local woods after rain

I like the shot a lot - so much so that it leaves me wanting more. Not in the sense of wanting more out of this particular capture, good as it is. Having said that, I don't agree with KL Matt's original comment about the near-silhouette darkness of the trees in the foreground - my monitor probably needs calibration fine tuning, but to me the trunks leave me wanting either a good deal more shadow detail, or none at all - go pure black.

No, I just want more shots to tell me a fuller story about this particular clearing in the woods..... and as they're local to you, you should be able to oblige And I should also add that I don't really go along with the dictum that every picture must tell a story. It's just that this image left me very quickly with the feeling that it could be just one in a much wider series.

I need to declare my specialist interest here. I'm a forester, working for Forestry Commission England in the Welsh Marches, and I wish I had a beech wood like this one on my doorstep - or at least one I could call "local". The nearest I have are in the Forest of Dean, a couple of hours away.

The first things I spotted in your full size version were the stumps of the felled trees, which reveal that this is a fairly recent (couple or three years ago, not much longer I think) felling coupe - forestry jargon for what happened to create the opening in the canopy which provided your wonderful light.

Things I have been thinking about, in no particular order:

• Did you see the light coming into the clearing from some distance away? Could you give a shot with what you've presented just as a small proportion, showing something mysterious (not very clear what) away off in the dark and gloomy wood.... Intriguing - let's go have a closer look...
• It's now July. This is a beech wood. For a short period, a couple of weeks after the buds burst, beech leaves are wonderfully translucent. You might have to wait 9 or 10 months to capture that. And if you're lucky, that coupe will be a riot of bluebells.  If there were any this year, they're long gone.
• Get into the felled area. It wasn't felled just for fun, it was probably a regeneration coupe - macro possibilities for young beech seedlings?
• Winter?

One of my favourite serious picture books is called "The secret life of an oak wood". I'm not aware of an equivalent "secret life of a beech wood".