Re Another Difficult Day etc

Good Evening: I'm still trying to get the hang of this blog: for some unknown reason the pictures are published in the reverse order in which I load them. (?)

There's a standard forest picture. I'm still trying to get the hang of it. Dappled light floating through trees and leaves always looks wonderful when one is outside, but most of my efforts to photograph them come a cropper. I am discovering that avoiding forest floor is often a good idea as the muck below often just spoils the effect; if the light is pouring in too strongly between the leaves one just gets lots of blowouts; & taking pictures of dark hillsides, albeit with stippled light, just doesn't seem to work.

I spent a fair amount of time trying to photograph an interesting vine-covered branch with a drooping vine, hanging over the river, framed by the banks, and surrounded by lots of other branches. Don't think I got it but here are some efforts. One of the frustration was the high contrasts; the left bank, the right bank and the sky were not within two stops of one another, so something had to give. Fortunately Barbara showed up in time and advised to expose for the highlights and let the pennies fall where they may. I used a wide angle and a polarizer but, truth be told, I really needed to wade into the water to get the picture I think I wanted. (I did wade into water but that was inadvertent and occurred on the walk back where that excuse for a river crossing found me tempting the gods once too often, and one foot experienced the full wet force of that miserable tributary of the Potomac.)

Anybody else finding these excursions challenging?

Another Difficult Day at the Office

Pictures taken Out of Class

Hello:

I'm writing in to let everyone know what must seem obvious, that the pictures I posted are not ones I took during our Friday excursion. For me, that excursion was an embarrassing tutorial on how NOT to take pictures of forests, and forest floors. Not a single image worked - in fact they were ALL rubbish. Sufficiently galled I set myself the exercise of revisiting the site in order to look for improvement. So I went back twice. Once on a morning about 45 minutes before sunrise, and then later on during an afternoon when it was raining, although when I set out it was merely sprinkling. The pre-sunrise time was lovely: from the same spot on the overlook I was able to get some pictures of the sunlight slowly gliding down from the tops of the trees on the opposite shore, till it met the cliffs and then continued. (I haven't posted these, fearing a surfeit of posting). The wet afternoon also paid dividends - lots of little spots just became more intense in colour, and rocks, moss, trees, shrubs, pools were just that more note-worthy. I find that it's hard to get good angles and perspectives for all the branches and twigs that obstruct one's view, and that forest floors are immensely chaotic, and elude that simplicity that more often than not makes for a good picture. I wonder if anyone else finds the same? Farid. Oh, by the way, if anyone wants to see some of the other photos I've put them in a gallery which may be accessed via this link:

http://tinyurl.com/y45q5rb

berma road & great falls

Great Falls 2