As the weather was so warm in the UK yesterday Claire and I decided to go for a woodland walk, we followed the route I use most weekends for my Saturday morning run. It is a 5.5km loop from our house that takes in fields, a few hills and various woodlands.

I decided to take my camera but to ‘invigorate’ my creativity I only took my 50mm f1.4 lens. Here are the results, I hope you like them.

This is the first part of the walk between a series of paddocks, I quite liked the way that the fence lines lead off into the distance.

Autumn is certainly in full swing as you can see from the full range of colours  in the tree line.

I remember reading in a photography book that you should look behind you as sometimes there’s a different shot to see.

More of the colours in the trees – shame it is a bit overcast, with broken cloud and a pending sunset this could have been even more dramatic.

Those chaps look well cared for and content, although I think they were hopeful that we had treats.

Some interesting leaf shapes showing deterioration as Autumn takes hold.

This is a view as we neared the halfway point, passing along a footpath through the fields of a managed stables. I like the leading lines and the colours in this shot.

Now we are in proper woodland and the late afternoon sun decided to make an appearance, casting interesting shadows and creating pools of light.

My thoughts always turn to Christmas when I see the bright red of the holly berries.

The last third of the loop has some interesting varieties of trees and bushes.

Just as earlier I looked behind to capture a shoot, as we wandered into the final bit of woodland I remembered to look up into the tree canopy and managed to capture the essence of Autumn with this shot and the one below, highlighting the contrast between different stages of the leaves changing colour.

More rich autumnal colours as we exit the woodland.

A solitary brave dandelion clock, I decided to leave it for someone else to blow around.

Here is the final image as we looked back towards the last patch of woodland and headed home. We thoroughly enjoyed the walk, we had much of the route to ourselves and we are lucky to have such beautiful landscape so close to our home.

With views like this it is easy to imagine how William Blake was inspired to pen the first verse of his poem “And did those feet in ancient time” which is also the wording for the hymn ‘Jerusalem’.

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England’s mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On Englands pleasant pastures seen!”

Paul.