Purple Tracks

During the summer time we were in Vernon for a weekend and I had seen an old barn with some character that I wanted to photograph at sunset.  The nearby hills cast the barn into shadow so I kept driving around looking for an interesting subject.  The light is everything.  If I had taken this picture at 2 in the afternoon I would have gotten washed out greens, a flat boring railroad track and some very grey rocks.  The light cutting down through all of that horizon in the evening makes the green and yellow come together in a fiery gold, the low slanting light hits the tracks and produces a reflection that pulls your eye into the photo.  The tracks also put the rocks into a light shadow allowing them to display their purple-blue colour.  When photographers go out at sunset or sunrise good things happen.

-Russell Berg

www.seeingberg.com

Cobbles

Dramatic cobblestone street in the older part of Portland. Canon EOS XSi EF 17-85mm at 17mm f/4.5 1/2000 ISO 800

I first noticed the fluttering piece of silk as I stepped out of my apartment and on to the sidewalk.  It was caught in the grate around a tree and was rippling a little in the light morning breeze.  I looked up the street and down the other side, there was a woman in the distance.  I glanced down again at what I now saw was a luxurious turquoise silk scarf with a fringe on the ends.  I bent down for the scarf to untangle it from the grate and ran towards the woman.  She had turned the corner ahead of me and as I rounded the corner I found myself on a completely empty street.  I stopped short, confused; in my run I had gotten quite close to her before she turned the corner but now she was just… gone.

I was walking around downtown Portland, which has beautiful old architecture and wonderful streets.  I was crossing the street above and I was struck by the beauty I saw.  The cobbles had the shine of the morning dew and the glistening rails pulled my eye off along the shallow curve deep into the frame.  I wanted to emphasize the cobbles so I laid down on the street and got the camera on the ground, the wide angle emphasized the size and shape of the stones.  The image cried out for a black and white treatment and with Nik Silver Efex I brought up the texture of the bricks and the silver sheen on the tracks.

-Russell Berg