If you go down to the woods today…

From his home in Thirsk, tucked on the edge of the North York Moors, to his travels across the country in his work with Auto Windscreens, Andrew Jon Bagley uses his time to seek out the country’s most beautiful and atmospheric woodland.

Through his photography, Andrew does not only capture the mood of the forest, he creates it. One of his images might allow the viewer to feel the serenity of the walk in the woods, imagine a bird singing and the sun glistening through the trees, whilst another may represent the deep dark wood of nightmares and fairytales, letting the imagination run wild with the sound of snapping branches and looming figures in the mist.

 

WHEN DID YOU START SNAPPING?
I got into it about 20 years ago. I’m a self-taught photographer, my dad is a photographer, but he’s always used film and I’ve never got into it, but I was always interested in old buildings and history. I was inspired by a guy in Texas, Noel Kerns, who used to illuminate old 1950s cars and I started doing light painting. I used to go into abandoned buildings and illuminate them at night to make them look like the lights were on and create that sense of atmosphere. Then I moved into portraiture and studio photography. I always wanted to be a woodland photographer. It’s about atmosphere, it separates the chaos that is in a woodland. Coming from photographing old asylums, I love to create a mood so that that person who’s looking at the picture can feel something. I want to create and inject a mood into my pictures.

WHY WOODLAND?
I was taking photographs of landscapes before, and I actually won an award, it was for Professional Photographer Magazine. I’ve got a 2-berth camper van and I used to travel around, chasing the sunsets and sunrises. But the thing is everybody is a photographer now. I’ve got an iPhone 13 and it takes amazing pictures and the most popular landscape shots have been taking time and time again. I got fed up with that and I thought I can’t add any more to it, I can’t get any more creative with it. I started looking into woodland photography. Unlike landscape shots, I feel with a woodland shot, no one is going to get that shot ever again, that’s a one-time shot. I was up in Northumberland the other day and I went back to a woodland I had photographed three years ago, and I just didn’t recognise it, it was completely destroyed. It was once full of these beautiful lime trees and birch trees and they’d all fallen over, so the shot I got from that place doesn’t exist, so that for me is the beauty in woodland.

WHAT CAMERA DO YOU USE?
All my stuff is taken on a Nikon D810. Most of the time I use a 70-200 millimetre lens, that’s my go to lens, then, if I need a wider shot, I would go for a 16 to 35 millimetre.

WHAT MAKES A PERFECT PICTURE?
Atmosphere and the weather conditions that create that atmosphere. Composition is important too – there’s fantastic compositions in woodlands and of course good-looking trees!

FAVOURITE PICTURE YOU’VE TAKEN IS…
There’s a few! I wouldn’t say I have a favourite. I like avenues of trees, Victorian walkways with an arch of trees over the path, that creates a leading line like a walkway down to the centre, like a tunnel effect.

WHY PHOTOGRAPHY?
I’ve always been quite artistic, and I used to draw a lot, I think this was just another medium for me to get into and express my artistic side.

ADVICE FOR BUDDING PHOTOGRAPHERS
Don’t start! It’ll ruin your life! But if you do, you need patience, keep learning, never stop exploring. Don’t stop taking pictures. There’s a hell of a lot to learn. And the most important thing for anyone starting is to understand composition. Without composition you don’t have a picture.

See more of Andrew’s work on Instagram

 

NorthernLife Sept/Oct 22