Morning Serenity
Mar, 2020Views
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michaeltillman
June 04, 2020
I truly love this shot, my friend. You used the light very well. Great shot James, great shot.
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Behind The Lens
Location
This photo was taken in a wilderness area in Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, in northwest Washington State, at a trail near the top of a long fire road with car-swallowing potholes.Time
I left about 30 minutes later than intended that morning. I'd been intending to arrive at sunrise, but missed it. The most important part of landscape photography is leaving early enough to arrive at your destination well before sunrise or sunset. That said, some of the rougher forest service roads in this area can be sketchy when it's dark out, and camping wasn't an option, so you take what you can get.Lighting
Despite arriving later than intended, I benefited from the steep slopes of the valley. The trail I was walking dips and dives, hugging the undulating slopes above a mountain river, which means that while the light grows in intensity after the real sunrise, the sun itself doesn't come above the horizon for quite a while. The bright areas in the background of this shot reveal where the far side of the valley has begun to catch the sun's light, even as the trail was still waiting for the first sundrops of the day. While the bright areas were a challenge in post-processing, the light thrown back through the forest caught this solitary deciduous branch, a tendril reaching out in the undergrowth below towering giants, seeking whatever scraps of sunlight it can find.Equipment
This was taken handheld with a Sony a7III at 1/60 on a Venus Laowa 15mm f/2 Zero-D lens. Unfortunately, this lens does not have electrical contacts, so the aperture data was not captured, but I believe it was shot at f/11, with ISO 320.Inspiration
About a mile into this hike, there is a spectacular twin waterfall, tumbling 200 feet down from a cliff into the river below. The waterfall was my destination that morning. But along the way, I caught sight of this vine maple. The vine maple is indigenous to the Pacific Northwest, its limbs twisting outward, often leaning over to form natural arches in the undergrowth near clearings or on the margins of the forest. Here, above the river, this specimen was reaching outward into the valley, stretching as far out as it could looking for the sunlight it needs to live, which the Douglas fir and cedar and spruce so jealously guard. With the reflected light from the far side of the valley catching its leaves, the emerald greens and the early oranges stood in stark contrast to the moss-draped conifers. I was still headed for the waterfall, so didn't have time to set up my tripod -- but I could pass up the chance to capture this scene.Editing
Taken with my 15mm due to time constraints, this image included a substantial portion of the sky, so the first step was a crop. After this, I adjusted the colors in Lightroom, looking to create stronger separation between the maple leaves and the trees in the background; finally, I applied a vignette in Lightroom, before exporting to Photoshop. In Photoshop, I used the Nik collection to apply some tonal contrast with Color Efex Pro, before applying a cocktail of adjustment layers to add contrast and depth, and to pull the eye to the center -- curves, HSL, levels, and a further vignette. The contrast was too strong in areas, though, so I cloned my base layer and moved it to the top and applied a mask to bring an element of softness back to the background while maintaining the vivid changes I'd introduced to the foreground. Finally, I did some local adjustments with dodging and burning to add further depth to the conifer tree behind the orange leaves, helping to pull the eye further toward the center of the frame.In my camera bag
Most of my work is done while hiking or traveling, which means I prioritize weight. In the automotive world, there's a common joke that the best modification you can make to a car is to "add lightness," and I believe this applies to lenses. I've been a mirrorless devotee for the past five years for the same reason, and after several years shooting Samsung's excellent APS-C mirrorless cameras, I realized the ecosystem was dead -- not that it had ever been alive, if I'm being honest -- and made the move to Sony full-frame. These days, I'm shooting on an a7III, which is attached perhaps 75% of the time to my 24-105 f/4 G lens -- for woodlands and for travel, I fully believe this is the best lens available in the Sony ecosystem. Alongside the 24-105, I have a pair of tiny, lightweight primes, namely the Venus Laowa 15mm f/2 Zero-D, which delivers spectacular performance for the cost, though its fully-manual nature limits its applications; and the Voigtlander Color-Skopar 21mm f/3.5, which is the king of sunstars! Seriously, the Voigtlander produces well-defined sunstars starting at f/4. It's just stunning. And the last lens is the one I most recently added -- the Sony 100-400 f/4.5-5.6 GM, which is the best-performing lens of the lot, but is kind of a beast to lug around, so I generally leave it at home unless I'm going somewhere I know I'll need the length. Additionally, I carry a small collection of Haida filters -- 6- and 10-stop ND and a circular polarizer -- and am currently carrying an FLM CP26 Travel tripod, though I have plans to upgrade to something more substantial in the near future.Feedback
I think most people think of landscape photography as a methodical pursuit: You choose your subject early, perhaps even days or weeks (or more!) beforehand. You show up hours ahead of time, you refine your composition, and you wait, perhaps taking several shots to make sure you catch the best light. And this is all true. Perhaps the best images are taken this way. But in certain genres, such as woodland photography, I think it is important to keep your mind open. This is doubly true if photography is a part-time pursuit rather than your day job, as is the case for me. If I'm not on vacation, my photograph is largely limited to weekends. So while I had a subject and possible composition in mind that morning, the reality is that I took two of my favorite shots of 2019 on the way to my destination, including this one. It pays to be opportunistic. Carpe lucem.
