Find your local project

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t live in the most picturesque part of the UK. In fact, search landscape photography locations in the UK and The Fens doesn’t appear (yet!). However I can get to some better known locations in East Anglia within about 1-2 hours, namely the North Norfolk coast. I do enjoy popping up there every now and again and taking in the sea air to clear my mind. Hunstanton, Holkham, Wells, Cromer are all places I have visited with the camera and well worth the trip

However, I like to have a ‘go to’ location where I can keep an eye on the weather forecast and get to quickly. It helps if that location offers plenty of photographic interest of course with never ending compositions which change constantly in all conditions and seasons!

I found this place about 3 years ago, when I was searching for local woodland. That place is Holme Fen

Holme Fen is situated a few miles south east of Peterborough and contains the largest lowland area of silver birch trees in the UK. Its simply beautiful, and I fell in love with the place the first time I visited it. Having a interest in local history myself, I immediately set out to find out more about how this place came to be -was it natural or planted woodland? Well it turns out that this area, like much of the Fens is reclaimed wetland. The area once once part of a huge lowland lake (or mere as they called in the Fens) called Whittlesey Mere. The mere was drained in 1848, much to the distain of the local wet-fowlers and Fen tigers who made their living from the mere. Timber posts were sunk in the ground at the time to measure the progression of peat shrinkage. These soon were replaced by cast iron versions which still stand today and show over 4 metres of shrinkage

To find our more about the history of Holme Fen visit the Great Fen website here

Anyway, back to my project. I soon found out how extensive the site was and how long it was going to take me to explore all the paths and coverts (another Fen term!) There are 2 main access roads to the site, which thankfully have been improved since my first few visits where you were lucky not to take the floor of your car off! From these roads you can visit the 4 main sections - Stilton Roughs, Holme Lode Covert, Middle Covert and Jacksons Covert.

My project began by simply exploring all these areas, along the paths maintained by the Great Fen. I soon got to know where some of the better areas were for photography and started to meet some of the ‘characters’ along the way. By characters I actually mean trees, mainly silver birch that stand out with their odd shapes, curves, & twists. There are also plenty of other characters that roam the Fen of course, namely the locals! Chatting with these and the regular dog walkers makes this place even more special for me

I soon got to understand the layout, and started to spend time getting to know each section more intimately. Exploring the potential compositions, and noticing how the conditions and particularly the changing seasons, created new opportunities. It must be said the Summer season is particularly hard work, given the understory of bracken grows extremely high and sometimes it’s hard to even get through the maintained paths let alone see the subjects to photograph. Apart from the Summer, this place comes alive in Spring, Autumn and Winter. It also benefits from a bit of mist & fog as most woodlands do and being a lowland peat bog it gets its fair share of early morning mist

Early morning Spring mist in the Birches

Mist on one of the small meres

Two little ducks enjoying a mere dip on a misty morning

Over the time spent exploring Holme Fen, I have intentionally tried to develop a good relationship with Natural England and The Great Fen who maintain this SSSI nature reserve. Whilst I have released many videos on YouTube (which can be found here ) I am always conscious that given its protected status I want to encourage responsible behaviour from those visiting by sticking to the paths and keeping dogs on a lead. So with that in mind, I decided to create a series of Projects or Guides on Youtube showing people, maps and directions to some of the more interesting places (photographically). This project is ongoing but I’m hoping to complete this is the next year or so

Having a project, especially a local one where you can visit regularly can really motivate you to get out, give you an escape and an excuse to take a walk with the camera!

So do you have a local project? If not, try and locate one and really spend time getting to know the place. You will find not only is it very enjoyable but you may find it improves your photography too!

It certainly gives you that ‘go to’ place if the conditions look good!