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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Eighteen: Light and Landscape – combining personal vision with nature’s gifts > Colors of the Merced, Yosemite National Park, California, 2004
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15-OCT-2004

Colors of the Merced, Yosemite National Park, California, 2004

Leaves of all colors line the autumnal banks of Yosemite’s Merced River as fall takes over from summer. I used a 432mm telephoto lens to shoot across the river itself into a sun-splashed forest glade dominated by a small but brilliantly illuminated tree, wearing its new autumn colors. Three tall trees seem to stand guard behind it, casting protective shadows across the face of it as well as on the ground in front of it. With the help of the spot-meter in my camera (my single most important tool for landscape photography) I was able to expose this picture for this tiny illuminated area, and put everything else into relative darkness. The result is a landscape photograph that uses light to tell its story of the changing season and neighborly protection.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ20
1/500s f/4.0 at 29.8mm iso80 full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto
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Guest 19-Jun-2019 14:53
So beautiful
Phil Douglis10-Mar-2005 17:11
Thanks, Catriona, for this wonderful interpretation. I saw the shadows as protective. You see them as confining. Yet for both of us, this image speaks of the eternal struggle for life itself, the balance of nature. Survival is indeed the issue here. We simply see it from different perspectives, which is what makes expressive photography such a broad and deep medium.

As for the spot meter on your camera, it is absolutely essential that you use it when you have bright highlights in an image. All have to do is select spot metering, and then focus on the brightest spot in the picture by pressing the shutter button halfway down. Your meter will read the light only in that spot and expose it perfectly for you. There will be no burned out areas in your picture. And even better, your images will automatically become more abstract, because when you use the spot meter to expose for the highights, your shadows will get darker as they do here, more mysterious. You will still see detail in the shadows, but the imagination of the viewer will become much more active.

Using the spot meter is like painting with light. In fact, I keep my camera set on the spot meter all the time. It is always preferable to have an underexposed image than an over exposed image. And the spot meter often gives you underexposure, darker shadows, and richer color. If you want to bring back detail, its easy to do with the Shadow/Highlight option in Photoshop. On the other hand, if you overexposed those highlights in these translucent leaves, the detail and color is gone forever.
Guest 10-Mar-2005 13:44
This is a thought provoking photo Phil. It is beautifully composed and the use of light and dark draws the viewer's attention to the autumn colours in the sunlit patch. The dark areas are light enough for the viewer to still see the context of the photograph.

Here is another interpretation of this beautiful photo - I feel as though I am standing in the forest surrounded by trees, even though you mention that you shot this from across the river. The tall trees imprison the smaller trees, restricting their growth by blocking light. The dark shadows over the smaller trees are in fact prison bars, keeping the young trees confined. It is a struggle of life, freedom and survival of the fittest. The autumn tones also suggest that sunlight is limited as winter is close and the young trees need all the strength they can get from the light.

I must try using the spot meter on my camera!
Phil Douglis29-Oct-2004 03:33
Once again, Bruce, its the spot meter in action here. I saw the interplay of light and shadow first. Then the translucence and color. And they are performing on a stage. Nature's stage.
Guest 29-Oct-2004 02:13
I've always loved backlit leaves. These ones are like lonely performers, spotlit on a large stage.
Phil Douglis28-Oct-2004 20:11
Marek, maybe I am a frustrated painter at heart, after all. I was fully conscious of everything you point out here, and I felt as if I was actually painting this picture. Only I was painting with light more than colors. Ever since I turned the spot meters on in all my cameras, and keep them all on permanently, I feel as if I am painter using light as my medium of expression. And it has led to some surprisingly productive results.
Guest 28-Oct-2004 16:26
This is an inspired painting, executed with the confidence of an old master. “Having beautifully defined in detail the sunlight on the auburn sapling, he run his brush in a series of three strokes across the subject, mixing pigment to wonderful and subtle effect", or something like that ;-) I used to paint a little up until my teenage years and this image evokes the joy and satisfaction a painter gets from mixing his pigments in just the right way. The three shadows create a marvelous dimension to the scene as they make the tall trees appear in front as well as behind the saplings. This emphasises the contrast of scale. Creating greater emphasis -- that something else you're expert at. Remember your China moat? This is a great example of cogniscence creating a strong emotive result.
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