Westonbirt Arboretum, silk wood

Continuing the Westonbirt Arboretum trip, in the afternoon there were literally hundreds of people in the arboretum to see the wonderful autumn colours and it was making photography extremely difficult!
we decided to head over to  "silk wood" where there is a Japanese maple collection .

As in the previous blog, i will let the colours tell the story!
here is the last pic i shot in the old arboretum, a twisted acer trunk!

Here is a view looking down between the old arboretum on the right with "silk wood" on the left side.
mobile phone picture!

Into the wood the maples and acers were as impressive as in the old arboretum!  this one shot at wide angle with camera as close to ground as tripod would allow!

and another view!

A close up of the leaves !

Here is a shot of Pete trying to shoot a beautiful autumn tree!    a constant stream of people making it very difficult!  lol

whereas i concentrated on a few closer views!

Moving through to the Japanese maple collection we found most of them had already dropped their leaves!!!!!
but i managed few shots of the area!

The maples are set out in amongst the larger trees, which gave interesting lighting!

On the way out i passed a spruce that was beautifully lit up by a shaft of light!  shot with 70-300 zoom i think this is one of my fav shots of the day!

and a wider shot of a different tree with nice atmospheric lighting!

Finally on the way out, a few more shots with side lighting !

and a final shot of the day!

      It was a fantastic day,we just don't see colours like this near home!  well worth the near 3 hour drive!

               IMAGES SHOT WITH CANON 5D2, 100mm L MACRO,17-40 L & 70-300 IS

Westobirt Autumn pt 1 old arboretum

On Sunday November 6th i travelled down south to  Westonbirt Arboretum to see the amazing autumn colours,  i have wanted to visit for about five years but have never got around to it!  probably the three hour drive was putting me off!
I picked up Pete on the way and we eventually arrived just before opening time 9 am. the weather was looking superb!  bright blue sky and full sun, something we have not seen in weeks.  the only problem was that being a Sunday everyone else had the same idea to visit!!!!!

I will let the images tell the story, not a great deal i can talk about.  just enjoy the colours!

We decided to walk through to the "old arboretum" first to see "Acer glade"  to photograph all the colours before it got too busy!
The first Acer that looked good had really nice back lighting, so i shot close up with 100mm macro lens.

Then a beautifully shaped yellow Acer!

    
                                                          and a shot from inside the tree!

                         a back lit Beech tree!  i had to crawl under the branches to get this shot!  lol

          Here is Pete's shot of a beautiful red Acer, most of the red ones had already dropped their leaves!

        
                                               and his shot of an orangy/red  coloured one!

              Then we came across the most amazing huge Acer palmatum!   shot from front and then back lit from inside!   we shot this one from all angles,  i like this composition best and the back lit views!

Here is a two frame vertical panorama!

Next we walked down to "Jackson Avenue"  which is right at the end of the old arboretum !

Where 28 "Tulip trees" were planted in 1905!

the colours were amazing set off by the strong blue sky! 

                      Running off Jackson Avenue is "Lime Avenue"  this was shot between the two!

into " Lime Avenue"

devoid of leaves at this time of year!

cannot make mind up which composition works best, so here are both!

One final shot!

This is the end of the "Old Arboretum"

"Silk Wood" and the Japanese maples will be pt2

All images shot with canon 5d2, 17-40L, 100mm L macro