Birch tree

[julsoph]

Hey all...I just got back from Maine recently...spent two and a half weeks there with my family. I had a great time taking pictures, since we were staying on a lake...it was very scenic.
This is one of the birch trees there...

[photophorous]

I like both of your birch tree pictures, but I like this one best. The sun is neat in the other one, but it causes too much darkness in the bottom. Maybe if it were a little more obscured by the tree trunk. This one makes me feel like I'm in the cool shade. I bet it was nice and quiet there. I love taking pictures of trees. They just amaze me...I think because every single one of them is unique.

Paul

[julsoph]

Hi Paul,
Thanks for your feedback on both photos. It WAS nice and quiet there...very lovely, as a matter of fact.
Birch trees are my favorite trees to photograph, mainly because you usually find one individual one per cluster of trees. Thanks again for looking and commenting.
Emily

[Lava Lamp]

Ever read this?

Robert Frost. 1875?

Birches

WHEN I see birches bend to left and right
Across the line of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them 5
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells 10
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust?
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed 15
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun. 20
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
(Now am I free to be poetical?)
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows? 25
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again 30
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away 35
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish, 40
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.

So was I once myself a swinger of birches;
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood 45
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over. 50
May no fate wilfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree, 55
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

[julsoph]

I hadn't read that, Lava...thank you for posting it! I loved it.
Emily

[Chunk]

I like the composition here and the interesting shapes of the birch and it's branches, but I find the glare around the edges to be distracting. I'd try burning in the outer areas or a darker overall shot with the birch trunk dodged to bring it out from the confusion of the bg.
Very nice.

[Seb]

Hey all...I just got back from Maine recently...spent two and a half weeks there with my family. I had a great time taking pictures, since we were staying on a lake...it was very scenic.
This is one of the birch trees there...

Emily, this is a very nice photograph! The tones are magnificient and the tree is almost poping out of my screen. The various textures are superbly rendered. The composition is good too.

I must agee with Chunk about the glare though. I was thinking that you might try to burn these areas but I am not sure that it would work so well (there might not be details to retrieve there). Thus, my suggestion would be to slightly crop the left side and the top of the picture, I don't think that it would hurt the composition although the picture would end up being different.

regards

Seb

[julsoph]

Chunk...thank you for the suggestions re: the glare. I'll fiddle with it and see what I might be able to come up with.
Seb, I also like the idea of trying a crop if the burn/dodge doesn't work. Thank you so much for your comments on this.
Emily