I thought I would take a stab at the forest ICMs to achieve an effect similar to some of Dave Bostock’s images from Forest Park and some of Lon’s work with trees and grasses as well.
I wasn’t comfortable going to Forest Park alone, so I went to Mt. Tabor instead. Most of my ICM work has been more abstract than this, but I was really taken with the bark texture and the smoothness in the greens in the work of my colleagues here and wanted to try my hand at it.
I’m still working on technique. It’s fun to play around with possibilities (that’s part of what I love about ICM), but I am aiming for something specific here, and that can be a challenge. I’ve found 1.6-2.0 seconds to be close to perfect, but I wouldn’t mind a little less texture in the green understory. My big challenge was finding a place with plenty of vertical first and understory, but not much light peaking through the tops. I did these, I believe, by scanning from the top down to avoid catching bright spots of sky.
Any and all feedback welcome as usual.
ML
Specific Feedback Requested
Let me know what you think of this, and for those who do it regularly a few questions:
- What is your strategy for focusing: manual? one shot?
- Do you go for a shallower depth of field if you want less texture in the green?
- Also, I keep thinking about the concept of repetition and the appeal of odd numbers, so I’m curious about whether folks like more or fewer trees and well as whether the stray narrow trees or bits of dry branches add to or detract from the appeal.
Technical Details
1.6 second icm using a Canon 5d3 with 24-105 lens at 105 mm.
Tripod to limit horizontal shifting.
Cropped and straightened a bit.
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Wonderful first try at ICM, Marylynne. From what you have described so far, this is pretty much what I have tried to when I attempting ICM images. I do very slight movements, typically from top to bottom. I have been using a smaller f-stop in order to get a slower shutter speed. Almost always use manual focus with one shot (i.e. not stacked or multiple exposures). However, many times I do take many shots to obtain the effect I want. As for repetition, at least for me, that depends on the subject. For this image here, I do like the three main trees, sort of like the three wise men. The smaller tree on the left doesn’t bother me. It will be fun to see what others, who have a lot more experience than myself, think. Can’t wait to see more of your photos.
Marylynne, what a wonderful image here. I think your choice of shutter speed was fine for your movement speed. I usually go for a .6 or .5 second shutter speed, but then I usually move the camera faster and farther from top to bottom or bottom to top.
While I am not an expert at this, I do think you could have moved a bit faster to blur the foliage and still keep the texture in the tree trunks. But it’s also fine as is.
I think the overall color is a bit too green, I think the tree trunks should be a bit more on the gray/brown look. I took a stab at adjusting the color (given I am red/green color blind, that’s an admitted stretch), and increased the brightness some. Posted below for a simple suggestion. Your image gives me a green peaceful feeling.
This is such a fun avenue to explore.
As for your questions:
- Manual focus and semi manual exposure–I set the ISO, and shutter speed, then let the aperture do what it wants. Since we’re dealing with blurry images, who cares what the aperture is?
- Again, the blurring depends on shutter speed and movement speed. So, in this case, a bit faster movement would have blurred the background.
- I think that any image, even an abstract like this needs some element of composition to make it “viewable” to the audience. Trees in threes work quite nicely with a few other smaller trees accenting the trio. So you nailed that.
Finally, I think you’ve done an excellent bit of work here.
I totally understand your reluctance to hit Forest Park. I have found that Lower MacLay Park which is an entrance to Forest Park in NW Portland to be a very friendly place to go with some excellent photo ops. If you’re interested, PM me and I would be happy to meet you there one morning for an hour or so walk there.
Well done with your experimenting, Marylynne.
Here’s my take:
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Thanks for the feedback, Linda and David.
Linda: I’ve done a good bit if ICM before, but it’s usually even more abstract so this is my first time trying to get the context and effect. It’s fun to experiment. One rainy winter day I threw swaths off fabric on the couch and painted the sensor that way. I learned a lot about how color works with that experience.
David: I’ll play with faster movements. Most of my past ICM was closer ton10 seconds, so speed of movement wasn’t an issue. And I didn’t use a tripod for those. I was wondering whether higher f stops used for slowing shutter speed was somehow adding to the texture in the greens. More movement and faster might be the ticket.
And I like the browner/grayer trees for color contrast. I always tend to stay a tish too dark. I actually turned down my monitor to encourage brighter output! If I can get on the downhill side of a taller ridge, should get rid of the “sky fall” as I came to call the streaks of white. I’ll be doing some hiking at Cooper Spur this weekend (above tree line), but there’s always the drive. I’ll give you a holler if Forest Park is my destination before the colors change.
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Hi Marylynne, this is a fine first attempt at forest ICM. I like the separation in the trees. Your selected shutter speed is fine. I’m usually at 0.5 seconds and use a faster movement of the camera to help blur out the background. I shoot manual, usually at f22, ISO50, and 0.5 sec. I auto focus then switch to manual for a series of ICM images.
For forest ICMs, I think it’s important that there be a strong composition to go with the motion. I’m always thinking about the intent behind adding motion. Am I trying to show some interaction of elements or colors in the scene? Am I trying to convey a certain feeling or mood? Keeping these things is helpful when trying to determine if a scene would benefit from adding motion.
Keep up the good work and enjoy the process of experimentation!
Thanks, Alfredo. I really appreciate your feedback on this. For me, the reason I love to use motion blur for this type of scene is the dreaminess and the sense of calm that I get when the “clutter” of the understory gets blurred to color washes and the detail in the trees is streamlined ( with all due respect for the messiness of understory ). For me it’s about not missing the forest for the trees, as the old saying goes. It’s about the ambience of forest more than its details, and about how it might look if entering through the fog or in a dream, or in a soft-eyes meditative state.
I wonder if it’s my ballhead that requires me to use a slower shutter speed and I’m just not moving fast enough. Or it could be my mid-day shoot time on this occasion. I’m going to keep playing with it. I actually have a place in mind for a large metal print of something like this, and as this is a crop (albeit a minor one and on a 5d3), I’ll want to make sure my image quality is a bit better in my next effort.
I’ll be out of range this weekend, but I’ll tweak the color and exposure a bit next week and replay to any additional feedback then.
Thanks again for all who take the time to look and comment. This is how I learn, and I am re-acclimating after a period of relative inactivity. “Y’all are the best, and all the best people know it.” (quote from an old movie).
ML
Hi Marylynne,
Wonderful ICM image from the forest. I too think the three trunks are working well for the composition - although for me, the main interest is in the left half of the image.
I agree with David that the color is a little too much towards green/yellow. Of course colors in these images are 100% personal choice, but I do like how David was able to get some nice texture and color out of the main trunk in his edit. (Although the greens went a little bright, IMHO.)
It’s interesting how you retained some texture/detail in the green background with such long shutter speed. I can only guess that the motion was pretty slow? there in lies the challenges - and rewards with the different motions, shutter speeds and motion speed(and direction.) I’ve personally found that 1/4s is usually my starting point. Then of course you vary the speed, duration and direction of the motion for the various effects. The longer the shutter speed for me, the more blurry and blended things become (but then if I slowed down the motion…)
To your first two questions, I typically will focus manually on the scene for basic “ballpark” focus. Remember, once you blur something it’s now out of focus by definition… so just getting the main subject in basic focus is all you need. Then I take off auto-focus and don’t refocus unless I change distance or focal length (zoom in or out). DOF I don’t even consider. In fact as David mentions, the aperture is almost irrelevant here. I will adjust the aperture to get the shutter speed I want. If I have lens distortion or other quality problems at extreme apertures like f/32… I don’t care because it’s a blurred abstract to start with. So… my main choices are to get me to a shutter speed I want; than means iso changes, aperture, adding a filter like a polarizer, etc. Once I’m in the ballpark I will experiment with different shutter speeds, motion and direction.
Off to a great start here! thanks for sharing and we look forward to more!
Lon
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Thanks, Lon. Your feedback is always thoughtful and detailed. I really appreciate it. I think that greenish hue on the trees is a result of dragging some green from the understory up into the tree bark. I’ll keep playing with it.
When I started doing ICM, I would almost always do about 10 seconds and multiple repetitions of the same movements. That’s how I got some of my more abstract work from 2020.
I think on this one I used a 4 or 6 stop filter and did at least one up and one down. In my mind, slower shutter creates more blur, but perhaps with this type of scene, it overlays the representation of leaves and makes it less blurred?
I’m amazed at the blur y’all are getting with 1/4 sec exposures. You must be using a really fast motion. I tried a few like that yesterday up at Tilly Jane on Mt. Hood. It wasn’t the best forest for it, very little understory, but I got some nice stripes but no bark detail at 1/4 second with a “drop it like it’s hot” motion. I didn’t have my tripod as we stayed in the A-Frame and it was more of a hiking+mouse shoo-ing weekend with friends. I was just trying to be curious about it.
Anyway, coast range trip in a week should give me some additional opportunities to experiment.
ThNks all for the feedback.
ML
