring glory.

Spring is a time when things change rapidly, both in terms of light and the condition of the natural world. What changes with the light is:

• its quality
• colour and intensity
• the sun's height 
• the length of the day in which to shoot 

Photography during the atmospheric golden hours – the first and last hours of the day, when the sun is very low in the sky and is rich in warm red and orange colours – becomes more challenging.

Very early starts or late finishes are ever more important. What's more, the sun is rising and falling further to the north, at the start and end of the day, lighting up the sides of buildings, cliffs and hillsides that haven't seen any sunlight in months, further opening up renewed photographic opportunities.

All that improvement in the light naturally impacts the natural world in its timeless cyclical way bringing back to life all the things we love about spring, from snowdrops, daffodils and cherry blossoms to the greening of forests and the warming of the sea.

The problem for the photographer is that there is just so much choice that it is hard to know where to start. And with the natural world evolving so rapidly, knowing how and when to plan photography of particular subjects can be quite a challenge. This article aims to give you some pointers about what to photograph and when. Let's start with some landscapes.

 

Spring landscapes: the coast

In many ways, coastal photography remains the same throughout the year. The skills of using fast shutter speeds to freeze spray mid-air or long exposures to blur water pouring around rocks and the use of foreground elements such as rocks, pools or dunes when photographing large open beaches all remain more or less unchanged. 

In spring, the sea generally calms down, reducing the element of danger that can creep into coastal photography in winter. The smaller, lower octane waves, coupled with the stronger light and generally higher sun angle, change the whole tenor of much coastal photography, converting the rugged harshness of typical winter seascapes into significantly more benign views evocative of the summer holiday theme.

This becomes the case for images that include coastal vegetation, the increasingly verdant trees, hedgerows and grasses inevitably having their impact. This is particularly so as maritime flowers increasingly become central to photographers' coastal photography. Starting in April and running through until late June, many parts of the coast become a blaze of colour as a host of ground-hugging plants burst into bloom. Among the earliest and (in some places at least) the most prolific are the beautiful sea pinks (also known as thrift), followed by the likes of sea campion, bird's-foot trefoil, kidney vetch and sea aster, among many others.

 

Spring landscapes - inland

This rather vague title covers a huge range of potential subject matter, from forests and woodlands to heaths and moors, lakes and marshes to rivers and streams, and from lowlands and valleys to hills and mountains. 

They all experience huge changes during the spring months, from the loss of snow on the mountain tops to the growth of new reeds in the marshes and the covering of our woodlands in a new cloak of verdant foliage. Every type of habitat deserves to be photographed if only you can find the time. Mostly – as with coastal photography – during the golden hours following dawn and before dusk. 

During the middle of the day, the sun is too high for atmospheric landscape photography when shooting out in the open. However, it can be useful for certain types of photography, including close-ups of flowers and insects. It is also a good time of day to go scouting out potential photo locations to be shot during the golden hours.

When it comes to woodland photography, images of skeletal, leafless trees – so much a part of winter photography – can still be possible during much of the spring. Many of Britain's native deciduous woodland trees leaf out quite late, with oaks in particular not developing their full canopy until late May. Before then is the time to look downwards at the ground vegetation, with so many wildflowers, from wood anemone to bluebells taking advantage of the high light levels available before the trees cover-up. 

The early weeks of fresh, newly formed foliage – both for ground plants and the trees - are just a godsend for photography, the saturated greens of those young leaves an endless joy, generating vibrant images that almost make you want to reach for the sunglasses! Couple this with photography of virtually any river or stream flowing through such a woodland, and you have just about the perfect photographic environment.

In terms of light, those woodland scenes, with or without the river, are most easily photographed on overcast days, so there is no need to worry about the golden hour here. Shooting inside woodland on a bright sunny day can be quite a trial, the dappled light creating areas of extreme deep shadow and bright highlights, which break up the woodland composition and make it very difficult to see the wood for the trees. Add in a babbling brook, and things become even worse, any white water just burning out in a mass of white, so if you're wondering what to photograph on a cloudy day, head into a woodland.

On the marshes and lakes, those vibrant new greens take longer to develop as the new reed growths slowly replace last year's dead material. Some of the most interesting material to photograph is the wildlife, primarily the birds, for much of spring. As new families start to appear, so little flotillas of chicks eagerly chasing a parent across the water can make for some impossibly cute photography. It is well worth spending some time trying to capture the perfect images.

 

The garden

Our manmade semi-natural interpretations of nature are another valuable place for spring photography. As with woodlands, the green of the new vegetation can be quite stunning, especially when lined up alongside some of our most popular garden flowering shrubs. I'm mostly thinking of magnolias and camellias – both in flower now – along with rhododendrons and azaleas, which will be in bloom shortly. 

Of course, there are many others and a host of low-lying herbaceous plants that will soon be coming into flower. Again as with woodlands, many gardens – though admittedly not all – are best photographed under the soft, flat light of a lightly overcast sky, when the colours can be at their richest.

As in winter, gardens are also a valuable place for bird photography. Many of the residents of our gardens are quite comfortable with the human presence. This makes them relatively straightforward to photograph, although a reasonably strong telephoto lens will still be needed, along with a bit of sunlight to provide enough light.

 

Getting the order of things

With the natural world developing so quickly during the spring months, anyone intending to photograph as much of it as possible needs to understand what happens and have some plan in place. It is not easy to get things right, as, of course, the spring climate can be hugely variable, something that can have a major knock-on effect on the development of both plants and animal wildlife. Bluebells, for example, are generally thought of as being a flower of May. But if a mild winter becomes a mild spring (as with this year), they are often finished by the end of April, at least in the south of England. 

So it is important to keep a close eye on the weather and how things are developing, and if necessary, be nimble to move in on a quickly developing natural event. 

So far this spring, we've already had snowdrops, and the daffodils are now finishing (late March), while camellias, plum blossom and magnolias seem to be in full bloom. Just starting now are cherry blossoms, soon followed by apple blossoms. On the ground, woodland flowers that should be coming along soon include bluebells and then wild garlic. On the grasslands, yellow rattle, knapweed and the trefoils will come out a little later, followed by several varieties of orchids. In the marshes, one of our biggest and most beautiful flowers, the yellow flag iris, will start to bloom in May. The already-mentioned sea pinks and sea campion on the coast will be starting to flower during April (at least in the southwest), followed by kidney vetch and many other plants. 

Last but not least, our woodlands will start to produce leaves very soon. Already some willows are leafing out, and the birches will follow them. Blackthorn bushes are already coming into flower, and in May, they'll be joined by the beautiful flowers of hawthorn. A great swathe of green will sweep across our woodlands towards the end of May as stands of beech and oak trees finally burst into life, among our last trees to produce leaves. 

Get your cameras ready, and remember to choose the right habitat for your photography as things progress.

 

The night sky

Finally, this article would not be complete without reference to night sky photography. With the seasons changing from winter to spring, the temperatures become more bearable for standing out in the darkness late at night, so photography of the stars becomes a lot more pleasurable.

Inevitably, photography of the night sky only works on clear nights and when there is no moon, so opportunities can be thin on the ground and need to be grabbled as and when they arise. 

Another requirement is that you have to be able to shoot in an area with very low light pollution – it is amazing just how much even a small amount of manmade lighting can reduce the stars' brightness and mess up any photography. Finding such a location in the UK, particularly England, is often no easy task, requiring a deeply rural or remote coastal location. 

In photographing the night sky, it is usual – though not compulsory – to include some element on the ground as a photographic subject and point of reference for the viewer's eye, such as a tree, a rock outcrop or a tower. Since long exposures are the norm here, your subject has to be rock steady, so it needs to be a windless night if including a tree. 

There are two main techniques for star photography: shooting them as pinpricks of light to render the stars more or less as we see them, or star trails that trace the path of the stars as they move across the sky. 

It would help if you used high ISO and exposure times no longer than about 20 seconds. Any longer than this, your stars start to appear oblong rather than points of light. To create star trails, use a low ISO and an exposure time of at least 20 minutes, perhaps 45 minutes or more. If shooting such star trails, it is usual to point the camera up at the Pole Star and photograph the magnificent circle created as the stars rotate around it. 

The ultimate goal of every night sky photographer aiming to shoot stars as points of light is to photograph the Milky Way. This is not always so easy in the Northern Hemisphere as the Milky Way is not always above the horizon. Still, in spring, it rises in the southeastern sky early in the morning, becoming a little earlier each night as the weeks progress. By the beginning of April, the Milky Way rises just before 3 am and remains visible until dawn (about 6 am BST), and by 1st May, it is rising shortly before midnight. So anyone aiming to do this photography has to be prepared to stay out for most of the night. It is something that takes commitment!

 

Putting it all together

With spring getting going, with longer and warmer days, a higher sun and a burgeoning amount of life in the natural world, it's the time to get stuck into some major photography projects. You may need to move quickly to catch some annual natural displays, or you'll have to wait until next year, so prepare, plan and get organised. Grab opportunities as they arise, but watch the weather forecast and get your photographic trips ready to go and in tune with the season's progression.

Have fun with your spring photography!

 

This blog was written by Nigel Hicks, a hugely experienced Devon-based professional photographer. Nigel works with the USA's prestigious National Geographic Image Collection, among many other bodies, and is a Fellow of the British Institute of Professional Photography.

Nigel runs regular photography workshops in southwest England. To find out more about these, go to https://www.nigelhicks.com/photography-workshops-courses/.

To find out more about Nigel's work in general, feel free to take a tour of his website at www.nigelhicks.com.

 

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