In search of artistic inspiration I began to dig a square hole in my backyard. Roots were growing under there. I waited until the sun hit a nice angle and made this photograph. It almost becomes a diorama of a tree itself… The funny thing here is fate. If I dug the hole just a few inches to the right or left it would not have worked. It would have just been a hole. Fate.
It’s really windy today. Even the weeping willow is dancing… I grabbed my camera and attached 2 separate neutral density filters to lengthen exposure. This allows me to take a really long exposure in sunlight. I set my camera to ISO 100, f/16 and took a few 30 second exposures of this weeping willow.
Look, I brought them back to life.
I have been working with simple in-camera effects, be it reflection, shadow, or textures. I bought a small circular mirror today thinking it would be interesting to see what is above as well as what is below. I was right. It was interesting.
I developed a simple new shooting method involving a large piece of cut plastic that magnifies, alters depth, adds texture and also reflects surroundings into the frame. All right in camera. It reminds me of an old alternative process, like a wet plate collodion process using a vintage lens.