Story Behind Image

To The Falls /  by Todd Henson

To the Falls

This photo of a paddler maneuvering his kayak upriver brings back great memories of a fantastic morning spent photographing the scenery and several paddlers at Great Falls on the Potomac River. I began the day photographing from some of the observation areas up top on the Virginia side. At first I focused on the river, itself, but then I began focusing on the paddlers on the water.

Later I decided to hike down the trail that leads to a lower area of rocks closer to water level. This is the trail some rafting groups take to bring their inflatable rafts to the rivers edge. From there they’ll take guests on a beautiful trip downriver. You have to be very careful in this area as it’s steep and rocky, and if it’s been raining it can make the rocks extremely slippery. And I have no interest going down there if the water level is too high. But you can see from the markings on the cliffs the water level that day was low compared to what it often is.

I found a spot on the rocks at a safe distance from the water, sat down, and started photographing. As when I was higher up at the observation areas, I focused both on the river and waterfalls, and on the paddlers in their kayaks. It’s always fun watching these folks maneuvering through the water, sometimes trying different moves, or positioning themselves for a specific feature on the river.

Then one of the paddlers maneuvered his kayak to the rocks just below me and came ashore, climbing up the rocks to sit near me. We had a nice conversation, talking about being on the river, different places where folks like to kayak, and photographing kayakers. We exchanged email addresses and I promised to send him any good shots of him I managed to create.

It was after he’d returned to the water I realized I had the opportunity to create the photo you see here. For most of the day I’d photographed paddlers using more telephoto focal lengths to zoom in on them and the action. But here I saw the potential for a wider view with the kayaker moving upriver, the larger falls in the distance, hopefully giving the viewer a sense of the anticipation of what’s to come, that slight calm before entering the rapids. I decided to title the photograph, To the Falls.

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Gathering Nectar in the Garden /  by Todd Henson

Gathering nectar in the garden

One year I visited a local park that was also home to a series of gardens. One garden had a nice range of flowers, which of course attract various insects. I found one flower that appeared a bit past its better days, missing some petals. And yet that didn’t stop the insects from visiting. So I stood by, camera in hand, and attempted to photograph what I could.

One particular subject was this bee. It kept moving all around the flower, gathering nectar and giving me different views. Though I would have preferred just a bit more depth of field, this shot ended up being my favorite. The focus is on the very top of the bee’s head, where the antennae are horizontal. And there’s a ring of focus around the bees abdomen. But otherwise, the majority of the photo is a blur of color.

I was hand-holding my camera, using a 50mm f/1.4 lens with the aperture set to f/4. Normally there’d be a bit more depth of field, but I had on an extension tube to let me get a little closer to the subject, which also has a side effect of reducing the depth of field.

There’s always room for improvement, and I might have tried some things differently if I were to do this again, but overall I’m pleased with how it turned out. What do you think? Anything you’d do differently?

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Do You Dare Follow The Path? /  by Todd Henson

 

Do you dare follow the path? Where might it lead?

 

Walking down a forested trail you feel a pull to the right. Something has caught your attention. You’ve walked this way before and never felt this pull, never seen anything out of place. But this time is different. You can’t help but stop and peer into the trees.

And then you see it. Why had you never seen it before? There is a small path leading off into the woods. It passes under a series of arched trees which almost seem to form a doorway. But to where? What’s beyond looks similar to what’s around you, and yet somehow different. The lighting is off, there’s a mist in the air you don’t see elsewhere. You feel a pull, to walk the path, to pass through the doorway, to find out what’s on the other side.

Do you dare follow the path?

This photo actually began much as described above. Walking a trail I’d walked before I had a sense of something to the right. And when I looked I noticed this small path and the arched trees, and my imagination pictured something a bit different from what I actually saw. So I captured some images, looking forward to a little experimentation later in post-processing to see if I could convey something of what I’d imagined.

I’m still not terribly skilled in Adobe Photoshop, so this was all done in Adobe Lightroom using simple post-processing tools I’d use on any other photo, mostly dodging and burning (lightening and darkening), but also adding that misty area, trying to create the illusion of a doorway to elsewhere.

Interestingly, this photo became a potential vision of the near future as a couple months later I found myself reading The Ten Thousand Doors of January, a book by Alix E. Harrow. It’s a wonderful tale of a young woman named January who discovers there are Doors, yes with a capital D, because these are special, being doors that lead to other places, other worlds, paths from here to there. And her world gets turned upside down when she finds a book titled The Ten Thousand Doors that seems to be about fairy tales and fantasy, and yet has the ring of truth to it. I highly recommend giving it a read. This is one of the magical books that can appeal to a wide age range.

If you’d like to purchase a copy and are unable to get to, or order directly from, a local bookstore consider ordering The Ten Thousand Doors of January through Bookshop.org, if it serves your area. They are a B-Corp, meaning a corporation dedicated to the public good, and they support local, independent bookstores with a percentage of your purchase. You can even choose a specific local bookstore to support if any of your local stores are affiliated with them. I’m not affiliated with Bookshop, but have ordered through them, supporting one of my local bookstores.

I’m also providing my Amazon affiliate link for The Ten Thousand Doors of January, if you prefer shopping there. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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