- Title:
Portrait of the Woods
- Description:
I will be taking photos describing the local woods where I grew up for my final project. The main goal of the photograph series is to describe how it feels to be immersed in a forest. I hope for this descriptive power to reach both members of my audience who commonly experience forests and those who rarely visit the biome. The forest is composed of several layers: the forest floor, the understory, the canopy, and the emergent layer. Each layer harbours different vegetation and is home to different animals. In addition to vertical neighbourhoods, the feel of an individual forest can change significantly over small areas due to microclimates like dark patches of conifers and river basins. In my photo series, I aim to capture the atmosphere of these neighbourhoods and the interactions between them.
Of course, the way one experiences a walk in the woods is incredibly dependent on time of day. Unlike the human world, where dusk is offset by significant artificial lighting, the sense that night is falling is omnipresent in the woods anytime after noon. I plan to capture photos of similar areas of the woods at different times of the evening in an attempt to describe the ominous creeping fall of night. It would be difficult to photograph the dead of night in the forest because of the lack of light. To capture the sense of night, then, I have been inspired to place indoor lamps in the woods (see references) to exemplify the contrast of artificial indoor lighting with this darkness of night in the wilderness.
- Outcomes:
8 or 9 photographs:
- 1 photo describing the forest floor: dense vegetation, perhaps along a river (bushes, ferns, skunk cabbage, fallen branches)
- 1 photo describing the forest understory: view through the trees into the distance (midlevel branches, surrounding topography)
- 1 photo describing the forest canopy (looking up or perhaps from a cliff above the trees): view of the dense leaves at the top of the forest, birds’ nests, hopefully live birds)
- 1 image (maybe a photo, maybe constructed from multiple photos) showing a single tree or structure through the 3 aforementioned layers of the forest)
- 3 photos of similar looking areas of the woods, one in midday or afternoon, one in early evening, and another in late evening, featuring shadows and changing colour temperature
- 1 or 2 photos of lamps in the woods in the night showcasing how artificial light interacts in the woods in the dark
- Methods and Materials:
Materials:
- The digital camera I have been using
- Antique lamps with LED bulbs
- Extension cords and electrical strips
Methods:
- I hope to take straightforward photos of the layers of the forest with low ISO in midday.
- I may use photoshop to stitch photographs together to create a panorama-like image describing the height of the forest.
- I will take photos with the same ISO/ f-stop/ shutter speed as dusk progresses for the nightfall series.
- I will take long exposure photos of the lamps’ illumination of the woods to highlight the casting of light deep into the forest.
- References:
Photographer Ellie Davies
“Stars” series
https://www.lensculture.com/articles/ellie-davies-stars
(I am focusing on the scene of the woods, not the stars).
Andy Goldsworthy
“Wood Line”
https://www.parksconservancy.org/our-work/andy-goldsworthy-wood-line
(This scene was constructed, but I hope to find less extreme natural patterns in the woods like a series of fallen logs).
Rune Guneriussen
“Evolution # 03”
http://www.runeguneriussen.no/wallno07#7
(This is the photo with the lamps along the waterfall, this is what inspired me to use lamps to capture the darkness of night in the woods).