Defeated + REPOST
by Wayne Jones
Every tree in the forest tells a story of the struggle for survival. This little maple came from a whirling, winged seed that managed to take root and survive insects, birds and mammals. For a couple of decades, in a slow race to reach out to the sunlight from under the shade of a tall birch and some hemlocks, it became lop-sided. Then a heavy snow fell before it's leaves fell off, and pulled it down to where the deer can eat its buds. It will never straighten up, but if it survives the deer, insects and fungi, some of it's branches will still try to reach up to the light above the forest canopy. If they gather enough light to support growth, perhaps the next generation of people will wonder how this tree got such a strange shape.
This started as a tall vertical comp, showing the relationship of the bent tree to all the tall trees towering above it. After struggling with the comp for a while, I decided to zero in to concentrate just on the bent maple. Also, I was tempted not to convert this to black and white, because the muted greens and browns help isolate the subject from the busy background, but the curve of the tree with contrasting snow proved strong enough to distinguish it from the vertical lines of the other trees.
Canon 5D Mark III
Canon 24-105
1/30 sec. @ f/11; ISO 100
P.S. Sorry for weeks of absence from NPN. Seems that I caught every germ around for the last couple of months, so keeping up with the other parts of my life took most of my energy for a while.
Comments
13 commentsWell done B/W rendition. I like the comp as is.
MARK: I wondered it the color make a difference, too, so I used a combination of filters (leaning toward green) to make the hemlocks look a little brighter. But the colors in the original are so subdued, I actually had a hard time telling the difference between the original and the conversion. I think the crop made more difference than the color (and I still like the vertical version, too). Here's the original: I'd be interested in hearing how others might handle it, knowing that my intended subject was the bent maple, and I did not see a way in the field to blur the background much.
I like them both, but prefer the crop and the color. Maybe that combo is the ticket?
Chris
In terms of crops, I could see one coming down to slightly above the evergreen's top, but recognize that the result has a very different feeling from your original post. I can also see cropping down to a bit higher than your original post. For me, that places a fine emphasis on the bent sapling but adds a subtle sense that there's more to explore. Finally, your original crop, with the touches of added color seem to add extra emphasis to the bend sapling and make it the star. That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it until some convinces me otherwise!