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

A Negotiated Peace

A wonderful battered old Gary Oak on the shores of Vancouver Island. Canon EOS XSi EF 50mm f/1.4 at f/1.4 1/4000 ISO 200

The wind blows here.  It winds and twists over the rocks and finds its way through the trees to the place where you are sitting.  The wind does find you but not until after the trees have negotiated a kind of peace for you.  They have protected you and they are true.  You look out from your protected space at the centre of the grove and the sweep of the ocean, the grand rise of the mountains on the mainland, and these trees they all seem to conspire to give you peace.  They all seem to slow your mind and calm your spirit and you take a deep breath. 

There is a wonderful grove of twisted, gnarled old Gary Oak trees at Piper's Lagoon in Nanaimo that is really beautiful.  The trees have grown up on the shore line and have twisted and turned themselves in an apparent attempt to get out of the wind.  They stand on top of a hill that overlooks the Georgia Strait.  I wanted to capture the texture of the bark of these trees so I opened up my lens as far as it would go to get that shallow depth of field and isolate the tree against the background.  I got the shot I wanted but I still wanted to emphasize the texture of the bark some more so I added a bleach bypass filter in Nik Colour Efex Pro. 

-Russell Berg

Possibilities Not Boundaries

Tender spring Magnolias in Nanaimo. Canon EOS XSi EFS 75-300 f/4-5.6 at 160mm f/20 1/200 IThe tender heart of spring pushes itself from the rank mouldering earth and reminds of what life is.  We see it again in new ways and we feel our own hearts become younger.  And even though spring is delicate, even though it is fragile it gives us hope and allows to break free from the serious contemplations of winter.  It is the place and time where journies begin again and we see possibilites not boundaries.  

“Let us be like a bird for a moment perched

On a frail branch when he sings;

Though he feels it bend, yet he sings his song,

Knowing that he has wings.”     

-Victor Hugo

I went out on a spring morning a a couple of years ago to walk around Nanaimo and photograph some of the wonderful flowers that were springing to life and I came across a series of Magnolia trees in Bowen Park.  The petals had recently emerged and had not yet finished growing.  I was immediately struck by a flower that had a wonderfully disorganized look to the petals.  It seemed as though they were in a hurry to get out and had burst out of the tree before they could get themselved organized.  The long focal length threw the background out of focus nicely yet helped to establish the setting.  I also really like the way that the fuzziness of the seed pod brings texture to the image.

-Russell Berg