This image combines two species that are found in the boreal forest of northern New Hampshire, the tamarack tree and rhodora (bog orchid) flowers. The tamarack (larch) tree is a pine tree whose needles turn yellow in autumn, but which are also brilliant lime green in spring. Rhodora and tamarack are often found together in wet, boggy areas. The contrast of the lime green and magenta colors was too much to pass up.
To me this image is sort of a followup on my recent NPN article, “The Colors of Spring”
After writing this article, I made it a project for myself to more extensively shoot the colors of spring in New England, during May and June of 2019. If you would like to see more of my spring color images from this year, you can follow this link to a gallery on my website.
I would echo Eva’s comments. The colors are interesting but the composition could be better. Having one part all green and another all pink doesn’t work for me.
Beautiful and interesting image, Ed. Our larches are very different, and before I opened this up I took this for a deciduous tree. The colour combination works really well - I might just have liked to see a little more of the flowers if that were possible.
Cool idea but the greens feel a bit neon/nuclear, I’d desaturate those a bit and work on the hue, and the purple flowers are too clumped up on the bottom. I’m having a hard time knowing what you want me to focus on here and my eye doesn’t really know what to do with this.
Beautiful juxtaposition of colors, shapes and textures, Ed. The colors really pop under the soft light.
I tend to agree with the comments that the bottom seems a bit cutoff. Just playing around with some screen crops I could see cropping about 1/2 of the tamarack off the top of the image and make it more into an abstract.
Ed,
The purple and green combination of colors works very nicely in this scene and the subdued light is perfect for showing them off. At first I was going to say the greens were a bit intense, but having been there in June I can vouch that they were pretty vibrant this year during my stay. My only suggestion would be the already mentioned bit of more room at the bottom, but certainly not a deal breaker because this is lovely.
I’m really enjoying this image, Ed! The composition is simple and effective and fills the frame with goodness. The purple flowers provide just the right amount of contrast with the tree.
I also enjoyed reading your article about photographing spring color. I would like to get out to the Smokies sometime for spring color, but it’s difficult because it coincides with my busiest season at work. Maybe someday.
I also enjoyed looking through the gallery of images that you shared. I need to get up to New England for fall color. It’s on my list, but I need to do some research about locations and do some planning for a future trip.
@Brian_Schrayer if you looking to shoot autumn in New England, and want location advice for planning a trip, send me a Private Message and I would be happy to help you out. I have shot fall in New England for 25 years, and can suggest some good locations.
