Free Forest Pictures: 112 Photos of Woods, Paths and Light Through the Trees
112 free forest and tree pictures from the BigFoto library, most of them taken in the woods of Switzerland: beech forests turning orange and red in autumn, bright green woods in early summer, paths and forest roads, fir trees heavy with snow, moss, ferns and fallen leaves on the forest floor, streams, roots, tree trunks and bark, the view up into the crowns, and burnt trees after a forest fire.
Use them as a forest background for websites, slides and social media, or for articles about nature, walking and the climate. The photos of the canopy and of the forest floor fill the frame and work well behind text.
How to download: click a photo to see it large, then use Download. The originals are about 1200 × 800 pixels: right for blog posts, slides, social media, school projects and video call backgrounds.
Autumn forests
Beech woods in orange, red and gold, hillsides of autumn colour and a carpet of fallen leaves.
Green summer forests
Fresh green beech and spruce woods, light falling between the trunks, and forest edges along meadows.
Forest paths and roads
Paths and gravel roads leading into the woods, the kind of walk you find behind almost every Swiss village.
Forests in winter
Fir trees covered in snow and frost, snowy forest roads and melting snow in spring.
Moss, ferns and leaves
The forest floor up close: moss on fallen trunks, ferns, horsetail, roots and leaves against the sky.
Forest streams
Streams and pools in the woods.
After a forest fire
Burnt pines and blackened ground after a forest fire, next to a road with a warning sign.
Tree trunks, bark and the canopy
Tall trunks, bark and tree rings up close, a young plantation, and the view straight up into the crowns.
More forests
Beech and spruce woods in Northern Velebit, holm oaks on Brijuni, the tropical rainforest of Kuranda and jungle paths in Phi Phi.
About forests and forest photography
A forest is an area with a high density of trees. Forests can be found in all regions capable of sustaining tree growth, at altitudes up to the tree-line, except where rainfall is too low, or natural fire frequency too high. Forests are essential to life on earth. They generate oxygen, store carbon, play host to a vast variety of wildlife and provide us with raw materials.
In addition they offer us beautiful havens of rest & recreation. Each season casts its own special spell from the freshness of spring to the fullness of summer from autumn’s kaleidoscope of colours and full circle to winter’s frosty fingers.
The nature of the forest’s surroundings presents special problems to the photographer. Below are some ways to cope with its demands:
Use a tripod: light levels are likely to be lower in a forest, so a steady tripod and automatic shutter release are good investments.
As with all photography, use your eyes effectively in framing the composition. Forests can look a muddle in photos, but if you take a few steps in one direction or another, you may find things become clearer. You need to identify a focal point for your picture. If nothing stands out, you could consider putting a person into the landscape; this will also have the useful effect of showing the scale of tree trunks and distances. But the focal point should not just be random – it should be a point of interest that you want to draw attention to.
Using a telephoto lens will give the illusion that the trees are closer together than they are. Depth of field is crucial in any nature photography: a wide aperture gives a shallow depth of field, and a small aperture means lots of depth to the focus. Once you know this you can make the main subject stand out from its background, and have the background nice and soft, or choose to show the subject in its context by keeping the background in focus too.
More free photos
- Free autumn pictures
- Free winter pictures
- Free spring pictures
- Free wood textures
- Free mountain pictures
- Free lake pictures
- Free leaf pictures
- Free tree pictures
- Rainforest pictures from Kuranda
Questions about these forest photos
Can I use these forest pictures for free?
Yes, for personal and commercial projects. All we ask is a link back to BigFoto.com; the box at the top of the page has a credit link you can copy.
Which photos work best as a forest background?
The ones that fill the frame: the autumn beech leaves, the canopy seen from below, the moss and ferns, and the straight trunks of a spruce forest. Darken them a little and white text reads well on top.