Looking for small details in a vast forest, sometimes one finds natural abstracts.
This weathered tree stump with map like contours caught my eye. Here is a black and white conversion:
The Aspen leaf in this photo had not quite completed its color transformation, before it fell to rest upon a mossy bed.
I prefer to photograph these little details as I find them; but sometimes I’m tempted to move things around. I did not move anything in the photo above; but I can’t help but wonder, if I should have. Should I have removed the blade of grass pointing at the Aspen leaf in the middle? Or does that blade of grass serve as a useful pointer in this photograph? Would this image be better, if I had cleared away some of the debris around the edges or the scattered leaves, leaving just the single leaf in the center? What about that little twig resting on the stump to the left of the center leaf?
I have no objection to “posing” a natural scene for artistic purpose and I have removed man made items from natural scenes and I’m quite ok with this. I’ve occasionally removed a twig, a fallen tree limb or a blade of grass, if I thought those were distracting in a scene. But nature is not perfect, so will “cleaning” a scene make it unreal? Is unreal ok in this sense? No one would know the scene has been modified, if not so informed by the photographer. Is it acceptable to “manufacture” a natural scene?
And I will wrap up this portion of this morning’s photos with one final forest image, which I just noted this morning was chosen for Flickr’s Explore page.
Stay tuned for the rest of today’s story,
Ken