Capturing a Deep Woods Photo

One of the most difficult kinds of photographs to capture is a photo taken within a deep woods, especially when the prevailing background color is green. In most cases you end up with an image with a harsh green tint cast across the entire frame. This is just the nature of light and requires a bit of creative white balance tweaking to prevent. Even so, a photo with that one prevailing color tint can in its own right become an interesting image. Most of the time though, I tend to photograph the deep woods with the intent of converting the image into a black and white.

Deep woods settings do tend to lend themselves well to black and white, however, depending on the kind of light that is filtering through the green canopy, this too can be tricky. Often you will encounter a wide range of contrasts ranging from very dark shadowed areas to very bright sunlit areas. This range more often than not becomes the problem as the camera simply cannot deal with that wide of a range of contrast. You will lose a great deal of detail in either the light or dark areas with one or the other being blown out.

Most times I will shoot with a circular polarized attached to my lens. This helps to reduce the glare and allows for a certain amount of control over the lighting. I will also usually expose for the brightest areas and let everything else simply fall where it wants to within the exposure. I do this by shooting on Aperture Priority and then using the +/- exposure compensation to bring the brightly lit areas into an exposure range where detail becomes apparent. Then during post processing I will bump the mid-tones and dark areas up a bit to bring the image exposure more inline across the full spectrum of what was captured.

HDR is of course another option, where you take a series of images using different exposure values and allowing the software to blend them into a finished, more evenly exposed image. As this blog is mostly for novice and less experienced photographers, I'll leave the HDR discussion on the table for another time, but I will say HDR, although it has its place, is better suited for certain kinds of lighting situations like inside a Cathedral. The idea with a photograph in my opinion is to make it look natural and HDR, unless it is expertly crafted, can often make the image appear a bit "Over Cooked".

Many times, photographers at all levels will make the assumption that whenever they are photographing something, they must capture the scene as though it is an exact replication of what was seen. Yes, sometimes this actually does work, however, creative photography allows for you the photographer to capture less about what you see visually, and more about what you felt while you were there. This is open to interpretation by each photographer, but photographing the deep woods is a perfect opportunity to explore this concept.

What you want to accomplish is to create an image that imparts that sense of place and wonder. The Deep woods is often filled with both, but you have to not only look for it, you must feel for it as well. Sometimes it is just a momentary glimpse, the way a tree hangs out over a creek, they way a large boulder fills the frame, or how the trees themselves line up...or any other number of ways.

Photographing the deep woods can be one of the most inspiring and challenging of photographic opportunities. Just keep open the idea of capturing what you feel and look for those compositions that reveal the essence of the woods you encounter.

What The Ansel Adams Style Project Taught Me

When I started one of the most interesting photographic projects I've ever tried, The Ansel Adams Style Project, I wasn't sure where it would lead, but discovered along the way just how important a project like this can become. I never believed I would ever attain the prowess of the name sake of this adventure, but this project proved itself not only fun and rewarding, but instructional and revealing. What the venture taught me will be carried forward in my seemingly never ending quest to capture that one perfect image and hopefully provided a measure of inspiration to continue pursuing this fascinating form of photography known as Black and White.

I've always been a huge fan of black and white photography having had my early development as a photographer heavily influenced by its nuances. More often than not though most of the time in more recent years I simply would take color images and realize later how they would actually look better as a black and white, then convert them. The Ansel Adams style project forced me to look at the world through a black and white filter to do what Ansel learned during his development as a photographer, to visualize the outcome before ever snapping the shutter.

Visualization. A process of knowing the results before they occur. It is probably the most difficult aspect of photography for most people to fully grasp. Even experienced and technically competent photographers often struggle with its significance. Yet, it is one aspect I have attempted to refine over the years, not always successfully, but in a manner where I begin to experience the excitement of creating what I see in my minds eye.

Along with Visualization, I've always tried to live within the creative confinement of the art form, looking for light in all of its forms. Doing so sometimes causes one to drift toward being, dare I say, a bit depressed, because, well I do not always find the inspiration to create what resides within all artists. Searching for such things can become a bit futile when attempt after attempt falls short of expectations...and then...all of sudden, it falls into place. One such moment occurred during this project when I hiked into Shanty Hollow and discovered to my delight one of the most dramatic moments of light I've ever encountered. These are the events that make it all worth the effort, when stage, moment, and light converge to present the delicate flavors of nature in a magnificent encounter.

Worth all the effort? Actually, the effort came naturally, what was revealed was just how important it is to try something new every once in a while, to jump start creative instincts, to reopen the imagination,and to even relive and re-experience what the great masters might have accomplished. 

What I outwardly gained from this project I can only share in a feeble attempt at writing about it. What was truly gained resides inward in a deeper context of revelation and accomplishment. Rarely am I moved by the photographs I take, yet somehow when I view the haunting image taken within Shanty Hollow, I understand more fully why I started the project in the first place.

The Ansel Adams project started as a "let's see what turns up" kind of adventure. It finished as one of the most inspirational and exciting projects I've ever attempted. Even though I've set it aside as an exclusive project for now, it's really not over, for I will continue to explore this fascinating form of photography. Who knows, maybe that one great photograph I've been chasing will be generated from this ancient form of photography captured in a most unlikely place.

The Ansel Adams Project

When it's Just Not Working...Turn Around

Grumbling, I picked myself up from a rather ungraceful fall after just encountering a loose rock strategically placed on the down slope side of the trail for some unsuspecting soul to step on. Then I continued on my way and limped to the bottom of the Shanty Hollow Falls ravine and stepped onto the gravel banks of the outlet creek.

It was a bright sunny day, not the best kind of day usually to photograph within a heavily wooded area. The bright sun poked its rays well into the ravine creating a great deal of bright hot spots and dark contrasty shadows. At first I simply surveyed my surroundings and grimaced at what was there and started to reluctantly take photographs at what at first seemed to be rather nice looking compositions. Upon closer examination I realized what I was capturing fell well short of what my eyes were seeing. After several more unsuccessful attempts, I stopped and simply stood motionless, just staring at what was in front of me trying to figure how to visually make sense of what was there. Nothing seemed to work photograpically, then, I remembered an old photographer's trick...when it's not working, turn around... And so I did.

To my amazement what I saw set my photographic juices to flowing as the mid-day sun applied a brilliance of light to the leaves whose incandescence filtered deeper into the ravine to cast a glow across the horseshoe shaped amphitheater. I have often said that a photographer sees with his heart, and my heart was moved when I saw how the ravine was alight with an almost unnatural luminosity. It was amazing light, like none I had ever witnessed before and I instantly understood how here in front of me the natural world was to reveal the best of what I had hoped for. Photographing it proved a challenge because of the heavy contrasts, but I knew the results were going to be exciting. I found this revelation to be fitting because I was there following up on an Ansel Adams Style project where I wanted to capture nature in the same kind of style Ansel Adams might have used.

He once wrote about how the light he encountered in the high Sierra's set him on the path to becoming a photographer. His life changing words were filled with inspiration and insight and revealed a deeper understanding of what his purpose was to become. The light I encountered on this day had a similar effect, maybe not so dramatic as what he became, but the powerful, revealed light within that ravine spoke to me using natural, visual words of insight.

Sometimes photographic moments do have simple solutions. We just need to remind ourselves about the simplicity of doing something like turning around and looking in the other direction. Whether shooting a sunset, a rain squall, or from inside a shaded ravine, looking the other direction often reveals something new and unique.

Too often I find myself locked into a single way of thinking about the results I expect from a photo shoot. In reality, it is only when I let go of preconceived notions does the real opportunity reveal itself. Turning around and looking the other way sounds so obvious, I am amazed at how often I fail to apply such a simple solution to the bigger problem. Light is, as always, what I want to capture, not objects, and by first looking for the light, the purpose of the objects suddenly come to life.

I used a polarizer filter to reduce the glare, and held a graduated neutral density filter to the front of the lens to help balance the brighter upper portion with the darker shadowed areas. After several shots, I knew I had captured a remarkable moment of light and could not wait to download the results. I turned around again and carefully made my way out of the ravine.