What Was I Thinking

I'm starting a series of posts to delve a little deeper into particular images that I think could be somewhat instructional. I want to go through my thought process during the image-making process. Maybe this series will help you a bit in your own photographic endeavors.



I was walking in a local park this past weekend, trying to get inspired for the coming fall foliage season. I can across a tree with these very unique and interesting seed pods. It was an overcast day, with the fog slowly dissipating (which is normally a great time for nature photography) but I was concerned about the following things:
- Lighting
- Sharpness
- Background

Even before addressing these concerns I must say that these pods were mostly at or above eye level, so I would have had a very hard time setting up the camera to get a quality shot. So I immediately searched out a sample that I could remove from the tree and shoot elsewhere. I found a small branch with a series of pods, and with the last pod already open exposing the seeds.

I initially looked for a place that I could position the branch in the nice diffused light, but have a dark background, possibly a shady area below another tree. There was no wind, so that was helpful. But I couldn't really find a good place where I could secure the branch and setup my camera to make the shot.

So I decided to take the branch home and work with it there. I set it up so it angled down slightly. The background was some dark cloth, and I lit it with a large softbox. I used a good quality 50mm lens to achieve a very sharp image. I made sure the pod branch was parallel to the image plane.

I made a series of images and under such controlled conditions it was not long before I had an image I really liked. I still have the branch in case I want to try different lighting (such as back-light) or different backgrounds. But I am quite please with my first attempt.