Among Giants | Weekly Photo #112
During the winter, while most deciduous trees have shed their leaves, young saplings will often keep hold of theirs throughout the colder months to help protect them against the harsh weather. With most of the woodland’s colour long gone over winter, these often-vibrant young trees add a much-needed splash of colour and help to break up the monotonous wintry woodland tones.
Fujifilm XT2 | XF55-55mm | 74mm | 1/3rd Second | f/8 | ISO200
Back in February, I set off into the cold, wintry woodland with my camera to photograph a clump of tall Scots Pines which I’d scouted on a previous visit. I wanted to capture an arrangement of clean straight tree trunks and Scots Pines, being incredibly tall and straight are perfect for that kind of woodland composition.
Following a woodland path, surrounded by these evergreen giants, a bright orange snippet of colour caught my eye so I went to check it out. I found it to be this young sapling beech tree with the orange colour being the golden autumnal leaves it was still holding on to. The young beech which was only a few feet tall, dwarfed by the pines and it stood out in the grey, foggy woodland providing a clear focal point amongst the tall straight trunks which were giving me the uniform lines I originally came out to photograph. I had my first composition of the day so, I unpacked the camera to take the photo.
Up went the tripod and on to it went my Fujifilm XT2 and 55-200mm telephoto lens and critically for this photo, my circular polariser (CPL) filter. I spoke about using my CPL and the benefits it can bring to my photos in a recent post where I was out photographing the wild garlic and this was another situation where the filter’s ability to cut through the reflective light massively benefited the final image as it gave those oranges an extra bit of punch, helping that young sapling to stand out in the scene.
If you’re a landscape photographer, be it wide vistas, woodland or even urban cityscapes, and don’t have a CPL filter in your bag, I urge you to get one as it can add something special to your photo which cannot be replicated in post.
Cheers,
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.