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Roots
24 May 2021
We've long admired this tree just off JFK Drive behind the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. It has been fenced off for a few years, the erosion endangering it, but it still stands.
Roots. Olympus E-PL1 with 14-42mm II R kit lens at 31mm (62mm equivalent) and f8, 1/160 second and ISO 200. Processed in Adobe Camera Raw.
You could photograph it all day. The root system is that extensive, that exposed. It dares you to try to capture it. To encompass it.
But, we have to admit, we never feel like we've taken a good shot of it.
It was quick work. We knew what we were after.
It's too complex to begin with. You can't simplify it into a single curve. Something else in the frame always competes with whatever drew your attention.
But it's fun trying.
Here, we composed a three-quarter view of the trunk, letting the roots spill out where they would along the bottom of the frame.
Back at the bunker, we went to work. We converted it to black-and-white immediately and then edited the hues to drop the greens and blues of the top left corner into darkness. We pulled back the highlights bleached by the sun and emphasized the texture of the old bark.
It was quick work. We knew what we were after.
We were after Gustave Doré. His wood cuts illustrating Dante's Divine Comedy inspired this abstract equivalent of some circle of hell.
Any circle of hell. Pick your sin. There's no shortage of them these days.