Seeing the Image

Quite often the most difficult thing to do is to see the image in a subject that you find appealing.   You’re attracted to a subject, you find it interesting, but you can’t figure out where the photograph is.  Not everything, even something interesting, makes for a good photograph.  You have to see the image before you make it.  

That happened to me at the Lady Bird Johnson Grove on our last morning in the Redwoods.  Right on the trail was this lovely burnt out tree trunk.  As compelling as any subject could be, but making an interesting image was going to be tough.  Fortunately, I found not one, but two images.  This iPhone image shows you what was right beside the trail, and you can see both of the images from here.

I quickly realized that I wasn’t going to be able to make a landscape image of the tree.  It was too close to the trail and there wasn’t enough room to back up to place the tree in any sort of context - not that there was much context at this location.  So I asked myself what I enjoyed most about the tree, and it was the green glow that emanated from inside the tree.  So I decided to try for a composition of the charred interior.  

The main green growth was above head-height, so I climbed up the berm on the other side of the trail up against some bushes, and put a longer lens on my camera to isolate the charred interior of the tree. 

Inside the tree it was extremely dark, so my exposure was in the range of 10 - 15 seconds.  As usual, I made several copies of this image - sometimes making minor adjustments to exposure or framing to get the best possible negative (I can’t stop using my old terminology).  That meant I spent periods of just standing there, looking at the subject tree while the exposures were being made.  And that’s when I saw the second image, off to the left, on the exterior of the tree.

So when I was satisfied that I had my first image, I moved over to set up the second image.  This time I had more room to move around.  Which was good, because I had more elements to work with and had to figure out precisely what to include and what to exclude from the frame.  

I decided to work with a strong diagonal element of a snow-covered greenish bark ridge surrounded by swirls of brownish  base bark.  On the opposite corners from the diagonal, I framed another thin snow-covered fin on the top, and placed the bottom corner in dark shadow.  It took some time to get it right, but it was time well spent.

I’m glad I didn’t turn my eyes off after the first image.  It’s great when you get a two-for-one!