Dark Arch

She stands in the corner, waiting with her children.  The darkness of the twilight is beginning to press down upon them and although it is still very warm outside a chill runs up her back and she pulls the children a little closer.  Her man is out on the battlements, he is not a soldier, he is a tailor, but there he is, when the pirates come everyone is a soldier and she wonders if the night will leave her a widow.  The wind starts to pick up and she can hear the flags start to snap in the breeze.  The sound is distinct, too loud, and then she realizes that it is no longer the flags she is hearing but the crack of muskets.  The battle has begun.

Establishing mood and and emotional tone within an image can be a tenuous thing that is difficult to grab in the moment in which the image is taken.  Often this is easier to manage in post as the light and circumstances of the shot may not suit the story that you are trying to tell with the image.  This picture was taken right around midday, on a blazing hot day but my head was full of stories of marauding pirates and guardian priests as we walked around Casco Viejo in Panama City.  I wanted an image that carried with it the fear and ominous portent of an approaching invading force.  I was standing inside rock walls that had witnessed the terror and confusion of a people under attack and I wanted to be able to look up into the image and feel those emotions.  I pulled the image into Nik Silver Efex Pro and started playing with some extreme changes to contrast and texture, then I started to work on the undersides and lower levels of the rock wall to produce a dark and heavy visual weight to the image.  The perspective of the very wide angle lens puts you right at the base of the wall looking high up into history.

-Russell Berg

Winter Tree 4

Part 4 of my series of threatening winter trees. Canon EOS XSi EF-S f/3.5-4.5 at 10mm f/5.6 1/500 ISO 200 -1ev

Marin ran her hands over the bark.  It had a roughness that belied the gentle feeling that she had for the old tree.  It was not the texture of pain or neglect it was the rough places in an old friend; the places where the valleys and mountains of your lives fit together to form a bond that has lasted.  Marin leaned in and breathed long and deep, her cheek rubbing on a spot rubbed smooth by younger feet than hers. She had climbed and climbed and climbed and in those days it had always been something new.  It wasn’t new anymore, something had changed.  She could feel it under her finger tips, it was almost a sound that she could sense with her finger tips, a gentle thrumming from deep within the tree.  She stood back and looked carefully, nothing had change… but still.

This old willow was a remarkable tree and once I converted it to black and white the layers and layers of branches became very clear.  There were so many that the tree seemed to have hair that was flowing down and I began to imagine a personality within the tree.  I pulled the image into Nik Silver Efex Pro and increased the structure and contrast of the image.  This brought the bark to life and added significant drama to the sky.

-Russell Berg

Winter Tree 3

Part 3 of my series of threatening winter trees. Canon EOS XSi EF-S f/3.5-4.5 at 10mm f/5.6 1/1600 ISO 200 -1ev

Alfred turned quickly, he felt an uncomfortable shiver in the base of his spine.  There was no one there and yet it sure felt as though there could be.  There it was… he heard it slow and faint a tap, tap… tap; a walking stick on the paving stones.  He turned back to continue his walk, the set in his shoulders trying to be confident and reassuring.  The gesture was a hollow one.  He did not feel confident, he was far from reassured.  The fear was sitting there like a heavy cold stone in his belly and it grew heavier every time he heard the stick of the following man on the stones.  This was the kind of confrontation he had been hoping to avoid, he knew why he was being followed but as he passed the tree he noticed that the clouds obscured the sun and revealed a strange steal blue that was more threatening than reassuring.  

Whenever I am looking for dramatic colours I underexpose at least one stop.  I was really happy with how the sky turned out and the the effect of an HDR was underexposed tree bark was brought back by the treatment in HDR Efex Pro.  The image really jumped after I applied this effect and I was really happy with it.

-Russell Berg

Winter Tree 2

Part 2 of my series of threatening winter trees. Canon EOS XSi EF-S f/3.5-4.5 at 10mm f/5.6 1/1000 ISO 200 -1ev

Winter Tree 1

Part 1 of my series of threatening winter trees. Canon EOS 7D EF 70-300mm L f/4-5.6 at 70mm f/5.6 1/1600 ISO 400

A heart filled with nothing but the weight of a sorrow that is at the same time ragged and dull, heavy and insubstantial breaks every time it feels the loss.  This is new, this something without a frame of reference, and every time she turns to see something else that reminds her she remembers and this new thing, this complete lack of the presence that dominated her existence.   She feels a ragged catch in her throat and she wonders… if the next breath will come.

I wanted to come up with series the las time I was shooting in Victoria and as it was winter the trees had a very threatening and interesting texture and form.  I don’t normally have a lot of patience for heavy post-processing filters but it seemed to fit with this series and each of the trees in this series got a slightly different treatment.  This image made me feel like the sad parts of a Bronte novel and I wanted to give it a treatment that looked somewhat Victorian.  The heavy vignetting and the ragged border push us in this direction.

-Russell Berg