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Trees & the Motif of "Sky"!

Ron Morse

New member
Ron: For almost 40 years I've wanted to visit Maine in the fall, but never have. Your image has rekindled that desire. I want to just hike down that road and hear the chilly breeze rustle the leaves.

Sorry for not getting back Ken. I had problem with my comp cable for a week until they finally came and fixed it. I forgot about this post.

Thank you. Acadia NP has some wonderfull foliage in the fall. It will be at peak in a few weeks.
 

DLibrach

New member
Not necessarily a typical 'tree and sky' picture but one of my personal favorites. I know the sky doesn't hold much interest in this image but I though it added to the gloominess and barrenness of the scene.

Rock Garden:
200287996_LpkQ7-L-5.jpg


Cheers,
Dave
 
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Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Rock Garden:
200287996_LpkQ7-L-5.jpg
DL,

Yes, this is stark, and bleak too but also empty and tranquil. The "trees" are paired as if they stood with each other through the calamity of no water and overbearing heat. Despite this, there's no suffering and we bypass all this subconscious thinking and it's just soothing.

Thanks for sharing your esthetically simple but impressive composition.

Asher
 
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Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Figs.
2988483507_432c1005d2.jpg

regi

This pictures with fruits is unique and interesting. There's a lot of detail in the fruit and leaves but the main structure of the trunk is massive and going to the heavens like a monolith! This upward movement is counter-balanced in a counterintuitive way. The strong limb moving up diagonally to the picture's left, at first, obviously continues the movement up. Then however the eye grabs both the trunk and the diagonal limb and they point like an arrow-head down to the earth. So the diagonal sets up a tension and dialog that helps make this picture dynamic and alive. It's this fundamentally strong form that is the basis for this pictures success.

Impressive,

Asher
 
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Asher, your explanation is an eye-opener for me - frankly, I hadn't consciously visualised it that way when I clicked! Thank you very much for the insight.

Thanks Bart, for the compliment and the suggestion. I'm still too naive on photoshop, but will try out your suggestion once I gain some confidence.

regi
 

Cem_Usakligil

Well-known member
Incredible pictures, incredible omission

I am certain that nobody will believe me when I say this, but I have just discovered this thread some 10 minutes ago! How could I have missed it considering the fact that I read everything posted here! Go figure ;-)

BTW, great pictures people . I like all of them :)

Cheers,
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Hi Erik,

This is a formidable shot upwards though the trees to the canopy of leaves and the bright sky. It is unique and impressive. The radiating lines with the overlying texture of the dark bark with the green moss gives us the feeling that we are looking at a giant cartwheel turning. This is no ordinary picture. I believe it will acquire a following and you should be able to sell prints. However, where one would hang this without having at hand a few joints to justify the swirling feeling in ones head?

Thanks so much for sharing this. Now could you tell us the what, where and when?

Asher
 

erik leeman

New member
Hi Asher,

Thank you for your response, and sorry for the delayed answer, I simply HAD to get some sleep : )
I did not add a description or technical details yet, because I wanted to show it first without any distractions.

There is a lot to tell about this picture, but first the 'what, where and when':
It is a black and rotting stump of (what used to be) a big tree with a circle of new trees (or branches) around it reaching for the sky. It caught my attention because those new trees formed a vertical tunnel at the end of which...., well, you know, light and everything.

The location was a forest near a tiny mountain village named il Casoni, in the Alto Appenino Modenese (Emilia-Romagna, Italy), and it was june 22 of this year that I 'collected' the photos so to speak. Photos, because it is in fact a composite of 12 shots (taken with a Canon 5D).

The technical story is quite complicated, so I'll leave that for now, but if anyone would like to hear about it I'll be happy to tell more.

On my website you can find an interactive Virtual Reality version that shows what it really looked like, without the dramatic exaggeration of the image above. I know this one is a bit 'over the top' and almost melodramatic, but this is exactly what I envisioned when I was there.

That's all for now, I have to rush and won't be online for the next 6 or 8 hours or so.
Have a very nice sunday all!

Erik Leeman
 

Ron Morse

New member
EL Yunque.

A horrendous downpour had just stopped
Minutes later.
 
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2636004865_e252d99899_o.jpg

My first contribution here, let's see what you think of it : )

Hoi Erik,

Very nice. I've seen some of your 360 degree surround images, and they are technically very well executed. This particular crop is also well chosen. It offers an intriguing perspective, and the projection distortion also helps.

Bart
 
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This is an incredible viewpoint! Gives a sort of planatarium kind of effect. The stiching is flawless. Makes me want to check your collection.

regi
 

erik leeman

New member
Thank you guys!

If you do have a look at the Virtual Reality images on my website please make sure you have the latest version of Flash10 installed for your browser, because Flash9 will give a rather choppy experience. The button to make the large versions fullscreen is in the upper left hand corner of the window, and it makes all the difference!
Windows users can get a significantly better image quality with the tiny DevalVR plugin; sadly it doesn't work yet on Macs. Viewing them with QuickTime is also possible, but those cannot be made fullscreen, which is a shame.
I hope you like them!

Erik
 
Asher, sorry, no trees in those mountains, I have one where there is one pine tree, but did not like it. I posted it here because the title is: Trees & SKY, so, at least I have lots of the second...

I shot this from my house, I want to go for a real shooting safari early next year -going to Tokyo next Dic. 20th-, and probably will have images to show.

I visited a local photographer that I met in 1985 when we attended a photography workshop in Budapest. He showed me a series of really good images he took of the country side here in Bolivia but he said they where all jpgs.

It is a story that has to do with the way digital took over film so fast and how it continues to evolve. All the images my friend did, if shot on film could be scanned in to a useful size...
 
Dear Instructor Asher: This is all what I could do, and it was done with the old method of burn/dodge selecting mid tones for burning -@ 7%- and high lights for dodging ... you have to see the original file, I have used CS3 HDR tool, and PS layers to get as much of the "story" behind this The Gathering Storm...

... a large cafe late also helps...

nube_HDR3.jpg
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Here's the tree on as street corner near me.

It's covered in spikes so I guess this is to defend itself from herbivores or to act as a sanctury for birds that can escape predators.

IMG_2925Spiked_trees_and_sky.jpg


Photo Asher Kelman 2008, "Spiked Tree"
There are 6 inch pods with bright red seeds that fall. I'll try to photograph these in due course.

Asher
 
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Cem_Usakligil

Well-known member
Here's the tree on as street corner near me.

It's covered in spikes so I guess this is to defend itself from herbivores or to act as a sanctury for birds that can escape predators.

IMG_2925Spiked_trees_and_sky.jpg


Photo Asher Kelman 2008, "Spiked Tree"

There are 6 inch pods with bright red seeds that fall. I'll try to photograph these in due course.

Asher
Hi Asher,

I like your tree composition which is strong and interesting. What were your thoughts on this one, any particular insights would be nice to know. And I would definitely like to see a follow up on the red seed pods later. One small nitpick if I may; the picture seems to have been underexposed. I guess you've done that to emphasize the silhouette of the trees, right?


Cheers,
 
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Cem_Usakligil

Well-known member
The three worlds

I have been wanting to show this one for some time now. It's a picture I took a couple of years ago. I have been playing with it since then for achieving the perfect contrast and color balance but I am not there yet. I can't let it go either, this image is too captivating for me. You advice will be greatly appreciated :). Taken with Canon 400D and EF-S 10-22mm, f22, 1sec, ISO100.

threeworlds01.jpg

Cheers,
 
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Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Hi Asher,

I like your tree composition which is strong and interesting. What were your thoughts on this one, any particular insights would be nice to know. And I would definitely like to see a follow up on the red seed pods later. One small nitpick if I may; the picture seems to have been underexposed. I guess you've done that to emphasize the silhouette of the trees, right?
Thanks Cem ffor looking at my picture. The tree is remarkable for its rather vivid green trunk and sharp dangerous spikes. This is not the favorite tree for herbivores. This was be a disaster if you fell against it!

Itsd located on the corner of a major street by a traffic light. It's right by the ramp of a ciy parking strcuture and I took the picture from the ramp so as to have the spikey branches silhouted against the incredibly blue sky with jet trails parallel to some of the limbs. It seemd as if the tree was grabbing at the sky, so that's what I wanted to show. If the branches are exposed the green and detail conflicts with the composition.

However, I could try this with fill in flash and see how it might be.

Asher
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
I have been wanting to show this one for some time now. It's a picture I took a couple of years ago. I have been playing with it since then for achieving the perfect contrast and color balance but I am not there yet.

threeworlds01.jpg


I'd love you to print a crop to see how large this could be printed. This picture could give an immersive experience printed huge! That's if you didn't follow my surpising suggestions for cropping I'll now suggest!

I'd remove 1-1.5 cm from the top of the picture as the trees fading away is distracting. I'd rather have a sharp cutoff where the trunks are clearly defined and the ground underneath them has it's own atmosphere of autumn.

The picture is this best seen as a panoramq. "Horizontalness" is very tranquil and reassuring. Remarkably I'd ask to to consider drastic surgery to free the beauty of the picture to dominate the experience. forgive me, Cem, but I'd like to crop away the lower portion from 2 mm belelow the edge of the reflected green leaves on the right border.

This makes an impressive and magical panorama which is very original. All the elements of the picture are represented sufficiently. In an orchestra one balalnces the representation of all the great instruments. One only needs sufficient of each. I'd try the crop just to humor me and then print it out. :)

Hope you'll still speak to me!

Asher
 
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