Yana Skakun
New Forest National Park · Lyndhurst · Burley · Bolderwood · Buckler's Hard · Hampshire
Photographer
New Forest
Thousand-year pollard oaks in Mark Ash Wood. Three thousand free-roaming ponies across 40,000 acres of open forest. The Beaulieu River from Buckler's Hard through ancient oak woodland. August heather purple on 14,000 acres of open heath. William the Conqueror's 1079 royal forest, unchanged in its essential character for nearly a thousand years. Elopement, portrait, and engagement photography in England's most ancient managed landscape.
Mark Ash Wood · Bolderwood · New Forest Ponies · Buckler's Hard · Burley · Fritham · Eyeworth Pond · Open Heathland
England's Ancient Royal Forest — Oaks, Ponies & Open Heathland
The New Forest National Park — 219 square miles of ancient woodland, open heath, and enclosed farmland in Hampshire — is England's most historically continuous managed landscape. William the Conqueror designated it as a royal hunting forest in 1079, evicting the settlements of the Forest of Ytene and imposing the Forest Laws that protected its deer and trees with punishments of blinding and castration. The landscape that results from a thousand years of that designatory history — the ancient pollard oaks left by medieval cutting cycles, the open heathland maintained by Commoners' grazing since the Norman settlement, the unenclosed roads across which the ponies and deer cross without warning — is unlike any other landscape in southern England.
The New Forest's photographic power comes from the scale and quality of the ancient trees: Mark Ash Wood's pollard oaks — their trunks 4–6 metres in circumference, their limbs gnarled and bifurcating in patterns no managed woodland ever produces — give portrait photography a backdrop of organic richness and great age unmatched in any other accessible English location below the Highland level. The free-roaming ponies give the unique possibility of large, unfenced animals as natural foreground elements at portrait range. The August heather horizon at sunset gives the southern county's most iconic open landscape image.
I photograph portrait and engagement sessions, elopements, and wedding days in the New Forest for couples who want the ancient forest, the open heathland, and the quiet riverside settings as their context. The New Forest is 110 miles from Cambridge — approximately 1 hour 45 minutes — and exceptionally easy to reach from Southampton, Bournemouth, or the M27 corridor.
Photography Locations
New Forest Photography Settings
Mark Ash Wood & Bolderwood — The Ancient Pollard Oaks
Mark Ash Wood (near Bolderwood, Lyndhurst SO43) — the most extensive area of ancient pollard oak and beech woodland in the New Forest, where individual trees reach ages of 500–1,000 years — gives wood photography of a scale and character unlike anything available in a managed parkland or a younger forest. The pollard oaks of Mark Ash Wood were last cut (pollarded) in the medieval period: the massive bolls (main trunk stubs), the weirdly bifurcating limbs, and the deeply furrowed bark of the oldest trees give a visual vocabulary of great age and organic power. In autumn the beech mast covers the woodland floor in copper; in spring the oak canopy gives filtering dappled light of extraordinary quality through young leaf. The deer tracks, the ancient boundary earthworks (the New Forest's 'woodbanks'), and the occasional drift of New Forest ponies through the oaks give a wildly photographic landscape that has been essentially unchanged since the Domesday Book.
New Forest Ponies — The Commoners' Ancient Grazing Right
The New Forest ponies — the hardy semi-feral ponies whose Commoners' right of grazing (the 'right of common of mares') dates from the Norman period and was codified in Magna Carta-era documents — are the most photographically distinctive living element of the New Forest landscape. Approximately 3,000 ponies roam 40,000 acres of unenclosed open forest and heathland, unfenced and entirely free-ranging, from the A31 corridor north to the Avon valley and south to the Solent coast. The ponies' willingness to be photographed at close range (they are accustomed to human proximity but not to hand feeding — the Forestry England signs everywhere warn against this) gives engagement and portrait photography the unique possibility of a living wild animal as a foreground element at ranges of 2–5 metres. Fallow deer, red deer, and the smaller sika deer are also present.
Bolderwood Deer Sanctuary — Managed Fallow Deer Platform
The Bolderwood Deer Sanctuary (Bolderwood Ornamental Drive, Lyndhurst SO43) — the managed deer-watching and -photography platform operated by Forestry England in the heart of the old forest — gives reliable fallow deer photography during the summer feeding season (April through October). The viewing platform looks across a meadow clearing where fallow deer come to feed; in the rut (mid-October through November) the bucks give the most intense natural spectacle available within the New Forest, their antlers fully grown (the New Forest fallow deer carry the largest antlers of any fallow deer population in England) and their competitive calling audible across the valley. The Ornamental Drive itself — the Japanese maples and other ornamental plantings around the Bolderwood car park — gives autumn colour photography in October of a quality unusual for the New Forest.
Beaulieu River from Buckler's Hard to Beaulieu Village
Buckler's Hard (Beaulieu SO42) — the preserved 18th-century shipbuilding village on the Beaulieu River, where the main street (originally planned as a sugar-cane trading town for the Duke of Montagu's Grenada estates, repurposed as a Navy shipyard when those plans failed) runs from the village down to the river hard — gives a photographic setting of the most distinctive 18th-century vernacular character. The hard (the hard riverbed access to the water) gives direct river access; the river's quiet tidal flow, the oak woodland on both banks, and the distant view of Beaulieu village and its Abbey church give a pastoral-maritime quality entirely distinctive of Hampshire. The 1.5-mile riverside path from Buckler's Hard north to Beaulieu village through the Beaulieu Estate woodland (passing the old gravel workings, now shallow lakes, and the ancient oaks of Keeping Marsh) gives a portrait circuit of the highest quality.
Burley Village — Thatched Cottages and the Village Green
Burley (Burley BH24) — one of the most photographically complete of the New Forest villages, its thatched cottages, the Village Green, the Burley Inn, and the open forest immediately adjacent — gives an English village character of the purest sort. Burley is noted for its 'New Age' reputation (the village has several practitioners of Wicca and related traditions; there are coven symbols on the village signs) but its photographic character comes entirely from the thatch, the brick, the village oak tree, and the unfenced forest immediately behind the last row of cottages. On the eastern edge of the village (where the forest boundary fence ends) ponies graze onto the village green itself; the combination of forested hillside, thatched rooflines, and grazing ponies gives a composition entirely characteristic of the New Forest southern villages.
Fritham — The Most Remote New Forest Hamlet
Fritham (Fritham SO43) — the most remote settlement in the New Forest, a hamlet of six or seven houses, a farmyard, and the Royal Oak pub (one of England's smallest pubs, thatched, 16th century in its earliest parts) in the deep forest north of Lyndhurst — gives access to the Forest's most tranquil and least-visited landscapes. Eyeworth Pond (the small oval lake behind Fritham, created in the 17th century as a watering pond for the Eyeworth gunpowder works) gives still-water reflection photography in a completely forested setting. The woodland surrounding Fritham (ancient oak coppice, the great standing dead trees left by Forestry England as biodiversity timber) gives some of the most atmospheric New Forest woodland photography available, entirely away from the tourist routes.
Rufus Stone & The Ancient Forest Heart
The Rufus Stone (near Brook SO43) — the granite standing stone marking (approximately) the location where King William II (William Rufus) was killed by a hunting arrow on 2 August 1100 (whether by accident or assassination is an unresolved historical debate) — gives a point of intense historical significance in the heart of the ancient royal forest. The stone was erected in 1745 to replace an earlier marker; the cast-iron triangular column (installed in 1841 to protect the original sandstone marker now inside it) gives a strikingly industrial Victorian monument in the ancient woodland. The surrounding forest — the oldest surviving sections of William the Conqueror's 1079 royal forest, the Forest of Ytene — gives a sense of deep historical time unique to the New Forest.
Open Heathland — The New Forest's Most Defining Landscape
The New Forest's open heathland — the 14,000 acres of unenclosed heath, from the Beaulieu Heath in the south to Fordingbridge Common in the north — gives the most photographically open landscape in southern England. The heathlands (derived from the 'waste' of the medieval royal forest, prevented from reverting to woodland by continuous grazing and periodic burning) give vast horizontal views, the purple-and-gold heather bloom in August and September (ling heather and bell heather in mixed communities giving the deepest purple tones), and the luminously clear light that the open landscape and southerly position give on clear days. The ponies on the open heath — particularly the silhouette of a New Forest pony against an August heather horizon at golden hour — give the defining New Forest photography image.
Session Packages
New Forest Photography Pricing
Portrait or Engagement
3 hours
£950
- 3 hours in your chosen forest setting
- Ancient oaks, ponies, or heathland
- 150+ edited images
- Private online gallery
Popular
New Forest Elopement
10 hours
£2,100
- 10 hours full elopement day
- Multiple forest & heathland settings
- Ceremony coverage included
- 400+ edited images
- Private gallery — unlimited downloads
Full Wedding Day
12+ hours
£2,800
- 12+ hours full wedding day
- Venue + forest portrait circuit
- Ceremony through evening reception
- 600+ edited images
- Private gallery + USB delivery
- Fine-art print credit
New Forest Photography FAQs
When is the best season to photograph in the New Forest?+
The New Forest gives distinct photographic peak quality in each season: autumn (October) gives the finest overall combination — the beech colour in Mark Ash Wood reaches its peak in the second and third weeks of October, the fallow deer rut (mid-October through November) gives the most intense natural spectacle, and the bracken turns from gold to deep amber across the open heath. August and early September give the heather bloom at its most vivid — the purple-and-gold heathland horizon at golden hour is the New Forest's most iconic landscape image. Spring (late April through May) gives bluebells in the ancient oak and beech woodland (Vinney Ridge, Mark Ash, the Blackwater Arboretum) and the new leaf canopy filtering dappled light of great photographic quality. Winter (particularly after hard frost overnight) gives ice-crystalled heather and the deepest raking low light on the ancient oaks.
Can New Forest ponies be photographed safely?+
Yes — the New Forest ponies are entirely accustomed to human proximity and will approach within 1–2 metres in exchange for nothing. However, Forestry England explicitly warns against feeding them (it teaches them to mob picnickers and can cause digestive problems for horses that eat bread and sandwiches). For photography, the recommended approach is entirely passive: stand still, move slowly, and allow them to approach or ignore you on their terms. Groups of ponies are usually led by a dominant mare and will often approach as a group — the foals (born April through June) give particularly expressive portrait subjects at short range. For elopement photography sessions, a drift of ponies approaching across the open heath or through an oak glade is the New Forest's most characteristically magical photographic gift.
Where do elopements take place in the New Forest?+
Legal ceremonies for New Forest elopements take place at a Hampshire or Dorset Register Office: Lyndhurst, Brockenhurst, Lymington, or Ringwood all have registrar services. After the brief legal registration, the photography day takes place in the open access land and forest of the National Park. Humanist or independent celebrant ceremonies can take place anywhere in the National Park's open access areas — on the Beaulieu Heath in August heather, under the ancient oaks of Bolderwood at golden hour, or on the riverbank at Buckler's Hard. I work with New Forest-based humanist officiants and can advise on ceremony location options.
Is the New Forest better than the South Downs for outdoor elopements?+
The New Forest and the South Downs give fundamentally different landscape experiences for elopement photography. The New Forest gives enclosed woodland, ancient trees, free-ranging animals, and tidal river settings — the emphasis on proximity, intimacy, and organic texture. The South Downs give open chalk ridge lines, vast sky horizons, the chalk cliff drama of the Seven Sisters, and the sweeping downs views from Ditchling Beacon or Chanctonbury Ring — the emphasis on scale, horizon, and elevation. For couples who want enclosed forest rather than open hillside, intimate rather than vast, close animal encounter rather than distant landscape, the New Forest gives an experience unavailable anywhere else in the southern counties. For couples who want dramatic sky-horizon landscapes and the white chalk cliffs, the South Downs give unmatched quality.
How far is the New Forest from Cambridge?+
The New Forest (Lyndhurst, the park's main village) is approximately 110 miles from Cambridge — approximately 1 hour 45 minutes via the M11, M25, and M3 to junction 1, then south through Southampton's western approaches on the M27/A336. Beaulieu (the southeastern corner of the park) is approximately 120 miles and 2 hours. There are no travel surcharges for weddings and sessions within 200 miles of Cambridge. For early-autumn portrait sessions in the New Forest, I often combine a New Forest session with a Southampton venue the same day, or with the Beaulieu Abbey estate.
Can the Beaulieu estate be combined with a New Forest photography session?+
Absolutely — the Beaulieu Estate (Beaulieu Abbey, National Motor Museum SO42) is in the eastern corner of the National Park and is the most historically prestigious private estate in the New Forest. Beaulieu Abbey (the Cistercian abbey founded by King John in 1204, its refectory now the parish church, the gatehouse now Palace House — the home of Lord Montagu of Beaulieu) gives a private-estate wedding setting combining monastic ruins, palace house, walled garden, and the Beaulieu River immediately adjacent. As a separate venue, Beaulieu requires its own booking and estate permissions; as a photographic setting adjacent to the open New Forest, the Beaulieu River walk from Buckler's Hard is freely accessible and gives the finest waterside portrait setting in the park.
Woodland, heathland and south-coast photography
Get in Touch
Enquire About New Forest Photography
Tell me your ideal season, setting, and what you have in mind — ancient oaks at golden hour, heather in full August bloom, ponies on the open heath, or the quiet Beaulieu River walk.