Forest Dawn | Weekly Photo #100
Wow! I’m ecstatic to have reached my 100th Weekly Photo story. When I started this project, I had no real idea how many stories I had in me and although it was clear in the beginning I would not be able to produce 52 portfolio-worthy photos each year, I still wanted to maintain a level of quality and not publish just any old photo just to keep to the schedule.
I started this project as I wanted a way to share my work without the quantity over quality pressure that seems to be inherent with social media. I found myself being more focused on feeding the machine, trying to crack the algorithm, and gaining more followers than the quality of photos I was posting, and I hated that! Since I started to post my photos weekly and even with a modest social media following, my engagement has increased exponentially. I talk to so many more people, receive so many more comments and it really has put the social back into social media for me. Again, quality over quantity!
Although I am incredibly grateful for the positive feedback and encouragement that drops into my inbox on a semi-regular basis, this project is very much a two-way street. Arguably, I get just as much from it as those of you that read my stories and enjoy my images. This project has helped me to improve my writing which admittedly, still has a long way to go but more importantly, it gives me the purpose and motivation to get into the great outdoors and attempt to capture 52 shareworthy images each year. With the last 12 months we’ve all had to endure, this project has helped me in so many ways, including my mental health and physical wellbeing.
Fujifilm XT2 | XF55-200mm | 64mm | 1/5th Second | f/11 | ISO200
At the time of my first post, 100 weeks ago, I was predominantly taking photos of urban landscapes in London with a bit of travel and local subjects thrown in for good measure, but over the last year, I’ve had to diversify somewhat and found myself exploring the natural world and discovering the joys of photographing my local woodlands and forests and that’s where I found myself on a cold, winter’s morning in January this year.
Although not far from home, I’d been to this part of the forest only once before as it was mostly open heathland and I tend to spend most of my time in the wooded areas, seeking out compositions amongst the trees but on this particular morning, I wanted to get out in the open and try to take a photo that incorporated the light and colours of the sunrise. This part of the forest works its way along a shallow valley so having parked up at the top of the hill around 30 minutes before sunrise, I made my way down towards the low lying land to seek out a photo or two.
Although I wanted to capture the colours of the sunrise, I still needed a subject and found myself looking around for some interest amongst the Scots pine trees. These tall, slender giants dominate this forest landscape as they tower over the surrounding trees and wildlife and if I could find the right one, with some interest and scale, I knew there would be potential for a photo.
As I descended the hill, getting closer to the valley floor, I spotted this pair of trees from the path which as you look at the image here, runs left to right directly behind the trees and from that vantage point, I would be looking directly at the rising sun. By now the sun was just coming over the horizon but the light was muted by the clouds in front of it, casting these beautifully soft purple, pastel colours across the landscape and into the sky to the west so I needed to get to the other side of the trees and point my camera in that direction to take full advantage of that gorgeous light that was hitting the landscape.
I made my way to the other side of the trees and got into position to line up a picture and at that point, I needed to make a decision. Do I take a landscape photo, keeping that sorry-looking pine, delimbed of its branches in my shot or do I go for a portrait composition including just that gorgeous tree to the right as it was looking beautiful in this purple dawn light? It didn’t take me long to decide to keep it in. The two trees were so different, representing two distinct, natural outcomes and I just couldn’t ignore the tension that poor tree brought to the image. I wish I knew the story there. Did this happen naturally in strong wind or something else? Was It just the trees time to go and make way for new forest life? I don’t know, but these questions, the contrast and light were all adding to a much more compelling story in my opinion.
Up went my tripod and on went my camera. Positioning myself quite far back from the trees, I decided to use my 55-200mm telephoto as I wanted to pull that background forward into the frame and with both trees adding balance to the composition, I set my two-second timer (to avoid camera shake) and pressed the shutter.
Back in Lightroom, I needed to work on the colours a bit to get them more how I remembered them when back in the field. The raw file was flat and desaturated, so increased the contrast a little and added some saturation back to a few of the colours, being careful not to overdo it. It was a special morning and I’m really pleased with how the final photo turned out.
Thanks for sticking with me all this time and here’s to the next 100…
…maybe.
Trevor
This post is featured in my Weekly Photo series where I post a new photo every Monday. To have this delivered directly to your inbox, you can subscribe to the mailing list here.