Posted by Mel Ladewig on April 1, 2008 at 10:51 AM
There's no lacking of such trees in the garden, but this one has to be one of the strangest. It is the same tree that Rajeev shared in his post last week.
I spent Sunday morning wandering around in the Garden just keeping my eye open for different views. The golden light was brief and quickly obscurred by the cloud deck you see here. I also visited a little slot canyon of sorts. I'll post a shot from it later, though I have some different ideas on how to shoot it in the future.
Another unique view! Well done. I hope to maintain the Hiatus from the Garden for the rest of this year so I can turn my attention to widening my portfolio. However, I was talking with Art Wolfe about a shot he has in the Garden once and the tree you have here is not too far from the one he has in his Colorado book. He pointed out on a map the location of his tree for me and all around Cathedral Rock are some great trees with unique vantage points.
Interesting comment about Art Wolfe. I happen to have that book on my bookshelf and had never seen the shot of the Garden. So I had to take a look and found it is the inside cover. I know where that would be as well, and it is looking back towards this tree. I have to say that including the big gravel mine in the background would not have been my choice.
In flipping through, I had also never noticed the copyright credits in the back, though I had my suspicions about this. Roughly half of this book was photographed by the assistant and as others mentioned, the rest appears to have been shot over the period of a few days at a limited number of locations. It was just one of those books where I was rather disappointed once I had thoroughly flipped through it, but I don't mean that as a comment to discredit Mr. Wolfe.
I haven't picked up the 4X5 yet. The lab I use runs E-6 today, so I'll get it this afternoon. I shot it on 4X5 with a 75mm super angulon that should match this composition very closely and used a warming filter and 2 stop hard GND. I shot it on both Provia and Astia testing some new film I bought. Unfortunately the Astia quickload's tab snagged on something and that slide was lost, so I just have the Provia slide. Hopefully it will turn out as this has.
This was shot on the XT with my 10-22 at 14mm with a 2 stop hard GND. I had to do a little work to brighten the foliage of the LH cedar where the GND darkened it, but the film should have usable detail too.
That tree really -is- the shot. But the shadow on the right causes my eye to jump away from the main subject. What would you think about cropping it out? I also wonder whether actually centering the tree and shooting from down below more might just showcase it better? You can sort of see what I mean by cropping out everything -but- the tree, making it a vertical. Thoughts?
Ken
Posted by Mel Ladewig on April 2, 2008 at 12:54 PM
Here is the 4X5 version. I haven't had time to do any editing on it yet. This is straight off the scanner.
Super Angulon 75 f8, Provia, f22, 1/2, 81B, 2 stop hard GND.
Mel,
That is definitely a very cool tree and worth visiting again -- many times. I think with these 2 images you could go with a tighter crop as suggested. I'd agree that you could even center it and it would hold up great because its just such a unique tree.
I've gone back to the Spot Art has his shot from and I freely admit I disagree with some compositional choices made, but it was a starting point from which I started working from as i finally expanded my views on the Garden. By the way, the shot was done by Art as he told me personally he did it. Needless to say i agree with you on the bad choice of the Quarry scar in the background.
Touched up a bit more. Slightly warmer foreground and a little dodge and burn work on the tree.
By the way, the shot was done by Art [Wolfe] as he told me personally he did it.
I didn't mean to imply that it wasn't James. It was clear from the copyright info that it was his shot. What I meant was looking for that shot made me take a closer look at the book and I found the copyright info in the back. I just felt that it was interesting that a large percentage of shots were executed by the assistant.
Discussion
9 repliesI spent Sunday morning wandering around in the Garden just keeping my eye open for different views. The golden light was brief and quickly obscurred by the cloud deck you see here. I also visited a little slot canyon of sorts. I'll post a shot from it later, though I have some different ideas on how to shoot it in the future.
Added the 4X5 shot at the bottom.
Interesting comment about Art Wolfe. I happen to have that book on my bookshelf and had never seen the shot of the Garden. So I had to take a look and found it is the inside cover. I know where that would be as well, and it is looking back towards this tree. I have to say that including the big gravel mine in the background would not have been my choice.
In flipping through, I had also never noticed the copyright credits in the back, though I had my suspicions about this. Roughly half of this book was photographed by the assistant and as others mentioned, the rest appears to have been shot over the period of a few days at a limited number of locations. It was just one of those books where I was rather disappointed once I had thoroughly flipped through it, but I don't mean that as a comment to discredit Mr. Wolfe.
Mel-
I really love that shot. Great comp and very well exposed. 4x5?
RichieV
This was shot on the XT with my 10-22 at 14mm with a 2 stop hard GND. I had to do a little work to brighten the foliage of the LH cedar where the GND darkened it, but the film should have usable detail too.
That tree really -is- the shot. But the shadow on the right causes my eye to jump away from the main subject. What would you think about cropping it out? I also wonder whether actually centering the tree and shooting from down below more might just showcase it better? You can sort of see what I mean by cropping out everything -but- the tree, making it a vertical. Thoughts?
Ken
Super Angulon 75 f8, Provia, f22, 1/2, 81B, 2 stop hard GND.
That is definitely a very cool tree and worth visiting again -- many times. I think with these 2 images you could go with a tighter crop as suggested. I'd agree that you could even center it and it would hold up great because its just such a unique tree.
I didn't mean to imply that it wasn't James. It was clear from the copyright info that it was his shot. What I meant was looking for that shot made me take a closer look at the book and I found the copyright info in the back. I just felt that it was interesting that a large percentage of shots were executed by the assistant.
Mel-