644 - Angel Tree
Today we visited a 500 year old tree.
When you do a little math, that means this tree is older than the United States itself. It probably started growing in the early 1500 or 1600s.
It goes by the name Angel Oak, which surprisingly wasn’t named after the ethereal religious figures from above. It was named after Justus Angel and Martha Angel, the family who originally owned the property. Lame, right?
But eventually someone decided to spice things up, because stories began to appear in the 1600s about spirits flying around the tree at night. Which makes sense when you realize we’re in South Carolina, where the mist is basically a supernatural figure in of itself.
However we showed up a little after breakfast, so no spirits were to be found. Just a bunch of tourists wandering amuck.
One thing I’ve realized for shoots like this is that you need the sun to be high in order to illuminate the interior of the tree. Under the canopy (which spans a little over 17,000 sq. feet by the way) it’s going to be shaded, so you mind as well have the sun peaking through. It’s not like you’re gonna use that golden hour light on the inside of the tree.
So here I was taking a shot from every angle I possibly could to find something original. I started off with a simple lookup shot to show the true breadth of this tree’s limbs:
Massive, eh? Wait until you see some more. My main goal was to find a suitable foreground for this guy. This tree was a giant, but I needed something that made it a monster.
And that’s when I landed on this guy:
Something that vaguely resembles an eye, a mouth, or even a head. I snagged the focus stack and got out of there. My knees aren’t built for these shots any more.
God damn that image took some editing too. People, support poles, wires, signs, you name it. The tree has everything unnatural you can possibly dream of around it.
Not to mention the dynamic range issues that popped up. Even my a7rIV was struggling. I ended up having to do an exposure blend to make sure the sky wasn’t completely blown out and the trunk didn’t have black shadows.
Warning to any newbie photographers out there: If you’re shooting a forest in midday lighting, especially if you’re in that forest, good fucking luck in the editing room.
Once that image was complete, I wanted a distant shot to show the tree from far away, which got me to this image:
Fun lil’ triple set for ya. Now let’s get some triple sec ;)
