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The Living Forest

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Description

The Living Forest

The Bristlecones....The Bristlecone Pines are the oldest living thing found on planet Earth...and when you see them, it is like nothing you have ever seen with your eyes before, how weathered they are, how different, and how unique, appearing like something from the age of Dinosaurs. They are rare and found in very sparse areas on the United States, and fortunately, one of these areas is Mount Evans.

It amazes me, to see all these tourists just fly by these trees and not even thinking about them, probably thinking they are just weird looking funny trees (lol as I write this a Bald Eagle swooped RIGHT over my house and within a foot of my window lol crazy!)

I have always wanted to spend some time shooting these trees in a way I could REALLY make the composition work and this day was no different, there was a blizzard up above and the road to the top was closed, so this gave me the opportunity I wanted, and the light was awesome, really nicely difused...

I also have a B&W of this on my website here for comparison.

Hope ya all like it! Thought this would make a kickin' print!
John
Image size
1032x716px 567.6 KB
Make
KONICA MINOLTA
Model
MAXXUM 5D
Shutter Speed
1/320 second
Aperture
F/11.0
Focal Length
26 mm
ISO Speed
100
Date Taken
May 24, 2009, 10:31:02 AM
© 2009 - 2024 kkart
Comments162
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Alex37's avatar
:star::star::star::star-half::star-empty: Overall
:star::star::star::star::star-empty: Vision
:star::star::star::star-half::star-empty: Originality
:star::star::star::star-empty::star-empty: Technique
:star::star::star::star::star-half: Impact

This is a very dramatic image of an iconic subject which seems to pay tribute to the history of American, black and white widerness photography.

Vision: The atmosphere in this shot suggests the photographer had a very clear idea in his mind of what he wanted to achieve with this image. The concept of showing the bristecone pines against the backdrop of mountains is not new, but it is certianly a good one.

Originality and Composition: Whilst the concept is nothing new I do feel that the composition is strong and different to those images which I have seen before. In particular I like the way the centre of the image is framed.

Techinique: the conversion creates a strong atmosphere and the image seems sharp and well focussed. Hoever there are a number of areas for improvement in my opinion. Firstly there is a quite signifcant slant tot he left of this image. Whilst it is noticeable in the line of mountain tops it is certainly confirmed by the distant horizon. The cumulus in the distance are a little too white. It seems one of tow areas of these clouds are clipped whilst others simply have highlight detail which is too hard to see. Whilst I think the overall tonal balance is good, I beleive it could be improves. Certainly I think a little more could be made of the trunks of the bristlecones. I also think the foreground is rather flat, like the white point has been set to a light grey. THis kind of flatness is in my opinion undesirable in a black and white image and setting a white point would give a boost to the foreground. The vignetting is a little excessive for my personal tastes, but I accept that this is an artistic decision to centrally focus the viewers attention.

Impact: This image is really quite memorable, despite several technical faults and this is much to the credit of the photographer. Indeed I feel this is one of the artist's strongest works.