Lady Bird Johnson Grove.

mcamann

This photo was taken in the Lady Bird Johnson Grove, Redwoods State and National Park, Humboldt County, California on 24 December 2016. I really struggle with forests as landscapes. They're hard to photograph from within. These are coast Redwoods, the tallest trees on Earth. Portrait framing just raises the haircut on the trees and restricts the horizontal scope of the image, making it feel cramped.

More photos at https://mcamann.smugmug.com.

Best,
--Mike C.

black mamba

I couldn't agree with you more, Mike. I also find that shooting a forest scene from within presents particular challenges that can be tough to deal with. The range of lighting can be an issue....very contrasting in many cases. Your inclusion of the forest trail is the element that makes this shot work. Otherwise, you just have an image of sticks that point skyward. Good work in a tough environment.

Tom

roaddog52

Very nice capture. I agree with Tom 100%. You did a good job capturing the essence of this location. Sometimes a person on the trail can add as sense of scale to a shot like this.

Stumblebum

Its wonderful, but that blue hole in the tree branches.....at the edge up top......it is bit of an attention getter...If mine I would consider either filling it up.....or cropping tad below it....cheers!

Cornflake

Very nice. Heck, I struggle with everything.

mcamann

@Stumblebum said:
Its wonderful, but that blue hole in the tree branches.....at the edge up top......it is bit of an attention getter...If mine I would consider either filling it up.....or cropping tad below it....cheers!

Worse still, it's close to blown out. I bracketed this exposure one stop under and used a two stop soft edge ND gradient filter to hold back those bright patches of sky but it wasn't enough. That sky patch still looks clipped. :-(