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

Poplar

A row of poplar trees on the prairies. Canon EOS XSi EF-S 17-85 f/4-5.6 at 30mm f/5.6 1/125 ISO 200

I was wandering around some fields in northern Alberta when I came across this grove of poplar trees. The strong vertical lines of the trees against the dark background was striking. I took the photo and decided to frame it with a strong horizontal crop. The fact that the photo is horizontal makes your eye pull across the strong vertical lines of the image like a boy running a stick across the slats of a wooden picket fence. There is more energy in the image than if I had framed it with a vertical crop.

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

Life

A clump of moss on a rotting stump on the Juan de Fuca Trail. Canon EOS XSi EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 at 85mm f/5.6 1/60 ISO 1600

This is a very old place. You can feel it in the give in the soil under your feet, in the still air that seems to breathe in the silences, in the trees that tower over you. Everything about this place speaks to the life that has struggled and lived and grown here for thousands of years. It is a cathedral without walls that honors the creative spirit and that breathed life into the dust.

Every time I hike the Juan de Fuca trail I watch out for and photograph interesting fungi. My daughter and I were hiking it a couple of years ago and we came across something I had never seen before, a fungus completely covered in moss. It was really quite beautiful. I opened up the lens to 5.6 mostly because the light was so dim under the rainforest canopy but it ended up giving me beautiful bokeh in the background. Bokeh is the term used to describe the soft out of focus circles in the background. The tone of the light is very soft and leaf filtered and I was happy with how those elements came together.

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