There’s a common belief that woodland photography has become a little bit cliché. You know the look — misty, ethereal, soft light filtering through the trees. It’s that dreamy, almost fantasy-style woodland scene that fills our social media feeds.
And I’ll be honest, it’s a look I really like. In fact, it’s often the kind of image I go for myself. But I thought it might be an interesting challenge to see if I could capture a woodland photograph that didn’t rely on all those familiar tricks. So in my most recent video, I set out to do just that.
I headed out to a patch of woodland at Langsett, near the edge of the Peak District. My goal was simple: get a woodland image without falling into the usual traps.
The first cliché I decided to drop was fog. Almost every woodland photographer (myself included) waits for misty or foggy conditions because it cleans up the chaos of branches and adds that moody atmosphere. It’s perfect for composition, but it’s also what everyone does. On this particular morning there was no mist, and I figured that might help my image stand out a bit.
Another habit of mine is shooting with longer focal lengths. It’s a great way to simplify a scene and focus attention, but again — a familiar approach. So this time, I committed to shooting wide. I wanted to include more of the woodland, clutter and all, and see if I could still make it work compositionally.
As I wandered through the woods, I found a small cluster of mushrooms near an old tree stump. They caught my eye immediately. I thought they’d make a great foreground subject for a wider shot, but I knew it would be technically tricky. I’d need a large depth of field to keep both the mushrooms and the background trees sharp, so I decided to use focus stacking.
I swapped over to my Nikon Z 14–30mm f/4 lens and started setting up. I got down low, almost underneath the mushrooms, pointing the camera up towards the trees. It was an unusual angle for me, and I found it surprisingly refreshing. Using focus shift shooting, I captured a series of frames — starting on the mushrooms and gradually working my focus deeper into the scene.
There was one more thing I decided to leave out for this challenge — my circular polariser. I usually rely on it in woodland scenes to reduce reflections and make colours pop, especially when the ground is damp. But this time, I wanted to avoid that extra saturation and sheen. I wanted to see if I could make something more honest, maybe even a little raw.
Time was short — I had to get back for work — so I packed up, hoping I’d caught something usable. But I knew the real challenge was still to come: editing.
A lot of what makes woodland photography look “cliché” actually happens in post-processing. The soft glows, the faded light, the warm tones — all of it contributes to that familiar dreamy look. So I decided to do the opposite.
Normally, I’d edit with a lot of dehire, adding gentle contrast and warmth while gradually fading the image into the distance to create depth. This time, I pushed the clarity, boosted the contrast, and kept the detail sharp from front to back. The result? Bold, saturated, punchy — and completely not my usual style.
I have to admit, it felt strange. Editing against instinct is uncomfortable, but that’s kind of the point of a challenge like this.
The mushroom shots probably worked best out of the set. The extreme depth of field from the focus stacking gave it a slightly surreal quality — almost like an AI-generated image, even though it wasn’t. I did use a bit of Photoshop’s generative AI though, to tidy up the edges where the focus stack hadn’t quite blended properly, just to clean up some of those blurry transitions.
I can’t say these are my favourite images. I still prefer that softer, painterly woodland look — cliché or not. But this exercise taught me a few things. I really liked working with strong foreground interest, and that ultra-detailed, focus-stacked style has potential. I just think it’ll work better under the right light, and edited in the gentler, more atmospheric way that I naturally gravitate toward.
The main takeaway for me is that it’s okay to embrace clichés if they help you make images you love. Photography is, after all, a personal expression. Whether you’re deliberately avoiding trends or leaning right into them, the only thing that really matters is that you enjoy the images you make.
So next time you’re out in the woods — mist or no mist — just shoot the scene the way you want to see it.
You can see the video that I captured on the morning here.
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