Seeing...Finding...Making - Photographing Woodlands

A seasonal fall coolness filled the woods as I backpacked down the side trail leading into my favorite location deep inside the backcountry of Mammoth Cave NP.  Known as 'The Bluffs' because of the long escarpment of rugged rocky outcroppings that line the top edge of a ravine, the surrounding woodlands in the peak of the fall season are filled with awe inspiring colors. As the trail wound its way down into the ravine, the magnitude of the colors appeared to grow with each step. The trail worked its way beneath a wide overhang outcropping where a spring percolated out of the rocks near the top and danced a trail of silvery water droplets into a pool at the base. A bit further on down, the trail dropped even deeper eventually disolving into the camping area. I stopped for a moment choosing to sit on the trunk of a weathered fallen tree and rest my stiff back and bothersome hip. I was at once engulfed within a rustic and ancient woodlands filled with the spectrum of peak fall colors as they sang their song of greetings, and I began to see photographic moments presenting themselves.

 Of all the varieties of photographic opportunities, one of the most difficult types to capture effectively are woodland photographs. They are also one of the most satisfying of photographs a landscape photographer can produce. They do present several problems and overcoming their inherent difficulties is a challenge, but that is what makes them so much fun and exciting to pursue.

I do a great deal of black and white photography, however, the majority of woodland photographs I produce are color images. The dilemma of deciding which format to use when photographing a woodlands area can at times become a daunting task. Both color and black and white have their place and offer unique elements of appeal. Color, especially in the Fall season, is my prefered choice, but...sometimes...black and white brings out details often hidden by the distraction of color. Regardless, the techniques of seeing, finding, and making a woodland photograph is the same for both. The final format is simply a personal choice made by the photographer.

What makes an effective woodlands image? First of all, woodlands by nature are cluttered conglomerations of lights, darks, colors, contrasts, trees, leaves, weeds, and rocks, often dominated by a single color scheme. An effective woodlands image is one where all the chaos of those things are arranged in such a way as to present an element of order to the scene. Doing so is not always easy nor does it always present itself. I've made woodland shots in both bright sunlight and hazy overcast skies. I prefer overcast skies as the light that filters through the canopy is diffused and softened. Even so, bright sunny days can provide some level of effective lighting, you just have to look for it. The photo above was made in bright sunny morning light. The angle of the light is what made it work as it penetrated through the woods at an angle and illuminated the canopy is such a way as to provide a bright contrasting background for the subjects to stand against. This is more the exception than the rule though.  Soft light tends to be more conducive to effective woodlands photographs. 

The photo on the left was made on a bright overcast day during the peak of the fall season. A bright sunny day would have created far to harsh contrasts and would have overwhelmed the image. The softer light magnified the colors and brought out the subtle differences between the yellows, browns, and reds. 

Seeing a woodlands image sometimes can fool a photographer's eye. What looks good within the dynamic range of our vision, will often not translate as well in a photograph. Our eyes are able to discern between the darkest and brightest intensities of light quite well, while the camera's dynamic range falls well short of being able to do so. Soft light helps to bring what we see visually into a similar range of the camera's capability. 

Woodlands are also quite dark overall and will require longer exposures. This in turn requires the use of a tripod. Long exposures work well with flowing water as it will soften the mood of the water. Moving water sometimes distracts our eye and it is easy to overlook the rest of the composition. Moving water in and of itself does not always translate well into an effective woodlands image. Only when it is combined with an effective background and/or surrounding woodland features does it possess a euretheal look to it. 

The photo on the right was taken late one morning on an overcast day. The low intensity, soft light filtered through the canopy of trees and bathed the ravine with a glow that illuminated the scene. A long 1.6 second exposure coupled with a small aperture of f/14 and an ISO of 400 was required, which created an effective blend of movement and detail. What makes this image work is the lack of clutter. Everything there works for the image. Nothing is there that does not need to be there.

Removing clutter is perhaps the most difficult requirement for a woodlands photograph. Doing so requires a keen eye for detail, a discerning eye to focus in on what is important, and an artistic eye to arrange the scene visually in such a way, all the elements within the scene work together in a pleasing manner. Sometimes you just have to move on or comeback another day with different lighting conditions. A woodlands location can appear completely different from one day to the next depending on the light angles and intensity or even the season. A rainy day might transform an otherwise ordinary scene into something that stands apart from the rest of the woods. Removing clutter or, said another way, simplifying the composition, does not mean the scene lacks for complex details. It can be quite complex like the image below.  It is just all the parts must work together not unlike the pieces of a puzzle. Composition is just as important for a woodlands image, maybe even more so, as for any landscape photograph.

Photographing woodlands is a challenging yet rewarding form of photography and will serve to develop your photographic eye toward a more advanced state of seeing. Keep it simple, wait for the light, remove the visual clutter through creative composition, and enjoy just being there. 

Seeing The Shot - Finding The Shot - Making The Shot

 The morning began with a great deal of potential. The sky held a brilliant blue streaked with a combination of high thin clouds and softer, rounder varieties. For a photographer looking for an opportunity to create a black and white photograph, the conditions played well into my plans. The problem was, I was not seeing the shot.

I had returned to a favorite location where photo ops have presented themselves before. On this day, I managed to take a few photos which proved themselves subpar duplications of previous shots I had made months before. I was looking for something newer, fresher, that stood out from the ordinary. I just could not see it. After a while, I decided to call it a shoot and head on home.

I turned onto the main road and enjoyed the speed generated breeze that whipped through my Jeep. A few miles later out of the corner of my eye, I spied a row of trees that stretched across the top edge of a shallow rise a few hundred yards or so off the road to the west. The sky, burnished with high streaking clouds, almost seemed to glow with a brilliance I had not yet seen that day. A quarter mile later, I reversed course and eventually pulled off the road where a commanding view of the scene prevailed.

Within a few moments, I had my photo of the day. What made the shot, was the ability to see it, find it, and make it.

Seeing the shot often comes suddenly many times out of the corner of your eye. Something stands apart that catches your interest. A shape, a reflection, movement, contrasts, something familiar yet different, something that stands apart from the routine and ordinary background. Seeing it comes in flashes. It just appears out of nowhere sometimes. Its recognizable but not necessarily familiar. The more you photograph, the more your eye develops that ability to see beyond the routine, and through the ordinary, to lock onto that which stands apart.

Finding the shot is the refining process the photographer goes through once he sees the shot. Our eyes see in a wide angled view and can be confused by all the additional clutter that surrounds the potential. Finding the shot is where you as the photographer wade through the clutter to visually define the shot. Which lens to use, exposure values, where to stand, low angle, higher angle, left or right, where to place the horizon; low in the frame or higher up. In finding the shot, you define the parameters and boundaries that frames and refines what your eye initially saw.

Making the shot requires patience. It is when after you define the parameters, you wait for the defining moment to capture the image. Waiting on the light, clouds to shift their position, should I return when the light is lower in the sky or higher, these among other intangible factors all work together to complete the photographic process.

All of these becomes instinctive over time. They do not always require conscious thought, but they do require a sixth sense of sort, the kind of sense that just happens and is difficult to define or explain. When you see it, you know it. When you find it, its obvious, when you make it you know the time is now and then walk away with a good feeling having captured something of the heart.

Being in the Moment: Finding the Right Place to Stand

 Many factors influence what makes a great photograph, choosing where to stand certainly counts as one of if not the most important. It sounds so basic, yet is perhaps one of the most overlooked and encompassing of all the factors because it transcends routine 'raise the camera and shoot' techniques and requires the photographer to make a discerning decision.

A wrong or indifferent perspective can cause a potentially great photograph to look ordinary and subpar. The best perspective can be something as simple as moving a few inches to the right or left, or kneeling down to ground level, or standing on the bumper of your car to get a little higher. It can also become as demanding as hiking across a damp field of waist high weeds, or climbing to the top of a ridge, or wading out into the middle of a stream, or lying down in a muddy field. Finding the right place to stand is the first foundational element of capturing a great photograph.

Other elements come into play as well. Time of day, lighting conditions or waiting for the light to shift, sun angles, season, weather, type of lens, exposure values, all of these and more serve as supporting elements from where to begin which is deciding where to stand. 

Before snapping the shutter, the first thing I do is to look at the edges of the frame. Is what is there necessary for the success of the photo? Are there distractions? If I move to the right or left or up or down or will swapping out my lense improve the framing...what about walking to the other side of the field? Will doing so improve the perspective?

Making a decision on where to stand comes with experience and eventually becomes instinctive. Always shooting from eye level and/or being unwilling to move around to make the required effort to discover the best perspective is a recipe of the ordinary. 

 Before long, you begin to more clearly see the elements of a scene and determine what is important and what is not. Observing what is there and then determining if what is there is required for the image you see in your mind is what helps develop the ability to visualize the shot before you take it. You saw something that caught your interest, but in every situation there are distracting and unnecessary elements. Fine tuning those initial visual evaluations by making the effort to find the right place to stand will refine and improve the final results.

 

The image on the left is one such photo. Taken at sunrise on a blustery late-fall day, this gravel road led to a rustic farmhouse nestled amongst a grove of trees. The main road ran perpendicular to this gravel road, but from the intersection of the two, the perspective was not right. Too much road to work with, and too far away from the main subject, so instead I walked a couple hundred yards or so down the road and stopped at the base of a shallow rise that rolled over and dipped a few yards on the other side. Fence posts lined the sides and cornstubble filled the pastures on either side. I tried a low down perspective which did not work; it flattened out the road too much. I looked at the framing from eye level which was not quite right, so I raised the tripod neck as high as it would go which gave me a few more inches higher than my eye level. It was just enough to capture the hump and dip and include the length of the old road as it flowed into the scene. Shifting to the right just a little, allowed the first fence post on the right to come into view which helped frame the scene. The rest was simply to wait on the light and set the correct exposure. Finding the right place to stand is what made this image work.

Being in the moment and finding the right place to stand is what separates an informed photographer with a trained eye, from an average picture taker. Not unlike a structure needing a strong foundation on which to be built, a great photograph requires a strong foundation as well, and that begins with knowing where to stand.