Congaree National Park, SC

[David Kennedy]

Canon 5D & 70-200mm f/4L @ 200mm, 1/400 sec. at f/4, ISO 500
Congaree National Park, South Carolina, March 2008

My first experience with bald cypress and with photographing from a (moving) canoe. I wish I had more depth of field, but I also needed the shutter speed, and life is full of trade-offs. The colors in the base of this tree, combined with the reflection, caught my eye. It was also probably the most colorful subject that day as March is still a bit early. All comments and critiques welcome.

Oh, and it's level, I swear!!! :p

[gary rouleau]

I really like the way you cropped it -well done.
Cheers
gary

[Robert Amoruso]

David,

THis is basically the way I approach this subject. The right crop bothers me a little. It seems truncated as apposed to the left crop. I thought about it for a while and think it is because on the left side the trunk rib is set back from the one adjacent to it and on the right the cropped rid is in front of the one adjacent to it.

[Fabs Forns]

Very nice abstract. My eyes see a little tilt to the right, but it could be an optical illusion. Good eye to see this and well executed :)

[Jared Lloyd]

i like the abstract nature of this. good job. What did you think of Congaree? Its about 4 hours from me and yet I still havn't been. Was thinking about stopping in there this May for a few days before I head down to the Alligator Farm.

[Alfred Forns]

Would go for a pano crop Presenting as a mirror image would look good !!!! Excellent David !!!

[David Kennedy]

I decided to spend some more quality time with this one and think this is a better result. Like Robert, the right edge did bug me a bit, so I went back and reduced the crop (the original image allowed plenty of leeway with cropping) and then had to play with the upper right hand corner for a while. That corner, incidently, was the reason for original , more abrupt crop on the right.

Jared, I had a lot of fun at Congaree even though it was totally too early to photograph there. I would think that by May it would actually be green--of course, one of the benefits of going last week was that I had no mosquitoes to deal with! :D I rented a canoe from Adventure Carolina in Columbia for $30. They would have let me keep it for 24 hours but I returned it late that day because I was driving back to Durham the next day, but if you decide to go I'd probably recommend renting a canoe or kayak and camping at the park so you can go back out the following morning.

Fabs,
I just double-checked and it really is level. One of the problems with canoing down that river was that there were a lot of optical illusions to fool the eye!!!

Alfred,
I thought about a pano crop, but held off. Let me know what you think of this new version and if a pano crop would still be suitable. I'm open to it, I'm just not sure how I like it.

[Paul Marcellini]

I tried the same image in Ocala National Forest, also from a canoe. Never got one I was happy with. This is a lot closer to what I had in mind. I think here, maybe cropping at the crease 2 over(right) from the distinct shadow may work. I like the extra bit of color brought out in the new one also. Maybe go a bit more? Since it is an abstract, I think "reality" doesn't need to be as close. Just ideas.