The Portal
The Portal - soft
A number of years ago, @Tony_Kuyper posted a portfolio of images he’d taken of desert rock formations. Rather than presenting these images in the “natural” way, the way the human eye would see them, he allowed his camera to speak according to what it sees. What impressed me at the time was the colour his camera had exposed in the sandstone. And I suppose it was that discovery that set Tony to adding the “Make It Glow” function on subsequent TK panels. More recently, I have been inspired by some of @David_Haynes and @Igor_Doncov ’s more abstract photographs, that also seem to let the camera express colour in rock and stone that might not be immediately apparent to the human eye.
This past summer I made a pledge, not necessarily to refute my familiar approach to making photographs but to step out of my comfort zone and explore other possibilities. It has been an illuminating though also disconcerting process that has certainly shaken my confidence. I have always believed that not-knowing is the doorway to wisdom and now in my life as a photographer I am testing that hypothesis – much easier, as it turns out, to say than to do.
One of the areas I wanted to explore was this idea of “hidden” colour, which has meant a little less of me telling my camera what I want from it and instead, listening to what my camera has to offer me. In a bizarre sort of way, it is me re-imagining my camera as an intelligence worthy of my attention (much in the same way, I imagine, as indigenous peoples the world over, relate to the drum – not as a mere object but as an ensouled intelligence). I began by focusing my attention on stone, trying to find the right light and the right speed so as to allow my camera to reveal something I can only glimpse with my own eyes. However, this Fall in my latest foray into the backcountry forests of Algonquin Park, my paddling companion – not a photographer but truly an artist – kept inviting me to look at the detailed fabric of things in the forest, notably rotting wood, that I’d typically walked past. What I began to discover was that in the right light, at the right shutter speed, rotting wood is ripe with colour. It has felt to me like an invitation into another realm where death and decay becomes vibrant and, paradoxically, alive.
The feedback I’d like most is the extent to which this image elicits some kind of visceral response from the reader. Any feedback on composition and colour is also always appreciated.
P.S.: I have also posted a second version where I pulled back the clarity slider to the left and softened the image. I wear glasses when I’m working at my computer screen and realized I preferred the image with my glasses off rather than on - hence the second version. Any preference?
FYI: The colours in this photograph needed no enhancing (based on the RAW image out of the camera). In fact, I actually desaturated in certain areas for better balance.
