Trail Head – O’Neill Park

I think that I have to admit that I am still a landscape junkie. Yeah, I know, I need some therapy, so I get to blame this on my anxiety, so it ain’t my fault. Yeah, right, as though there was someone else who composed this photograph and pressed the shutter release. sigh.

The earlier photograph I shared from this same morning walk was in color, just as I had pre-visualized it, while this portrait of a Southern California tree is a slightly toned black and white, pretty much as it was pre-visualized. I do have to admit that the color version of this photograph is not too bad either. This tree is almost the first thing I come across when I use the local trail head walking into the O’Neill Park, so I pass by this tree very often and to be honest, this is not the first time I have photographed it. This day there was a really nice element by the light, while the cast shadows in conjunction with a slight change in color of some of the leaves that seemed to beckon my artistic muse.

The bottom version was what I created directly in the camera and posted on IG (@douglasstockdale). A different look, although I find this almost equally interesting as the image, above. For the in-camera, I had fewer edit options, so I allowed the leaves to take a little more prominence, in conjunction with an over-all soft glow effect.

I am deferring to the above image that was post-production edit in RAW/Bridge and PhotoShop. In post production editing I can tweak the various aspects more carefully. Which reminds me that next time I was walking in the arroyo, that I was going to experiment with the RAW capture capabilities of the Samsung S21Ultra phone. So hopefully I will remember next time, eh?

Cheers!

Doug

Featured photograph; O’Neill Park, 2021 Copyright Douglas Stockdale

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Book workshop:

I will be leading a Creative Photo Book workshop with the Southeast Center of Photography (SEC4P) later in the Fall of this year. This will be a virtual event on Zoom; November 6 & 7th and 13 & 14th, 2021, 10 AM – 1 PM, EDT (3 hour session each day, with a week between the weekend sessions to work your book-dummy). Registration is now open, and there is a SEC4P membership discount. Just advised that it is SOLD OUT & wait-list has been started. Let me know if you have any questions! (Update; another new date being scheduled in late January 2022!)

Developing a Creative Photo Book, a virtual (Zoom) workshop I will be leading again in conjunction with Medium Photo with New dates: March 5 – 6, 12 – 13, 2022 More details and sign-up available now at Medium Photo.