Pathway Through the Woods

This is a pathway through the woods of Chip Ross park in Corvallis, Oregon.  It was a lovely, brisk morning.  The fog was starting to lift and everything was peaceful and quiet.  I took pictures of this path with both my Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8G lens at 14mm and 24mm and I took pictures of it with my Nikon 85mm f/1.4D lens both horizontal and vertical.  In a few shots I focused more on the path and in a few shots I focused more on the trees.  I’m trying to experiment with being creative in how I approach an object of interest.  A fellow photographer recently mentioned that in a class he took, they recommended trying to take pictures of an object of interest in at least 15 different ways.  That can be a challenge.

I’m also trying to take fewer pictures the exact same way.  I’m trying to get away from the “spray and pray” way of shooting.  Trey Ratcliff mentioned avoiding that in one of his eBooks.  I need to remember how to setup my camera in exactly the way that I want it and then take only one picture for that one way of interacting with the object of interest.  I have noticed this is difficult with such things as sunrise and sunset when you don’t know exactly what the colors are going to do as the sunrise or sunset progresses.  It is also true with animals.  When I was in a photo blind at the National Wildlife Refuge, you don’t know if the animal of interest is going to come closer or not.  So I shoot what is available and then shoot again if it comes closer or does something interesting.  With sunrise/sunset and animals, I assume it is just a matter of experience to reduce the number of “spray and pray” type shooting that you need to do.

But I was proud of myself with this photo shoot of the pathway.  I only took a few pictures and they were exploring different ways of shooting the path.  I should have taken shots with different aperture settings.  In the end, the photo I thought that looked the best as far as composition went was shot with an aperture of f/2.8 when I think I should have shot it at an aperture closer to f/16.  All part of the learning experience.  I also only took one shot of it because I didn’t think I was going to do HDR with this photo because it was foggy and there wasn’t a dramatic range of lighting that needed to be captured.  In the end, I did do HDR but it was unfortunately based off of only one photograph because that is all I had to work with.  It was a RAW 14-bit photo, so that helps, but I should have shot a 3 or 5 bracket set of exposures for a true HDR treatment.  I also used Topaz Adjust to bring out the colors that were there within my mind’s eye but that the camera fails to treat adequately.  So here is my simple photo of a pathway through the woods.