Waking up a few Saturdays ago to a heavily overcast sky, I had no intention of doing any photography. But, as the minutes ticked by, I finally felt I had to get out and try to do something. But, because this was literally a last minute decision, I had no idea of where to go. It wasn’t until I had actually gotten on the road that I decided to head for Dagmar Wildlife Management Area.
Arriving at the entrance, I turned onto the dirt and gravel road and began slowly making my way into the interior of the area. I failed to realize it was the last week of duck hunting season, so I had not contemplated the number of hunters that would be out. But, I wasn’t going to let that deter me, and I continued on.
I was too far from the end of the road, which ends at Lake Hickson, but, figuring that area would be full of trucks and boat trailers, I decided to turn around and start slowly heading back toward the main highway. As I pulled out of a small campground area, I happened to notice this tree with its smooth, light-colored bark. (I think it’s a beech tree, but I would appreciate it if someone could confirm or deny this.)
Parking my truck, I grabbed my camera, tripod, and 100-400mm lens and walked across the road. I took a few shots with the tree filling the frame, but I wasn’t particularly pleased with the results when I reviewed them on the back of the camera. Then, I noticed another tree in the background that had darker, rougher-textured bark that I thought provided a nice contrast.
To emphasize the foreground tree, I composed the image so there was space between it and the right edge of the frame while letting the background tree intersected with the left edge. Eliminating space between the left edge and the background tree also excluded the distracting area behind the darker tree.
Once I had the composition set, I turned my attention to exposure settings. In this case, there was only one setting that mattered – aperture. I needed enough depth of field to render the foreground tree sharp while keeping the background out of focus. Watching the screen on the back of the camera, I adjusted the aperture until I achieved the depth of field I needed, which was f/10.
Processing the image focused on increasing the contrast between the foreground tree and the background. Making adjustments using the tone curve, I increased the brightness of the foreground tree slightly while lowering the brightness of the background. I then used the mask tool to select the subject tree, inverted it to select the entire background, and lowered the exposure of just the background. I added a bit of texture and clarity to the image and applied a slight vignette. Finally, I sharpened the photograph using Topaz Labs’ Sharpen AI software.