I've experienced the feeling you describe each time I drive through the California redwoods. I've never even approached conveying their scale, I think mostly due to my avoiding including something of familiar scale in the frame. It's difficult to find the space isolate what might be a choice tree or small group, plus the lighting is always problematic. I envy your proximity to their peaceful therapy. Jack ----- Original Message ----- From: Larry Colen <l...@red4est.com> To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List <pdml@pdml.net> Cc: Sent: Tuesday, September 20, 2011 10:21 PM Subject: My backyard is humbling me
A few of you have been to my house, and have seen my redwood grove. Even though they are young and small for redwoods, at about 100' tall and 4' in diameter, they're still pretty big by human standards. I recently picked up a work from home programming contract, and when I need to clear my mind, I tend to walk out into the back yard. It's interesting how such a simple change in pace can give me a newfound appreciation of the trees. Even at my most jaded, simply wandering out into the redwood grove, and looking up, has always been a good reminder of my place in the universe. For many years, I've occasionally tried to take pictures of the redwood grove and always completely fail to convey the emotional impact. If my camera is aimed anything close to horizontal, all you see is a bunch of tree trunks, with no context of how little of tree that you are seeing. Aim the camera up, and/or try to photograph from a distance, detail is lost and everything seems to blend together. In addition to that, there is also the challenge of shooting something in fairly deep shade against patchy views of bright sky. Have any of you succeeded in showing the scale of something this size? either a tree, or even a building. Is it even possible on the scale of a computer monitor, or even a print that is less than three feet on it's longest edge? As you might guess, when I was taking a break this afternoon, I noticed how the angle of the light brought out the texture of the bark on one of the trees, inspiring me to grab the camera, and give another try. I think that this shot does a fair job of showing the texture of the bark, even if it fails to give any idea of scale: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ellarsee/6168039027/in/set-72157627594004271/lightbox/ This shot, which has trees in both the foreground and the background, might be starting to give some idea of scale: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ellarsee/6168577810/lightbox/ Does anyone have suggestions for what I might do? -- Larry Colen l...@red4est.com sent from i4est -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
