Autumn colors

[Asher Kelman]

This is what it looked like about 2 weeks ago near Copper Harbor Michigan (up near the end of the Keweenaw Peninsula).

While I did enhance them a bit in Lightroom the colors really were that intense up there. To the point where it almost hurt the eyes to look at them on that rainy day.

John,

A thrilling sight! What a road to go on. The yellow lines and the car to the left make the picture personal to a journey. This is an inspiring picture for anyone working on a long tough project. It provides immediate satisfaction, while expressing the reality that the road ahead is long and unknown and in the meanwhile "Let's make the most of this rich life!" Interestingly, we realize that the road ahead is the road we have taken. That implies accountability and gives us some idea that we might be able to control our destiny.

I like art, like this that penetrates between the seconds on the clock, squeezes them apart and inserts moments when time is not measured, entertaining our sense with an array of feelings and sensory pleasure. I hope you post more of these. This alone, made my day great!

Asher

 

[Asher Kelman]

A Tranquil Bridge Scene in Autumn with leaves on the ground.

Beautiful photos of a beautiful time of year.

A footbridge over a canyon near the Illinois River in North Central Illinois, taken a couple of weeks ago when the leaves were just getting the notion to turn.

Hi, Tom,

Sitting by a window in California, with just a few golden trees beyond the evergreen ficus hedge and then tall palms with roosting black crows, I really miss the generous fully committed fall season we had in Massachusetts. So I really like pictures of fall, even like this when it's just starting.

Bridges with a road to infinity are interesting and immediately capture attention. Here you take us from a zone of shaded foreground with fallen leaves through open light and then beyond that a meandering path through a gap in the distant faded light. The bright light signifies to me opportunity. The distance uncertainty*. There is an pastoral air to the picture and the effect is reassuring and calming.

The changing light in the scene would make a great print that would be revisited. This is for someone thoughtful!

Asher

*No changes are need really. Still, I like to think of how the picture has inherent features that might be made to work more effectively.

The colors of the leaves on the ground are rich already but perhaps might be locally enhanced and individually sharpened selectively to make them like fallen slivers of gold. Would you consider re-lighting the distant path, but enhancing it's interesting shadows) to make it just a touch more obvious to first glance? Also the trees above the most well lit part of the bridge could be retouched to convey the filtered light beams coming through those leaves to shine on the already lit road.

 

[Asher Kelman]

Phase One P45 Fall Color on a Hassleblad V

Color detail from Sierra Fall:

Taking pictures of sunlit scenes with wide dynamic range and delicate colors is a challenge. So thanks so much Alain for showing the P45 color detail. is this 100%? Is there more to see such as a close up of a bunch of leaves?

When you do this, it provides the greatest possible understanding, (without seeing prints) of what the camera can achieve. I hope more folks can do this as any camera can take a pretty picture but for detail scenes with rich colors these better systems are the way to go, short of large format film.

© Alain Briot P45 on Hasselblad V. Multiple frame collage

How many pictures went into the composite and what lens did you use? Are you setting up a tripod or working freehand? Also was the bright foreground a particular challenge and did you need bracketed exposures? Could you have done this same picture in the past with film? If so how?

Asher

 

[JohnZeman]

John,

A thrilling sight! What a road to go on. The yellow lines and the car to the left make the picture personal to a journey. This is an inspiring picture for anyone working on a long tough project. It provides immediate satisfaction, while expressing the reality that the road ahead is long and unknown and in the meanwhile "Let's make the most of this rich life!" Interestingly, we realize that the road ahead is the road we have taken. That implies accountability and gives us some idea that we might be able to control our destiny.

I like art, like this that penetrates between the seconds on the clock, squeezes them apart and inserts moments when time is not measured, entertaining our sense with an array of feelings and sensory pleasure. I hope you post more of these. This alone, made my day great!

Asher

Wow Asher, what kind words, thank you. That photo was taken along Highway 41 as we were driving towards Copper Harbor Michigan. The highway towards the end of the peninsula becomes what they call up there, a covered highway, I assume the covered refers to the dense cover of trees. It really is an incredibly colorful drive when the leaves are turning and practically every photo I took on the Keweenaw Peninsula had colors like that. As a result, I hesitate to post another as it'll look fairly similar, instead I'll post one taken towards the end of the day when the sun finally came out while we were visiting the Lake of the Clouds in Porcupine Mountains State Park, which is again in Upper Michigan.

I'd like to thank Cem for posting that first photo of the single leaf, that one really inspired me to go out and attempt to take a few similar photos around here while we still have a few leaves left. All of the photos have been inspiring.

John

 

[Asher Kelman]

Composition: Direction of lines and travel, creating impact and mood in photography.

Beautiful photos of a beautiful time of year.

A footbridge over a canyon near the Illinois River in North Central Illinois, taken a couple of weeks ago when the leaves were just getting the notion to turn.

Hi Tom,

That's a nice image. May I suggest 2 things to try.

1. This image is a nice example of the hugely different effect it scores when just flipping it horizontally. Personally I like it better when flipped (maybe that says something about me

).
2. You might want to experiment a bit with a very large radius USM technique, to add some more 'depth' in the darker areas.

Bart

Hi Bart,

Yes, you are insightful about the horizontal flip of the image. I have to take a leap of faith that we might be thinking about the same psychological effect of the directions of movement. To me, at least, in the "flipped image"(not shown), it seems more positive. However, that's just on first look, since we are moving from left to right as we go deep into the picture. The left to right movement, in our culture does signify progress. However at the distant part of the path, in the flipped version, it would winds to the left, which is not such a good signal as in the original where it goes to the left.

So we have a dilemma! Should we start with a positive psychological impact from the outset by flipping the picture accepting that the path eventually turns left, against progress? Or should accept the original and just "sneak past" the initial "wrong" direction and rejoice that ultimately the path does go in the correct direction?

After first thinking your version was more effective, Bart, I then had to go back to the original since I like good endings. I'm pragmatic but a pragmatic optimist and I'll grab any good sign on the way I can find!

Thanks for bringing up this important issue. Compositional choices such as directions and strength of lines, curves, masses and and placement of fixed objects are among the important clues we embed in our photography. This is a great learning point for us! I hope you will find more cases to point out such structural parameters to be considered in making pictures work.

Asher


Asher

 

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Hi Bart,

Yes, you are insightful about the horizontal flip of the image. I have to take a leap of faith that we might be thinking about the same psychological effect of the directions of movement. To me, at least, in the "flipped image"(not shown), it seems more positive. However, that's just on first look, since we are moving from left to right as we go deep into the picture. The left to right movement, in our culture does signify progress. However at the distant part of the path, in the flipped version, it would winds to the left, which is not such a good signal as in the original where it goes to the left.

Hi Asher,

Yes, I think we're thinking about the same psychological effects. I'm all for a strong captive image, but the subtle conclusion is as valuable.

So we have a dilemma! Should we start with a positive psychological impact from the outset by flipping the picture accepting that the path eventually turns left, against progress? Or should accept the original and just "sneak past" the initial "wrong" direction and rejoice that ultimately the path does go in the correct direction?

No dilemma, just a choice! Do note, it all starts with Tom's deliberate choice to shoot from the left of the road. One could wonder, why? For some reason he chose to do it, I just raised a "what if". I'm not judging, I'm just jogging our minds as to why it seemed a good position. Personally I like the flipped result better, but it's not my image.

I'm probably a lot like Nicolas Claris in the sense that I make conscious desicions about my own compositions. No requirement to crop afterwards, unless I want a more square result than the camera captures, or I couldn't get close enough. I also attempt to choose my leading or exiting diagonals from the onset (unless it poses a risk of getting run over by traffic, or attacked by wildlife ;-) ).

Thanks for bringing up this important issue. Compositional choices such as directions and strength of lines, curves, masses and and placement of fixed objects are among the important clues we embed in our photography. This is a great learning point for us! I hope you will find more cases to point out such structural parameters to be considered in making pictures work.

Thank you, I intend to. It of course also depends on the material being posted, so everybody, keep it coming...

I also intend to post a series on general compositional elements, time and cooperation permitting.

Bart

 

[Alain Briot]

Taking pictures of sunlit scenes with wide dynamic range and delicate colors is a challenge. So thanks so much Alain for showing the P45 color detail. is this 100%? Is there more to see such as a close up of a bunch of leaves?

When you do this, it provides the greatest possible understanding, (without seeing prints) of what the camera can achieve. I hope more folks can do this as any camera can take a pretty picture but for detail scenes with rich colors these better systems are the way to go, short of large format film.

© Alain Briot P45 on Hasselblad V. Multiple frame collage

How many pictures went into the composite and what lens did you use? Are you setting up a tripod or working freehand? Also was the bright foreground a particular challenge and did you need bracketed exposures? Could you have done this same picture in the past with film? If so how?

Asher

Here's how I do these:

http://www.openphotographyforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5745

I used a normal lens for this 2 images collage (80mm). No bracketing.

 

[Alain Briot]

Actually since my original post I corrected the color in the image. Here's the new version:

 

[Asher Kelman]

Actually since my original post I corrected the color in the image. Here's the new version:

Thanks for the reminder. That's an enjoyable essay! Still could you give us a little cutout of the leaves! That would be great!!

Asher

 

[Alain Briot]

Thanks for the reminder. That's an enjoyable essay! Still could you give us a little cutout of the leaves! That would be great!!

Asher

There's actually an interesting story about this photograph. It was taken during our Mono Lake & Eastern Sierra workshop a couple weeks ago. We were there during fall colors, and of course some trees were in full colors while others were past their peak and some still fully green.

One participant had spent several days in the area waiting for the workshop to begin, and had visited the location where I took this photograph when the colors were at their peak. When we went there as a group, he told me that it wasn't nearly as good as it was, that it was over, that I should have seen it when it was at its peak, etc. etc.

I answered him by saying "you wouldn't believe how often I heard that".

"What do you mean" he said?

"I mean many beginning photographers have told me exactly what you are telling me. That it was better at a different time, be it yesterday, a month ago, last year, whenever. "

Fact is, I continued, it wasn't necessarily better then and it isn't necessarily worse now. It's simply different."

I then showed him the photograph I was in the process of composing and explained that what attracted me to this scene was precisely the fact that the leaves were past their peak. If the leaves had all been at their peak, the scene would have been filled with yellow color everywhere. Now, since the leaves in the background were brown instead of yellow, it let the small trees in front of the forest stand out. Before they would have been lost among the trees behind them instead of being separated by color as they were now.

I also explained that as they were these small trees stood as survivors, metaphorically, or as the last ones standing, the last of their kind, the fading remnants of what was, just a few days ago, a blaze of color. There was a message there that spoke of endurance and survival.

 

[Tom Robbins]

Windy morning view of a gravel road.

I've been an Alain Briot fan for years, so posting this thing here almost seems blasphemous.

Happy trails,

Tom

 

[Asher Kelman]

Hi Tom,

A fine blaspheme indeed!

Asher