This Leaf and log have visual character, are complimentary to each other, and balance each other in the composition.
Looking for subjects in the woods can be a bit like a treasure hunt sometimes. I suppose you could photograph any ordinary ol’ leaf, or any log, any flower -but then what you might end up with is an ordinary photograph. Finding subjects with visual character requires a bit more searching. When I started to think about what leads up to finding such subjects, I noted these three basic premises:
I am quite familiar with the woods around where I live. I have hiked through them so much it sometimes feels like staring at the back of my hand. Despite being familiar with the territory and habitats, walking through them to find photographs can be a little like finding a needle in a haystack. Sure there are a lot of trees, leaves, logs, ponds – but many of them look ordinary to me by now. Perhaps it is because I am overly familiar with them. So I really look for details that are a bit different, details that give the subject some character.
Walking through the woods becomes like having a conversation with them. A lot of small talk going on, but after awhile, something interesting is revealed. An interrogation is taking place whether you consciously acknowledge it or not.
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Red bud leaves
My approach to searching for patterns in nature is fairly simple. I look for the defining repeating elements, but then I need something to break it up, to create the focal point. If the element that breaks up the pattern is related in subject matter to the pattern itself, it works much better. I think our brain naturally wants to process visual input like this, otherwise our eyes are lost wandering.
I usually end up emphasizing one or the other in post-processing to further help the relationship in the pattern. If we remember that our eyes are drawing to the most sharp, most contrasty areas of an image first, it gives us some clues on where we need to work with the image.
I made this photo of red bud leaves some years ago, but originally released it as a monochrome shot. I just recently processed the color version. I think it works well both ways. Obviously the pattern is fallen leaves from a red bud tree, one that happens to be in my backyard. I like the colors and varied state of degradation of the leaves. The two leaves towards the center of the photo have something unique about them – they are both face up. This was a more subtle way to break up the pattern of the fallen leaves beneath.
I did have some selective burning to do on the edges of this shot since some of the leaves had bright spots on them. I did this by using the Adjustment Brush in Lightroom. By darkening these areas, I eliminated some areas of higher contrast than the two central leaves.
Returning to soil
I saw this second image while walking in the woods one day. The pattern I saw was the brown leaves, all in various states of shriveling up. It is much less homogeneous than the red bud image above, and perhaps the prominence of pattern more subtle. It is much more gritty and broken up, but I still see a pattern within. Because of that, I thought I needed to look for a stronger element to create a strong focal point. I did find a section of these leaves with a branch running through them. Some selective burning was also required in this image to eliminate high contrast areas near the edge of the frame. I titled this “Returning to soil” as all of elements here are in the process of doing just that.
I enjoy making these kind of images because you can make them anywhere. You don’t need a grand scenic or to fly thousands of miles. Often they are right outside your door.
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Leaf Art
I visited a nearby pond this morning to check on how my favorite bacterial film is doing these days. Seems like an odd thing to say eh? For those that may not recall, the colorful film here is created by a natural decaying process of plant materials and the decomposing bacteria.
I tend to like these images with only a single leaf, and the pond was getting quite packed with them by now. It was hard to isolate something into a pleasing composition. But with some careful looking, you can find one with enough “colorful filmage” around it. I was able to return with 3 different images that I liked. (see more here.) Whoever thought decomposition could be so colorful?
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Fall leaves after rain on riverside slate
Despite being mid-Summer here, I am already yearning for the cooler temperatures and variety of color of fall. I am not a big fan of the heat. It saps my motivation more than I would like on a great many things – photograph – keep up with my blog, keep up with other blogs. :-)
I have always been one to try to look at any particular scene for its very basic graphical elements. Leaves certainly make for good candidates due to their very recognizable shape. This particular image I had sitting in my files for awhile, originally because it had some distortion in it from the wide angle lens I used to create it. The distortion bothered me, so I put it aside to fix it later. Well, my fellow photographers know how long the interval can turn into from putting something aside and then actually working on it.
As it typically happens, I am sorting through my files looking for something else – for a print order on another image or stock submission – and end up finding images I had forgotten about. I originally uploaded this to my gallery as a horizontal, but the more I think about it, I think it looks better as a vertical. So another one gets rescued from purgatory.
Thank you for visiting.
…more fall color leaf pictures …
Read MoreJust as I did for 2007 and 2008, I suppose it is only fitting for me to take on looking back at the year of images I made in 2009. Most of them can be considered as favorites, but mostly they represent some significant direction I took with my photography or hold some special significance. Sometimes it is quite hard narrowing the list down to a manageable number or picking between two images of a particular trip or outing. Looking back on these images helps me solidify where I may want to go with future projects, and also it may give you (and me! 
) some insight on where I am headed with my photography.
Lightroom categories
With my images now scattered across multiple hard drives, it is quite convenient to have them all available in a central catalog in Lightroom. I am pretty certain that database management of images will become more commonplace (if not already) as people outgrow their storage volumes and have images scattered across all of these digital shoeboxes. It is much easier to group similar images and to look for patterns for special projects or arrangements. The process of selecting them was next, so I created a special collection for 2009 just as I did for 2007 and 2008.
My unprocessed images are RAW files stored by date, so they are quite easy to find everything for 2009. However, once I process and file them, they become organized by subject independent of dates. So I needed to use a metadata filter for 2009 to pick up all of the unprocessed and processed images that were made in that year. I then sorted that by images that were already flagged as “picks” to narrow the hunt down further and dragged candidates into the collection set for 2009. Then I weeded through those until I had 10 remaining.
Over time as I accumulate these lists, I suppose it will be interesting in how they compare. I am hard pressed to see any major shifts in what I like over the past 3 years. If I would have assembled a list say 15 years ago and compared, I am sure there would be a lot of differences. Over a greater period of time, picking “favorite top 10s” is kind of like asking someone their top 10 favorite songs when they are 16 years old, and then when they are 40. Chances are those lists are nothing alike. So enough of this process gibberish – let me move on to sharing my favorites of 2009. They are presented in the order in which they were exposed during the year.
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