Oaks & Lupines

I took this image along the Old Columbia River Gorge Highway just below the Tom McCall Preserve. As you can see the Lupines were out in their full glory; and so was the Poison Oak! I can't wait to get back their this Spring.

The image was made on Velvia 100 film using an Arca Swiss 4x5 Field w/Micro Orbix with a Rodenstock 135mm APO Sironar lense. The transparency was scanned on an Epson 750M scanner using wet mounting. I process the image in both Lightroom and Photoshop. Prints made on my Epson Stylus Pro 7900 almost exactly match the view transparency on my light table. Truly an awesome printer.

Thanks for viewing.

Phil Knouf

Youre getting me excited for the upcoming spring bloom! what time of day was this taken? The light seems kinda heavy and may have helped if it was diffused by some clouds or was lower in the sky.

Ryan,

This image was taken late in the morning after finishing at the Columbia Hills. Yes, fairly intense light as I am facing South East. Still, it provides for some great sillouhettes of the Oaks. And the Lupines were mostly in the shade so they were not burned out. I hope to have a nice cloudy bright day next time or perhaps make this spot my early morning trip.

Phil

Truly an inspiring image of spring. You've made the most of the foreground lupines by emphasizing the highlighted clump in the immediate FG; very nice. I also particularly like the dark trunks in the background. Could use a little web sharpening, though.

Marc,

Thanks for your comments. I have noticed that I need to up the sharpening in Lightroom for some of my scanned images. So I have tried both Lightroom and Photoshop to sharpen for the Web and decided I liked Photoshop better. Here is the reworked image a tab bit sharper.

Phil

It's a classic, and classy, image of the spring flower bloom in areas of the gorge. Love the oak tree bg!

I love this image, particularly the way you capture sun on leaves with a skeleton of oak limbs.

They always say after you take a horizontal, do a vertical, and with that nice tree in the middle with all the upper 'skeleton' branches i believe with the right comp of that and flowers would look excellent. :)

I know exactly where this is and have probably shot the area (just east of Tom Mcall park if I believe) five times in the last five years and have hundreds shots. Just can't get exicited over this shot with me tossing all of them with similar comps and lighting as this. IMHO of course.