wood
Dec, 2013Views
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RDVPhotography
January 04, 2015
My favorite of all your work. If I could still vote for photo of the year on this I would have. Great find, wonderful composition and processing. Wondering what this looked like? Was there any natural wood color or was it kind of faded. Very nice work!!
EmilyKet
January 05, 2015
Thank you! This at Mt St Helens after the eruption so the tree had been dead for quite a while so it didn't have much of it's natural color left. As for processing I changed the contrast and exposure slightly to make the blacks richer.
Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Behind The Lens
Location
This photo was taken at Mount Saint Helens in the landslide/blast area from the 1980 eruption. We walked the trails along the rim to get a better view and stopped next to a broken tree remnant. The tree had fallen next to the trail and I happened to see the heart shape in the wood and made a photograph of it.Time
We arrived at Mt. St. Helens around noon on June 13, 2012, but because of the heavy fog couldn't see anything across the valley. After touring the building and presentations we were about ready to leave when the fog started burning off. At about 4:00 you could finally see the mountain and landslide area, half an hour later I took the photograph of the tree knots.Lighting
The area was still pretty foggy when I took this shot so the sunlight was being diffused by all the condensation. Fortunately it made the gradient of color stand out even better in this image.Equipment
This was taken with my SONY SLT-A33 and basic 18-55 lens, the first "nice" camera I bought when I was still in high school.Inspiration
Although not a big fan of hearts in general, I loved that the heart was formed by two knots in the wood of this tree fragment. In comparison to the rather harsh, recovering landscape, I thought the heart was a nice reminder that the area is recovering and people still love to go and see this site.Editing
The black and white was done in-camera, but I did adjust levels and contrast in post to emphasis the shapes and movement further.In my camera bag
Up until a month ago, I only had my SONY A33 but have just recently upgraded to the SONY A7 RII! Although not the best quality, the A33 had worked well for me for quite a few years and over 130,000 images. My go to lens is the 18-55 that came with my first camera body. I also usually have a 70-200 lens which I don't use very regularly.Feedback
I often take a minute to stop and look at the patterns that old gnarled tree stumps, bark, and fallen trees have on their surfaces. Although none quite compare to the success of this image, it is a series that has been going since I first took this image. I have found that black and white, with high contrast shows the texture of the wood much better then color in most cases. I recommend that photographers look a little lower then normal eye level and take time to look for the details in their shots.
