Posted October 24th, 2010

Forest Floor

Last weekend the Whitehorse Photography Club hosted a 3 day photography seminar instructed by renowned Canadian photographer, Daryl Benson, who we brought in from Calgary. The Sunday session featured a field outing to a forested area along the Millennium Trail near downtown Whitehorse. Afterwards we reviewed some of our better images from the day and, amongst mine, this was the one that caught Daryl’s attention so I guess that qualifies it to be a Feature Photo. The forest floor is mostly a chaotic jumble of elements. Daryl did not offer an explanation of why he thought this image succeeds but I believe it is because I found a semblance of order in the arrangement of cones, cone fragments and leaves in this composition, while it retains enough randomness to not seem contrived. I made another exposure at an aperture of f/16 but I like this f/9.5 version better because the subtle softness in the lower-lying cones provides a more natural 3 dimensional feel to the image.  
Pentax K10D, Sigma AF 70mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro @ f/9.5, 0.5 sec