359 - Tree of Life
*Note: This adventure also features an in-field vlog.
This photoshoot at the Tree of Life was all over the place. About a million things happened at once in this adventure.
Ironically enough, it started out as one of my most tame shoots. The goal was to shoot this crazy tree we found on Atlas Obscura called the "Tree of Life." Basically, it's a tree holding on for dear life as it's roots are dangling off a small cliff.
It's actually pretty neat, and way smaller than I expected. Which ended up being a good thing- but I'll get to that in a bit.
The shoot started off fairly boring because there was no "hunt" for the tree. You park, walk 200 feet, and you're there. No hike, no challenge, no nothing. And when we showed up, it was being beaten to death by hard light from the sun, so we didn't have much to do until the light got better. We just aimlessly wandered the beach, hoping it'd get hazier sooner rather than later.
Luckily it did, but not without a few challenges. Since it was so small, I didn't have to mess around with other lenses. My 24-70mm held up just dandy. The HARD PART was finding a composition. See, there was this extremely inconveniently placed tree trunk in FRONT of the shot in the sand. It ruined most compositions- mainly because it was so big it HAD to be in the frame. It also demanded the eyes attention because it was stark white, which retracted from the Tree of Life.
I struggled for a good 20 minutes trying to find a composition that worked, and effectively came out cold. At one point I was even under this driftwood "fort," trying to frame it with wooden beams. I thought I got a decent shot, but the wood was so underexposed in the foreground with such a bright sky in the background, it didn't work. Maybe I'm not good enough at Photoshop yet to edit what I had in mind- I'm not sure.
All of a sudden Haley runs over and tells me to look at the ocean- where the MOST INSANE SUNSET is happening. And I was completely missing it because I was in some fort playing with a complex composition in the opposite direction.
The lighting gets the best of me and I booked it over to the beach to get some reflection shots in the sand. It was perfect- the sand was extremely compact so it retained water well, and the beach wasn't steep so it stayed there long enough when a tide came in. Here's the first shot I got, a total Instagram banger:
“Moon/Sun”
Sony a7rIII + Zeiss 24-70mm f/4
ISO 1250 ~ 24mm ~ f/11 ~ 1/20s
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
I messed around longer and longer. I'm not gonna lie, I completely forgot about the Tree of Life for a few minutes there, which was the whole point of this shoot. I snagged another long exposure abstract of the water, one for the ole' gallery. Check this baby out:
At this point, I milked the sunset it for all it was worth. The sun was gone. But I decided to hit the Tree of Life one more time on the way out, just in case some moodiness came out in the Twilight Zone that I wasn't expecting. And oh, did it hit. Fuck I'm addicted to twilight shots lately. Check this out:
“Tree of Life”
Sony a7rIII + Zeiss 24-70mm f/4
ISO 800 ~ 24mm ~ f/8 ~ 4s + Sky Composite
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
That shot came out ridiculously well lit from the subtle tones. Direct sun was definitely not the best light for that thing- hazy twilight blues were. I realized the caliber of the shot I was getting, and decided to snag a crescent moon shot from across the way to throw in the corner. Perfect balance, with a touch of spirituality.
Oh! One last note. If you look closely, there's a small rock in the bottom center of the shot. It's centered perfectly. It's a new thing I'm trying I call subconscious framing. Basically framing smaller subjects that don't attract the eye immediately, to give the viewer a SUBCONCIOUS level of perfection. There brain doesn't realize it's centered, only their whole mind ;).
I think this is a new way to hack the mind of viewers I'm discovering, that I learned from all those years of studying advertising in university. We'll see where it leads from here...
One more note, I promise. I also spent a good amount of time taking that annoying ass tree out of the shot. I think I made the cliff behind it look realistic, with a bunch of patch tool and cloning in Photoshop. Then blending the light to look more natural. I'm proud of this edit!
Anyway, it's late as hell and my weekend is tomorrow. BYE!
I’m on a mission to explore as much as humanely possible.
Want to see my progress? Check out the Adventure Map.
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