Last week I had a visit to a favourite haunt for bluebell photography – Middleton Woods near Ilkley in West Yorkshire.  Despite being midweek the woods were quite busy with walkers and photographers enjoying the scenery – and it was easy to see why as the crop of bluebells was spectacular this year!

I started off having a look in the lower part of the woodland toward the River Wharfe, signposted as Middleton Woods, but marked as Stubham Wood/Hudson Wood on the OS map (297 Lower Wharfedale & Washburn Valley).  The lighting was a bit tricky here with direct sunlight on the flowers but a bit of light cloud drifted over occasionally giving some softer light.

The forecast had been for cloud cover in the afternoon and, sure enough, the cloud gradually moved over and for an hour or so the light was just perfect for woodland photography.

I gradually made my way up to the higher part of the woods where colourful fresh spring foliage was surrounded by a carpet of flowers.

One or two trees had redder coloured leaves adding a nice contrast to the flowers and fresh greens.

A small group of silver birch trees surrounded by bluebells provided the ideal subject for creating abstract images with intentional camera movement.

With about sixty images taken I was back at the roadside ready to head back to the railway station and itching to do a bit of on-camera image selection on the train home!

For more images have a look at the Bluebell Woodland gallery in my Fine Art America collection.