Seeing With Both Eyes

The broken texture of a tree branch Fuji X10 at 7mm f/2.5 1/125 ISO 1000

Sometimes the most beautiful things in our lives are right there in front of us, brilliant and flashy and colourful; sometimes they are hidden in the shadows, or under a pile of rotting leaves.  Seeing those things requires both our eyes and mind that is willing to search. 

I was standing around waiting for the sun to move from behind a cloud so that it would give me some wonderful light for a row of brilliant red maples that I wanted to photograph.  It seems as though when I go out to take pictures I am either rushing to catch the light or waiting for it, or wishing it would be better.  On this day I though to myself, ‘you are a photographer don’t just stand there, make an image.’  I started to look around and I saw a tree branch that had made some very interesting textures and shapes as it emerged from the trunk.  I started to imagine it in black and white and I wanted to get in really close so that the texture would be very apparent.  The Fuji X10 has a pretty decent macro mode so I turned it on and got in nice and close.  I was quite happy with how this turned out and the brilliant red maples… the sun came out but I didn’t get anything worth keeping.  I’m glad I turned around.  (All of photographs from the last three posts were taken within an hour of each other.)

-Russell Berg

Orange Leaves

Orange leaves filter the morning light. Fuji X10 at 14mm f/5.6 1/85 ISO 200

The end of things is a beautiful and sometimes heartbreaking time.  We stand in the satisfied exhaustion of a job well done and we see the beautiful thing that we have made and we know that for now it is ending. But the work that we have done has had a lasting and worthwhile impact.  That is what fall is like for me.  It is so beautiful but it is a kind of death, an ending.

I went out last weekend on Saturday morning because the sunlight was so beautiful and the colours of the autumn leaves were so spectacular.  I wanted to be able to catch the vivid display while the beautiful morning light was so nice.  I found some beautiful trees in Beban Park in Nanaimo and looked for an interesting way to photograph them. The morning light was still not too strong but it supplied just the right amount of light for the slightly translucent leaves as they stood out against the sky. I took a couple of photos with the leaves at dead centre but I looked for a contrast in colour and texture so I shifted to the side and composed the frame to include the gnarled branches of the old maple.  The branches were far enough back to go nicely out of focus so as not to distract from the leaves but also to provide contrast and context.

-Russell Berg

To Look Them in The Eye

Looking up into the red leaves at the coming winter. Canon XSi EF 50mm f/1.4 at f/1.4 1/1000 ISO 200

I am wondering where all those years have gone.  Those years where my little ones tore off through the park, a trail of dry leaves fluttering behind them.  Those years where they returned to me so excited and at having found a snake, or a wood bug, or a rock.  Those years where I squatted to look them in the eye.  I miss having to get down on the ground to look them in the eye.  Instead I lean here against this tree and the remnants of my children's youth flutter to the ground next to my feet.

I was wandering around in fall really looking for photos of single leaves on the ground when I looked up.  I was really attracted by the mass of colour and the contrast of the brown branches and tree trunk.  I love being able to play with the way that the eye moves within a photograph so I composed a shot that pulls your eye upward from the out of focus trunk at the bottom up through the clearly defined shape and form of the leaves to the amorphous mass of colour at the top.  The shallow depth of field of my fast 50 made the photograph possible.  The imposition of an area of focus within the photograph gives your eye somewhere to travel.

-Russell Berg

Winter Berries

I just can't walk past something as visually striking as berries in the winter. Fuji X10 28-112mm at f/2.2 1/600 ISO 200

I bought a new camera just before Christmas. It is a beautiful Fuji X10. I say it's beautiful because it's styling is very reminiscent of the Leica range finders from the 50's and 60's. This camera has clearly been designed by someone with and eye for the aesthetic, and how can that not appeal to a photographer. It is small, fast and light, and the image quality is excellent. I was walking past the hospital the other day and I saw these berries sitting on bare branches and the image was so evocative of the harsh realities of winter amidst which we have the joy of Christmas. I stopped pulled my new X100 from my purse and snapped off a few images. It lifts my spirit just a little bit to do something creative, even if it is just a small thing, in the midst of a difficult time. It is interesting to me to see the way that my creative impulses can affect my mood. Anyway, after I got home I pulled these images into my iPad and applied a very nice filter to them that helped to accentuate the mood i wanted to evoke in the image. I used a very good images editing app called Snapseed. I highly recommend it.

-Russell Berg