Variations on Theme

Greens and Browns Along the Ground /  by Todd Henson

In autumn most of the forest floor is the brown of fallen leaves. But there are still patches of color, mostly shades of green, sticking up every so often through the brown. I’ve gathered together a small collection of photos from one hike through Prince William Forest Park on October 29th, 2023, that show some of these greens and browns along the ground. I hope you enjoy them.

Fan Clubmoss

One of the common plants that remains green late in the year is fan clubmoss with its distinctive fan shape. It tends to grown very low to the ground and spreads out all over the forest floor.

Fan clubmoss spreads across the leaf-covered ground

Fan clubmoss and beech leaves (and a couple red oak)

Tree Clubmoss

Not quite as common in these woods is tree clubmoss, which grows taller than fan clubmoss and is far less smooth. In fact, the combination of the sharper bristles and the tall yellow stalks make it one of the plants sometimes used to create Christmas wreaths and other greenery. On one trail you can find fan clubmoss on one side and tree clubmoss on the other with the trail seemingly the dividing line between the two.

A field of tree clubmoss

Looking down on tree clubmoss

Delicate Fern Moss

What struck me about this scene was the beautifully delicate green fern patterns growing out of a hole in the fallen tree. Delicate fern moss is a very appropriate name. Sadly, I didn’t quite nail the focus with this image, but it still conveys the wonderful patterns and color.

The beautiful green patterns of delicate fern moss grow from a hole in a fallen tree

Partridge Berry

And speaking of color, it’s not at all uncommon to see the darker green leaves of partridge berry vining their way over other greenery like moss and lichen. And of course the bright red berries are an extra treat, especially when seen against all that green.

A bright red partridge berry with its darker green leaves set against lighter greens and brown leaves

Quartz

And let’s not forget the geology of this forest, one with plenty of quartz underground and sometimes poking out for us to appreciate. Here we see examples of quartz surrounded by leaves and some bits of greenery.

A wide view of quartz, leaves, moss and lichen

A quartz closeup


Autumn and winter often lead to less color in the landscape, but that doesn’t mean there’s no color. We just need to look a little closer to see it. And when we see it, to appreciate it.

Thanks for reading.

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Variations on a Theme: Creekside Greenery /  by Todd Henson

Creekside Greenery

I first noticed this scene from the road. Walking over a bridge provides this lovely view of South Fork Quantico Creek in Prince William Forest Park. It was late June of 2021 and all the various shades of green were present. A fallen tree spanned the width of the creek, which I sometimes find distracting but other times find an appealing addition to a composition. In either case, it is what it is, so better to find a way to work with it.

As for settings, I was using a 16-35mm lens at 27mm. I set the aperture to f/16 and the shutter speed to 1.6 seconds with an ISO of 100. The camera was mounted on a tripod to let me get the longer shutter speed. By doing that I was hoping to smooth out any movements in the slow moving creek and accentuate the reflections.

There’s a trail along the left side of the creek and after hiking down to the trail I still found myself attracted by the same scene, just seen from a different perspective. When down closer to the water I noticed how with a little careful movement I could place the lit up greenery in the background within a triangle of sorts formed by the fallen tree and reflections of a tree in the background. I liked that. It let me work with the fallen tree to create what I thought was a pleasing composition. The sun cooperated by highlighting the background greenery along the shore.

Glowing Greens Along Quantico Creek

Once again, I was trying to smooth out the water to accentuate the reflections so I used similar settings. Still at ISO 100 but this time at 35mm and f/18 with a shutter speed of 2.5 seconds. I liked this composition even more than the previous one. It focused in on a smaller section of the scene and I liked the framing of the lighter greenery.

I suppose this is an example of working a scene. Instead of planting the tripod in one spot and creating photographs of a single view of a scene, move around, see what other options are present, explore the various ways you can frame the scene. What other perspectives are available?

From a technical perspective these are not perfect photos. Each one is a little soft. The fallen tree could have been tack sharp but it isn’t. I’m not sure exactly why. I don’t know if I might have had some tripod movement. One likely culprit is forgetting to turn off the vibration reduction feature of the lens when I put it on the tripod and locked it down. Walking between scenes I’m usually handholding the camera so I’ll turn vibration reduction on, something that’s especially helpful for someone with essential tremors. But when I put the camera on the tripod and lock it down I need to remember to turn off vibration reduction. Otherwise it can actually introduce movement during the exposure, which might have resulted in the slight softness present in each of these.

So given the overall softness I figured why not experiment with another version of the photograph that pushes that softness, adding a bit more of a glow to it, creating something that perhaps has a more painterly, less realistic, look? The photo below is the result of that experimentation.

Softly Glowing Greens Along Quantico Creek

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Variations on a Theme: October on Aquia Creek /  by Todd Henson

To set the stage, the weather forecast in late October had called for somewhat overcast skies which I’d thought might work for photographing autumn color reflections along the shoreline of Aquia Creek as seen from Widewater State Park in Virginia. So my father and I set out that morning to find hardly a cloud in the sky. Such is life. 😀

While walking along the shoreline I noticed a pier in the distance and for whatever reason was attracted to it. The sun was up, there was this single long cloud or perhaps a large contrail in the sky, and cormorants were fishing in the creek. I thought the scene might work as a black and white image since there wasn’t a lot of color, mostly the blues of the sky reflecting off the water. I honestly figured any images this day would be sketches of the scene and I’d try returning another day with different weather. As we walked along the shoreline trail I kept photographing this same scene from slightly different perspectives.

At some point either the wind or perhaps a boat created a wake in the water that seemed to reflect the angled line of the cloud. I liked that symmetry so created another set of photos, the results of which can be seen in this post.

October on Aquia Creek (black & white version)

As I’d mentioned, I was thinking black and white while photographing so that’s how I first processed the image, making various tweaks to the underlying colors which lightened and darkened those areas in the black and white version to create what I hoped would be an interesting final image. I lightened up the little bit of water around a cormorant to the right to draw some attention to it if your eyes happen to follow the angled funnel of the cloud and water to that area.

After I’d thought I’d finished the black and white version I decided to see how it might look if fully processed in color, so I went back in and created a new version. I made different adjustments in the color version than I had in the black & white which resulted in both the pier and part of the far shoreline standing out a bit more.

October on Aquia Creek (color version)

I thought I was done. But I remembered there’d been a flock of geese that flew through the scene at one point, which I’d created a few images of, so I went back through all the photos I’d created of this scene and found those. They didn’t have the nice pattern symmetry of cloud and water, which is why I’d overlooked them when looking for the one image I’d work on. And yet I liked what they added to the scene. So I decided to do something I rarely do, pulling the flying geese from one image and copying them onto another. Because of inconsistencies in how I processed the color and black & white versions the geese appear in a slightly different location in each image.

So what do you think? Does either version work? Do you prefer one over the other? Do you think the geese were a good addition or an unneeded one. Let me know in the comments below.

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