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

Reaching

A beautiful flower reaches upward for the sun. Canon EOS XSi EF 70-300mm at f/.56 1/125 ISO 400

One doesn’t normally think of Saskatchewan as being filled with lush beautiful gardens filled with flowers, however, my brother-in-law and his wife have produced an amazing garden.  It is a riot of colour that has inspired other posts on this blog.  I was very drawn by the form and shape of this flower, (sorry I don’t know what it is. If you know leave the name in the comments) as well as the contrast in textures.  The downward facing petals and the prominent floret in the centre produce an interesting contrast almost as thought the flower is flinging itself upward to the sun with it’s arms trailing behind.  I knew that I wanted a shallow depth of field with another of these flowers blurred out in the background but when I took this picture I did not yet own my fast 50mm.  As a replacement I used my telephoto zoom from a long distance away.  Even though the aperture was relatively large, f/5.6, the long reach of the lens throws the background into a pleasing blur.

-Russell Berg

Seeing With Both Eyes

The broken texture of a tree branch Fuji X10 at 7mm f/2.5 1/125 ISO 1000

Sometimes the most beautiful things in our lives are right there in front of us, brilliant and flashy and colourful; sometimes they are hidden in the shadows, or under a pile of rotting leaves.  Seeing those things requires both our eyes and mind that is willing to search. 

I was standing around waiting for the sun to move from behind a cloud so that it would give me some wonderful light for a row of brilliant red maples that I wanted to photograph.  It seems as though when I go out to take pictures I am either rushing to catch the light or waiting for it, or wishing it would be better.  On this day I though to myself, ‘you are a photographer don’t just stand there, make an image.’  I started to look around and I saw a tree branch that had made some very interesting textures and shapes as it emerged from the trunk.  I started to imagine it in black and white and I wanted to get in really close so that the texture would be very apparent.  The Fuji X10 has a pretty decent macro mode so I turned it on and got in nice and close.  I was quite happy with how this turned out and the brilliant red maples… the sun came out but I didn’t get anything worth keeping.  I’m glad I turned around.  (All of photographs from the last three posts were taken within an hour of each other.)

-Russell Berg

Death of A Leaf

A leaf dies slowly on the tree, it’s decay an amazing mixture of colour and form. Fuji X10 at 7mm f/2 1/1000 ISO 400

I continued wandering through Beban Park and saw this leaf just barely clinging to the tree and dying in such a beautiful display.  I loved the way that the colour and form, especially the negative space formed by the parts of the leaf that had already decayed to be especially interesting.  The light was so bright, however, that it was hard to distinguish the background from the foreground when I took the photo and I knew that this picture had a lot of potential but that it was going to require some work in post.  After importing the image into Aperture I increased the saturation slightly and started to play with ways to pull the leaf off of the background.  I increased the definition and this helped to make the edges more distinct but it still needed more so I burned in the photo on the edges and the parts of the background that showed through the holes in the leaf to darken it.  This got me part of the way there but the colours were still so bright on the edges so I applied a gamma vignette that desaturated and darkened the edges some more.  I applied a little more burn in to the holes in the leaf and it was there.  The treatment added a lot of depth to the image and allowed this wonderful leaf to stand out from the background.

-Russell Berg

Orange Leaves

Orange leaves filter the morning light. Fuji X10 at 14mm f/5.6 1/85 ISO 200

The end of things is a beautiful and sometimes heartbreaking time.  We stand in the satisfied exhaustion of a job well done and we see the beautiful thing that we have made and we know that for now it is ending. But the work that we have done has had a lasting and worthwhile impact.  That is what fall is like for me.  It is so beautiful but it is a kind of death, an ending.

I went out last weekend on Saturday morning because the sunlight was so beautiful and the colours of the autumn leaves were so spectacular.  I wanted to be able to catch the vivid display while the beautiful morning light was so nice.  I found some beautiful trees in Beban Park in Nanaimo and looked for an interesting way to photograph them. The morning light was still not too strong but it supplied just the right amount of light for the slightly translucent leaves as they stood out against the sky. I took a couple of photos with the leaves at dead centre but I looked for a contrast in colour and texture so I shifted to the side and composed the frame to include the gnarled branches of the old maple.  The branches were far enough back to go nicely out of focus so as not to distract from the leaves but also to provide contrast and context.

-Russell Berg