Learning to Photograph Forests
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- čas přidán 15. 07. 2024
- Forests are among the most complex places to photograph. As someone who looks for simplicity in my images, the visually chaotic nature of forests makes them challenging for me to find the kind of compositions I'm usually drawn to. Last December I spent a week in the forests of the Pacific North West at the end of my US road trip with @hougaard_malan trying to learn how to do it.
Chapters
0:00 Intro
0:24 Del Norte Redwoods, California
4:27 Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park, California
6:23 Olympic National Forest, Washington
11:33 Hoh Rainforest, Washington
13:10 Conclusion
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I live in Vancouver and can completely relate to the challenges you faced. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone out for the day and come back with not much I’m proud of.
Thanks for the comment. Yep, it really is pretty challanging, and you really need the conditions (mist for example) to help out
Brilliant!! Many thanks for sharing this with us. I truly appreciated your honesty about how, even for you are an experienced photographer, it was difficult to photograph new landscapes and themes. Your shots were very inspiring and your thoughts about composition extremely useful. Cheers Nico
Thanks so much for the comment, really glad you enjoyed the video
I just came back from there. The BEST!! Love the challenge Great astro from Secret Beach location.
Glad you enjoyed your trip
thank you. Andy. I am so happy to be looking at your world.
Thanks so much, glad you enjoyed the video
I love watching your videos. I watch your videos after a hectic day and it helps me relax. The beautiful shots you take make my whole day.
Thanks so much for the comment, really glad you enjoyed the video
Nice to see you here in PNW Andy. And as always love the way you explain stuff and the challenges that you've faced when photographing rainforests.
Thanks so much for the comment, really glad you enjoyed the video
Quick, mesmerizing and mastery in overall production!
Thank so much for the comment 🙏
There were some beautiful shots just in the video, I think. Sometimes I shoot video and take a frame out of the film, and create photo which can be stunning.
Thanks for the comment, glad you enjoyed the video
Yeah, love our northwest forests. Glad you could experience them.
It's a really special place. Thanks for watching
I love the dark green tones that classic neg produces in the forest
These are all editing raw images, and I can't remember what film simulation the camera was set to...I think it was Eterna, as that's the closest to the RAW files in terms of brightness in the shadows and live histogram
@@AndyMumford Oh i am aware, I was speaking on general terms. These look amazing :)
And thanks for the tip with the Eterna Film simulation
Oh man, as a PNW native you experienced many of the same issues I do! Trying to find the harmony/composition in chaos, flat v high contrast backlit light and rain/moisture management.
Seeing you learning to work these elements is very helpful, thank you.
Now I know why photos of our most incredible places just never seem to do them justice.
I hope you enjoyed your time here!
Thanks for the comment, glad you enjoyed the video. It’s an amazing part of the world
welcome to my world…..great info for everyone!…Dennis is really looking forward to Namibia!,JG
Thanks so much! Just finished the first Namibia tour this year and looking forwards to having Dennis over here in a couple of weeks
Stunning images and location Andy ❤
Thanks so much for watching
Beautiful nature, magically captured by you. 👍👍👍 Thanks a lot for the beautiful video 🙏.
Thanks for watching, glad you enjoyed the images
Fantastic video and images as usual! Thanks for inspiring me to buy a Fujifilm camera!
Thanks so much, glad you enjoyed the video
The photo at 7:52 is gorgeous! Love the lighting.
Thanks so much
Andy it was lovely to see how you are enjoying the challenge and the beauty surrounding you. Love your stunning images
It was an amazing trip, and a fantastic place. Thanks for watching
Photos look great!
Thanks so much 🙏
I was probably in Jedediah the same days you were. Unbelievable place. Something I wasn't expecting was the perspective from the car. Seeing the massive trunks just completely overtaking the view is something I will never forget.
Yep, it's a really amazing place, and the drive through is incredible. We were there in the first week of December last year
Welcome to my world- just a bit North in Vancouver, Canada, where I’ve had the pleasure of trying to photograph this dramatic chaos for many years. I’m often drawn to backlit lichen (you called it moss) hanging from the trees.
Thanks for the comment. Not been to Canada (yet), but the Vancouver rainforests would certainly be on my list
I had the pleasure of hiking part of the John Miur trail(Rae Lakes Loop) and it was absurdly beautiful. That is south east. I’d love to get to the north for the massive redwoods.
Thanks for the comment. Indeed, you have so much amazing wilderness in the US
Wonderful video. I enjoyed hearing you work thru the process to create images that express the experience of the forest. I appreciate you putting the camera and exposure info to help us learn. Happy Trails!
Thanks much, glad you enjoyed the video
Thanks for the video. Beautiful scenery ❤! I am surprised of the colour grading you used for these pictures. Something new.
Thanks so much, glad you enjoyed the video
Amazing shots Andy!
Thanks so much 🙏
Very nice images. I agree with you on forest photography. It is indeed very challenging and difficult, but definitely a beautiful environment to experience as you said in the video.
Thanks so much. It's a fact that I think we can often be so fixated on the technicalities of photographing a place that we can forget to properly "see" it, and be present in experiencing it
I always look forward to your videos!
Thanks for watching
Amazing. You truely are an artist with a camera. Very inspiring.
Thanks so much for your kind words
Nice work! I can relate to the difficulties in photographing these chaotic forest scenes - it is definitely hard! Thanks for sharing your beautiful images.
Thanks for watching, glad you enjoyed the video
Brilliant photos Andy! The sunstars and the shot with the camera on the road between the double yellow line were exquisite!
Thanks so much for the comment, glad you enjoyed the video
Great video 🙂👍
Thanks so much for watching 🙏
@@AndyMumford 👍
Great video, thanks
Glad you enjoyed it
what a place to visit
You're right, it's absolutely incredible
Great work as always Andy.
Cheer Nate, glad you enjoyed it. Hope all is good with you
Wonderful
Thanks for watching
Great video and images, thanks for uploading. I've up there to the giant redwoods many decades ago and I can vouch that they are incredibly challenging to photograph, but quite spectacular.. 😊
Thanks so much for the comment, glad you enjoyed the video and images
Wow amazing 😁
Thank you 🙏
Fantastic video. Thanks for sharing. Like 👍
Thanks so much for the comment, glad you enjoyed the video
I feel your pain! I've been spending a bit of time on Scotland's west coast recently and have become attracted to the remnants of the Caledonian temperate rain forest. Not on the same epic scale as the Pacific Northwest, but a similar environment; mosses, lichens, ferns. It's an achingly beautiful landscape but, as you say, taming the chaos is a challenge! I think this is the sort of environment that lends itself to a body of work, marrying the wider compositions with details and even abstracts, presented as a panel, book or wall of framed prints.
I found it very instructive having you voice your thoughts as you were feeling your way through, to you, an unfamiliar photographic environment. Thanks for making the video.
(If ever you're in Scotland, check out Ardnamurchan and some of the pockets of woodland along the Great Glen for similar opportunities)
Thanks for the comment. Yeah, it was really challenging, but I felt I was getting the hang of it by the end. However, when I started to edit the images I realised that they were probably better than I thought they were going to be...However, it's vert condition dependent, in that mist really really helps
Great video Andy and very inspiratiinal. Woodland photography is indeed very challenging. What I enjoy most is looking for characters (trees that are a little different) and try to build a composition around them. Rainy and misty days are wonderful in woodland.
Thanks so much for the comment. It takes a while to get your eye and and learn to see the place, but you're right, after a while certain trees do start to stand out
@@AndyMumford you're welcome.....that's very true, and part of the enjoyment.
If I may be so presumptive as to offer some advice, instead of looking for one focal point in the forest, I find it useful to look for several and then see if I can make a composition that brings them together in harmony. A group shot instead of a portrait, if you will. Can I also say how damn jealous I am of the opportunity to shoot these locations! Your Hoh Forest images are my favorites here.
Thanks so much for the comment. I certainly want to go back and try again
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Love the shots. I live in a mountainous rainforest so i'm somewhat aware of the difficulties. One thing i would say is that the 'chaos' is a fact of these environments - one that doesn't play easily with a particular perspective on what photography 'should be' - but is that a problem with the forest or is it a problem with how we view photography and its purpose(s)? Are we too averse to The Real - the actual-factual that we consider to be 'chaos'. Do we do a disservice to both scene and audience when we over-simplify for (our current version of) aesthetic 'imperatives'?
Thanks for the comment, really glad you like the images. I totally agree that chaos is a fact and indeed an attraction of these environments, and that's part of the reason we went. I hope I didn't give the impression that this was a problem of the forest, other than it's a photography puzzle that takes time and thought to solve. I certainly wasn't averse to it and loved my time there.
So I wouldn't say we're averse to the real, but it's a fact that our brains prefer harmony to chaos. It's a matter of information processing. Think of an orchestra...many instruments playing harmoniously together...but if all those instruments are playing individually, without harmony, then it becomes a noise. Our brain doesn't deal well with the volume of information it can't separate out. This isn't a modern thing, it's been around in all music for as long as we've been creating it across different cultures, and even music which doesn't easily follow those conventions (freestyle jazz or traditional Japanese music like kabuki) still needs some form of structure for it to not be chaos and for the brain to be able to process it.
You could say the same about poetry, and how it takes the complex structures of descriptive prose, and crafts it into more harmonious structures.
So I don't think it has anything to do with current aesthetic imperatives, photographic composition is rooted in the fundamentals of much of art, that of creating balance from chaos, and the imperative of that revolves around the way our brain interprets the information it's presented with. To much of it, to much noise, and we start to edit stuff out to make it more palatable and easier to digest, and on a personal level my photography has long leaned towards the search for simplicity, balance and harmony in how I create my work.
This point, together with Andy's response, is a very interesting topic. The pursuit of bringing order to 'chaos' in nature is part of the human process of creating art. We start with a blank canvas or a jumbled one, depending on our point of view and our concept of where we would like to end up. Point of view is certainly influenced by (among other things) culture. Andy makes a great comparison to music. Western music has currently evolved to incorporate a 12 tone scale in which major and minor keys play a major role (along with church modes, used more frequently in jazz). Music in other parts of the world can be very different. This really is a fascinating area of discussion but I'll stop here 🙂 Great video!
Great to see you in Redwood Forests, welcome! I spend many photo hikes in them - Medoncino, Sonoma, Marin coastal areas near my home. From one of you earlier videos, I copied your Kase magenetic filter setup as in the forest I'm constant moving polorizer on and off due to constant changing light, plus need the magnetic lens cap. We had an amazing wild flower bloom this year. Consider Jenner Headlands, Pt. Reyes NP, Golden Gate NP/Marin headlands next time.
Thanks for the comment, and good to know you found the filters useful. Thanks also for the recommendations...we'll certainly be back
Fantastic photos as always. Very interesting to hear you thoughts on this, have you considered focus stacking?
Thanks for the comment. It is very rare that you need to focus stack with an APS-C sensor (which I used here) as depth of field is so great, and all of these images were taken with one frame (with the exception of the sun star images, which I explained). If I'd been using the GFX though, many of these would have had to be focus stacked.
What a great video! It was great seeing how you approached a new environment and thinking about how I would approach the locations you found. Never shot in a forest, either.
One idea that came to mind with the stream you found and the lack of a focal object being a real problem. I thought that maybe getting low and wide, and using the water as a base or platform with the branches and sky opening upward instead of all objects converging mid-frame might be interesting. Could also look extremely hokey. Did you try any odd angles like this in your forest photography, and if so, did they come out well?
That shot at 12:30 is just beautiful!
Thanks for the comment, glad you enjoyed the video. I think getting low to the river...the river would have been an awfully large area of empty space. If it was fast enough flowing to do something with a long exposure that might have worked, but I think it would have just been a large empty dark space at the bottom of the frame
@@AndyMumford Ah that's a good point. From the high angle there were a bunch of interesting reflections that made the water look brighter but I'm guessing they would have went away down low? Damn physics 😁
Hope you got to visit Fern Canyon
Sadly I didn't, but I certainly plan to go back
Thanks Andy, I've been to Redwoods National Park and Olympic National Park in Washington State. Both Stunning places to be. I believe Olympic National Park is one of the few temperate rain forests in the world. The moss hanging from those trees grows at a rate of one inch every 25 years (or so I was told). I sense the quality and colouring of this video is different from your previous ones. Have you made any changes to get that look - which looks fantastic !
Thanks so much for the comment, glad you enjoyed the video..and it really is a special place. When it comes to editing, I spent a while trying to find a style that worked as it is different from what I normally shoot. In the end I went for a slightly desaturated greens and strong reds, and enhanced the mist with dehaze quite a bit
Compared to the boreal forest, these rain forests are fairly open and easy to shoot.
We were in a number of forests, some more open (Hoh and Olympic) than others (Crescent City). I think it's a bit of a push to call them easy to shoot 😳
I was here just last September, and in the end what worked for me is too get rid of as much light, especially sky in the frame, as possible. It seems like you did the opposite. I was looking forward to cloudy days so I could focus on the texture of the trunks. And rain makes that texture pop, which you can use. I tried to go the backlit way like you did, but for me it doesn't work, because this is not how the forest feels when I'm walking in it. It's not bright and dreamy, for me it's imposing and rough, you feel in awe. So I just removed the sky completely, focused on the bark, the moss, the few geometric shapes I could find. Ironically you had way too much sun during that trip. In Olympic, if it's sunny you go to the mountains, to Hurricane Ridge and Obstruction point. And if it's rainy, yeah Hoh rainforest and Quinault rainforest. In fact, I prefered the Quinault area. In the Redwoods area, by far the best area for me was Prairie Creek, which was what the ranger said to me, and he was right. It had the longest hikes, the largest trees (except the "secret" grove in the national park that you have to book in advance), and nice diversity. I was also pleasantly surprised to see some nice old growth in Mount Rainier National Park, although Olympic and Redwoods were still better. It's just nothing like Europe, we just don't have that here, we destroyed all of our old growth forest except for tiny pockets in Norway and Poland...
Thanks for the comment. We went to the forests because my friend whom I was travelling with has always wanted to shoot there, so we were never going to go to the mountains, and actually we had very little sun (just a few moments in the redwoods, and one afternoon in Hoh, when I did the sunstars) and for the most part if was raining. There's very little sky in any of the images, but what we did get was mist, which I really leaned into.
Did you use the xt5 handheld for many shots? What sort of shutter speeds could you comfortably get to with the IBIS?
Thanks for the comment. None of the images was taken handheld. Light levels really were too low there
Loved this episode, Andy and it gave me a perspective to never ignore exploring new and unexplored opportunities, like you did in this, of Forest photography. I follow Adam Gibbs and he navigates this landscape often, living out of Vancouver Island. Thank you for this adventure.
Thanks for the comment, really glad you enjoyed the video
Listen to the landscape, great video but you are struggling because you cant apply conventional landscape photography rules there. It’s all in the details, closer crops etc
Oh, absolutely you should listen to the landscape, but I don't completely agree that the only solution is in details and tighter crops. Like any new landscape it takes time to tune into it's rhythms and what works, but by the end of my time there I was happy with my images, very few of which are details or tight crops.
First one🙂
Haha, you are! Thanks for watching
@@AndyMumford Love your videos. These pictures are so stunning! Maybe you can make an editing video at some point, would be great.