Carol's Tree

I shot this one before, and opn a long walk two days ago again, just as a quick and dirty walk by snap, however, I am so intruiged by this scene, I will go there again and shoot it properly. That's what snapping means to me, finding spots and re visiting them.

Looks like a grizzly, chewing on a salmon ;-)

A perfect specimen to work on. So you know what it is and how old? I'd like to see more. At present this magnificent wood is to me imprisoned. With such a sky, more would be better.

The "matte" does not need to be that color. I feel that an off-white and wider is better.

The left hand corner is out of focus and serves no purpose to my mind, although, of course, I could be missing something there. Was there more? Is so can you show it without the frame. Or else do you have more since I love the tree and the color of the sky. The sky is a perfect home, a frame for the tree, not the messy ground.

The shadows are separate features that should be worked on to show them as part of the composition. at present they are there but not doing anything dynamic that I can recognize or sense. The shadows should either be from something interesting or be from the tree itself.

There is a sense that this picture is not yet there. It lacks a small amount, which may be more sky and has the untidiness of the left side grass and shadows.

However, the picture is one that will be pay dividends after a modest amount of further work. For that reason I'd go back and take more shots after cleaning things and moving position to get more sky and interesting shadow. Then, I think it's a winner.

Asher

I'd return at the opposite time of day and see how the shadows are then.

A great subject!

BTW how did it become Carol's tree?

Asher Kelman said:

BTW how did it become Carol's tree?

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....was a gift.

Thanks for your comments, I chose this tree now to be the object to learn on how to use these new seven lenses I will take delivery soon. From 7-14mm f4 wide angle, macro, fisheye, all kinda stuff up to 1000mm f3.5 tele, I will spend a whole day there shooting this tree.

What intruiged me from day one, which is 2 years ago when I did not even know all the functions of my own camera, let alone photoshop, is that little stone embedded in the roots. Who knows from where that tree stranded on our coast, and that wee little stone made the whole journey with it. If memory serves itg was after one of those more serious January storms when I was spending some time with Tanka on this side of the bay when I saw it there the first time.

Jörgen Nyberg said:

Looks like a grizzly, chewing on a salmon ;-)

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Yeppers! hehehee

You are the third one who associated this in deed!

Hi Georg,

At first everything seems still. Yet we are drawn in. So let's just follow our interest and see what happens.

I really like the array of rocks and textures in the first photograph in post # 4 above. The milky misty foam of the waters edge penetrates between gravestone shapes set up by some force to prevent ships landing. These rows of protruding red rectangular rocks sloping to the left provide a visual demarkation between the round rocks on the shore and the sea to the horizon.

Trapped in the foreground amongst round boulders, worn tree trees, long stripped of bark by the rough waters, are bleached by the sun and home to no doubt countless life.

The very foreground rocks show a fine surface structure with moss or lichen so this place is on the edge of life and great forces of nature.

I sea a giant fish with a gaping mouth in the lower right corner.

I look back to the left and a head of a seal or walrus is thrusting upwards.

Gradually one realizes that the water is alive and there's now the sound of rushing and receding waters swirling between the gravestones.

Now someone might ask, "But is it art?"

Asher


BTW, please release the picture from the prison of the tight frame.

Either no frame or else a huge white matte.

Art lives and breathes. That requires creating or at least allowing a context. Are we sellling the frame or making the picture show to its best?

Georg Baumann said:

Yeppers! hehehee

You are the third one who associated this in deed!

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So my mind isn't totally gone then ;-)

7 lenses at once! There's one week gone up in smoke ;-)


Love the misty effect, must have been a really long exposure?
And continuing with Ashers comment, I think these later frames look better, never liked PSs tree frame (but thats personal taste, I guess).

Jörgen Nyberg said:

Love the misty effect, must have been a really long exposure?

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Yeah, 2 years ago I bought that ND filter where you are cursing like a docker because you barely can see anything through it, really strong. I think it was around 2 minutes.

"Res ipsa Loquitur" (The thing speaks for itself)

"But is it art"

My comment was after my description of a photograph coming alive with movement, xreatures ans sounds of the water, I thought gave the answer to the rhetorical question.

Of course it is art!

The fact that someone is Ireland walked away from his imperatives of commerce to find the beauty of the shoreline and then had the impulse of thought to make a picture, is the start of art, which must externalize something from our mind.

That photograph works well to re-invoke some of that moment of being there is evidence to me of art. That ability to transcend time and place and donate to the world a small portion of one's inner experience is indeed art.

Art? Surely it's a creative externalization of one person's inner senses. It's embedded in something physical. It lives beyond the artist for him and us to re-experience. We react with a flurry of emotions and thoughts in unique combinations. That loan of the artists imagination and creative expression gives us pleasure and some satisfaction that we have looked through the artist's eyes and listened though his ears and walked with him for a short while in his special world. His art work asks us different questions of itself and ourselves depending on our own journeys and destinations.

So again, "Is it Art?"

"Res ipsa Loquitur" (The thing speaks for itself)

Asher

The Question

"But is it Art?" and the response by Georg we discuss here. This thread will continue to show images of Carol's tree.

Asher Kelman said:

The Question

"But is it Art?" and the response by Georg we discuss here. This thread will continue to show images of Carol's tree.

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Yeah why not, I like that idea.

I should have my gear arriving within the next two weeks according to the manufacturer it is a special made to order body, I suppose they do an extra quality check as well, no idea really, but this tree will be my first shooting with all those fine lenses, actually a planned shooting for a change!

LOL, planned in terms of going there I mean, nothing else, the rest is up to ____whatever happens....

Oh, and btw. allow me to say this Asher, thanks to Olympus Europe for working with me on that! Great bunch of guys and gals there in Hamburg! Really, deeply appreciated!