A bit of wild Florida
black mamba
Registered Users Posts: 8,323 Major grins
Some cypress trees along the banks of the St. Johns River a little south of Jacksonville.
I always wanted to lie naked on a bearskin rug in front of a fireplace. Cracker Barrel didn't take kindly to it.
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Halloween is early this year?
That... that just looks alien. And nightmareish. I love it!
"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" - Wayne Gretzky
Dang! I must have been holding the calendar upside down.
I tell you, David, you pull into a dark cove with a stand of cypress trees like this, consumed by moss, it does get a little spooky.
Spooky is right...
I rode & floated thru the Honey Island swamp in Louisiana; Tom is right it can get spooky...
That moss is interesting... it grows in air & they used to use it in car seats in the 30's...
Interesting treatment Tom...
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Thanks for commenting, Rags. I stepped out a little on the treatment to emphasize the eerie feeling I was getting from the scene.
For those not used to moss, you'd be well advised to leave that stuff alone. As a youngster on a camping trip, I made a nice fluffy, comfy bed out of it. I had not learned yet the folly of such a move. Those little devil red bugs make moss their preferred home. And there is nothing, nothing that can cause you more scratching misery than to have a mess of those creatures burrowed under your skin. The intensity of the itching is indescribable. A dab of fingernail polish over the affected site is often used as a treatment. It's said to deprive the little SOBs of oxygen and they die. The moss sold for floral decorations has been treated. In any event, it's best to just avoid moss.
Interesting shot. Black and white is inherently more abstract and permits greater liberties.
Gallery: http://cornflakeaz.smugmug.com/
I like this a lot, at first glance I thought it was IR, but apparently not, right?
www.mind-driftphoto.com
I agree with that, Don. I do very little B&W work, mainly because, to be good at it, I need to be more tuned in to the different nuances between B&W and color work.....mostly, to me, in PP. Since I've focused on B&W a little more lately, I've become more aware that it can be the preferred ( and sometimes only ) process in getting your image to tell the story you want it to. This image here is proof positive of that. Despite all of my efforts, I couldn't get a color version to convey the image that I was seeing in my mind.
I understand. I love color but there are times when color drowns out everything else. There's no reason to be a purist either way.
I took an online course in B&W three years back. It was mostly a Photoshop course but it helped a lot. It also improved my color work. You might want to consider something like that.
Gallery: http://cornflakeaz.smugmug.com/
I'm pleased that you like it. No, it's not IR, but I sure can see it looks like it could be.
The bark ( I'll call it that but it's more like a skin with grooves that run vertically up and down the trunk ) on the cypress trees have, naturally, a very pronounced bleached-out appearance. In this case, they were darn near white to start with. So I didn't have to fiddle with things too much to get an image that is certainly enhanced somewhat but not near as much as someone would suppose. Take care, buddy.
Tom...
As a lover of B&W, this image is wonderful! Nice work!
El Gato
www.globaltrekk-photos.com
Well, Gato, I can't tell you how much I appreciate your comments. It means a great deal to me