Story Behind Image

Feasting on Fungus /  by Todd Henson

Feasting on Fungus, a caterpillar stretches between a log and a mushroom

Well, it’s almost Thanksgiving here in the US. Granted, Thanksgiving this year might be very different for some of us than in years past. But the thought of all that feasting brought to mind this scene I stumbled across while hiking some trails in mid-October: a gluttonous caterpillar stretched between a log and a mushroom growing on the log. I couldn’t help but laugh at the sight.

I hope you enjoy this light-hearted set of images. And if you celebrate Thanksgiving I hope you have a safe and enjoyable one.

Is this Sisyphus pushing the boulder uphill? Or is it Atlas holding up the celestial heavens?

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South Fork Quantico Creek, October 2020 /  by Todd Henson

South Fork Quantico Creek, October 2020

Autumn can be a beautiful time to get outside and wander the local trails, especially if you happen to have a creek winding through the hills in the forest. Today’s photograph is of a small section of South Fork Quantico Creek from late October of 2020. Some leaves had fallen, others were still changing color to the various shades of yellow, orange and brown typical of this area. There was enough water flowing through the creek to create small sections of rapids over the underlying rocky outcrops, another feature typical of this area.

It was a very pleasant day for this type of photograph, still reasonably early and slightly overcast, providing a nice soft light. The temperature was comfortably cool, not enough to give that crisp feeling, but enough to warrant a thin jacket. The trail mostly paralleled the creek but sometimes shifted into the woods and rose to the top of a hill before dropping back down to the creek, so it was good both for photography and a workout.

When I found this spot I started exploring, looking through the camera at different compositions, trying different angles, looking both up and down stream, from atop the rocks and in the water. This was one of the shots I ended up liking. I’ll likely share at least one more in a future post. I’d very much like to return to this section of creek. I have other ideas of things I’d like to try. I suspect at this point most of the leaves will have fallen, but I’d be curious to keep returning and seeing how the scene shifts throughout the year.

From a technical perspective, this was a fairly simple shot. I used my 16-35mm lens at 16mm with an aperture of f/11. I had my Singh-Ray LB Warming Circular Polarizer on the lens to control reflections on the water and help saturate the colors. Raising the ISO to 500 gave me a shutter speed of 1/6 second, enough to show the flow of the water, but not so slow to completely smooth it out. In post-production I used Adobe Lightroom to perform some level of dodging and burning and various other typical adjustments, attempting to keep things looking fairly natural.

I hope you like the results. Let me know what you think in the comments below.

 

Photography Prints by Todd Henson

 

South Fork Quantico Creek, October 2020 is available for purchase from my online store as wall art or on a variety of products.

 

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Creekside in Autumn Redux /  by Todd Henson

Creekside in Autumn Redux

Today we return to a location I’d recently photographed. I wanted to view the scene through a different lens. And I brought along some waterproof boots, letting me walk out into the shallower parts of the creek looking for a slightly different perspective.

When we arrived at the scene, a small stretch of shoreline along a shallow, slow-moving creek, there was still a very small amount of mist hovering over the water near the rocks. It was diffuse enough you really couldn’t see it directly as mist, but more for how it gave that slight foggy look to anything beyond it. It was fading quickly, so I waded out into the water looking for a location to setup my tripod.

I focused on the same bit of scenery I had during the previous visit, but by using a wider angle lens, a 16-35mm, I was able to take in a bit more of the surroundings. The leaves had continued slowly changing colors, with a touch of yellow and orange mixed in with the pale greens. I wanted that to be a focus of the photo, along with the great patterns of the trees and rocks and their reflections.

Seeing the fading mist and the yellows of the foliage brought to mind my Singh-Ray Gold-N-Blue polarizing filter, so I put it on the lens and turned the polarizer to find the right mix of gold and blue. This is not a filter I use every day but I love having it around. It can add an almost magical shift to the colors of the photo, and I think it worked really well with this one, giving the fading mist along with the rocks a slight blue tint and enhancing the yellows of the foliage.

It was still early enough the scene was a bit dark for the camera. That combined with the polarizer gave me an exposure time of 3 seconds, long enough to see some of the movement of foam on the water. I’m often surprised in situations like this. I expect the water will flow in one direction but find it flowing in directions and patterns I’d not seen without the aid of the camera and the long exposure.

I will likely return again to this spot, perhaps in the coming days or later in the year. I’d also like to spend more time exploring the areas just beyond this scene. Perhaps there are other little portraits of nature just waiting to be seen.

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