Space in the negative
Welcome to February 2020. The cleaning purge from last month continues, and is quite the weight off my mind. In spite of that, I’ve managed to get out a bit more than last month, though still not as much as I would like.
This time around the theme seems to be about negative space. I wish I could say it was intentional, but I’m not that much of a planner. I shoot to the conditions, and the conditions lately have been fairly flat. No crazy weather events, just open skies with a bit of cloud, or an overlay of uniform clouds providing little definition.
To whit:
Just a plain river shot, but the day was misty and moody. The empty and nearly featureless river supports the stark textures of the trees. There’s something “aged” about the scene, or at least that’s my take on it. I took a bit of a risk and applied some split toning, a subtle warmth in the highlights, and an equally subtle coolness in the shadows. I had thought of applying a basic sepia-tone, thinking it might enhance the “aged” feeling, but it felt too artificial.
A trip out to the Grand Beach dunes after a snowfall was rewarding. The light was fairly harsh, so while this is a similar scene as above, I was shooting into the sun so the effect is much more contrasty. I really liked the backlighting on the tips of the grasses and reeds. It’s cropped as well, as I think it works better as a panorama:
Later at Grand Beach a few thin clouds gave the sun a veil, and I was able to get this next shot, also somewhat backlit. No negative space here, really, but hopefully a balanced and measured composition:
I feel like I’m finally starting to pay attention to more of the elements before snapping the shutter, rather than getting home and realizing I should have cropped it differently. The above shot is exactly how I wanted it to appear when I was out there, which is a nice feeling. There are gentle diagonals from left to right, converging upper right; the bottom reeds provide a base and also a leading line to the first diagonal…
blah blah blah. Honestly, it feels pretentious to be over-analytical about these things. I guess my only point is it came out how I wanted, which is a rare thing.
On the way home from Grand Beach the sunset suddenly became spectacular. I missed the best of it, as a “god beam” of light shot straight up from the horizon. I practically slammed on the brakes, and when I pulled over, the god beam was lined up with the hydro tower, so I tried to make the best of that. Unfortunately, by the time I got set up it was all but gone. Still, I love the colours:
On a technical note: the trick with pictures like that is to not be fooled by the camera. The camera wants to expose so that everything looks like “daylight”, if I had let it do what it wanted the picture would have been much brighter. There is something to “exposing to the right” (which I’ve mentioned before), which is basically adjusting your exposure so the picture is “overexposed”, and then fixing that in post-processing. The reason to do that is often a good one, as the more light the sensor can capture the more it can override any noise. But I’ve found the colour recovery is much poorer if you overdo it. I did take a couple of pictures at slower shutter speeds, brightening up the image, but after correcting it back down in post-processing the colours seemed washed out. I mean, the colours above are the kind you slam your brakes for! The washed out results of “expose to the right” and fixing in post-processing aren’t worthy of a brake slam.
So I guess the lesson is “don’t be fooled by what the camera wants, but trust the camera to capture it correctly when you dial it in”. And of course all that very much depends on equipment, brand, etc.
Anyway….
Back to our theme of negative space, I went back to Bird’s Hill a couple weekends ago, closer to sunset, and was treated to some great light. The sun was setting to the south-west, and to the north east was a dark wall of clouds promising snow, and it made for some great contrasts in the wide open spaces:
That might look familiar, it’s a colour version of the title shot:
I do like the colour shot well enough, but the B&W treatment just tickles me more. There are several things I like about it (though I’m happy to be corrected if someone has a different opinion 😄 ). First, the play of light on the foreground snow, it’s almost as if the trees on the left are casting their own light and shining onto the snow. I like the lines and how they radiate into the grove. Then I like the sudden texture of the distant line of trees (though I wish I’d had my Pentax for this shot…the Olympus doesn’t resolve the detail that well). Finally, it feels to me like the negative space of the sky provides a sense of scale for the entire scene, hinting at some infinite expanse beyond.
Part of me feels like it might be over-processed, but…it just really captures how I felt at the scene. So there… :)
A couple more in a similar vein, though not quite as effective:
I included my own shadow, thinking it might provide some sense of scale or even a human interest, but I could have been more careful about the placement, and in the end I’m not sure it works.
The next is more just a study of contrast and texture. I like it well enough, but it’s not as emotional to me as the others. Plus, again, the Olympus was a bit disappointing in how it resolved the detail. This isn’t a picture that can be printed large, but it’s the type of picture that should be printed large (if at all).
Close up is a different matter. I still get a kick out of capturing the small stuff, and this little weed just looked so strong and purposeful in the late evening light, undeterred by the snow all around, it just deserved to be memorialized:
As the sun was setting I found myself trying to find a good subject. I think I was hoping to capture some kind of silhouette against the amazing sky. But I think I decided right then that I don’t really like taking pictures of sunsets. Which isn’t to say I don’t like taking pictures at sunset…that’s different.
Anyway:
Yeah. Enough of that. I mean, I guess I like some aspects of the composition, the curving lines of the trail kind of mirrors the curve of the clouds. But there’s something I find irritating about it.
Looking the other direction things just got fantastically weird. As the sun sank below the horizon, the light bounced off the clouds, and everything from the sky above to the snow below turned pink. The colour was nifty enough, but I actually kind of like this next composition. At first glance there’s a lot of clutter, but I believe I found some order in that chaos. The little tree in the left corner provides a starting point for a vague line that leads out to the trees beyond. And nestled in that distant line is a little hidden gem:
Turns out I was being watched. There is a deer in the shot, watching and waiting for me to be on my merry human way. It’s here:
I didn’t find this out until I got home, but on the way out I was hiking back in that direction, and noticed three deer bounding across the field. By then it was much darker, but I thought maybe there was a chance I could set myself somewhere hidden another time and maybe capture pictures as they crossed the field. It occurred to me that every time I have seen them towards evening, they are crossing west-to-east. Any hunters would probably know, but I imagined maybe they go west-to-east in the evening because the angle of the light: if the light is behind them they can approach the edge of the woods without being seen, and pick their timing.
With that in mind, this past weekend I returned to the park. About half way across the field is an old sand quarry, and a dumping ground where the park seems to like to pile tree stumps and campfire ash. I found what I thought might be a good lookout, set up my tripod, and hunkered down. It wasn’t that cold, about -12C, and I had my woolies on, with a camo- jacket, and a nice foam pad to sit on. It was enjoyable to just sit and listen to the wind and watch the sun set. I waited. And waited. And waited some more.
In retrospect, I probably stood out like a lighthouse. I didn’t see a single deer. Ironic because usually I see at least one or two by accident, and here I actually put in some effort and got nothing. Determined not to leave empty handed, I snapped a couple of very long distance shots of a couple out snow-shoeing with their dogs. Maybe it was the dogs that kept the deer away, but I think I should have found a better spot, and got there much earlier. Anyway, just for fun I’ll end with the long-distance shots:
We’ll see if I have the patience to try that again. Though I seem to have no trouble at all sitting far too much in the comfort of my home, I have a hard time sitting when I’m out. Maybe I should swap this :)
Until next time…cheers!
