Tag: branch

Unexpected Happens

Photographing the same place again and again is like visiting an old friend.

A couple of weekends ago I went to Olympic Coast for 3 day photographic trip. I decided to start this year with visiting my old friend: Second Beach. By far it is my favorite beach for photography. There are so many different opportunities there.

While driving there I noticed something else that caught my eye: an amazingly saturated greenery of fresh spring leaves. It was amazing. The result was that I spent most of the day time during those three days in a forest.

Now let me welcome you to Olympic Peninsular forest in spring.

Photographing Light

Can light be a subject of a photograph? I’m absolutely sure of it. More than that, light is often the main subject of my photographs.

A week ago I was walking in Seattle Arboretum looking for spring blossom. I made a few photos but nothing was clicking. I was ready to give up and headed back to my car, when I saw this light. Actually several kinds of light in one scene: rim light on tree branches, and sunrays breaking thru the branches forming a waterfall of light.

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Spring is Here

Finally, I’m done with processing my photos from my winter trip to Canadian Rockies. And all of a sudden spring arrived to Seattle. This means it is time for photographing cherry blossom. One of the most popular places for cherry blossom in Seattle is UW Quad. During weekend of nice weather the place is packed.

I typically go there early in the morning, somewhere around 6am. It is more deserted and with street lights it looks more interesting.

I noticed though that with each year more and more photographers come early too. On Saturday there were 20 photographers, on Sunday – 30. With tripods standing, bags lying on the ground and photographers walking around it becomes quite a challenge to have a clean photo. Well, it seems coming even earlier and on workday, I still can have the place to myself.

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No Hibernation!

A while back I wrote that I tend to fall in kind of artistic hibernation in winter. It is hard to push yourself out of warm cozy home into bitterly cold of winter wind.

This year I did it! I pushed myself out. I started going into the mountains and taking photos. I bought enough clothe to keep myself relatively warm even in wind at temperatures well below freezing.

So, this year I can show a few winter photos starting with a few simple ones.

Thru the Leaves

Traveling in a company of other photographer is both fun and educational. We can pick up ideas from each other, extend each other’s knowledge and creativity. On one of such trips I picked up an idea from other photographer to photograph waterfalls thru leave or include leaves and branches as a framing element in the photos.

Here are two photos from that trip that gives the idea of what I mean. The first one uses branch as framing element and the graphic of another branch being moved by air forced down by the waterfall. In the other the branch is the main compositional element. I liked the graphic lines of the branch.

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Fishing For… Photos

Looking thru archives is like fishing. And sometimes you get a worthy catch. Like this image coincidentally about night fishing. 🙂

The Night of Fishing
The Night of Fishing

Photo Accidents

Sometime I find a photograph just by accident. Like this one.

I was photographing flowers in a forest. The flowers were across a small creek that I could not cross. So, I was photographing with my hands stretched out, composing by looking at a live view on a screen on the back of my camera.

As my hands got tired I let my camera hang on a strap. That’s when I saw reflections down in the stream on the screen. I was immediately captivated by interweaving mesh of branches and interplay of continuously changing reflections in a moving water.

Look Up, Look Down

After taking panorama of cherry trees in blossom at University of Washington campus I started photographing individual trees. Always my favorite shorts of trees looking up into the sky with a wide angle lens. I love the mesh of branches:

And then I focused on individual flowers and brick pattern with a macro lens: