SHOOTING THE SHOOTER - FANAL FOREST, MADEIRA EDITION
Despite the fullest of intentions, as well as ideas for blog post themes (“Ann and I are terrible tourists” “Even the most stunning places can be hard to photograph” and the not-so-tongue-in-cheek “Do Madeirans even know what level is?”), I haven’t actually taken the time to sit down and blog yet. We have material to work with, both stories and images, but we’re still getting used to life in Madeira and to getting into a groove with why we came here in the first place. And in the event you haven’t a clue as to why, it’s photography. Yes, we’ve made some images, but from my end they’re mostly blog images (which I guess blows that excuse for a reason why I haven’t written any posts yet . . . ahhh . . . I haven’t processed them yet. Yes, that’s my excuse), and the rest are mostly scouting images.
In any event, here’s the first post from our trip, and oddly enough, it’s of me, not Ann. I use the word “oddly” because today (Saturday) is Ann’s birthday and for her birthday I decided we should scout out the Fanal Forest, a Laurisilva Forest, one of the primary reasons Madeira became our photo destination. We’d driven by it on our first day here (between the airport (on the other side of the island) and checking into our first AirBNB (between the Fanal Forest and the airport) of our stay. We didn’t see much (other than a nightmare of afternoon traffic) because it was socked in with fog. We’d hoped for fog, but not on our first drive by. But we got it this morning. Back to “oddly,” because I’d once mentioned to Ann, and she decided to take me up on it, that she could ask me to work with her on her photography on any day and I’d stop doing my own. Ann being Ann felt guilty about calling in her chit (she shouldn’t have, it’s a gift and today it was a birthday gift), but she cut me some slack. So it really should be a photo of Ann, because she made the most photographs today. It was a preliminary scouting trip (we will visit there several more times this trip, I’m sure) so I didn’t lose really good photo time, plus she let me do iPhone shots (for Facebook) and point-and-shoot shots (for the blog, mainly), and she even let me make a couple of real images (this is one of them). Plus, I can feel good about it because while I was working on this image, Ann eventually set up for a very lovely image, the best of the day from either of us in my opinion.
But back to the story. I’d found a detail composition of one of the many available on these incredible Laurel trees and I’m sure Ann heard the begging in my voice when I asked her to release me from my vow of the day, if only temporarily. Ann, being Ann made this image of me making my image.
You can see why these Laurel trees are so fascinating. Their shapes, textures and colors are simply amazing. In any event, the fog had lifted (we’d assumed permanently for the day at the time . . . oh were we wrong!) and the light was starting to make its way onto the scene.
It’s actually the perfect example of how important the quality of the light can be in photography, not just in my photograph, but Ann’s as well. When we passed the tree, the sun had broken through with this lovely glowing light on the trunk. It passed, but being landscape photographers, when you see it once and form an image in your mind, you set up hoping it will happen again. In Ann’s image, while it’s not on the tree, you can see it in the distance. Ann, in fact, made an image similar to the one above with her better camera, but by then the light was lost. This is a much better image, even if it is an iPhone shot..
The same holds true for the trunk. You always make the image, regardless of the light (I’m not that particular), but then you wait. It doesn’t have to be much, and in this case, it was filtered somewhat by thin fog, but the daylight shone through warming (color-wise) those parts of the tree exposed to the sun. The ambient, fog lit images I made are . . . a bit lifeless compared to the two times the sun warmed the subject (though I never did get full-on sun).
Fanal Forest, Madeira, Portugal. November 13, 2021
There are a few technical irregularities with this image, most of which are the result of being rusty in my technique - the COVID break and moving to another country means we’ve got a lot of work to do before I feel fully proficient again. But that’s why we wanted to make this into a photo trip - to get our sea legs under us again. And I didn’t make the polarizing filter error I made the day before, so I’m getting there.
At best, it’s a decent image that got the creative and technique juices flowing again, and that’s not a bad result on what was intended to be only a scouting trip!
Hopefully the next few days are more productive in terms of photographs and . . . blog posts.