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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Eight: Light and shadow shape meaning > Aspen Forest, near Lee Vining Canyon, California, 2004
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18-OCT-2004

Aspen Forest, near Lee Vining Canyon, California, 2004

If nature were to build its cathedral, it would probably look something like this. A picture inside of a forest is very difficult to make because of nature’s natural clutter. However in this case, I was able to use light to organize this forest of Aspen trees into a coherent landscape photograph. The sun guilds the floor of the forest and brilliantly illuminates the yellow and orange Aspen leaves up top, providing both a “floor” and “ceiling” for this natural cathedral. I also make use of the tent-shape shadow in the background, gradually tapering to a peak at the center. This peak crowns a single pair of Aspens in the back of the picture that pulls the eye right into and then through the image. The angle of the sun creates “rim” lighting on many of the trees, giving them a delicate glow. There is even very soft light deep in the forest, reflecting on hundreds of tiny leaves that twinkle like a band of distant fireflies. The rhythmic repetition of tree trunks draws our eyes across the forest, just as the light and shadow pulls them into it. I used my Leica Digilux 2 for this image because of the remarkable ability of its Summicron Lens to interpret light and resolve detail. All of these factors work together to help me express the very nature of nature, but it is light that holds the keys to its success as a landscape photograph.

Leica Digilux 2
1/40s f/11.0 at 13.4mm iso100 full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto
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Phil Douglis31-May-2005 23:41
Thanks, Derek for commenting on this shot. As I mentioned to Benchang earlier, composing a chaotic natural scene can be very difficult, and we must find a spot where shadow and light organizes it for us. The gap between those trees in the background is critical because it keeps drawing the eye into the image. Thanks for spotting the tiny artifact in the upper right hand corner and the touch lens flare. They are no longer there. (Electronic retouching of technical flaws is ethically OK in my book. )
Guest 31-May-2005 13:23
I like you composition on this, Phil, the light and colours are amazing, but Aspens in the Fall are pretty spectacular (OK with the right light). Personally, I think that you need the gap with the 2 trees behind for this picture to succeed, it give the viewer an entrance to the forest and invites you in, luckily there is just enough light on the 2 trees behind. However, on this particulat shot I would be inclined to crop a wee tiny bot off the top, I find the white hightlight a bit distracting (or you could do some trickery in photoshop to diffuse it slightly), once i found it, my eye did keep going back to it, maybe i am being a bit to finicky, but that is my point of view. Is that also a bit of lens flare i noticed just SW of the highlight i am talking about?
Phil Douglis30-Mar-2005 21:01
It is difficult, Benchang, to organize a chaotic subject such as this. We must find a spot where the light and shadows organize it for us. I had to make myself study the play of light until I found a setting where the foreground was more brilliantly illuminated than the background. I also needed a focal point, and looked for negative space created by shadow that would draw the eye into and through the image. The result is this image, which does indeed offer a three dimensional effect because of how I controlled perspective to imply depth.
Benchang Tang 30-Mar-2005 05:56
This is a masterpiece! The aspers at left are more directly lighted and that makes the picture more three-dimensional.
Phil Douglis03-Nov-2004 19:34
Why would you compare my picture to one by Ansel Adams, Zebra? We are both dealing with a similar general subject, but he is making an entirely different point and working in an entirely different medium. He builds his image around just one of many trees, and uses the forest itself as context. He carefully manipulates his print to abstract the forest. He includes a smaller tree as a link between the primary tree and the forest, which, as you say, invites us into it through those magically defined spaces. Adams expresses the fragility of nature in those glittering white leaves, and links them to the infinite strength of the community (the forest) for which they are destined.

My image is about the same general subject, an Aspen forest, but I am expressing an entirely different idea. Using golden colors, I am simply giving you this forest as a cathedral of nature. Instead of creating spaces between the most of the trees in the forest, as Adams does, I choose to concentrate on just one space -- that central space that leads us deep into the forest to that pair of trees in the background.

As for your assertion that Ansel Adams' image is more "attractive" than mine, I would remind you that it is alwlays unproductive to compare "apples to oranges" in photography, Zebra. If you want to learn more about expressive photography, you should always draw comparisons between images that pursue a common objective. Adams and I are working in entirely different mediums, and have chosen to express entirely different ideas in an entirely different manner.

I am flattered, Zebra, that you even suggest that Adams and myself are somehow connected. However, I can in no way compare my own work to Ansel Adams -- his work stands alone. It is in its own class. Anyone who bases their own vision on the work of another photographer is, in my view, on a fool's errand. I urge my students to pursue their own visions, in their own way. All of us can learn from the masters. But we should not presume to compare our own efforts to them. They do what they do best, and we do what we do best.
Guest 03-Nov-2004 17:50
Phil found out a gap in these tree trunks.Look through the gap,I see two tree trunks away in darkness.So I feel a room among trees.Adams is more brilliant.In his image,I can breathe between any two tree trunks. The room creat by Adams is more open,more fantastic,and more attractive.

I think one of the most important task for landscape photograpy is creat a room.A room where people can be free,can forget all troubles,can be alone,can love others,can be loved,can find real self...
Guest 03-Nov-2004 16:12
Phil,you and Adams photographed similar light.But two photos are quite different,not only different between color and b&w.Your photograph open a space between two lines of the trees where you lead us into.A mystic dark-yellow room with something attract me.Adams' is strong,full of order,and abstract.Two trees with leaves seem to stand on different sides of a mirror.Your image is realer,and Adams' is more like the scene in a dream.Phil,how do you think?
Guest 03-Nov-2004 11:36
Phil,look at this.I find it in google.com.


Phil Douglis28-Oct-2004 20:58
You are right, Anna. "Wood" shots, as you term them, are extremely complex. Nature is chaotic. The camera makes chaotic images, unless we can make it recognize the order that is often apparent in nature. So yes, it takes a lot of walking to find a perspective that works. And the light must work as well. I look for light first, and then seek order within a perspective. That's what I did here.
Anna Yu28-Oct-2004 17:15
Yes those are the two dilemmas of wood pictures. First the trees are all over the place, no order in nature sometimes. Then the light is most uncooperative. It takes a lot of walking to find a good spot like this. Beautiful shot.
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