Support

It’s been a long time since I have been posting regularly and that is largely because all of my gear was stolen and I was waiting for it to be replaced by my insurance company.  I’d like to thank Steve Julien who was a big help.  He’s a fantastic photographer check him out here.  On my first shoot I went out to a local marina and I came across this image underneath one of the piers.  The texture and tone of the wooden posts was very compelling against the glassy smooth ripples of the water and I wanted a treatment that would emphasize this.  I pulled the image into Nik Silver Efex Pro and pulled up the contrast and the structure while maintaining the silver tones in the wood.  Without really intending to this gave the water a glassy smooth texture that contrasted beautifully with rough wood.  The pier on left provided enough visual weight to anchor all of the visual activity on the right side of the frame but I didn’t want it to be distracting so I darkened it substantially.  I think this gives the eye an entry point in the left side of the frame but allows the eye to move into the more complicated structures on the right side.

-Russell Berg

www.seeingberg.com

A River In The Wood

A river of wood flows through the frame. Canon EOS XSi EF 50mm at f/4 1/3000 ISO 200

There is a river that runs through the wood.  The water is quiet and the eddy’s move slowly but the water speaks deep truths in the warm silence of a sunny evening.  The water is locked in the grain of the wood and the stillness that is there runs deep beneath the surface.  I run my hands over the wood and I can feel the age that rests there.

I found this rather large and impressive stump on a remote beach on the Juan de Fuca trail and I spent much of the evening photographing it.  The texture of the wood, the silvery colour, the way that the grain had been exposed in flowing cracks that seemed to live and breath were all very compelling to me.  This was a remarkable piece of wood and it was very special to be able to photograph it.  There were several places where the structure and grain of the wood seemed to flow like water and I wanted to photograph it with that kind of feeling to it.  I wanted an isolating depth of field but one that was open enough to allow the viewer to get a good look at the grain so I settled on f/4.

-Russell Berg

Moss Branch

A bright piece of moss caught my eye as we were walking down Giant’s Head Mt. Canon EOS 7D EF 70-300mm at 300mm f/5.6 1/400 ISO 250

There is a wonderful world outside your front door.

The sun was setting through the trees as we walked down Giant’s Head Mt. and it was lighting all kinds of interesting little moments  on the path.  I glanced to my left and glint of golden green against a dark background caught my eye.  It was off in the distance and I wasn’t sure that I had any kind of decent image until I brought my camera up to me eye.  Normally my 17-85mm zoom is my carry around lens, the lens I take when I want to carry only one.  Today it was in the shop to be repaired an I had my 70-300mm with me.  This branch was probably 500m away but having a lens this long pulled it in to me and allowed me to make it appear at eye level.  The branch was probably 3m up in the air and if I had had to walk up to it to get the image I would have been looking up at it.  I am sure that I missed other shots because I did not have my wide angle zoom but focusing on maximizing the equipment that you do have can yield interesting results.

-Russell Berg

Death

A piece of decaying drift wood on the shores of the Juan de Fuca Strait. Canon XSi EF 50mm at f/1.4 1/4000 ISO 200 -1 ev

I was hiking along the Juan de Fuca strait with my daughter and we had camped for the night when I came upon this piece of driftwood.  The texture of the wood as it had decayed in such a remarkable pattern was what interested me and I wanted a photograph that pulled your eye in to that.  I chose my fast 50mm and opened it right up to f/1.4 to created a very small plane of focus.  I got what I wanted but I knew that I would want to do more when I got the image back home.   I opened it up in Nik Silver Efex Pro and converted it to black and white and applied a vignette to completely black out the distracting background.  Not only does this force the eye to focus on the central subject but it also helps to set the mood of the photo.

-Russell Berg

A Wooden Heart

A small part of a large log that I found on the beach of the Juan de Fuca Trail. Canon EOS XSi EF 50mm f/1.4 at f/1.4 1/2000 ISO 200My hand runs along the softly weathered cracks, this giant of the forest has somehow come to rest on the rocky shore of the Juan de Fuca Strait.  There is a silver light that seems to glow from deep within.  It is as though somewhere deep deep inside is a wooden heart that still beats and gives the log a vitality that makes it shine in the dying light of a summer sunset.  Years of rocks and waves have pounded the surface so smooth that my hand wants to run along the surface, to find the secret of all those years, to discover a thing through which the wine of life pumped so strongly that it reached towards the very heavens and yet... it fell.

My daughter and I walked the Juan de Fuca Trail a few years ago and we had an absolutely wonderful time together.  One night on Chin Beach, after we had set up camp I discovered a very large log with a huge weathered stump attached.  The sun was going down and it was lit beautifully.  I pulled out my fast 50 because I knew that I wanted to play with depth of field on this amazing piece of wood.  I kep my aperture wide open and the light was low enough to manage all that light giving me some wonderfully flowing, almost water-like backgrounds.

-Rusell Berg