Back at the end of November, we took a long overdue drive to the forest at Gougane Barra. Long overdue in comparison to how frequently I usually visited in winter during, lets call it, the height of my photographic journey. Visit frequency dropped off quite rapidly for a few reasons. The introduction of the barriers with the eye-watering entry fee (or at least what I’d consider eye-watering for a forest) added to my imaginary woes. My other standard rant was the reworking of the path at the top of the forest, which destroyed one of my favorite photo locations. I say ‘reworking’, what I really mean is several tonnes of gravel being dumped over the existing path. All in the name of health & safety I suppose. Gotta do everything we can to prevent the stupidest people in society from damaging themselves. Very anti-Darwinian.

I’d just (a few months previous) picked up a nice new ball head for the tripod, as well as a couple of additional solid ND filters. So I had to get out somewhere scenic with flowing water to make sure I could still take those wonderfully clichéd moving water photos. I’m out of practice, more work required.

Despite all my ranting, the forest is still a lovely place to go for a couple of hours. Mostly in the winter mind you. Less people that way. Also less people to either attempt to exclude from scenes or to remove later on with photoshop.

Funnily enough, even at the end of November, there were still plenty of tourists around. And even more surprising, a full car park at the bottom of the forest. Don’t usually get that in winter, what with the entry fee and all.