I was anxious last night because I wanted to get up early today and head up to Lake Huron to hopefully do some long shutter speed blurs at the shoreline during twilight. However, the weather forecast didn’t look like it was going to cooperate with my intentions. One of my favorite tools for checking the weather is the NOAA Graphical Forecast. I like this particular forecast tool because it offers a lot of different overlays to show you what the conditions are going to be like, in addition to temperature, rain, etc. I like using it to check forecasted sky cover to see if a morning twilight might have a chance of some nice colors.
While I haven’t learned the secret formula yet for colors, I have learned that if it shows solid gray across the state, your chances are pretty much ZERO. Even a bit of rain wouldn’t bother me if the tool showed it moving past quickly and clearing the sky before dawn. Still, it was worth checking early this morning to see if things changed overnight.
I woke up early, checked it again, gray skies all morning. While gray skies didn’t work for my hopes of being at the shoreline and seeing some color, gray skies are great for working in the woods for a while. So an idea this morning was to work on some tree blurs, spring blooms, or whatever I might stumble upon. I have really had an itch to do something completely different.
What you see here is what I ended up with A sycamore tree amongst some other blurred trees in my woods using intentional camera movement techniques (ICM). I’ve also referred to it as “Shaking the Trees” in reference to the Peter Gabriel song. Sometimes we just need to change our plans to go with what mother nature tells us is the right thing to do.
Tomas, Greg, and Tom – a belated thanks!
@Greg – I like that rule of thumb!
This picture is very beautiful, and the other ones on your blog are too but this one is my favortie I think! how do you take a picture like that, and what camera do you have? I’m into photography a little but I don’t really know that much about it.
Thnaks Elli. Really the type of camera doesn’t have much to do with it. This one was a combination of exposures, one where I shook the camera, and the other I didn’t.
Pretty color gradients – cool that you could achieve this on a grey day.
This is a superb image, Mark. Many of our trees have had a harder life, and hence don’t have straight trunks making images like this difficult. You really nailed the color palette too. Well done.
Also, great suggestion on using NOAA’s tools. I think if you can figure out the formula for a colorful sunrise/set, you’ll be a very rich man! My only rule of thumb is, “don’t pack until its black.” It seems like as soon as I pack up, the sky lights up on fire….
Amazing photo, Mark. I really like the colours and the one step behind similar photos. Great work!
I love the colors in this. Nice work on combining the two exposures. The image defies logic!
Thanks Roberta!
lovely Mark! 🙂 very ethereal. It reminds me a little of the ipad wallpapers my partner has been making by software blurring his images to give an essence of a place.
I have played with making blurs in software vs. in camera a little bit. I was just never pleased with the results – in camera just had a bit more “organic” feel to them. Thanks Suzy, I hope to be making more of this series soon.
That is a cool website and I now have it booked marked.
When looking at this image I felt a bit dizzy. 🙂 It has that strong an effect on me. After regaining my balance again I was busy trying to figure out how you created it: what technique did you use to keep that one tree in focus. Now I know. And, by the way, I just love that color of green.
I hope the dizziness didn’t stick around too long Monte. Glad to include a little mystery in this one, if only for a short while.
Mark, beautiful artistic results with this image. I like it very much!
I’m not sure I’d want a forest to really look like that. I think I’d be bumping into a lot of things if it did. 😉
You mean you didn’t feel that quake down there?! 🙂
That is a beautiful shot, Mark. I sometimes have difficulty figuring out exactly what to shoot on a completely grey day; I usually resort to macros, which seem to love the nice, even lighting. I guess, also, that the woods might work well too, especially in the spring with the different hues of green.
Same here Paul. It opens up to shoot anything that doesn’t include the sky. But even sometimes the sky will work in making moody images if you can get enough definition in the clouds.
This is absolutely breathtaking, Mark. What’s the trick, if any? It’s beautiful.
Hi Ken, not sure of any tricks, but I did combine two exposures in post – similar to the way they combine images for speeding cars to make them look “fast.” Thanks.