If you're wanting to get out an photograph the bluebells, now is the time. Read on to get the best bluebell pictures over this next week. Top tips from me below!

Time of day and weather

This year we have had amazing weather and one of the things I always hear is that people think bright sunshine is the best for outside photographs. Whilst all photographers seek out amazing sunlight where we can, in this country you just cannot rely on it especially during the months of April and May! There are benefits to the sun not showing its face. Not only, does the sun create squinting in pictures and means you have to think twice as hard as to where to position your subjects, it also means that you have harsh shadows and bright distracting spots to contend with. On a really sunny day choose later in the afternoon or early morning, as the sun will be lower and you’ll start to get softer shadows and golden spots throughout the trees. The bluebells will also be more prominent rather than the light bouncing off the green and reducing the impact of the blue. If you do photograph in the sun, make sure to get your subject to stand in a shaded spot with the light coming in behind or to the side of them, try to avoid it being directly on their face.

If it is an overcast day, fear not! You can actually get some gorgeous photos still, and you don’t have to worry about the above, you can pretty much place your subject anywhere as long as it’s not too dark. You want to make sure they are facing some open space where the light of the sky/clouds is reflecting onto their face and into their eyes.

Angle and positioning

There are lots of distracting elements in the bluebell woods. My top tip is to try to find a spot where there are not many branches behind your subject. It’s very easy to get a photo with a branch or tree sticking out of someones head, and once you see it, you can’t ever un see it!

One of the things you can do to help is get down low. This gets your lens on the same level as your subjects head which hopefully might be below the branches, plus it means you are In amongst the bluebells and will get some lovely foreground blur.

Light

Find as much open space as you can. This is actually harder than it sounds as the best bluebell spots are often deep into the woods. What you want to aim for, is a spot where there aren’t lots of trees directly in front of your subjects face. You want clear sky, or open space in front, so that the blue and green colours are NOT reflecting light onto the face, but the open space is what’s being reflected instead.

Lens choice

I usually shoot with a 35mm lens, which is a wide angle lens. But the bluebell woods pose two related issues for this lens. 1) It picks up all of the distracting elements, like logs, branches, brambles. I don’t want these in my pictures, I want the two dominant things to be the subjects and the blue/purple flowers. 2) The blur isn’t the same. With a longer lens I can zoom in (I use a 70-200 and generally stay at the 200 end) which creates amazing bokeh (blur), even at F4. It’s much nicer to create a blurry purply, blue carpet or sea of bluebells rather than a picture with logs, trees, branches and the occasional bluebell surrounding them.

Find clear paths!

The bluebells are so beautiful but they are also precious and we need to preserve them. Try to encourage your children to find clear pathways and spots to sit where there are bluebells either side of them but not in the siting space. If you get down low as I suggest above, you won’t see the bare nature of where they are sitting, the bluebells with be covering it.

What to wear

You want to wear something that doesn’t contend with the blue of the bluebells and just compliments it. For this reason I always recommend blue, denim, lilac, cream, grey which are harmonious colours or I actually also love yellow too as this is a complimentary colour that sits opposite blue/ purple in the colour wheel and look great together.

There is a great explanation of this here https://kolarivision.com/color-theory-for-photographers/

Around this time of year you an get away with no coats which is great for photos. Layers look lovely, cardigans, dungarees etc add texture and detail. Welly boots look really cute on little ones, try to avoid anything with characters on (paw patrol / Peppa pig) etc if you want a more professional look.