Trees, sparse stands, forrest, lone proud beauties. Colorado Aspens to challenge you!

Let's find trees in their natural beauty! So this is not for tree-lawn-pruned specimens, although an arboretum (where they really respect the trees shape) would be fine too as they will have remarkable examples, more diverse than we would otherwise be able to find.

Norman Koren was kind enough to drive me up to the mountains around Boulder Colarado and we walked among the Aspens. I really wonder how the great photographers did so well with film! There's a lot of dynamic range to measure and included. That's why God designed spotmeters, I guess. However, I bracketed but just selected a single exposure using my always hand 50 1.2L on the 5D.




Just a little higher, the snow is not yet melted. The trees are only just showing a small amount of leaves.

"All the aspens (including White Poplar) typically grow in large colonies derived from a single seedling, and spreading by means of root suckers; new stems in the colony may appear at up to 30–40 m from the parent tree. Each tree only lives for 40–150 years above ground, but the root system of the colony is long-lived, in some cases for many thousands of years, sending up new trunks as the older trunks die off above ground. For this reason it is considered to be an indicator of ancient woodlands. One such colony in Utah, given the nickname of "Pando", is claimed to be 80,000 years old, making it possibly the oldest living colony. Some aspen colonies become very large with time, spreading about a metre per year, eventually covering many hectares. They are able to survive intense forest fires as the roots are below the heat of the fire, with new sprouts growing after the fire is out." Source.

I am not certain whether these are the "Quaking Aspens" that can re-orientate the outer leaves to allow the sunlight to reach the lower leaves.

I admire these trees and will return to photograph them again, but with film.

Asher

Hey Asher,

This seems to be a very pretty area. I think that a better time of day would do the trees more justice. I like the shadowing and the grass colors, but the brightness of the sky really controls the upper portions of the shot. Maybe do a photomege (HDR) with all three of the exposures..??

Marshall

Hi Marshall,

The time of day, as the sun is going down is almost perfect. I'll be stitching adjacent frames and also merging different exposures when I have finished my current program of work.

Asher

Ok, here goes.

I like the linearity of the composition, the height and lines of the trees, and angles of the shadows in the lower part of the frame. In fact, those shadows are my favorite part of the image. I also like the colors and the the effect of the juxtaposition of the yellow and green, offset by the white of the trunks (well, gray really).

Now, I think the addition of two elements would add to the fabled "wow factor:" streaming sunlight and a more intense hue of the sky.


As always, since I'm learning, a critique of my critique is welcome.

Rachel Foster said:

Ok, here goes.

I like the linearity of the composition, the height and lines of the trees, and angles of the shadows in the lower part of the frame. In fact, those shadows are my favorite part of the image. I also like the colors and the the effect of the juxtaposition of the yellow and green, offset by the white of the trunks (well, gray really).

Now, I think the addition of two elements would add to the fabled "wow factor:" streaming sunlight and a more intense hue of the sky.


As always, since I'm learning, a critique of my critique is welcome.

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Rachel,

Thanks for the thought put into my picture. Yes we want to bring out the sky and also see if we can capture rays of light.

I have more pictures in that series that need to be sorted out. I know I have ones in which the beautiful sky is more easily demonstrated. Here, we are pretty well locked out from the sky. With my 50 mm lens, that can only be achieved by going over the mountain or changing lenses.

I don't mind the lack of "wow" as this was a more meditative experience. But yes, magical light beams are special. I will be doing this again in July hopefully. Then the leaves will fill out and the light beams will be more obvious.

Asher

I hope my "critique" didn't sound negative. I particularly like the composition and colors. In trying to learn how to spot what's missing from my images I've been looking at every image and searching for the answer to the "What can make this better" question. I'm doing this with really good images, even those that seemingly cannot be improved.

Critiquing is difficult to do well, isn't it?

Rachel Foster said:

I hope my "critique" didn't sound negative. I particularly like the composition and colors. In trying to learn how to spot what's missing from my images I've been looking at every image and searching for the answer to the "What can make this better" question. I'm doing this with really good images, even those that seemingly cannot be improved.

Critiquing is difficult to do well, isn't it?

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Rachel,

Your critique is down to earth and fine. You will get better as long as you go to galleries and read books with pictures.

Let me share with you why the shadows are as they are. I move so that the sun is almost blocked by a central tree. Then all the shadows diverge from there.

Asher

The shadows are really what captivates me. Light is really what the main draw of photography is for me. Light...love it!

ASher asked me to add a couple of my recent tree pictures. Next time I go there I'll see what they are, and maybe add some older ones in the next couple of days.

Both shot with a 5D and Zeiss 35 f2

Mike

Mike,

I am looking and looking again at #2 wondering what it is that does not sit right with me. I think that it is all the space that is not the focus, and the small amount that is. The sharpness is there on the foreground tree, but the size (amount) of space to the left keeps pulling me away from the main tree. I am aware that this is a result of the f2 lens, but want to comment on the response to the image.
What technique are you using to get to the b/w tones?

Regards,

Marshall

Marshall

I think that there is probably not enough subject/interest contained in the coposition, hence it nor sitting right. It needs something more to hold interest.

The conversion was done in Lightroom using the convert to grayscale option and then adjuting the relativecontributionsof each tone. This is similar to the CS3 Black and White layer, but gives you 8 colour ranges to work with when adjusting the overall tonality and allows you to drag luminances up/down within the image.

Mike

Mike,

I just upgraded to CS3 and am experimenting with the conversion to B/W tool. I do not have lightroom. It is an interesting challenge to process images in the gray tones.
Thanks for sharing your images and your thoughts - I am learning with every opportunity.

Marshall

Mike, you didn't say what shutter speed used for the photo, just the aperture. Could a slower shutter and smaller aperture have provided a little more infocus area and give a little more interest hold? Just my thoughts. Still being a newbie here, I'll accept criticism of my criticisms.
Chuck

Charles E. Church said:

Still being a newbie here, I'll accept criticism of my criticisms.
Chuck

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I like the way you said that!

Trees are one of my favorite subjects. This one's a bit of a metaphor for life (pardon the over-dramatization). It seems there is little structure or order to life until you take a step back and look at it from a different angle.

Asher Kelman said:

I really wonder how the great photographers did so well with film! There's a lot of dynamic range to measure and included.

Asher

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HAHA, they waited for the light to be right, you work with the light, you do not fight it. A very nice image, not sure what you could do differently with film but maybe you will show me

Allen,

They essentially did Photoshop with physical skills in the darkroom. For example, they dodged and burned, made inter-negatives processed specially for an effect and agitated over particular parts of an image in a tray or even combined work from several images. My late father-in-law would sometimes work on one image for months!

Only in the studio or by the window with filtered light, was it even closely possible to make the image in one go!

Asher

Asher Kelman said:

Allen,

They essentially did Photoshop with physical skills in the darkroom. For example, they dodged and burned, made inter-negatives processed specially for an effect and agitated over particular parts of an image in a tray or even combined work from several images. My late father-in-law would sometimes work on one image for months!

Only in the studio or by the window with filtered light, was it even closely possible to make the image in one go!

Asher

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So like I said "not sure what you could do differently with film" that you can't do with PS? It is my belief that Ansel Adams would have long forgotten about the darkroom had PS been available to him

Al

Allen Maestas said:

So like I said "not sure what you could do differently with film" that you can't do with PS? It is my belief that Ansel Adams would have long forgotten about the darkroom had PS been available to him

Al

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Allen,

It's not the photoshop but the film. It imparts a different nature. One can get close but for B&W, it's not the same. More than that, for me at least, it offers a tactile different way of working that will give alternate possibilities for my art. Also, not having the money for a pixel packed MF digital back, I can get detail rich scenes with little financial outlay using medium format, 4x5 or 8x10 film. I work out what I want with digital. It's fast and essentially free with my Canon cameras.

Then I can take the detail rich image with film. That has a special potential for huge prints and that's what I want!

Asher

More of Gondwana.

I'm loving the shots from from ole Africky and so here's another tree shot 'sans sky' from the great southern ark..(not Africa you fools)


Spotted gums AKA Eucalyptus maculata, AKA Corymbia maculata..hen will they make up their collective mind?

My beaver pond is full of very busy beasts!

Bill McCarthy said:

My beaver pond is full of very busy beasts!

Bill McCarthy: Beaver Tree​

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Bill,

The picture reminds me of a totem pole. It's simple yet dramatic. That's a hell of a lot of gnawing. I wonder whether other life forms eat the wood fragments?

Asher

I'll contribute. This happens to be the only pic of a tree I have uploaded at the moment.

^I like this composition. The combination of short DOF, dappled light, soft forms and movement in the bokeh combine to make this a fine display of light and forms. I'm not usually a fan of B&W but it’s appealing in this image.

If I were to play with it, I’d try darkening some of the 2 light colored branches that define the mid-image on the right. They both lead the eye out of the image and are very strong. Compare for example with the branch that leads diagonally to the top left where there is just enough rim light to show the branch’s form and to create a sense of depth between the branch and the background. But for these dapples of light on the branch, the majority of the top left branch is unobtrusive. Were the two branches on the right kind of similar, I think it would help the image.

From my series "Trees"

Along the trail


This is a HDR pano.

Shadows!

I like how the shadows fall on the ground.

The lacy quality of the ground foliage is what strikes me.

jake klein said:

I like how the shadows fall on the ground.

Jake Klein: Shadows & Lace​

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This has a different esthetic from stark views of a line of trees, one tree or a stand. This more more like life as we see it, in between the drama.

Asher