Escape the City and to the Hidden World of Lake Wood, Uckfield

Desperate for a new shooting location, I searched the internet looking for nearby places that might be of interest when I stumbled upon Lake Wood. Escape the rat race and the hustle and bustle of city life to relax in the Wood Land Trust, a world of photographic opportunities. Promising a magical combination of water and trees. Find out all about the hidden photographic haven of Lake Wood in Uckfield.

View of the lake

Armed with four of my favorite cameras and a few rolls of film, I jumped straight into the car and began the journey filled with excitement of shooting a new place. However finding Lake Wood proved to be a challenge in itself. After driving around in a few large circles, I realized I had repeatedly passed it, and the car park was anywhere on the side of the A26 I could fit my car safely.

Walking through the gate is like entering a different world. Quiet and still, apart from the odd rabbit, the immediate view was filled with trees and flowers. Apart from the two of us, there wasn’t another single human that we saw.

Walking into the woods revealed surprise after surprise. This amazing place kept on getting better and better. After following various paths around the large expanse of wood we came upon the crown jewel. The huge lake set in the middle sandstone rocks with high cliffs over hanging the edges. The water and sunshine provides great opportunity to get some Xpro shots.

We made our way up one of the steep cliffs squeezing under a tree. Once we arrived at the top, we were rewarded with not only smooth flat rocks to sit, bask in the sunshine, and enjoy our picnic but beautiful views over the whole of the lake. Opposite sat more high rocks that would also make for the perfect picnic and viewpoint.

After munching on our picnic, we got on with the real business – taking photographs. This was the first outing of my Holga that I had adapted to use 35mm and I was keen to get some interesting sprocket pictures. This made for the perfect place to start. I used some redscale film and with the extra light from the water reflections end up with some great shades of yellows.

First Sprocket attempts!

After climbing down and continuing our walk around the lake, we were amazed to find that a tunnel has been carved straight through the rock we just sat on above.

The place offers endless interesting features to photograph and we only saw about half of it! Next time, I’m going to bring some black-and-white film for some grainy contrasting images. Be sure to check it out next time you need a break!

written by crevans27 on 2012-05-22 #places #lake #water #spring #cliffs #location #escape #select-type-of-location #escape-from-the-city #uckfield #lake-wood

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