Tree of Inevitability (2)
May, 2014Views
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marcdewitt
September 16, 2016
Great job. Seemingly mundane view, but you found a way to bring out the textures and highlights which made it great.
Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
![Most hideous, accidentally, kaleidoscopically generated self-portrait yet...[Halloween time]](https://cdnpt01.viewbug.com/media/mediafiles/2013/10/01/4560724_widepreview400.webp)
Behind The Lens
Location
In a large field preserved to keep our various shopping centers, traffic jams and blight from cutting off the hometown air-supply needed to keep it feeling like Colorado. It's one of the areas that Cottonwoods are allowed to stand tall and pour out their seedling fluff like summertime snow drifts.Time
Middle of the day...while driving home with the new to me camera my father just handed down... No time like that present to test it out a bit.Lighting
Leafless trees beg silhouettes and add veins or cracks to the sky...always an impressive feat nothing other than power lines and now cellphone towers can accomplish...and they are unnatural. It was too bright for that starkness and the deep bark cut shadows inside the contour...so I steered away from the posterish graphic I first imagined.Equipment
I think it was the Minolta Dimage Z5 camera, probably set on auto...as it was brand new, and I had hastily decided to pull over and roam around the field to snap whatever told me too... Always surprised that the spur of the moment shots usually put my more formal and planned out ones to shame.Inspiration
Cottonwoods are the largest, most complex and crisp trees in the area. They always make an otherwise boring horizon come to life... The new camera and warm winter day had cranked my muse up, and when that happens, I find myself in odd places before I even realize I'm supposed to be feeling creative.Editing
Yes... More than I usually either do, or like to do unless a real arty treatment is called for. It wasn't for this image, but that doesn't matter to the piece in the end... A blend of common edits and enhancements layered in ways I usually do globally, then with the sky alone, variously coated with Redfield's ATX and Fractalius filters, negated, re-negated, touched, slipped, washed and all pounded back into place for some polishing or befouling.. I've tried to duplicate the feel for other images and can't even come close.In my camera bag
What bag? ...I'm an artist currently using readily available cameras as my new, bottomless stack of canvas, while climbing the learning curve digital brushes and coded pigments have planted on my path... The ridiculous tricks and intimidating adjustments built into even cheap cameras these days are more than I even want to have the time or patience to master. Playing with the post editing world available to me has blown my mind and distracted me from the up front act of being technically proficient on the spot...even though I cling to being a purist and treasure straight from the camera perfection...which is always an accident I do practice repeating.Feedback
hmmm. A picture of a tree. A rose with a dew drop. Children with a big ball on the beach... That deck chair shadow wedged up a stucco wall split by a simple lattice that screams for black and white finery... A gorgeous HD cliche or provocative, fascinating subject poorly rendered...leaves me less torn that it is supposed to... This tree is somehow almost all mood; cartoony pushed far enough to become artistic, then hyper-surreal... We've all seen the image before, but not in real life... For me, I can't try to create such an aura, so play...and have to better learn when to stop. ...Dream I had some excellent advice to share and you'll arrive at something better than I could ever offer.
