Through the Woods

As I stood beside this creek on an unstable, rocking stone, balancing my camera in the middle of the large drop right beneath my feet, pushing the tripod up as high as I could, one foot soaked in the icy water from an earlier misstep, all I could do was make tiny adjustments. Hoping I wasn’t about to take a plunge I managed to find my framing at last. I took only a few shots, noted this location as somewhere I needed to return to later. The musty scents, the sounds of the stream, the soft diffused light almost intoxicating, transporting me to a primeval time where the elemental elegance of a intimate scene such as this could set the soul ablaze. My discomfort forgotten, and joy overtook me. The natural world speaks to you, sings to you, one need only listen.

This small stream is a challenge to shoot for reasons many woodland scenes are. Brand, briars, bramble all threaten to ruin the composition. Part of you, in the moment considers cutting it back, giving yourself more to work with, but that’s not what we do. We don’t damage the world around us, and so I found the precarious boulder further back in the scene and worked on the composition. I originally considered this shot a failure, though upon revisiting the photo nigh on a year later I found beauty in it.

As far as the actual edit here, there wasn’t much to really do. I brought down the highlights, opened up my shadows. I desaturated the image a bit, then went about dodging and burning very lightly. The mistake I made in the past was being too heavy handed, not blending my lines well. I have begun feathering my masking tools a bit more, refining the light and shadows more. This photo required very little in the way of post processing and it looks better for it.

Until Next Time!

Aperture: f8
ISO: 160
SS: 1/4th
Focal: 14mm

Fujinon 10-24mm