When the glacial ice sheets retreated from Cape Cod, they left a dry depression in the land – a kettle – where a great block of ice had melted. Eventually, over millennia, as the rising seas lifted the fresh water table of the land, the depression began to fill with organic debris and water. Ultimately an area of peat, now 24′ thick (deep) in places, became the character of the kettle; and beginning some 5000 years ago Atlantic white cedar began to colonize the Cape, wherever conditions invited them, about 4600 years ahead of the Pilgrims. Today the charming, peat-filled kettle is called the Alantic White Cedar Swamp, and a wonderful trail winds through its thickly-growing forest of beautiful trees. It is a challenge to express them photographically, but it is an exciting opportunity as well, and one that I have come to appreciate whenever I am here. A focal length of 84mm, short telephoto, allowed me to isolate a small slice of the larger whole that seemed to convey my feeling of the entire forest. An aperture of f/18 provided depth-of-field, but also allowed for a shutter speed of 4.0seconds at ISO 100. A smaller aperture/longer shutter speed was a concern because there was just enough of a breeze to create motion in the understory foliage, which I wished to avoid. Trees are a story of timelessness that is shared with anyone who listens.
Howdy Don – These woodlands shots can be so hard to compose with all the busy detail, but you have managed to simplify your composition for a beautiful image. Was the “W” formation of tree trunks on the right half of the frame intentional?
Mike D.
Lovely texture in the bark of the cedars. This image shows that a photograph doesn’t have to be dramatic to be beautiful.
Hi Michael and Joel. Thank you both for joining me for his conversation. What I know to be true of both of you was well-stated by each of you in a different way:you are both serious students of photographic composition and photographic “seeing.” And I very deeply appreciate that quality in both of you. I love the White Cedar Swamp precisely because of the complexity of the elements and the difficulty of the composition. It was very gratifying to see how the shapes and lines arranged themselves as I moved through them. Michael, I did not set out to create the “W”, but as I moved through the trees, it became apparent that the letter “W” was being revealed. My primary intent was to create enough separation among all of the trunks that I could avoid mergers of the foreground trees as much as possible. As I moved from side to side, the line of green from the small trees became a distinct diagonal line that I wanted to incorporate.
Joel, I really appreciate your kind comment and words about drama not being necessary to the uncovering of beauty. Eliot Porter’s work with “intimate landscapes” is a constant reminder to me of this truth, and I wish that more people could wrap their minds around this idea. We have become so enamored of the drama that we tend to forget this.
Thank you both, very much. Your thoughts and comments are very clarifying for me.