Color

Now that my show at the Arboretum is down - it was hanging for over 5 months, lucky me - I’ve spent some time sorting out what my creative life will be like now that it’s over. Two years in the planning, it has been the focus of my photography for so long I can almost not remember a time when I didn’t look at tree bark! I’m still in process, no answers yet!

For the moment, I’ve not strayed too far. OK, this image is from Forest Hills Cemetery and that’s a change, as is that I’m focusing a bit further out than I did for the work on the Arb show. These are relatively trivial differences, I’ll acknowledge. So while this shot may not represent the new direction of my work, it still pleases me.

Many folks ask - sometimes with deep concern - whether the colors in my images are “real.” Was what they’re looking at what I saw? Or did I manipulate the image to bring out the colors?. The short answer is yes, sometimes, mostly as a way to bring attention to what I find most interesting.

I did not play with saturation in this image - it wasn’t necessary! It was raining and the wet cedar with exposed bark looked essentially like this. Not sure what the concern is about manipulating an image. It’s been done since early darkroom days. But, if it feels better, there’s little manipulation here!