This was shot recently in Portland’s Forest Park, the largest natural city park in the country. It’s a wonderful place for hiking, jogging, walking the dog (supposed to be leashed, but most aren’t). The unfortunate part is that most owners don’t clean up after their dogs so the smell of poop is everywhere. I once photographed for the “Friends of Forest Park” and had plans to publish a photo book on the park. But I had numerous run ins with dogs threatening me and one that peed on my camera bag as it was laying near me. So, I stopped that effort. It’s been years since I’ve been back, and pretty much nothing’s changed, so while I had some ICM fun and the environment is perfect, I doubt I’ll spend much time there.
Anyway, enough of that. For this image, I used a tripod and set my three-way head to restrict to just up and down motion. I found an appealing grove of trees and started experimenting. The foreground area of these trees had a lot of brush, so that accounts for the ghostly look on the bottom of the image. I found that for my movement speed, a 1/1.3 second exposure blurred things just enough. I also started my movement before hitting the shutter (using a wired remote shutter). I’ve found that, just like regular forest photography, you really don’t want any sky in the image.
Specific Feedback Requested
Any comments appreciated.
Technical Details
100mm, 1/1.3 sec @ f/11, ISO 320, tripod, polarizer. I also find that the upward movement results in a bit of a pincushion effect that has to be corrected. Processed in Capture One.
This is a really nice ICM image David! I really like the color, and how you were able to restrict the movement resulting in perfectly vertical lines. Well done!
I’m sad to here your story about Forest Park. I spent many days hiking that and Macleay Park in my early adult life. I especially liked Lief Erickson Trail. Great memories!
I really like this photo. I find the composition, colour and overall mood to be in nice harmony. The photo gives me the sense of looking down one forest path (left 4/5) while hinting at another path to the right.
Sad to hear about the dog poop/smell ruining the experience of the park.
This is a very beautiful image, and I like how it takes on an even more abstract quality than many ICM woodland images. There’s a very pleasing distribution of light and dark areas, and it works very well with the composition. My only suggestion would be to lessen the contrast and perhaps the saturation to calm the image down a bit. You already have such a dynamic image with all those wonderful lines and with the high contrast, it starts to feel a bit disorienting as I move my eye through the image. I really do enjoy this image David!
David, wonderful image! I really like the separation in the trees and the light behind them. As Ben mentioned, I would try to even out the contrast across the image and back off the green saturation a bit. I think your chosen shutter speed works well with the scene. Awesome work!
This is really beautiful, David! I could see this one paired with your other one with the 3 trees. Then you just need another one. On big canvases. It would be awesome! Really great work and I wasn’t thinking that a tripod would be useful for this but now you’re giving me another reason to have it on my list of things I want!
I do hearby bequeath my title “Emerald Forest” to you! I think it fits this image better than mine!
As I must mentioned in Vanessa’s post, the great thing about the ICM technique is that you get to toss out all the rules. I really like the hard contrast and crisp change from dark to lights and the color ranges as well. In fact, so much so I’d be tempted to crop some of the ghosty motion at the bottom and go full steam ahead with the higher contrast up top. But then again, no rules and so I’ll just settle back and enjoy this one.
Have you tried any hand helds yet? speaking of toss out the rules… gone are concerns about sharp focus and DOF too!
Ben and Alfredo, thanks for the suggestions. Here’s a version with the contrast and greens toned down. Let me know if this was along the lines of what you thought.
I may have gone too far with the green desaturation. I’m red/green color blind…let me know.
Vanessa, I have been considering a Triptych of the forest ICMs. Thanks for the suggestion.
Lon, no way I can mooch your Emerald Forest title.
I have tried several hand held ICMs, mainly with ornamental grasses, field crops (wheat), and reeds in water. I felt the trees demanded a bit more horizontal restriction to keep some detail. Next week I plan to try my hand at ocean and wave ICM. I plan to use the tripod there too but restricted to only pano movement. I want to keep the horizon even.
I had already tried your crop idea. I cropped to 16x9 as a desktop image:
Hi David,
I’m a big fan of the 16x9 crop. I like the intensity of the greens and the really dark greens in the original image, and the full linearity of this final crop makes this fabulous for me. I can see this printed big on metal with a satin finish. It would look fantastic on a wall or even outside under a deck cover.
You’re inspiring me to try some tripod ICM. I’ve only done that with zoom shifting, which increasingly looks a bit gimmicky to me, though I had fun with it for a bit. I tend to go totally free-hand on ICM, and I’m seeing the value of using a tripod for some good linearity and color control near the edges, just limiting the range of motions I make, I guess.
Thanks for the inspiration (and the word of warning about Forest Park). I haven’t been there in a while (figured it was trashed by houseless), but maybe on the heels of a heat wave it won’t be so heavily used.
Hi Marylynne, so good to see you here on NPN. It’s been a while. Thank you for the really nice comments on the image. I truly appreciate it.
Tripod ICM is interesting because in those cases where you really want to control one direction of movement as in vertical for trees, I think it offers some detail in the trunks. I also use a tripod at the coast for panning with waves. In that case I want to keep the horizon level and somewhat crisp, while having the freedom to move the camera with the wave. Although, free form ICM has it’s advantages and surprises too.
I look forward to seeing some of your images soon, Marylynne.
