Back Lighting

I've been noticing the aspen trees in our front yard for a few days now, and meaning to photograph them. I love the look and feel of aspen trees with their texture-y white bark, especially against a snow backdrop.

Anyway, there was a somewhat boring sunset today, but it cast a nice orange light, so I figured I'd go out and give it a try.




click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/2.6
Shutter Speed: 1/60
ISO: 80
Handheld


There are a few things I'm dissatisfied about with this, but a few elements I really like. The flare wrapping around the tree is cool, and it's a nice focal point. The textures and translucent lighting of the flaky parts of the bark are nice. But the house in the background has to go. Unfortunately, this tree is on the top of a small landscaped hill, so I couldn't shoot up or I would miss the sun. Shooting down inevitably led to shooting across the street into someone's driveway with a car, or their house. I also don't like the color of the bark. It is the natural color, but it's not a color I normally associate with aspen bark. It's supposed to be white. I don't know why this is brown.

Maybe sunset lighting and white aspen bark aren't very compatible with a snow background... the snow also looks pretty blue because it's in shadow, and I can only set white balance for one thing.


All in all, an okay picture and a good learning experience.

Orton Backlighting

First off, Merry Christmas (or happy Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or whatever thing you celebrate this time of year) to everyone! Hope your holidays are lovely.

Anyway, this picture was taken the same day as yesterday's picture. It's an indoor macro shot right up against the window out into the lovely cloudy light. This gave the flower some cool back lighting, but I had to overexpose the background to avoid silhouetting the subject.




click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/2.6
Shutter Speed: 1/80
ISO: 80
Handheld


I'm actually pretty happy with the lighting in the background—it makes the photo look almost like it was shot in a light box. I wish I could have done something about the leaves and window thingies cluttering up the background, but I don't think they're too terribly distracting.

As you may have guessed from the title, a subtle Orton Effect was applied. I'm liking this effect more and more the more familiar and comfortable I become with it, especially for flowers. As this was taken handheld, it wasn't as perfectly clear as my macros with tripod usually end up, so the Orton Effect also helped hide the minute amounts of camera shake.