The National Forest recently asked for some short notice footage of a popular field of snowdrops at Dimminsdale Nature Reserve. They’d just begun to come into bloom, which is obviously hard to predict the timing of just right, so it became that week’s priority to grab the shots to ensure we captured the snowdrops at their best.

The entrance to the Nature Reserve is a little hidden, so we had a bit of trouble finding the right place, but it was well worth the effort. There’s a beautiful woodland trail that leads to the snowdrops, and we spent around two hours both capturing footage and enjoying ourselves (dog included). I used the Ronin-M for some steady tracking shots as well as the glide track; I wanted to shoot as though the viewer was making their way through the trail themselves.

We’d taken our dog, Callie, along with us on the shoot as we thought she’d have fun, and how right we were. She managed to get into almost all of my shots as evidenced below.

Instead of the usual music overlay, I also captured some wild track of the forest sounds on my Zoom H4N to use on the final video. which I think works really nicely as it sets the ambience.

Look out for further films shot for The National Forest, documenting the various seasons in and around the woodlands in the Midlands.