Autumn's Threshold: seeking connections in the woodland

This month marks the autumn equinox—a moment of balance between light and dark, day and night. It’s a natural pause point, a quiet invitation to restore balance in my own life. As nature begins her descent into the quiet of winter, she offers up a final bounty: an abundance of early fruits, nuts, and berries, scattered among leaves just beginning to turn.

Equinoxes often carry symbolism of change and personal growth. The ending of summer brings not just a closing, but the potential for new beginnings. I’ve always cherished the warmth and joy of summer—perhaps unsurprisingly, as someone born in August—but I must admit: autumn is a gift to me as a photographer.

Emily Brontë captures the spirit of this shift in her poem:

As Emily Bronte writes:

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;

Lengthen night and shorten day;

Every leaf speaks bliss to me

Fluttering from the autumn tree.

This month’s challenge in the Woodland is to reflect on standpoint—not just where I position myself physically while taking photographs, but how my personal relationship with the environment is represented in the images I make. It’s also an opportunity to consider the complex relationships within the woodland itself—the invisible yet vital connections between trees, fungi, and plants.

One technique I’ve explored is adjusting the depth of field, to subtly draw attention to different apsects of what I am looking at. But I caught myself thinking, “Oh, I know about that.” It’s a familiar trap: believing that prior knowledge equals understanding. Confidently, I set out—returning to a very familiar place, ready to ‘play’ with the concept.

That place was Stone Lane Gardens, which each summer hosts an outdoor sculpture exhibition. I began by exploring how the sculptures interact with and relate to the surrounding garden—how art and nature can speak to one another.

To my surprise, when reviewing the images this morning, I saw something new. These photos felt distinct from any I’d taken in this woodland before. The shift in focus—both literal and metaphorical—had led me to see familiar paths through fresh eyes. It reminded me that even in places we think we know, there's always room to rediscover, reframe, and reconnect.

I started by thinking about how to show the relationship bewteen sculptures and where they are placed in the gardens:

The way that the leaves were reflected on the stone was fascinating:

A set of carved 'fungi' provided an ideal source for playing with the depth of field and focus point. I began to see how playing around impacted upon the resulting image and what it conveyed.

The first living fungi are starting to emerge, and I thought about how to capture their relationships to the trees. Fungi and trees are connected through mycorrhizal networks, a symbiotic relationship where fungi provide trees with water and soil nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen in exchange for carbon-rich sugars from the tree's photosynthesis. According to Suzanne Simard in Finding the Mother Tree, underground fungal networks link multiple trees, enabling nutrient and resource sharing, communication, and overall forest health and resilience.

That idea—of quiet, unseen connections—brought my thoughts to a dear friend I first met in the Netherlands a few years ago, and how the world wide web has sustained our relationship across the globe. I found myself remembering the way her face lit up as she knelt to photograph the fungi on the woodland floor—delicate details the rest of us had missed as we focused on the larger forest scene. I hold onto the hope that she’ll once again find joy in life’s quiet, hidden wonders.

Taking my time, I took a set to represent these connections, varying the depth of field and my standpoint:

I was a bit disappointed with the results when I tried some close-ups of this magnificent specimen as the shallow depth of field left too much out of focus, but I did like the darker backgound of the last image in this set.

Next I explored the range of leaf litter. Looking down, across and through also added different perspectives:

Thinking about the different perspectives lead to quite a diversity of compositions:

There is a pond at the top of the garden which has provided me with some lovely images in the past. This time I tried to show the relationship between the water and trees at this time of the year, the wonderful mix of reflections and fallen leaves:

I also tried out different focal points, looking through the leaves, using a deliberate blur creatively and was pleasantly surprised by the effect:

As usual I had a quick play with the ICM before heading to the cafe for a welcome cream tea!

On the way back, I found myself drawn to these sculptures. They made me smile and lifted my spirits. I hope they offer you a small moment of joy too.

Some further materials: watch this short video from Suzanna Simard on her book Finding the Mother Tree from 2021 and then read this more recent article from Sophie Yeo 'The 'wood-wide web' theory charmed us all'.

What do you think?

#stonelanegardens; #woodlandphotography; #statues; #autumncolour; #fungi; #woodwideweb