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Mystical Photos of the Enchanting English Forests of Wistman's Wood
Deep within the forests of Dartmoor, England is Wistman’s Wood, an ancient woodland that looks like something from a fairytale. Featuring moss-covered boulders and tangled web of twisted trees, it’s no surprise that the eerie location is associated with a number of supernatural folklore tales—many writers have even described the woodland as “the most haunted place on Dartmoor.” However, this fearful reputation didn’t scare away fine art photographer Neil Burnell, who braved the foggy forest to capture its enchanting charm.
Aptly titled Mystical, Burnell’s ongoing series transports the viewer to an extraordinary world that’s largely been left to grow wild. His images show how the ancient trees have spread their branches and twisted their roots around giant granite boulders, while a thick carpet of moss covers the entire forest floor.
“I love to try and produce an atmosphere in my images and Wistman’s is one of the most atmospheric places I’ve visited,” Burnell told My Modern Met. “The woodland is also notoriously difficult to photograph and I love a challenge.” To capture his images, Burnell visited the area around 20 times over the last year, trying to capture the perfect image. The photographer reveals that the best time to visit is at “blue hour,” the hour just before sunrise. At this time, Burnell was able to capture the forest when enveloped in a layer of hazy, magical mist.
https://mymodernmet.com/wistmans-wood-mystical-photos-neil-burnell/
Aptly titled Mystical, Burnell’s ongoing series transports the viewer to an extraordinary world that’s largely been left to grow wild. His images show how the ancient trees have spread their branches and twisted their roots around giant granite boulders, while a thick carpet of moss covers the entire forest floor.
“I love to try and produce an atmosphere in my images and Wistman’s is one of the most atmospheric places I’ve visited,” Burnell told My Modern Met. “The woodland is also notoriously difficult to photograph and I love a challenge.” To capture his images, Burnell visited the area around 20 times over the last year, trying to capture the perfect image. The photographer reveals that the best time to visit is at “blue hour,” the hour just before sunrise. At this time, Burnell was able to capture the forest when enveloped in a layer of hazy, magical mist.
https://mymodernmet.com/wistmans-wood-mystical-photos-neil-burnell/
44 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
Thank you for sharing! 
Just kidding, that void would best be depicted by a shot of black outer space.
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Great shots and it made me curious what species of trees are shown. From Wikipedia:
Flora
The trees are mainly pedunculate oak, with occasional rowan, and a very few holly, hawthorn, hazel, and eared-willow. Tree branches are characteristically festooned with a variety of epiphytic mosses and lichens and, sometimes, by grazing-sensitive species such as bilberry and polypody. On the ground, boulders are usually covered by lichens and mossy patches – frequent species include Dicranum scoparium, Hypotrachyna laevigata, Rhytidiadelphus loreus and Sphaerophorus globosus – and, where soil has accumulated, patches of acid grassland grow with heath bedstraw, tormentil and sorrel. In places protected from livestock, grazing-sensitive plants such as wood sorrel, bilberry, wood rush and bramble occur. A fringe of bracken surrounds much of the wood, demarcating the extent of brown earth soils. The wood supports approximately 120 species of lichen.
The trees are mainly pedunculate oak, with occasional rowan, and a very few holly, hawthorn, hazel, and eared-willow. Tree branches are characteristically festooned with a variety of epiphytic mosses and lichens and, sometimes, by grazing-sensitive species such as bilberry and polypody. On the ground, boulders are usually covered by lichens and mossy patches – frequent species include Dicranum scoparium, Hypotrachyna laevigata, Rhytidiadelphus loreus and Sphaerophorus globosus – and, where soil has accumulated, patches of acid grassland grow with heath bedstraw, tormentil and sorrel. In places protected from livestock, grazing-sensitive plants such as wood sorrel, bilberry, wood rush and bramble occur. A fringe of bracken surrounds much of the wood, demarcating the extent of brown earth soils. The wood supports approximately 120 species of lichen.
Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wistman%27s_Wood
.........
so "forests of dartmoor" is wide of the mark. This patch of woodland is very small:
Wistman's Wood is one of only three remote high-altitude oakwoods on Dartmoor, Devon, England... Wistman's Wood has been mentioned in writing for hundreds of years. It is likely a left-over from the ancient forest that covered much of Dartmoor c. 7000 BC, before Mesolithic hunter/gatherers cleared it around 5000 BC.[1] Photographic and other records show that Wistman's Wood has changed considerably since the mid-19th century; at the same time climatic conditions have also generally become warmer.[5][6] Not only have the older oak trees grown from a stunted/semi-prostrate to a more ascending form, but a new generation of mostly straight-grown and single-stemmed oaks has developed. The oldest oaks appear to be 400–500 years old, and originated within a degenerating oakwood that survived in scrub form during two centuries of cold climate.[1] In c. 1620 these old trees were described as "no taller than a man may touch to top with his head". Tree height increased somewhat by the mid-19th century, and during the 20th century approximately doubled...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wistman's_Wood
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wistman's_Wood
